tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39176120055222874412024-03-28T21:33:48.828-05:00Scriblerus ClubPrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-72229654373175882682024-03-24T00:00:00.000-05:002024-03-24T00:00:40.476-05:00Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice told Tales (1851): David Swan.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9EoZGRJzt7JQK9LWwLrhYDp4ypgYjf_CcCC09KedOCmX1InYpELoJ_m60dae05-qRVyMKGBEo6SoqGDHnmJ2EbpPwFMIxQVg42o0nw_99nJp19mGezsR0AVYbP-Fi5bUufSV-v7QVBDp74ZFfQ25Ctlr8LsaHtPG5az-ezkzooPh8N7GaiV9DZT8zWIWD/s1000/71CJgq2yiML._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9EoZGRJzt7JQK9LWwLrhYDp4ypgYjf_CcCC09KedOCmX1InYpELoJ_m60dae05-qRVyMKGBEo6SoqGDHnmJ2EbpPwFMIxQVg42o0nw_99nJp19mGezsR0AVYbP-Fi5bUufSV-v7QVBDp74ZFfQ25Ctlr8LsaHtPG5az-ezkzooPh8N7GaiV9DZT8zWIWD/s320/71CJgq2yiML._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>First introductions are always the most important. It's the first impression a person leaves on you that can sometimes wind up counting the most. That's shallow as hell, I know. Yet it also doesn't stop such results from being an on-going fact of human nature. It also doesn't get rid of the truth that sometimes bad first impressions exist for a whole lot of very good reasons. Some of us carry a palpable sense of threat around with us, like the dangerous warning sign it is. Whenever that happens. first impressions can be a matter of life or death. At the same time, this need to make a good introduction is always in need of balance. Sooner or later, most of us have to learn to look beyond the surface appearances of the people we meet in order to get to know them. This is another inescapable fact of life. So you you've got these two social demands vying for attention and always competing and/or cooperating with one another. When it comes to introducing the reader to a new author, the task of making a good first impression counts for a hell of a lot more than normal. The trouble with artists is they come with this built-in expectation that a proper sense of entertainment has to always be a part of the package. They are always supposed to be "on-stage", with the lights up, and the audience waiting for the show to begin, in other words. So when it comes to a writer like Nathaniel Hawthorne, the modern reader needs just the right introduction to get interested.<p></p><p>If I had to find the right words to describe the writer under discussion here today, then the good news is I don't have to do this job on my own. Turns out the words of author Rosemary Mahoney can do a better job of giving readers the best first impression of Hawthorne than I ever could. That's why I want to let her words take over for a minute or two. I'll just set the stage for Rosemary by letting the reader know that it all started one day while she was at the check-out like in a now defunct bookstore chain, and she got into one of those brief moments of animated discussion with the cashier. It's the kind of conversation you can expect to find in even the most commercial of bookseller retails. The kind of informal discussion that can only mean anything to someone with a genuine love for books, in other words. Mahoney was just handing over her purchases to the clerk behind the counter, when the guy noticed it was a collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne called <i>Twice Told Tales</i>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKP-Vq1A7n_H3Fi6gcReT9Z4wz-pPgNMJcsJKWigw4HHOTW8__JUNC6kXJjrHj79cFofUDAgIGlfYTJqrithRWePkaJ24fqSIROLf8vjG5ALPRySJY9TZXPNBlD-VZaEUdxKNU2j_8v_v2cDF06IldlPSDfkpHJzYBabVHQoZTQCL92fy-73J9kWhy1p3e/s3422/gettyimages-1277677582-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1925" data-original-width="3422" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKP-Vq1A7n_H3Fi6gcReT9Z4wz-pPgNMJcsJKWigw4HHOTW8__JUNC6kXJjrHj79cFofUDAgIGlfYTJqrithRWePkaJ24fqSIROLf8vjG5ALPRySJY9TZXPNBlD-VZaEUdxKNU2j_8v_v2cDF06IldlPSDfkpHJzYBabVHQoZTQCL92fy-73J9kWhy1p3e/w640-h360/gettyimages-1277677582-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"Remember 'Young Goodman Brown'?" I said. Nick stretched a startled finger at me. "Oh, my God. Freaky! That's actually what I was thinkin' of! And 'The Minister's Black Veil.' Beneath the bland fluorescent gloss of Borders lights Nick seemed to bask in the pure spooky pleasure of Hawthorne's stories, like a child delighting in a fleeting fright..."And how 'bout..." he raised a knowing brow, "...'Wakefield'?...That one creeped me totally." "Me too," I said, which was true: totally and memorably, the story "Wakefield" had creeped me. I asked Nick what else he liked to read. Vonnegut, Stephen King, <i>Harry Potter</i>. As I prepared to leave, he passed my book over the counter and said with almost wistful affection, "I hope you enjoy them!"<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7No9VpjF3RoZGaE44CfcLdGQPMWBF7LthJU7yZX9ERNxA8BFNGDnDr6xYDTk3ObQHmfAIKtOUvOO90ReB1oubcMTMOdg9uHTo790G3KgAdO3GPznb7X6777NE7F5Cjh9neOEwGWOUe4-TUkQ4unj3FUldH5M7dBkiDPVpcMIy83VDm_Mg-hffhTBaz6C/s648/Young-Goodman-Brown-Illustrated-Paperback-9798594087705_b661da5f-65bf-4f20-9eae-af92f7986a2f.c76d6cce4b68d16b077c378a39104f4e.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="419" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7No9VpjF3RoZGaE44CfcLdGQPMWBF7LthJU7yZX9ERNxA8BFNGDnDr6xYDTk3ObQHmfAIKtOUvOO90ReB1oubcMTMOdg9uHTo790G3KgAdO3GPznb7X6777NE7F5Cjh9neOEwGWOUe4-TUkQ4unj3FUldH5M7dBkiDPVpcMIy83VDm_Mg-hffhTBaz6C/s320/Young-Goodman-Brown-Illustrated-Paperback-9798594087705_b661da5f-65bf-4f20-9eae-af92f7986a2f.c76d6cce4b68d16b077c378a39104f4e.webp" width="207" /></a></div>"When I first read them - in, of course, high school - I had not really enjoyed Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories. With it's required reading lists and its parochial and obsessive emphasis on symbolism, structure, metaphor, and all the rest of it, high school had a way of tainting the classics; it turned books into tests and clumsily clawed apart their art. It was difficult to relax into any book with the exacting eye of a teacher watching and waiting for the usually elusive "right" answer to pop out of my mouth; when, now and then, answers did pop, they popped in anxious fists not dissimilar in style to the process of reverse peristalsis.<p></p><p>"Under the circumstances, I read Nathaniel Hawthorne with one eye on the clock and failed to recognize the beauty of him until I was thirty-four years old, free of the scholastic tax, and living in a solitary lighthouse on a tiny island in Maine with no electricity, no telephone, no human company, and nothing to read but a motley collection of books marooned on a rickety shelf beside the fireplace in the lighthouse parlor. The fire was long unlit, and the shelves, softened by the ocean damp, bowed like hammocks under their burden. In their midst was a collection of Hawthorne's <i>Twice-Told Tales</i>, a musty hardcover mildewed with fog; it had tissue-thin pages and tiny type and the portentous density of the Bible. It smelled of bedsheets, brine, damp dust, and mice, and sadly of school.</p><p>"One night, driven by boredom and depression, I sat at the kitchen table and by the yellowish light of a kerosene lamp began, skeptically, to read these stories. "Wakefield," "The Minister's black Veil," "The Hollow of the Three Hills." I read for an hour or so, hunched and squinting over that cinderblock of a book, and at some imperceptible moment during the hour my mood shifted from boredom to fearsome unease. Something made me look up from the book. I had the powerful sense that a pair of glittering eyes just outside the house was watching me with sinister interest. I could feel them fixed upon my figure. The sensation was so strong that I got up, locked the door, and slid the curtain across the black, rain-spattered windows. I turned up the flame in the lamp, pushed the book under a pile of dishtowels, and although I tried to think of pleasant things, the rainwater that funneled down the drainpipe in gusts and knocked on a trim board at the base of the house kept sounding like heavily booted footsteps. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWikGkXDD3mXjLYA6kjfNPzNryS_cdmwHFv8Q8hQ5v8hjOOb_ZtMYWiZAaMv-pVPP4fgerVPng0mPVDbHggOZhLw2-ft7cIRB0M5Cs22GfkISuhVeMDmt3slxlVevpix4WKozmMyVePuQ4w-dekJYNkUdYVcycYW4GoW31B7aeA4Ddeem7DqjnHZnSnQaW/s1536/gothic-lighthouse-found-a-style-that-works-for-me-v0-siggrpxZwBg__htZ1_TiZtpcgu_-F3cYMPifV2Zihpc%20(1).webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWikGkXDD3mXjLYA6kjfNPzNryS_cdmwHFv8Q8hQ5v8hjOOb_ZtMYWiZAaMv-pVPP4fgerVPng0mPVDbHggOZhLw2-ft7cIRB0M5Cs22GfkISuhVeMDmt3slxlVevpix4WKozmMyVePuQ4w-dekJYNkUdYVcycYW4GoW31B7aeA4Ddeem7DqjnHZnSnQaW/w640-h426/gothic-lighthouse-found-a-style-that-works-for-me-v0-siggrpxZwBg__htZ1_TiZtpcgu_-F3cYMPifV2Zihpc%20(1).webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />"The waves crashing against the rocks just below the house kept sounding like desperate sighs. Wide-eyed and mute and stiff with dread I sat on a wooden chair and stilled my own breathing now and then, the better to listen for more human noises. The <i>Twice-Told Tales</i> had tipped me so thoroughly into Hawthorne's occult universe that finally, hot with apprehension and unable to support my own anxiety, I had to go upstairs to bed so that no one (who was not there) could see me. I lay in bed waiting for the malevolent thud of Wakefield's footsteps on the lighthouse stairs. I was, to put it mildly, totally creeped. The next day, though, the book lying in its bed of dishtowels on the kitchen table was just a book, a block of paper bound in faded cloth, and the stories within it were just a series of shapely ink spots. Daylight had soothed my imagination and dissolved my fear.<p></p><p>"Last night, in reading Hawthorne's own apologetic preface to these stories - a preface written in 1851 (long after the stories were composed and compiled) in a mood of retrospective correction and fatherly forbearance for his younger, supposedly less talented self - I was surprised and pleased to read this sentence: "The book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages." Hawthorne well knew what he had created: a series of sketches - for more than a few of the stories are snapshot short, miniscule in their scope...that depend somewhat on the mood and suggestibility of the reader; fabular inventions calculated to stimulate that part of the mind that thrives on, even craves mystery and wonder and terror (xiv)". It's for these reasons that I thought it worth while to take a look at the writings of Nate Hawthorne. He's one of those Big Names whose reputation is a combination of critical darling and mainstream obscurity. He's a great writer who everybody hates, except for the rest of us who don't know why, or even who this guy is.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5H_tXqKg11qoumRM2EqudRGi5KunN-Lq1VcJS0ZEqCfrevIK5C5BJluY5w-T_lhh1Y1-RlnsjetWf2kLQL6UNcjR47oHzwsaB4WYgrmxaRIZG8Ly1mvQoeewW5wEONTlaqP67ei5Pye4io8t2Atn0mKnfBJDuEumVEa3Va6LkMI4ukzXJTZG74Z969mTP/s500/Y6H0d-pwAhPJB3gHXSVHcA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="343" data-original-width="500" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5H_tXqKg11qoumRM2EqudRGi5KunN-Lq1VcJS0ZEqCfrevIK5C5BJluY5w-T_lhh1Y1-RlnsjetWf2kLQL6UNcjR47oHzwsaB4WYgrmxaRIZG8Ly1mvQoeewW5wEONTlaqP67ei5Pye4io8t2Atn0mKnfBJDuEumVEa3Va6LkMI4ukzXJTZG74Z969mTP/w640-h440/Y6H0d-pwAhPJB3gHXSVHcA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For the longest time, he was just a some byline on a handful of books that I've known more through reputation rather than any legit first-hand knowledge. Strange as it may sound, I've never really read a single thing by Hawthorne until just recently. I guess that makes me something of an anomaly. I've managed to escape the curse that makes writers like him the scourge and bane of all high school and college student's existence. I never learned a thing about this guy in either of the two main academic settings where his name is most likely to crop up. The result is this kind of weird, blue moon style situation. I'm allowed a privilege that I think few of Hawthorne's readers are given. I'm in a situation where I have no other choice except to go into this guy's work with a more or less blank slate frame of mind. I can just pick up any of his works that I might like, and then reach my own conclusions on what kind of stories the writer from Salem might be telling, and what he's trying to say in and with them. With all this in mind, I thought I'd start out small. I knew the first Hawthorne story I tackled on this blog would have to be both graspable and yet representative of the type of story he specialized in. It had to be a simple narrative that also stood for the overall outlook and effect of all of his fiction, in other words. I may have found the right specimen in the course of the curious story of "David Swan". <span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a> <b>The Story. </b><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Intro Narration: "You unlock this door with the key of Imagination. Beyond it is another dimension...A dimension sound - a dimension of sight - a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance - of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into...<i>The Twilight Zone</i> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORbseYAkzRM&ab_channel=zero.sHow%27s">web</a>)".</div><div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3NAXzhJjzkrf4xvqPfu8G0_ATm1CULw1WJZSKinKGFgt_C0cL77iMMyONYrpT5xnE0bhNKxM9lZeoWpQtoFDnJ68aPh1yzL7JuD1U6BOSDOSh2Cy_HCOSm4W1igGLxRvbS8e80x26Uj0HSfCNZwKnnfdLkoH4-FSbd7teO5P9R3J4N1zibHGsunDAOCN/s1920/Young-Goodman-Brown.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3NAXzhJjzkrf4xvqPfu8G0_ATm1CULw1WJZSKinKGFgt_C0cL77iMMyONYrpT5xnE0bhNKxM9lZeoWpQtoFDnJ68aPh1yzL7JuD1U6BOSDOSh2Cy_HCOSm4W1igGLxRvbS8e80x26Uj0HSfCNZwKnnfdLkoH4-FSbd7teO5P9R3J4N1zibHGsunDAOCN/w640-h360/Young-Goodman-Brown.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>"Narrator (v.o.): Consider if you will, a particular time and place. A simple, unassuming country road in the middle of a warm, New England Summer. An artificial construct in the middle of an otherwise vast and untamed wilderness. A passageway through Nature's labyrinth whose sole purpose is nothing more than the conveyance of travelers up and down the great North American continent from one point to another. The year is 1837. In a moment, the main actor of tonight's play will make his appearance, David Swan. An unassuming young man with either little or everything before him in terms of prospects, currently on his way to Boston on matters of personal business. At the moment, Mr. Swan has been traveling down this road since first daylight, and is in need of a bit of rest. Pretty soon now he'll reach this convenient and embracing grove of trees just off the side of the main road for a much needed pause in his journey. Little does Mr. Swan know that this seeming Bower of Bliss will be his entry point into a world and drama of another kind altogether. For young Mr. Swan is about to become an unwitting witness and participant in a tableaux whose precincts belong...to <i>The Twilight Zone</i>".</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Hawthorne's Place as a Writer.</b> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5f-B9afjH-7mD8Qe4DARm_ej1wKjktvkEh5BpxeOTecjCKRrsd9ydgmnn6sbCwnvSdQwIsZqcbfuO1x_jPBvqVh1jE0fQW1EvA4xkijEvQFEsX4UBwvgo0nCdrqD0zGDXlg7ZFEj_oXkdUAcAV6STjq0je3FjylkxkCbV01rmqZG0U7WTTkd3SKzX5gY0/s500/41fmBNtk6VL.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="297" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5f-B9afjH-7mD8Qe4DARm_ej1wKjktvkEh5BpxeOTecjCKRrsd9ydgmnn6sbCwnvSdQwIsZqcbfuO1x_jPBvqVh1jE0fQW1EvA4xkijEvQFEsX4UBwvgo0nCdrqD0zGDXlg7ZFEj_oXkdUAcAV6STjq0je3FjylkxkCbV01rmqZG0U7WTTkd3SKzX5gY0/s320/41fmBNtk6VL.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>Like I said at the start, writers like Hawthorne seems to be a victim, of sorts. From what I understand, there's been a lot of bad blood to go around in terms of his reputation. Sometimes there's a wall of separation between the artist and his audience. This can happen for a number of reasons, and sometimes there's a lot of overlap among them. The most common reason for Hawthorne's infamous reputation among those who had to suffer through English Lit. classes growing up stems from a simple case of obscurity. This predicament has come about in several ways. At the most basic level, the inescapable fact is that audience tastes have shifted and evolved a great deal over the span of just two centuries from when Hawthorne first wrote his works. The second part of the writer's dilemma involves what might be called the problem of Cultural Literacy. This second issue can be stated like this. I don't think you can ever quite blame Hawthorne for growing up in the era that he did. For better or worse, the truth is he seems to have come of age in a time where the public possessed what can only described as a larger canvas of bookish vernacular, combined with an even higher sense of literary reference.</div><div><br /></div><div>When the author was born, it was possible for writers as high up the ladder as John Milton and the one and only Shakespeare to be held up as public examples of what literature was meant to aspire to. In fact, the works of the former poet just mentioned were sometimes even <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ljvWCgAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=milton+in+america&source=gbs_navlinks_s">touted as a role model in the struggled for American Independence</a>. Let that stand as a marker for just how much the Country's artistic mindset has changed. In many ways, it's possible to claim that the American Founding took place in a whole other world. It would therefore be interesting to find out just what, if any of those times and events have to do with the current moment? Wouldn't you agree? Whatever the case, the fact of that matter is that the Cultural Literacy of Hawthorne's era was different from our own. The best way I can describe it is to claim that the literary mindset of Nathaniel's America was in many ways a strange yet genuine sort of continuation of the same Renaissance outlook as that shared between both Shakespeare and Milton, as it was filtered and transmitted down to the then present moment with the help of the English Romantic Movement, as exemplified by writers like Mary Shelley and Coleridge.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkKEddhMiT41oykkjSg7FE-JWnO31Q9WNwV8ALADze6HY8cc0F2PQQZgAvxCj79-p0CYbgYyMPU6hOoqSaBr35MkIkaToW1wQ9xoC-Y_o_XigGxu3c1G6MkBF1ZAbYDyXsT_YV1H2Co8DSpiVlxu9jjzJa43jzIaZoSeBYHFLuvklc7qdUpgi6KDFAEk9/s1200/german-romanticism.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkKEddhMiT41oykkjSg7FE-JWnO31Q9WNwV8ALADze6HY8cc0F2PQQZgAvxCj79-p0CYbgYyMPU6hOoqSaBr35MkIkaToW1wQ9xoC-Y_o_XigGxu3c1G6MkBF1ZAbYDyXsT_YV1H2Co8DSpiVlxu9jjzJa43jzIaZoSeBYHFLuvklc7qdUpgi6KDFAEk9/w640-h426/german-romanticism.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />These were folks with a great deal of now obscure reading under their lids. The type of writing that probably meant a great deal back in the day, yet is now lost to time, so far as we're concerned, anyway. The funny thing is how names or works by an author like Shelley have managed to hold on, despite the passage of time. This goes double for Hawthorne as well, and my own two cents on the matter is that you've got to be doing at least something right in order to have your name and efforts survive after all these years. A lot it seems to boil down to a simple formula. Sometimes good writing remains just that, regardless of the era it was made in. I'm willing to argue this is the case with guys like Hawthorne. All you have to have is an open and curious mind capable of meeting him at least somewhere near half the way. The surprising thing is to discover that a lot of folks out there seem willing to make this concerted type of effort. <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F05gpy&hl=en">A quick look at how the author's name is trending</a> reveals there's a definite and replenishing amount of interest in his work and artistry, and I for one find that as fascinating as it is encouraging. It's all part of the reason for why I thought I might give this old bastard a chance.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTxBbNZHIYQ-JvrMpQFmfUqayR3FDQr9-qsKE0P053f3p2gIszTtP3K1edUBMCYk8dBYkNWf-q4ONG5Kiind-MHBhjzFnTtZ-NV7deuXJcQIcBxcok3jpkti18saoirxDsU8kSt9nBJVOg2q-DNudJzadaM-F1Q43RjLnGY1K9XrkYTPJHkd9iqZh4JyHY/s900/1-london-swan-theatre-granger.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="688" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTxBbNZHIYQ-JvrMpQFmfUqayR3FDQr9-qsKE0P053f3p2gIszTtP3K1edUBMCYk8dBYkNWf-q4ONG5Kiind-MHBhjzFnTtZ-NV7deuXJcQIcBxcok3jpkti18saoirxDsU8kSt9nBJVOg2q-DNudJzadaM-F1Q43RjLnGY1K9XrkYTPJHkd9iqZh4JyHY/s320/1-london-swan-theatre-granger.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>Like I've said, the key things to keep in mind about Hawthorne's fiction is that it is Romantic at its core, and contains a great deal of literary practices (one almost has to label them as 'survivals') of the Renaissance Age. The good news in all this is that it doesn't make his diction or character speeches incomprehensible nor convoluted. Ol' Nate proved himself more than capable of joining in with the work of fashioning the contemporary colloquial expression of American speech into the standard it is today. That's a lot more than other of his contemporaries (and here I am thinking of James Fenimore Cooper) were able to when they started their careers in the fiction trade. If you ever decide to go back and study the beginnings of American literature, one of the topics you'll keep running into is the struggle the writers of those days had in just trying to find the proper Modern American voice, or style of writing. Much like the city of Rome, it turns out this style was by no means built in a day. This was something everyone (and I mean <i>everybody</i>) had to work their way towards with blood, sweat, tears, and a whole lot of spilled ink and discarded drafts. Nate had a lot of luck on his side in this regard.</div><div><br /></div><div>By the time he came along, the type of American voice most of us are too familiar with to ever truly be aware of had already begun to take its more familiar shape. This means that when the writer started in on his chosen profession in earnest, Hawthorne's prose line suffered from none of the stilted, hollow, and antiquated pigeon Elizabethan grammar and syntax that plagued authors like Cooper. Instead, he was capable of composing simple statements of declarative power such as, "In old houses like this, you know, the dead are very apt to come back again". Indeed, that particular quote from <i>The House of Seven Gables</i> is perhaps the most appropriate way to introduce the type of storytelling that made Hawthorne a household name. Like his later literary heir, Edgar Allan Poe, Nate seems to have had a natural born talent for specializing in the literature of fear. He was one of the first American Gothic novelists.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Meaning of David Swan. </b> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfuqKjJJaY1klfLnqH0dBxRqpmGCk1Hj8ceycE5shki5OO-uUl9rvkCgL59RTyheeXlK3XDIrDo4wVh7KUB46JVXkj0_206WhYbb5D94WZbYLVnNTs9yR6Ul4C6SKi4P8tgerlFRpFk2oH3gVQxKSvL2kJ_LTR-4bDaGHJeOUVBzWtZsF9j-hzSXfpa2Z/s1915/twice-told-tales-62.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1915" data-original-width="1200" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfuqKjJJaY1klfLnqH0dBxRqpmGCk1Hj8ceycE5shki5OO-uUl9rvkCgL59RTyheeXlK3XDIrDo4wVh7KUB46JVXkj0_206WhYbb5D94WZbYLVnNTs9yR6Ul4C6SKi4P8tgerlFRpFk2oH3gVQxKSvL2kJ_LTR-4bDaGHJeOUVBzWtZsF9j-hzSXfpa2Z/w195-h311/twice-told-tales-62.jpg" width="195" /></a></div>I've referred to this story as a kind of tableaux, and I'd argue there's a very good reason for using that term. It's because in many ways, it's almost as if Hawthorne has taken the pages from a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_hours">medieval Book of Hours</a> and turned into the kind of narrative you might find on an episode of <i>Alfred Hitchcock Presents</i>. In order to understand why this is, we first need to know a bit more of the story details. This is what happens. The narrative boils down to a series of events that occur to the title character as he's on the road to Boston, in order to start making his way in the world. The action begins with Swan kind of strung out on the road and in need of a few winks of shut-eye before continuing his journey. He finds a nice little tree to sleep under. It's a piece of the wider New England forest which juts out into the path ahead, thus drawing attention to itself, like a signalman at a railway crossing. It looks just like the kind of shady bower that will offer weary travelers a nice place to rest from their wanderings. Without having to be asked, Swan takes the opportunity to take a load off, and promptly falls asleep.</div><div><br /></div><div>What happens to him as he dozes under that blissful wilderness bower boils down to the following series of actions and encounters. Just as in a medieval tableaux, a number of other characters appear coming down the same road as the protagonist. The main action(s) of the story happen when their paths cross. First, a nice young woman on her way to market spots David as he sleeps nestled in the bower of the tree. Her character and personality puts one in mind of something like a wood nymph, or a princess in a fairy tale. She's looking for Mr. Right, and upon seeing David, thinks he might be the perfect suitor she's been waiting for. She's got no doubt that her father might even approve of her choice. For all she knows, David might even have liked her. Instead, she dismisses this whole idea, and promptly carries on her way to the city. The next cast members to pay David a visit are an elderly couple who are waiting for their carriage to be repaired just a ways back. The couple have been married for a long time, and have essentially become the kind of people who have grown used to each others rhythms through a lifetime of marriage. Their catching sight of the slumbering title character starts to make them wonder. They contemplate the possibility of taking him home with them, and making him their heir. The reason for this idea is simple as it is sudden, they've no children of their own left.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqaEfUs81v4I7ezrScs4xxVi1WhD6PTnQxyYclfLsz_HeM9NQcXNFn7zBlyO6bPysEdC8oV0ut4XpXKzDMX6Q-GJqwLP3DGLd62Bcd-uVNASoFy8l1L80bJOo6-L_RGui7flTWHEF88kn8sLLN4eFFHm7JXVwbg439pzY0RTAt0uVNi1WTQwGuBWZAU26U/s1024/bodleian-library-ms-douce-93-fol.-028r-mid.15th-c.-netherlands.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="1024" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqaEfUs81v4I7ezrScs4xxVi1WhD6PTnQxyYclfLsz_HeM9NQcXNFn7zBlyO6bPysEdC8oV0ut4XpXKzDMX6Q-GJqwLP3DGLd62Bcd-uVNASoFy8l1L80bJOo6-L_RGui7flTWHEF88kn8sLLN4eFFHm7JXVwbg439pzY0RTAt0uVNi1WTQwGuBWZAU26U/w640-h276/bodleian-library-ms-douce-93-fol.-028r-mid.15th-c.-netherlands.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />As it transpires, the couple lost their one and only son to disease years ago. David puts them both in mind of their long gone son. The wife, in particular, almost begins to insist on this notion. However, despite still never having gotten away from their grief, even after all this time, the husband manages to dissuade her. Besides, he can hear their repaired coach approaching, and so they hurry away without waking the traveler. If the young maid is like a fairy tale princess, than this elderly couple seem to be nothing less than the king and queen of many ancient myths transplanted and transfigured into a pair of early American representatives of Massachusetts' wealthy Brahmin class. The interesting part about them is that there may be several layers of satire going on here with these figures. On one hand, it's clear they're written in notes of genuine tragic sympathy. We're treated here to the sight of parents who've had something of themselves taken away, and it still gnaws at them. At the same time, it seems very much as if the author is anxious to inject a note of caution into our sympathies. While it's true that they've suffered a loss, so is the possibility that they might have let it fester, instead of dealing with it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDgUxsPKlv2rvGglMQwdrZcHC1rsqV9IzuI5dgBkA5GUw7hx0TjVzSSQS0hLgb9OXl_wRWsLn_kDph54-kDm0gNT0J49WjGAuePUqASlh6LSgY0gtBtQx2nSWS-TvCxlrkfK6x0O2pb_sy5KBvVeJyN_6fSSQb2NOFHaXAAGJffpqMumfnYFT9lRV5ybN/s874/les_trs_riches_heures_du_duc_de_berry_avril_thumb.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="874" data-original-width="532" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDgUxsPKlv2rvGglMQwdrZcHC1rsqV9IzuI5dgBkA5GUw7hx0TjVzSSQS0hLgb9OXl_wRWsLn_kDph54-kDm0gNT0J49WjGAuePUqASlh6LSgY0gtBtQx2nSWS-TvCxlrkfK6x0O2pb_sy5KBvVeJyN_6fSSQb2NOFHaXAAGJffpqMumfnYFT9lRV5ybN/s320/les_trs_riches_heures_du_duc_de_berry_avril_thumb.webp" width="195" /></a></div>The trouble with such an approach lies in the danger is has of warping the mind into an unhealthy state. It is just possible that the moment the couple spotted Swan in the bower, that this unhealthy obsession with a long gone son went to both their heads. The resulting conversation between the husband and wife could therefore be interpreted as a momentary lapse of reason. Two lost souls letting their by now self-inflicted tortures allow them to dredge into the opportunity for a lot of darker impulses that can sometimes lie in wait on the other side of sadness. In fact, the more you stop and think it over, how much of a good idea would it have been for David to even say yes to their proposal? For one thing, they're asking an individual to give up his own prospects, and therefore not just his future, but even his own life for the sake of the couple being able to live theirs vicariously through him. All of it based on what may be no more than a simple, fateful accident of physical resemblance. For what it's worth, it's difficult to find any degree of separation between what the bereaved mother is contemplating, and the state known as a kind of slavery. Thankfully, either cooler heads or the servants prevail in the matter.</div><div><br /></div><div>There may even be a bit of class satire here, as its clear that David is of a social station best described as a rung or two down the ladder of early American hierarchy from the couple. Taking a lower to middle class boy and asking him to be something else merely drives the note of potential slavery even further home. So, the king and queen depart the bower of bliss, leaving the traveler at the mercy of his final visitors. If David's second visitors exemplified royalty, and the young maiden personifies a type of the Fair Folk, then the best term to describe the final people who run across the slumbering Swan would have to be that of a pack of devils. Two highway robbers show up and contemplate just slitting the poor, dumb kid's neck, right then and there, without even waking him up. In the end, they decide to split the difference, and give themselves a bit of a challenge. They'll try to lift what they can out of the sleeper's pockets. The first one to wake the lad up has to separate the walls between here and eternity for the boy. They start to go through the kid's pockets when the noise of another approaching wagon sends them scattering. From there, the noise also wakes up David, who hitches a ride out of the story.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB2ALEd1U7jhdEIRPWBhhsnMgZCgDt1fBr59S_aNCdtA6Q7HIIkzLoC00byKrX3K77qJTdZmKeQNpkbg1qP6vKWtxeZyoxaJJzgJ5S9Fb7CxZW6ToH-mm5qhJN3CxClEhaIQVMhNGa46hd98GtTvoOGQxmYUnZrjBjIOwHbG7t7p8rcRwMWQT61b0knfyF/s800/15d2868283e5090fc40c9e28609c5f23.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="800" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB2ALEd1U7jhdEIRPWBhhsnMgZCgDt1fBr59S_aNCdtA6Q7HIIkzLoC00byKrX3K77qJTdZmKeQNpkbg1qP6vKWtxeZyoxaJJzgJ5S9Fb7CxZW6ToH-mm5qhJN3CxClEhaIQVMhNGa46hd98GtTvoOGQxmYUnZrjBjIOwHbG7t7p8rcRwMWQT61b0knfyF/w640-h344/15d2868283e5090fc40c9e28609c5f23.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The reason this all puts me in mind of a tableaux is because of the way Hawthorne uses David's unknowing encounters as a means of commenting on something to do with the wisdom (and/or lack thereof) of human choice in its application to what we <i>hope</i> is the real world. Without ever meaning to, David becomes a catalyst for a series of chance self-examinations, each one of which appears to unfurl an aspect of American society that Hawthorne both seems to sympathize with to an extent, only to turn right around and critique as somehow falling short in various fashions. We've already looked at the pitfalls of the married couple. In terms of David's first visitor, the Young Woman seems to be the closest thing to a genuinely sympathetic figure outside of the main character himself. She seems to stand for a kind of youthful idealism, or at least the potential for the promise of Romanticism. It's the best term I can come up with for what she represents. In contrast to the old couple, her trouble seems to be a relative lack of commitment. Rather, let's say she suffers from the lack of some vital nerve that's required or necessary for her to take her own life in her hands, and by extension, letting David apply that same potential to himself as well. It may be that she represents the closest thing to a missed chance that the story has to offer the main lead, though even here, there is an interesting satirical note.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTexV8x8XFb2OSsOKn2jxz66W6Y4QdAMrPHCHjnbqmjLZ0SsqlY1F8ZjXdyOCJjonmDwSyYAnGqcvDYPd9Ub1u_2jMfJVHEgheLGxaC61-4iHVzSgvcoFlDpeccBm_2RUo5gGZR6cPdsG-u8daYL25Pk1IBLJv1XOkl8yFg1aO1LNlBClrB_59kDu8ozv/s1000/61igp5RsQKL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTexV8x8XFb2OSsOKn2jxz66W6Y4QdAMrPHCHjnbqmjLZ0SsqlY1F8ZjXdyOCJjonmDwSyYAnGqcvDYPd9Ub1u_2jMfJVHEgheLGxaC61-4iHVzSgvcoFlDpeccBm_2RUo5gGZR6cPdsG-u8daYL25Pk1IBLJv1XOkl8yFg1aO1LNlBClrB_59kDu8ozv/s320/61igp5RsQKL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>For instance, how much can you expect from someone who seems to know the right way forward, and yet who then simply lets it pass her by. You get the sense that there's a fatal flaw, something missing in the Wood Nymph's character that keeps her from ever living up to her full potential. With this in mind, it leaves open the question of just how much or how far she would be able to allow David to start living an authentic life, when even she seems frightened at the prospect of being alive? How far can you depend on someone like that before they let you down? I almost want to say the final visitors, the robbers, are the most clear-cut out of all the other figures in the drama. Like in a medieval tableaux, they're clear representatives of greed and avarice, making their equation with devils all the more obvious. However, I also wonder if they're the point at which Hawthorne's satire sounds its most biting note? Like, are they meant to represent the kind of selfishness which lies in back of all the other two parties that David meets up with in the course of the narrative? Rather than being a story of chances lost, and reason regained, in other words. Might this instead be the story of a series of dodged bullets?</div><div><br /></div><div>It's an interesting question to ask, because as it turns out, I have listened to at least one audio dramatization of this story where it all sounds as if the stakes of the protagonist's plight are taken up a notch. The way the adapters of this story go about it is by adding at least two other passersby who spot the title character. The first is the single figure in the tale who gets a passing mention, but not any elaboration. He's a traveling preacher, and in the source material he's just described as cursing Swan for what might be a misplaced sense of laziness. This figure shows up in the radio play, as well. However, in that version, he's given an entire monologue detailing his outlook on life, and of the story's main actor. Before that happens, though, the adaptation adds a fifth passerby who I can only describe as this misanthropic day laborer. This extra has no equivalent in Hawthorne's original text. However, I think that both his and the preacher's soliloquies are worth quoting in full, as it seems like each speech is the adaptor's attempt at an interpretation of the text. We'll start with the words of the day laborer:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP9cyFYUiA0fJjflWZQA_F7yuFBT6HUATW53007nquX_n9f1yuXK5hqQ-2tcXoubRduQ574EYUgnBj5GNagS6y52mCkTbTWT6wm_fNXENqHGm_EBTrXIdH-YSdFz3djLnx75pyO_avQgc7MHIlPE0i5-kykjKOfBxuifu0UVXIXVMIhG2ER2mA01rbcGhq/s800/First-Blood-pilgrims-massacre-631.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP9cyFYUiA0fJjflWZQA_F7yuFBT6HUATW53007nquX_n9f1yuXK5hqQ-2tcXoubRduQ574EYUgnBj5GNagS6y52mCkTbTWT6wm_fNXENqHGm_EBTrXIdH-YSdFz3djLnx75pyO_avQgc7MHIlPE0i5-kykjKOfBxuifu0UVXIXVMIhG2ER2mA01rbcGhq/w640-h480/First-Blood-pilgrims-massacre-631.webp" width="640" /></a></div>"Look at him, lying there in resting sloth. The Sun has scarce passed the point of noon, and he sleeps. Is this life fair? Is God just that this youth should sleep without cares in the luxury of leisure, while I sweat my way through anxieties and toil? Why should I endure hardships while this callous lad enjoys his ease in the heat of the day? Perhaps I be cursed of God. Doth the serpent bruise my heal?...I care not. A curse upon ease and a plague upon luxury say I. Thou, lad, enjoy thy repose, for time and the world shall soon be no more thy friend. Then shall life know thee with cares and suffering. Joy shall depart from thee, forever (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9PShxRz-A&t=971s&ab_channel=ARoomWithAView">web</a>, 5:46-7:02)". Once more, there appear to be several things going on here. The first and most noticeable part is that an alternate name for this character might be that of the Green Eyed Monster. There's a clear-cut note of jealousy in this man's comments about the main character. Looking at David Swan, all the day laborer can see is a life that he feels he was either owed, or else that he believes was denied him. At the same time, there is the sense that the adaptation has extended Hawthorne's original satiric purpose by highlighting one particular aspect of the laborer's complaint. It comes in the form of the curse cast upon luxury in this world. It's enough to make clear that the laborer feels that he's been slighted by America's upper class in some fashion.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEo8Ui60QLe9dWgl-CmHqhdZtTGUMm3f7efEneHsONAuJKlQ2po_a9oivSv-5Iv2TuEb4Dyom49Wul2uBUl_14uV8GCSkti7YeV1YSlJkeiDcCN1v11YmuiGBiFhI4YbfkefDUtpGU5ffKKYNL44INSa5hkHujjHTtY3uJTHd3l42VyN7bGBsWMygvZasq/s3062/Tales_from_the_Crypt_Vol_1_36.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3062" data-original-width="2117" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEo8Ui60QLe9dWgl-CmHqhdZtTGUMm3f7efEneHsONAuJKlQ2po_a9oivSv-5Iv2TuEb4Dyom49Wul2uBUl_14uV8GCSkti7YeV1YSlJkeiDcCN1v11YmuiGBiFhI4YbfkefDUtpGU5ffKKYNL44INSa5hkHujjHTtY3uJTHd3l42VyN7bGBsWMygvZasq/s320/Tales_from_the_Crypt_Vol_1_36.webp" width="221" /></a></div>This might be the closest the listener can ever come to having sympathy for this figure. It's also arguable, however, that a valid enough point is being made in the midst of what would otherwise be the ramblings of a potential madman. Indeed, the laborer's words serve to act as a counterpoint to the later encounter with married rich couple later on. Their callous indifference to whether or not David has the right to determine the course of his own life (however momentary) shows that the laborer's ranting has at least one smidge of merit to it. It serves to highlight a sense of shared guilt on the part the Gilded Age class that was (<i>is</i>) an aspect of life that even Hawthorne was all too aware off. Guys like Mark Twain were too. However, where Twain's approach to the issue would be to construct a good and humorous joke at the expense of the rich, Hawthorne instead would dig into the layers of guilt associated with such actions, and then proceed to examine how this might effect the guilty party. It's the quintessential exercise of all Gothic writing, and in a lot of ways it is true to claim that Hawthorne's methods of approach to these topics would be echoed later on down the road, during the glory days of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Crypt_(comics)">EC Comics</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's an approach Hawthorne was particularly good at, nor does it end there. When we come to the preacher, and his added bit of dialogue, we get this: "And I say unto you, brethren, beware. Beware the foul fiend. For I say unto you he doth ever lay snares and bits to trap the young and unwary. Behold, satan doth lurk in the flesh of those who reveal their reposeful bodies to the common view of passersby. He doth exhibit sloth, and he enrageth the imagination. And heateth the passions of those who look upon his sensual, fleshly ease. Witness now this youth, this torpid voluptuary. I say unto you again, brethren, that he hath delivered his soul up unto beelzebub. Has deprived himself of his humanity. Is no more worthy than to be called a swine of the prodigal son. For here he lies, an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the roadside. This instance has God afforded me, and it shall be wrought into the text of this evening's discourse (ibid, (9:11-10:32)". So, that happened. Which just leaves the question of how does one begin to describe all that? Well, let me put it this way, if I was in David's situation, and this guy's ranting woke me up, somewhere among all that, my thoughts would go something like, "Please do not let this freak notice me, or I'm a dead duck"!! A better way to put it goes as follows.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4xbie72aMEETN1D4cRsOIxbQCNQaiwiuCyt6GAy6q_Iltl5AqDsQBB5E381tfKCV0sPN_TUuB0QUPoQD5oOVbxMeRmhvzZtUJ7sJiIJif7VT_MlnVgoGIK3kB2j4aoIinqTlr_-qPmZg_POD9VtNaHwkd7EWKdAtJHgowszZ0W5jrnuU_ZfIjhumtBikF/s1200/salem-witch-trials-1692.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1200" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4xbie72aMEETN1D4cRsOIxbQCNQaiwiuCyt6GAy6q_Iltl5AqDsQBB5E381tfKCV0sPN_TUuB0QUPoQD5oOVbxMeRmhvzZtUJ7sJiIJif7VT_MlnVgoGIK3kB2j4aoIinqTlr_-qPmZg_POD9VtNaHwkd7EWKdAtJHgowszZ0W5jrnuU_ZfIjhumtBikF/w640-h368/salem-witch-trials-1692.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />This character is of the type that could have been found occupying any panel in one of those old <i>Tales from the Crypt</i> comics, or the pages of a Stephen King short story for that matter. It's a note that both the comic series and the later author did very well. It's also something that each of them first learned from the pen of Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's also clear the radio adaptation is very self-aware about this aspect of the writer's work, and so it takes the action one final step further by playing into this sense of dark irony. They take the final pair of robbers and give them a bit of extra plot relevance by making it clear that they have been lying in wait all day on the exact same road that David has been traveling along, in order to spring on various unsuspecting travelers. Not only that, but by the time they enter the story, the robbers make it clear that they have attacked and maybe even killed all the people who have crossed Swan's path. This would include the maiden, the king and queen, the laborer, and even the preacher. They've all met a grisly and ironic fate at the hands of the two strangers. That leaves David as just their next potential victim. I won't got into spoilers beyond here. Except to say that this addition creates an added layer of Gothic irony to the tale. One who's message involves avoiding false steps.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Conclusion: Perhaps a Good Place to Start. </b> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivk01ihm_d_6dvTqVHc6WqBuJrhfcUwVpMnILPIb-t97_20vkl1Xt8HLfcJb5HFtnJyrdfKZ0PmHkEi4qUEDuINk2UdZsO6_JJ1yjQ1dMOgEvaz8mAQFhBDiDmdmVwqclKehptV3Gh4d7zk5myzsdlJPTGbOxmQZh4ne5CdfPKKDXKjX9tR8CvTPhTU-yi/s1878/tumblr_nj18cxRcQg1rrnekqo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1878" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivk01ihm_d_6dvTqVHc6WqBuJrhfcUwVpMnILPIb-t97_20vkl1Xt8HLfcJb5HFtnJyrdfKZ0PmHkEi4qUEDuINk2UdZsO6_JJ1yjQ1dMOgEvaz8mAQFhBDiDmdmVwqclKehptV3Gh4d7zk5myzsdlJPTGbOxmQZh4ne5CdfPKKDXKjX9tR8CvTPhTU-yi/s320/tumblr_nj18cxRcQg1rrnekqo1_1280.jpg" width="218" /></a></div>In trying to figure out the meaning of "David Swan", I think it helps to keep two things in mind. The first is the author's place in the tradition of Gothic literature in general. The second is Hawthorne's role as a satirist of, and commentator on American life in particular. In terms of the Tradition of which the writer is just one among many individual talents, it has to be said that Hawthorne more or less earns his status as one among a handful of pioneers. He wasn't the first talent to try his hand at a specifically American form of gothic expression. He just seems to have wound up being the break-out star, or trend-setter. His novels and short-stories are more or less what helped set the template for the kind of ghostly fiction that would come after, and in many ways go on to define the nature of American literature. It's the way Hawthorne used his talent within this Tradition, his chosen role as one of the first satirical commentators of the potential flaws of American existence, that marks out the specific nature of his own form of artistry. There is a lot more to talk about here further on at a later date.</div><div><br /></div><div>For now, perhaps the best way to excavate the meaning of this particular narrative is to focus in on the the short story's main setting, and its overall function in the narrative. The Image of the Forest is an important implement in the writer's toolbox. It's one of those constant running themes the author keeps coming back to in just about everything he ever wrote. Hawthorne seems to have attached a particular literary significance to the Great Northern Woods of New England. They functioned as a potent symbol, of sorts. The best way I think I can describe it is to claim that the forest serves as a great ethical testing ground in Hawthorne's writings. In other words, it's very much as literary critic and scholar Tony Magistrale describes it in a series of remarks made in the course of his short book study, <i>Landscapes of Fear</i>. That text is primarily concerned with the fiction of Hawthorne's more famous literary heir, and fellow Gothic writer, Stephen King. However, a lot of the terms the critic uses to describe the work of the modern Big Name in Horror literature also applies to his earlier New England predecessor. Therefore it's worth paying close attention to the way the forest is described here.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhunOGRhEUh0gQedEH-BJaOzNSf_OBVknsx06gedIvjXVIgnfVIu1KBMuRomlG492z3SepficHsRG06Xh6bJDEl7p7ifogexdEbf5hkRVn7ZnQjUu0Rgk9036o5Hd6Jqgn19VD92K7Ya4mnIbeMKKu_JyMy_JEdXXmSLGdgoSt2_VCbA6yVIC-kYyZRXbVJ/s600/6679144_orig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhunOGRhEUh0gQedEH-BJaOzNSf_OBVknsx06gedIvjXVIgnfVIu1KBMuRomlG492z3SepficHsRG06Xh6bJDEl7p7ifogexdEbf5hkRVn7ZnQjUu0Rgk9036o5Hd6Jqgn19VD92K7Ya4mnIbeMKKu_JyMy_JEdXXmSLGdgoSt2_VCbA6yVIC-kYyZRXbVJ/w640-h422/6679144_orig.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Magistrale claims that "Hawthorne's woods are a place of spiritual mystery; in them, young Goodman Brown, Reuben Bourne, and minister Arthur Dimmesdale must confront their own darkest urges. In <i>Pet Sematary</i>, Hawthorne's historical sense of puritanical gloom associated with the forest is mirrored in King's ancient Micmac () burial ground. Dr. Louis Creed, like so many of Hawthorne's (characters, sic), discovers in the Maine woods that evil is no mere abstraction capable of being manipulated or ignored. Instead, he finds his own confrontation with evil to be overwhelming, and like Hawthorne's Ethan Brand and Goodman Brown, he surrender's to its vision of chaos and corruption (17)".</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwSpXwFkTUI-CXdA7xvl2GxK7A09ZQwAfWFFCYOqJGDz2KTlwWFSmJLnUrXsbK-D8dRdodwxkAJKXX_myyxPnRUNLWnA8Tuilr-EUOzfTUKIc4fRP6zJF9otvqGqfARg_B_n7Jmds6oPjvHcaTDRlmFG5qVSGGgsBeh5yXddkFpRQTeA1MboHhb5M5ALvw/s920/61Vfz2Z3hWL._SL1000_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwSpXwFkTUI-CXdA7xvl2GxK7A09ZQwAfWFFCYOqJGDz2KTlwWFSmJLnUrXsbK-D8dRdodwxkAJKXX_myyxPnRUNLWnA8Tuilr-EUOzfTUKIc4fRP6zJF9otvqGqfARg_B_n7Jmds6oPjvHcaTDRlmFG5qVSGGgsBeh5yXddkFpRQTeA1MboHhb5M5ALvw/s320/61Vfz2Z3hWL._SL1000_.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>Now, to be fair, there is much in that passage worth appreciating. Indeed, while it may make one critical error, the fact of the matter is that Magistrale's diagnosis of Hawthorne's poetic use of the Forest Image contains too much of the truth to ever be discarded entirely. To do so would be to miss a good first surveyor's outline of Hawthorne's meaning. Nevertheless, while Magistrale manages to lay out a good deal of the truth, it remains true <i>so far as it goes</i>. His words above provide us with an important first step on the journey to understanding Hawthorne's artistry. They are far from being the whole story. What Magistrale gets correct is the fact that Hawthorne's forests (very much identical to the ones shown in the works of King) serve a symbolic, ethical function. "Hawthorne's conception of nature, as Hyatt Waggoner defines it, is "a symbolic language capable, when responded to imaginatively, of revealing a truth and reality perceived through, but lying beyond, the senses" (45). Hawthorne's journeys into the realm of primitive landscape were really metaphors for the journey into the self (77)". In other words, the Forest in these writings always functions as an active agent, an ethical catalyst, or the Gothic mirror that reflects the nature of the characters back at them, whether for bad, or good.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I'm not sure Magistrale is aware, however, is the exact nature of the literary influences that undergird Hawthorne's use of the Forest motif, and how that influence, in turn, shapes the direction and import of the various fantastical encounters that his characters have in the deep woods. If Hawthorne is writing about journeys of the self, then I'd suggest that the nature of these quests, while Gothic at their core, are ventures beyond the bounds of the limited, almost deterministic Puritan outlook that Magistrale ascribes to the author. In other words, Puritanism, its history, and its moral stain on the National Psyche (i.e. America's Original Sin) are the <i>subject matter</i> Hawthorne tackles in his fiction. It is not the <i>ontological base</i> of the writer's operations. Instead, at least a clue as to the nature of Hawthorne's ethical vantage point as a writer might be glimpsed by turning to look into the contents of another essay, <i>With a glance of dark meaning</i>, by Andrew Hadfield. It is his contention that an all too often overlooked source of inspiration for Hawthorne's Gothic can be found in what has to seem a rather surprising source. It stems from the writings of Renaissance poet and fantasist, Edmund Spenser.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Gr8LJH6U8wQU__MBbDjUUpSFS-dsCI0CtuXqgbXOg8D3axpSc3s77lMzFuE5NCuO5BiyomO6FzHbv6azVKrkN6eyX17BV9qVqEh-XPpCavHNNHTb0stozzI6HKhQVv-s6ZEGS_d0qIGHA2GpwJKDz16D_7I8WQD6uxBSSLu_MQI5mjcNQTPKjJPj3-m-/s1200/analysis-amoretti-lxxv-edmund-spencer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="1200" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Gr8LJH6U8wQU__MBbDjUUpSFS-dsCI0CtuXqgbXOg8D3axpSc3s77lMzFuE5NCuO5BiyomO6FzHbv6azVKrkN6eyX17BV9qVqEh-XPpCavHNNHTb0stozzI6HKhQVv-s6ZEGS_d0qIGHA2GpwJKDz16D_7I8WQD6uxBSSLu_MQI5mjcNQTPKjJPj3-m-/w640-h316/analysis-amoretti-lxxv-edmund-spencer.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's an aspect of Hawthorne's writing that I myself remained unaware of for the longest time. I never clued on to this fact until seeing a reference to the New England writer's enthusiasm for the composer of <i>The Faerie Queene</i> mentioned in passing in an otherwise unrelated essay. Aside from Hadfield's efforts, <i><a href="https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenseronline/review/item/46.2.6/">Una's Line</a></i>, by Catherine Nicholson does a more than serviceable job of laying out the extent of Hawthorne's Spenser fandom credentials. If I had to describe the depth of that liking, and the inspiration that was drawn from it, then perhaps the best comparison to be made is akin to the love which modern fandom has for the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. That's the type of enthusiasm which still needs little to no explanation as of yet. Apparently Hawthorne felt much the same way about Spenser. It's just that back in his day, there were no Hobbits. The addition of the poetics of Spenser to Hawthorne's toolbox serves to widen the expanse and scope of the latter's artistry. Rather than totally negating Magistrale's original claims, it both acknowledges and builds on its initial strengths, even if the final critical-aesthetic picture it paints turns out to different than how it originally started out.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAdT8lVqgq4Hf8Hg8htJCTmLKNXg3_VLIasMDuz7YWd7yWi_XaYcJ7ke4Qm2Q2FzArU5VAKkk4KkMokpDtCMTJR5VKoJBN7pZiQuuhgHdwxxQg2RnwYLaA6roNNftnsLNukTets0qFl8_xWiO5GSDVdtMiOLQ4MJLOY3HqhLjfdKFdVTYHCvzxoXQp_of/s673/Volume1_v1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="487" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAdT8lVqgq4Hf8Hg8htJCTmLKNXg3_VLIasMDuz7YWd7yWi_XaYcJ7ke4Qm2Q2FzArU5VAKkk4KkMokpDtCMTJR5VKoJBN7pZiQuuhgHdwxxQg2RnwYLaA6roNNftnsLNukTets0qFl8_xWiO5GSDVdtMiOLQ4MJLOY3HqhLjfdKFdVTYHCvzxoXQp_of/w217-h298/Volume1_v1.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>The insights that Hadfield can offer us here is an extension of Waggoner's description of the Forest Image as "a symbolic language". It does so by revealing that the diction is also a landscape, and that the roots of the forest stretch farther back into the realms of enchantment and myth than most readers of Hawthorne have ever known. Perhaps its the near total obscurity of the writer's use of Spenser which has caused so many of us (present party included) to overlook it in the first place. I'd argue that if works like <i>The Faerie Queene</i> serve as a key component of Hawthorne's inspiration, then it might not be out of question to ask whether or not Spenser's No. 1 Fan from New England might have gone so far as to see how good he could be at emulating the tropes, topoi, and even a few compositional practices from the Renaissance poet. Hadfield seems to go a long way toward providing us an answer here.</div><div><br /></div><div>In his essay, he claims that, "Both writers
are canny theorists of surfaces and veils, metamorphoses and masquerades. They offer a pageantry of darkness and light, a phantasmagoria of
obscured faces and marked and hybrid bodies, dim objects and shining
emblems, mirror- and snow-images and fleeting dream-like figures.
They transport historical personages and events into estranged terrains
and draw on a shared catalogue of mythological and Biblical figures.
They thus subtly explore the complex relationships between ideality and
materiality, abstraction and representation, imago and corpora (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220323224450id_/https://watermark.silverchair.com/nathhawtrevi_42_1_16.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAxAwggMMBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggL9MIIC-QIBADCCAvIGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQM2Lx-BXz8ckeBl0elAgEQgIICwzERRycjvDo8luv9wxxld0I0p4t-AfY77W3YVvWuyBFK2IsBE_qhUl44l72qvAqLdRBOoROzFA_kmEDtM03KkTNMBE5a77F7ui6N3yimFt7E2w094J_Andtitp4rrcwKmxEUCQkOaD5JalIJi5DoQauJ62M87v2q6wlGKsvNMedXwnCVs56I9cOyWf1LnrZJPrwt2yDZju81nLqqJsWJTTw7WFW0071FasHIfWSeC252IobRNDx6AKIho-AruT_FN8sLPKm2qTCMcaOEC-4VJ8WL0TCsS316FABX23d5gncZ0bZTmXt5BC9KqBuP047W7m8b-nVrsz5BE0rqooBaifN9OKp1i2qENAonilrYo8LLN6TAYzGkR3JDtLinNS3MZhStHqsr3Tzl37BgNcLtdCG74FipPk1AtIDx_VhICcpfa_woMRoVL-2ajtggvCwEYdhwfuvtLQoH-Yl1RZEyQiXptqRbv-9HIPOTD_SSXipOBLNjBKqEFNOGRRZkjNqa575Dfu1oFQNl2eN8BFm6XXRR9QYh69sAnDarTtCGHelFklVQKM-o-vgo_A8P8JBLF3_D-dLpS-WKRvfxUuDiOFA1eM6EnZYxeA_mH6OOCL1Ud4y-6gBfBxlt_FHCyYmPUXXEmtfvhbKTFcVyzrrdOyZ1u4B2N5FQH-A83d0O6u-Jxd0uQaRdx4QKjgjtI3xJ1ZAwgcKNNJAIVV9HER7UzH42YG1dqE0nEV3EgHPPIYSmt-6FBOLPBVnqrAODifvQxSaFJsO4rnXVA5Yq01LZejrmDlNx2ARwq8rZcetIIj8hDdEKCZkjeU9NT2rNmxiY0wzJ-PJzXIIA_KyJoZ6Lrpb0fulUv4wx0-dV0lu3-o4K4JNQo1EB_smPxh16v4d1_VpXZtY1mojpkj1cuJeXmXbUi4eHlRLDuQNYJGaOcPPQ0WzA">web</a>)". Now if we take all this, and apply it to a work like "David Swan", what do we get? Well, for one thing, Hawthorne's Forest takes on a greater sense of dimension than just the deterministic model ascribed to it by Magistrale. It's still the sort of place where ghosts and monsters might hide. Hawthorne, after all, remains a Horror writer to the end of his days. The difference is that now the woods could also be a place of enchantments and escape, as well as terrors to run away from. In other words, the Forest can be either positive of negative, depending on who journeys through it. In the tale of the slumbering Mr. Swan, it looks very much like the author decided to split this difference.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVdUfQ_Yl8V2GNR8J9Dx9u5xJBmkeI36azoiHzmK7H9vCSQfhHxqYmLUNVv4Q4bsO7UI44VG_jq8L0fJyQs1nNUt7aYVCZkshDXS-bKAW56fG40T0mZoK4pSOEB2q1cO013heACmFT8bJrtIdQT7_Lktyccfidl6ZIwIy4ox7CUlkw0eH3ISuZFkKBNeZF/s340/il_340x270.2957529655_a6ax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="340" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVdUfQ_Yl8V2GNR8J9Dx9u5xJBmkeI36azoiHzmK7H9vCSQfhHxqYmLUNVv4Q4bsO7UI44VG_jq8L0fJyQs1nNUt7aYVCZkshDXS-bKAW56fG40T0mZoK4pSOEB2q1cO013heACmFT8bJrtIdQT7_Lktyccfidl6ZIwIy4ox7CUlkw0eH3ISuZFkKBNeZF/w640-h508/il_340x270.2957529655_a6ax.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />On the one hand, we are presented with the setup of a main character making his way into a Forest. It's the kind of opening that countless Horror stories are built out of, and it's not incorrect to claim that writer's like Hawthorne are where this particular trope comes from. He is, in some ways, one of the great grandfathers of movies like <i>The Blair Witch Project</i>. The fate of Swan, however, seems to be a bit more ambiguous than the three Burkittsville students. For one thing, he's alive at the end of the story. What little damage has been done during the course of the narrative is so meagre that it goes unnoticed. At the same time, much like the Maryland trio, Swan has had a fateful encounter, of sorts. He has become a participant (however unwitting) in a satirical tableaux that is both American Gothic and Elizabethan by turns. He becomes the hub around which the main actions of the plot turn. We're greeted by a series of passing visitors, each of them making various comments based upon their encounters with David. In turn, each discloses their own minds to the reader. This allows us a series of unflattering glimpses into aspects of American society that the author wishes to hold up for ridicule.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6vIv1ukHl2KYTLNzdu3AX1XYobLN3Cd9QMBPAV-_-zOb6jamTnSk3tWy-iThYlfLs7dcXeLvexPBocrrpXdVFIbmi8G5hRLlpuA4tJxmlgN6Ow4GIJjlnJyVYZnZ-u4R-dlSVyMDuErjokteiwc9kXm03JdpQBmpH91-BQumUarIzo6AH4p76PbBXPMR/s320/Nathaniel_Hawthorne_-_NARA_-_530280cr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6vIv1ukHl2KYTLNzdu3AX1XYobLN3Cd9QMBPAV-_-zOb6jamTnSk3tWy-iThYlfLs7dcXeLvexPBocrrpXdVFIbmi8G5hRLlpuA4tJxmlgN6Ow4GIJjlnJyVYZnZ-u4R-dlSVyMDuErjokteiwc9kXm03JdpQBmpH91-BQumUarIzo6AH4p76PbBXPMR/s1600/Nathaniel_Hawthorne_-_NARA_-_530280cr.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>The way Hawthorn draws the characters makes it easy enough to identify which aspects of U.S. life and thought he's holding up to the satirical mirror. The rich couple represent the selfish whims of the upper class. The preacher stands as a clear satire of moral and religious hypocrisy. Meanwhile, the two other figures in the drama are the ones that draw out the most pause and consideration. The laborer, as a new character added to the story by the adaptation is an interesting target to choose. On the one hand, he seems to be very much the flipped inverse of the rich couple who want to make David into their sort of plaything. This new guy harbors no such illusions. Instead, he seems to equate David with the exact same kind of people who would try to abuse him for the sake of their own selfish interests. It's a clear-cut case of mistaken identity and mislabeled blame. The interesting thing about the laborer is that he almost has the beginnings of a legitimate complaint. The couple from the original story go a long way toward justifying the criticisms he spits out to whoever will listen. He just can't tell friend from foe.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's almost as if the laborer can't make the proper distinctions between oppressor and opressed. This in turn serves as his major weakness, and it's implied this is also his great failing in what could otherwise have been a legitimate moral complaint. It's the fact that he can't live up to this potential ideal, that the laborer lets his bitterness stemming from his own implied mistreatment by others blind him to all that's going on around him, rather than channeling his anger into useful solutions to his problem. This also seems to be what leads him to not paying enough attention to avoid the robbers later on. It's the classic setup up of the tragic character flaw, and the price that gets paid for it. Whereas the rich couple and the preacher each are a pair of more straightforward just desserts. It's the figure of the young girl who is sort of worth the most comment, because out of all the characters who encounter David on the road, she's the one who you can feel the most sympathy for. There's nothing really bad about her, as such. She's just this nice Girl Next Door type who is trying to think about what she wants out of the future.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtVLONoPgNkOdIZ51ow9lHGqqqENd6GeBMmzzhDao3rjuihVskMn6fiZonl-GGDLX7zmE5XZI5J4sRxoNFV2ihoJhR0jJvq8KnmYhXekQXdWcuhe4dqGt16KUjShacmfAYdCdnTXbwQpt9SeNEiMK-YK8UAy_NhvG7IXOrDowqq6a1n7_uUSyuNUPZie25/s600/una-and-lion-from-spensers-faerie-queene-briton-riviere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtVLONoPgNkOdIZ51ow9lHGqqqENd6GeBMmzzhDao3rjuihVskMn6fiZonl-GGDLX7zmE5XZI5J4sRxoNFV2ihoJhR0jJvq8KnmYhXekQXdWcuhe4dqGt16KUjShacmfAYdCdnTXbwQpt9SeNEiMK-YK8UAy_NhvG7IXOrDowqq6a1n7_uUSyuNUPZie25/w640-h422/una-and-lion-from-spensers-faerie-queene-briton-riviere.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>When she spies David, she realizes that the key to her hopes might have just appeared like a granted wish. Instead of seizing the initiative, and at the very least going and asking if she may try to find the life she wants, she passes up the opportunity and moves on. This character is interesting in that her failure doesn't stem from any moral fault. She's not greedy and grasping like the couple, nor crazed and hypocritical like the preacher. She's just this normal woman who won't take her chances in life. Unlike the laborer who lets his bitterness cloud his judgment, the girl has a very clear idea of what's going on, and how she can prosper and thrive in life, and yet she decides not to act on this knowledge. It's interesting because in the adaptation, it's implied that this choice of inaction is what costs her. The implication seems to be that if she'd been a bit more courageous, then not only would she have gotten the future she longed for, she also might have faired better when it came time to face off against the bandits. This could have been either by having David along to protect her, or else even by finding the strength necessary to to stand up for herself in the conflict. The adaptation therefore seems to showcase the girl as a case of forking paths, and how the poor choice can be the one that makes all the difference.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7Ix0LaePvhuAeqMY9WwMjp1AWebmzID0nV35Q3Sg6HPeWFbdAu1YByQ9UM0nqQQ1EB0NdO1uoRsiFAedWo0VPudCrhy49lyz6I1PKM1v_dKGm1gSMtdXCRCkuhtvixilxBUguM7KXrruf5S_jMrgTEWH_VGnvuA-L9OfT6idYLVBtWP9LgU-oTlgM2ma/s400/9780156364652.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="266" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7Ix0LaePvhuAeqMY9WwMjp1AWebmzID0nV35Q3Sg6HPeWFbdAu1YByQ9UM0nqQQ1EB0NdO1uoRsiFAedWo0VPudCrhy49lyz6I1PKM1v_dKGm1gSMtdXCRCkuhtvixilxBUguM7KXrruf5S_jMrgTEWH_VGnvuA-L9OfT6idYLVBtWP9LgU-oTlgM2ma/w202-h304/9780156364652.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>When you put all these ingredients together, the combined elements of the tableaux seem to point to the need for the youth of this world to find the strength necessary to stand up to all the personal and social corruption that is plaguing American society at large, or else the consequences could be dire. If Swan and the girl are the closest thing to heroes in the narrative, then they seem to represent the Romantic potential of the future. Hawthorne is willing to highlight the promise of the young while also making sure to highlight the threats they'll have to face if they ever want to succeed. The result is a short story with one foot in the same type of Gothic territory as Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find", while the other takes a firm stand on the same Romantic ground as that found in the work of Spenser. Much like the Renaissance poet, Hawthorne has composed a tableaux that serves as a useful Emblem for both the good and bad, or light and dark aspects of American life. My one hope in all this is that I haven't made any of this sound dull while trying to excavate the meaning of the story artifact.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know Hawthorne has become kind of like the scourge of readers everywhere. However, for some reason, I just wasn't bored at any point during the proceedings. Instead, the overall impression I get from this short story is that I was reading one of those old <i>Shock and Suspense</i> Horror issues from the EC Comics line (what the die hard fans of <i>Tales from the Crypt</i> refer to with macabre affection as "<a href="https://www.sdsu.edu/news/2023/01/anti-racism-50s-message-ec-comics">The Preachies</a>"; stories where the Horror sometimes hit harder than in the straight up supernatural business, because a lot of the atrocities depicted in those panels were drawn from real life). "David Swan" contains that same identifiable note of moral caution that marked out the best on offer from the pen of EC stalwarts like Graham "Ghastly" Ingles or Flannery O'Connor. It's not too much of a surprise that the whole thing tends to play out like one of those classic EC Comics issues, or like a particularly Gothic episode of <i>The Twilight Zone</i> for that matter. Hawthorne is able to generate all the right and balanced amounts of surrealism and dread that you expect from the later Fifth Dimension.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PRSAXJa4FITjy4mLS7UlKRMAQXWCqzCH_TcK4E2Q0bK0gxQAHfa-AW71UC9D7UCGBXTCcRnMEIFZRLT5SAQZ0-I4v3ZjlSVS2UbKaUvGiD0EsfZVeAs0jcXLZWZZWtrCdhwviOSYRVtvDUi9Otr8UqY11AYB3s2Gd79qXhtLenpMvgZpA-g38d8c6qj_/s1344/VOYKXbFosXoWuOgchbu8-1-kloma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1344" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PRSAXJa4FITjy4mLS7UlKRMAQXWCqzCH_TcK4E2Q0bK0gxQAHfa-AW71UC9D7UCGBXTCcRnMEIFZRLT5SAQZ0-I4v3ZjlSVS2UbKaUvGiD0EsfZVeAs0jcXLZWZZWtrCdhwviOSYRVtvDUi9Otr8UqY11AYB3s2Gd79qXhtLenpMvgZpA-g38d8c6qj_/w640-h366/VOYKXbFosXoWuOgchbu8-1-kloma.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>The result makes for a fine and interesting hybrid. It's a medieval Spenserian tableaux applied to a modern American Gothic setting in with a surprising and therefore gratifying lack of clashing styles. Instead, the writer gives us a hint of the problems that plague the U.S. social life, and keep it from fulfilling a lot of the promise that it <i>could</i> have, if only we'd clean up our acts. So it is something of a parable. Yet it's one with a very effective and Gothic bite. The kind of short Horror story that weirds you out in all the best ways that this type of work can. My final thoughts are that any of those rare souls out there who might be thinking of giving the Scourge of High School and College English a chance could do worse than start here. It's got all the hallmarks of a good introductory text. The setup and execution are simple to understand, and the best part is how the writer seems willing to hold the readers hand on this one. I get the impression Hawthorne was eager to please when he composed this short sketch, so he went out of his way to make everything as unobscured as possible. Instead, it's like a master of ceremonies welcoming you into the confines of his secondary world for the first time. The result is a fun, old fashioned, American Gothic tale that winds up being well worth a good read. </div><div><p></p></div></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-72866164181301309182024-03-10T00:43:00.002-06:002024-03-17T00:33:08.135-05:00The Lost King (2022).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVGF1lVyciZ84u9TzAmHC6LgYwbUAb77KsMAVFxWT2gTf_Dm1sWOEXct9m33duGUdTLxsA42ZLjEG606eKBu4ZCs8cswDLSGPYOJAaOju4kmirNR2TMSR4j5xolF6Xu3aXzUzJabqbCpdXdPm0ZHdzuq8RGhhHZoxMK3J1mVrFN__AUkpkQDzyq3wMhBK/s2880/MV5BOTNiMWE2NWEtYjViMC00ZWI1LWJiMzgtNGU2ZmVkMGNkYTU2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTk5MTY4Nzg@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2880" data-original-width="1944" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVGF1lVyciZ84u9TzAmHC6LgYwbUAb77KsMAVFxWT2gTf_Dm1sWOEXct9m33duGUdTLxsA42ZLjEG606eKBu4ZCs8cswDLSGPYOJAaOju4kmirNR2TMSR4j5xolF6Xu3aXzUzJabqbCpdXdPm0ZHdzuq8RGhhHZoxMK3J1mVrFN__AUkpkQDzyq3wMhBK/s320/MV5BOTNiMWE2NWEtYjViMC00ZWI1LWJiMzgtNGU2ZmVkMGNkYTU2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTk5MTY4Nzg@._V1_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>It opens with a familiar line of text. "Based on a true story". Right away, you know it's going to be one of <i>those</i> films. The history of cinema doesn't want for lack of any biographical pictures. It's a veritable cottage industry unto itself. It's a select sub-genre whose origins seem to reach as far back as the beginning of the medium itself. The first <i>major</i> (if not <i>initial</i>) biopic was Carl Theodore Dreyer's <i>T<a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/228-the-passion-of-joan-of-arc">he Passion of Joan of Arc</a></i>, way back in 1928. It was a silent film, which means its an acquired taste these days. It also went on to become one of cinema's first great blockbusters, a low-key version of Cecil B. DeMille before he was even a name. Dreyer's film was also a first in another way. It is just possible that this film marks the beginning of the long, infamous tradition of the clash between filmmakers and scholars over the accuracy of historical persons and events in an artistic medium. There might be one or two elements of the subject the Dreyer film got wrong, for instance. More than a few viewers were happy to point this out, and things have carried on in such a vein ever since. Which means the same issue of being "True to Life" is bound to plague Stephen Frears' production of <i>The Lost King</i>. It's story does center on a Maid, of sorts, but not of Orleans. After being given proper warning from the "True Story" tag, we're given an extra bit of information from the opening credits.<p></p><p>The film, we're told, is not just based on a true story. It's also "Her Story". So long as we're playing the game of Art vs History, it might help to point out that even this initial statement counts as an example of "true so far as it goes". Or rather "true" for a given amount of <i>true</i>. In the strictest sense, what we're dealing with here is the story of a Maiden and a King, and the way the two somehow found each other. That is still not quite the whole truth, however. For you see, there is a third player in the make-believe dramatization of history that's about to unfold. He's always hanging about in the wings of the film's narrative, always waiting, perhaps, for his own say on things. He even gets name dropped more than once or twice, here and there. However, in order to get the full picture, we have to take things in their proper order. That means knowing when to start at the proper beginning of the whole affair.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><b>The Story. </b> <p></p><div>If nothing important happened, then I'm not sure you'd be able to pick someone like Phillipa Langley (Sally Hawkins) out of a crowd. She doesn't strike you as the type of person that extraordinary events happen to. Her job is that of an employee at one of those marketing firms whose name you forget about the moment you here it. She's a marketing officer who makes her home in Edinburgh. She's got two children of her own, Max (Adam Robb), and Raife (Benjamin Scanlon). Her marriage with her husband John (Steve Coogan) ended not too long ago, however. Even here the situation is one of those little domestic dramas that can't even bother to live up to the title. Things just didn't work out, that's all. No more or less. There's not much else to talk about, really. Phillipa's life consists mainly of one drudge through the working day after another. She gets up in the morning, packs the kids off to school, goes to her office, and tries to pretend she's busy with actual work while getting paid a pittance for it. She picks up her kids, goes home, dinner, bed, and start all over again. She's got Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, however it doesn't interfere with her work and life in general. Nor does it keep her from being able to raise her two kids on her own. There's no legitimate reason for her employer to pass her over for a well-earned promotion. So he does it anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCW1I_J2YcZTlfJRBraK5bEeq3f6cuSykK4nre6Z4XLygm81gnnLk4F2WWEkL60b_gCSBSqZTlObQC8EBNTBoHbSPN6ERjQ0PtQy5uyV97tHwbxNBaE5uP7wf_zfTSp55Fh8WzoHVgXxiwpqtRHGjy9aFl3_dUZz5HHzgbzNrPO4r2-b9m3oZjurQ8fr-K/s1120/LostKing44.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1120" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCW1I_J2YcZTlfJRBraK5bEeq3f6cuSykK4nre6Z4XLygm81gnnLk4F2WWEkL60b_gCSBSqZTlObQC8EBNTBoHbSPN6ERjQ0PtQy5uyV97tHwbxNBaE5uP7wf_zfTSp55Fh8WzoHVgXxiwpqtRHGjy9aFl3_dUZz5HHzgbzNrPO4r2-b9m3oZjurQ8fr-K/w640-h360/LostKing44.png" width="640" /></a></div>That's about the point where her life trajectory has taken her, more or less. Phillipa Langley is, in short, just one of life's anonymous cubicle dwellers. Just another face you pass by pure chance on the nine to five routes, nothing more. To repeat, someone like her wouldn't be worth remarking about if something incredible hadn't happened. In Phillipa's case, it all started with a mandatory night at the theater. Somehow she'd gotten roped into having to attending a local repertory company's production of <i>Richard III</i>. It wasn't even one of the better productions of the story, if we're being honest. It's one of those efforts where 14th century England is rendered in those cheap, modernist, almost Sci-Fi looking approaches that extends to almost everybody's wardrobe. Like there wasn't enough in the budget to afford the appropriate costumes, so the final result looks as if history has wandered into a bad production of <i>Guardians of the Galaxy</i>. The only actor who looks like he even belongs in the whole damn thing is Pete (Harry Lloyd), the actor tasked with bringing Richard to life. For whatever reason, whether it's the performance of the lead actor, or the ever-important quality of the writing, a funny thing sort of happens to Phillipa as she listens to the words, and takes in the portrayal of the King.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJVCe7_rkFSJGTwObD2tUpzqSdMshR3_c89fWWEQE1pkCrbR2sBjKX1AfBQ8SbAu0EZwUVxjLOsGd0moDEiV1jdxUlVQ7XTsF0ES1jQK2qc9xWsUT5HhC5kAwTF2dw8n_9rn9_jFGHHHl_zvcHLsrlVYSmnnI7sLooWdGco1HiDaw1kVTYBf8R85VKRWHU/s1600/fBklqTm33Jg32mLL79K5I4cZHSt9cE_large.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1288" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJVCe7_rkFSJGTwObD2tUpzqSdMshR3_c89fWWEQE1pkCrbR2sBjKX1AfBQ8SbAu0EZwUVxjLOsGd0moDEiV1jdxUlVQ7XTsF0ES1jQK2qc9xWsUT5HhC5kAwTF2dw8n_9rn9_jFGHHHl_zvcHLsrlVYSmnnI7sLooWdGco1HiDaw1kVTYBf8R85VKRWHU/s320/fBklqTm33Jg32mLL79K5I4cZHSt9cE_large.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>She surprised to find her heart going out to the disabled protagonist at the heart of the play. This reaction is even more surprising, considering that King Richard is the kind of monarch that even real historians regard as one of life's clear-cut villains. A usurper who schemed his way onto the throne of England, and almost lead the country to ruin with his power mad plots for domination. It was only at the "Battle" of Bosworth Field that Richard's reign of tyranny came to an end, and the last of the Middle Ages with it. In spite of all these established facts, Phillipa's heart winds up going out to the former hunchbacked King. She seems self-possessed enough to realize that a lot of it might just be nothing more than one person with a physical handicap recognizing and finding a sense of solace in the plight of another. However, (perhaps to her own surprise) she also begins to wonder if there could be more to the usurper king's story than history is aware of. It's this brief moment of posthumous shared sympathy between one disability sufferer to another that gets the whole thing started, strange as it may sound.</div><div><br /></div><div>At first, Phillipa can't seem to get the figure of Richard out of her mind. His story, both real and imaginary, occupies her thoughts as she goes about her daily routine. She starts buying books that tell of the monarch's life and times, and this passion soon grows into more of an obsession. The transformation from idle hobby to consuming interest seems to come the moment when Phillipa begins to see or perhaps just imagine the actual King Richard (played by Lloyd again) hanging about wherever she goes. She'll be walking to the store and she'll catch glimpses of him standing in the sidewalk in front of her as she makes her way towards him. Or else she'll see the King glancing at her from across the way, in the windows of shop markets or at the openings of alleyways. Whenever Phillipa catches glimpses of this figure, a few things always remain constant. This version of Richard isn't the gnarled and twisted boogeyman of the English popular imagination. Instead, this King seems to have a more regal bearing, standing up straight and proud, yet he has a kind and sympathetic look in his eye.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgioYFCBhgMOFJhyphenhyphenAZGg-GgNLTrNrivFLSu0ATZwgAFkS-qLqMtmdMBOJ6dkCxhxhZcMWFgo9qF7Lp-aHsMj4JgMIdM8pxGCE8xaKfi_VXVuXlA-vr9P-EyxlRQ3ijXCn6pgCzAys5swxTY0sHFMw2h5N5grZ7JMNJdEqv9DGsgR1lyLGmFm09YH-ZyXZar/s3000/lostking1-zklj-videoSixteenByNine3000.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1688" data-original-width="3000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgioYFCBhgMOFJhyphenhyphenAZGg-GgNLTrNrivFLSu0ATZwgAFkS-qLqMtmdMBOJ6dkCxhxhZcMWFgo9qF7Lp-aHsMj4JgMIdM8pxGCE8xaKfi_VXVuXlA-vr9P-EyxlRQ3ijXCn6pgCzAys5swxTY0sHFMw2h5N5grZ7JMNJdEqv9DGsgR1lyLGmFm09YH-ZyXZar/w640-h360/lostking1-zklj-videoSixteenByNine3000.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />He's always able to pick Phillipa out wherever she is, and whenever she sees him, Phillipa can't shake the hopeful, imploring expression he seems to give her whenever they meet. At last, one night, when she sees him hanging outside in front of her house, Phillipa allows herself to get out of bed, and confront this "apparition". She asks him what he wants, why is he visiting her, and most important of all, was he really as great a monster as history says? The figure never answers any of these questions, of course. He just keeps giving her that kind, imploring look, like he's desperate to ask this unextraordinary, unassuming Edinburgh girl a favor, except he's too darn shy to ask it outright. The interesting part is that as far as Phillipa's concerned, it's almost like he doesn't have to. At last, with her resolve set she makes what most of us have no choice except to consider a fool's risk. She joins the local Edinburgh chapter of the Richard III Society, which is one thing. Then she quits her day job in order to devote all her time to proving that the protagonist of Shakespeare's play wasn't a villainous usurper, and was instead, a good and just King of England. Which is something else altogether. </div><div><br /></div><div>To say that Phillipa's friends and family regard this move as a bad idea is a bit like the saying the launch of the Challenger Space Shuttle went a little bit wrong. The crash and burn in Phillipa's case may not be as Earth shattering, yet it's the fear everyone around her has, as they try to dissuade her from taking such drastic measures. She won't be turned aside, as things turn out. Phillipa turns out to be the kind of woman who, once she manages to get her sights set on a goal that's important to her, will then dig in with the tenacity of a well-trained bulldog latching onto a target. If nothing else were to happen, you'd still have to give her an A for effort. Her dedication is so admirable that even her ex-husband (of all people) decides to move back in so that she'll have both the funds, and get to keep a roof under the heads of both her and their children. With this steady foundation in place, Phil sets out to ask for help in tracking down the remains of King Richard. Two important allies that she makes in this endeavor are medieval historian Richard Ashdown-Hill (James Fleet), and Richard Buckley (Mark Addy), head of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services Department. One of them is a willing participant from the very start. The other has to be convinced by several interlocking factors in order to join.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmQOHPmT4cU4nI_Gdixo-afbHJ4bTvAgHZv8nTgfdWIthI72PhcDsnZu51s-fwuWCiIFE6lFyvvgWRdoaBUaOHrr00dgyyKtLE7PN47-dOwnCqnRl48k1rxcTxqrosMhyphenhyphenGbug_ZKUR3ov2i3K2mml9ryrAdmLuuFb18aXfspddUjKh_wF8rAZiI_kURiDY/s976/MV5BMTAwZGFiZTUtMDlkZS00MTkwLTg1NzgtMWZkMmFlMTdiZGEyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjE4NDU1Njk@._V1_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmQOHPmT4cU4nI_Gdixo-afbHJ4bTvAgHZv8nTgfdWIthI72PhcDsnZu51s-fwuWCiIFE6lFyvvgWRdoaBUaOHrr00dgyyKtLE7PN47-dOwnCqnRl48k1rxcTxqrosMhyphenhyphenGbug_ZKUR3ov2i3K2mml9ryrAdmLuuFb18aXfspddUjKh_wF8rAZiI_kURiDY/w640-h360/MV5BMTAwZGFiZTUtMDlkZS00MTkwLTg1NzgtMWZkMmFlMTdiZGEyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjE4NDU1Njk@._V1_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Under Phillipa's guidance, they set their sights on an otherwise unassuming car park by the name of Grey Friars, located in the middle of Leicester town. There's one area in particular that Phillipa has zeroed in on. In the old tales of buried treasure it's usually an X that marks the spot. In this case it's not an X. It's an R. You can see the letter itself, plain as day. It's washed out and faded a bit with years of age and constant use, however it's still perfectly legible. The R stands for Reserved, as in the special parking spaces reserved either for special appointments, or else for (ironically enough given Phil's and Richard's medical history) handicap accessibility. Perhaps because of all these associations swirling about and gathering together in her mind, Phillipa wants them to start digging there. She has a hunch that simple painted R means something. That perhaps it contains answers about Richard the Third.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Conclusion: The King and the Maiden: A Surprisingly True Story.</b> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0S93LQ3bdoNjAZ4QeSoK3nswr9cF2E0bAHXeQxHBzFtF7aZo758vugZOHGxghWSO7fDjDIeSfiB8thpm5nmkNw0vKqGX3UGBimWR262lOck8XWLkiDQ_2OkOcpiZ77z85V5gOT33gkuKwwmTpnXsG4vWsGbPLmYZrlPU3Vhgjc6OuOuYBHB_F-K-5pj6/s903/55562-16736163381926-m.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="600" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0S93LQ3bdoNjAZ4QeSoK3nswr9cF2E0bAHXeQxHBzFtF7aZo758vugZOHGxghWSO7fDjDIeSfiB8thpm5nmkNw0vKqGX3UGBimWR262lOck8XWLkiDQ_2OkOcpiZ77z85V5gOT33gkuKwwmTpnXsG4vWsGbPLmYZrlPU3Vhgjc6OuOuYBHB_F-K-5pj6/w173-h259/55562-16736163381926-m.webp" width="173" /></a></div>I went through a lot of back and forth with myself on how write the summary just above. Pretty much all of it stemmed from the age old question that seems baked into movies like this. It's gotten to the point where the problem might just require its own label, as a good shorthand for the dilemma any critic finds themselves in when trying to tackle subject matter like this. I think I'll call it the Amadeus Paradox. It's when you're trying to take in any work of cinematic drama that claims to have a basis in real life history. That's when the challenge always becomes the question of separating fact from fiction. You have to do it in a way that strikes a very delicate balance. The trick is to be true to the facts of the actual, historical record, while also giving the potential Art of the fiction its due. Hence the paradox, and I think that <i>Amadeus</i>, a film that has managed to achieve a surprising amount of pop-culture resonance, stands as kind of like the benchmark for the challenge of historical dramas.</div><div><br /></div><div>A film like Stephen Frears <i>The Lost King</i> is an example that fits in well with this paradoxical paradigm. It's entire setup is not just based on something that happened in real life. It was something very recent, that turned out to be one of those events with a respectable amount of national importance. These are the facts. It turns out there really is a Phillipa Langley, and she is the woman who discovered the remains of King Richard III. The monarch's remains were indeed bulldozed over and hidden away underneath the concrete of a local Leicester parking lot. And he was discovered lying underneath a good chunk of modern day concrete with a big white letter R painted over the exact same plot that was once used to house former royalty. I almost want to say there's got to be some sort of parabolic significance to the whole thing, if that's how it turns out, anyway. It's like we've stumbled upon a moment when history itself turns into the contents of a children's storybook. You've a plucky and intrepid protagonist with a likable personality pressing on in the face of adversity in order to find a hidden treasure. Even the discovery itself adheres to fairy tale formula with an X marked burial spot.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmyHJfoq7WdwYEk1-FniIZXUCfmhMt5Lg3tVeIspCJjrtO7YED9xaL6AqIfmB-JVzZ2xLvxO7BojuH1TxV5JOJiHjoj05ngB0gD4GEH5U_JIBslCX_O-gSgMw4iAGcCCj5UOavp6tVZ9zJk1gYfoGXtbDxc051p_gSB82bEJ69i8XEWBiK7RdSJLOS08f/s1900/h_27.rtr37vmt%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1357" data-original-width="1900" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmyHJfoq7WdwYEk1-FniIZXUCfmhMt5Lg3tVeIspCJjrtO7YED9xaL6AqIfmB-JVzZ2xLvxO7BojuH1TxV5JOJiHjoj05ngB0gD4GEH5U_JIBslCX_O-gSgMw4iAGcCCj5UOavp6tVZ9zJk1gYfoGXtbDxc051p_gSB82bEJ69i8XEWBiK7RdSJLOS08f/w640-h458/h_27.rtr37vmt%20(1).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's little wonder then that sooner or later someone like Frears would think this could make for a pretty solid movie. It's one of those odd moments when real life seems willing to hand you a script more or less ready made, all wrapped up in a bow, an everything. In terms of its basic outline, and plot beats, the movie can be said to remain true enough so far as it can to the historical record. Which means, of course, that there are one or two elements of the narrative that distort the facts to suit the demands of the three-act drama structure. The movie version of Phillipa is portrayed as joining the Edinburgh Ricardian Society as a spur-of-the-moment decision, something she just throws herself into in the heat of enthusiasm for her newfound subject. In real life, however, this was never the case. In fact, for the actual Ms. Langley, everything to do with King Richard came at a natural, gradual, step-at-a-time pace. The true story began all the way back in 1998, when Langley picked up <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Richard-Third-Paul-Murray-Kendall/dp/0393007855">a book written in 1955</a> by Paul Murray Kendall. It was perhaps among the first works of scholarship to treat Richard as a human being, rather than as just a villain in a play. And it is just here where history itself becomes like a mist.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGomKbNSSGLM-U8kerdegrsw439eZx7vZGQGMZhPejlarxzPefrWYm83cyOJF5MyQERn_8pzzKTxtx9NcPNgxpuaFL3nWErjWRSdkH02i6CH4QL3NSxyg1YYV91TIb0V2N8wsz4j4kKNfZkjCyB1e8r58s3QQkWfiHusaFoERRuB1v0LdVAzsBedLcHW5u/s1000/91Y3AVqWMwL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="662" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGomKbNSSGLM-U8kerdegrsw439eZx7vZGQGMZhPejlarxzPefrWYm83cyOJF5MyQERn_8pzzKTxtx9NcPNgxpuaFL3nWErjWRSdkH02i6CH4QL3NSxyg1YYV91TIb0V2N8wsz4j4kKNfZkjCyB1e8r58s3QQkWfiHusaFoERRuB1v0LdVAzsBedLcHW5u/s320/91Y3AVqWMwL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>So far as I've been able to find out, based on what Langley has to tell, it was the reading of Kendall's book that sparked her interest in trying to salvage the King's reputation. What this account cannot tell us is what, if anything, in turn, inspired her to pick up the 55 study text. For all I or anyone else will ever known, it could very well have been the chance encounter with the more famous Renaissance play. The fact of the matter is I am unable to say with anything like definitive proof. At this point, all I've just offered on this bit, at least, is nothing less than pure speculation. What is verifiable is that the real Phillipa was inspired to search out and become a member of the Edinburgh Ricardians. This happened as far back as at or about 2004 to 5, more or less, however. It was a lifelong project of enthusiasm, however, it was never a mad dash from one point to the other, as the film's pacing makes it out to be. In addition, the real Ashdown-Hill was able to demonstrate conclusive evidence that Richard's remains were never dumped into a local river known as the Soar at the same time as Langley began her studies. With all these caveats in mind, the film still manages to get a lot of things right. </div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the most surprising thing that Frears is able to nail down well is the character of Phillipa herself. While it's true some aspects of the scholar's real life are compressed for the sake of dramatic presentation, the one aspect of reality that both the director and actress Sally Hawkins manage to capture well is the sense of Langley's actual personality. It's the one element of reality that Frears manages to turn into the constant keynote that is able to carry the picture from start to finish. In life, as on the screen, Langley conveys this air of someone who is determined to prove to others that she can handle herself well with the minimum of assistance. Go and hunt down any available footage of the real Phillipa, and you'll see a woman with this almost stoic sense self-awareness. She's polite, kind, soft-spoken. Yet there's also this quiet, insistent, admirable stubborn streak to her nature. If she knows what she wants, then she'll do her best to achieve her goals. The underlying core of everything she does is to make others realize that she is not some kind of cripple, or helpless damsel in need of rescue.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn_AiExT0wvpWVGIlyC8RU1VnlMT4u1CzLKGWzzVzidqaOQnlJU91QgO-0i4_HH63wlkS1W7y0qP251zDolS31mXDxUvyrA-1KEIe4xDdL8MiqrWARGAQbGEJJaLX4q7ZWlMAoa3LkJ4SUxTOpZqxraUlDD1ErHcfDbYmSLw7aqhyqUfDbKpuF_2HdNTUe/s460/Philippa-Langley-008.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="460" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn_AiExT0wvpWVGIlyC8RU1VnlMT4u1CzLKGWzzVzidqaOQnlJU91QgO-0i4_HH63wlkS1W7y0qP251zDolS31mXDxUvyrA-1KEIe4xDdL8MiqrWARGAQbGEJJaLX4q7ZWlMAoa3LkJ4SUxTOpZqxraUlDD1ErHcfDbYmSLw7aqhyqUfDbKpuF_2HdNTUe/w640-h384/Philippa-Langley-008.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Yes, she suffers from chronic fatigue. It's the kind of thing that flairs up whenever she gets excited about or over something. However, it is never severe, and it doesn't impair her ability to function normally in the workaday world. This is something the real Langley knows, and yet it's also clear that she always chafes under the fear of being belittled and treated as a kind of inferior by anyone who would use her handicap against her as an excuse to discriminate based on the idea that she's not just a woman, but a crippled one into the bargain. Neither her gender, nor her actual symptoms may count as any legitimate strike. The sad part is none of these facts will deter those who are determined to treat her as someone less than a human being. This is the central heart of the real historian's character, and it serves as the underlying main theme of the King Richard excavation as it played out in real life. Go and watch any documentary of the actual dig and you'll see the genuine Phillipa holding her own in the face of adversity. There are a number of telling moments in the footage I've seen that say a great deal without much in the way of any big scenes of dramatic dialogue.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0N-cMjIXe_YfP5FhyhxI3HCISSydCtP3zjg3fLNz75U1qEKMDjSgnaNz2g_NMnNj0EXGzlU0RljiFHCZwcUW8RLVdJNzBebqGLwZfVZHcXFHDtDGZVCkHQmABjh9G4tuEvqdnyeVK02XHrWGfpOVwCJMnfCzkJLGDE9GOdsGPOy2mcxw875VTUtrW7TvW/s250/images.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="202" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0N-cMjIXe_YfP5FhyhxI3HCISSydCtP3zjg3fLNz75U1qEKMDjSgnaNz2g_NMnNj0EXGzlU0RljiFHCZwcUW8RLVdJNzBebqGLwZfVZHcXFHDtDGZVCkHQmABjh9G4tuEvqdnyeVK02XHrWGfpOVwCJMnfCzkJLGDE9GOdsGPOy2mcxw875VTUtrW7TvW/s1600/images.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>The first comes from when the skeleton under the car park is having his bones x-rayed by forensics. The reconstruction of the human frame reveals that Richard did in fact have a lopsided, curved spine. This means the King was to an extent, as the play has it, "Rudely stamped...Curtailed of...fair proportion. Cheated of feature by dissembling nature. Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world scarce half made up". It's a moment that the real Langley took rather hard. As it spoiled at least a part of her dreams. One of the core components of her campaign to rehabilitate Richard's popular image was that he was never any kind of hunchback. The revelation that he was seems to have taken a blow to her sense of self-worth. She wanted to prove that he was better than her. And so history goes and proves that he's was just as prone to the same jeers and mockery that she has to face on a daily basis. The shock of this is so much for her that there is actual footage of her having to beg off for a moment and collect herself in the halls outside of the forensics lab. She even has to be comforted and given a pep talk by the documentarian who is filming the whole thing. There are at least two consolations for her. One is that she is still able to prove that Richard was no royal usurper.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second one, however, might just be the most important. That at leas she now has a greater sense of kinship with a fellow handicapable. It's one of those real life grace notes that probably can't sound like much of anything to someone on the outside of the experience. To those with "inside information", however, it can sometimes mean the whole gosh damned world. For whatever reason, I can't just bring myself to dismiss that sort of thing as cold comfort for change. Not when an actual of consolation can be marked as present. The second major event that happened during to actual dig came as the skeleton of the former King of England was being packed away off to forensics for the first time. The monarch was leaving his last resting place for the first time in approximately 527 years. His death is often claimed as the end of the Middle Ages. We've inhabited several different worlds since then, and now here's this relic from the time of Chaucer and Dante, "in once more, back again". Time present somehow catching up to time past. As Richard is being packed up (all of English royalty now crammed into the confines of a package the size of a flower box) Langley is seen on camera making one simple request. She'd like to see the remains draped in the British Royal Flag, the one in reds and blues, with lions and unicorns all over it. Some protest they still don't know if it's even the genuine article or not.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkE1LrgwB9Mq6-FSL5F9u6lwk6tLC1b778LBxz1gYNhKu0lisGWHOxFd0zU3cNMzyNbu9vHENGKxuIk3soti5MFTiEn0HRYUgZOnXQnO1mWnvP9Kh_90xuTPjFj60smGudji7h1klj1EECKAUNWOnsj2WmQCc102P57UkKYsBh5Urqnav2K1SG42YjV_qf/s300/the-king-in-the-carpark8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="300" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkE1LrgwB9Mq6-FSL5F9u6lwk6tLC1b778LBxz1gYNhKu0lisGWHOxFd0zU3cNMzyNbu9vHENGKxuIk3soti5MFTiEn0HRYUgZOnXQnO1mWnvP9Kh_90xuTPjFj60smGudji7h1klj1EECKAUNWOnsj2WmQCc102P57UkKYsBh5Urqnav2K1SG42YjV_qf/w640-h361/the-king-in-the-carpark8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Phillipa remains insistent, however. So, after the briefest moments of hesitation, they agree, and the King is allowed to go to his exams with at least something of his old pomp and majesty restored. Looking at that whole scene play out in real life, from the perspective of an American who was always taught never to bow down to monarchy, it's interesting, is perhaps all I can say. It kind of makes you wonder about the values that some civilizations hold, how they are formed, and what happens to make them change over time. In any case, the point here is that these are all aspect of the real history that Frears was able to do a good job of capturing on screen. Hawkins version of Phillipa manages to capture that same sense of determined yet vulnerable strength that carried the real scholar through to victory. They never bother to dramatize the two real life moments mentioned just above, and I think the reason for that is Frears and company were worried about the audience's suspension of disbelief. Which raises an interesting conundrum. What can you do when real life starts to act like a gosh damned storybook? The best answer I've got for that is to hope you're not one of those nameless extras that gets gunned down by the bad guys in the middle of the action. The good news is that in life and fiction, Phillipa is the main character of her own story, and Frears and his team are able to tell it well.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfu-HPJshqkb87G4d2pcY44qLhacHO9_-OwFEpLeu7VomWapGLfiWEB4ZYRqBgTzKmxXxVdVtohWOuhQJXWRgb7N7Nd_wi2IYbS3UFBzoEJ7d4X8Y2rNfBcyntN4Z-XDbTwGoNXdF3wNMhQAGflndbwWRqwWPGMutiI8Dfxh89ewoIQtIjqZhyphenhyphenejazODE/s404/the-king-in-the-carpark3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfu-HPJshqkb87G4d2pcY44qLhacHO9_-OwFEpLeu7VomWapGLfiWEB4ZYRqBgTzKmxXxVdVtohWOuhQJXWRgb7N7Nd_wi2IYbS3UFBzoEJ7d4X8Y2rNfBcyntN4Z-XDbTwGoNXdF3wNMhQAGflndbwWRqwWPGMutiI8Dfxh89ewoIQtIjqZhyphenhyphenejazODE/s320/the-king-in-the-carpark3.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>That just leaves us with one of two controversies to discuss. The first concerns events brought up by the film itself. The second has to do with that third man in the drama mentioned earlier. At the heart of the first controversy lies the figure of Richard Taylor. He's pretty much the closest thing the film has to an antagonist. He's skeptical of Phillipa's claims the moment he is on-screen. He never does anything to help or otherwise provide support for the dig, and when the big discovery is made, he tries everything in his power to exclude Langley from her own success. By the end of the film, both Taylor and Langley are engaged in a bitter feud, with Phillipa trying to make sure her achievements are recognized, while Taylor is focused on making it look like all the success in the venture is owed to no more than the team at the University of Leicester. Taylor explains the motivations for all his actions when he explains in an aside to Richard Buckley that the University isn't a center for education and learning, but is instead nothing more than a business, and he was always hired to do little else than make sure its account books are always running as much in the black as humanly possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>The figure of Taylor and his portrayal have become the closest thing to a behind-the-scenes controversy that the film has to its reputation, with Taylor and his feud with Langley being a very true-to-life detail. The real Phillipa has gone on record with claims that she was sidelined when the discovery of the King's remains were made public. Going so far as to point out that her name was deliberately kept off the dig's exhumation license even though the paperwork clearly shows her as their client. Taylor and the University then compounded their guilt by letting this desire for all the glory get them entangled in a legal dispute with the Plantagenet Alliance, in yet another legal feud that lasted for several years, and proved to be of more cost than it was worth (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippa_Langley#Fall-out_with_the_University_of_Leicester">web</a>). From what I am able to tell on my own, it seems as if all of the legal right was on Phillipa's side, while Taylor and the University should have just played their hand fair and square, thus being able to acquire an even greater level of prestige to their name by sharing the glory with Langley in the first place, with no strings attached. Instead, the college's authorities seem to have dug an unnecessary pit for themselves, and that error is now being compounded, with Taylor threatening legal action over how he was portrayed in this film.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvcxBK7qBr1bZZfJExNInZnO_v2VZEYsTj0D4e46avCxJ1W5ETKOa-y7Semw5Dhrtkarsn6UJPwPgGMhw5AGsDVPH508ucmBXxIAufAKlBy2Zq9KkZFlskDWsNezbVbUxYYLcVlbYESDJ_wURMKL_4F7wM_x8bPnG3U5GeYyay7ANapCE-JQ74fTaOiOK/s1280/maxresdefault.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvcxBK7qBr1bZZfJExNInZnO_v2VZEYsTj0D4e46avCxJ1W5ETKOa-y7Semw5Dhrtkarsn6UJPwPgGMhw5AGsDVPH508ucmBXxIAufAKlBy2Zq9KkZFlskDWsNezbVbUxYYLcVlbYESDJ_wURMKL_4F7wM_x8bPnG3U5GeYyay7ANapCE-JQ74fTaOiOK/w640-h360/maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>It's a series of useless gestures motivated by greed, and perhaps even worse, the idea that someone like Phillipa Langley is less than deserving of praise and acknowledgement due to both her gender, as well as her handicap. There is nothing either objective, or academically respectable to these maneuvers. As long as the University of Leicester and its representatives keep up this behavior, they deserve to lose as much face and skin in the game as possible. Aside from all this, however, remains the third and largely unspoken subject in this story. There's one more character in back of Phillipa Langley's search for Richard III. He's been there almost from the beginning, while also managing to get sidelined in his own right as the drama of history unfolded. Despite this, he was always still there, hiding just off in the wings. Everyone still has a kind of passing, common familiarity with him, and a great deal of his writing has entered our common lexicon. The third man I am talking about is of course, none other than William Shakespeare himself. While the Bard of Avon is never treated as a villain himself, both fact and fiction do make the valid case that his portrayal of Richard was based on misinformation.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mzUPYwkcSNlEq1GAqiYw3J8lI6GoBx7pz2b5QQac2tKDpAmVGA-RoeHE2QRsJIbww4cZsD_TQGuj8DEK2sY80PFCnY5gd95lyGATnFeqIE9J-xfaNYkDah5rwPrxi6rjf9ooZM34b5LN-VdtripKGLVNC5ycjTSZhqUzzRaihTFHYZldSDSb0FBNy3Xg/s584/30620366283.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mzUPYwkcSNlEq1GAqiYw3J8lI6GoBx7pz2b5QQac2tKDpAmVGA-RoeHE2QRsJIbww4cZsD_TQGuj8DEK2sY80PFCnY5gd95lyGATnFeqIE9J-xfaNYkDah5rwPrxi6rjf9ooZM34b5LN-VdtripKGLVNC5ycjTSZhqUzzRaihTFHYZldSDSb0FBNy3Xg/s320/30620366283.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>The punchline worth pointing out in all this is that it is just possible to claim this is a fact that perhaps even Shakespeare himself was aware of, and that his own thoughts pertaining to matters of royalty were a lot less cut and dried than plays like <i>Richard</i> or <i>The Henriad</i> cycle might lead you to think. To start with, ask yourself this question. What is the main picture that Shakespeare paints of government, royalty, and monarchy in general? While I can't speak for others on this, my own observations lead me to just one conclusion. The vast majority of the plays present a very skeptical image of rulers and monarchy on the whole. From leaders such as Claudius (<i>Hamlet</i>), Brutus or Cassius (<i>Julius Caesar</i>), or Lady Macbeth and her doomed husband. To those more indirect schemers who bring about disorder while preferring to stay hid in the shadows, like Iago from <i>Othello</i>, or Malvolio from <i>Twelfth Night</i>. Even in the case of lesser known names from the Bard's rogues gallery such as Angelo in <i>Measure for Measure</i> and the title character of the often overlooked play <i>Richard II</i>, all of the compiled evidence goes together to paint the picture of an artist with a very dim view of the ruling classes overall.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, this aura of skepticism toward authority figures who wield their power over others in unlawful ways tends to be regarded by both scholars and casual fans as one of the keynotes of Shakespeare's artistry. It's kind of what he's known best for, in other words. A lot of the reason for that seems to be the way his writings have of tapping into the ever-present fear that all cultures and civilizations have that sooner or later the levers of power will fall into the hands of someone who can only ever concentrate on his own needs and desires; the demands of justice and any actual good of the people be damned. Even in the case of <i>Richard III</i>, this sense of skepticism prevails. While scholars like Langley remain focused on saving a name from the slings and arrows of a bad reputation, Shakespeare himself appears more concerned with bigger fish. All of his best work rests in asking a single question. What is the difference between a just and unlawful form of government? What makes for a good leader, and how or why do some with potential fall into the worst tragic fates imaginable? It helps to keep in mind that this is not an interrogation that Shakespeare is willing to spare even the victims in his plays from.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqB4AKDF5KcSRyw9rJueuPjFXZQl2WTJMhL0tFqQenurEWzy4jSGGyGFx85E1AHOymio3O5hWWw17FwatYOnjE8GzC0Vz1w2APQA-vvucXWNoIGewlN1AKvqILugJzbG4B_C1oTTvGsMbhTDc3bne0bac1-FQPqC8Ed9SYODahiU56WyRmQK6OgvxzTyZK/s856/0028771.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="856" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqB4AKDF5KcSRyw9rJueuPjFXZQl2WTJMhL0tFqQenurEWzy4jSGGyGFx85E1AHOymio3O5hWWw17FwatYOnjE8GzC0Vz1w2APQA-vvucXWNoIGewlN1AKvqILugJzbG4B_C1oTTvGsMbhTDc3bne0bac1-FQPqC8Ed9SYODahiU56WyRmQK6OgvxzTyZK/w640-h358/0028771.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Take the character of Julius Caesar, for instance. Here the writer can't dispute that the death in question counts as a tragedy, of a specific sort. What he wants us to pay close attention to is the personal flaw that both contributes to, and ultimately allows the tragedy to take place. At one point in the play, Caesar admits to being "deaf in one ear", and that line is significant. It is the artist's way of signaling to the audience that the title character (both on the stage, as well as in actual Roman history) always carries his fatal flaw about with him wherever he goes. This tells us two things about the leader of Rome. The first is that he is aware of his personal deficiencies, yet he treats it too lightly when it needs addressing the most. Caesar's inability to hear properly corresponds to a lack of perception in terms of both the plot on his life, as well as (both history and the play imply) to his ability to function as a just ruler. The play is then revealed as a kind of double tragedy. The first stems from the flaws of Caesar. The second comes from the fact that this is a flaw he appears to share with his own assassins. Despite all their talk of liberty, both Brutus and Cassius wind up quarreling too much amongst themselves, and their compatriots to effect anything like a positive change. They too are also blind to potential threats.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_wBsGZ9mYOryEdBbYZ7b32W9pTwBjiqZglYYn5c9Ec2Arn9tvhH5fB9RdziEi9umSuUWM7fv7ABBN9h18HQ1yX8FOWWyVHPoa3ta9VjwZgXofzqPYHucbazMXR76TV7cPcWkO6yyNPG4d0J0feq_A5QvFIBs0O0N5FQH8VzRNWTitVDCAyGH_xNWcMsu/s350/91xc03PMmCL._AC_UF350,350_QL50_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="234" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_wBsGZ9mYOryEdBbYZ7b32W9pTwBjiqZglYYn5c9Ec2Arn9tvhH5fB9RdziEi9umSuUWM7fv7ABBN9h18HQ1yX8FOWWyVHPoa3ta9VjwZgXofzqPYHucbazMXR76TV7cPcWkO6yyNPG4d0J0feq_A5QvFIBs0O0N5FQH8VzRNWTitVDCAyGH_xNWcMsu/s320/91xc03PMmCL._AC_UF350,350_QL50_.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>They don't figure on the cunning of Marc Antony to turn all of Rome against them. Nor do they prove capable of surviving well on the field of battle. The entire play, then, becomes a satirical condemnation of tyranny in not just one, but numerous forms. It is an exercise in almost perfect irony, where both the victim and his murderers wind up having so much in common with each other that they are all blinded by this obvious aspect of their intwined enterprises. What plays like this seem to tell us is that Shakespeare was the type of person who would always bow to the crown when in its presence, yet there would always be a difference between lip service in public, and one's own personal political convictions one held in private. This was not an uncommon occurrence even during the height of what is still often touted as a New Era of Learning and Thought. To be fair, there's no need to label such terms for the Renaissance as any sort of lie. It's more a matter of two incompatible truths forced to occupy the same space. A man can reach the conclusion that it is more just for the people to exercise their own free will in the decisions of government, and of autonomy over their own lives, while also having to live in the exact sort of social conditions which negate any possibility of realizing this same Democratic idea.</div><div><br /></div><div>I share the conviction with <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/literature/renaissance-and-early-modern-literature/shakespeare-and-republicanism?format=HB&isbn=9780521816076">Hadfield</a>, <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/tyrant/">Greenblatt</a>, and <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/clare-asquith/shakespeare-and-the-resistance/9781568588117/?lens=publicaffairs">Asquith</a> that the Bard of Avon's own political views came to rest in a form of pre-American Liberal political thought. Like many of the other great names of his age, Shakespeare began to see how it was possible for a people to live free from the yoke of any sort of crown. Part of the tension that fired his imagination, then, stemmed from the burden of this growing sense of Democracy, coupled with the fact that his own society offered little chance for a man to realize such ideals. A related strand of thought which completed the artist's crisis was the growing awareness that the overall policies of the crown both at home and abroad was in danger of draining the life out of English culture, leaving behind nothing but people as hollowed out husks, rather than free citizens in an open culture capable of thriving under the best possible Humanist ideals. It was this double awareness both of the tyranny of monarchy and its threat to the ideals of justice that fired his Imagination throughout his career, and allowed him to become the Immortal Bard that we know and can still remember to this day. So how does this apply to the case of Phillipa Langley and Richard III?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitGFq4iWqS7dy4TQAkQIwZp0vRWEO2wywq7BsZgBUFUNUrYEjYVLJHMR90-uUVmT94fUjC3McJtkfp7rj6AMD28sPOPF0K26YnRcjotmCB6GxcCdE4N6IWKzzsf2HBWGZkSqqIWaK5notWGQ5v7WopE6ayCeZP6eo1l6GhOTSqFWUosvWe0IvIY3DdFDhp/s1200/William-Shakespeare-classical-literature.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1200" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitGFq4iWqS7dy4TQAkQIwZp0vRWEO2wywq7BsZgBUFUNUrYEjYVLJHMR90-uUVmT94fUjC3McJtkfp7rj6AMD28sPOPF0K26YnRcjotmCB6GxcCdE4N6IWKzzsf2HBWGZkSqqIWaK5notWGQ5v7WopE6ayCeZP6eo1l6GhOTSqFWUosvWe0IvIY3DdFDhp/w640-h368/William-Shakespeare-classical-literature.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Well, from what I've read and am able to tell, Shakespeare would have been astounded by this discovery as much as any of the rest of us were. At the same time, he would have exercised a greater sense of public discretion (certainly much better than that displayed by the likes of Richard Taylor), while also not valuing it as much as others. The thing that has to be emphasized here is that while it's true he was and remains the author of <i>Richard III</i>, it's not the same as claiming the writer is a fan of those who stood against him at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Instead, it's more a case of the artist having to write a play at the request of someone in the ruling class, or else it was the type of performance he had to put on in order to further his own position as a struggling, poor player from an otherwise unremarkable middle class background. In fact, even when the Bard had his fame guaranteed as part of the King's Men, when all was done, he remained stuck in his position as a middleclass, lower end white collar worker. In fact, his final years were spent having to supplement his income by working in both farming and cattle marketing. He was never able to live off the income from his plays. It just wasn't allowed in England back then, like it is now, you see. So nothing is quite what it seems.</div><div><br /></div><div>Plays like <i>Richard III</i> may amount to nothing more than inaccurate Tudor propaganda meant to bolster <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300212716/making-make-believe-real/">the claims of the right of monarchs</a> like Elizabeth I to the throne. The key thing that has to be kept in mind is that it was very much a <i>command performance</i> sort of work. The man who first wrote and then staged it all knew he was being forced to do little more than act like a performing monkey for the pleasure of a ruling class that probably saw the making of potentially great works of Art as all beneath them. For them, the thrill of domination over others was all. The rest were just insubstantial shadows. What I'm saying is that I don't think Shakespeare gave any more of a shit about King Richard than he did for either Elizabeth or James I. In the end, for him it was all just a matter of figuring out how to survive the unpredictable whims of a bunch of power junkies with a firm grip on the levers of power. For him, it was more a matter of finding the right ways to balance two conflicting requirements. The Bard had to please the crown whenever it demanded a diversion (which, to his inevitable chagrin, came about perhaps a bit more often than he would have liked) while also finding ways to stay true to his own voice as an artist. The fact that his plays testify to his ultimate success is its own tribute to perseverance.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuiLbD5n6NwKUQlTICKCKVOJS6Xxh5ipbQfeAFNf7Si6AVw-e-wYwC0Ke_ffwY4iWxoVqWrlKsg9k76QTNAnGXldfVMYR6pMEjpJ6-TakxrDG1Q_OjwGfHMQtKJYz4DjTjd1P3n6V9LvKOvbrEEkVH68oq4qwq7y-zErctH1bmMGBmWXDvoOehkUI1MmDg/s1503/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_d7c3757e-459b-11ed-abc9-d0d53e948d21.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="1202" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuiLbD5n6NwKUQlTICKCKVOJS6Xxh5ipbQfeAFNf7Si6AVw-e-wYwC0Ke_ffwY4iWxoVqWrlKsg9k76QTNAnGXldfVMYR6pMEjpJ6-TakxrDG1Q_OjwGfHMQtKJYz4DjTjd1P3n6V9LvKOvbrEEkVH68oq4qwq7y-zErctH1bmMGBmWXDvoOehkUI1MmDg/s320/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_d7c3757e-459b-11ed-abc9-d0d53e948d21.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>So what does this all amount to? Well for me, it all boils down to three things. A trio of interlocking ideas which, in the case of Phillipa Langley, King Richard III and William Shakespeare, all come together to deliver an interesting message about the ways in which we tend to look at life. Rather, let's say the final results amount to an interesting satire on the narrowness of the reigning paradigms that structure the way we perceive the nature of reality. The first lesson a story like this teaches is that sometimes life is like a novel, of sorts. An unspoken maxim that gets drummed into us in various ways is that life is not like all the make-believe stuff your read about in pages, or watch up on the screen (or the stage, for that matter). The underlying philosophy of such advice is that the only way to survive whatever it is we mean by "the real world" is to slough off as many illusions as get in the way of having a normal life. Then along comes a girl like Phillipa, and she goes on to prove all the ways in which "the real world" sometimes confines itself to the structure of all those old storybooks we were told bear no relation whatsoever to the concerns of actual life. The second takeaway I get from this film, and the genuine facts behind it is that often there's always going to be more than a few gaps in the official accounts of ancient history. There's always going to be something left out, or a vital clue or fact about accounts like the Battle of Bosworth Field that the majority of historian manage to overlook.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think its a mistake to assign any malice aforethought to cases like this. Most of the time, when this stuff happens, when even the most diligent historians get the facts of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance wrong it's because we're all dealing with eras in which we are all so many strangers that sometimes our own history can't help but turn into a jigsaw puzzle that we just don't have all the pieces to. This makes the task of faithfully reconstructing the lives of figures like Shakespeare or Richard III a lot more difficult than if either of them were our contemporaries in the present day. We seem to be on surer ground with things that have happened to us recently, or at least that's what we hope, anyways. We can only go so far before the memory itself runs the risk of becoming a cheat. Writers like Neil Gaiman are able to demonstrate this particular ironic maxim to perfect effect in novels like <i><a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2021/02/violent-cases-1987.html">Violent Cases</a></i>. It's a fact as true in life as it is in fiction. That's why the efforts of scholars such as Langley can be of very valuable help. People like her make sure we never entirely lose ourselves to the passage of time. The final and most important lesson is that there may be some who would attempt to block others from helping us to make sure the truth of history isn't distorted by setting up roadblocks for anyone who would wish to make sure that the whole truth of real life experience is given its full hearing.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJbWhqQoG9B93S_sUGCjBNa1XPHk9ffW3CywlTZoZMH2VJoeS3Rb_DesbXkoc4f-ZYvSgC2I-S0VOaHTi6-_dzmSLpKDF-XKl8M7QkLQQTPx_S0WXEjNmZu3INCpXKnRnbnyfDMglSjdqvx_J5E31N_jJr-aRroKTLrSQVz7gxJQ0u2IrybctMwYW2vV5W/s2029/Untitled-11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1058" data-original-width="2029" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJbWhqQoG9B93S_sUGCjBNa1XPHk9ffW3CywlTZoZMH2VJoeS3Rb_DesbXkoc4f-ZYvSgC2I-S0VOaHTi6-_dzmSLpKDF-XKl8M7QkLQQTPx_S0WXEjNmZu3INCpXKnRnbnyfDMglSjdqvx_J5E31N_jJr-aRroKTLrSQVz7gxJQ0u2IrybctMwYW2vV5W/w640-h334/Untitled-11.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>The Richard Taylors of the world seem to operate less on the assumption that it's possible to form a useful consensus on the facts of history or life in general, and more on the warped notion that everything that can be said to exist does so for no other reasons except those of various forms of personal gain and aggrandizement. The problem with such an outlook is not only that it obscures the truth from people, it does so often at the expense of others. In the case of Phillipa Langley, one can't shake the idea a lot of it has to do with questions of discrimination in terms of both gender and handicap. When issues like this get in the way of the purpose of discovering the truth, that is always the moment when the risk of danger comes into play, and the hazards involved threaten to become too great to be taken lightly. It's a lesson to be learned from well made films like this, and the history it seeks to recount. Which perhaps winds up the biggest feather in Stephen Frears cap. He's managed to make a docudrama that is able to meet the biggest hurdle facing this type of movie. It is able to both tell an entertaining story, while remaining true enough to the facts of the case by never stretching things beyond the account history. All of these are enough reasons for a hearty recommendation from me. </div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-82947714299609361092024-02-25T00:00:00.000-06:002024-02-25T00:00:22.182-06:00Three Types of Modern Prose and Their Readers.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ykZAGGF-sLDpeifN6L7H-oNZeR1E6o-VTG04XVF0jqyeJfzAu4I5fH7uc8lA5coTptcO0gIa11BzM35OY0WfmHhM2ow7pA8dfkzZouQKyT1CK_1V9KcVZocHCoU5MiQD3d9aZLxTCMorPxNxlIdHBmnJ6eT5MEwKXpADn_OPQBNDxEKeYRMPgoN7pfUE/s500/9780486447988-us.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="311" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ykZAGGF-sLDpeifN6L7H-oNZeR1E6o-VTG04XVF0jqyeJfzAu4I5fH7uc8lA5coTptcO0gIa11BzM35OY0WfmHhM2ow7pA8dfkzZouQKyT1CK_1V9KcVZocHCoU5MiQD3d9aZLxTCMorPxNxlIdHBmnJ6eT5MEwKXpADn_OPQBNDxEKeYRMPgoN7pfUE/w191-h307/9780486447988-us.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>In some ways, I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Ebert for this one. Even if what I'm about to write ends up on a different critical outlook from that of the beloved film critic for the Chicago Times, credit has to go where it's due. It was Roger who got the gears in my mind turning. This whole article is therefore best thought of as something like his accidental brainchild. It also owes its existence to the work of one other famous artistic personality. This would be the once noted Horror writer, Peter Straub. In fact, it was an observation made by the critic about the author that got this whole thing started. During the course of his review of a film adaptation of Straub's 1979 novel, <i>Ghost Story</i>, Ebert mentions how he once tried to get into the literary source material. His own reaction to the book was that, in his words, "<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I plugged away at it for what must have been hundreds of pages before his unspeakable prose finally got to me. At least, he knows how to make a good story, if not how to tell it, and that is one way in which the book and the movie of “Ghost Story” differ (<a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ghost-story-1981">web</a>)". Ebert then goes on to qualify his judgment call in the following terms.</span></span><div><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The movie is told with style. It goes without saying that style is the most important single element in every ghost story, since without it even the most ominous events disintegrate into silliness. And “Ghost Story,” perhaps aware that if characters talk too much they disperse the tension, adopts a very economical story-telling approach. Dialogue comes in short, straightforward sentences. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Background is provided without being allowed to distract from the main event. The characters are established with quick, subtle strokes". Then, he closes it all off with the simple judgment call of: "This is a good movie (ibid)". Well, for what it's worth, I took his advice, or recommendation, and gave the film a watch. Even after trying to keep as open a mind as possible, I'm afraid I'll still have to side with another critic, Bill Sheehan, who in his critical study, <i><a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2019/10/at-foot-of-story-tree-inquiry-into.html">At the Foot of the Story Tree</a></i>, described the movie version of <i>Ghost Story</i>, as "a marvel of missed opportunities (80)". Nor does the divergence of critical opinion end there. My own experience of reading the original novel was and remains a complete opposite.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjanObG1gWFB6pHo1RUQNdCoARkfaci8fWljOzqE_h_ZhriLFYdsQCr-2adnzGk4F94z0Sj0MtdOUoeKMw0ziYf-ASYx9zyBdKf-YKrPkYqgVmY8uB-KXsj3K85VD4sk5C2cJTux4H5cvfTzxhJ8tVA8pmjbOJbE9sUBQwKZMF4uE9QQ95WGvRVI2Wt5_ia/s823/siskel-sports-16_9.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="823" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjanObG1gWFB6pHo1RUQNdCoARkfaci8fWljOzqE_h_ZhriLFYdsQCr-2adnzGk4F94z0Sj0MtdOUoeKMw0ziYf-ASYx9zyBdKf-YKrPkYqgVmY8uB-KXsj3K85VD4sk5C2cJTux4H5cvfTzxhJ8tVA8pmjbOJbE9sUBQwKZMF4uE9QQ95WGvRVI2Wt5_ia/w640-h320/siskel-sports-16_9.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />I almost want to claim that Ebert and I must have been reading dissimilar novels by entirely different authors. So here I was faced with a challenge. How do I account for the differences of opinion between Sheehan and myself, versus those of one half of Siskel and Ebert? </span>It was the kind of remark that didn't just get my attention, it sort of forced me to take what Ebert was saying with a certain degree of seriousness. The trouble is that doing so kind of forced me to confront a series of interrelated question. For instance, what counts as "good prose"? How does this maxim translate into "good writing"? In other words, what kind of prose makes for a "good story"? More to the point, can there ever be anything such as a perfect, indelible, and unassailable prose style when it comes to judging the quality of any given artistic work, whether a movie, or a book? I'm sure many of you reading this have already arrived at what seems to be the obvious conclusion. If you are one of these readers, then you can go ahead and skip all of what I'm about to say next. This article is not directed at any of you.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGpHecq9dKvZKQLdhKVuPkoErB8SMteG054SASHjlOawdo7Egy_M9RS-RLao4SeAwgTFeRiRQ_I4NonzfyRhGins7Snb9BGqhvKizRmBd3sP2gu-2imvAG2AQWjb2hvHL5zR4dguWbJPRgGSCT750UyWXq40CDY0rOabOpqQS8FBV2IMOuLOepS_XGPSk/s1000/51QYX0S1KAL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="680" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGpHecq9dKvZKQLdhKVuPkoErB8SMteG054SASHjlOawdo7Egy_M9RS-RLao4SeAwgTFeRiRQ_I4NonzfyRhGins7Snb9BGqhvKizRmBd3sP2gu-2imvAG2AQWjb2hvHL5zR4dguWbJPRgGSCT750UyWXq40CDY0rOabOpqQS8FBV2IMOuLOepS_XGPSk/w186-h274/51QYX0S1KAL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="186" /></a></div>Instead, I think this is a topic that needs to be addressed to the novices in the audience. I think it's worth devoting some time and space here to an examination of the different types of writing styles to be found in works of prose fiction. I think it's worth making such an effort in an attempt to meet the kind of challenge that Ebert's words set before any attentive student of literature (which is what I at least <i>hope</i> I am). It's also a subject worth trying to tackle because of the light it might be able to help us shine on the different ways there are of <i>reading</i> as well as the art and craft of <i>writing</i>. In essence, what you've got here is the kind of work that appeals most to a former high school going on college level English Major. The sort of work that "Book People" will get excited about, in other words. Articles like this always tend to run the risk of vanishing into the hazy mists of academic thought, and leaving the casual reader lost in the forest, unable to tell the different between the woods and the trees.</div><div><br /></div><div>My promise (or at the very least, my <i>hope</i>?) is to avoid making this a boring slog by avoiding both too much technical detail, and (again, <i>trying</i>, anyway) to provide what I regard as various snippets and examples of what I consider to be Good Prose in the most genuine sense of the term. That being passages of narrative action and description that not only demonstrate what good writing is like, but also does something else. I tend to think the ultimate value of any good work of fiction lies in its ability to entertain its audience. This is the ultimate goal to aim for, before any other. Even if you're someone like Jon Swift or Mark Twain, and you want to bear your heart and soul in an effort to awaken your readers to the danger of racial injustice, all the good intentions in the world will turn to dust in an arena like this if you can't make a compelling narrative that grabs your audience by the throat and won't let go until the last line has been written and read. It is the story, and its ability to entertain, which is the deciding factor here. Applying it to an article like this means I'm going to have to make sure each passage from a book I might choose for demonstration is good enough to help keep the reader engaged.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksXX7_PBX4tsS2jvOPITseGBro8_eFhIOghyphenhyphenJSc6Xm4_EolDTFlxJS3Cl8geM7gMcoBvgKBokOEkl-Sw-Kv6xkqBQJ1JMyx2HwvSrdahUTCvHTIEL49EPqA4pW2CMgpJSWlnCn3y7AFgKtHIPz7unv8ejNZkxfivNqzt7SMSUXFkFJX4SiNwIrT76J0-T/s1100/gettyimages-809586050_custom-75af89e3bc328face6aba78c3fcf9a9dc2380550-s1100-c50.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="677" data-original-width="1100" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksXX7_PBX4tsS2jvOPITseGBro8_eFhIOghyphenhyphenJSc6Xm4_EolDTFlxJS3Cl8geM7gMcoBvgKBokOEkl-Sw-Kv6xkqBQJ1JMyx2HwvSrdahUTCvHTIEL49EPqA4pW2CMgpJSWlnCn3y7AFgKtHIPz7unv8ejNZkxfivNqzt7SMSUXFkFJX4SiNwIrT76J0-T/w640-h394/gettyimages-809586050_custom-75af89e3bc328face6aba78c3fcf9a9dc2380550-s1100-c50.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>It also means above all that I shouldn't get lost in the woods, and that I make sure the same applies to anyone kind enough to give me their valuable time of day. The good news here is that we don't have far to go. A careful look around at the contemporary writing scene has let me know that there are just a handful of choices left open to any would-be word-slinger. All current ink-stained wretches have the limited options of just <i>three</i> styles of prose manners or voices to choose from. Each of them are easy to distinguish and arrange into their respective categories, and there are enough good representatives of the "best and brightest" of each class of style to make this an interesting enough romp for those who either care about this sort of thing, or else are just hanging around looking for useful recommendation of any book out there whose contents at least <i>sounds</i> good enough to see if cracking their spines open is worth the effort. So, with that in mind, let's take a look at what we mean by the term: Good Prose.<span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>The Spartan Style.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzIkOxIcbQcrjYK4HRSgUsx533nwQqjhlgA5FfkMDN6rfiyN5DxeEuk8wy_eUcfak-OQ6qH2ImI-SC-TatFI-GpPGzJVsI6L59qBgPrZT6y1HDRhAn6-wcrSLNeIY65K-tXeZFXjRdMmvLWSCEnUSHm3qonDfFaeZJQKSodE5xFe7EvvrbP7oIFTR9lTO/s1000/61Rwh+ujg7L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="703" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzIkOxIcbQcrjYK4HRSgUsx533nwQqjhlgA5FfkMDN6rfiyN5DxeEuk8wy_eUcfak-OQ6qH2ImI-SC-TatFI-GpPGzJVsI6L59qBgPrZT6y1HDRhAn6-wcrSLNeIY65K-tXeZFXjRdMmvLWSCEnUSHm3qonDfFaeZJQKSodE5xFe7EvvrbP7oIFTR9lTO/s320/61Rwh+ujg7L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>As I've said above, all modern writing can be divided into three types of prose. Since I don't think I've ever heard anyone give these styles anything like a definitive terminology, I'm sort of thrown back on having to come up with my own labels for them. As a result, my personal classification of the three levels of prose all correspond to the three classes of writers I've run across in my history as a reader. They are: the Spartans, the Middle Grounders, and the Lyricists. These to my knowledge, are the three ways in which modern prose composition takes place. For the moment, I'm going to hold off on the question of which style is the strongest or best. Right now, it'll be enough just to give the audience a general idea or basic definition of each specific style, as well as a good example or two of what they're like in operation. I'm going to have to walk the reader through each type one at a time here. The reason for that is because letting each writing method have its own space is necessary if you want to get a better grasp of how they differ from one another. So we'll go with the spare style, as a good start.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Spartans are perhaps best described as any of those writers who belong to that particular category of composition where the prose runs to the spare and minimum of detail and expression. The best examples of this method of writing can found in those authors whose prose always tends to come out with a quick, crisp, and clear, no nonsense clarity. Another good way to describe the Spartan prose is that it's what might be termed a constant exercise in literary economy, or the preservation of detail. This style prefers the plain, straightforward statement of imaginary facts. "This is what happened", no more or less. Any good writer worth the title knows that in order to succeed as a novelist, sooner or later you've always got to go out on a limb and give the reader all the juicy details necessary for them to sink their teeth into, and make the story worth reading. The best writers in this category will deliver the goods, it's just that they are always going to do this in such a way as to conserve and compress the necessary narrative effect well within the space of just a few lines of prose. The Spartan style is the kind that tends to shun ornamentation. A good sample of what this style looks like can go as follows:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfDL8Oc_B6epfufWis2rw0bnQXKt6-0r1U9bhmpD_oYLKpsFLGx1RAWFE_VJxNtPhw-zdzycrZ-Z3OTHOJgsYGJQ6e6oxHrbVuytlW0ps1hCGljNdbfmLm-EOP_nsM3Sm09u0h6J0h22dR_8LUXJVJdY4H_myi-JCBoIDDNAyoDOc22Z2EqWdyif8_Zw3A/s720/k35jlk53j5lk3j5-d3de55d2ceecda4a972632767507aadc.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfDL8Oc_B6epfufWis2rw0bnQXKt6-0r1U9bhmpD_oYLKpsFLGx1RAWFE_VJxNtPhw-zdzycrZ-Z3OTHOJgsYGJQ6e6oxHrbVuytlW0ps1hCGljNdbfmLm-EOP_nsM3Sm09u0h6J0h22dR_8LUXJVJdY4H_myi-JCBoIDDNAyoDOc22Z2EqWdyif8_Zw3A/w640-h360/k35jlk53j5lk3j5-d3de55d2ceecda4a972632767507aadc.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />"It all began the day the world exploded. Gerald was somewhere else at the time. He wasn't anywhere near the eruption when it happened. He just had the luck to get a good front-row seat. Gerald didn't know why the world had to explode like that. He kind of liked the great big place, on the whole. It wasn't as if he asked to be where he was now, with a good view of creation being torn asunder. With the echo of the explosion ringing in his ears. He just knew that something like fate, chance, or ill will had placed him where he was now".</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvwhG_eYQOE5xoj_vQBM64iIPlcK8NxkRGXQgVtiOIXM-GtTXr6s0p7AceeH_RdCdaEtMWrsJPRFxeOM1jU9G7E5JUMsWobIUpovQVWbHJNNqd0YqetWsP-4-v-3RHpGGQdT2gMyvHwz7rAYUQlzcTo6_8qDcCzKhULBT7oLyVLNAvVLedvwJKDNdrOOy/s576/cq5dam.web.1280.1280.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="498" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvwhG_eYQOE5xoj_vQBM64iIPlcK8NxkRGXQgVtiOIXM-GtTXr6s0p7AceeH_RdCdaEtMWrsJPRFxeOM1jU9G7E5JUMsWobIUpovQVWbHJNNqd0YqetWsP-4-v-3RHpGGQdT2gMyvHwz7rAYUQlzcTo6_8qDcCzKhULBT7oLyVLNAvVLedvwJKDNdrOOy/s320/cq5dam.web.1280.1280.jpeg" width="277" /></a></div>This segment of prose is one you won't find in any published text. It's just a line of description that I've been carrying around nowhere else except within the confines of my own head for some time now. This is sort of the first chance I've ever had to put it to something like good use. It's about the best place to begin a discussion of the Spartan prose. It fulfills all the criteria listed above. Every sentence in the paragraph is brief and to the point. The style winds up catered to deliver each narrative detail like a quick, glancing blow of information. Each unit is sparing, while also containing just enough detail to leave the reader wanting to know more of what's going on, and even how this all happened. The information in the paragraph is doled out one sentence at a time. Each dollop of narrative detail is also structured for a desired maximum effect. This should result in a reaction of stunned disbelief in what the audience is reading, coupled with the necessary desire to want to know more of what's going on. The fact that each bit of the narrative is contained within just the sparest bit of sentence means the opening has a sharp sense of forward moment. The Spartan style is being used here to move the narrative along at what is hopefully a fairly brisk pace. There's the general sense of things happening fast in real time, and that momentum should be able to grab the reader, and pull them along with ease.</div><div><br /></div><div>With any luck, that can serve as a good opening example of what the Spartan style of writing can be like. It's time now, I think, to see how actual writers use this technique in their work. Let's start out with another opening paragraph. This time, it'll come from the pages of a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver, titled, <i>Will You Please Be Quiet</i>, <i>Please</i>? It's from a short piece called "Neighbors", and it's opening paragraph goes something like this. "Bill and Arlene Miller were a happy couple. But now and then they felt they alone among their circle had been passed by somehow, leaving Bill to attend to his bookkeeping duties and Arlene occupied with secretarial chores. They talked about it sometimes, mostly in comparison with the lives of their neighbors, Harriet and Jim Stone. It seemed to the Millers that the Stones lived a fuller and brighter life. The Stones were always going out for dinner, or entertaining at home, or traveling about the country somewhere in connection with Jim's work (7)'.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVVLvX_TtFPfATxPx43i42-0tAOv5hZX-JOC7IUhTYcuc2utcSqrc8U0dUAyLwDBIwSwt22PzqDqFhYQ-o4w79KZt2FQ5acYobvg1-anYxvCIsUbZLRFFl05OUC_y7idOpU7e3x_aSH0NLOVk8UE90S50NRpTWGaTyjxXJWLVw0tBrVUhqak2K3EOPHIek/s700/Carver-SWL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="700" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVVLvX_TtFPfATxPx43i42-0tAOv5hZX-JOC7IUhTYcuc2utcSqrc8U0dUAyLwDBIwSwt22PzqDqFhYQ-o4w79KZt2FQ5acYobvg1-anYxvCIsUbZLRFFl05OUC_y7idOpU7e3x_aSH0NLOVk8UE90S50NRpTWGaTyjxXJWLVw0tBrVUhqak2K3EOPHIek/w640-h286/Carver-SWL.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Right away, you can tell that we're already a step or two up in terms of quality. Whereas the first sample provided in this section is serviceable as an introduction of sorts, it's also runs the risk of being too terse for its own good. There's the sense that the writing is either going to have to expand the canvas of its narrative, or else run the risk of playing meager stylistic games. Carver, in contrast, is able to take the literary minimalist approach and turn it to his own advantage. Once more the sentences are all crisp and concise, with the style always keeping a clear eye on the economy of expression. What sets Carver's own efforts way above mine is not just that he's a natural pro at his job. He goes further by finding all the right ways to pack in as much expressive detail within the confines of the minimalist idiom. It allows Carver to locate and net all the words he needs to draw the reader into the predicament of his story, and more important the lives of his characters. Carver's greatest skill set rested in his ability as a chronicler of the drama to be found and mined in the ordinary days of working and middle class Americans. His narratives remained life-size and predominantly focused on the here and now. This meant all of his skills would have to rest on his ability to make his characters at least <i>seem</i> real.</div><div><br /></div><div>The way Carver demonstrated the scope of his talent and achievements in this field of literature was by learning the right balance between conservation of detail, and the inherent need of any story to tell as much of what happened as possible. The fact that he was always able to breath the semblance of life into his imaginary stage performers as they all went through the motions of everyday travails, while adhering to the strictures of the Spartan prose, says a great deal about his skills and abilities as a writer. Before moving on, we have just one other sample to look through, and here is perhaps where a bit of a pleasant surprise comes in. Rather than spoil things upfront, I'll just let the words of author David Morrell speak for themselves.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnY71N6CxdoL_QLzZUrzIq6pHSl09ICg9mzda7FWod_fipJ-sCZvietcmr96ekSZoLet0Mrrix2EuFBE5hROy_hRlhNfiSDaxddZhf8SGsUbqfB7A3SlTnRnJRM_g8AUdHDz6nvf6N3NObinYMM-G2_EhaoLIFPco8StlUEMAnPSnr_vjBQba3OLpSwZOP/s320/david_morrell.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="232" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnY71N6CxdoL_QLzZUrzIq6pHSl09ICg9mzda7FWod_fipJ-sCZvietcmr96ekSZoLet0Mrrix2EuFBE5hROy_hRlhNfiSDaxddZhf8SGsUbqfB7A3SlTnRnJRM_g8AUdHDz6nvf6N3NObinYMM-G2_EhaoLIFPco8StlUEMAnPSnr_vjBQba3OLpSwZOP/w201-h277/david_morrell.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>"His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station at the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky. He had a long heavy beard, and his hair was hanging down over his ears and neck, and he had his hand out trying to thumb a ride from a car that was stopped at the pump. To see him there, leaning on one hip, a Coke bottle in his hand and a rolled-up sleeping bag near his boots on the tar pavement, you could never have guessed that on Tuesday, a day later, most of the police in Basalt County would be hunting him down. Certainly you could not have guessed that by Thursday he would be running from the Kentucky National Guard and the police of six counties and a good many private citizens who liked to shoot. But then from just seeing him there ragged and dusty by the pump of the gas station, you could never have figured the kind of kid Rambo was, or what was about to make it all begin. Rambo knew there was going to be trouble, though. (1)".</div><div><br /></div><div>Let's get the obvious questions that everyone is asking themselves out of the way, first. No, you're not seeing things. Yes, the name everyone and their grandparent is familiar with by now really is there. Yes, it's even the real deal. And yes, for the record, Sylvester Stallone's career revival movie <i>First Blood</i> is, in fact, based on a book. Suffice to say, that's a discussion for another time. Our focus remains on the author's skill as a minimalist. In terms of mastery of style, it can be argued that Morrell takes a step or two further into the technical heights of the Spartan approach to literary composition. The chief way he does this is by doing little else besides trying to push against the boundaries of the form, in an effort to see how far he can stretch the format without ever breaking free of it altogether. What this means in terms of actual practice is that there's a fair bit of trickery in play with how Morrell structures his sentences. He manages to pull off what in retrospect is the textual equivalent of an optical illusion. His narrative description always manages to stay within the boundaries of the Spartan approach. However, the writer also finds ways of dragging out the length of his sentences.</div><div><br /></div><div>The way Morrell does this is by letting the sentence run on for just as long as he needs it in order to pack in as much of a load of narrative detail as he thinks the Spartan form can hold. This results in narrative details like the following. "From eight to five he organized his force, interviewing the men already on the job, firing those who did not want to go nights to the shooting range or the state police night school, hiring men who did not mind extra duty, throwing out obsolete equipment and buying new, streamlining the cluttered operation that his predecessor had left when he died on the front steps of a heart attack (93)". All of that is nothing less than a single sentence. The sleight of hand trick comes from Morrell finding out how to make a single line of description do the work the work of six. Whereas most writers would take several sentences to tell all about how one of the book's two main leads organizes his day job, Morrell decides to take the risk of packing all of that info into just one, drawn out declarative statement. It's an interesting stylistic risk the author has taken here. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipHyiGd3qu-fA44uZIkHOiFlInMvTmwFCf7Balk3ceryhDDsUeIs7ppB33AWo_xcXOQarGFvCTBKbWsTaUf4_kRU6ToMlvDeo6IU2SWqCBYSerNwImaeNbaynP2T_mcEbTKePm_ZdRiFScY8-Xq_Vp63c-hfCg4Ikzyfp3A9zMwVMVcyz2rBD_Ond0g8BJ/s422/first-blood.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="422" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipHyiGd3qu-fA44uZIkHOiFlInMvTmwFCf7Balk3ceryhDDsUeIs7ppB33AWo_xcXOQarGFvCTBKbWsTaUf4_kRU6ToMlvDeo6IU2SWqCBYSerNwImaeNbaynP2T_mcEbTKePm_ZdRiFScY8-Xq_Vp63c-hfCg4Ikzyfp3A9zMwVMVcyz2rBD_Ond0g8BJ/w640-h454/first-blood.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's a credit to Morrell's skill that he appears able to have gotten away with it more or less scott-free. I can see writing instructor's like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style">the immortal Will Strunk</a> giving him a warning glare for it. However, I'm afraid I'll have to hand Morrell the laurels for artistic inventiveness in seeing how far he can take the format. It's his valiant little experimental excursions throughout the course of <i>First Blood</i> which helps to give the novice reader a sense of the Spartan style of prose writing. It is, of course, the perfect irony that the best way of demonstrating the contours of this method is to constantly try bouncing what are at least the intimations of a more expansive manner of expression against the walls of the Spartan barracks, and seeing how much stress it can take. Turns out Morrell seems to have discovered that it can bear a surprising amount of weight without breaking. I think we might have gotten as close as we can now to an understanding of the spare, classical minimalism approach to storytelling. From now on, we'll have to expand both the vocabulary and the frame in order to know the two remaining types.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Middle Grounders.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitSRTmTuCp2GCODRgcBSMwVj7QMPGNxoXNDzHAnUVq0ORsYdtPYyTj2ymyXHpfHRxuSP7YbSInL8PScHMKXqD353J4knSpvOrnS1NCM9GBucwVPgON_OL1XNJpYv8Cw6ljwWxsRJDJGwChlgv5Ch9XAfTAZdDJm14yI6jexk-DyHLN1Esd0JDNOz_5IEHy/s1000/715FIsWGVmL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="629" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitSRTmTuCp2GCODRgcBSMwVj7QMPGNxoXNDzHAnUVq0ORsYdtPYyTj2ymyXHpfHRxuSP7YbSInL8PScHMKXqD353J4knSpvOrnS1NCM9GBucwVPgON_OL1XNJpYv8Cw6ljwWxsRJDJGwChlgv5Ch9XAfTAZdDJm14yI6jexk-DyHLN1Esd0JDNOz_5IEHy/s320/715FIsWGVmL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>I suppose the best way to describe the middle of the road type of author is that theirs is the style most modern-day readers are familiar with. In other words, theirs might just have the best claim to being the defining prose of both 20th and 21st century letters in the English-speaking world. This is the shelf space on which you can find most of the famous literary names of our era, as well as a lot of those of the immediate past. As a result, it is also just possible to claim that it is this Middle Ground style of prose that the vast majority of readers are familiar with. Considering how few have ever devoted their time and efforts to an enthusiastic engagement with literature, this type of writing may also have to stand as close to being the <i>only</i> manner of composition that all readers are familiar with. It's the kind of situation that can become a handicap if not ameliorated by a good expanding of the literary horizons. The good news on this score is that while anything like serious reading has always been (and seems destined to remain) a minority interest, it can at least be said that this is a minority with a great deal of continuing influence on the social landscape of pop-culture. If not everyone can bother to be well read, then it is reassuring to learn that good literature can filter its ways into the collective consciousness.</div><div><br /></div><div>The two best writers to exemplify the Middle Ground approach to prose composition also have a legitimate claim to being the two most famous and loved authors of both the 20th and current century. I don't think we've reached the point where either Neil Gaiman or Stephen King need much of an introduction. At least their reputations haven't slipped down into those levels of public obscurity where a reorientation of who they are and what they've written seems all that necessary just yet. Though I do worry if people are even aware anymore that a story like <i>The Shining</i> started out as an actual book, before it ever became a movie. Whatever the case is there, the fact that both Gaiman and King are the two most notable wordsmiths of their era makes them prime candidates for a quick study of the Middle method of writing that each of them have made famous. Here I think it'll be enough to settle on just one sample from King's work, another from Gaiman, in order to see how both writers have helped to establish what now has to be considered the de facto version of the good prose in the modern era.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5giEgVGWrxhFlI3zUHw3FYTiSk8e4QepbFYNrsoxHYs37dZjL9jm77UQThbuvOnicsozCsFCVY46L6kbnDniyk4hd91QS_dwh_hJZan9-wUjxTniHSM-LaOlvIUDMs6-dCPR87iboyCpez-10bCzMEdSMrs96i-rzfVg0jtwGX9WH1DFbB6jhtttl9Wi/s1200/Fairy-Tale-website-image-no-date.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5giEgVGWrxhFlI3zUHw3FYTiSk8e4QepbFYNrsoxHYs37dZjL9jm77UQThbuvOnicsozCsFCVY46L6kbnDniyk4hd91QS_dwh_hJZan9-wUjxTniHSM-LaOlvIUDMs6-dCPR87iboyCpez-10bCzMEdSMrs96i-rzfVg0jtwGX9WH1DFbB6jhtttl9Wi/w640-h426/Fairy-Tale-website-image-no-date.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />We'll start off with a sample from one of King's most recent works, as I think it's overall quality marks it out as a good enough place to start. Here's how he begins the opening chapter of <i>Fairy Tale</i>. "I'm sure I can tell this story. I'm also sure no one will believe it. That's fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem - and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me - is deciding where to start. My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr. Bowditch first, and how we became close. Only that never would have happened except for the miracle that happened to my father. A very ordinary miracle you could say, one that's happened to many thousands of men and women since 1935, but it seemed like a miracle to a kid. Only that isn't the right place, either, because I don't think my father would have needed a miracle if hadn't been for that goddamned bridge. So that's where I need to start, with the goddamned Sycamore Street bridge. And now, thinking of those things, I see a clear thread leading up through the years to <span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Bowditch and the padlocked shed behind his ramshackle old Victorian. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But a thread is easy to break. So not a thread but a chain. A strong one. And I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist (1)". Here's a list of things that are going on with that opening paragraph.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6rJkD_BXzkrUnPcVwttrwTwYrLB4XECpSIwncatyW8JAd2fG0Og2itl-PWtpHpz4_oikliJa3zf_ohqgsr3zLPvpwJV8TfRuIhAce2MM9MzXjDLkTFFC6HhP7GRlNYkq8ZGZfVXcBjX3kcmBB8GoZLC8izM4GztkkIN7PypMfMGe4ylQioAjtDAqysj_/s1000/71hMM45UR5L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="549" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6rJkD_BXzkrUnPcVwttrwTwYrLB4XECpSIwncatyW8JAd2fG0Og2itl-PWtpHpz4_oikliJa3zf_ohqgsr3zLPvpwJV8TfRuIhAce2MM9MzXjDLkTFFC6HhP7GRlNYkq8ZGZfVXcBjX3kcmBB8GoZLC8izM4GztkkIN7PypMfMGe4ylQioAjtDAqysj_/s320/71hMM45UR5L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="176" /></a></div>To start with, King seems to be one of the few authors with an almost innate ability to make his characters </span><i style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">sound</i><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"> like real people. Even when it comes time for the guy in the rubber monster suit with plastic claws to come shambling on-stage, a lot of what makes it all work is the author's skill at getting you to care about what happens to the story's main characters. It is just possible that his story wouldn't be as power without this ability. The best explanation I've got for why that should be is perhaps because King has just always had this unnoticed skill at characterization that just doesn't get noticed enough as much as it should. A more obvious reason might stem from his way with words. King's approach to vocabulary is best described by the intermingled terms of colloquial, </span><span style="color: #0a0a0a;">conversational</span><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;">, and folk pastoral. Which is to say that his use of the English language owes much to the New England Gothic tradition. His prose is, in short, Romantic at its core. This might help explain the writer's gifts for characterization, and the immediate, sometimes even visceral reactions his words are able to have on us. When you put both of these aspects together, you have the makings of a writing style that can often pull you in so that it all seems effortless, yet that often takes a great deal of trial and error to work.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In terms of the mere compositional nature of his narrative description, it's clear that King has led us into an entirely different category from the first one. We're no longer in the land of the Spartans. We've moved on to a more expansive verbal climate, one that allows the author room to stretch their legs a bit more than was possible in the previous segment. This is not to say that King is unfamiliar with narrative minimalism. Even some of the sentences in his opening paragraph above are capable of achieving a great deal of power within a limited scope. The key fact, however, is that this is not the general direction that his powers of description trend toward, or even cater to. Nor does there seem to be anything like a natural desire on the writer's part to meet such preferred requirements. King's own style is the type that always seems ready to take an almost Romantic-Utilitarian approach to its subject matter. There's a sense that the prose is willing to go however far as necessary in order to reach whatever artistic effect and/or goal that the story itself wants to achieve. In practice, this results in a style that is naturally open-ended and willing enough to </span>accommodate<span style="font-family: inherit;"> the reader. This can be responsible for the often leisurely flow of most of King's novels, he's always trying to engage us.</span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFp7Fw9FLAWJpy9ltOzLxkIdKEtUucF21rJsLnLA2NKX8qZY9mcrIZOUbmO6KNGY4UA6FVvexcGCQk1D6f9PBenjEG-lSfws2YpjpxajRQ1FuEC-grqhstSQygSjxGch_jlf22nLlUzbr01JVnS2ZyFHExEcccZE7R0wAyqr2hl5V-dDo0zjvan6vj_x7Y/s480/TELEMMGLPICT000015656597_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq9ipoqzrpJx-0lCLDc3i7WieDhBsMOo9-ekzV9sc0P-0.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFp7Fw9FLAWJpy9ltOzLxkIdKEtUucF21rJsLnLA2NKX8qZY9mcrIZOUbmO6KNGY4UA6FVvexcGCQk1D6f9PBenjEG-lSfws2YpjpxajRQ1FuEC-grqhstSQygSjxGch_jlf22nLlUzbr01JVnS2ZyFHExEcccZE7R0wAyqr2hl5V-dDo0zjvan6vj_x7Y/w640-h400/TELEMMGLPICT000015656597_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq9ipoqzrpJx-0lCLDc3i7WieDhBsMOo9-ekzV9sc0P-0.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />He wants the audience to follow him along, and so his own prose has developed into the kind of style best suited for the purpose of first netting the reader, then drawing them in. King himself has a few interesting thoughts about his own techniques as a writer, and they might be worth going into later on, when it comes time to sum up the findings of this overview. For now, let's turn our attention to the prose of the creator of <i>The Sandman</i>. I've gone with one of the books, as opposed to any of the graphic novels, because that is the best format that will give us the best textual snapshot of Gaiman's skills in composition. I've decided on a passage from <i>Neverwhere</i> as it's the closest I can find to a representative text of Gaiman's skills as a novelist. The passage goes as follows. </span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimToN8ze9uF2H8xrahOeOdKn5gfA39HX-hH754QZ_4ulZnmju93GyEVhZyuZ5IXw6UgWOY1EQtzE4CFcAIycQ49XctpkQ1LpXunpD7h0qaTjpQ2L5SqMbCL6rQK70vJPGn5wWo29u8t3Il3phmsvuAHXkPKC0lKav6-y6ASZ1vM9ToJUy30IHZZOaIOZj8/s400/14497.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="267" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimToN8ze9uF2H8xrahOeOdKn5gfA39HX-hH754QZ_4ulZnmju93GyEVhZyuZ5IXw6UgWOY1EQtzE4CFcAIycQ49XctpkQ1LpXunpD7h0qaTjpQ2L5SqMbCL6rQK70vJPGn5wWo29u8t3Il3phmsvuAHXkPKC0lKav6-y6ASZ1vM9ToJUy30IHZZOaIOZj8/s320/14497.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>"It was a city in which the very old and the awkwardly new jostled each other, not uncomfortably, but without respect; a city of shops and offices and restaurants and homes, of parks and churches, of ignored monuments and remarkably unpalatial palaces; a city of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a;">hundreds</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"> of districts with strange names - Crouch End, Chalk Farm, Earl's Court, Marble Arch - and oddly distinct identities; a noisy, dirty, cheerful, troubled city, which fed on tourists, needed them as it despised them, in which the average speed of transportation through the city hadn't increased in three hundred years, following five hundred years of fitful road-widening and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a;">unskillful</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"> compromises between the needs of traffic, whether horse-drawn or, more recently, motorized, and the needs of pedestrians; a city inhabited by and teeming with people of every colour and manner and kind (9-10)". Gaiman's description here is able to achieve an similar effect to that of Morrell's opening in <i>First Blood</i>. Like the Rambo passage, Gaiman's paragraph is in fact one big, run-on sentence. Gaiman's own writing advice is interesting in this context. He described his own method or writing as, "Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down (<a href="https://www.firstdraftpro.com/blog/neil-gaimans-8-rules-for-writing">web</a>)". In practice, this seems to mean using as many or as few words as necessary.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;">Gaiman's the kind of author who won't skimp on the details if that's what it takes to help the narrative move along and keep the reader engaged. At the same time, there are moments when it's clear he knows when to scale it back, and let a bare bones description of the narrative events do the talking. A good example of this can be found later on in another passage from <i>Neverwhere</i>. It happens at a moment when the protagonist is busy making his way across a placed called Night's Bridge. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;">"Darkness is happening,' said the leather woman, very quietly. 'Night is happening. All the nightmares that have come out when the sun goes down, since the cave times, when we huddled together in fear for safety and for warmth, are happening. Now,' she told them, 'now is the time to be afraid of the dark.' Richard knew that something was about to creep over his face. He closed his eyes: it made no difference what he saw or felt. The night was complete. It was then that the hallucinations started...</span><i style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;">He saw a figure falling towards him through the night, burning, its wings and hair on fire</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"> (110-11)".</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnV3nHTT68pQ8eL0qtFmKBahfIvUkDLa6mSw4bONWLjpygkMwv_5wqctocsLChoBGPVXE7-zeloQn9QU0NsLiVxjJVrVr6Iwyiz1_IxcDdYUglD9SttWTQRvUIe5A5kE__O4C1iEyw7yGhW9uLUpqgrfjxzftNsogGQSQ3h7NyfNuiXaTTKPtWYNDwSZwc/s432/5827530.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="258" data-original-width="432" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnV3nHTT68pQ8eL0qtFmKBahfIvUkDLa6mSw4bONWLjpygkMwv_5wqctocsLChoBGPVXE7-zeloQn9QU0NsLiVxjJVrVr6Iwyiz1_IxcDdYUglD9SttWTQRvUIe5A5kE__O4C1iEyw7yGhW9uLUpqgrfjxzftNsogGQSQ3h7NyfNuiXaTTKPtWYNDwSZwc/w640-h382/5827530.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>That whole paragraph is an example of two styles of writing successfully melded into a singular whole. It starts out with a Spartan sentence, focusing in on just a few terse statements delivered by one of the book's characters. The diction of the novel in this moment is modified to fit her voice, flat, terse, matter of fact, </span><span style="color: #0a0a0a;">declarative</span><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;">. Then the speaker switches her words in mid-sentence. Her vocabulary begins to expand, becomes more expressive, verging somewhere close to the poetic. The interesting part about this switch-over is that it allows Gaiman to once more attempt the same trick as Morrell's. To try and let what should be several lines of dialogue do the work of just one sentence. Once more, like Morrell, Gaiman is able to get away with it, due to a mixture of composition skills combined with the inherent fantastical drama of the situation being described on the page. We're entering a realm where nightmares come to life. As such, the book is constructing its sentences to best fit the situation. Hence the heady mixture of poetic terseness. The combination of these two forms of diction go well together to help create the proper atmosphere of dread as the book's cast moves forward into a realm of darkness.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85t9_r3JNzVgP7u2ifPDPFYeBUUwYBQ_mCmkU6ycj6Hej-GMs6I_Xvz1gzVMLjKVwPh7oQ5vQKliFvoG9oVma_xkZ7zbrnbDeekJCcUXE1CiHJyQhIIN7IEGc7M3PaNOAGepnhTkMrILsQZjRHw5KB_WBJvnu-ZAYggJdq1OVLgg39STbebEVyAKySNMf/s1000/81NehzM0OGL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85t9_r3JNzVgP7u2ifPDPFYeBUUwYBQ_mCmkU6ycj6Hej-GMs6I_Xvz1gzVMLjKVwPh7oQ5vQKliFvoG9oVma_xkZ7zbrnbDeekJCcUXE1CiHJyQhIIN7IEGc7M3PaNOAGepnhTkMrILsQZjRHw5KB_WBJvnu-ZAYggJdq1OVLgg39STbebEVyAKySNMf/s320/81NehzM0OGL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Taken on its own, it's something a minor stylistic tour-de-force that deftly shows off Gaiman's skill as a literary composer. The subtle shifts in tone and expression from Spartan to poetic, then back to quick, sudden jabs of shock as the horrors of the scene begin to assert themselves display all the talent of a highwire act being executed to a level of objective artistic success. Gaiman knows he doesn't have to elaborate when the actual Fantasy elements of his novel begin to assert themselves. All he needs to do is describe one or two details, and then let our fears as his readers do the rest of the heavy lifting. The descriptions used for both the crawling and falling things, for instance, are told in brief flashes of </span>description<span style="font-family: inherit;">, and no more, because that's all that's needed. Our Imaginations (if we're able to tap into it, at any rate) are able to fill in the blanks. For instance, there's probably no definitive way to tell, but that image of the falling creature plummeting away into the darkness on fire puts me in mind of the work of John Milton. The best part is I can't say whether Gaiman meant that as a brief bit of allusion to <i>Paradise Lost</i> or not. I'm not even sure Gaiman himself knows where the image comes from. It's just a happy case of artist and Imagination in complete, cooperative, inspired partnership with one another.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's the kind of moment that can only happen whenever the writer manages to make his way into whatever artistic "Zone" is necessary for the creation of good fiction. It's the most ideal place for any author to be, and nine times out of ten, it's where the best books and films tend to come from. For a devoted biblio and cinephile like myself, these are the moments I most often look forward to. I think we've begun to get at least some working knowledge of the Middle Ground style. It's the type of mode of expression that approaches the closest to the kind of everyday normal kinds of expression that contemporary human beings tend to use. Hence the reason why so many writers are spoken of as having an "easy, conversational" style. That's because its just the specific manner of diction that they are using to tell their stories. All that guys like or Gaiman are doing is using our typical, everyday colloquial speech, and then allowing it to take on the natural "heightened", dramatic quality which seems to be both regular and </span>necessary<span style="font-family: inherit;"> for the de facto modes of literary-artistic expression.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwaU3ylwZ5FZPZUXjAD3MxGGJfN6c0COzn_sYFwx3MTLbOVD7uFXY47KT3W28tNQihKaIOwvPFx_VreXO3UmEcNcyz79AAotENJYUTwLzVDtZlDis0FEndxed8eTBxAuM1sgrh_BmDqI_xcUlwSiz4pPerilB-zl10fs_LxPTvW_v2u3m_jYrTYafLgfa/s1600/neverwhere.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwaU3ylwZ5FZPZUXjAD3MxGGJfN6c0COzn_sYFwx3MTLbOVD7uFXY47KT3W28tNQihKaIOwvPFx_VreXO3UmEcNcyz79AAotENJYUTwLzVDtZlDis0FEndxed8eTBxAuM1sgrh_BmDqI_xcUlwSiz4pPerilB-zl10fs_LxPTvW_v2u3m_jYrTYafLgfa/w640-h266/neverwhere.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />In essence, the basic job of the Middle Ground style is to take real speech, and then give it an unreal twist. It's the kind of narrative strategy which is the perfect fit for the contemporary expression of the modern Fantastic genres, where the typical setup is to start the action off in the world of the everyday, before plunging the characters into situations that are, by nature, extraordinary. It is the main shared setup that unites the work of King and Gaiman. You can also find this same style being used by the vast majority of the other major to mid-list names of authors out there, as well. The folks who are able to make a sometimes more than profitable use of this Middle Ground vernacular include John Crowley, Robert Bloch, Neil Simon, Saul Bellow, Ann River Siddons, Dean Koontz, John Connelly, Joe Hill, Laurie R. King, and even Peter Straub. This constant use of a single, unified, and shared method of literary composition marks the Middle Ground out as the major writing style of the current moment. There may come a time when tastes and hence expression will cause this </span>contemporary<span style="font-family: inherit;"> shared "voice" to undergo a transfiguration into another manner, yet that day seems far away as of this writing.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The Lyricists.</b></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIqDHEgSklatxxMEbFLkZWEaV04gGOM2Fn7etIsqG154jGMmoOC2Vp4_R0PLKJQwvUfIc2zJmjn_rkdRSXiF9FV3JQJu0bnJCp6DBNjokdZ320hcLJP0GBZCN7a4O9DOs8RoIS7KymxjiR0JBwp8kN3avwY2I30j8ngRYUiNIyi2QVZacLLdQcoRdzk-aF/s500/41bDDWWCyQL._SL500_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="307" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIqDHEgSklatxxMEbFLkZWEaV04gGOM2Fn7etIsqG154jGMmoOC2Vp4_R0PLKJQwvUfIc2zJmjn_rkdRSXiF9FV3JQJu0bnJCp6DBNjokdZ320hcLJP0GBZCN7a4O9DOs8RoIS7KymxjiR0JBwp8kN3avwY2I30j8ngRYUiNIyi2QVZacLLdQcoRdzk-aF/s320/41bDDWWCyQL._SL500_.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>There are a number of things I have to avoid when discussing this final group of writers. On the one hand, it doesn't seem quite correct to claim I'm doing anything here like saving the best for last. At the same time, it's even greater mistake to claim that we're about scrape the bottom of the barrel. Don't worry, we're not. My plan throughout this whole thing has been to try and stick with the top quality examples during the course of this article. I just felt like I had to make sure that I'm stuck to the rules of fair play here with the reader. When I talk of this final segment of prose writing, I had to make sure to avoid any show of preference. This is not the spot to talk about which style of writing is the best. There will be plenty to discuss that in the wrap-up segment of this article. However, it's important to note that my judgement call on this wasn't designed to be obvious based on the way I structured the discussion of these three styles. It isn't meant to be read as an ascending order from lowest to highest, or vice versa. If I wanted to do that with this list all I had to do was tell you up front. That's not how I set these categories up, however. I'm just trying to be thorough as best I know how with this list.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The final item on it, then, concerns the type of writers who, for lack of a better description, don't mind a bit of ornamentation to their prose. Perhaps now I'll have to pause for the sake of clearing another misunderstanding out of the way. When I use that word ornamentation, I'm not implying that we've entered the realm of style over substance. If that were the case, then I wouldn't even bother including this final segment as a legitimate form of storytelling. In fact, there's a sense in which it's a mistake to even describe this third prose as any kind of ornament. The writers who best exemplify the Lyrical turns of phrase are not interested in turning their books into an ongoing series of department store displays. In fact, a lot of the authors you're about to meet would be pretty darn happy to take a blowtorch to that kind of thing. It seems like we need a better word to describe the kind of Lyric prose this third category of writers specializes in. The good news is the best possible phrase seems close enough at hand. The type of authors I'm thinking of now have a knack for mixing prose with poetry.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Ohng4puoYaATKj04ptYTHOqiPqFOkCjg6S9xPCAItwV3PkBmg2NEg72kbZw6H1YWBQe_i6I1terccCb6VMhHMYrUNy9zMbggJcJYP0dTGUq17JqKDI7UUKWMc33FB1T65d0OMraV8WQn4akSs3vD4NYfLQVCWWybGjnHsirVDPDNHaupC5XUxo-GxtrL/s900/lyricism-in-the-forest-alphonse-osbert.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="900" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Ohng4puoYaATKj04ptYTHOqiPqFOkCjg6S9xPCAItwV3PkBmg2NEg72kbZw6H1YWBQe_i6I1terccCb6VMhHMYrUNy9zMbggJcJYP0dTGUq17JqKDI7UUKWMc33FB1T65d0OMraV8WQn4akSs3vD4NYfLQVCWWybGjnHsirVDPDNHaupC5XUxo-GxtrL/w640-h486/lyricism-in-the-forest-alphonse-osbert.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Perhaps that's the best way to describe any ink-stained-wretch who fits into this category. They show a keen awareness of what might be termed the poetic quality of words. They're also the kind of writers who know their way around the uses of literary metaphors, and often find the means of using them in their narratives so that they don't get in the way of the story. Instead, all their technique ever seems to do is to just enhance it in a way that makes for a richer reading experience. Which I suppose is a way of saying that these types of writers tend to be a very well read bunch, on the whole. The good news there is that the best of them always tend to wear their literacy so that it doesn't weigh things down. Instead, they know better than to let erudition get in the way of narrative. If they're smart, they realize all they have to do is to just stand back and let the Imagination do its own crazy yet inspired thing. There are a handful of names that could best exemplify this Lyrical style of prose writings in this field.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpBCB1zW99Elz9wF7MYbF_zOm1LVaDAFkWOZyeZmQ_aiNjcwX_D7_4pE1sA0NvVNd3DUgu595ygZpmVIvGiL4X0oleUYoFKfXIMxzELSmpqzqpqWKTCu1LSl2j1-BqfZxMlHM47yc8vO3AQGC-dOKLwiKIV4lqo7Txuseld1L-7xrzDVq-A_OFFJcTV5N/s1024/Edmund-Spenser-Portrait.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpBCB1zW99Elz9wF7MYbF_zOm1LVaDAFkWOZyeZmQ_aiNjcwX_D7_4pE1sA0NvVNd3DUgu595ygZpmVIvGiL4X0oleUYoFKfXIMxzELSmpqzqpqWKTCu1LSl2j1-BqfZxMlHM47yc8vO3AQGC-dOKLwiKIV4lqo7Txuseld1L-7xrzDVq-A_OFFJcTV5N/s320/Edmund-Spenser-Portrait.webp" width="320" /></a></div>At the very top of this particular heap are folks like Edmund Spenser, however something tells me it's a hell of a mistake to try and awaken a sense of prosody in the reader which has been out of use since the 1860s. Instead, we'll start out small, on more familiar terrain. J.R.R. Tolkien still doesn't need much in the way of introduction these days. We all know him, and what he's done. More to the point, we still have something like a working grasp of his power with languages. Which kind of makes it no surprise that he's the first immediate go-to candidate for a good example of Lyrical writing. The real challenge with someone like him is knowing where to start. Tolkien's writing is best described as a gift that keeps on giving. His words offer so many rich veins of ore to tap into that the limitless choices often becomes overwhelming. We're going to look at two sample of prose from the realm of Middle Earth. The reason for that is to help give a sense of the two types of Lyricism that Tolkien uses in his novel. The first one that you are about to hear might be considered an example of the Lyric voice in its normal mode.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Dusk deepened. Mist lay behind them under the trees below, and brooded on the pale margins of the Anduin, but the sky was clear. Stars came out. The waxing moon was riding in the West, and the shadows of the rocks were black. They had come to the feet of stony hills, and their pace was slower, for the trail was no longer easy to follow. Here the highlands of the Emyn Muil ran from North to South in two long tumbled ridges. The western side of each ridge was steep and difficult, but the eastward slopes were gentler, furrowed with many gullies and narrow ravines. All night the three companions scrambled in this bony land, climbing to the crest of the first and tallest ridge, and down again into the darkness of a deep winding valley on the other side (<i>Two Towers</i>, Ch. 2, 210)".</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuF7rN7FYjK_cZZQb7JXdZzD_0PgIVObbMm3pFJwXNYdejYKZQijDegYTPC_wk38zrsXxsgR9gotzdc5XUpfMjvpaALDKKvJWHW2VJtCHZFZvqldu_se-BJZKhu3ukroAYtt3Dvy2YCyXcKzIDtOTOAnXY5x1mjiBBL6puygfRhNwTIYoN5GGjrNiVDHMl/s2000/1_5b5cc13d2ff58.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1124" data-original-width="2000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuF7rN7FYjK_cZZQb7JXdZzD_0PgIVObbMm3pFJwXNYdejYKZQijDegYTPC_wk38zrsXxsgR9gotzdc5XUpfMjvpaALDKKvJWHW2VJtCHZFZvqldu_se-BJZKhu3ukroAYtt3Dvy2YCyXcKzIDtOTOAnXY5x1mjiBBL6puygfRhNwTIYoN5GGjrNiVDHMl/w640-h360/1_5b5cc13d2ff58.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Let's take a moment to notice what Tolkien has done here. For while the passage is a good example of the Lyric style, I'm not sure most people have notice the linguistic trick the author seems to have played here, one that seems to have gone over the heads of his most skilled, academic fans. The most obvious aspect of Tolkien's style is that he has somehow managed to recapture and successfully dramatize the classic, Epic voice, or mode of storytelling. All of it seems to stem from the writer's studies in ancient Classical, Latin, Northern and Anglo-Saxon literatures and mythologies. The artist has done nothing else, in the strictest sense, other than to take not just the contents, but also the original, authentic literary voices of these myths, and found a way of giving them what has sort of wound up as their prototypical modern expression. In doing so, Tolkien seems to be a living illustration of a maxim handed down by Stephen King. In his non-fiction study <i>On Writing</i>, King states that one of the first rules for succeeding at the word-slinging trade is: "Read a lot, and write a lot (145)". In other words, the inescapable requirement for being a good author to not just to read, but also learn how to take as many good lessons for the crafting of sentences into usable events and characters. It's the only way stories work.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAS0yQbrijwaLQpnYu2wMCF_KijZQKbX8V6TX1kmTd5herrmsrMwzBY5Cy5HQgxxTgkcuZ-BkyqmeXGoXcKzkn6uFwj6CaadSJsVRzQIg78-6wn7GNHkNCZV5Ymd79npBXp6bNu6-teV8J6DIZs6QF1QmrMQshDSss6DNvNq0iV9Dt6j4vNJeAek7Weg5X/s400/xnyETnmq_400x400.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAS0yQbrijwaLQpnYu2wMCF_KijZQKbX8V6TX1kmTd5herrmsrMwzBY5Cy5HQgxxTgkcuZ-BkyqmeXGoXcKzkn6uFwj6CaadSJsVRzQIg78-6wn7GNHkNCZV5Ymd79npBXp6bNu6-teV8J6DIZs6QF1QmrMQshDSss6DNvNq0iV9Dt6j4vNJeAek7Weg5X/s320/xnyETnmq_400x400.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Well in Tolkien's case, he didn't just fulfill that maxim, it's almost like he made himself the accidental poster boy for it. All his life, Tolkien comes off as the kind of guy who doesn't just "like to read, every now and then". It seems more like he was born with this natural sort of knack for <i>inhabiting the books</i> he read and liked. In other words, he was one of life's natural bookworms. Yet he was so damn good at it that he was able to take all that book learning and turn himself not just into a successful author, but also a tenured academic professor of English Literature at Oxford University. The same place where Lewis Carroll wrote <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> just a few years before he was born. In other words, Tolkien's life kind of acts as an appended clause to King's maxim. "If you read a lot and write a lot, sometimes books can transform you if you're not careful. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can do the same for your readers one day, as well". In Tolkien's case, this part of his success wound up in finding a way for the tone and "vocal performance" of ancient Epic to find its own, contemporary voice in the modern age.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;">Recall what I said about his stylistic achievement, however. That in finding a usable voice for the Epic, he also seems to have put this discovery to not just good, but also slightly mischievous use. In other words, there is the sense, in the passage just quoted from that Tolkien might have been using the Classical Epic style to play around with his reader's expectation of what was considered the "proper mode of literary expression". Notice the way the paragraph starts, for instance. The first and third sentences are no more than two and three words long, respectively. In these moments, Tolkien seems to have taken the Spartan approach and turned it not so much on its head as inside out, like a sock made of words which he then uses to first unravel and then stitch together into something new, fresh, and vibrant. At the same time, there's no denying that the author's voice in that passage always has one of its feet planted in the older, bardic modes of speech, while the other belongs to the modern novel. It is therefore a perfect example of an old style made new again in a way that resonates with modern readers. It's one of the great tour-de-forces of literature, and while guys like King, Gaiman, or Richard Adams are sometimes able to approach this level of writing, no one will truly achieve it ever again.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYNlGSYH9DqXU4QzQLkTIokFU-sNtF2lExJwu1g4twmiE0kj1uxlzGCI79hHA7o6CwbKQsPJFNbA6gZHM7hIROebaWPw58E2rVpHM3HcXSnbGgZMEXuZHAzKfqnQ3z_-OffDX_0k1uNA2tHE45TXMEotVMpKhJVWdwYl-DRGShgpzGdAk-5Xkj68-za7x/s2667/mDUfr8jy_1705182218231gpadd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2667" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaYNlGSYH9DqXU4QzQLkTIokFU-sNtF2lExJwu1g4twmiE0kj1uxlzGCI79hHA7o6CwbKQsPJFNbA6gZHM7hIROebaWPw58E2rVpHM3HcXSnbGgZMEXuZHAzKfqnQ3z_-OffDX_0k1uNA2tHE45TXMEotVMpKhJVWdwYl-DRGShgpzGdAk-5Xkj68-za7x/w640-h480/mDUfr8jy_1705182218231gpadd.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Before we move on to the next voice in the gallery, we'll take just one more example from the </span><i style="color: #0a0a0a;">Lord of the Rings</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a;">, as it will help us to gain a greater understanding of the third mode of literary expression. The first sample was a demonstration of the Lyric voice going at what might be descried as a normal pace. This next paragraph, however, is a display of what prose sounds like when it begins to enter the reaches of poetry. Suddenly...the king..sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, the horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it...Theoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up...like a god of old...when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it sone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came...and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City (838)".</span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #0a0a0a;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieilczJ5VLJI3B8_s2B7obiuQsGzc5z-6HquL0h_4P-4NE9I0b_SM3Y01HIolI0v4GkBu9E1vFgYsfUKzBkUNjFWNEi9WFQcdE9qj4VUJut_ik2s5Gwq2bbiU3rxnKOgBmRTU7V_Yv1EIHFaRkMRQaaoSbctrE9cbrML9PWMcumtAh-cd7h0yKzdF1Ec_3/s1000/61M-NJhg9IL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="680" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieilczJ5VLJI3B8_s2B7obiuQsGzc5z-6HquL0h_4P-4NE9I0b_SM3Y01HIolI0v4GkBu9E1vFgYsfUKzBkUNjFWNEi9WFQcdE9qj4VUJut_ik2s5Gwq2bbiU3rxnKOgBmRTU7V_Yv1EIHFaRkMRQaaoSbctrE9cbrML9PWMcumtAh-cd7h0yKzdF1Ec_3/w210-h309/61M-NJhg9IL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>Are you starting to get a better sense of what I mean when I speak of the modern Lyric mode? It's not just that books and tales told in this voice are expansive in their description and vocabulary. There's also often a heft or atmosphere to all such texts that makes them pretty easy to pick out. It's also not just because they're the loud ones in the room, either. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is to say the Lyric method of modern writing is Romantic at its core. It's, in essence, a throwback to an earlier narrative voice, one which has nonetheless managed to hold on and not just survive, but somehow to thrive in a modern digital age space. It's what happens when generations of writers are able to find out how to transfigure poetry into prose. This may even help explain why a lot of good Lyric prose keeps cropping up everywhere, while the actual art of poetic verse, meanwhile, seems to be in kind of a rut. The reason for this is easy to explain once you realize that all the best poetry is now often found within the confines of the prose novel. Another writer who exemplifies this is a man named Ray Bradbury.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>There are two samples from one of the Midwestern fantasist's books that I think do the best at showing readers of how this particular writer fits into the Lyrical camp. Each comes from his 1972 children's novel, <i>The Halloween Tree</i>. Here's how the first part reads. "It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small northern part of a Midwest state. There wasn't so much wilderness around you couldn't see the town. But on the other hand there wasn't so much town you couldn't see and feel and touch the wilderness. The town was full of trees. And dry grass and dead flowers now that autumn was here. And full of fences to walk on and sidewalks to skate on and a large ravine to tumble in and yell across (1)". Those are the exact opening lines to the book. And right from the start, we've been introduced into a different kind of secondary world. Bradbury lets us know how different the life within his pages is compared to ours by the way he structures it with his sentences. Just like Tolkien, he finds ways of taking the Spartan approach and transfiguring it into something with a Lyrical quality.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dQAL0NMSM4NjRPcBSVkWEW8LvznnZbmRBsvsSwyvdgPvqfiWDlLEKaGscOnQ18N8ZSdsGAvPBvie72UEDeUqm6Lbbm3PBIOoxwM1qwBKKJCABqoVivDuzPaqmgWBrtNOrHE360Frz3c6gApKYC-FkidngkNV1JuIcfiOVFbAjoiXABkbGU3W1TXPyflX/s1200/bradbury.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dQAL0NMSM4NjRPcBSVkWEW8LvznnZbmRBsvsSwyvdgPvqfiWDlLEKaGscOnQ18N8ZSdsGAvPBvie72UEDeUqm6Lbbm3PBIOoxwM1qwBKKJCABqoVivDuzPaqmgWBrtNOrHE360Frz3c6gApKYC-FkidngkNV1JuIcfiOVFbAjoiXABkbGU3W1TXPyflX/w640-h266/bradbury.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is an aspect of Ray's work that hasn't gone unnoticed by others. I think Stephen King comes fairly close to describing the nature of Bradbury's prose, and the way it is intimately related to, and hence is able to shape the presentation of the story's contents. King was talking about another of Bradbury's works when he wrote the following in <i>Danse Macabre</i>, way back in 1979. However, the Waukegan fantasist's style is of such a unified whole that it pervades every single published work he ever wrote. Therefore, it is not out of bounds to describe the prose of <i>The Halloween Tree</i> as "darkly poetic...set in the half-real, half-mythical...a shadowy descendent from that tradition that has brought us stories about Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, Pecos Bill, and Davy Crockett (344)". King has a very specific description of Bradbury's prose, and the literary tradition this places him into, that I find fascinating.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XJTNkv5VZKwUgaRdkJ1V3_4dwDGO1-WrdgjC6iR2I3IIBeNmQ4NUITUQMX75vcLlp__f86bhmR1gEOEPkaDe4lbPPxK5bmJ0Dirr8Nzz0Q9CHswssKYWbhdf_yWLrrHj1vWOBJg5DIigaqF4yuuVkoT0743XU3vaoLbbqXPcIA14R0cDr8bd2fdSOvaC/s3000/Pastoral_Landscape_by_Alvan_Fisher,_1854.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2475" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XJTNkv5VZKwUgaRdkJ1V3_4dwDGO1-WrdgjC6iR2I3IIBeNmQ4NUITUQMX75vcLlp__f86bhmR1gEOEPkaDe4lbPPxK5bmJ0Dirr8Nzz0Q9CHswssKYWbhdf_yWLrrHj1vWOBJg5DIigaqF4yuuVkoT0743XU3vaoLbbqXPcIA14R0cDr8bd2fdSOvaC/s320/Pastoral_Landscape_by_Alvan_Fisher,_1854.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>He calls Bradbury an American Naturalist "of a dark persuasion". Ray writes of "American people living in the heartland,...of innocence coming heartbreakingly to experience", and that the author of <i>The Halloween Tree</i> speak in a voice which is "uniquely, even startlingly American". Ray narrates "in a clear English which remains informal while mostly eschewing idiom - when Bradbury lapses occasionally into slang it startles us so much that he seems almost vulgar". King concludes by saying that the author is an "unmistakably American" voice (345)". I find it interesting that it's the Naturalist tradition in American letters that King is most reminded of when trying to discuss Bradbury's narrative voice. It's one of those curious judgment calls where it seems as like a truth has been spoken, yet it's never the whole picture. In fact, for me, rather than there being anything inherently natural about the prose of a book like <i>Halloween Tree</i>, it's pretty darn apparent to me that the best words to describe Bradbury's style is that he is little more than the most well known American Pastoralist. King compares Ray's words with authors like Theodore Dreiser, yet it's clear to me that his closest literary analogues are more along the lines of Henry Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Joel Chandler Harris, and Mark Twain.</div><div><br /></div><div>Each of these writers is able to stake a legitimate claim to not only writing in, but also more or less helping to create the modern Pastoral voice in U.S. fiction. All of them found ways of translating the bucolic enchantment that poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth ascribed to the English Countryside, and translated it all into an idiom suitable for the American Heartland. Their collective success in this venture meant they were able to transform the landscape of places like Walden Pond, the Great North Woods of New England, or even the Mississippi River into the kind of enchanted landscapes worthy of the best old world fairy tales. They turned America into the kind of place where even dragons and nature spirits of various stripes could find a home. They were helped in large measure by paying attention to the folklore that was already there waiting to be told. As a result, the Fantasy of the New World was allowed to have its own, distinct American voice, manners, and settings, while also carrying over themes and ideas from that of Romanticism. In fact, King's own acknowledgement of the one of Bradbury's concepts as the clash of Innocence and Experience puts him in debt to the poetry of Blake.</div><div><br /></div><div>As such, the voice of a story like <i>The Halloween Tree</i> has little choice except to come off in the form of a style best described as American Romantic Pastoral. Bradbury doesn't set out to "describe" his secondary worlds. Often the finished product displays the kind of talent that wants to compose his text the way a musician would a symphony, or an Elizabethan poet would a sonnet couplet. This at least seems to be Ray's normal method of working. It's not quite the same as saying he ever did manage to achieve a prose line on the level of Hamlet's soliloquy. Yet he remains one of the greatest examples of taking modern day prose, and fusing it with a poetry of the old world, Romantic sensibility such as is found in passages describing a metaphor for the construction of the Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBgi65jOmv411FJor2TYywH-ipGZQRUfDqPzd8Q5XMs0Qu1_wzoIcfjj5g-MRIiRjxbojYM7eujOsEKmFkGWwfRFBdj0DUSQa_nlsLYPtMxaBJhzd-CXswNXAIbbmOOxvGBpIvlblU4X1fWx9MmsAkuPGCZhUlCC3o1kPSE0A9mRoUy3_zzl4EEWwTRdN0/s1000/H21356-L252918832.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="1000" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBgi65jOmv411FJor2TYywH-ipGZQRUfDqPzd8Q5XMs0Qu1_wzoIcfjj5g-MRIiRjxbojYM7eujOsEKmFkGWwfRFBdj0DUSQa_nlsLYPtMxaBJhzd-CXswNXAIbbmOOxvGBpIvlblU4X1fWx9MmsAkuPGCZhUlCC3o1kPSE0A9mRoUy3_zzl4EEWwTRdN0/w640-h440/H21356-L252918832.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>"The unemployed of all midnight Europe shivered in their stone sleep and came awake. Which is to say that all the old beasts, all the old tales, all the old nightmares, all the old unused demons-put-by, and witches left in the lurch, quaked at the call, reared at the whistle, trembled at the summons, and in dust devils of propulsion skimmed down the roads, flitted skies, buckshot through shaken tree, forded streams, swam rivers, pierced clouds, and arrived, arrived. Which is still to say that all the dead statues and idols and semigods and demigods of Europe lying like a dreadful snow all about, abandoned, in ruins, gave a blink and start and came as salamanders on the road, or bats in skies or dingoes in the brush. They flew, they galloped, they skittered....For now that Notre Dame was infested with various beasts and spidering leers and gloms and masks, why here came dragons chasing children...and chariots full of skulls-and-bones. Acrobats and tumblers, yanked out of shape by demidemons, limped and fell in strange postures to freeze on the roof (97, 98)". Now that is one hell of a way to build a Cathedral.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Conclusion: In Defense of Peter Straub's Writing Style.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYMex_7h9W2yQZrNkqX-53cWte5-Fiw31jivF1O2aCOziHMGdvKMDmf-xKKsFci9hzYx8xrm0N0vkVn8SvrtGSBMYtn4snyabNRK4RhfQQmWF_1bIA1s8nWzRJtrQ88efCkEfv_RmfBbaAXfLxaZoQjwTKxsRGLfqeqnU-TYIqxRr6Mn7fxVm36_4q-Bng/s384/Elements_of_Style_cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYMex_7h9W2yQZrNkqX-53cWte5-Fiw31jivF1O2aCOziHMGdvKMDmf-xKKsFci9hzYx8xrm0N0vkVn8SvrtGSBMYtn4snyabNRK4RhfQQmWF_1bIA1s8nWzRJtrQ88efCkEfv_RmfBbaAXfLxaZoQjwTKxsRGLfqeqnU-TYIqxRr6Mn7fxVm36_4q-Bng/s320/Elements_of_Style_cover.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>So far, this whole entire article has been no more than a catalogue of the limited options people have to work with if they want to write for a living. For those who beg the question of what's the point of all this, then now seems like a good time to get back to the issue at the heart of this essay. The problem that got it all started, in other words. I said that it was all because of something Roger Ebert once said long ago about the writing style of one Peter Straub. Part of the reason for assembling the catalogue of writing styles up above was to present an overall picture of the limitations that Straub, and every other ink-stained-wretch (whether great or mediocre) has to operate under. The goal was to try and give a sense of perspective on the lay of the stylistic land, and to suggest an idea. That there are only so many places Straub, or <i>any writer</i> for that matter, could go in terms of telling a good story. From what I can tell, it's always been like that, even at the height of glorified ages like the Renaissance. Back then, even if you were Shakespeare, the inescapable rule of thumb was that if you weren't composing stories in blank verse, you weren't taken seriously as a writer. No one would have cared how good the Bard's skills of description, dialogue, and characterization would have been if it were all in straight prose. His efforts would have been dismissed as nothing but the waste of a tasteless hack fit for the gutter.</div><div><br /></div><div>See the point is that every age is a victim of what is considered "The Proper Taste". The worst part is it's not anything like a fixed point that stays still so that people can tell what the standard of "Good Prose" might be. Instead, it's always more like this arbitrary fashion of the moment that some determining party decides to settle on for the sake of convenience, and above all, <i>exclusion</i>. Let's just say the more I study the history of literary taste, the more obvious it becomes to me that questions of genuine artistic merit have less to do with anything, so much as the age old matter of who is "In" and who is "Out" of favor. The problem with such elitism is that if it were always followed to the letter, then I'm not real sure how it doesn't manage to erase the vast majority of all the most entertaining books and films that we've enjoyed through the years. Now to his credit, this is a trap that I think critics like Ebert were able to avoid, for the most part. I'm also willing to go out on a limb and say even he might have had some aesthetic blind spots, even if he is one of the best film reviewers of all time.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwd94HG75DrQX_f8yE7A0zSmcqI9UzY1FPBZuWn7KNVLGsrEgKWCMBJPeEke-aeG98CCwYkkElzrD2Km3e5gzkOQ875S5pof6j0MXUoOrTm0eR0BxigUpS2HTCl5NtCr_2DAnBhpEjfLFRENo9-ehVH5Nw3Lpz07KapqNxZIxFLKS705uAszckuOMXvOW1/s1200/John_Carpenter.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="1200" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwd94HG75DrQX_f8yE7A0zSmcqI9UzY1FPBZuWn7KNVLGsrEgKWCMBJPeEke-aeG98CCwYkkElzrD2Km3e5gzkOQ875S5pof6j0MXUoOrTm0eR0BxigUpS2HTCl5NtCr_2DAnBhpEjfLFRENo9-ehVH5Nw3Lpz07KapqNxZIxFLKS705uAszckuOMXvOW1/w640-h406/John_Carpenter.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>If Ebert ever had anything like a major blind spot, then it often seems to have come in the way he regarded the Horror genre in general, or certain types of Fantasy stories in particular. For instance, out of all <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/john-carpenter">the films directed by John Carpenter that he saw</a>, Ebert only gave one them an unqualified four stars, and that was the original <i>Halloween</i>, from way back in 1978. Granted, I'm willing to look at that movie as the director's best work. However, even I can't help but have a higher opinion of films like <i>In the Mouth of Madness</i>. Even <i>Christine</i>, a film Carpenter claims he did just for the paycheck, is something that gets an easy enough recommendation from me. Ebert, however, never gave either movie a higher rating than two stars. Meanwhile, the rest of the audience has gone on to view films like <i>Madness</i> as something close to Carpenter's last Great Film. I'll have to be honest, I'm afraid I just have to side with the fans on this one. Say sorry, Roger, but that film is all kinds of plain fun. In fact, it sort of occurs to me to wonder if Ebert never considered if that entire film might have been meant as one, big, well constructed and executed joke? That's something I hope to explain some other time.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmeLssC2p9J743KGqrX-NxEeL1oQuL4_ShgndmiNEY2ivCBYFISDCyaSe41pjZhW3_4keB8IHn_yolfIcMFOtXGQ0nZRHMCfCxqnxia2ypV3xi9eziiNu_5dCOKzyE0UDSn0RG4pCyW5gwra3XnMsm-61ttWndh1t4tX6nVKbF2pXyR3n-31WpOcGG7Cr/s1200/WIT_12173_Home-Video-Cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="830" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmeLssC2p9J743KGqrX-NxEeL1oQuL4_ShgndmiNEY2ivCBYFISDCyaSe41pjZhW3_4keB8IHn_yolfIcMFOtXGQ0nZRHMCfCxqnxia2ypV3xi9eziiNu_5dCOKzyE0UDSn0RG4pCyW5gwra3XnMsm-61ttWndh1t4tX6nVKbF2pXyR3n-31WpOcGG7Cr/s320/WIT_12173_Home-Video-Cover.jpg" width="221" /></a></div>Right now, my point is that it can be possible to point to the low ratings Ebert gave to films like <i>Prince of Darkness</i> as an example of where his otherwise impressive artistic sympathies began to falter. It's even possible to show how this applies to other films beyond the Horror genre. Let's take the work of Jim Henson, for instance. There's no secret he's one of the perennial storytellers of our collective childhood. He wound up making his biggest impact among 80s kids, yet it's a testament to his skills as a genuine artist that he's always managed to be there for generations of children that have come after. Sometimes, he's even been there when help was needed most. I think that has to be counted as a <i>defining</i> benchmark of a truly great talent. It's just something he was always that good at, and there's more than enough good reason why his artistic efforts have generated legions of fans throughout the ages. Roger, meanwhile, managed to catch <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/jim-henson">just three</a> of Uncle Jim's films during his career. He gave three an a half stars to just one of them, and that was the first <i>Muppet Movie</i>. Meanwhile, he was unable to see anything of value in movies like <i>Labyrinth</i> or <i>The Witches</i>. Both of which are classic.</div><div><br /></div><div>Are you beginning to see what I mean by Ebert's occasional blind spots? He's got a great deal of critical acumen, and when he's hitting his stride, it allowed him to offer up some of the best insights about the world, history, and art of cinema that anyone will ever make. He kept this up at a steady pace, all except for all those other moments when his powers of insight failed him. Perhaps that's just the way it goes for everyone of us, sooner, or later. Even if this is the case, however, the fact remains that it tells less about the artwork under discussion than it does about where the aesthetic limitations of each given critic lies. Nowhere is this more obvious than when Ebert tries to tackle the work of Peter Straub. Nor is this all that surprising. If you read through Ebert's work long enough, then you begin to see that he's just not, and probably never was going to be the number one fan of Horror fiction.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-9rWCC1Te5Tn1yLY4NRKrFGbkZP76TvrTW6CpY-M_9FMiG2JtXoLjDKI4DU4b1o7f5tQ5h0LNNiXKWeoz1OgpWnMFnmTPMyG8vAGHmn9PaonPPzMayX04JA2dZoAvDswm9-zufJ9yBCsvdqsHdbZu7gnxr10HIYtuzMRnz7mt3YAHzbcvoeMrpABREMhD/s1000/71EWWujc93L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="695" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-9rWCC1Te5Tn1yLY4NRKrFGbkZP76TvrTW6CpY-M_9FMiG2JtXoLjDKI4DU4b1o7f5tQ5h0LNNiXKWeoz1OgpWnMFnmTPMyG8vAGHmn9PaonPPzMayX04JA2dZoAvDswm9-zufJ9yBCsvdqsHdbZu7gnxr10HIYtuzMRnz7mt3YAHzbcvoeMrpABREMhD/s320/71EWWujc93L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>The main complaint he keeps bringing up about the modern American Horror film is that it has devolved into what he describes as a "Geek Show". It's his term for what happens whenever a film in the Gothic genre devolves into a pure blood and guts fest, without much else in the way of actual story to either sustain, or justify all the special effects. I think the best place Roger displayed this sentiment was during a passage of his review of <i>Shaun of the Dead</i>. It's a film he either liked or was able to tolerate well enough. Still, the biggest praise he can spare for it is that the film's pleasures are real, their also just too "mild" for his interests (<a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shaun-of-the-dead-2004">web</a>). Meanwhile, the rest of the audience (present writer included) regard the flick as a genuine classic of modern day comedy. The way Ebert justifies his verdict is by claiming that it's a good thing "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the movie is about more than zombies. I am by now more or less exhausted by the cinematic possibilities of killing them. I've seen thousands of zombies die, and they're awfully easy to kill, unless you get a critical mass that piles on all at once. George Romeo, who invented the modern genre with "The Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead," (1979) was essentially devising video game targets before there were video games: They pop up, one after another, and you shoot them, or bang them on the head with a cricket bat. It's more fun sitting in the dark eating peanuts (ibid)". With all due respect, I don't see how you can describe <i>Dawn</i> as just a video game.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I tend to see that film more as form of clever Gothic satire; a jab at the way people go about desensitizing, demoralizing (deadening, if you will) one another in pursuit of pointless and empty goals. And it is precisely <i>that point</i>, I would argue, which is the true engine running Romero's films, and not just the zombies. If that were the case. If all George ever offered his audiences was just gallons of fake blook poured on the screen, I doubt it would be as fondly remembered, or have as much of an enduring shelf life as it still does today. The key thing to note, however, is less the reputation of films like <i>Dawn</i> or <i>Shaun of the Dead</i>, and much more Ebert's response to all of this. Rather, it's perhaps more appropriate to note his almost constant <i>lack</i> of response to the cultural impact of films such as these. If Horror films like this go on to be embraced as touchstones by mainstream audiences, then the critic's relative lack of interest in such a phenomenon has to tell its own story in response. </span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIou-b-ndN9lHR3JCqRHLYBD_tpCSxY6ZyUTd2YhlPrWnjCBnlWwpBspJhwkxnbHu1iG0Tr2cKhrQcaVD3ATcs0cnhW76xg-RcQhp-FBHPXL-5GHghSuywdkBMVBuCbFz8q1MxY8whnrIDsUpsY_cIHgWFiJ9y_CK0NzpNTrxSDsEdqN-4n3DQYQJew90E/s1000/rogerebert_horror_2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1000" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIou-b-ndN9lHR3JCqRHLYBD_tpCSxY6ZyUTd2YhlPrWnjCBnlWwpBspJhwkxnbHu1iG0Tr2cKhrQcaVD3ATcs0cnhW76xg-RcQhp-FBHPXL-5GHghSuywdkBMVBuCbFz8q1MxY8whnrIDsUpsY_cIHgWFiJ9y_CK0NzpNTrxSDsEdqN-4n3DQYQJew90E/w640-h384/rogerebert_horror_2.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />For me, it paints this picture of Ebert as someone who was perhaps never all that much interested in the Gothic genre of American fiction to begin with. He might have liked a handful of morsels from this baroque sample plate. However, it never seems to have translated into anything like a full enthusiasm for the genre as a whole. The frustrating part about it for me, as a fan, is that he seems to make a categorical error when passing judgement on this type of fiction. The almost perfect irony about his mistake is that even here, it is possible to acknowledge he might have had at least the beginnings of a valid point. Whenever Ebert equated modern Horror films with Geek Shows, he, like everyone else, tended to point to the usual list of suspects. These would include names like Freddy, Jason, and their myriad legions of copycats, and cut-and-paste jobs. Here's the point where things get interesting (for me, at least). As long as the criticism is limited to just this particular </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">type of film</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"> within the genre, then Ebert's judgment can be considered valid. In that sense, he's not the only one with cause to decry what might termed the cheap </span><span style="color: #333333;">coarsening of a legitimate mode of dramatic Gothic expression. A lot of the reason for my liking the Horror genre is because of the heights of sophistication it can reach.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo80kzsDjE3CB2thHevKO6RyI7utBtvQMmNQ94np-SBs9cz6NFcnrJZ-CKub7zTU0fJ4PFJ3o-eCzP2x_vf6hNgNF44CeJJzPKo1z3rrV3dRDliLQCF2II6mo_KzD124TiRHqof8QbgbPnmKQujlloDHdbNe7bQwOT8NylBnlbWhyZ0wHkAeerBbi2RDd2/s764/gs.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="764" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo80kzsDjE3CB2thHevKO6RyI7utBtvQMmNQ94np-SBs9cz6NFcnrJZ-CKub7zTU0fJ4PFJ3o-eCzP2x_vf6hNgNF44CeJJzPKo1z3rrV3dRDliLQCF2II6mo_KzD124TiRHqof8QbgbPnmKQujlloDHdbNe7bQwOT8NylBnlbWhyZ0wHkAeerBbi2RDd2/s320/gs.webp" width="209" /></a></div>I've no idea how much of an oxymoron that must sound, yet I'll swear to the truth of that statement. Whenever it's at it's best. When the narrative description, action, dialogue or scenarios are starting to fire on all </span>cylinders<span style="font-family: inherit;">. No matter if the production value is prestige or schlock, if the writing is of any valid, good quality, then its like finding a diamond in the rough. Such finds are to treasured as gems, in my opinion, because in a genre that is so vulnerable to bastardization as Horror, every story of real value winds up needing someone to champion it every now and then. This is a general rule of thumb that I'm proud to see is becoming a regular acknowledgement among other fans of this type of writing. </span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">It goes double for certifiable masterpieces of the form such as Straub's </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Ghost Story</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">. What I wonder about, however, is this. If Ebert's dislike of the contemporary Horror story caused him to overlook the values of films like </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Dawn of the Dead</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">, or </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They Live</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">, then could the same </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">prejudice</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"> extend to the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">prose</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"> of Horror fiction? Could his perception of Horror as bad stories extend to a verdict of bad writing? It's with this in mind that I'm ready to present a final examination of literary style. We'll close off this study on the elements of style by looking into the sentences of Peter Straub's Horror novel.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The plan here is to quote from what I hope are the most representative examples that typify the stylistic nature of the book, with the aim of proving its literary worth. In order to do that, we'll need a basis for comparison, however. So that means it helps if we can use Roger Ebert's own opinions on what the nature of Horror fiction is, or should be. That way we have a benchmark to work with or against as the case may be. The good news is the great film critic has left with just perhaps the barest sliver criteria that allows us to gain a sense of his idea of what the Gothic should be. In the same review of the movie adaptation of Straub's novel (the one that got this whole thing started, in other words) Ebert outlines his definition of "Good Horror" as follows: </span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Ghost stories should always begin as this one does, in shadows so deep that the flickering light of the dying fire barely illuminates the apprehensive faces of the listeners. They should be told in an old man's voice, dry as dust. They should be listened to by other men who are so old and so rich that we can only guess at the horrors they have seen. And, of course, ghost stories should be about things that happened long ago to young, passionate lovers who committed unspeakable crimes and have had to live forever after with the knowledge of them. If at all possible, some of the characters should be living in this life, filled with guilt, while others should be living the half-lives of the Undead, filled with hatred and revenge".</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpS3p6GxpjYckAkM2bIuglcW148m42AgaocJtyMx9nLzsGJZ8JITOpVl9IQIA37NM6mQVsoDh1BSb1427lxSXJlqIkTkSS2zZJ-N8i1Jdi_lZD72V2J3dyQDeSXDB3tAu5jT2uhK-s4vAYgZBRWB33KzqPXL_t29riaDbaLbWFgzxC33cLXpEAPw7Bc2ni/s1200/Danse_Macabre_(1981)_dust_jacket,_first_edition.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="1200" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpS3p6GxpjYckAkM2bIuglcW148m42AgaocJtyMx9nLzsGJZ8JITOpVl9IQIA37NM6mQVsoDh1BSb1427lxSXJlqIkTkSS2zZJ-N8i1Jdi_lZD72V2J3dyQDeSXDB3tAu5jT2uhK-s4vAYgZBRWB33KzqPXL_t29riaDbaLbWFgzxC33cLXpEAPw7Bc2ni/w640-h276/Danse_Macabre_(1981)_dust_jacket,_first_edition.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now, for comparison, let's take a look at how Straub himself views, or defines, the modern Gothic genre. The following are the author's own words, as recorded down in the pages of <i>Danse Macabre</i>: "[<i>Ghost Story</i>] started as a result of my having just read all the American supernatural fiction I could find," Straub says. "I reread Hawthorne and James, and went out and got all of the Lovecraft and a lot of book by his 'set' - this was because I wanted to find out what my tradition was, since I was by then pretty firmly in the field - I also read Bierce, Edith Wharton's ghost stories, and a lot of Europeans (268)". "I really wanted to expand things much more than I ever had before," Straub says. "I wanted to work on a large canvas. <i>Salem's Lot</i> showed me how to do this without getting lost among a lot of minor characters. Besides the large canvas, I also wanted a certain largeness of effect....I had been imbued with the notion that horror stories are best when they are ambiguous and low key and restrained. Reading [<i>Salem's Lot</i>], I realized that idea was self-defeating. Horror stories were best when they were big and gaudy, when the natural operative quality in them was let loose. </span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSHR8gegT-8lDW4yq61ZKKlfxWqUdXTpUAoTo6gfpcR8SqphMtQ2iUSlvfXOuBmLhAqmX3XbZjJoT2e_TpLlKnNVAE6w4ZSXhNKkO_aswKBUcnZ-r7247-IFOL5BeatuDhJdTmNWDrIGmmgsmvuzPzMvl3Dcr0xqJixgfFRr1r1OL9o4uZ5AJN1B60oGu/s333/497787306.0.m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSHR8gegT-8lDW4yq61ZKKlfxWqUdXTpUAoTo6gfpcR8SqphMtQ2iUSlvfXOuBmLhAqmX3XbZjJoT2e_TpLlKnNVAE6w4ZSXhNKkO_aswKBUcnZ-r7247-IFOL5BeatuDhJdTmNWDrIGmmgsmvuzPzMvl3Dcr0xqJixgfFRr1r1OL9o4uZ5AJN1B60oGu/s320/497787306.0.m.jpg" width="192" /></a></div>"So part of the 'expansion was an expansion of effect - I wanted to work up to big climaxes, create more tension than I ever had, build in big scares. What all this means is that my ambition was geared up very high. Very much on my mind was the idea of doing something which would be </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">very</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"> literary, and at the same time take on every kind of ghost situation I could think of. Also I wanted to play around with reality, to make the characters confused about what was actually real. So: I built in situations in which they feel they are 1.) acting out roles in a book; 2.) watching a film; 3.) hallucinating; 4.) dreaming; 5.) transported into a private fantasy. This kind of thing, I think, is what our kind of book can do very well, what it is naturally suited to do. The material is sort of naturally absurd and </span><span style="color: #333333;">unbelievable</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">, and therefore suits a narrative in which the characters are bounced around a whole set of situations, some of which they know rationally to be false. And it seemed fitting to me that this kind of plot would emerge from a group of men telling stories - it was self-referring, which always pleases me deeply in novels. If the structure had a relationship to the events, the book has more resonance (276-277)".</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">If you put Ebert's and Straub's statements together, then what you get is something I'm sure even the master of the "Thumbs Up - Thumbs Down" rating might appreciate. It amounts to nothin less than the kind of back and forth critical banter that Roger enjoyed with Gene Siskel during the glory years of <i>At the Movies</i>. This time, Straub is the one who seems to have over Siskel's role, and the contrast between each speaker's notion of what makes for good Horror couldn't be more glaring. Ebert's viewpoint is very much as Straub described it; "imbued </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">with the notion that horror stories are best when they are ambiguous and low key and restrained". Now, to be fair, this does count as at least <i>one</i> legitimate method of storytelling for the Horror genre to operate in. The equal, yet obvious fact that still seems to need pointing out here, not just to Ebert but for anyone who is willing to sell the genre short, is that of course its an inevitability that the overall content of Horror, and the prose style in which it is written are bound to develop and expand the generic horizons as both time and talent evolves with the ages.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6uWiiOk1KS9oYPeJU348saJFbq9sjho5RUbUK-NHW8ix-w5saOi_dYpAwHdB-LgyzgJ6N5Da9IZ0f3gMfpebB4oFW5jfFHUadpdGjwafllLZdA6xAO3p4N31rr8n05wwSTlOi3GLMVf_hrB8Qgdgvq8GxxKPVJhURNi0CJg9E_pbQxbWwymPOOngUKrMa/s1200/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1200" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6uWiiOk1KS9oYPeJU348saJFbq9sjho5RUbUK-NHW8ix-w5saOi_dYpAwHdB-LgyzgJ6N5Da9IZ0f3gMfpebB4oFW5jfFHUadpdGjwafllLZdA6xAO3p4N31rr8n05wwSTlOi3GLMVf_hrB8Qgdgvq8GxxKPVJhURNi0CJg9E_pbQxbWwymPOOngUKrMa/w640-h460/download.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>That is one of the most fundamental truisms of life that I'm kind of surprised that someone like Ebert would need to be reminded of, if I'm being honest. <i>Of course</i> the Horror genre and its mode of expression was going to grow and elaborate as writers, filmmakers, and artists found new ways and methods of telling stories set in this ever transforming mold. It's part of the basic nature of all art in general. It's also now an open question of how much Ebert himself was either aware of, or on-board with the inevitability of such shifts in artistic technique. If I had to take a guess, then my own thinking is that while he might have been willing to show good faith here and there, at the end of the day, the modern Horror genre wound up developing in directions that he just no longer recognized, or could get into. I think that novel's like <i>Ghost Story</i> are part and parcel of that process of being left behind. Something tells me this is as close as we'll ever get to understanding Ebert's relations with the Gothic.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That just leaves us with the question of Straub's style as a Horror writer. How well does his prose read, anyway? The samples I aim to look at now come from the beginning and middle of the novel. Once again, each sample is chosen for the quality of the words, and how the author uses them to the best possible effect. We begin at the most logical place to start, by examining the opening lines of the book.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4lzhDcaQIt3-kpLs4cPHMruaEoAXuVDhHaw9POkPMQUvj-w7pRXGLXGm4ucvepZ9CBpnpJDilM2eitgmWPr1vlp0_NMzRw-m1MYAFFAnQiFRGFjCROCLFNdtr2nIrbNrw0pEm3eT7TlUq7ngLF09Ll8MCiZHV2wUM6drL_1U0xLOT4SovB_hvU2WfQGK7/s1000/61TsAz5PC7L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="623" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4lzhDcaQIt3-kpLs4cPHMruaEoAXuVDhHaw9POkPMQUvj-w7pRXGLXGm4ucvepZ9CBpnpJDilM2eitgmWPr1vlp0_NMzRw-m1MYAFFAnQiFRGFjCROCLFNdtr2nIrbNrw0pEm3eT7TlUq7ngLF09Ll8MCiZHV2wUM6drL_1U0xLOT4SovB_hvU2WfQGK7/s320/61TsAz5PC7L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>"Because he thought that would have problem taking the child over the border into Canada, he drove south, skirting the cities whenever they came and taking the anonymous freeways which were like a separate country, as travel was itself like a separate country. The sameness both comforted and stimulated him, so that on the first day he was able to drive for twenty hours straight through. They ate at McDonald's and at root-beer stands: when he was hungry, he left the freeway and took a state highway parallel to it, knowing that a drive-in was never more than ten or twenty miles away. Then he woke up the child and they both gnawed at their hamburgers or chili dogs, the child never speaking more than to tell him what she wanted. Most of the time she slept. That first night the man remembered the light bulbs illuminating his license plates, and though this would later prove to be unnecessary swung off the freeway onto a dark country road long enough to unscrew the lightbulbs and toss them into a field. Then he took handfuls of mud from beside the road and smeared them over the plates. Wiping his hands on his trousers, he went back around to the driver's side and opened the door. The child was sleeping with her back straight against the seat, her mouth closed. She appeared perfectly composed. He still didn't know what he was going to have to do to her (3)".</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">There are two way to look at this passage. The first concerns matters of style, the second substance, or content. <i>Ghost Story</i> is the kind of book that deserves its own article, however, since we're here to address Ebert's criticisms of prose writing, it'll have to wait another day. For now, we'll have to settle for talking about how the opening action is written. In terms of style, my immediate reaction to Straub's prose line, then and now, is that there's nothing all that remarkable about it. His prose is spare, sparse, and generally saves whatever small flourishes the writer might have in his repertoire for those brief moments whenever he thinks it's either allowable, or that he can get away with it. A good example of what I mean of this instance comes a few pages later, when the narration takes us once more inside the headspace of the same, nervous, maybe even dangerous driver (a child-napper?). He's on the road again after what he assumes was a close call with the authorities, and the description reads like this:</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUFv9qKvQM5YXgbSR2WHz1Jlo1_XSqE_EK8NxRP7vm5eu6tT7_TUfhqahhJ7efBk8ONDtNZnjpxowZoShcgrAtJQvhUiHnQjTC8QrG3LtHJoW8W1uVV6sIrLjHLAj917MfgSyzW59z2QvyvmGE9cvHDINNkZKMXkb6SC5k_AvtaF8tTw-iESqDHRVnCdiR/s512/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="512" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUFv9qKvQM5YXgbSR2WHz1Jlo1_XSqE_EK8NxRP7vm5eu6tT7_TUfhqahhJ7efBk8ONDtNZnjpxowZoShcgrAtJQvhUiHnQjTC8QrG3LtHJoW8W1uVV6sIrLjHLAj917MfgSyzW59z2QvyvmGE9cvHDINNkZKMXkb6SC5k_AvtaF8tTw-iESqDHRVnCdiR/w640-h438/unnamed.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"So for hours they drove south through the songs and rhythms of country music, the stations weakening and changing, the disk jockeys swapping names and accents, the sponsors succeeding each other in a revolving list of insurance companies, toothpaste, soap, Dr. Pepper and Pepsi-Cola, acne preparations...petroleum jelly, bargain wristwatches, aluminum siding, dandruff shampoos: but the music remained the same, a vast and self-conscious story, a sort of seamless repetitious epic in which women married truckers and no-good gamblers but stood by them until they got a divorce and the men sat in bars plotting seductions and how to get back home, and they came together hot as two-dollar pistols and parted in disgust and worried about the babies. Sometimes the car wouldn't start, sometimes the TV was busted; sometimes the bars closed down and threw you out on the street, your pockets turned inside out. There was nothing that was not banal, there was no phrase that wasn't a cliche, but the child sat there satisfied and passive, dozing off to Willie Nelson and waking up to Loretta Lynn, and the man just drove, distracted by this endless soap opera of America's bottom dogs (7)".</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9HmJ4FOJ_Ngp0cxQZqaCW091Ifct2CTIkdRzkegbemoNB_ZLofYH8mNh6BvtkZU3pOSgRA9YYrIXo7PZWc960VsiSlf3l27zg4SfxlMBZaWcbz6alT43-s-RwrTeO08Dcsoh0P90huDo_u1NjLBRjbM_61sXMWJhaaFtu84o36eIbk2xZAM7FSNnKX1my/s1000/71R5LFQW5bL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9HmJ4FOJ_Ngp0cxQZqaCW091Ifct2CTIkdRzkegbemoNB_ZLofYH8mNh6BvtkZU3pOSgRA9YYrIXo7PZWc960VsiSlf3l27zg4SfxlMBZaWcbz6alT43-s-RwrTeO08Dcsoh0P90huDo_u1NjLBRjbM_61sXMWJhaaFtu84o36eIbk2xZAM7FSNnKX1my/s320/71R5LFQW5bL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Here we begin to get a sense of the writer's way with words, his ability for turning a poetic phrase. The opening paragraph may have shown flashes of this talent here and there, yet they remained unobtrusive. One gets the sense that the writer was concerned first with laying out the opening scene in the starkest of terms. Any concerns about the language's color palette were of secondary importance, if it was even there at all. The second example, however, begins to display Straub's ability as a prose stylist slowly beginning to make itself known. It's nothing major, we're not dealing with the growl of a literary Harley Davison, or Nascar engine revving up and getting ready to rock and roll. If you want that kind of opening, I suggest you go read a short story like <i>Throttle</i>, by Stephen King and Joe Hill. Instead, Straub's sense of prosaic expansion puts one more in mind of a jazz combo starting to tune up. The poetic diction, and hence the felt atmosphere of his words is more classical rather than straightforward pulp. The necessary sense of nervous energy and dread endemic to the Gothic genre is all present and accounted for. However, Straub doesn't just throw his readers into a bloodbath and call it a day. His own approach to the genre is much too controlled and sure-handed for such tactics.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">Instead, this is the kind of story where the prose opens on that all-important note of dread, and then continues to make its slow, careful, and deliberate way toward the true Horror generating the story's ever present sense of nervous tension. In this way, Straub fashions his prose with all the careful clarity of an onion being peeled back in the hands of a master chef. He doesn't shout as much in this book because he knows he doesn't have to. The nature of the Horror at the center of his narrative is of such a quality that all he has to do is stand back, and let it generate its own, classic aura of Gothic fear. </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6GjNc3GtZ94VmZJYLFOKWUMiRXhX1Bnya1_uRWTw2CVeUvkh1jgyl84rCRoxcAen8J2Wmg3lCq6uZvPbi-_2WiHutDzw4mCN1cZs81753zPLWkyIkBtKT-AMcGbnatOVdTNHa_wRj02CZdhV07gVcRj8S9jppl8oFesLHDI8UToUCxFwQdaLyEzNA7wM3/s894/71v2bCdtXEL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="894" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6GjNc3GtZ94VmZJYLFOKWUMiRXhX1Bnya1_uRWTw2CVeUvkh1jgyl84rCRoxcAen8J2Wmg3lCq6uZvPbi-_2WiHutDzw4mCN1cZs81753zPLWkyIkBtKT-AMcGbnatOVdTNHa_wRj02CZdhV07gVcRj8S9jppl8oFesLHDI8UToUCxFwQdaLyEzNA7wM3/w640-h434/71v2bCdtXEL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>This leaves the content of his story intact, while allowing the prose to do however much it needs to deliver the proper swipes at the gut or jugular whenever its time for them to make their appearance on-stage. The result of this approach marks out Straub's style as a hybrid case. His basic technique seems to be a combination of the common American Middle Ground, with a constant touch of the Spartan approach. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He's ways more expressive than either Raymond Carver or Cormac McCarthy. At the same time, his desire to get out of the story's way can make his prose seem more restrained than it really is.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;">In fact, it is possible for Straub to modify the tone of his writing based on the situation he finds himself confronted with. Let's take a good example of this from the book's second opening, in it's Part Two segment. After spending the entirety of the opening in a state of slow, yet steady building tension, confined for the most part to the inside of that car with the runaway driver and the girl he seems to have kidnapped, everything build to a crescendo I will not spoil here. After that, the prose reads as follows:</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"One day in early October</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Frederick Hawthorne, a seventy year old lawyer who had lost very little to the years, left his house on Melrose Avenue in Milburn, New York, to walk across town to his offices on Wheat row just beside the square. The temperature was a little colder than Milburn expected so early in its autumn, but Ricky wore his winter uniform of tweed topcoat, cashmere muffler, and gray, no-nonsense hat. He walked a little briskly down Melrose Avenue to warm up his blood, moving beneath huge oaks and smaller maples already colored heart-wrenching shades of orange and red - another seasonal touch. He was susceptible to colds, and if the temperature dropped another five degrees, he'd have to drive...What he walked chiefly to observe was Milburn itself - Milburn, the town in which all of his life except for his time in university, law school and the army had been spent. He had never wanted to live anywhere else, though in the early days of his marriage, his lovely and restless wife had often claimed the town was boring. Stella had wanted New York - had wanted it resolutely. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUi0m7alMj3TN6S6sU4ckzv01dIogH8OT3_K2xxs33P84DuPZVMOsI4QVHKjk0VGY3KrXw8tnNJbxLROvLsLtWqr9jd5IiNK6jyK84_TlxMorH5x_3b1Q2nUR0BmtdtU8_Q9Sl8QB40Sk8YRDXU-WXL6LPlp8qbBQqOHPlpu0B_CtfCfUXmMmtZ9ZKgkRu/s1250/716-norman-rockwell-stockbridge-main-street-at-christmas-home-for-christmas-1967.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1250" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUi0m7alMj3TN6S6sU4ckzv01dIogH8OT3_K2xxs33P84DuPZVMOsI4QVHKjk0VGY3KrXw8tnNJbxLROvLsLtWqr9jd5IiNK6jyK84_TlxMorH5x_3b1Q2nUR0BmtdtU8_Q9Sl8QB40Sk8YRDXU-WXL6LPlp8qbBQqOHPlpu0B_CtfCfUXmMmtZ9ZKgkRu/w640-h256/716-norman-rockwell-stockbridge-main-street-at-christmas-home-for-christmas-1967.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>"That had been one of the battles he had won. It was incomprehensible to Ricky that anyone could find Milburn boring: if you watched it closely for seventy years, you saw the century at work...The original frame houses had endured, even if nearly all of them were now office buildings: even the trees were younger than the buildings. He walked, his polished black shoes kicking through crisp leaves, past buildings much like those on Wheat Row and accompanied memories of his boyhood self down these same streets (27-29)". Here the what you could call the poetry of the novel's diction has shifted over from the initial tone of mounting tension and fear. The basic surrounding atmosphere that the words of this first section of the book's main action is best described by its sub-chapter heading: "Milburn Observed Through Nostalgia". In these early moments, Straub does a good job of taking the feel of a Norman Rockwell painting, or a monologue by Garrison Keillor, and finding the right words to transcribe it both into the setting of his own work, as well as that of the specific genre they are meant to convey. He's also good at switching back to the original note of unease with well-timed grace. This moment happens not too far on, when one of the other main cast is home from jogging in the woods.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUhUIvh3KFzk9XMPYMClNKa8r9aDHzWY5T5irimyHptBPLlWWzdiejsEFLyGnnMAxQyb5_oP1KMoRHxAcnD8IHxS_bzVc2jU0oa8P_8XGMR-JPX0NWrjvROvjpE-16xUfwRy0O3VRh27LGN2CCQY8YV-iYNJtDWxbgIstgG1ZPH89ASODFsKRkPhFCXKee/s716/91BTCKxXhYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="526" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUhUIvh3KFzk9XMPYMClNKa8r9aDHzWY5T5irimyHptBPLlWWzdiejsEFLyGnnMAxQyb5_oP1KMoRHxAcnD8IHxS_bzVc2jU0oa8P_8XGMR-JPX0NWrjvROvjpE-16xUfwRy0O3VRh27LGN2CCQY8YV-iYNJtDWxbgIstgG1ZPH89ASODFsKRkPhFCXKee/s320/91BTCKxXhYL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>"When the sensation first hit him, he ignored it, vowing not to allow himself to be whammied any more than he was already. What had come into his mind was that someone was standing back at the beginning of the return path, just where the first trees stood. He knew that no one could be there: it was impossible that anyone had walked across the field without his noticing. but the sensation persisted; it would not be argued away. His watcher's eyes seemed to follow him, going deeper into the crowded trees. His watcher's eyes seemed to follow him, going deeper into the crowded trees. A squadron of crows left the branches of an oak just ahead of him. Normally this would have delighted Lewis, but this time he jumped at their racket and almost fell. Then the sensation shifted and became more intense. The person back there was coming after him, staring at him with huge eyes. Frantic, despising himself, Lewis pelted for home without daring to look back. He could feel eyes watching him until he reached the walkway leading across his back garden from the edge of the woods to his kitchen door (88)".</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In the space between these two scenes, Straub has managed to shift the tone from that of American Bucolic back to the realm of the kind of haunted woods that lie in wait for unwary travelers in a dark fairy tale. This is an initial impression that gets driven home over the course of the novel to Lewis Benedict, the unlucky jogger from the passage above. Later on, nearing the end of the story's middle, he is once more visited by the impression that the otherwise ordinary forest pathway up to his own front door has changed, and that he has somehow wandered into the pages of a text, instead of real life. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"And now, walking over new snow toward his woods, Lewis had a fresh perception. It may have come because he was seeing the woods from an unfamiliar angle, going at them backward, and it may have been because he was just walking through them for the first time in weeks, not jogging. Whatever the reason, the woods looked like an illustration in a book - not like a real woods, but a drawing on a page. It was a fairytale woods, looking too perfect, too composed - drawn in black ink - to be real. Even the path, winding off in a pretty indirection, was a fairytale path (160)".</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRswbAnngpiTTD8l-uzeQ1AKfnzeA9rh2UotWTettfcue5RvFck_y9uOFKGRNAONeAZBinOMNhNaUYH03XUSRLFp_ffIFwnqhh6IIRCSCPMpljxdBYyV18v7OttHv60hkKY46LBs6RynnmAk4CzSiECL_94qZUejdrKRyKFVwVhdN4ALrcSs6QAMcTbT1p/s900/eaead2da4e33d082e3364f339ec47c11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRswbAnngpiTTD8l-uzeQ1AKfnzeA9rh2UotWTettfcue5RvFck_y9uOFKGRNAONeAZBinOMNhNaUYH03XUSRLFp_ffIFwnqhh6IIRCSCPMpljxdBYyV18v7OttHv60hkKY46LBs6RynnmAk4CzSiECL_94qZUejdrKRyKFVwVhdN4ALrcSs6QAMcTbT1p/w640-h426/eaead2da4e33d082e3364f339ec47c11.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now these passages within Straub's novel fascinate me for a number of interconnected reasons, and the best way to start the explanation of this goes as follows. As a scholar, J.R.R. Tolkien lived by an idea or rule that might sound either preposterous, or interesting: all language has a history. A correlative of this notion is that sometimes, if you study the use of language in a culture's history, then sometimes you might get lucky enough to spot what might be termed moments of linguistic transition in action. Those periods where it becomes easy to tell that the common artistic terms and expressions of a culture's vocabulary and vernacular are undergoing a shift from one voice to that of another. Call it an overlooked facet of human evolution, one so natural that most of us can't even pick up on when it happens, or has occurred, even the recent past. The switchover from the language of an analog state of living to the digitally infused manners of speech in our own era is the best current example of this evolution. When I read <i>Ghost Story</i> now, I think I begin to see signs of another shift taking place, right within the very pages of the book itself. Straub's novel is a product not just of that earlier analog terminology, it also seems to have become a kind of accidental, linguistic artifact. The snapshot of a moment of transition from one form of artistic expression into another preserved forever in the pages.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJPmWLEOlB6pP9mV9Ngjav6bJCgspk5t3a1i-2TTsrMhYHnmVtIlA30_NlThq9hWnFjJGiCjUFz9h_XPxzoIKhkcQMZ4HDv9EPXuj-VIO1LWhMJP2zPpGC28D2qd9v_6Dw3DntQymK3XAvKj7eeORJ7b_140wHs8O0c3SpxCGm8vqKKVKW_oSOkH6-mzqJ/s923/'Salem's_Lot_(1975)_front_cover,_first_edition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="923" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJPmWLEOlB6pP9mV9Ngjav6bJCgspk5t3a1i-2TTsrMhYHnmVtIlA30_NlThq9hWnFjJGiCjUFz9h_XPxzoIKhkcQMZ4HDv9EPXuj-VIO1LWhMJP2zPpGC28D2qd9v_6Dw3DntQymK3XAvKj7eeORJ7b_140wHs8O0c3SpxCGm8vqKKVKW_oSOkH6-mzqJ/s320/'Salem's_Lot_(1975)_front_cover,_first_edition.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>Here's what I mean by all this. When I read through the language of Straub's novel today, I begin to see that the author has wound up writing his story in a hybrid style. This might give some readers the sense that the whole story is possessed of this odd, schizoid quality, almost like you're reading two books in one. It took me a while to find out why that should be, and then it hit me. The reason for Straub's style of writing within the novel is because his prose is always in the process of changing from one form of expression to another. The finished product sort of has no choice except to preserve a record of that transformation in the stark blacks and whites of ink on paper. Though if Straub's style records a sea change from one mode of poetic diction to another, what is it moving from and toward? The best answer I've got is that he's managed to capture a snapshot of a genre in transition. Before the advent of Stephen King, and novels like <i>Salem's Lot</i>, the highest expression that the Gothic genre had ever achieved in terms of style was captured in the prose of Bradbury, Flannery O'Connor, and Shirley Jackson. While Bradbury's Lyricism has proved the more durable style, able to survive up to now, O'Connor and Jackson stand as the prime examples of the classic modern American Gothic prose.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Go back and read short stories like "A Good Man is Hard to Find", or <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i>, sometime. If you do, you're bound to be shocked by the strange familiarity hanging over the proceedings. That's because what the reader is witnessing as they pour over the words is nothing less than a slow series of building blocks that have wound up leading now inexorably to the modern Middle Ground idiom employed by the likes of Straub, King, and Gaiman in their own experiments with the Fantastic genres. The writing of O'Connor and Jackson form inescapable stepping stones to novels like <i>Salem's Lot</i> or <i>Ghost Story</i>. The key thing to note, however, is the way that earlier writers like Jackson used the vocabulary of the mid-20th century Gothic to construct her haunted secondary worlds. A setting like Hill House is made up of words that are clean, crisp, and clear. Jackson then takes that clarity of style, and twists it until we are firmly in the land of unreliable narration. She does this by giving the vast majority of the novel over to a main character who may be haunted by spirits, or else just going insane, with the most likely answer being a little of both columns. It's one of the great tour de forces not just of Horror fiction, but of Western literature in general. It's the genre at a high peak.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6gktWwhG95QyIk8wwq2cgIo86uotr2Jb9ggONyPWhbsmF5ZJ4OJJJyfmY71D48JC40BcUAnhGVX0aqDorKwqXvhK_U8tfeSok4yCipNaW0d3ChmrT9qMhGpoUI2efGV14k1homHfLwBgbVxhOzxYp2y-Z872XVgf19NigV4JHh1oO0yOBeNYOWvysyk-1/s800/shirley-jackson-covers.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6gktWwhG95QyIk8wwq2cgIo86uotr2Jb9ggONyPWhbsmF5ZJ4OJJJyfmY71D48JC40BcUAnhGVX0aqDorKwqXvhK_U8tfeSok4yCipNaW0d3ChmrT9qMhGpoUI2efGV14k1homHfLwBgbVxhOzxYp2y-Z872XVgf19NigV4JHh1oO0yOBeNYOWvysyk-1/w640-h360/shirley-jackson-covers.webp" width="640" /></a></div>Jackson has grasped at the mid-century prose of Gothicism, and taken it as far as it could ever go. With <i>The Haunting</i> she seems to have wound up putting the final stamp on the overall nature of stories and novels composed in the classic October mode. It's a feat similar to the way Francis Coppola was able to elevate the techniques of Golden Age Hollywood cinematography to its best possible pinnacle with <i>The Godfather</i>. Neither effort breaks so much as it completes its mold. Each is an exercise in putting the finishing touches on a good style. The trouble with seeing a prose style to as close to perfection as possible is that it means this particular form of expression might no longer have anywhere else to go. It's when this happens that a kind mental tectonic shift begins to occur. There's a sense of restlessness in the diction of artists who start to come after. An almost blind, groping search begins for the new way of saying things, the hoped for discovery of just the right kind of expression that will help future artists move forward in their creativity. As things worked it, it was Steve King who became the pathfinder.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCV6osSEEgoCQ-QW0DTkZrnicD9b7iYA_TIDEBKhIyoE888lppit82vtjrwN-I0NuYO_9_2tP8SicVrEO8sjawEwokfw2AYKdjSL8rl-lqTS_Z5RtPAB-7ezwqLuiWGW4iM_U2UTOAiMVJDv51c3m2evhd-hWBnHCC_aoJrql-ztNR1DXZfegoqQyk2jrt/s231/1003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="231" data-original-width="150" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCV6osSEEgoCQ-QW0DTkZrnicD9b7iYA_TIDEBKhIyoE888lppit82vtjrwN-I0NuYO_9_2tP8SicVrEO8sjawEwokfw2AYKdjSL8rl-lqTS_Z5RtPAB-7ezwqLuiWGW4iM_U2UTOAiMVJDv51c3m2evhd-hWBnHCC_aoJrql-ztNR1DXZfegoqQyk2jrt/w184-h284/1003.jpg" width="184" /></a></div>His own style of writing seems to have been pretty much set by the time <i>Carrie</i> was published way back in 1974. Even if this was the case, what has to be kept in mind is that his own vernacular was just the <i>start</i> of the new Middle Ground while everyone else was still caught up in that moment of transition. Guys like Peter Straub, meanwhile, where still busy trying to write their way out of the old method of telling stories, and into the new field being plowed by the likes of King. That makes the words and language of a novel like <i>Ghost Story</i> the perfect snapshot of both an author and a genre in a moment of transition. We see Straub both aware of, and even paying a bit of tribute to the style of the giants on whose shoulders his story stands. We also get the sense that his own words are bidding a kind of fond farewell to the old, even as it forges ahead into the new. The result is a book with two types of storytelling in one. I'm starting to wonder if it might have been this sense of double-jointed stylistics that threw Ebert off the first time he tried to make his way through the text. He wasn't just confronted with the kind of book he could never enter, he also couldn't grasp the change in writing methods.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">If this is the case, if there's any probability to the kind of surmise laid out here. Then all we're left with is a sense of irony. We've got a writer with a great deal of talent and stylistic ingenuity confronted by a critic who seems more or less locked into his tastes, which are set in stone. You begin to get the sense that Horror fiction, for Roger Ebert, was always going to be limited to the more classical approaches of writers like Shirley Jackson and Henry James. In other words, the genre moved on, and Straub was one one of the artists who helped usher it into our modern terminology, leaving the tastes of guys like Ebert behind. If that's true, then the upshot is that Ebert didn't seem to mind being left behind. He was pretty much okay with being regarded as something of an old fossil even while he was still coming into his own. The final tally, then, is that while Ebert may have a lot to say about the efforts of other artists. In the end, he just doesn't seem to have been the best possible reader of a novel like <i>Ghost Story</i>. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJJnDaSewyfOdEMCHp55R_FAC1oBnJ3xkblQ_-Cyf6WSiHyD_9hHv914dGt8idN5JrybTKEp5VcR1Y3QWuHWW8jl0QcM2uI-zojO3YTVufWv_-PKfxiKJDYKNzQ5ORfNA-UA6Pi3b6RflbV6CGxU73F6DqWvgNb-pGaH1zhnAMXnzr1qJwnyTlUNe1bkX/s500/5d5a544a-a7ce-44f3-87cf-eea6fb9a60ef_500x281.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJJnDaSewyfOdEMCHp55R_FAC1oBnJ3xkblQ_-Cyf6WSiHyD_9hHv914dGt8idN5JrybTKEp5VcR1Y3QWuHWW8jl0QcM2uI-zojO3YTVufWv_-PKfxiKJDYKNzQ5ORfNA-UA6Pi3b6RflbV6CGxU73F6DqWvgNb-pGaH1zhnAMXnzr1qJwnyTlUNe1bkX/w640-h360/5d5a544a-a7ce-44f3-87cf-eea6fb9a60ef_500x281.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>The more objective call on the book in terms of its technical composition is that it's impossible to claim that there is anything inherently wrong with it. The worst you can say is that Straub is at pains not to get in the way of his story or its characters. The whole thing tends to come off as more painstaking, and deliberate rather than anything else. The trouble is it's difficult to figure out just what on Earth the problem is supposed to be with such an approach. The most damning label I can give to it would have to be polished. Straub wants to make sure his story operates as much like a well-oiled machine as possible. This causes him to adopt what I would term a quasi-Spartan approach, and there's a reason for calling it that. This leads into the other facet of the book's style, one I've mentioned above already. Its a combo of the earlier, Jacksonian Gothic voice (for lack of a better phrase) mixed in with the then burgeoning Middle Ground vernacular that King was helping to pioneer. Straub's place in all this, as I've said, was transitional. What a close read of the stylistic composition of his novel reveals is just how aware the author was about this switch-over, and how this carried over into the finished product.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjypLUOR9f57ONxQt0VRaXQYQ-W_GwB8E7a9T29YvwV_mGOLcwWrN_AxJh7qocnvmIRtSPRBxhTE9d38AxNJvT4J0Pxo6-0LPyGWvkIiBx2j-RmwnD3tSpNevcVW-CM1ZLYALl74JEU36uvV_Crmsjc5BqwpopfgvJwXcpLzl8tJUueu3tZ5T5sNir81JKT/s500/9780708816042-us.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="298" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjypLUOR9f57ONxQt0VRaXQYQ-W_GwB8E7a9T29YvwV_mGOLcwWrN_AxJh7qocnvmIRtSPRBxhTE9d38AxNJvT4J0Pxo6-0LPyGWvkIiBx2j-RmwnD3tSpNevcVW-CM1ZLYALl74JEU36uvV_Crmsjc5BqwpopfgvJwXcpLzl8tJUueu3tZ5T5sNir81JKT/w176-h295/9780708816042-us.jpg" width="176" /></a></div>Like other writers of the time, Straub could see the changes coming, and was more than ready to embrace it. At the same time, it seems as if he was taken with the idea of recognizing the value of the older classical form of Gothic storytelling, and knew that while it may never truly go away, it would no longer be the dominant format in which Horror stories would be told or written. He was more than ready to jump on that bandwagon, and expand the expressive possibilities of the genre as far as it could go. However, he was also a fan of the classic style ghost story, and would remain a fan of it for the rest of his life. This seems to have put the author in a very nostalgic frame of mind, which seems to have carried over into the finished product. There's a genuine visceral quality to <i>Ghost Story</i> that was and remains well in line with the then new voice being developed by the likes of King and Gaiman. At the same time, there's this peculiar, yet somehow endearing sense of affection running through the story for most of its runtime, in particular for the group of old men who form the story's main characters. </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>A lot of the reason for this affection seems to stem from the author's awareness that he has stumbled upon the perfect set of literary archetypes that more or less represent that older, classic style of ghost story teller. The Chowder Society, in other words, are the perfect homage to writers like Henry James, Nathanial Hawthorne, M.R. James, and Shirley Jackson. They seem to epitomize for Straub all the glory of the older Horror stories, and he can't disguise his genuine fan's enthusiasm for what they represent. Hence the strange note of respect that always hangs over most of their scenes. Even when things are dour and threatening, you can tell the writer's heart goes out to these characters. The biggest way he demonstrates this affection is by giving them a story that functions essentially as a passing of the torch. The Chowder Society more or less wind up bequeathing their legacy to another character, a young man who is representative of the newer breed of Horror authors that both Straub and King belong to and wound up as. In that sense, the whole story is meant as a narrative of transition.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2paDPExu8fhxYIz6_Ej268FLcq4ekIeSrlC96IE0YF6JvkXfKNlovW33cinXdE67ijkyMU4CSvKDdRcxFZokvAilNUZwYDww3kSetGD1OJo2YB6E9i0LqHt1hTAR0WmB5OFOyrieu3FEjFnAGIYLv7VRKfFkWeJ8uAlM8J3uF6FRtqCQwVN5dAYhWv3XA/s630/Gene-Siskel-Roger-Ebert-630-jpg_202556.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="630" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2paDPExu8fhxYIz6_Ej268FLcq4ekIeSrlC96IE0YF6JvkXfKNlovW33cinXdE67ijkyMU4CSvKDdRcxFZokvAilNUZwYDww3kSetGD1OJo2YB6E9i0LqHt1hTAR0WmB5OFOyrieu3FEjFnAGIYLv7VRKfFkWeJ8uAlM8J3uF6FRtqCQwVN5dAYhWv3XA/w640-h360/Gene-Siskel-Roger-Ebert-630-jpg_202556.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>So, to repeat, it's this awareness of torch passing, or carrying on the fire that allows Straub to reach back into the older style of Gothic composition, and try to blend it with the newer trends of stylistic writing of which he would go on to be a shaping influence. In point of fact, after this novel, Straub would indeed prove himself a part of the next generation of <a href="http://peterstraub.net/exclusive-text/conjunctions-39-the-new-wave-fabulists/">New Wave Fabulists</a> by adopting not just one, but a deliberate variety of styles that was more suited to the then developing voice of the still contemporary Horror genre. As Straub explained in <a href="https://electricliterature.com/locked-away-in-peter-straubs-basement/">an interview with the online journal <i>Electric Lit</i></a>, he was always looking for ways of keeping the genre alive and fresh. A lot of it came from experimentation with new styles of storytelling. In that sense, <i>Ghost Story</i> can more or less be seen as the start of this process, and part of what makes it so engrossing is the acknowledgement by a then young and up and coming talent of the giants on whose shoulders he always stood on. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Taken on all these terms, the final product winds up as a text worth singing praise about. The book fits well with Stephen King's description of it in </span><i style="color: #333333;">Danse Macabre</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. "The writing itself is beautifully tuned and balanced (274)".</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The whole point of this essay was two-fold. I wanted to tackle the words of a former critic, in order to see if they were sustainable, or not. While I haven't lost any respect for the talent of a reviewer like Roger Ebert, I have come away with a better sense of his overall aesthetic values, and hence, how this outlook determines his many strengths, as well as his potential weaknesses. Some types of narrative were just forever out of his sympathy and <i>Ghost Story</i> turned out to be one of them. Still, it is merely a sketching in of the limits of the critic, and not of the literary skills of the novel proper. This in turn led me to the other point of this article. It was necessary to give as good an overview as possible of the types of modern prose that exemplify the modern idiom of artistic expression. I think I've done a good beginner's job of that, if nothing else. It is possible to prove that Straub's own narrative voice is well in keeping with the best types of writing available today. The only ambivalent question remains Ebert's own tastes with regard to what has to be termed the typical modern style of telling stories. The final thing to be determined is which of all the writing styles I have listed deserves to be first among others?</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2mIp06yDTXm1Ehq1ntuWbRwCiD-7_3vwYJtEIwJduy0EhsH2qC98Ftl_VwfIUnq-wVROS9rZ3y5srA-CwPuMmnM-FzfRxLU19Sj0C_t3XW8V3nD0S9dqqrB0j7NKD9Rv0MnhL8plQzK02C0YE-fxKfXgrH6qYljon5IL6hWAP_uGY63XkG-zYDHfYFzFs/s1440/1440x810_cmsv2_a3b6ee8d-2746-5ba7-95c7-67692df1197c-7000072.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1440" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2mIp06yDTXm1Ehq1ntuWbRwCiD-7_3vwYJtEIwJduy0EhsH2qC98Ftl_VwfIUnq-wVROS9rZ3y5srA-CwPuMmnM-FzfRxLU19Sj0C_t3XW8V3nD0S9dqqrB0j7NKD9Rv0MnhL8plQzK02C0YE-fxKfXgrH6qYljon5IL6hWAP_uGY63XkG-zYDHfYFzFs/w640-h360/1440x810_cmsv2_a3b6ee8d-2746-5ba7-95c7-67692df1197c-7000072.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The answer to that question is easy? There is no proper way for one style of writing to be better than another. To try and claim otherwise is little else but an act of hubris bordering on egotism. If literature is ever to do its job in a proper fashion, then all the possible styles of telling a story must be considered as all on the table, and up for grabs. Otherwise, the proper Art of writing a good work of fiction will stagnate. This is something I for one don't feel like allowing. Everybody's got to find and have their own voice, and that means both the allowance for mistakes, as well as the ability to learn from the possibilities of new developments in literary style. It's a lesson I think Ebert was well aware of, and yet he'd just reached a point where it was no longer possible to teach an old dog new tricks. My only hope in all this is that it doesn't become an inevitability with everyone sooner or later. The realm of Creative Writing is one of the places where I find myself the most at home, for some reason. Nor am I the only one. I think it's our job as literary enthusiasts to do the best we can to make others feel welcome.</span></span></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-2083763561213471762024-02-11T09:00:00.000-06:002024-02-11T09:00:38.975-06:00Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (2023).<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjh_W4nWz2xZQ8FmOZP1CHjelEfrfICND1Yh7aWuGNZoqaZIcH4OzkZLyNw-4Uy3yNfaleGR379EzxsrXu2FclYwUv6jiSqhK3MVHlX1M9dwBd6vD3Jp_zDilS2g1u0onckQdT9TuBpgznVJE2kSz5igQAdhVLAa78iIuhsS20TOgxeH9XlZPM3m5l64L/s1325/tumblr_1b012caeea7256fc56cef76c88a34cac_b70099bc_1280.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjh_W4nWz2xZQ8FmOZP1CHjelEfrfICND1Yh7aWuGNZoqaZIcH4OzkZLyNw-4Uy3yNfaleGR379EzxsrXu2FclYwUv6jiSqhK3MVHlX1M9dwBd6vD3Jp_zDilS2g1u0onckQdT9TuBpgznVJE2kSz5igQAdhVLAa78iIuhsS20TOgxeH9XlZPM3m5l64L/s320/tumblr_1b012caeea7256fc56cef76c88a34cac_b70099bc_1280.jpg" width="261" /></a></div>I can't recall how I wound up learning about this movie. All I can say for sure is that it was one of those "By Accident" situations that happen more or less all the time. I might have stumbled across this by accident in the course of reading an otherwise unrelated article on a Media Entertainment website, somewhere. Or else I stumbled upon it as a banner advertisement on IMDB, or a similar place like that. In fact, now that I stop and think it over, the way it happened was this. I was on YouTube and looking for some other video, and a trailer for this film either popped up as an add by pure chance, or else I saw the title of the film with it's main star, Simon Pegg in the thumbnail, and that was enough to catch my interest. I think the reason for wanting to give this film a chance comes down to two factors. The first was that Christopher Lloyd was featured in a supporting role. In other words, the film was advertised as some kind of supernatural, paranormal mystery thriller, and Doc Brown was going to be a part of it. I suppose it makes me look kind of stupid, considering that my immediate reaction was more or less, "Sign me up"! My only defense for this reaction is the second factor that got my attention. Neil Gaiman was touted as playing a key role as a mischievous prankster spirit. I had to see what the final results were like. And so, that was how I wound up learning about this peculiar anomaly of a film.<p></p><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><span></span><p></p><p><b>The Story.</b></p><p>Nandor Fodor (Pegg) is best described as one of life's more interesting case studies. He's the kind of person who tends to fit in among the more eccentric aspects of life was we claim to know it. There's not much in the way of personal details to learn about him, except perhaps for a few basics. He was born in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1895. He seems to have been the product of a Lower Middle Class Jewish household. There's very little information about his parents. Though considering the xenophobia of the times, it's not too out of bounds to speculate that one of the reasons the Fodors might not have been able to rise to a higher station in life all stems from the simple reason that the antisemitic social codes and mores of his society wouldn't allow them any such merit. Even if we go along with this line of pure speculation, young Nandor seems to have made out alright for himself. He made a successful study for a career in Law at the University of Hungary in Budapest. He passed with all the right credentials, and he was good enough at the job to the point where, presuming both World War I and (in particular) II had never happened, he might have had an ordinary life as a legal eagle.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlwOZ4CpKBZghovsguXCRv1NB31IsCQ0e4fzvF3cy1FjAbZUzRvY_WLFvQ4mCmDmSe4lAwq-gwq58IEgiIEiD0TMM7doCjylCK5xI_F37VmDdNUewYoFcRIgd9vPfhyphenhyphenNGt0v7GvK0zlSEIBthJWfq2jW6nE9E9ubkuO1RPMzHfWmaL3B8s29_EWRXj3qoB/s600/EG0WhxHXYAAdJDp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlwOZ4CpKBZghovsguXCRv1NB31IsCQ0e4fzvF3cy1FjAbZUzRvY_WLFvQ4mCmDmSe4lAwq-gwq58IEgiIEiD0TMM7doCjylCK5xI_F37VmDdNUewYoFcRIgd9vPfhyphenhyphenNGt0v7GvK0zlSEIBthJWfq2jW6nE9E9ubkuO1RPMzHfWmaL3B8s29_EWRXj3qoB/w640-h426/EG0WhxHXYAAdJDp.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Instead, the era of the collapse of the Great World Empires began, and with it came all the desperate saber rattling that endangered the lives of Budapest's Jewish population. Besides which, even if he'd been permitted to live a normal life, there might still have been this lingering restless streak in Fodor's character that just wouldn't permit him to sit still in such a humdrum profession. There seems to have been a great deal of the Romantic in his makeup. It didn't just make Fodor anxious to see and explore the world, it's also what made him decide to pull up roots and move to America. This is a choice that might have broken his father's heart. Before his son left, he told Fodor that it was most likely they would never see each other again. Nandor made his way eventually to New York, were he did a stint as a journalist. This was yet another profession that he seems to have been pretty good at it, because it lasted a good deal longer than his time as a lawyer. Now, here is the part where the details of the life become a bit too sketchy for any exact accounting. The best I can give here is more speculation.<p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnpe_dPTmFGrkUWWvxuwLwt16RWtGXZ85bQ0SOOJ9NLJFnsLGyod4A4SvMzxG2cFCFf0zWFGGe5jfDxK5_tjsgieUBIpbPXschHB-LhxH9JCjOWRQhc1yVyqe8EwXh6PgvBR1G_qD5aUbQ9EnEGc3Jm-xWrbju0Xnsve0Uxqc7jhn5Wfwha8VC8ytmsdkx/s444/occultists-the-psychic-researcher-nandor-fodor-author-of-encyclopaedia-of-psychic-science-1934-mc6jn6.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnpe_dPTmFGrkUWWvxuwLwt16RWtGXZ85bQ0SOOJ9NLJFnsLGyod4A4SvMzxG2cFCFf0zWFGGe5jfDxK5_tjsgieUBIpbPXschHB-LhxH9JCjOWRQhc1yVyqe8EwXh6PgvBR1G_qD5aUbQ9EnEGc3Jm-xWrbju0Xnsve0Uxqc7jhn5Wfwha8VC8ytmsdkx/s320/occultists-the-psychic-researcher-nandor-fodor-author-of-encyclopaedia-of-psychic-science-1934-mc6jn6.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>While it seems impossible to be certain, my hunch is that it was his stint as a journalist that more or less served to propel Fodor on towards his final profession. It was also the situation that would make into a minor public celebrity. My best guess estimate is that while serving as a beat reporter on the streets of NYC, Fodor was always being giving snippets of the colorful local folklore that makes up a good chunk of the legends of the Big Apple. In particular, it seems that tales of local haunted spots and twilight lanes grabbed Fodor's imagination enough to make him wonder if it was possible to take something like a genuine professional interest in this kind of Unexplained material. The second big event that appears to have moved Fodor onwards is the initial cultural impact and celebrity acclaim that came about when the profession of clinical psychology made its first great impact on public consciousness. It sounds strange in a day when such medical practices are taken for granted. What has to be remembered is this wasn't necessarily the case at the dawn of the 20th century. When Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were able to publish their first major works in the field of studying the mind, it came as something of a revelation to the world that the inner life of the mind was a determining factor in the way people lived.<p></p><p>For all intents and purposes, the reveal and interpretation of dreams, and even the bringing to self-awareness of all the varying personal vantage points with which we are seemingly forced by existence itself to both observe and then try to interpret our lives was nothing less than the unveiling a whole other world most of us were unaware of until that time. It was and remains, in the truest sense of the world, a genuine milestone in human self-discovery. Fodor was as hooked on this new-old science as he was on tales of ghostly visitations. It appears to have been the combination of these two experiences that seems to have led Fodor to something like the following train of thought. Was it at all possible to combine these two enthusiasms at once? The fact that even the belief in ghosts, and things that go bump in the night has to qualify in the last resort as a psychological phenomenon is an observable fact of life that doesn't seem to have been lost on Fodor. So, once more taking chance in his hands, Fodor quit his beat as a New York journalist, and managed to remake himself as a medical psychologist, with a special interest in the field of exploring areas mapped out under the heading of the paranormal.</p><p>Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this final stage of Fodor's life is that not only was he a success at this last chosen profession, he was considered good enough at it to become one of Freud's own drinking buddies and confidants. It may just be possible to claim that this proves the old saw about perseverance paying off in the end. Fodor's particular specialty was the studying of paranormal phenomenon being the result of psychological maladies, such as neurosis and mental imbalance. At the same time, he appears to have been one of life's natural born seekers. He was always on the lookout for anything like actual, clenching proof of an Otherworld. Then one day, a fellow paranormal investigator Harry Price (Christopher Lloyd) brought Nandor's attention to what has to be the most peculiar case of poltergeist activity that anyone has ever known. It is here that the second aspect of this story comes into play.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdx7rNx1NUa6genKWKar5-IC_6RIiRzU-0tC7jyzUf_J3WYHXkasRO7z2fZS1t369hMYtcoEw6-XQk6BJoFFZJAiwQXAD7AVTPclsCcs9rqL6BL_qI033NsfnVSmxoXOhYkHJN4RwdM7Yw1mvlhx3-x-VOsMC41Dg8QLiO4NNDaX9p4EcDN1GmciRMG3X/s1280/67fb4e4a10351f982a69a3c420f662b6_1280x720.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdx7rNx1NUa6genKWKar5-IC_6RIiRzU-0tC7jyzUf_J3WYHXkasRO7z2fZS1t369hMYtcoEw6-XQk6BJoFFZJAiwQXAD7AVTPclsCcs9rqL6BL_qI033NsfnVSmxoXOhYkHJN4RwdM7Yw1mvlhx3-x-VOsMC41Dg8QLiO4NNDaX9p4EcDN1GmciRMG3X/w640-h360/67fb4e4a10351f982a69a3c420f662b6_1280x720.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Located somewhere on the Isle of Man is a little farm owned by a family going by the name of Irving. There's the father, James (Tim Downie), his wife Margaret (Ruth Connell), and their daughter Voirrey (Jessica Balmer). They live on a comfortable working class estate in the village of Dalby. It's rustic, and while there have been struggles in the past, the family has been able to make a decent enough living for themselves on the farm. This just leaves us with someone who might be described as the final "family member" left to discuss. His name is Gef (voiced by award winning Fantasy author Neil Gaiman; yes, really). Gef is perhaps best described as an even greater eccentric than Fodor himself. To start with, he appears to be an ordinary seeming Indian Mongoose. This in and of itself needn't be so out of the ordinary, especially if the family is keeping such an animal as a household pet. The catch is that the Irving family claims Gef isn't their pet. Instead, he's more like a barely glimpsed presence flitting round and about the house and farm lands were you least expect him to show up. Also, they claim that Gef can talk. He's also (or at least so says Mr. Irving) not a real Mongoose, no matter how he chooses to appear to mere mortals. He's an Earth Spirit who inhabits and haunts the family farm. Armed with all of this "information", Fodor embarks on the most peculiar investigation of his career.<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: A Premise No One Can Have Fun With.</b> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgoiOqKGlvvlEgz1aepPjdJkMV56qnr0QXJ2KZ_suct5uCbWo_xvw6wyoLMckWtbaQ-h1QLolyNJakbDCF54E0pw-vI9U_2vZ9YlnoIC_9Fe2XOAibQUiRYdas9gq5I94DeCL2ppzFCEfBygoNBDmL-WJatRhp2tawMWDfr1nvn-R_DxdEeCnfGfmjuuc/s1327/tumblr_9107f8c3b03efb7fb49fc9a2f5dfe90e_83d50053_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1327" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgoiOqKGlvvlEgz1aepPjdJkMV56qnr0QXJ2KZ_suct5uCbWo_xvw6wyoLMckWtbaQ-h1QLolyNJakbDCF54E0pw-vI9U_2vZ9YlnoIC_9Fe2XOAibQUiRYdas9gq5I94DeCL2ppzFCEfBygoNBDmL-WJatRhp2tawMWDfr1nvn-R_DxdEeCnfGfmjuuc/s320/tumblr_9107f8c3b03efb7fb49fc9a2f5dfe90e_83d50053_1280.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>The strangest thing about this film is that most of the details given in the synopsis above is true. Except for the part about the talking Mongoose, of course. The general conclusion reached long ago was that the figure of Gef was an invention of Voirrey Irving. She was a typical bored teenager in a small, rural, island farming community, with little prospects for the immediate future, and her creation of this talking, animal Earth Spirit was her own, nascent way of rebelling from a situation she couldn't wait to be rid of. Then things got out of hand, and she found herself being used by the very parents that birthed and raised her to profit off of her fantasies for her own gain. In retrospect, we seem to have been dealing with the case of a girl who probably should have moved away from home the first legal chance she could have got, and then see what kind of future she could make for herself. I almost want to say that Voirrey Irving would have done better to have taken her imaginative creation, and try and make a legitimate children's book out of it, because that's most logical creative scenario she had on her hands.<p></p><p>Instead, a combination of factors boiling down to an assemblage of poor character leading to even worse personal choices resulted in the Irvings using their daughter for their own selfish reasons. With the worst part being that Voirrey just doesn't appear to have had the kind of personal strength required to stand up for herself. Everything about her tells me we are dealing with one of those postwar girls who could have been a herald of the upcoming 1950s Counterculture. However, her story became one of drive, daring, and even potential artistic talent stifled by the confines of her own small community. In many ways, its kind of sad when you think about it. The worst part is all that the outside world ever saw or knew of this personal drama for the longest time was just some local legend of a ghostly Mongoose haunting a family farm somewhere in Britain. The real behind the scenes story as I've just outlined is enough to help generate a maybe interesting film scenario in its own right. Something very much like a classic Angry Young Woman story, with a slight element of the fantastic added into the mix. Instead, what we got was Simon Pegg hunting down a fleeting specter in the countryside.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1a2lLFv-ENu92LKOoVTwCNkJDYYG43rWKM2bF6yvFACl_n3d_uXPzs0FMBpWd8vnHDTE3k18krSXrDOQFm2QwQYXBrgqMNUOGHU4MWRmcjSws6weswVgj3UzrgZJQ1WaTAHT-oAqfbjdKVxXXgT6SQRa_MRqESsIo6M467m12M2WebqypsbJi4_PAO5j4/s1920/MV5BYzYzMGUwZGMtYzg5My00NzAzLTg0MzUtZDliMzg4ZGIyNGU0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXNvbG5vbXM@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1a2lLFv-ENu92LKOoVTwCNkJDYYG43rWKM2bF6yvFACl_n3d_uXPzs0FMBpWd8vnHDTE3k18krSXrDOQFm2QwQYXBrgqMNUOGHU4MWRmcjSws6weswVgj3UzrgZJQ1WaTAHT-oAqfbjdKVxXXgT6SQRa_MRqESsIo6M467m12M2WebqypsbJi4_PAO5j4/w640-h360/MV5BYzYzMGUwZGMtYzg5My00NzAzLTg0MzUtZDliMzg4ZGIyNGU0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXNvbG5vbXM@._V1_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Now, to be fair, even this kind of a scenario <i>might</i> have been able to work. The trick is, for that to happen, the artist has to be willing to put all the imaginative investment and commitment a story like this needs in order for all of its Fantasy elements to work. The sad truth, however, is that this is none of what we've got as a final result. The key term that describes this entire film is: Unimaginative. This is the last possible result anyone should be striving for in a film like this. A bare-bones synopsis suggests the kind of narrative idea that is so fanciful that it flat out demands to be taken with just the right amount of whimsy, mystery, and maybe even fear in all the right doses. The basic premise at the heart of director Adam Sigul's picture sounds very much, in fact, like the kind of scenario that any reader could expect to find waiting for them within the pages of a Neil Gaiman short story collection. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT4meCWD12ppYtdlmpJQ1XJ-c0gs3QwlyXVx1_MLNXzLlbE3zI_d25vKeZ138CHD9gZEXXTXF4BqTILQY5V0odSkiuBODmUV56uQ2SlHD8sKSM6XbWV_J5Thh7zhgWKLDvLxkrwIW8aYfiYjNyTGkmtxPAl73EsRr3NuzmYpuighyhV5Wm_AVxhV6xzDKn/s1095/Gaiman1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1095" data-original-width="760" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT4meCWD12ppYtdlmpJQ1XJ-c0gs3QwlyXVx1_MLNXzLlbE3zI_d25vKeZ138CHD9gZEXXTXF4BqTILQY5V0odSkiuBODmUV56uQ2SlHD8sKSM6XbWV_J5Thh7zhgWKLDvLxkrwIW8aYfiYjNyTGkmtxPAl73EsRr3NuzmYpuighyhV5Wm_AVxhV6xzDKn/s320/Gaiman1.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>Perhaps this explains what on Earth the author of the <i>Sandman</i> comics is even doing there. The plot does sound like the kind of story Gaiman might take a fancy to writing down, when set in outline. A remote setting in the British countryside which plays host to visits from a Puckish fantastical being does sound very much like the type of story you would expect Gaiman to write. It's even possible to wish he had written the film's screenplay. That at least might have resulted in a more usable setup. Something that would have grabbed out attention right from the start, and then held our minds up to the final reel.<p></p><p>Instead, Gaiman elects to remain in the background and not speak up except for whenever the script calls for him to. As a result, the film has no real choice except to suffer from a lack of any genuine creative input. We're left to follow Pegg's version of Fodor around as he traipses through one gloomy setting after another on a literal wild goose chase. One of the immediate problems the film has in all of these moments is that it forces a talented actor to get stuck playing an almost cardboard cutout figure. </p><p>The character of Fodor, as written by Sigal's script is someone who almost seems bewildered to have even been called onto the stage in the first place. His action and dialogue cues all paint this character who seems monumentally bored and uninterested in the things happening around him. That is the worst possible note to keep playing in a story like this. Everything about the script telegraphs that it's meant to be the story of this lonesome seeker in a moment of existential crisis, where he's teetering between doubt and holding on to some hope that there can be answers given from the Great Beyond. The scenario might not be anything all that original, as set down on paper, all the fictional Fodor ever does is follow in a long line of a Romantic seekers that are a veritable standby of the Gothic genre.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIIq8qoSQI6dCBBBsKSnGvKVJD0AZgGyU_wROEB22ejp_NFYvcK0bF8ExfE6M2XuJ7uoSLbTjHMLc2Fok-qqA1-f4KErHF4Xyixgm0koaocxchcLTTH5Y6vlVtfob0LDXf9upkKM_0flnTTzUEbUnfvJD3_SQgplvPxIwCjN0ryIPBO5t3yfTzlS1u8VH/s512/2341.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="512" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIIq8qoSQI6dCBBBsKSnGvKVJD0AZgGyU_wROEB22ejp_NFYvcK0bF8ExfE6M2XuJ7uoSLbTjHMLc2Fok-qqA1-f4KErHF4Xyixgm0koaocxchcLTTH5Y6vlVtfob0LDXf9upkKM_0flnTTzUEbUnfvJD3_SQgplvPxIwCjN0ryIPBO5t3yfTzlS1u8VH/w640-h214/2341.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />As such, Pegg's character in this film is best described as a common trope. To be fair, this is not a problem, in and of itself. We may have seen this character before, even if the face always keeps changing. The thing to keep in mind is that we've also seen this trope put to good use in the past. Some excellent examples include Luke Skywalker, Lewis Carroll's Alice, and Peter S. Beagle's <i>Last Unicorn</i>. The difference between these previous incarnations and Fodor is that each of the other three can be considered reasonably well written for the most part. The figure of Nandor, however, can never manage to come alive off the page. Instead, all Sigul can give us is this bland, aimless personality that is just sitting around, getting drunk, and waiting for his assigned plot cues. The last thing any good writer should do is let the audience know that he can't quite figure out what to do with his main cast. It creates the impression that he either doesn't really know how to handle his material, or else that there's not real story worth telling. This seems to be the unfortunate case here. When the plot gets rolling, Pegg's character is left being dragged around from one moment after another in which very little of interest winds up happening. The vast majority of the film is Fodor being led on a series of guided tours around the farm and countryside, being shown artifacts and evidence, while he just looks bored with it all.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQCPEbibHzb3CWdcCOnl6LOuVcBgV6aSSYKTWS67WyyLLc7J75LqYVamfumjyL_RuwgvGndIHXduzmIyxYUObcviYweN409sTW6cRzW0KkhQuZsjPWBEk3EMsY0OfDoRtfayZ6_E3awvjp1PQZSwIBmvXKad0EKSpKlep5H27s080haGMEJYLRJ_-YsyuO/s800/Nandor-Fodor-And-The-Talking-Mongoose-Christopher-Lloyd-Vest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQCPEbibHzb3CWdcCOnl6LOuVcBgV6aSSYKTWS67WyyLLc7J75LqYVamfumjyL_RuwgvGndIHXduzmIyxYUObcviYweN409sTW6cRzW0KkhQuZsjPWBEk3EMsY0OfDoRtfayZ6_E3awvjp1PQZSwIBmvXKad0EKSpKlep5H27s080haGMEJYLRJ_-YsyuO/s320/Nandor-Fodor-And-The-Talking-Mongoose-Christopher-Lloyd-Vest.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>The worst part is it's difficult to tell who is at fault here, the actor or the director. The most likely answer is that the relative lack of proper narrative has left a gaping void where the actor's motivation should be, and so both he and the final product have no choice except to suffer the inevitable consequences of artistic laziness. Pegg is aware that the script really doesn't give him anything to do, and so it's sort of like he has no other option except to phone it all in. If I had to single out any performances that are able to stand out during this whole affair, then some credit will probably have to go to Lloyd and Gaiman. Doc Brown is nothing if not a consummate grand old professional. Even if the script doesn't amount to much, his line readings as Harry Price are able to instill Lloyd's impeccable emotional range into the character, making for an interesting few minutes in what is otherwise a simple infodump moment of plot exposition. As the seldom seen figure of Gef, meanwhile, Gaiman seems to be well aware of the other levels of creative potential to be unearthed in such an essentially fantastical character and premise. As a result, one gets the sense that the author is allowing this awareness to channel a greater impression of fun and play into what is an otherwise drab and lifeless affair. The trouble is these relative moments of creativity aren't enough to lift the film out of itself.<p></p><p>This movie suffers from at least three interlinked problems. The first is that it lacks Imagination. I think Dennis Harvey is the critic who addressed this issue best in his <i>Variety</i> review. "<span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">Any movie about a talking-mongoose-related historical incident should offer a bonanza of strangeness, at the very least. But this nice-looking, low-key, talky little film seems hesitant to embrace that or any other quality (<a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/nandor-fodor-and-the-talking-mongoose-review-simon-pegg-1235705359/">web</a>)". This, in turn, creates the film's second problem. There's a pretty clear lack of energy on display in this show, and the worst part is some of it seems to have worked its way into the performance of the story's main lead. Simon Pegg is one of those actors who can turn in a great performance at the drop of a hat. What this movie reveals, however, is that first he needs to have the proper motivation for it, and here he's stuck with a script that just won't give it to him. So it's no real wonder if, after giving it some thought, all Pegg can do is just give an inward shrug and then plod through what he seems to know is a pretty unrewarding scenario. The final problem of this film is it's lack of focus in what it wants to say.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4lGPPdyzjoeb2EPeYd4B2lMTC8QHFIoDi4CUXrKCASkmOOr0of-kU3eZO3uoe7QPYp17TF6cMNJuT60lCA51cPnIvRa0y2Om7qB4nYZWFPqybbne6MR4fyck2KYGDCHJsDBAMBhCRjLlGMvKsJsfJZLxYW8sy9Dv0o0q7_ymNVrI7G5L8BjGtnS_6vOAs/s2000/John_Tenniel_-_Illustration_from_The_Nursery_Alice_(1890)_-_c03757_07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1357" data-original-width="2000" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4lGPPdyzjoeb2EPeYd4B2lMTC8QHFIoDi4CUXrKCASkmOOr0of-kU3eZO3uoe7QPYp17TF6cMNJuT60lCA51cPnIvRa0y2Om7qB4nYZWFPqybbne6MR4fyck2KYGDCHJsDBAMBhCRjLlGMvKsJsfJZLxYW8sy9Dv0o0q7_ymNVrI7G5L8BjGtnS_6vOAs/w640-h434/John_Tenniel_-_Illustration_from_The_Nursery_Alice_(1890)_-_c03757_07.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">Once more, this is where Harvey's words give the best judgement on the ultimate, overall flaw of the proceedings. "</span><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">There’s certainly the raw material here for a smart, singular mix of satire and whimsy, or whatever Sigal had in mind. But his intentions have grown as unpinnable as Gef somewhere along the line. The film can’t seem to decide how comedic, or mysterious, or suspenseful it wants to be, settling on some tepid in-between point that elicits no particular response, laughter included. It might’ve worked if we understood Sigal wanted Gef to be all things to all people: fraudulent, magical, maybe a necessary reminder of life’s wonders either way. But that kind of ball-spinning stunt can’t function when the movie barely seems capable of picking up the ball, conceptually (ibid)". To be more specific, as the action carries on, it begins to look as if things are meant to build toward some kind of fantastical existential encounter between the protagonist and the titular Mongoose. The plot seems to be trying to focus in on a nebulous personal crisis that Pegg's character is going through. The addition of Gef is initially highlighted as a kind unexplained factor, or rather a hole in the otherwise solid wall of reality through which supernatural energies are able to manifest. The implication here is that Fodor is on a collision course towards some kind of fundamental meeting with this Earth Spirit in search of answers.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Ya7Uk7ElYfFyB2uxjp220M97p0UeV7XCdLZjn8jQNi3s9FAe3b_CN3AdYStahKHFn-SQfRCKFWCOsMq7Oshms8VufWvOp-R2WBbLMZDdg-E_9BkxESDmtmwRopzlhddjHHJrd4ySTH_SLOePTr1sHhtiSa7X7jTCBUZamMI8n8TMZKVU8LHCPdWtQET3/s1000/81mbkoWxVmL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="652" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Ya7Uk7ElYfFyB2uxjp220M97p0UeV7XCdLZjn8jQNi3s9FAe3b_CN3AdYStahKHFn-SQfRCKFWCOsMq7Oshms8VufWvOp-R2WBbLMZDdg-E_9BkxESDmtmwRopzlhddjHHJrd4ySTH_SLOePTr1sHhtiSa7X7jTCBUZamMI8n8TMZKVU8LHCPdWtQET3/s320/81mbkoWxVmL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="209" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;">So, in other words, the basic idea that Sigal appears to be at least </span><i style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">trying</i><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;"> to reach for is the same type of setup as you tended to get on old TV shows like the </span><i style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">The X Files</i><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;">. This fictional version of Fodor is a mixture of Mulder and Scully's belief systems melded together, with Gef as the Monster of the Week who could hold answers to unlocking at least some of the greater mysteries of life. As Harvey, points out, this could be the building block of a potentially good idea. In sounds, in fact, very much like the kind of story Neil Gaiman himself would write. However, the fatal flaw that Sigal commits as a director is his seeming refusal to bring the crisis at the heart of his film to anything like a solid, definitive point. All that happens is Fodor has a hard time tracking down Gef, which makes him get drunk and cause a scene on the Irving's farm. This gets him arrested, and while he's languishing in his cell, he hears Gef's voice taunting him from just out of his line of sight. Fodor begs for some sign of the creature's reality, and he gets scratch marks on the back of his hand for his troubles. At first, it looks as if this scene is meant to play out as some quiet moment of epiphany for the character. Yet it then transitions back to a denouement between Fodor and Price where nothing is ever settled on.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;">That's where the movie ends, and where my patience with this film sort of ran out. The ultimate problem is that the director can't decide either what kind of story it is he's telling, or even if there's any particular point worth arriving at. I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with Dennis Harvey on this in believing that such an approach just doesn't leave much for the Imagination of either the artist or the audience. So far as I've been able to figure it out, what we've got here is a simple case of the director running up against his own limitations as a storyteller. Sigal may have a good eye for cinematography, lighting, setup, and mood. Whatever his talents may be as a screenwriter, however, I'm starting to wonder if a Neil Gaiman type fairy tale is a form that he's well suited to. If he ever started out this journey with a sense of hope and ambition, the director seems to have hit a snag somewhere along the way when he realized he's painted himself into a corner. As the story developed, the nature of the plot seems to have evolved into the tale of one man's search for answers from any possible Great Beyond. This type of story might be able to work, provided the storyteller knows what they are doing. Sigal demonstrates that it was this particular narrative hook that he got stuck on, with no seeming way out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgZBN6wJEyMBHlQaFU65UXhOdHre-xfFJwrkUjqUDDvOk_K0twf7afhDfSEigiKpgiA5ssXqnHhv0HUBZY1PF2vFzhgE90RP9FbeIsifZvRK0tn3gudvL0mdll8cPEqs71YNjJ_hskzI8ENT5uPUfYurzvBb3lMq_t9WObEKWqxhjg9uDyMrpsVXUNtYO7/s1536/WitW_LAT_Website.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="1536" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgZBN6wJEyMBHlQaFU65UXhOdHre-xfFJwrkUjqUDDvOk_K0twf7afhDfSEigiKpgiA5ssXqnHhv0HUBZY1PF2vFzhgE90RP9FbeIsifZvRK0tn3gudvL0mdll8cPEqs71YNjJ_hskzI8ENT5uPUfYurzvBb3lMq_t9WObEKWqxhjg9uDyMrpsVXUNtYO7/w640-h384/WitW_LAT_Website.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;">He might have wanted to make a simple, charming ghostly tale, and instead found himself treading into waters that were a bit too heady for his meager talents. The telling part in all of this is the implication that the director never seems to have planned on this happening. It's more a case of a swimmer straying too far out of the safety zone, and then finding himself caught up in a current he didn't even seem to know was there. Neil Minow writes that "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">T</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">his film is in conversation with existential issues of meaning and with contemporary concerns about the failures of institutional authority, though is not always clear what he wants us to think about it (<a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/nandor-fodor-and-the-talking-mongoose-movie-review-2023">web</a>)". I think the reason for that goes as follows. Even if Minow's claim is true, then the punchline reason for the film's lack of clarity most likely stems from the fact that these were all conversations and ideas that the filmmaker never meant to raise or get drawn into in the first place. The story just got out of hand, and he was left with no clear idea of where things should go, or most importantly, how to end it. That's pretty much the kiss of death for any story, no matter how much potential or talent its got as a creative concept. This lack of conceptual clarity is what forces Sigal to basically throw up his hands in a cop-out conversation between Lloyd and Pegg which seems designed to try and please everybody by remaining inconclusive. All it does is just tick people off.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0VNQOx6NUbY0hIou2ahHovEuN_hE3rr2tH2xomxkkD6-M37wBMp7sMPyBtEUYhGOdN5iZYnH7zXqyRWM4t07hGzPY5VYLV69gLQ4MtdZMI6NQb5VvwWiQ65eDO0mr07BT_4Yku19OaZ7hmKPi0imh6acWXisIpDcOtYflyrZJEi0Y9iWpsyfF_rZ0C-2E/s1904/1529535667985-FZF0RNGIYTOIMR4CG4N7-Shakespeare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1904" data-original-width="1426" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0VNQOx6NUbY0hIou2ahHovEuN_hE3rr2tH2xomxkkD6-M37wBMp7sMPyBtEUYhGOdN5iZYnH7zXqyRWM4t07hGzPY5VYLV69gLQ4MtdZMI6NQb5VvwWiQ65eDO0mr07BT_4Yku19OaZ7hmKPi0imh6acWXisIpDcOtYflyrZJEi0Y9iWpsyfF_rZ0C-2E/s320/1529535667985-FZF0RNGIYTOIMR4CG4N7-Shakespeare.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: IBM Plex Serif, serif;">The issue with films centered around a personal crisis is that they tend to work best when the conflict in question is brought first to a point, then followed by a definitive resolution. This is something guys like Shakespeare of Scorsese knew by instinct when they made works like <i>Othello</i> or <i>Raging Bull</i>. It's one of the unspoken maxims of dramatic development that Adam Sigul should have kept in mind as he was composing the screenplay, and yet his own inexperience got the better of him. This is a shame, because it really does seem as if there could have been plenty of room to develop such a quirky premise into a genuinely good entertainment that could have drawn audiences in. I can see at least two ways in which this could have worked. The first is to tighten up the plot, and make more of an isolated character study. You could take the fictional version of Fodor and have things work out so that the remainder of the film is just him alone out in the barren, English coastal countryside. He ostensibly goes out there to hunt down the "Mongoose", yet the further he goes on, clearer it is that he becomes lost. Fodor tries to hold his wits together, but then the isolation, hunger, and fatigue start to get to him, and then things break down to the point where its unclear if the protagonist is hallucinating, or is seeing real phantoms.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">This would all culminate with a moment in which Fodor and Gef would actually be allowed to confront each other face to face. The key for writing a scene like this is finding out the right way to make an audience go along with a scene that is flat out ridiculous the moment you give it a few moments consideration. The idea of a grown man conversing with a Mongoose like its an actual, human like person is just one of those ideas that leaves you asking whoever came up with such an idea to "Get serious". So long as you want to play such a confrontation in a straightforward dramatic light, the only logical way to make an audience go along with such a premise is to make sure that the deck is stacked in its favor. The way you do that, at least so far as I can tell, is to mentally prepare the viewer for this final showdown by surrounding it with as many of the appropriate weird moments as possible. In other words, don't require a character like Gef to try and carry the whole weight of the film on his shoulders. Instead, you dole out the proper amount of surreality throughout the narrative. If you give the audience just enough crazy absurdist touches throughout the rest of the picture, then the moment when the fictional version of Fodor confronts Gef out in the wilderness will seem normal by comparison</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDmWI0Cm_OwR5JXWHewpem0vZw3LzAV4n4UhL8S2m_mA4l3t_pY3hZMipqZrg8eN2-_MrU2ht0nb9MnMik6EX_u2yldpiPuu3bUUNd_ErydFg3lhOSsEtnztjmUb7KPnMF7T1rr7pPWkK2np1Qc5fHduGisL-XzYpJDa3QSP9PLlkZEHFJPuWXERYXEmt/s720/8ztv0jgd-720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDmWI0Cm_OwR5JXWHewpem0vZw3LzAV4n4UhL8S2m_mA4l3t_pY3hZMipqZrg8eN2-_MrU2ht0nb9MnMik6EX_u2yldpiPuu3bUUNd_ErydFg3lhOSsEtnztjmUb7KPnMF7T1rr7pPWkK2np1Qc5fHduGisL-XzYpJDa3QSP9PLlkZEHFJPuWXERYXEmt/w640-h360/8ztv0jgd-720.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />From there, both figures can have a bit of a meaningful, philosophic moment in the vein of Samuel Beckett. This creature that looks like a talking Mongoose can dispense with whatever sage advice is necessary to help Nandor get over his crisis, before vanishing into the shadows of the night, leaving the main character to be rescued from the wilderness by a search party, with maybe one final parting shot to leave us wondering if the entire conversation with Gef was just a hallucination on the protagonists part, or if maybe, perhaps, he really did gain a new outlook on life with the help of a genuine, elvish nature spirit straight out of Celtic folklore. Bear in mind, this is just a script doctor style saving throw for if you ever wanted to stick with the outline the Sigal gives to his audience. It's not the same as saying it's the only way you could tell this story. In fact, so far as I'm concerned, there is a much stronger version of this narrative that could have been told, and which we never got for the reasons outlined above.<p></p><p><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEZKGmCf4de3L_AH-R8gOrz9lobAQ1uPl_BDzIBt3SUVPymTt8EfD6F4tY2IjBLU2RjaFozadI7yDylvNHKAPgIGxoJiAWmEv0mjTymmO0NPBZPR5YVjUWFEwriqgNEKrEk9wEcGY9M-aOdzPe0c7MtcCPNZDSA0zS0H8b2cNN-2XposHpL8iChK2I3Qj/s400/s-l400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEZKGmCf4de3L_AH-R8gOrz9lobAQ1uPl_BDzIBt3SUVPymTt8EfD6F4tY2IjBLU2RjaFozadI7yDylvNHKAPgIGxoJiAWmEv0mjTymmO0NPBZPR5YVjUWFEwriqgNEKrEk9wEcGY9M-aOdzPe0c7MtcCPNZDSA0zS0H8b2cNN-2XposHpL8iChK2I3Qj/s320/s-l400.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">To my mind, a better way to take the character of Gef the Talking Mongoose, and make him the focus of a story would be to turn in him into a character in a legitimate Neil Gaiman work. This alternate version would go in a different way as follows. For one thing, Nandor Fodor would be gone as the protagonist. In his place, the main character would be that of young Voirrey Irving. The plot would also begin some time earlier to start off with, when she's just a little girl of about seven or eight. We'd begin with a few slice-of-life snapshots that detail the humdrum daily routines of Voirrey's on the family farm. Her parents are loving and supportive of their daughter, yet it's clear that their quiet, sedentary life is already starting to pale for her. Already Voirrey shows signs of being a restless soul. Her greatest wish is to be able to leave the farm and strike out on her own, as soon as possible. The trouble is her parents always make just enough to get by as farmers, meaning that they can't even afford enough to let her attend any of the better schools back on the mainland. In fact, it also soon becomes apparent that unless fate or whatever smiles on them with a bit of financial luck, Voirrey will never be able to attend any of the types of higher educational institutions that she might hope to achieve.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;">An awareness of this predicament has begun to seep into the young girl's awareness as the story opens, and it's like seeing her hopes and dreams crushed in an instant. Without much in the way of the future prospects except perhaps that of farming or shopkeeping, and no immediate way forward, Voirrey has already begun to act out when we first meet her. She's gotten into fights with the local kids in her area, gaining a reputation as a stuck up brat who likes to think she's better than everyone else, and is accused of "getting above her station", as the saying was back then. This penchant for troublemaking leads her to receiving numerous timeouts from her parents, and often the little girl winds up having to be sent to her room. Her one refuge in this entire situation is her vivid imaginative life, along with a nascent sense of budding artistic talent. Voirrey show abilities of being a very talented illustrator, being able to draw pictures of scenes from her favorite children's books with a natural and impressive skill. It's the one solace her otherwise restless mind is able to find for itself in a situation that is stifling. Pretty soon she is able to find a private victory of her own when her Imagination takes a leap forward, of sorts.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Serif", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgge5FFiQ_dq_phI5hdmLvpgQMVTDsLOLON3I60_sEMX8bN0AdnOREOfpNCUjhB5DItxnATg7ikFbgi-d6S0K2GTCPBHKfVXtLnMvfTwe_BS0ACf86XNET4RMS4B2VZNDNlmcAclU9tWPkf-DIbQ_77vbiXrhD1v9XGss1EyYYC3_YgD9E9mrNFzILCbGts/s1200/Gef-Mongoose-Dalby-Spook.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgge5FFiQ_dq_phI5hdmLvpgQMVTDsLOLON3I60_sEMX8bN0AdnOREOfpNCUjhB5DItxnATg7ikFbgi-d6S0K2GTCPBHKfVXtLnMvfTwe_BS0ACf86XNET4RMS4B2VZNDNlmcAclU9tWPkf-DIbQ_77vbiXrhD1v9XGss1EyYYC3_YgD9E9mrNFzILCbGts/w640-h400/Gef-Mongoose-Dalby-Spook.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />One day it occurs to Voirrey to see if she can't draw pictures of make-believe creatures and characters that she's never seen before. To her own amazement (and vague sense of relief that she's not quite mature enough yet to appreciate) she succeeds in creating her own imaginary characters. These are figures either drawn from the half heard tales and legends of the Fair Folk that she's heard growing up as a farm girl in the English countryside, or else they are original figments thrown up by her own unconscious. One day Voirrey is in her room, doodling in an idle frame of mind. As she lets her mind wander, she soon learns to her own surprise that her scribbles are beginning to organize themselves into yet another character drawing. This is something she notes with curiosity, and then mentally stands back and watches as she lets her own skilled hands do the talking. It doesn't take long before she sees an actual figure begin to emerge from from her initial rough sketches. When the picture is done Voirrey realizes that she seems to have created the drawing of a Mongoose, clear out of the blue. The one distinguishing feature of this drawing is the mischievous look in his gaze, like that of a sharp-eyed trickster. As Voirrey studies her work, she can't help but notice the charm of the figure she's drawn.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNO0K4UIVE9WLSD6QyVg6oAeNltyYyek1EmdUFBniEf0ZCB54EE0MBiDqQnwA32aEEWfGAWA8U8zp62NiLruuAnq9QtHNX90PMj5TWL5nXk0AcSYf82F2Cpw6fPWdEZa49LqNhLlIgNI0G39OZ2M72pEDo485v7hgFMjWDaXlTwIN9uGNshTEtEXdvzkw4/s1000/A1RaXnEOBwL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNO0K4UIVE9WLSD6QyVg6oAeNltyYyek1EmdUFBniEf0ZCB54EE0MBiDqQnwA32aEEWfGAWA8U8zp62NiLruuAnq9QtHNX90PMj5TWL5nXk0AcSYf82F2Cpw6fPWdEZa49LqNhLlIgNI0G39OZ2M72pEDo485v7hgFMjWDaXlTwIN9uGNshTEtEXdvzkw4/s320/A1RaXnEOBwL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>He looks like the kind of person who you could share all your innermost secrets with. The kind of of personality, in other words, who could understand why you felt the need to play hooky from school one day, or why you have to give that young punk Donnelly kid from town a piece your mind for trying to talk smack about you and your parents. There's a look about this Mongoose that says he knows what it's like to cause a little mischief, while also being willing to lend a sympathetic ear to little kids who often find themselves in trouble with grown-ups. "I'm the kind of guy you can bring your own troubles to," is what his eyes seem say. "Trust me, I know. I've been there". For the first time ever, Voirrey finds herself being charmed with her handiwork. Being only a child, the best way she can express this knowledge is, "What a funny looking little fellow. Hello. I wonder what your name is"? Almost as if waiting for her to ask this question, a voice in her head answers back. " 'Allo, then. My name's Jeff! 'Ooo're you"? "My name's Voirrey", the little girl thinks to herself, "pleased to meet you". "Voirrey", the drawing seems to reply, "what a funny name. 'Ow do ya spell it". She says she still doesn't know just quite yet. They've only begun the art of spelling at her own school. She's eager to learn, though When the Mongoose asks if she wants to spell his name Voirrey proves this by printing out G-E-F.<p></p><p>"Yeah, well", Gef replies, "I guess that'll 'ave to do for a start". From there, the narrative would essentially become one of a piece with the types of fiction that Gaiman is famous for. Specifically, this version of Gef the Talking Mongoose would become the make-believe fourth entry in an otherwise very real trilogy of Fantasy stories the author has written exploring the powers and limitations of childhood and young adult memory. So far as I can tell, these works include <i>Violent Cases</i>, <i>Mr. Punch</i>, and <i>The Ocean at the End of the Land</i>. Each of these works feature protagonists struggling to recall impactful or influential moments in their lives when something of consequence happened. These characters often remain unclear as to just <i>what</i> it was that happened, or why it was so important. They just know that once upon a time, for a moment or two, they came as close as they ever would to understanding some kind of significant truth about the world, and now they can longer quite remember what that was. Often these moments of significance are centered around the former child's relationships with the adult world.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-_D6qVrtiovKgbIP6QreteXi9QZF3684InO-Svjsr77bj2RpV0EhkxnjTBnnJBm9Ri7gcEnAj9rcTnWYwAhTNdKZeXTLStkmqctiahBnN3sxX2x_zGqtyLXH7x9z-yDzGWrFZo82f6GGjJbGoFYFoxZ5ScNJ9aJXHjd6wurETN5XY8HN1GAUei_ANqrq/s500/34494424.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-_D6qVrtiovKgbIP6QreteXi9QZF3684InO-Svjsr77bj2RpV0EhkxnjTBnnJBm9Ri7gcEnAj9rcTnWYwAhTNdKZeXTLStkmqctiahBnN3sxX2x_zGqtyLXH7x9z-yDzGWrFZo82f6GGjJbGoFYFoxZ5ScNJ9aJXHjd6wurETN5XY8HN1GAUei_ANqrq/s320/34494424.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>These are often revealed to the audience by subtle hints in the narration that an grown-up authority figure winds up revealing that they are just as much lost in the woods as either Hansel, Gretel, or the even the narrator himself. All of the Memory Trilogy stories center around children learning just how flawed adults and the grown-up world can be. This often involves the former children at the heart of each narrative often getting caught up in dark subject matter, and sometimes coming very close to being collateral damage. The curious part is how each tale suggests that none of these struggles has done anything to dampen the protagonist's sense of awe and wonder when confronting the world. <p></p><p>Another Gaiman story that this imaginary fanfic version of Gef takes after is the children's book known as <i>The Wolves in the Walls</i>. That's another story in which the frustrations of a having to put up with a troubled home life is externalized in the title creatures bursting out of the nooks and crannies of an otherwise normal suburban home. In effect, this alternate version of Gef would act as a somewhat more benign version of either the Wolves or Mr. Punch. He's the figure who's either always there whenever Voirrey needs a shoulder to cry on, or a willing and sympathetic ear to talk to. He can also sometimes be the voice whispering in her left ear to act out and cause trouble for her folks. This could all culminate in Voirrey blurring the lines between reality and make-believe, where even she begins to wonder if Gef might be a real Earth Spirit disguised as a Mongoose who is haunting her family. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqeMBccuLSSGRJo7ur2bxT-bCriQZNHKmRUeKO9CEgul8HNgISHUBEQDW77qmf7CYku9rfcy_bLDeJ1FXnWFF1x1wM_daq9yQtqp6Nw6lsjoS6GMEENZZeesC6m8AFI1N3u4O6LlJVhWxps8Maoi5bpNPjqEP3La81XPXGMhMg3X8o9n5PmcTjZPpIbtxM/s1000/neil-gaiman-writers-office-6.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqeMBccuLSSGRJo7ur2bxT-bCriQZNHKmRUeKO9CEgul8HNgISHUBEQDW77qmf7CYku9rfcy_bLDeJ1FXnWFF1x1wM_daq9yQtqp6Nw6lsjoS6GMEENZZeesC6m8AFI1N3u4O6LlJVhWxps8Maoi5bpNPjqEP3La81XPXGMhMg3X8o9n5PmcTjZPpIbtxM/w640-h360/neil-gaiman-writers-office-6.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />All of this would be told from the unreliable perspective of Voirrey herself, as a grown woman. Like the rest of Gaiman's memory stories, the reader would always be left at the mercy of a storyteller who has a hard time remembering exactly what happened to them when they were a child. The tone of the piece would be a hybrid one. There would be moments when the events of the past would be tinged with the misty haze of childhood nostalgia. There would also come moments where things are able to take a darker, Gothic turn. In Gaiman's Memory trilogy, the two modes of Terror and Enchantment are often never at odds, and always tend to be working in partnership to help drive the narrative. That same dynamic would have to be in play here. The idea would be to make a story that suggests the same haunted yet childlike tone as a moment in <i>Mr. Punch</i> where the protagonists attends a masquerade play version of Kenneth Graham's <i>Wind in the Willows</i>. After the play, the main character contemplates what it might be like to place the papier-mace Badger's head on his shoulders: "then I would have become the badger. A tiny, stumbling thing with a huge head, uttering vast truth's I dared not think as a child". That's the tone this fanfic would have, and the role Gef should take for Voirrey herself. <p></p><p>It would all culminate, however, on something of a triumphant note. As the adult Voirrey concludes her story, we'd learn that she's taking her first big step off the Isle of Man, and that she is due to meet with people in London who might be willing to listen to her pitch for a maybe publishable children's book. As she takes her leave of the audience, one of the final panels of this never-to-be graphic novel would show us a glimpse of the mock-up cover of the finished manuscript. It should come as no surprise that it's the very first picture that Voirrey made of her long ago (not so?) imaginary friend. The title of the potential book reads: <i>Ge</i><i>f</i>: <i>The Talking Mongoose</i>. The figure on the cover should appear to be winking at us. That, at any rate, is what a much better, more well put together draft of this movie should or could have been like. As things stand, we're left with something else. At the end of the day, <i>Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose</i> is the kind of film that winds up a victim of the artist's shortcomings. It's always possible that tucked away within the folds of a whole lot of nothing was the germ for a maybe successful little Fantasy mystery. The kind of story that Neil Gaiman might have told.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53ZbH1TUH2IA0QVuQgpIC50xd7ZXu3axmDZPmmCdLbABM7IByxAja3vp23LUgmQe2oe3TcNVm_KKoOqWG39NMyNfuMI51gP29k50DEDeJS8DX3r8qyjgfoyf15O2P46snFu-rJjCm8DbFOdOt_WcGjvVJnl1v3NPI1UecSfOq5Tt6IB7yN4-dqhpDPF14/s500/MV5BMGY5YzFkNmUtNmU3OS00ZDczLTg0MzYtOTZmYzJiYzhjMWQ2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UY281_CR18,0,500,281_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53ZbH1TUH2IA0QVuQgpIC50xd7ZXu3axmDZPmmCdLbABM7IByxAja3vp23LUgmQe2oe3TcNVm_KKoOqWG39NMyNfuMI51gP29k50DEDeJS8DX3r8qyjgfoyf15O2P46snFu-rJjCm8DbFOdOt_WcGjvVJnl1v3NPI1UecSfOq5Tt6IB7yN4-dqhpDPF14/w640-h360/MV5BMGY5YzFkNmUtNmU3OS00ZDczLTg0MzYtOTZmYzJiYzhjMWQ2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UY281_CR18,0,500,281_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The sad fact remains, however, that whatever promise this film might have had was squandered by the director's lack of vision and commitment. Both problems tend to spell the kiss of death for any creative project. The inevitable results are what we have here. An interesting premise with what could have been a decent amount of quiet yet quirky potential. All of which went on to be squandered at the mercy of an artist who can't seem to tap into his Imagination very well, at least not for this project. Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity that Sigul failed to seize on was the chance to make the character of the Irving's daughter the main character. Since all the indications of real life history point to her as being the actual creator of Gef means the story sort of deserves to be hers, as she's the one figure in the entire narrative with the greatest amount of dramatic potential. It could have leant the film a genuine air of imaginative fun. Instead, <i>Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose</i> is just one of those films that can't seem to raise a decent spirit. There are bound to be Better Folk Horror Fantasies out there than this. <p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-69737598973300147322024-01-27T23:59:00.000-06:002024-01-27T23:59:45.036-06:00Lady on a Train (1945).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYCC_G60owPGM3EWrkpsuM0mml7XG7BwWfBjGy6j_js3ys_beigydMMEjITC1zYLCo9TQqEUkvpQjHtMGFsoWExE0RMBCl6hYOsbs4acibu6MsSXu_finw0dTBEZlBLTWddYo0DyAQQg7N6j5GGksOFfEyZZljxUuuPqEHdUNlQwm-2s-a_9UMilldWD3S/s879/MV5BMTkxY2I4YWQtYTY1OC00ZDI3LWI5NTctM2RiOTQ0OGRhNWVlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzI5NDcxNzI@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="580" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYCC_G60owPGM3EWrkpsuM0mml7XG7BwWfBjGy6j_js3ys_beigydMMEjITC1zYLCo9TQqEUkvpQjHtMGFsoWExE0RMBCl6hYOsbs4acibu6MsSXu_finw0dTBEZlBLTWddYo0DyAQQg7N6j5GGksOFfEyZZljxUuuPqEHdUNlQwm-2s-a_9UMilldWD3S/s320/MV5BMTkxY2I4YWQtYTY1OC00ZDI3LWI5NTctM2RiOTQ0OGRhNWVlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzI5NDcxNzI@._V1_.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>The Noir story is a particular sub-genre of fiction that I don't think we've ever discussed in that much detail here at the <i>Scriblerus Club</i>. We might have t<a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2022/05/death-on-nile-2022.html">ackled stories that work as examples of this type of narrative</a>, here and there. Though always the focus was on the story <i>as story</i>. I don't think we've ever paused here before to take stock of the nature of the genre as a whole. Perhaps it's high time we did just that. It can't hurt to broaden the media literacy of an age, and besides, it can help us to situate the nature of the movie that's on offer for today. As per usual, though, here is where the trouble tends to start. For the record, I'd argue that it's not impossible to get a good reading of precisely <i>what</i> a Noir story is. In order to arrive at the proper definition, however, you do have to go through a number of baby steps, in order for a full understanding of the nature of the sub-genre to take effect. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaeA1jHt0X8&t=679s&ab_channel=PatrickGrant">In a PBS documentary</a> on this subject, for instance, Richard Widmark (a frequent marquee headliner in films of this sort) describes the Noir narrative in the following terms: "It was the 40s, right after the War. Going to the movies was like going to a candy store. Something for everybody. Popular films were Melodramas, Romances, (and) Musicals. The Big Song and Dance. But that's not my kind of of movie.<p></p><p>"You could always find me in the theater round the corner. People like me liked our pictures dark and mysterious. Most were B movies made on the cheap. Others were classy models with A talent, but they all had one thing in common. They lived on the edge. (They) told stories about life on the streets: shady characters; crooked cops; twisted love and bad luck. The French invented a name for these pictures: <i>Film Noir</i>. 'Black Film', that's what they called them; about a darker side of human nature; about the world as it really was". That description is a bit hyperbolic, yet it does convey perhaps a good sense of the atmosphere that these types of stories tend to evoke. Another ingredient in the fiction of Noir is the way a lot of its most famous creative expressions seem to have been generated by the emotional fallout of the Second World War. Edward Muller details this in his book <i>Dark City</i>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjIWo5vkc4Bk32gFnFN_l60mQRZA_Vf9oozEAUDPvEJBxijL8md1rhrc9Amc0MjQt_dcNEQla6SFcbVsAThCsKluf-W2dknAc7yyK40ysO28_pzlfaeNSrR_6dfge0Pq1Yig6sWOKPWBd1YL13lZPq2Bxyegb7-TfAk58ONimj9T_5zSq2RHj74P119o6C/s1000/81-JHgMon+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="805" data-original-width="1000" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjIWo5vkc4Bk32gFnFN_l60mQRZA_Vf9oozEAUDPvEJBxijL8md1rhrc9Amc0MjQt_dcNEQla6SFcbVsAThCsKluf-W2dknAc7yyK40ysO28_pzlfaeNSrR_6dfge0Pq1Yig6sWOKPWBd1YL13lZPq2Bxyegb7-TfAk58ONimj9T_5zSq2RHj74P119o6C/w640-h516/81-JHgMon+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>"Film noirs were distress flares launched onto American movie screens by artists working the night shift at the Dream Factory. Some shell-shocked craftsman discharged mortars, blasting their message with an urgency aimed at shaking up the status quo. Others were firecrackers - startling but playful diversions. Either way, the whiff of cordite carried the same warning: we're corrupt. The nation's sigh of relief on V-J Day ought to have inspired a flood of "happily ever after" films. But some victors didn't feel good about their spoils. They'd seen too much. Too much warfare, too much poverty, too much greed, all in the service of rapacious progress. Unfinished business lingered from the Depression - nagging doubts about ingrained venality, ruthless human nature, unchecked urban growth throwing society dangerously out of whack. Artists responded by delivering bitter dramas that slapped romantic illusion in the face and put the boot to the throat of the smug bourgeoisie. Still, plenty of us took it - and liked it (ix)". Once more, we are in the realm of grandiloquent hyperbole. Muller's style is often prone to the same sense of the theatrical that infuses Widmark's own two cents on the matter.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDEFvraB09BK4imA3Yvjs7RJ7neAUwg6wUB-ap88QlmLK_uzGIZzjAUSqIonijR3YQgHXim7xLy8SQCeoYnTnJieoehmjldDBEYt9qRrtFFC_NS8M1zfjllGXu7ucghwNJywABLDpBHEAqpnLlFxL_N9nGhSaVVg_GLfZLLqwpWy8SkLO-9npj7juU-ZEy/s1500/s-l1600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1235" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDEFvraB09BK4imA3Yvjs7RJ7neAUwg6wUB-ap88QlmLK_uzGIZzjAUSqIonijR3YQgHXim7xLy8SQCeoYnTnJieoehmjldDBEYt9qRrtFFC_NS8M1zfjllGXu7ucghwNJywABLDpBHEAqpnLlFxL_N9nGhSaVVg_GLfZLLqwpWy8SkLO-9npj7juU-ZEy/s320/s-l1600.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>It is still possible to give both commentators credit where it's due, though. Widmark does a fair enough job of suggesting the specific type of emotional response that stories or films of this caliber were and are meant to suggest to the reader, or audience in the aisles. Muller takes Widmark's comments on the proper atmosphere and does manage to expand the scope of things, at least by a bit. His words bring the place of the trauma suffered by American soldiers during WWII to the forefront. This is an important aspect of the Noir genre to keep in mind, as it is just possible to claim that one of (if perhaps not <i>the</i>) major driving factor that caused Noir stories to spike in the aftermath of that conflict was the sense of unrelieved tension that a lot of GI's brought back with them from the European Theater. In fact, such a setup does serve as an unspoken background element in a 50s adaptation of Mickey Spillane's <i>Kiss Me Deadly</i>, where Mike Hammer, the film's anti-hero private detective has items and mementos lining the walls or boxes of his house that hint at the past of a bright faced, maybe even sophisticated college kid who's entire nature was re-framed by the incidents sparked by Pearl Harbor.<p></p><p>So it is possible to see this as an ingredient in the makeup of the modern form of Noir. The problem with leaving it at this, however, is that it still doesn't bring us to the core of the sub-genre. Neither Widmark nor Muller are able to lead us to the beating heart of the contemporary Mystery Thriller, and show us the engine that has kept powering this type of narrative throughout the years. In order to do that, we have to go beyond and before the War years, out of the realm of cinema, and way back into the field of literature. We have to go right back, in fact, to that same strand of literary Romanticism that Widmark and Muller claim to repudiate. A closer look at the genre's origins, however, reveals that such clear-cut separations are less easy to make, and that perhaps the true allure of the Noir story is that it in fact does have a Romantic strain all its own. It may count as something of a riff on a more familiar generic type of fictional narrative, yet the Romance of it all still remains, even when painted in darker shades. The best excavation of the nature of this type of storytelling comes from the pages of Paul Meehan's <i>Horror Noir</i>: <i>Where Cinema's Dark Sisters Meet</i>. His basic premise, that the fiction of gangsters, detectives, psychos, femme fatales, and the type of alienated, lonely protagonists who stalk the world of Martin Scorsese's films all have their origin in the Horror genre is the most convincing.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3xuVM84VEXc3WbkQ5fWH57OKY8IrLyK8TimSjDCWs9Asuas9cESgJ9AnjHdZDM3Z3tjhf_SS91J3fcZCs8y-0aohU9iSxM9HewA0EmmQjdy-6Y1M_2uMLXV1kqdtjiTvJCCW-rzJuCTyjIULpIgYX2lyBT4K_9GrXmkSIt45IlN0qxqflJT9vSGQIXtbD/s1277/Rebecca-Curtain.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="1277" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3xuVM84VEXc3WbkQ5fWH57OKY8IrLyK8TimSjDCWs9Asuas9cESgJ9AnjHdZDM3Z3tjhf_SS91J3fcZCs8y-0aohU9iSxM9HewA0EmmQjdy-6Y1M_2uMLXV1kqdtjiTvJCCW-rzJuCTyjIULpIgYX2lyBT4K_9GrXmkSIt45IlN0qxqflJT9vSGQIXtbD/w640-h464/Rebecca-Curtain.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />It gives a greater sense of scope, perspective, and literary weight to the sub-genre, and helps us to gain a better sense of its overall artistic nature. As Meehan helpfully informs the reader, "When it first emerged as a genre during the 1940s, film noir derived its distinctive visual style from the horror film. Like horror, film noir exists inside a shadow realm of fear, darkness, fate and death. Both forms exhibit a propensity toward nightmarish dream imagery and surrealism. While it's more difficult to discern commonalities between the realms of science fiction and film noir, the connection with the horror genre is much more obvious. The modern horror and mystery literary genres both had their origin in 18th and 19th-century gothic fiction, where the workings of human perversity were played out amid the trappings of the supernatural. The works of authors Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle defined the emerging mystery genre in these early years, and the grotesqueries of gothic fiction were later reflected in the works of proto-noir American writers like Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain (1)". I think Meehan's insight of Noir's relation to Gothic fiction is the key one.<p></p><p>It provides the final puzzle piece that completes the picture, and allows a greater sense of coherent order to the more impressionistic thoughts of Widmark and Muller. In making a sustainable claim for Noir as an offshoot of Horror fiction, it also expands our understanding of a very particular mid-20th century expression of the American Gothic, and allows us the opportunity of viewing Noir as a sub-genre of Horror with a shared storytelling vocabulary, allowing for a greater sense of thematic overlap. It also gives a better sense of generic definition. Looked at from this angle, a Noir is little else except the setup and format of the classic 19th century Gothic novel of manners updated to a modern urban setting and environment. The feasibility of this definition can be found by appealing to an undisputed master of the sub-genre. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a3tRl8wwNo">Alfred Hitchcock's <i>Rebecca</i></a> is based off of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_(novel)">1938 novel written by Daphne Du Maurier</a>. With the exception of the book's then contemporary setting, the plot itself is nothing less than the kind of 1800s style bodice ripper complete with star crossed lovers, a Byronic hero with a troubled past, and a creepy housekeeper who knows where all the skeletons are in the closets.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4nk0T4ZukfjFoB7dRG3fi_anqELrLbgK1fGLeuDvsD4Y_4xf49CqMa21MNg1YhojhZCJS_xSiwLirc5u22gvwPztYI6gb2fGb3jFntglyH4ClRHUiKdUK4nMBy3wFWu7e2iNiM5IvYSGlIvGPVCNDLBy7zMQ-7Y6HyrwvCmKbPg55O3xs2josn7p7ymE7/s2000/1336524_2000.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1215" data-original-width="2000" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4nk0T4ZukfjFoB7dRG3fi_anqELrLbgK1fGLeuDvsD4Y_4xf49CqMa21MNg1YhojhZCJS_xSiwLirc5u22gvwPztYI6gb2fGb3jFntglyH4ClRHUiKdUK4nMBy3wFWu7e2iNiM5IvYSGlIvGPVCNDLBy7zMQ-7Y6HyrwvCmKbPg55O3xs2josn7p7ymE7/w640-h388/1336524_2000.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Rounding it all off is the setting of the main action in a spooky, old dark house straight out of Poe or Mary Shelley. The entire plot amounts to a kind of B grade melodrama, however Hitch's direction manages to give it an A list budget. In both its story and atmosphere, <i>Rebecca</i> is the kind of tale that validates Meehan's thesis that Noir is, in the last resort, an off-shoot of Horror. This is not to say that either genre has to be taken in a one-hundred percent serious tone. Sometimes even the genre of crime and corruption can surprise you with its sense of humor. That's the case with today's film. Produced in 1945, and directed by a forgotten filmmaker known as Charles David, this is <i>Lady on a Train</i>.<p></p><a name='more'></a> <b>The Story.</b><p></p><div>If you had to find the right words to describe Vicky Collins, then a couple of thesaurus entries that come to mind are: bright, clever, vivacious, curious, voracious reader, and overactive imagination. She's one of the those giddy socialite types. To her credit, though, she's not the kind of girl to get her picture in the scandal sheets, or anything like that. She's even got a surprising amount of intelligence to her. Her greatest asset (if you choose to forgo her not inconsiderable looks, and a voice like an angel) is that she's book smart. For whatever reason, Vicky's was the type of mind blessed with the ability to take to the written word like a swan to water. She's got a memory like an elephant as well, able to recall just about all she's read, into the bargain. Call it fate, luck of the draw, or what have you. The fact of the matter is that Ms. Collins has been granted the ability to make herself something of a quietly sophisticated literary autodidact. Perhaps the best things about her intelligence is she never let any of it go to her head. There's not a trace of snobbery in her outlook. Whether it's a play by Bernard Shaw, or a dime novel by Edgar Wallace, she's willing to give each magic casement a chance to prove itself.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXM8luN4V_j3oKWTYeEwGUYY76kR7Iz63eTOvDqoac2iILLcgskFZi_LmezYimW5NlHKoAyGmuLdaMLJboIKhBC-CrJXQFCZMUg_xgmDeChFzjELYLhricK26upjMIPMRAVq4JUww7nOWQv87ul7dJqY5V2AkYu7hOBpzhkcy-3uXuUhnRRAIb0fpuE3bN/s640/MV5BYzVmYWU2ODYtNmM4Ny00NDk1LWIxOGYtYjY0OTQ1ZGE1YjJmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzQ1NjgzOTA@._V1_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXM8luN4V_j3oKWTYeEwGUYY76kR7Iz63eTOvDqoac2iILLcgskFZi_LmezYimW5NlHKoAyGmuLdaMLJboIKhBC-CrJXQFCZMUg_xgmDeChFzjELYLhricK26upjMIPMRAVq4JUww7nOWQv87ul7dJqY5V2AkYu7hOBpzhkcy-3uXuUhnRRAIb0fpuE3bN/w640-h480/MV5BYzVmYWU2ODYtNmM4Ny00NDk1LWIxOGYtYjY0OTQ1ZGE1YjJmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzQ1NjgzOTA@._V1_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>The major downside facing her is the same one that just about every woman in the postwar American world has to deal with. She's got a lot of brains, and little to no prospect for being allowed to put them all to good use. This leaves her with the unenviable task of having to stare down boredom head on. So, she reads to keep busy, and tries not to focus on the nagging thought of time slipping away from her. Everything is fine with her life, then. She's always got the sense that it could be or amount to more, yet on the whole, she is able to count her blessings. Then one day she's on a trip to New York for the holidays. He train is starting to pull into the station. Just as it pauses beside an industrial office building, Vicky notices some commotion in one of the windows. It looks like two men are arguing. One of them is an old-ish man. The sort of fellow who's well-to-do, in other words. Old Mr. Well-To-Do appears in a bad mood at the moment, though. He's in some kind of argument with the other stranger, the one who always has his back turned to Vicky's line of sight. The argument gets so heated, in fact, that it doesn't take long for the anonymous man to pick up a crowbar, and use it to bash Mr. Well-To-Do's brains in. Now Vicky has a murder on her hands, and an appetite to try and solve it.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Conclusion: A Somewhat Charming Surprise (With Caveats).</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmsi5S1KUOa5wo66s6NVRyBWIF8ymQ3dIoN4Hvuxj2aY_QMwK5fLH0R8KTukxkKl-Ew2ckLz5qyvcI0gvk54IQ2TQyEzu7N5al_v-j7Ax5UVk_CsEB_UAj6-mwozHGBn2II3dOOx0p-hgfw-ezYmw1EPehnfodSRXtftu1dz25HHDScOLVxzXaZwVm99d/s462/17204040.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="300" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmsi5S1KUOa5wo66s6NVRyBWIF8ymQ3dIoN4Hvuxj2aY_QMwK5fLH0R8KTukxkKl-Ew2ckLz5qyvcI0gvk54IQ2TQyEzu7N5al_v-j7Ax5UVk_CsEB_UAj6-mwozHGBn2II3dOOx0p-hgfw-ezYmw1EPehnfodSRXtftu1dz25HHDScOLVxzXaZwVm99d/w202-h310/17204040.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>There is a particular type of perk to being a pop culture junkie. Sometimes you can stumble upon the occasional, genuine surprise without ever meaning to. It's not the kind of the thing that happens often. For the most part, my own experience has taught me being a critic of books and films is a lot like panning for gold. Every day or week all you can ever do is to just trudge out into the trenches and start prospecting. Sometimes you get only rocks and pebbles, leaving you with the uncomfortable fear of hitting a dry spell. At other times, you are able to hit a kind of multiple jackpot, of sorts, and then there's a rich harvest of plenty of enthusiasms worth sharing with others (<i>if</i> the reader ever wants it, that is). However, the third type of result is one like this film. It's the occasional somewhat lucky strike, where you're just browsing the metaphorical aisles like usual, not expecting to find much of interest. Then one item up on the shelf catches your attention, and a bare bones description is enough to rouse your curiosity, so you give it a chance. The results, in cases like this, is a pleasant surprise.</div><div><br /></div><div>You might not have struck it rich, or anything like that. The prospecting critic hasn't been able to tap into a rich vein of ore. Instead, it's more akin to stumbling upon an accidental nugget of entertainment. I suppose that's the best description I can give to <i>Lady On a Train</i>, at any rate. This film was one of the first among a bumper crop of a postwar boom in the Noir genre's history. Like was said above, the aftermath of the conflict that veterans referred to as "The Big One" was one of the most ironic fortunate misfortunes. I've managed to find just a handful of books and commentary willing to tackle the complicated fact that often it is sometimes the great traumas of war that can produce equally great art. This is something that former soldiers like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front">Erich Maria Remarque</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings">J.R.R. Tolkien</a>, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone_(1959_TV_series)">Rod Serling</a> knew from often painful firsthand experience. Each of them was able to channel their respective experiences of the terror of combat into narratives and secondary worlds which acted as outlets and reflections of that trauma, and its possible meaning. Sometimes their efforts managed to find their way into the pantheon of masterpieces, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they remained conflicted about it, even when they were unable to disguise a sense of genuine artistic pride in their efforts.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhywrlUsRdLa5EOXyh1he2hZ6kIAmhJKZH_qduOBRupFXA31bWO8EOW7jqXeproLJJG1N7pzeCliI8-Hoot4ey_ZB3-hbvWoDWC4OkdBYtrztNRuDNslRHA5TN6IqAb51V0D8l4qbgTSOCiYb5VZ-IbCb7mQCqU6TCZUwgMBVZSC7pPyHsnQlyxMFfvXqKM/s1024/thumb-1920-231137.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhywrlUsRdLa5EOXyh1he2hZ6kIAmhJKZH_qduOBRupFXA31bWO8EOW7jqXeproLJJG1N7pzeCliI8-Hoot4ey_ZB3-hbvWoDWC4OkdBYtrztNRuDNslRHA5TN6IqAb51V0D8l4qbgTSOCiYb5VZ-IbCb7mQCqU6TCZUwgMBVZSC7pPyHsnQlyxMFfvXqKM/w640-h480/thumb-1920-231137.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>This is as good a description I can give as to at least part of what inspired the postwar Noir boom. Drawing once more upon Paul Meehan's assertion that Noir itself is an offshoot of the Gothic genre, it is perhaps also not all that big a coincidence to learn that the back half of the 40s and all of the 50s and 60s saw a similar, and probably interrelated boom in a healthy crop of cinematic and literary offerings in the Horror genre. The same era of film that gave us <i>The Asphalt Jungle</i> and <i>Kiss Me Deadly</i>, in other words, is also the one that gave us <i>Psycho</i>, <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i>, and the advent of both Roger Corman, Vincent Price, and Alfred Hitchcock. It's more or less a case of circumstances bringing together all the right ingredients to help set the stage for what was then a bright, new, burgeoning era for the Gothic story and its major twin subgenres. Charles David's entry about a high-spirited girl stumbling upon the scene of a crime was part of that initial first bumper crop after the War.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNOZrBfw652RYWBnWcptCaGj-teM9abJGHqpH9QrigyssglB4PcJlRB7nEzv0yub0FNPMVuwZRW-IwixIiEAoj2BuBdehjYwETwigSVQyWJvxXSjHBdEtht0_d9oyInCMzHBguCXvyLGMNVaRr4bWRro1xLwDgC1miCeO3Q2EUbE3_cKImXyU_1bQKyunj/s1360/61ZYYOX3MxL._SL1360_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNOZrBfw652RYWBnWcptCaGj-teM9abJGHqpH9QrigyssglB4PcJlRB7nEzv0yub0FNPMVuwZRW-IwixIiEAoj2BuBdehjYwETwigSVQyWJvxXSjHBdEtht0_d9oyInCMzHBguCXvyLGMNVaRr4bWRro1xLwDgC1miCeO3Q2EUbE3_cKImXyU_1bQKyunj/s320/61ZYYOX3MxL._SL1360_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>What makes it stand out among the row of fields is both its self-awareness as a genre work, and it's relatively light-hearted approach. The film permits itself to satirize its own premise. Charles David might not have been the first director to realize that it's possible to have fun with a Noir setup, though his efforts here do perhaps stand out of as an unheralded flare highlighting the fact that it is possible for the genre to not take itself too seriously. The best way to describe <i>Lady on a Train</i> is that of a Golden Age example of the Comedy Noir. This particular breed of story is rare, yet it's not an isolated incident. You get them every now and then, like shafts of light in an otherwise gray blanket. It's a subgenre within a subgenre, if you will. These types of films come with all the other usual trappings you can expect to find in a typical Noir story. The major difference is one of tone. Where a normal Mystery Thriller tends to take it's plot seriously, the the comic version of this same story exists more or less to poke holes in that very same atmosphere of austerity. In other words, while it's possible to get the kind of book or movie where you have no choice except to take the plot seriously, the Comic Noir could churn out a riff on that very same plot pointing out all the ways in which it's a shaggy dog story.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then again, the dirty little secret of literary fiction is that it's all one, big, sleight-of-hand hat trick. Little more than a cheap stage magician's conjuring act. The real value rests in being able to find the truth inside the lie. The occasional genius of the Noir Comedy is that this level of metafictional awareness comes more or less built-in to the proceedings. It's what allows it to get away with setups and executions whose major, over-arching purpose to draw the audiences attention to just how ridiculous and over the top even the most grounded seeming of Noir narratives tend to be when held up to close scrutiny. You wouldn't think such a storytelling approach could work, yet if that were the case then how come people still remember Groucho Marx and the Three Stooges even after their entire century has come and gone? There is or can be an inherent value in the comic riff on and within the confines of the Gothic mode. If that weren't the case, <i>Shaun of the Dead</i> wouldn't stand a chance.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR21oihI5Xvdz_u9XD40pEUhcJb47ANLeot1pH-Ywt18fH1ghhbZp3p-x1-J1AcjUAmskG5jtW5e07EFSCcWlHnwyeu0V4KMs9v8UxL0eBSt0MgiC0k8DD3zXK1Cjy7X_PEnMzR7r2Yz9e6Fdun1leAE6QSZ_C5Q55T8FotBIE5SfUEks_wFD0FCiZzgdP/s1010/22632912794.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1010" data-original-width="567" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR21oihI5Xvdz_u9XD40pEUhcJb47ANLeot1pH-Ywt18fH1ghhbZp3p-x1-J1AcjUAmskG5jtW5e07EFSCcWlHnwyeu0V4KMs9v8UxL0eBSt0MgiC0k8DD3zXK1Cjy7X_PEnMzR7r2Yz9e6Fdun1leAE6QSZ_C5Q55T8FotBIE5SfUEks_wFD0FCiZzgdP/s320/22632912794.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>So that's the standard operating procedure we've got going on in the case of a film like this. It just leaves the question of how good the final product is? On the whole, I'd have to go ahead and give it a decent enough passing grade, with one or two caveats here or there. In the main, the best one word summary I can give to the whole thing is: enjoyable. This is the kind of film you walk into not expecting much, and then have the final results turn out to be an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise. Part of this is down to the way the main character is drawn. It's one of the few classic Film Noir's I can recall where the main character is not just a woman, she's also the undisputed hero of the piece. As brought to life by 40s actress Deanna Durbin, Vicky turns into one of those bright tomboys who manages to win you over with her combination of wit, charm, and an endearing kind of goofy perseverance. Not long after we've met her, and the murder has been setup, we see her deftly shake free of a pestering handler by directing him to pick up a radio set which isn't even a part of her luggage. Thus she shows she's able to think on her feet, and use that intelligence to get the better of those more powerful than her.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another good scene that demonstrates what makes this character and her story a success is when she's cornered in a nightclub. The scenario itself has enough familiarity to be understood with just a few brush strokes. The hero (or heroine, if you don't want to be a chauvinist pig about it) is cornered in a confined space with all the exits blocked, so she's got to find another way out of her predicament. In Vicky's case, it's fair to say she does so by reinventing herself. She let's a previously established case of mistaken identity turn to her advantage, and poses as the lead singer of the nightclub. It's a bait-and-switch she's able to pull off with seamless aplomb. It helps that both the character and her actress had a great singing voice in real life. In doing so, Vicky also effects a kind of intriguing role reversal. In becoming a lounge singer, she's also switched status, in a manner of speaking. The white hat wearing good girl has, in effect, transfigured herself into yet another familiar staple of the Noir setting. In essence, the private eye detective hero and Femme Fatale have managed to become one and the same.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NHYa7CgdHtwe8cNChuayvKMcS_iwfSY68zoUkarLKd91Nrty4jCIowlbhZ-Neqbwj6oOm0BH__JaJuzmSHycUZewfN87VnJuIMCfhfP5PiIFE7gEVpM1Ry1nXI7NwuzIN3oud5aWFdmWng6yOT9V7tGNOHvQQu8c31ndaIDVFFGcouRwx04QP-QqvTm7/s720/MV5BZGY1ZTkzMDQtZGIwZi00MTdhLTk4M2QtZWVjYjFjZTRjOTdkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA2MDQ4Mg@@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NHYa7CgdHtwe8cNChuayvKMcS_iwfSY68zoUkarLKd91Nrty4jCIowlbhZ-Neqbwj6oOm0BH__JaJuzmSHycUZewfN87VnJuIMCfhfP5PiIFE7gEVpM1Ry1nXI7NwuzIN3oud5aWFdmWng6yOT9V7tGNOHvQQu8c31ndaIDVFFGcouRwx04QP-QqvTm7/w640-h480/MV5BZGY1ZTkzMDQtZGIwZi00MTdhLTk4M2QtZWVjYjFjZTRjOTdkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA2MDQ4Mg@@._V1_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>It's one of those scenarios that sounds simple on paper. It's only when it's translated onto film that you maybe begin to get a sense of the actual daring of the meta-commentary going on here. This is the filmmakers having fun with the tropes of Noir by combining some of the genre's most famous roles together to make a telling satire on the nature of the typical Thriller protagonists. By combining the private eye and the Femme Fatale, Charles David seems to have hit upon a stroke of accidental, yet genuine genius. It manages to create this third hybrid out of two commonly separate tropes, and then uses it in a way that entertains by surprising you with its ingenuity. By allowing her to play both roles, Vicky becomes not just a Femme with a Heart of Gold. It also allows her access to bits and pieces of the mystery that would have been denied to her if they'd kept her wearing the white hat throughout. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3QuucxcSaxex_hOkF3XIBb156B6EyD7hpW1uQ96REtc3yt0Nkv8kKjMlV7gyHoRtkiHpoao8-VcBA3hg9zkwFf-l4qOtz-oM-hO9nj0gXd_FPfPzDKC3FVOGGGD2QNhOCh34lNR5vLyVRtNIpRdZgahS5aLhrzdD2OXhNcfHe4f3cpHiQemfD5WUxawZ/s750/Profile-_Jessica_Rabbit.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX3QuucxcSaxex_hOkF3XIBb156B6EyD7hpW1uQ96REtc3yt0Nkv8kKjMlV7gyHoRtkiHpoao8-VcBA3hg9zkwFf-l4qOtz-oM-hO9nj0gXd_FPfPzDKC3FVOGGGD2QNhOCh34lNR5vLyVRtNIpRdZgahS5aLhrzdD2OXhNcfHe4f3cpHiQemfD5WUxawZ/s320/Profile-_Jessica_Rabbit.webp" width="213" /></a></div>The mystery would still have been solved in some fashion, yet it would have been more stale and staid. The whole thing would have been a lot less fun, in other words. I can't help wondering if Durbin and David have to be considered as unsung trendsetters here, in the sense that it occurs to me whether or not it's possible that both of them have given sharp-eyed viewers a clue as to a possible, forgotten inspiration for characters like Jessica Rabbit. I don't know how that must sound, yet I'll swear it's worth taking into consideration. Much like Vicky, Jess is a character who relies on role-reversals and mistaken identity in order to solve the crime she finds herself caught up in. Jessie is also a character whose surface appearance (when we can manage to look beyond it, that is) reveals a woman who, while containing qualities of the Fatale, is still able to transcend the typical Thriller trope of the Bad Girl, while somehow still containing what can only be described as a series of retrofitted qualities of it at the same time. This results in a new and interesting hybrid character, one whose qualities are a winning mixture of both/and, while at the same time being able to create her particular form of characterization. </div><div><br /></div><div>When you keep all the knowledge of the <i>Roger Rabbit</i> character in mind, then go back and watch <i>Lady on a Train</i>, and apply the same rubric, the results can be as pleasant as they are surprising and familiar. Vicky is interesting when taking the later Zemeckis character into consideration. It's like watching the blueprint for the character who would later become Jessica being sketched in for the very first time. Like Jess, Vicky is an undoubted good girl at heart, yet it's also pretty clear she's got this appealing, wild and daring side to her personality. She likes to take risks, and its implied that she knows all about herself, and how to use it to her advantage. Again, however, just like Jessica, Vicky owns her bombshell status while at the same time making sure to never sully it. Instead, what she gives the viewer through her story is what has to be one of the most interesting and perhaps even unjustly neglected Noir heroines. Someone who deserves the status of a genuine yet forgotten trendsetter of sorts. I think it's a testament to the perilous nature of pop-culture memory that pretty no one seems to have remembered this character, or her narrative. This just makes the rediscovery all the more fun.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSJJuBzyspWQ3KDxnF-hUjr0XwaVFuQyjpJk7Zr2SO87c-A3xVBdoBHV3HHzfLlelPFeDX1WfJ0QWs7LHb65VIHBWPYouGKJI4CEFtX0-7sf5GJe8v_XDYmxZ08r-1axNL8yQU0GLG_ZQGPJn7zss7r3PPg3tn8pHBy-LEYXJ0OJ4Uzbx90E6V4FdjVdB2/s2860/who-framed-roger-rabbit-disney-plus-gq-november-2019-112719.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2145" data-original-width="2860" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSJJuBzyspWQ3KDxnF-hUjr0XwaVFuQyjpJk7Zr2SO87c-A3xVBdoBHV3HHzfLlelPFeDX1WfJ0QWs7LHb65VIHBWPYouGKJI4CEFtX0-7sf5GJe8v_XDYmxZ08r-1axNL8yQU0GLG_ZQGPJn7zss7r3PPg3tn8pHBy-LEYXJ0OJ4Uzbx90E6V4FdjVdB2/w640-h480/who-framed-roger-rabbit-disney-plus-gq-november-2019-112719.webp" width="640" /></a></div>As for the story itself, like I've already said, it's a comedic meta-commentary disguised as a crime thriller. All the basic tropes you would expect from a story like this are in place. There's the unexpected murder caught by a chance fleeting glimpse. There's the amateur sleuth driven to solve the crime, and not letting anyone else deter her. You've got your shady group of suspects. In this case, the mystery all revolves around the violent, unnatural death of a wealthy industrialist, and a battle amongst his family to inherit his wealth and estate. In other words, it's the setup to just about every prototypical murder mystery story since Agatha Christie published <i>The Mysterious Affair at Styles</i> in 1920, or Conan Doyle published a number of Sherlock Holmes stories back in the Victorian Era. The film's very plot, then, can be considered itself a victim of typecasting. The punchline, of course, is that as a comedy, the story is written to be in on the joke. This is the kind of movie that's designed to have fun poking by fun at itself. The key thing to note is that this isn't done in the awkward, hyper-self-aware contemporary method of modern day blockbusters. This not a film like the current crop of Marvel Studios films, where the humor of the film is meant to highlight the seeming lack of valid story material.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UpeWg9tNqMGjPkReO4TKOg-FYv6YoyKxMznSVMMH7Z6jM9blINVPQ11P1FaeoVufMd-RZ3T0NlTgDF3vJ9oE85A5e-RSZY9CU8A9UlKQKTn9oQAYeLkkMIlvbvINEkUkx5J6vyzE9iWZAlvQssWgy6I4kASlME3L8OnierfgKAorOiu706TUYu5Mh7BK/s1000/61VVRF3HHdL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UpeWg9tNqMGjPkReO4TKOg-FYv6YoyKxMznSVMMH7Z6jM9blINVPQ11P1FaeoVufMd-RZ3T0NlTgDF3vJ9oE85A5e-RSZY9CU8A9UlKQKTn9oQAYeLkkMIlvbvINEkUkx5J6vyzE9iWZAlvQssWgy6I4kASlME3L8OnierfgKAorOiu706TUYu5Mh7BK/s320/61VVRF3HHdL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The key trouble with such current movies is that all they can do is highlight their imaginative bankruptcy through the use of one of, if not necessarily the worst kind of humor. Their type is the one that draws deliberate attention to the either relatively lack of creative material, or else the complete absence of any engaging and well-written story to begin with. The worst sin of a film like <i>Quantomania</i> is that the filmmakers know there's no compelling real story there to draw the audience in, and so they compensate in the laziest fashion possible by simple throwing up their hands, and telling viewers, isn't this ridiculous? The trouble with such an approach is that it is indifferent to its core. There no possibility of caring for either the integrity of Art, or the value of the Audience under such a mindset. It gives off the unfortunate impression that whoever was involved with such a work was more interested in using the project as an opportunity to slack off, rather than make any genuine commitment to spinning as good a yarn as possible. In fact, such an approach doesn't even make sense from an economic standard, as the better the story, the higher your chances are of making a legitimate profit.</div><div><br /></div><div>In contrast to such current creative free-fall, <i>Lady on a Train</i> instead harkens back to a richer vein of artistry. In addition to Noir, the other generic soil it draws from is that of the Screwball Comedy. This is a very old form of entertainment whose origins seem to exist well before the advent of modern films. It's the kind of humorous format that was first brought to life back on the stages of Vaudeville and burlesque houses. A good way to describe it is mankind's collective attempt at turning flesh and blood human beings into cartoons without ever having to resort to the technique of actual animation. In a Screwball Comedy, the accent is always on taking any basic situation (such as a romance, or an Everyman figure having to face off against a daunting challenge or troubling aspect of modern life) and then heightening its comedic potential to downright absurdist levels. When I say that phrase, it isn't being used with the same meaning it would have if you applied it to the works of Charlie Kaufman, or a Coen Brothers film. Instead, it's that same correspondence of a real life cartoon, complete with over the top figures and characterizations, or surreal comedic occurrences that is the real hallmark of this film.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XuAGdB1rj8SPi5XW2aVDlS8aHFDtF0sFr8bRJuiZl6A72cuDcsk6CdwP7SdjUouc-Br8Kd3HqkmxLA1OmBNqtAQjbaEaTEfjzZC8XftiLzlw-WaFevbOmPQxyK4Spz3rO5poYGU-KY2HRy62a2Jrq8gjt68qaZw4MESpUlo8k-wd7cozEf3yBpoKAWMa/s640/the-thin-man-md-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="640" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XuAGdB1rj8SPi5XW2aVDlS8aHFDtF0sFr8bRJuiZl6A72cuDcsk6CdwP7SdjUouc-Br8Kd3HqkmxLA1OmBNqtAQjbaEaTEfjzZC8XftiLzlw-WaFevbOmPQxyK4Spz3rO5poYGU-KY2HRy62a2Jrq8gjt68qaZw4MESpUlo8k-wd7cozEf3yBpoKAWMa/w640-h410/the-thin-man-md-web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>In a screwball situation, you tend to start out with a normal occurrence such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bringing_Up_Baby">misplacing a valuable museum exhibit</a>, or the aftermath of a car accident, or even just <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planes,_Trains_and_Automobiles">an otherwise average businessman's attempt to get home to his wife and kids in time to celebrate Thanksgiving</a>. In other words, the typical Screwball situation begins with a moment of inconvenience. The type of problem experience, in other words, that could be solved in an otherwise normal manner if a few simple and logical steps were taken to correct the issue. Here's where the Screwball Comedy deviates from real life. To the initial opening problem, a second complication is added that makes the simple solution difficult to achieve. This can come in the form of meeting a troublesome personality, a collective occurrence of human greed, or else just the plain hassles of modern travel and transportation. Whatever this complication is, it has to be of a sort that always causes the circumstances surrounding the initial problem to escalate. From just requiring a simple solution to solve the dilemma, the complication begins to pile more and greater problems on the initial conflict of the film. This is where the Screwball sense of the absurd comes in.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTfGPEUkVMIAx9uMveeaPAgQPnf0Gnumx_R9qP37yENYY1U7UfpzH3EJYdrsWL0YOuMPaBXqmefD_S0NF9uXZpSvfpcEjCYAIEmTaFzC-5AeqQf02mxUWlQ1q6ynANR8M8hXhJ48jTXBC5M7Ex3xX77yEqw5bqN8acsz9SafJ12EhpIrplPYhzRHcIhbw/s1440/MV5BMWM5MGZiZDAtMWE0Ny00MjY3LWJlOWItNjY4MmI4NDAyM2NhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDk3NzU2MTQ@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTfGPEUkVMIAx9uMveeaPAgQPnf0Gnumx_R9qP37yENYY1U7UfpzH3EJYdrsWL0YOuMPaBXqmefD_S0NF9uXZpSvfpcEjCYAIEmTaFzC-5AeqQf02mxUWlQ1q6ynANR8M8hXhJ48jTXBC5M7Ex3xX77yEqw5bqN8acsz9SafJ12EhpIrplPYhzRHcIhbw/s320/MV5BMWM5MGZiZDAtMWE0Ny00MjY3LWJlOWItNjY4MmI4NDAyM2NhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDk3NzU2MTQ@._V1_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The trick with this kind of film is the starting complication always has to contain the first big laugh, or comedic element that helps get the plot of the Screwball scenario rolling. Each escalating complication after that must therefore be, in essence, one joke after another. Each scene or plot beat has to be a hilarious complication that drives the beleaguered protagonist on into further heights of absurdity. It all has to come to a point of crisis, leading to a sense of breakdown, followed by a corollary result of the building up of a new situation, or outlook on life that the main lead was lacking in before. Of course, even in a Screwball Comedy, there is plenty of room left for a good laugh at human frailties. The hero of this type of film might come out on top, however, even the happy ending can contain one final jab at perhaps some lingering fault of their old selves, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Be_or_Not_to_Be_(1942_film)">a married couple still struggling with the initial problem in their relationship still unresolved</a>. However, such resolutions are not a formula set in stone. More often, this kind of story ends the way that John Hughes does in <i>Planes, Trains, and Automobiles</i>.</div><div> </div><div>This is the exact kind of film Charles David has made with <i>Lady on a Train</i>. As the detective figure at the heart of this story, Vicky Collins embodies two genre tropes in one. On the one hand, she's yet another entry in a long line of famous women sleuths. It's the same type of pantheon that includes names such as Miss Jane Marple and Jessica Fletcher. She has the same quick and inquisitive mind. The kind that's always on the hunt for new discoveries and adventure. The sort of person, in other words, who delighted more often than not to learn that the game's afoot. At the same time, she also checks off a lot of the boxes that make for a good Screwball Comedy heroine. Vicky can sometimes be impulsive and easily excitable once she finds out she might have been the witness to a murder. This natural born enthusiasm is what leads her to take what could be considered a number of serious risks, and sometimes its pure luck that she is able to escape with her life. However, while it's true Vicky does share a number of character traits with the Screwball heroine, the script never once falls into the worst case offenders list, where the female lead is some kind of clueless ditz who gets everyone else in a jam.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzAF-nbsRWE7CLsd2uMapTya3dBWtbiJZ39DYn7_GwJ-BqcvKu2BjZPOFNgawOvG_vnVJshlLoKOsBayGeJRWbSoSqAuZ3sUVD42u_SlO3GDyrzGAR6i3WTbK7goIjWFmiSCMZg5wtSTZFMpam9LlPUl4EYQB-4zrUHQr92vTEUG96Q7THfj4VwZ9VvgJ/s454/fkgtldj2awkzkftw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="454" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzAF-nbsRWE7CLsd2uMapTya3dBWtbiJZ39DYn7_GwJ-BqcvKu2BjZPOFNgawOvG_vnVJshlLoKOsBayGeJRWbSoSqAuZ3sUVD42u_SlO3GDyrzGAR6i3WTbK7goIjWFmiSCMZg5wtSTZFMpam9LlPUl4EYQB-4zrUHQr92vTEUG96Q7THfj4VwZ9VvgJ/w640-h494/fkgtldj2awkzkftw.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Vicky is rescued from this insulting fate by possessing a steel trap mind that allows her to think on her feet and improvise solutions to her problems as the situation calls for it. She is further aided in these efforts by Wayne Moran, a professional writer of mystery novels. Vicky seeks this hapless individual out under the potentially flawed notion that someone who spends their time making up murder for profit must know something about how to catch a killer. To her credit, she did try to inform the NYPD about the crime, yet they make a point of telling her to put an egg in her shoe and beat it. When she finally meets up with the writer, Vicky makes it perfectly clear to him that he's pretty much the best Plan B she could come up with. To say the writer is a bit less than thrilled to be dragged into the middle of an actual murder by a die-hard fan is a kind of like saying he's already the victim of a loveless relationship from which he doesn't the have guts to extract himself from. In all of these traits, Wayne isn't just the perfect, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Watson">Watsonian</a> foil to the adventuresome, head-strong Vicky, he also stands out as the other half of the typical Screwball Comedy leads. The sub-genre favors the ladies over the men.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL9CDO2NE1cZZbO-rpaHa4kE_SSTzCOn1wv3jFO0ykydJkgxscx8ogznz8aFROQaTromuxBYfmtEeQFtLVFnBaVCTDTE8qhyphenhyphenTEKcMaJJHr7DBzuXirSwlduYhXI9_U7m5X-L-oBpz26wQYEjcaY8ZLX9A-pkZmnVMwIjhmbvN_g5wWlvZxErDEiAcgMLaj/s1200/GETL9VCXsAAoARH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="787" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL9CDO2NE1cZZbO-rpaHa4kE_SSTzCOn1wv3jFO0ykydJkgxscx8ogznz8aFROQaTromuxBYfmtEeQFtLVFnBaVCTDTE8qhyphenhyphenTEKcMaJJHr7DBzuXirSwlduYhXI9_U7m5X-L-oBpz26wQYEjcaY8ZLX9A-pkZmnVMwIjhmbvN_g5wWlvZxErDEiAcgMLaj/s320/GETL9VCXsAAoARH.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>The usual male lead in a Screwball setup is often portrayed is this awkward, neurotic figure. The kind of person who seems to be most comfortable crawling away into his own little corner of the world, and creating the kind of insular life that allows him some sense of escape (however imaginary) from the problems of the real world. In Moran's case, it's retreating into his own little imaginary worlds within the pages of books. This needn't be any kind of problem at all so long as he recognizes the valuable truths contained inside the lies, and is able to apply them well to living real life. Wayne's trouble is even though he does recognize that the purpose of good writing is to help people live better lives, he's not the type with the personal confidence necessary to act on such knowledge. The fictional writer at the heart of <i>Lady on a Train</i> is, in short, the perfect Screwball Comedy representative. It's a trope that dots the landscape of this type of film. If I had to guess why this is the case, then the best guess I can offer is that a lot the makers of these films must have been really big fans of James Thurber. He was a writer who wrote works that featured characters who matched the descriptions of figures such as Wayne and Vicky to the letter. A pair of awkward souls who need each other to deal with the modern dilemma.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also like Thurber (and the plays of Ben Jonson, for that matter) Screwball Comedy likes nothing better than to create a situation that sets these two polar opposites together on the same stage, and then just sit back and enjoy the fun as these quarreling couples argue and blunder their way to a better and mutual understanding of one another. A good way to suggest how this formula applies to a guy like Wayne goes as follows. In order to demonstrate what type of character he is, it's perhaps best to draw the following comparisons. If this film were made in the 60s or 70s, he would have most likely been played by Woody Allen. If was being made in the 80s, then the role would have gone to someone like Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd, or even Michael Palin. If this were a 90s film, then he could have been portrayed by the likes of Kelsey Grammar, Cary Elwes, or Kevin Cline. This is what most audiences today might expect, based on what little most of us know about the movies we like, however, I'll always maintain that a good story doesn't have to rely on star power so long as it is well written. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuKtY6uFFqWM-8t6rqS3bhr2aJD6ymwRiBQ-Jgul-eZTnPDoF8DjNC0_y0vX_NsZR6HtF5CzjgWuFWGgao4wX3Mn3fe3wBCtNwUoZFxw8PPy2QHQoX_rHpmPenk-cJiWJoYfDVwortN063gOsRR71PJcZeK5t3Tl7S2GjA_kO3YZHFrQpGaV1vzH0gwx8/s640/david-bruce-deanna-durbin-in-lady-on-a-train-1945.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="640" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuKtY6uFFqWM-8t6rqS3bhr2aJD6ymwRiBQ-Jgul-eZTnPDoF8DjNC0_y0vX_NsZR6HtF5CzjgWuFWGgao4wX3Mn3fe3wBCtNwUoZFxw8PPy2QHQoX_rHpmPenk-cJiWJoYfDVwortN063gOsRR71PJcZeK5t3Tl7S2GjA_kO3YZHFrQpGaV1vzH0gwx8/w640-h428/david-bruce-deanna-durbin-in-lady-on-a-train-1945.webp" width="640" /></a></div>To this film's credit, it is able to accomplish the job of being real funny, and entertaining all at once. It puts all of this generic material to more or less good use, walking a nimble tightrope between farce and genuine mystery. The movie somehow manages to keep you guessing who the real culprit is, even when its engaged in the kind of antics you would expect to find in a Martin Short comedy. This ingenuity is on display on at least two important occasions, where at first it looks like one person is the prime suspect for the killer, only for him to be killed off in turn, leaving the real perpetrator still at large, and even more deadly than before. The second time is near the climax. Without going too much into spoilers, the film does a good job of setting the heroine in a roomful of sleazy looking characters, and then leaves us in a sense of genuine dread as we're stuck having to figure out almost to the last minute who Vicky can trust, and which one is just out to harm her. It's something like a related opposite of the bait-and-switch. The entire story plays fair with its murder mystery, and yet it also is able to have so much fun satirizing the same genre formula, that it almost comes as a shock when the movie switches gears in the last moments, and plays everything dead straight. It's a storytelling strategy very similar to that of <i>Shaun of the Dead</i> where farce switches over to straight up Horror film mode.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jU046_mmpbp3_801z9rdV9ry6Kh2Ojf-UFb62ByYBc14DdFcdR-ybvF7IbDqRTTPjejOG0D-2Xq4aH2PzZQKYsOD64ms3PQja92lhg3GPrgVv8jebZ23ungiS2NKPt4_ZKYI2FfM8UqWe8Qxp4_NWfRKO6wRQ_j1jJ5meNFsDfFViLzGwEe9M5rUNcXK/s1825/1200px-Sullivan's_Travels_(1941_film)_%E2%80%93_Style_B_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1825" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jU046_mmpbp3_801z9rdV9ry6Kh2Ojf-UFb62ByYBc14DdFcdR-ybvF7IbDqRTTPjejOG0D-2Xq4aH2PzZQKYsOD64ms3PQja92lhg3GPrgVv8jebZ23ungiS2NKPt4_ZKYI2FfM8UqWe8Qxp4_NWfRKO6wRQ_j1jJ5meNFsDfFViLzGwEe9M5rUNcXK/s320/1200px-Sullivan's_Travels_(1941_film)_%E2%80%93_Style_B_poster.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>What makes such a double-edged film work is its ability to transition back and forth from one generic mode to the other with a sense of ease that is able to compromise neither aspect of the story, and instead allow both the comedic and thriller aspects to meld and blend into one another. This mixed brew form of storytelling is an often difficult one to pull off. Most filmmakers find it more comfortable to work within just a single genre, and prove this by struggling to bring opposite modes of narration together in one story. Directors like Edgar Wright or Charles David, however, display the actual competency of their talents by deftly weaving the Gothic elements into the Comedy of their respective narratives in such a way that allows them to create a legitimate third narrative voice out of both. This isn't the tired and played, going-through-the-motions style of the <i>Scary Movie</i> franchise. Nor is it the over-the-top approach of Mel Brooks. While the latter has a better claim as Art, David and Wright's approach is always more straightforward. The humor of their films is always more organic and interrelated to the action of the main plot, and as such is able to effect a great transition from laughs to terror. It means when the blood starts to flow in either work, it's nothing less than what the audience could expect.</div><div> </div><div>If the film as a whole is able to hold up okay, then is there anything worth criticizing about it? Well, on that note. The one caveat I'll have to pass along to viewer has nothing to do with any of the major plot point in and of themselves. Taken on their own, they make for a pretty solid and enjoyable narrative. It's when you come to a number of secondary side moments that dot the film here and there that some things might get just a tad problematic. One of these issues is straightforward. The other, however, I'm still having to think about even as I write this. The worst offense this movie commits is by showing its age in certain moments. At one point, a character blurts out an offensive name aimed at the Japanese. The phrase itself will not be repeated here. There's a kind of sick gallows irony to that moment, however, as any history buff will tell you that such language was a typical reaction in the United States during the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This film was also made in 1945, the year America helped bring the War to a victorious close for the Allies. The interesting thing to note about this is how an apparent moral victory is then used to justify a racial slur. Even granting the possibility of seeing where the phrase came from, and why it was tossed out so casually, there's just not way to justify its use in any setting. Trying to claim some kind of high ground for it is even worse.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisWOWJWlkyr9DM3dtlI3FJScVYXuc80AI9G0Ldzop1jWKYrJnaLEhzDPMEdLcCumMTRJRn2Q5c9Y5Tj9-2OSYe41FhxKcuq6Rs2MrF_VS0DzX8Cy0g5LS96UUxN-zU6MYGwktvqm_TU6jMFVW_-SgaVkktNK8uF3M0BF3d1a0-DqB6IysZIKfmXwrZTWFF/s475/MV5BMjAwNTUxMTA4M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwODM5ODc3._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="475" height="580" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisWOWJWlkyr9DM3dtlI3FJScVYXuc80AI9G0Ldzop1jWKYrJnaLEhzDPMEdLcCumMTRJRn2Q5c9Y5Tj9-2OSYe41FhxKcuq6Rs2MrF_VS0DzX8Cy0g5LS96UUxN-zU6MYGwktvqm_TU6jMFVW_-SgaVkktNK8uF3M0BF3d1a0-DqB6IysZIKfmXwrZTWFF/w640-h580/MV5BMjAwNTUxMTA4M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwODM5ODc3._V1_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />That's the major downside of this film. The second possible criticism is a bit more interesting, because I'm left not being able to tell just where the filmmakers where going with this side element. In the strictest sense, it doesn't add anything to the film, there are definite elements in it that could be considered offensive, and yet the way its handled and executed makes me wonder if there's a hidden element of satire about the whole thing. Long story short, there was a moment when an African-American train porter is given a few scenes and some lines. I'm not gonna lie, right when this character appeared on-camera, I thought I'd have to put the game face on and gear up for some major Golden Age racial cringe. Instead, it's like I can't tell if that's what's happened or not. Going even further, another Afro-American servant figure appears. This time he's sort of the all-purpose valet to an upper class character. It's the kind of role that most African-American actors were saddled with during that period.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcEwSRH6hEFG_V9tNRKaV6JlBpuqysr_3AQQ9uC2VUofgj03fnbIgv4MxCrxcwJda0yeIEog5eq2apqXG6bZR1_KR-04ocO4TEdYW1uhFZ7WI4jtcAvu3BFnTnqOL1GjfMrhJrBbsISyhOgoKTnDw-2TNNNhNmj9ppPdsszQZDeJjKtqoF4SOZF-i5pNq9/s2915/The_Lost_Weekend_(1945_film).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2915" data-original-width="1943" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcEwSRH6hEFG_V9tNRKaV6JlBpuqysr_3AQQ9uC2VUofgj03fnbIgv4MxCrxcwJda0yeIEog5eq2apqXG6bZR1_KR-04ocO4TEdYW1uhFZ7WI4jtcAvu3BFnTnqOL1GjfMrhJrBbsISyhOgoKTnDw-2TNNNhNmj9ppPdsszQZDeJjKtqoF4SOZF-i5pNq9/w201-h302/The_Lost_Weekend_(1945_film).jpg" width="201" /></a></div>What makes his appearance in this film curious is that it looks (to me at least) as if the filmmakers are at least trying to sneak in (however slight or fleeting) the merest hint of commentary on racial, social, and economic barriers and such artificial distinctions. There are moments when its clear the Valet looks on his employer with a barely veiled, yet ever polite sense of condescension, and knows how to take certain jabs at him without getting in trouble for it. In other words, the film seems to be morse coding the fact that the Black Servant figure knows the role and station is beneath him, and lets him have the possibility of standing up for himself. Not going to lie, that wasn't the kind of thing I expected going into this picture. I was just hoping I could bypass the worst offenses that some of the films from this era were guilty of. The strange thing here is that it's almost as if the movie turns right around and tries to give the audience some sense of compensation. I'm not sure how such a peculiar set of occurrences is going to sound today. It makes the whole thing comes off as a film with a bit of a schizoid streak.</div><div><br /></div><div>The impression these problematic moments leave me with is that I'm dealing with a film of two minds. If I had to give a good notion of what watching these moments are like, then it's like trying to befriend an American GI back from his tour of duty in Europe during WWII, and you can tell that conflict has started the possible beginnings of a more humane change in his outlook. He'll start off with the usual bluster about the Japanese and you think, "Oh well, here it comes again". Then a curious thing happens. It's like the further he gets into his cups, the more reflective rather than rowdy he gets, and a lot of the surface bluster starts to give way to the potential for this other mindset that his experiences of the atrocities committed in the European Theater resurface in his mind, and so he begins to sound a bit more commonsensical, a lot more accommodating, like a guy whose starting to learn, in other words, the value of treating others as equals, and yet it's clear he still has some bit of a ways to go. Perhaps that's the best summation I can give for how this film handles its racial politics. The other thing it's possible to add on this score is to wonder if it wasn't the talents of an actual African-American comedian from this time (something of a groundbreaker in his own right) might have had on this film.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqvteG7w1djxsqyI110CGnfXZVqtlkhyphenhyphen8LVue-DF0nSkBdZ9lynNm8mClKfywMt9z5Ks9BPEezQEse4x0FLpng2zuBUC6-2o-aO2es7af_bpiY88OEqTUjFyvHnifMffV2IY65WBkenuRNqctJ21PFRll7SmicbLpPrGvwyumn5egHNNw9awBiBlij1s7/s1390/lady-on-a-train-1945-universal-film-with-deanna-durbin-BEABN8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="1017" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqvteG7w1djxsqyI110CGnfXZVqtlkhyphenhyphen8LVue-DF0nSkBdZ9lynNm8mClKfywMt9z5Ks9BPEezQEse4x0FLpng2zuBUC6-2o-aO2es7af_bpiY88OEqTUjFyvHnifMffV2IY65WBkenuRNqctJ21PFRll7SmicbLpPrGvwyumn5egHNNw9awBiBlij1s7/s320/lady-on-a-train-1945-universal-film-with-deanna-durbin-BEABN8.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>The guy I'm thinking of now was named Eddie Anderson. His most famous role was playing a character named Rochester in an ongoing sitcom with fellow Golden Age comic Jack Benny. What's interesting to note about that setup is this. Anderson was Black, while Benny was Jewish. In the series they starred in together, it's clear that Anderson's role is that of someone who knows his boss is pretty much something of a complete idiot, and much like the Valet in <i>Lady on a Train</i>, he looks down on his so-called "superior". Benny went further with this setup, however. He didn't just allow Anderson to have a mind of his own, he also let him speak every single time he was on-stage. The more you listen to episodes of <i>The Jack Benny Program</i>, the more you realize that the character of Rochester was written to be the first African-American comic to be able to push back against the kind of racial stereotyping that was all too prevalent during those times. I can't say I much or how little of a help that was. What I do know is that Anderson does deserve to be seen as the comedian who helped blaze a trail that would later be taken up and amplified by the likes of Redd Foxx, Sammy Davis Jr, and Richard Pryor.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, with that in mind, it's like I say, the film is schizoid. One half of it is this enjoyable romp through the tropes of Film Noir, while also containing at least one notable cringe element. A better way to talk about these moments is that it's like watching someone like Archie Bunker making a serious and concerted effort to clean up his act. The attempt is laudable, you just weren't prepared for how strange and halting the whole damn thing was going to be. Does this schizoid element detract from the film? Well, for me personally, the best answer I can give to all of that is that it's one of those cases where your mileage has no real choice in the matter except to vary. Like, if you've had pretty bad experiences with racism, then yeah, maybe it's best to skip this one. For those able to make it all the way to the end and can say they were able to enjoy the film, well, then for me it's matter of asking <i>why</i> they liked it? Was it because they were able to look past the awkward moments, and view the movie's best points for the creative strengths they are, or are you just in in because it offers an excuse to slag off on others?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNF4JCvFz-8fZQkEWYGFzHw9e0T-BSAECz0mAE37Pz1cfMpH0ruDHbB6UPNw4ajapqNg8pDiCBXSM72WBTnZdYPUdk_txEv0bMJBZir8Q1gllp9b5E91lmeQIGm97mtoTI7pTRbolaIIPy9esi8IPrz96KbQqZJmM7mfAJgw-6QuWaWP-8mPCZhLTJGLtq/s1280/p41061_v_h10_aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNF4JCvFz-8fZQkEWYGFzHw9e0T-BSAECz0mAE37Pz1cfMpH0ruDHbB6UPNw4ajapqNg8pDiCBXSM72WBTnZdYPUdk_txEv0bMJBZir8Q1gllp9b5E91lmeQIGm97mtoTI7pTRbolaIIPy9esi8IPrz96KbQqZJmM7mfAJgw-6QuWaWP-8mPCZhLTJGLtq/w640-h360/p41061_v_h10_aa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>If there are some who will only tune in because it fans their hatred, then all I can do is hope this film is kept out of hands like that. For what it's worth, I think this film can be somewhat salvageable. There's no way I can defend the worst offenses in the picture. However, if there's any merit to the idea that the film owes a debt to trailblazers like Eddie Anderson, then perhaps like I say, it can more or less be salvaged. What I can say for certain is that I came away entertained, despite at least one glaring issue I can point out. From a purely technical and plotting standpoint, nothing about this film came off as bad. Instead, with one obvious exception, the whole thing amounted to a pleasant surprise. It's the kind of film that can be enjoyed for what it means to achieve. There's going to be the obvious need to give some viewers a heads-up up about the film's single flaw, of course. This could turn out to be one of those films where the tolerance level for the sometimes unavoidable flaws of the past come into play. The film itself seems to have to be in the early stages of racial self-awareness, and a lot of the struggle seems to have wound up in the finished product. If you can just get past that one, single flaw, then the good news it is still possible to get some enjoyment out of the Film Noir story of a <i>Lady on a Train</i>.<br /></div></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-53739825795597163702024-01-13T23:49:00.000-06:002024-01-13T23:49:16.230-06:00Catch Me If You Can (2002).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoQcF0BqbESfrIToMMxI0LDtxDNPEZCeTq7938o-M0Utdt60L6TuII8JCSDSJYB9Sp868Ir_zEaqajxeuEj_OpC-NPaMaMAZ402a5-Ofh3dVnqlbjK5bKDoWZhe_LtlmL9pdIWZCokK-6YFxHnQe67bZPxB-Ng9By9t3CTT-9cSWJT8R87SnHLGoQfmE97/s1200/s-l1200.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="810" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoQcF0BqbESfrIToMMxI0LDtxDNPEZCeTq7938o-M0Utdt60L6TuII8JCSDSJYB9Sp868Ir_zEaqajxeuEj_OpC-NPaMaMAZ402a5-Ofh3dVnqlbjK5bKDoWZhe_LtlmL9pdIWZCokK-6YFxHnQe67bZPxB-Ng9By9t3CTT-9cSWJT8R87SnHLGoQfmE97/w231-h341/s-l1200.webp" width="231" /></a></div>There's an old saying that goes "Truth is Stranger than Fiction". In a way, I guess time has told on that adage. You here phrases bandied about such as "Post Truth", or "Alternative Facts" when it comes to attempts at delineating the kind of society we all live in. For my own part, I prefer to use a much older model or lens through which to view these contemporary conundrums. So far as I can see, it really takes no more than a few good read throughs of Classical Philosophy to realize that what's happening in the world at large now is no more than an old challenge showing up once again. This time it comes in a suitable, modern appearance which fits the time and age of its recurrence. All we're dealing with today is nothing less than the same challenges that Plato outlined in his Allegory of the Cave. For the longest time, it seems, we thought we had a pretty good grasp on the nature of reality. Then advances in science and technology have come along and more or less proven to us all that this conviction was perhaps always little more than a convenient, but ultimately unworkable mask, and that the column of reality always had more than a few holes in it. The result seems to have left us all in an unenviable position. We've seem to have reached a point where its now become part of our daily routine to separate truth from falsehoods.<br /><p></p><p>Rather than becoming a vehicle of spreading truth and democracy, it seems as if the advent of the Internet, and its attendant "digital village" has instead served to effectively dismantle the public square. The net result of this successful attack is that it becomes possible to claim that any legitimate forum for public debate has, in effect, become co-opted. Free speech, in other words, has been successfully infringed. And the real kick in the teeth is how to do you regulate such infringements when the reach of the entire problem seems international in scope? The sad part is I really can't offer you any solutions to these problems. All this is just the simple train of thought kicked off by an encounter with Steven Spielberg's 2002 film, <i>Catch Me If You Can</i>. I almost described it as an adaptation in that last sentence, for the simple reason that this is what it is. The movie is based off of a book by the same name. It was published way back just as the director of <i>Jaws</i> and Indiana Jones was getting his start. It was also written by an otherwise unknown face in the crowd by the name of Frank Abagnale. For reference and convenience I always pronounce that particular moniker as follows: "ABA-nail". Hope that helps.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUrIDex0oMz4CchyphenhyphenmHzG1UCeiqTKD84lwZOM7F6X73hYxFFG_g96autswVRBWu-D-wtzCkcVqIFI8QiUw2rMDfN2N8kafEvFFZl4EfpRmebhXQuyc6jU_egGgZeWKb47Oh-71GemRXvy29qmWGg0ZiQvKeZx0OtfcR8iazEqkMOoubbBG6sAWJDqIqBzZ/s960/p31064_v_h10_ao.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeUrIDex0oMz4CchyphenhyphenmHzG1UCeiqTKD84lwZOM7F6X73hYxFFG_g96autswVRBWu-D-wtzCkcVqIFI8QiUw2rMDfN2N8kafEvFFZl4EfpRmebhXQuyc6jU_egGgZeWKb47Oh-71GemRXvy29qmWGg0ZiQvKeZx0OtfcR8iazEqkMOoubbBG6sAWJDqIqBzZ/w640-h360/p31064_v_h10_ao.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>So who is this name from nowhere in particular, or Anywhere, USA? What was it about this guy that caught the attention of the creator of <i>E.T.</i> ? What particular story does he have to tell, and is it worth a hearing? More important than all of this, what can something such as the nefarious life, times, and exploits of a simple, unassuming con artist tell us about the struggle to get at the truth in an era where such ventures can sometimes be a necessity of survival? Some of that is a tall order to ask for. So I won't even to pretend to go and look for all the answers with the help of a simple early 20s rom-com-drama. It's a lot more the case of a critic wondering if the story of someone like Abagnale can help ease us into the task of learning to tell false fronts from reality by presenting us with a useful, and thankfully less vitriolic case study, both on and off the screen. So with that in mind, let's a game of play catch-up.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><b>The Plot.</b><p></p><p><span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTBDGgKTk6GiRtMfj04FGNDz6PypYPo4VkA4-WXvml3BHhUzg0e6yZqvffNfRFf2sgyVNaF5wIIV3mCqA7dwwiSITdsDcf0-hX98NILR1AgQZFIXOyDz6iNBIU6iNOhj-wM457z-2SLgRrV5yo6NmNggkk6iG8p2Gqbr0aeNyvRtCcM3Rol5vPk3MZtEB/s500/s-l600.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="402" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTBDGgKTk6GiRtMfj04FGNDz6PypYPo4VkA4-WXvml3BHhUzg0e6yZqvffNfRFf2sgyVNaF5wIIV3mCqA7dwwiSITdsDcf0-hX98NILR1AgQZFIXOyDz6iNBIU6iNOhj-wM457z-2SLgRrV5yo6NmNggkk6iG8p2Gqbr0aeNyvRtCcM3Rol5vPk3MZtEB/s320/s-l600.jpg" width="257" /></a></span></div><span>In trying to separate fact from fiction, I'm going to start with the latter, in the strictest sense. The reasons for doing this are: (1) it's ultimately Spielberg's film adaptation that this review is here to discuss, more than anything else. So it makes some kind of sense to focus on the artistry of the fiction, in order to see how well it holds up. (2) It also gives the reader and critic a solid base to work from whenever we have to get around to the inevitable (though perhaps less than enviable) task of figuring out really happened from make-believe. That's the trouble with trying to review a film based on a real life event. You can't just treat the art in isolation. You always have to see how well it stacks up against the demands of real life. I'm not complaining, and there's a lot to be said for getting the facts straight. I guess what bugs me are cases like this. Where you can tell almost from the beginning that the storyteller is deliberately trying to lie to you, right from the very start. That's an issue because it means the question of the narrative playing fair with the reader is always going to be up for grabs.</span><p></p><p><span>The real value of any fiction is that there's always some thematic Truth tucked away inside what is otherwise just another ostensible lie. This is something contained in any well written work of the Imagination. It's what gives Charles Dickens his reputation as a man of, and speaker for the plight of the people. It's also the reason some readers once upon a time sent professional letters of enquiry to the fictional address of 221B Baker Street. They labored under the mistaken impression that Sherlock Holmes was an actual flesh and blood private detective, based solely on the skill with which the character was drawn by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This gets close to what I mean by the kernel of Truth tucked away within the lie of fiction. If the writer is willing to play fair with their readers, and above all are willing to respect the integrity of the Creative Idea so that it can tell the truth inside the lie, then that's little more than standard operating procedure when it comes to both writing and reading fiction.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-RlYIgF59geA7vNA4xJtOMJHtSiq5R4K4lOJxmMVehjlu3flPnpWPXX1q_5ApHLGjtiIErtJtCVm9VSN3CMFNWLPBj7Z0UXEYXn_i_4t45KtAwfzzaxiqK5uAu4wOwgnVMmEIWHcqZvW0t8Ql2eyfEF5xJutjQjhcRDjZvqAZcogc2vjQ-a61doj_bsq/s1280/1_einpDBAmNn-iYJ2k3jbt2A.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-RlYIgF59geA7vNA4xJtOMJHtSiq5R4K4lOJxmMVehjlu3flPnpWPXX1q_5ApHLGjtiIErtJtCVm9VSN3CMFNWLPBj7Z0UXEYXn_i_4t45KtAwfzzaxiqK5uAu4wOwgnVMmEIWHcqZvW0t8Ql2eyfEF5xJutjQjhcRDjZvqAZcogc2vjQ-a61doj_bsq/w640-h360/1_einpDBAmNn-iYJ2k3jbt2A.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>The trouble starts when you run into guys like the author of this particular narrative. Someone who approaches it not from the perspective of just someone who likes entertaining others with make-believe, but rather as a con artist looking for gullible "marks". At the heart of <i>Catch Me If You Can,</i> we have the figure of Frank Abignale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio). To all appearances, there's nothing that out of the ordinary about him. He's just the son of well-to-do enough middle class family living in New Rochelle, New York. His father, Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken) was a stationary store owner. His mother was a French emigre that his Dad met in her home village during WWII. So far, everything is picture-postcard. Though Frank does notice his father's "Way with Words", in a matter of speaking. Turns out Dear Old Dad had more than few tricks up his sleeve for closing important business deals. Some of these gambits were, perhaps, let's say, less than honest. The good news, however, is nobody was ever hurt by it, and the job got done. So it was pretty much Aces High as far as Frank was concerned.<p></p><p>A nice house, a good home life with parents who cared about him, and the potential of a very bright future ahead him. And so just like that, everything went to hell. It all started when his parents got divorced. Frank's father just couldn't seem to hold it together in financial terms. The IRS cornered him for cashing in more than just a few bad checks, and when the bills first came due, and then piled up due to Abignale Sr's consummate sense of professional negligence, it kinda-mighta-sorta bled into the former Rotary Club Honoree's home life. In fact, it seems to have gotten so bad to the point that his Dad sort of took the strong romantic bonds shared between him as his wife, along with the familial ones they both shared with their son, and just sort of ripped it all in apart. Like chewing off a bit of Twix, and never really pausing to ever give it much of the second thoughts a lot of it all needed. Frank's Mom, Paula went ahead and proceeded to do what seemed like the sensible enough thing. I mean you can't have your own child living in a home life such as that. However, she decided to play it fair.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9q0iCO_I-5PEFzZanRLDZ6MhB9SY-230pSi9xX2GE-KV0ySHJGyOSNYt2iPulPdPmOrZKzoIidM9xhPthKY1GbPzvn3cEUnJpp6niveqh__-xsjxKniv2sawETHwG_EefRecE-ZbkEelaHVICiJjkGQr4bvV5l-KASIyBw-aTTtwAL1_TzdV3KAlmDNd/s750/catch-me-if-you-can-072796852.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="750" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9q0iCO_I-5PEFzZanRLDZ6MhB9SY-230pSi9xX2GE-KV0ySHJGyOSNYt2iPulPdPmOrZKzoIidM9xhPthKY1GbPzvn3cEUnJpp6niveqh__-xsjxKniv2sawETHwG_EefRecE-ZbkEelaHVICiJjkGQr4bvV5l-KASIyBw-aTTtwAL1_TzdV3KAlmDNd/w640-h420/catch-me-if-you-can-072796852.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />She asked her son which parent he would choose to live with. Would it be her, or his father? Frank took what you could call an ironic form of the Solomonic option, and split the difference. Rather than choose a life with either parent, he turned tail and ran from them both. So there he was. Just this nothing kid from Rochelle, out of the streets of a Big Apple that was well on its way to turning rotten, just the way Scorsese brought it to life on the screen years later. So in a state of pretty much total desperation, and not having much else in the way of prospects, Frank hit upon the one idea that at least seemed to fit the situation. He reached for his Dad's old bag of tricks, and started work on a con that would put some much needed money in his pocket. To the dumb young schmuck's own surprise, his first few efforts at this turned out to be successful. It starts out small with the luckless kid turning himself into something of an overnight prodigy when it comes to forging checks and cashing them in.<p></p><p>The skills and little tricks he learned from his Dad at mastering the art of the sell is what allows him to talk his way past the guardrails that the next bank he walks into has in place. At first it's just an easy way to line his pocket. Only this and nothing more, as some old poem has it. Then one day, he makes a discovery that changes the course of his new "career". Frank notices the glamour that attaches to the life of 1960s airline pilots. I'm assuming this was something specific to the decade here, rather than any kind of natural trend. Trans-Atlantic air travel didn't take off in a big way until after the conclusion of first the Second World, and then the Korean War. When commercial airlines went mainstream, there seems to have been this brief window of opportunity for a sense of "romance" to attach itself towards having a bonafide pilot's license. It's the kind of setup that is pretty much unthinkable nowadays. In the early 1960s, however, the gild still hadn't quite slipped off the lily. That fabled window of opportunity was still open. It might have been slowly sliding to a close even back then. Yet the window remained unlatched for the time being, even if only just a crack. It was enough for Frank.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcW3kr0ksjnTXNhuajzs-NHtziOo2xMz6CDL0Fl62ODKO1O56ScE2GDepSIk1xYVBdQ3wfaSMCX5AecnbNmnyz916gRhYP_tgGRZGbovuW1ytgFZ6jVyeRnrPMfk0RVogntAbzVUxuyagxvrXo1mGJ-x3b2ou2otR0-HikDM120UXRr7sLiP2DeYBFg2c/s1920/catchmeifyoucan_2002_photo_4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcW3kr0ksjnTXNhuajzs-NHtziOo2xMz6CDL0Fl62ODKO1O56ScE2GDepSIk1xYVBdQ3wfaSMCX5AecnbNmnyz916gRhYP_tgGRZGbovuW1ytgFZ6jVyeRnrPMfk0RVogntAbzVUxuyagxvrXo1mGJ-x3b2ou2otR0-HikDM120UXRr7sLiP2DeYBFg2c/w640-h360/catchmeifyoucan_2002_photo_4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The young man saw his opportunity, took it, and then ran with it. Soon he was not just the possessor of his own genuine United Airlines uniform, he was using a combination of it and his skill with forging no longer just rubber checks, but also fake IDs to pretty much hitch himself an ongoing series of free rides across the Nation. It doesn't just stop there, however. From impersonating frequent flyers, Frank soon moves on to role playing as various imaginary doctors until at one point he seems poised to adopt a permanent mask as lawyer Frank Connors, assistant to the District Attorney for the State of Louisiana. <p></p><p>The trouble is that bad checks bounce, and if you pile that sort of crap up, sooner or later there's going to be a ton of pissed off creditors looking to collect the bill, even if they have to take it out of your own hide. Also, here's another tip to bear in mind. If you get enough people to complain about you, then sooner or later someone important is going to hear about it. Complaints like this always tend to move up the ladder, not down. Eventually, Frank's ongoing scam reaches the office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That's where his case lands on the desk of Special Agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks).</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb6eJxaELRhtRINrCmOk_462OEDds-t01NrIeSbzNZHI9pC7FEKb1254iB2xBBzZISNTqiJI-xgIegxLizpbi334kyYhqZ262YVz4Le6A-ImFdS6aiN3AtdfUeHBqC2xYo-7gm_XOE4ATvfIwFIWAXBXFojrq3kiIh7zRpg_lZtXM1SVRlPEfoNlCBuQRL/s600/CcYfCEUWEAAVQwF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="600" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb6eJxaELRhtRINrCmOk_462OEDds-t01NrIeSbzNZHI9pC7FEKb1254iB2xBBzZISNTqiJI-xgIegxLizpbi334kyYhqZ262YVz4Le6A-ImFdS6aiN3AtdfUeHBqC2xYo-7gm_XOE4ATvfIwFIWAXBXFojrq3kiIh7zRpg_lZtXM1SVRlPEfoNlCBuQRL/w640-h420/CcYfCEUWEAAVQwF.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For whatever reason, this once married and now divorced father of one daughter takes an interest in Frank's crime spree. Now he's is using his considerable skills at tracking the young con artist down, and Frank Abagnale has to see how well he can not just evade capture, but also hold onto the new life he's managed to build up for himself. There's also a third problem to deal with in all this. It's perhaps best described as the thrill of the con. That peculiar rush of satisfaction that comes from knowing you have reduced some of the smartest human beings on the planet to a level far below and beneath you. To turn a wise man into a fool within seconds flat. It's like having your own superpower. Is it possible for someone like Frank to willingly turn his back on that kind of skill set? Or will the thrill of the chase and the con have the last word? These are the issues that beset the life of some kid from New Rochelle.<p></p><p><b>Separating Fact from Fiction.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpQAizmpReWq7d8nR5SYGOX8zCjs76n19sNx7CPWTa3HQM7paluSBjk51tDVhkSfXQ9elevPwg2tfmS0nIPTCeSSOiOJoDuSDAjN7znoAIko5Og5UjH19ftlox2mA1-GydlQcXtt1m-CWW97p9wRmfE6Q3Vuec-PNT_81SXnz9KhUMfIW4sdoZnymvoa4/s1000/81euiTWI7pL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="650" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpQAizmpReWq7d8nR5SYGOX8zCjs76n19sNx7CPWTa3HQM7paluSBjk51tDVhkSfXQ9elevPwg2tfmS0nIPTCeSSOiOJoDuSDAjN7znoAIko5Og5UjH19ftlox2mA1-GydlQcXtt1m-CWW97p9wRmfE6Q3Vuec-PNT_81SXnz9KhUMfIW4sdoZnymvoa4/w152-h234/81euiTWI7pL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="152" /></a></div>In many ways, this might be the most ironic film I've ever reviewed. The irony stems more from the overall context of this film, and how it informs the final product, more than anything else. There's enough worth talking here, at any rate, that I'll have to break the themes, story elements, and behind the scenes info down to just two paths of exploration. One is the problem of having to tell fact from fiction. The other is how the final results of this finished film tell us more about its director, more than anything else. If the two ideas seem unrelated, then part of the reason for that might be just because Spielberg allowed himself to get drawn into another man's con trick. The punchline, however, is that the director might have been the one to have the last laugh, because he turned out to be the one to use film's like this to help him turn over more or a new leaf than the real life scammer behind this movie.<p></p><p>Looked at from this perspective, we'd better start out with how the story's real life context ties into the need to discern truth from lies. <i>Catch Me If You Can</i> is by no means the pure invention of Spielberg himself. Turns out the whole film is more or less the adaptation of a book. It was written by the actual Frank Abagnale Jr. during the 1970s, then finally saw publication and shelf life some time around 1980. Ever since Frank's colorful memoir of life as a felon hit the shelves, there have been constant claims that the author has stretched the truth more than by just a little. For instance, the memoir makes the unequivocal statement that Abagnale's greatest period of criminal exploits was from 1963 to 69. The claim being that once Abagnale got started on his first successful con, he just kept going, living the life of a modern day <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_and_Clyde">Clyde Barrow</a>, except this time the weapon of choice was words and charm, instead of a gun. Same basic "occupation", different tactics, and a better outcome is all. The trouble with this claim starts once you begin to dig into Frank's actual, documented criminal record.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXk2T28j0b6PpkqLIwnh4SNZ5H5dguyYddyaiYWdEaxpx1ubQOI5UheVN4eWsKVl0kT6GL4ljnydfZHlKbv2uODPlAvMPgAQFFKVbX1_f3BZB2J60HrmsluO3HCPaQ9iMPNDrm3MNvK15_ginbKpk-CG165mom0vM9D_nfmtwilcMKfPOObj0ngSq7G1Dq/s1920/ag_uncatchable_portrait_frank.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1920" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXk2T28j0b6PpkqLIwnh4SNZ5H5dguyYddyaiYWdEaxpx1ubQOI5UheVN4eWsKVl0kT6GL4ljnydfZHlKbv2uODPlAvMPgAQFFKVbX1_f3BZB2J60HrmsluO3HCPaQ9iMPNDrm3MNvK15_ginbKpk-CG165mom0vM9D_nfmtwilcMKfPOObj0ngSq7G1Dq/w640-h358/ag_uncatchable_portrait_frank.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For one thing, the real Abagnale Jr. was incarcerated from 1965 to 68. Once he got finished serving that sentence, it didn't take Frank long to fall back into old, bad habits and find himself once more behind bars before the Summer of 69 turned into the inaugural year of the 70s. Sometime after that he managed to pull off what might be considered his most iconic card trick. He really did manage to pull off the impersonation of an airline pilot for a brief spate. He never used this to hop flights without having to pay. Nor is there any indication that Abagnale ever learned to know his way around the actual controls of an airplane. For some reason, there's a great deal of relief wrapped up in that knowledge as far as I'm concerned. Nor did the real Abagnale ever manage to talk his way into the doctor's office. The curious part is where truth and fiction begin to shade into one another. It's been difficult to tell whether or not the real Frank ever did manage to ace a Bar Examination for the Louisiana legal system. I think it's moments like this when you have to be careful where you step the most. It's the part where the very nature of reality begins to be tricksy almost by a kind of inexplainable default. That's got to be the worst situation to be in. Especially if life or death hinges on choosing what to believe is the truth.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBYReFdWnJCaIu5eiMwUB2dpfKNReaQMrAqXMJLpT6ayDObN0ltG8dEZytp7LABnmWmvoMJi8omPLzg2W1n-Y9lsvPbOnNfa8Sg8Ba7xjhqKwTXFvCbllBW6QUH7rGBH6nPiY0Gpqlo2fWoT_uJ2aZtGWqdewL7OnkYrBOXYnd83h2wy4mNc8TQddjfga0/s385/Catchmecanbook.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="261" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBYReFdWnJCaIu5eiMwUB2dpfKNReaQMrAqXMJLpT6ayDObN0ltG8dEZytp7LABnmWmvoMJi8omPLzg2W1n-Y9lsvPbOnNfa8Sg8Ba7xjhqKwTXFvCbllBW6QUH7rGBH6nPiY0Gpqlo2fWoT_uJ2aZtGWqdewL7OnkYrBOXYnd83h2wy4mNc8TQddjfga0/s320/Catchmecanbook.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>I suppose that's the real dilemma at the heart of living in an era where everybody is sort unceremoniously forced into a game of <i>True Detective</i>. I'm not sure how well equipped most of us are mentally to try and figure our way out of a situation where the opportunity to gaslight and trick the vast majority of the world's population is always at our collective fingertips. Nevertheless, this seems to be the defining struggle of the contemporary era going forward. My own approach to it all is this. If at least some measure of truth didn't exist, then no one would ever go to such trouble to try and distort our perception of reality. Therefore, while trying to keep your head above all the misinformation white noise might be one literal mindfuck of a hassle, it is at the same time maybe not so much of an insurmountable task as it at least sometimes <i>feels</i> like. Conquering one's emotions seems to be half the battle in a case like this. Sharpening our critical thinking skills represents the other necessity. The good news when it comes to tackling a film or a supposed "memoir" like this is that the task is relatively (and thankfully) a lot more simple and straightforward. The truth is the "memoir" is a con in and of itself.<p></p><p>Much like his movie counterpart, Frank Abagnale Jr. really did find some way to clean up his act. He's been a straight citizen since the 1970s. Telling tall tales about his past, and then publishing it all in a so-called" "tell-all" book seems to have been the equivalent of a parting shot farewell. Abagnale's way of both looking back fondly at his misspent youth, while also closing the book on this chapter of his former life by honoring it all with one last, great, final con artists trick. Perhaps the purest one that has ever existed. Frank decided to take his own criminal failings, and then spin a Capra-esque fairy tale around it all. Both the book and its adaptation are therefore little more than exercises of spinning whole cloth from start to finish. The real guy never saw his father again after running away from home, for instance, and it's for sure he never came close to starting over as a lawyer in Louisiana. There was an FBI agent who successfully pursued him to capture, conviction, and incarceration. They also struck up a kind of competitive friendship of sorts. The agent's name was Joseph Shea, however, not Hanratty.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRG9UOv3-chc1IS8cwz7CmTedeANiFyjkuFcxrvu5RdRKEk3leYGuLtGwDvoUw_nN76tb_YsSU57THw4QIr5Dlbh69Cuac4ILNvqXzp67JcMqNFSMfGRbw5gGV8_HvZ9zZHNJsoDH3ZOwQ-GcN3VF8fAPgoe0ssQmFBhP5TNdX9UogBmo6bLK_MsYKur6y/s1600/s-l1600.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1156" data-original-width="1600" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRG9UOv3-chc1IS8cwz7CmTedeANiFyjkuFcxrvu5RdRKEk3leYGuLtGwDvoUw_nN76tb_YsSU57THw4QIr5Dlbh69Cuac4ILNvqXzp67JcMqNFSMfGRbw5gGV8_HvZ9zZHNJsoDH3ZOwQ-GcN3VF8fAPgoe0ssQmFBhP5TNdX9UogBmo6bLK_MsYKur6y/w640-h462/s-l1600.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Beyond these bare facts, however, everything about Abagnale's book and Spielberg's adaptation is a complete lie that can only be enjoyed on the level of pure fiction. So what happens if we switch perspective lenses, and look at the film as just a work of ordinary make-believe? What happens then? <p></p><p><b>The Artistic Phases of Steven Spielberg.</b> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9M8GLK3nwRadTDqIjJZfCvdr8-ilE47XeBBG90EnpJ6cjobpbTlhtwY5hJuLsjTLqE97rl00_eSMnAWE9zgfTyCkOkfI1EfNj7zFfEo9ZFE7ZcX7rX5q3GrnlQCwxmTBr5V5EZcTJlV997J4fkcQSHYRT8k92r98JbSgX8g-hTDg69bnzBKlkedval9re/s1860/spielberg-the-first-ten-years-9781647225179_hr.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1860" data-original-width="1399" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9M8GLK3nwRadTDqIjJZfCvdr8-ilE47XeBBG90EnpJ6cjobpbTlhtwY5hJuLsjTLqE97rl00_eSMnAWE9zgfTyCkOkfI1EfNj7zFfEo9ZFE7ZcX7rX5q3GrnlQCwxmTBr5V5EZcTJlV997J4fkcQSHYRT8k92r98JbSgX8g-hTDg69bnzBKlkedval9re/w181-h239/spielberg-the-first-ten-years-9781647225179_hr.jpg" width="181" /></a></div>For me, the one element of this film that stands out from all the others centers around the place a feature like this occupies within the larger context of Steven Spielberg's life and career. I'm not sure how off point this might sound to others. I'm convinced, however, that the best way to approach a movie like this is by looking at it from a chronological perspective. To view it from the vantage of it's place in the growth of the artist's mind and art. I'd argue it's when you take this approach that the exact nature of the film and its success just as pure <i>story</i> becomes clear. The audience then has a wider understanding from which to make any valid judgment call. So with this rubric in mind, let's start out by discussing the other context behind this film. I don't think it's too far out of court at this late date to claim that Spielberg's career as a filmmaker can be divided into a series of phases, roughly three in number.<p></p><p>The first takes us to his big breakout during the middle of the New Hollywood of the 1970s. For most viewers, the origin point for the start of the artist's career is with the blockbuster success of <i>Jaws</i>. However, I'd argue that it's just as easily possible to make the case that the actual beginning of things was in the production of relatively small TV Movies of the Week, such as his 1971 adaptation of Richard Matheson's <i>Duel</i>. It's even possible to be generous an extend the director's point of origin as far back the premiere episode of Rod Serling's <i>Night Gallery</i> in 1969. Turns out Spielberg was one of the fresh faced young talents at the time that the creator of the <i>Twilight Zone</i> tapped to helm the series' pilot. So far as I've been able to discover, while this might not have been the director's first ever film (that honor goes to a short picture called <i>Amblin</i>, back during his college student days) it was Steven's first crack at taking charge of a picture from a professional director's chair. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, so far as the Movie Brat from Arizona was concerned, and he owed it to one of his idols.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LpEaiNq83xSC3duuAZXoyDefy8RbaoTQGDE2xoFY1g2pF6x0CLRhyphenhyphenW-FArZOw6ZiD99MhVoZSYvfr29zA0rPKdAYDIrNooXhjG45YYjAiZOyTy2aicoOQRjifdk1jb-3lguZiz2pjFfG_jp7iYssCJpe_7vulk_Lht2gvrdON4i1jCNc3qooJV2pF_N2/s1200/spielberg-carford570.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="779" data-original-width="1200" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LpEaiNq83xSC3duuAZXoyDefy8RbaoTQGDE2xoFY1g2pF6x0CLRhyphenhyphenW-FArZOw6ZiD99MhVoZSYvfr29zA0rPKdAYDIrNooXhjG45YYjAiZOyTy2aicoOQRjifdk1jb-3lguZiz2pjFfG_jp7iYssCJpe_7vulk_Lht2gvrdON4i1jCNc3qooJV2pF_N2/w640-h416/spielberg-carford570.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />In other words, you could frame the true start of things in the following terms. Once upon a time, Rod Serling took a gamble on an untried talent. It paid off more than plenty and well in the long run. The point, however, is that this is the true start of what I tend to think of as Spielberg's first phase. These are what many now consider the glory years of the artist's career. The one where he either made or helped produce some of his most iconic features. It's the era that gave us <i>E.T.</i>, <i>Indiana Jones</i>, along with features that the director had a shaping hand in producing, such as <i>Poltergeist</i>, <i>Gremlins</i>, <i>An American Tail</i>, <i>The Goonies</i>, <i>Back to the Future</i>, <i>The Land Before Time</i>. Even <i>Who Framed Roger Rabbit</i> counts as a Spielberg production in some capacity. I think a recitation of each of these titles alone is enough to give even the casual movie-goer a sense of why this is the part of the director's career that tends to get the most attention. The simple reason for this is because it was the busiest and most productive period in Steven's life. When he wasn't busy creating great films under his own steam, he was lending his support and artistry to a host of others. Even when he wasn't in the director's chair, the stories he helped produce can't help but contain trace elements of the director's personal touch in their chemistry.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIkS4P7CEnmbuMYkMgr4CfUtQZL6nlIitCDEnPLFbOAZP0kQSWUXFw8_TNhGejFf-9wfEuvQhVAxAXFankwUpJLYdU57hWm4FCl9ptjx47l0MihYC6bftf84ckCtxph731t2PEtldX-902JbFYA5e1nzl863oZcowJFl53IlQ3GwoLKpaEzDRlogMoHkpn/s1600/s-l1600%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1058" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIkS4P7CEnmbuMYkMgr4CfUtQZL6nlIitCDEnPLFbOAZP0kQSWUXFw8_TNhGejFf-9wfEuvQhVAxAXFankwUpJLYdU57hWm4FCl9ptjx47l0MihYC6bftf84ckCtxph731t2PEtldX-902JbFYA5e1nzl863oZcowJFl53IlQ3GwoLKpaEzDRlogMoHkpn/s320/s-l1600%20(1).jpg" width="212" /></a></div>This initial phase is the one that has lasted for the longest time, and continues to cast the greatest shadow over not just Spielberg's career, but also of his life and legacy in general. The last cinematic entry in this phase seems to be pinpointed easily enough, with the release of <i>Jurassic Park</i> in 1993. There's something about that feature which acts as the near perfect curtain closer on the first part of the director's career. From here on in, things tend to be a bit more contested, if never outright controversial. It's just that now, while the filmmaker continues to churn out films that are both financially and critically successful, audiences tend to find them a lot more hit and miss. From here on in, a great deal of pick and choose tends to exist among viewers as to which features are most deserving of praise and attention. I tend to look at the next stage of Spielberg's career as one of self-doubt and searching. It begins with <i>Schindler's List</i> and it comes to a close with what appears to be the one-two punch of both <i>Munich</i> and <i>The War of the Worlds</i>. A lot of fans tend to think of it as the director's dark period, and it's easy to see why. This was when Spielberg turned his attention to darker subject matter.<p></p><p>While never abandoning his initial roots, we find the director tackling harsher topics in his films from this phase. This is the era that gave us <i>Saving Private Ryan</i>, among others. It's now considered among the most representative, and honored film from this spate in the Movie Brat's life. However, I'd have to say it's entire nature is summed up in the production of <i>Minority Report</i>. When making that film, Steven said he really wanted to challenge himself, and see if he could succeed at making a film that was almost the exact opposite of his own style and approach. I'd argue he achieved that goal with faded and washed out (as opposed to flying) colors. And the picture has gone on to be a Sci-Fi Noir favorite ever since. For the purposes of this review, what's interesting is the turn the rest of his films in this phase took in the aftermath of the Holocaust film, the D-Day picture, and the Philip K. Dick adaptation.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9er2ABWM9SJ1m1R8k_7NisrwGZpssQn1BREOWv4jtSG9FQ0ZiEDvPb_vKuEsvbkuu5X9uDQUscvvgFmbZe-asbDT-WSyxJ8BASU-T_Sjb5BTmwmtZWYgSQJZnD5FtbWYMmnv6vTlGut0FaK-ha0QDrcRT1yVPPG1XmdHMkER5Xrwiqt4jqD0d_LwkrBzS/s1280/et-pictures-1280-x-804-e88pbxbia2actbot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="1280" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9er2ABWM9SJ1m1R8k_7NisrwGZpssQn1BREOWv4jtSG9FQ0ZiEDvPb_vKuEsvbkuu5X9uDQUscvvgFmbZe-asbDT-WSyxJ8BASU-T_Sjb5BTmwmtZWYgSQJZnD5FtbWYMmnv6vTlGut0FaK-ha0QDrcRT1yVPPG1XmdHMkER5Xrwiqt4jqD0d_LwkrBzS/w640-h402/et-pictures-1280-x-804-e88pbxbia2actbot.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In one sense, the director's second phase continues onward for a few more entries or so. What's notable about the last batch of films in this part of his career, however, is the interesting sense of a gathering sea change; of sorts, anyway. It's the point where films like <i>Catch Me If You Can</i> come into play. The interesting part about it, and all the Second Phase films that came after, is that the director claimed in interviews how he was looking for a way to switch gears just (or maybe a whole lot more than) a little. He was itching to do something lighter, like a comedy. This was the point at which Abagnale's memoir surfaced once again, after a previous, earlier encounter with it. For whatever reason, it seems to have been the picture Spielberg needed in order to give himself permission to effect a professional sea change. It doesn't count as the end of the director's Second Phase. However, it might just mark out the point where the Second half of his artistry began to transition into the current Third part of his life as a filmmaker. Every Second part film after <i>Report</i> reads like a pallet cleanser, of sorts. It's like you can sense the artist getting ready to make a few changes, and the next series of projects are how he does it.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFjSZuPUoB5OTVP_EE2UstIns8-xEj9YB0BVTvMLzUR-5NOpkFn4LlDbaiQIADetuMyUYm8m5rYZ2newngtwkOyxMNwFpxmEtFi7vVs6N_RhjIWgTnews3MKC7kFP9eISLq1CMzvTdim9FRZQno8dDXWhBf-f0QXtMby900h7ckM9xJTwD5OcjEfOXIrVw/s600/an-american-tail-movie-poster-kevin-wilson_grande.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFjSZuPUoB5OTVP_EE2UstIns8-xEj9YB0BVTvMLzUR-5NOpkFn4LlDbaiQIADetuMyUYm8m5rYZ2newngtwkOyxMNwFpxmEtFi7vVs6N_RhjIWgTnews3MKC7kFP9eISLq1CMzvTdim9FRZQno8dDXWhBf-f0QXtMby900h7ckM9xJTwD5OcjEfOXIrVw/s320/an-american-tail-movie-poster-kevin-wilson_grande.webp" width="213" /></a></div>It all comes to a head with the director's adaptation of H.G. Well's original novel of an Invasion from Planet Mars. <i>War of the Worlds</i> is a film that reads like nothing less than the director, not quite taking an axe to his previous efforts, or anything like that. It's more that you can sense Spielberg has identified whichever part of his Second Phase is dross or chaff that can be safely burned away without any cost. While also recognizing the vital essentials of his art which must be kept and guarded as close as possible. Much like a father would with his children. It's the director's way of bidding farewell to whatever part of his Second Phase that he is willing to leave behind, by giving it all one great, big, Viking Funerial style send-off. That just leaves us where we are now, with the Third Phase of the artist.<p></p><p>It begins with one of (if perhaps no longer <i>the</i> most contested) entry in the Indy franchise, and has continued on ever since. For better or worse, I think what can be said beyond dispute is that whatever you think of the quality of any of his films from this period, it's easy enough to tell that the director himself has managed to achieve a second homecoming of sorts, if that makes any sense. In other words, Spielberg's Third Phase showcases the director making a concerted effort to go back to his roots as a filmmaker. He seems to be going about this in two interconnected ways. On the one hand, he'll take on the type of projects that harken, in one way or another, back to his glory days during the 80s. This is how you get the return of Harrison Ford, but also films that can be spoken of as containing that same kind of familiar, adventurous spirit. This applies to an adaptation of the <i>Tintin</i> graphic novel series, as well as to sideline projects he executive produced, such as <i>Super 8</i>. Whatever you might want to say for or against that film, it almost has to be pointed to as the poster child for this particular phase.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbFV-fuT_eApBmEd6_FvZZjH8DJxgWUjyrQ7nw60ofotOM-JTY9RooAighz05gagH9KptYpTYfN895IR6z2_vOabG0j1kzID7y5DYRtD-Bh4Kka2FThlVGIOWl76As4oT3E5DAss43B4-1dcUSqV3SPuwglriHP4_LgXLDk5XZ4_yLOdaPf3kjdB-CrabW/s1200/b10a38b8-47ef-4ca5-bf34-445cb7c4b544.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbFV-fuT_eApBmEd6_FvZZjH8DJxgWUjyrQ7nw60ofotOM-JTY9RooAighz05gagH9KptYpTYfN895IR6z2_vOabG0j1kzID7y5DYRtD-Bh4Kka2FThlVGIOWl76As4oT3E5DAss43B4-1dcUSqV3SPuwglriHP4_LgXLDk5XZ4_yLOdaPf3kjdB-CrabW/w640-h336/b10a38b8-47ef-4ca5-bf34-445cb7c4b544.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The whole damn thing is nothing less than an homage to not just the type of films that made Spielberg a household name during the Brat Pack era. It also goes out of its way in trying to capture both the look and feel of what it was like to either be a participant watching the magic unfold as you sat there, sequestered away in your own, safe corner of the theater aisles, or else the thrill and sense of adventure there was in being inspired enough by the films you watched and liked to become a movie maker of your own. <i>Super 8</i> is very much the product of an old maestro pining once again for the sense of freedom that came attached with those lean and hungry years when he could do it all with just guts and in his own instinctive storyteller's talent. Such is the first aspect and approach of the director's current artistic period. The second part of it is a bit more curious. I'd almost have to call it antiquarian, in some ways. Another way that Spielberg has of reaching back into his roots is to try and telegraph and showcase to viewers the kinds of films, genres, and works of other cinema artists that inspired him.<p></p><p>This means that a lot of his current movies will feature moments or callbacks to both the Golden and Silver ages of Hollywood. This aspect is shown most strongly in the Period Dramas the director has helmed in recent years. Films like <i>Warhorse</i>, <i>Lincoln</i>, and <i>Bridge of Spies</i> are nothing less than another type of feature length homage. This time, rather than the more familiar setup of the kind of pulp Science Fiction or Fantasy that is still the most familiar to us, Spielberg is instead trying to draw our attention to the way that earlier filmmakers like John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawkes or Elia Kazan molded him into the kind of director he is. These are the entries in his filmography that are perhaps never going to be as popular among the audience as his more familiar work. These are the one that will forever be slipping just off the radar, except for the occasional spotlight moment, when a curious cinephile decides to wander off the beaten track and dusts one of them off to see what else their favorite director has done. What they'll discover, more often than not is the filmmaker trying to get viewers to understand why films by these directors, or in these genres are so important to him.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5LvBbit0OhxUBxTL2ty6E5wlyKkd9qfvXf9Sl6zbcmA0-DywFuarblfPd2nbwjXFsS7UVxlp-JhgsrsnEqYvSA9i5i-HhBLlKSgjgwvweQCxMxghYAQ3HFSd5vvsXhZ57su5AsQJAnmuHyAUkLVnT7UVP4PseQo1S7qjxlbLslpo-eh6cbvEzgGDSuvLn/s2757/Back-to-the-Future-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-British-Quad-30x40.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2112" data-original-width="2757" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5LvBbit0OhxUBxTL2ty6E5wlyKkd9qfvXf9Sl6zbcmA0-DywFuarblfPd2nbwjXFsS7UVxlp-JhgsrsnEqYvSA9i5i-HhBLlKSgjgwvweQCxMxghYAQ3HFSd5vvsXhZ57su5AsQJAnmuHyAUkLVnT7UVP4PseQo1S7qjxlbLslpo-eh6cbvEzgGDSuvLn/w640-h490/Back-to-the-Future-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-British-Quad-30x40.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />He also means to get across the point that these types of older classics are still worth digging up and preserving in the memory of future generations. It's perhaps now that slapping the label of antiquarian on a lot of his current later efforts begins to make a bit more sense. It's like the director has become a one-man film preservationist; the Hollywood equivalent of Dr. Jones himself. Except this time, the relics he's trying to preserve are movies, instead of archaeological artifacts. This has become something of a personal crusade with Spielberg in his Third Phase. It's a passion he shares with his fellow New Hollywood friend and contemporary, Martin Scorsese. So it's should come as no real surprise that the sense of wanting to preserve the best of the past for the sake of the future has become something of a running theme in his most recent works. This then, is a good rundown of the career and phases of Steven Spielberg. All that remains is to find out what place <i>Catch Me</i> has in all of this history. <p></p><p><b>Conclusion: An Interesting Transition Piece with at Least One Good Lesson.</b> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADc4vaFTxE8BwF6eb8qZfCG7GDhV2rO47_Ik1WQje34A-TTjC1bnTTsiSigcmah-raKKP49eV4K5o8zdxiGS5VlWRfaIZv1AJxWe8xa2uS054iUMfUxrtccZvkoPGTMa_Kih3I6adt75YZn9xnxBT2GqFNQ4PdSJBUU6PHStI-KQWpbi1uD5mN0GNUNhQ/s383/Catch_Me_If_You_Can_2002_movie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="259" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADc4vaFTxE8BwF6eb8qZfCG7GDhV2rO47_Ik1WQje34A-TTjC1bnTTsiSigcmah-raKKP49eV4K5o8zdxiGS5VlWRfaIZv1AJxWe8xa2uS054iUMfUxrtccZvkoPGTMa_Kih3I6adt75YZn9xnxBT2GqFNQ4PdSJBUU6PHStI-KQWpbi1uD5mN0GNUNhQ/w181-h267/Catch_Me_If_You_Can_2002_movie.jpg" width="181" /></a></div>When I look at this film, what stands out to me the most is its place in Spielberg's career, up to that point. In other words, I find myself noticing what it says about the state of the artist's mind at the time the film was made, rather than as a story unto itself. I'm not real sure how good of a sign that is. For instance, whenever an important dramatic moment or twist of the plot occurs, I'll start immediately trying to analyze it. However, everything about what I'm seeing led me to wonder things like: "Okay, so what do you suppose the director's handling of the mother character in the penultimate scene means. The one where the main character is looking in through the window, as if he's forever barred from things"? I know a sequence like that can be read as statement of one man's alienation from his family. And to be fair, that probably the very subtext that the director was trying to get across. It's just that everything about this film tells me that I'm analyzing an one artist's autobiography at second hand.<p></p><p>Now don't get me wrong on this. It's a complete and total mistake to claim that the fictional version of Abagnale equals the director. Or that the character's make-believe parents are a perfect one-to-one correspondence for the filmmakers real life relatives. At the same time, it's impossible to ignore the fact that this is one of those film's where the artist is using the plot more as a vehicle to try and examine his own personal situation, more than anything else. Now it's important to make one thing clear here. There's nothing wrong with making a film or telling a story that is either a straightforward autobiography, or else that contains autobiographical elements. In fact, it is even possible to point to numerous examples of films or books in this same vein. Some of them have even gone on to be considered classics in their own right. It's a list that includes, among, others, <i>A Christmas Story</i>, and George Lucas's <i>American Graffiti</i>. On the literary side of things, Stephen King has distilled his own experiences into winning fictional stories such as <i>Stand By Me</i> and <i>Hearts in Atlantis</i>. To top it all off, Martin Scorsese's films might be termed as a series of autobiographies of a number of desperate souls.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYyL8WkjrIWHYXbhxQ0f9KQ44Rnzaqkmr35raMnaNNPvrkzos3n8Nq3O3CFQp7zBWCSjIRse7pchkYod9OqP-377iAdY6u5AvGBfIYvnaz0fR52gSAFxf5fkbkJc2N9bxuHEI0HqQA5MyEbB9rWKCzqekAU8hpIhzYytcZlKQWicblmaEWrQfVUocs1nXg/s2054/cd47d08e-3232-4eb1-9cc2-0ec7ae429a97_2054x1602.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1602" data-original-width="2054" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYyL8WkjrIWHYXbhxQ0f9KQ44Rnzaqkmr35raMnaNNPvrkzos3n8Nq3O3CFQp7zBWCSjIRse7pchkYod9OqP-377iAdY6u5AvGBfIYvnaz0fR52gSAFxf5fkbkJc2N9bxuHEI0HqQA5MyEbB9rWKCzqekAU8hpIhzYytcZlKQWicblmaEWrQfVUocs1nXg/w640-h500/cd47d08e-3232-4eb1-9cc2-0ec7ae429a97_2054x1602.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Each of these are masterclasses of the particular sub-genre under discussion here. It therefore makes sense to view Spielberg's adaptation of Abagnale's book as fitting in well with this category. I'm just unsure how well it succeeds in comparison with any of the other offerings just mentioned. In films like <i>Graffiti</i> or books like <i>Hearts</i>, the power of the narrative through line, and the characters who live in it is such that the whole things pulls you into the secondary worlds each artist has created almost from the opening shot, or first line of prose. That is a skill that never comes easy, and takes worlds of talent to pull off well. Now to be even more fair, Spielberg has proven he is equal to such a task, as the results of a film like <i>E.T.</i> or <i>The Fabelmans</i> demonstrates. The difference between those efforts and a work like <i>Catch Me</i> seems to rest in two aspects. One of them is creative investment. The other might be termed the sense of identification. In films like <i>E.T.</i> you know the director identifies with the main characters, and the struggles they're all going through. The director has even admitted that the little boy at the heart of his most famous effort is based in a large degree on how he was at the very same age.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7s2RwaJv6sdVXDuR60QXF7k78dKKHuCdKOP5PpPIGzCA2uZ8m34Lzcu8jqcaxwU1jSWOapdZULe9kpShZEFQTjNWTYoiM0G5J8AlL00yYnoBEo-bMNN3vj56hnqOJJ51GxDypqlDfbzxycPIg7-dp0moAjmEtAjeHBKPoDb16ZBbHk0i2HKikSC45yJvE/s800/c46b2d0b-3ad8-462b-8824-af59219430d7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="533" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7s2RwaJv6sdVXDuR60QXF7k78dKKHuCdKOP5PpPIGzCA2uZ8m34Lzcu8jqcaxwU1jSWOapdZULe9kpShZEFQTjNWTYoiM0G5J8AlL00yYnoBEo-bMNN3vj56hnqOJJ51GxDypqlDfbzxycPIg7-dp0moAjmEtAjeHBKPoDb16ZBbHk0i2HKikSC45yJvE/w202-h304/c46b2d0b-3ad8-462b-8824-af59219430d7.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>Spielberg seems to be at least trying after the same tactic with this film. As was said above, however, the difference between Abagnale and Elliott lies in just how much sympathy the artist can spare for his protagonist. In the former case, it was a simple matter of being all heart and soul. As a result, the director has invested so much of himself in the work that it's obvious for all to see on the screen. This is one of the major discernable, yet perhaps often overlooked aspects of <i>The Extra-Terrestrial</i> that helps make the earlier film work like a literal charm. The director seems to be struggling with that same approach by comparison, here. This is somewhat ironic as one of his stated goals was to create a film where it was possible to sympathize with a criminal (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_Me_If_You_Can#Themes">web</a>). The ironic truth here might be that the director reached a limit to his sympathies. One maybe even he was unaware of until he yelled action. The fact is that Spielberg can never quite seem to make this material work, and the major reason for this is because he can't find any good reason to identify and hence invest with the drama of the main lead.<p></p><p>I almost get the impression that this is the kind of script that should have been handed over to someone like Scorsese, the Coen Bros., or Wes Anderson. Someone who could take the script and give whatever extra bit of punch it needed to sell the story to the fullest possible measure. Spielberg has long since proven he's capable of tackling dark subject matter, and the irony here is that this isn't even all that grim a fairy tale. It's a lot more like a comedy of manners in the vein of Ben Jonson. The punchline is that if we use the Renaissance poet as a benchmark, then the Abagnale adaptation still doesn't come close, not even on the level of fiction. It all comes down to the fact that the director can't find any right way into this story, because he can't really sympathize with it, and so it's no surprise if he's never really able to bring it to life. Compare this with the previous entry, which was <i>Minority Report</i>, and the contrasts between enthusiasm and investment couldn't be more stark. It's as if night and day switched places.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijMUsA7zPolF3AroZ1v-IHe1yXKw6BNhLOO2uzSJbsZju-5y64mJRwc8MK6p7flRz5KE-0EVgxbKj9r2qM_S7erg6_-Yc0jWd31-LgjF-GI7U5yKWhMWOZgWEVpzt0TIHIUpdQijITPP0dpB6Oz1YxYrSTrSHf8lLb4lqlD3HVVPEPUKnv_FjHw8bjzpOj/s1080/e80897a6-452a-4f73-8e7a-8caf1cf0317c_1080x745.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="745" data-original-width="1080" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijMUsA7zPolF3AroZ1v-IHe1yXKw6BNhLOO2uzSJbsZju-5y64mJRwc8MK6p7flRz5KE-0EVgxbKj9r2qM_S7erg6_-Yc0jWd31-LgjF-GI7U5yKWhMWOZgWEVpzt0TIHIUpdQijITPP0dpB6Oz1YxYrSTrSHf8lLb4lqlD3HVVPEPUKnv_FjHw8bjzpOj/w640-h442/e80897a6-452a-4f73-8e7a-8caf1cf0317c_1080x745.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This just leaves the real importance the film has, and that's is its status signaling, as it does, the sea change of the director's Second Phase. At the crux of the whole issue lies the way the film is meant to act as both a reflection and commentary on what is perhaps the most impactful and shaping event of the artist's life. This would be the similar divorce that Spielberg's own parents wound up going through, and how this became more or less the overriding influence on his life as a person, and his profession as an artist. In a way, it is just possible to claim that this single, real life event is what acts as the overarching, guiding thread through every story the director has told us throughout his existence. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioSKWDZu_dQ3oACnZyTiQNoj-QJqsZV3GcGqP-kh2eR2A3G09TxwnE3pUbsXzNkkibBXATUY3MIaFP8vjLyI6rEmkMb8dipfzO1pleEtTXnRJnLqzWjoVMISm_DcMmVzSUAGgeVGX0ajEq3KaKGFmFJ7VTVxt7_V-salPxQb1Doj2M8zMULwd9_GyJe_O6/s700/18693890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="495" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioSKWDZu_dQ3oACnZyTiQNoj-QJqsZV3GcGqP-kh2eR2A3G09TxwnE3pUbsXzNkkibBXATUY3MIaFP8vjLyI6rEmkMb8dipfzO1pleEtTXnRJnLqzWjoVMISm_DcMmVzSUAGgeVGX0ajEq3KaKGFmFJ7VTVxt7_V-salPxQb1Doj2M8zMULwd9_GyJe_O6/w206-h292/18693890.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>This can be seen in both the types of protagonists, and the situations they are confronted with in every story that Spielberg has either filmed himself, or else helped to get off the ground. It's shown in the way Elliott and his siblings are still silently reeling from the separation their mother and father have gone through. It's in the strained relations that Indiana Jones has with his own dad. It's Marty McFly doing whatever he can to try and help his parents sort their own lives out when they were a bunch of confused and mixed-up teenagers just like himself. It's Fievel Moskowitz doing what he can to make sure he even a has a family to go back to once he successfully arrives on American shores for the first time. Even in a film that seems disconnected from such concerns, such as <i>Roger Rabbit</i>, we are in fact confronted with a main character who is still having difficulty processing the violent loss of someone who turns out to have been the only family member he had left before the opening act curtain call. <p></p><p>These are all the most famous and memorable riffs contained in the cinema of Spielberg, and they are all playing off of that one, single note of a tumultuous family life (along with the various threats to its stability, both internal as well as external) as its foundational background rhythm. In a way, it makes perfect sense to claim that the films of Steven Spielberg stand as perhaps the most successful example of an artist playing off a single, unchanging note throughout his career, and never having it grow stale, or tired. The question of family, and either its cohesion or loss, then, is the main building block of every movie Spielberg has had a hand in. A film like <i>Catch Me If You Can</i> is certainly no different in this respect. What makes this example notable, however, is its curious lack of notability in comparison with a lot of stronger works that have come either before or after it. Am I saying the film is bad? Well, the funny thing is no, I'm not quite sure I can leave it at this. It's well shot, the acting is more than top notch. There's one of two good moments of tension (such as when DiCaprio talks his way out of a situation where Hanks has a gun trained on him). Yet it's all relatively lightweight in it's final results.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnuVsar_Cx_7sJB5vprJoyJtAp4UWaif5LeQoxfz7VZhlG9PLkkkuD2hN1fQ6kdVb9Q4dnih21F8q0Ap68hnr_kUoF1y2Q-LpNE_uq7F_pfdJL-8QFEupFtNw32NHYyq01dKY6Ccswo6nNjfJrpjujid5nosNPzi_n4JCzMedv6Q-1epPPaDcv4Xf7dd2p/s615/Catch%20Me%20If%20You%20Can%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="615" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnuVsar_Cx_7sJB5vprJoyJtAp4UWaif5LeQoxfz7VZhlG9PLkkkuD2hN1fQ6kdVb9Q4dnih21F8q0Ap68hnr_kUoF1y2Q-LpNE_uq7F_pfdJL-8QFEupFtNw32NHYyq01dKY6Ccswo6nNjfJrpjujid5nosNPzi_n4JCzMedv6Q-1epPPaDcv4Xf7dd2p/w640-h420/Catch%20Me%20If%20You%20Can%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Perhaps the best verdict I can give a story like this goes as follows. I can say it's worth a watch, if you ever manage to find an interest in it. However, I'd easily recommend even lesser known or well regarded films in the artist's cannon, such as <i>War of the Worlds</i> or <i>Tintin</i> over this one. The latter two are examples of the director giving the story all of his investment. This one just comes off as muddled due to the key factors mentioned time and again. It's best regarded as a transition piece. Something akin to a mental pallet cleanser before starting to switch gears into a new phase of life. <i>Catch Me If You Can</i> strikes me as one of Spielberg's most analytical, yet detached works. The whole story is there more as a means, rather than an end. He seems less concerned about it as an entertainment in its own right, and more as a wall to bounce his own state of mind off of before shifting the perspective around just a bit. In that sense it's no real wonder if the final result comes off as somewhat furtive and less focused when the director's mindset is always starting to turn its attention to greater horizons.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCpaeNttLi4__txNFF_6iYJoQh4IHlyVqHX2-te3-PIJeDxuH2bl2udbVPbAnQsubDANje1UoSPWkwOX1M8jRtPGldONaNUxpU7yb6Tuy5GhRn7drTBrwPd8ApYMDi70bljhZqyq0gb7DWh9haRJ3qUw4VDGkKZFIAyVBZ0u1pB4sT7HMymZyn1-VY9MP/s800/AmerTailBOS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="525" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCpaeNttLi4__txNFF_6iYJoQh4IHlyVqHX2-te3-PIJeDxuH2bl2udbVPbAnQsubDANje1UoSPWkwOX1M8jRtPGldONaNUxpU7yb6Tuy5GhRn7drTBrwPd8ApYMDi70bljhZqyq0gb7DWh9haRJ3qUw4VDGkKZFIAyVBZ0u1pB4sT7HMymZyn1-VY9MP/w180-h276/AmerTailBOS.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>Part of the reason Spielberg made this film was as a way to help him deal with a major revelation about his parents during the time before production began. In a recent <a href="https://gb.readly.com/magazines/readers-digest-uk/2023-03-14/63fd6e9975043f90dc0fc7ab">article by Jonathan Dean</a>, the director opens up about what in retrospect sounds like a key moment in his life. Once upon a time, this nothing kid from Phoenix was busy making films with his neighborhood friends. A setup very akin to <i>Stranger Things</i>, except instead of uncovering a monstrous, supernatural threat, all this young boy found was the sight of his own mother having a tryst with a friend of his dad's. He caught that one moment of the two of them together, by pure accident, on a strip of celluloid housed within the casing of his Super 8 home movie camera. It was the first hint that something was wrong in the family household. And what happens next reads like something out of an Eighteenth Century Romantic poem. All that's changed is the setting and the accents, along with the technology and the clothes. This is what happened.<p></p><p>All that occurred is what I guess is not that unusual, yet it caught the artist like a blow from a clenched fist. Leah Spielberg, the director's mother, found herself just plain falling in love with someone else. You'll have to ask her why that happened, I'm afraid. Guess maybe it never really was in the cards to begin with. Not for her and Arnold Spielberg, anyway. It's too bad. I'm just guessing again, here. Yet it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that both of them wished it could have worked out. Even if it is true, what's for certain is they're not the only one's who thought that way. Like I say, these things just have a way of happening, sometimes. No matter how hard you try. The remarkable part about it, the one element that gives it the kind of twist you'd swear sounds made up, yet isn't is this. As Dean writes, "<span style="color: #1e1e28; font-family: Lora, serif;">Spielberg’s mother would soon (re-marry, sic) while Arnold, remarkably, took the blame for the divorce to protect Leah’s standing with her children—a noble act that led to many years of estrangement from his son. It’s a theme recurrent in so many Spielberg movies (<a href="https://gb.readly.com/magazines/readers-digest-uk/2023-03-14/63fd6e9975043f90dc0fc7ab">web</a>)".</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3JSD9u-wpWipgfdNcj2YCsFUYX723YnhaeU_GEcg4ONlCUs05OCVNxKStnFnvppm7oyDTh1kV_4jo-ge_TC8tVZMWm5xl3gVnQgnoUcuXIF8g1kFcI9aiLGX1cJhZWktoFjTuwX-UqsDMYnhsJ1PIQPL50PNkY7vLMMlNCwGajFQbw91q0V48xwRgOvs/s1920/catchmeifyoucan_2002_photo_28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3JSD9u-wpWipgfdNcj2YCsFUYX723YnhaeU_GEcg4ONlCUs05OCVNxKStnFnvppm7oyDTh1kV_4jo-ge_TC8tVZMWm5xl3gVnQgnoUcuXIF8g1kFcI9aiLGX1cJhZWktoFjTuwX-UqsDMYnhsJ1PIQPL50PNkY7vLMMlNCwGajFQbw91q0V48xwRgOvs/w640-h360/catchmeifyoucan_2002_photo_28.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Like I say, the whole damn thing, and it's results read like something out of a novel by Dickens or Austen. Or maybe else a poem by Coleridge, Byron, or Shelley. The effect it had on the Spielberg's most talented son was also not without its literary sounding qualities. Not many children who are the products of a divorced marriage are capable of doing what Steven did. Many of them may carry the event around like a wound that won't heal. Very few were or are able to find an outlet for all the conflicting emotions and ideas such an event can stir around in their heads, and go on to make genuine creative art out of it. It's what the creator of E.T. did, however. This too also has the same, strange note of real life Romanticism to it. This peculiar literary note or quality applied to reality seems to also have carried over into the further event of this revelation being made known to the director by his parents years later. If I had to figure why they told him in the end, then the simplest reason is also the most likeliest. They were still his parents, and couldn't bear to see their son still suffer after all these years.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGFG5Zv7WTz7I8uNjqVaPiHVuqNRKEY1bqUrYcLpAkHTOoq-U8ptObE5HhB7-K3RvZqIEy7jDuDMtCkFqfy9fwBqcOAsXxkpIGKqrZJ9iw29s9Tplgoo00VMXHqUFoB_sxSnfipItNChzrkOwvvqxyzSAwu1WGWxbHvDLqo-LmVyIwkXvOfm7TbxXL-mW/s1000/51PP6GAN6EL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="619" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGFG5Zv7WTz7I8uNjqVaPiHVuqNRKEY1bqUrYcLpAkHTOoq-U8ptObE5HhB7-K3RvZqIEy7jDuDMtCkFqfy9fwBqcOAsXxkpIGKqrZJ9iw29s9Tplgoo00VMXHqUFoB_sxSnfipItNChzrkOwvvqxyzSAwu1WGWxbHvDLqo-LmVyIwkXvOfm7TbxXL-mW/s320/51PP6GAN6EL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>So, what happened next continues to cast a very Romantic light on the tail-end of the director's Second Phase. I'm venturing off the trail of any established record here, a little. A lot of what comes next falls under the heading of conjecture to an extent. What I will swear is true is that I know I've read an article somewhere in which Spielberg talked of how his folks revealed all these secrets to him sometime between 1997 at the earliest, or 99 to 2001 at the latest. Once again, it was a revelation from the parents that acted as a kind of blow. The difference this time is that it seems to have resulted in a much more positive effect. This time his folks seem to have given the artist whatever it was he needed to start finding some kind of closure for himself. In this same interview I'm talking about yet still can't find, Steven goes on about how working on <i>Catch Me If You Can</i> was his immediate way of processing this new-old discovery for himself. My conjecture is that his parents told him the truth sometime before the DiCaprio-Hanks collaboration, and the impact from this is what made him sign on to the project in the first place. I think it also explains the nature of this film as being a haphazard moment of transition.<p></p><p>Once more the actions and words have a galvanizing effect on the artist, and the creativity it all sparks off in his Imagination. This time, however, there is a positive turn to it all. For the longest time, Spielberg labored under one belief about his life. The divorce of his parents was seen as a horrible impossibility made manifest. As a result, each film he's ever made, every story he's ever told for the longest time had or has been nothing less than attempts to find the proper ways of confronting that impossible head on. At last, it seems to have been the very people who started this problem who have also provided the solution their son was looking for. This too has a Romantic note about it. Maybe it's one of those personal telos type deals, or something like that. Make up your own mind. What's important is that Arnold and Leah Spielberg each managed to give their son another twist of the plot. This time, it is one that allowed him to begin some kind of fundamental way, as they say, for "the healing to begin". Hence the curious note of a sea change in the director's work, beginning with the fictionalized story of Frank Abagnale. At it's heart, <i>Catch Me</i> is a film about adopting illusions about the people closest to you, and then learning how to let them go, and discovering reality is not so bad.</p><p>I guess the film as a whole can be described in the same terms. However, it's also not an example of the director at his finest. As I've said, this is a case of the artist concerned less with the story itself. It's more of a means or jumping off point, of sorts. The kind of lightweight project Spielberg maybe needed at that moment. The right pallet cleanser at the right time. Something that would allow him to take a bit of stock, and starting re-arranging a few personal matters, and then seeing if it was possible to move on, while also staying true to his core artistic roots as a storyteller. The result makes for a final product that's maybe best described as less of a genuine film, and more the cinematic equivalent of a place-holder. Spielberg seems to have used this film as a bit of checkpoint in which to take stock of where he was at this point in his life. There's a lot less for him to identify with in the figure of Abagnale, compared with a lot of his other protagonists. Despite each man coming from broken homes, the director seems to realize that he's just never had it as bad as Frank. The net result of this realization is a film that treats its main character as something to avoid, rather than foster any real sympathy.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQOPUEmQx5A-sBotlrl8f-ZqNNH1U7gsa083Kms0NLOok9dM4Ae7lnlsIKEDtCoPm-IZUhM0VhfF_hr5OgbCiCtDrfa0dozBRT7-KridG5Hx1hEodHYNRejLSQwFJzRoTva78gaVww0AFtn2Id73ZeRdc1W757oOkWDwBHUX3BKs7rMzgq8oktnL7kwQe/s1920/catch-me-if-you-can_6514675.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQOPUEmQx5A-sBotlrl8f-ZqNNH1U7gsa083Kms0NLOok9dM4Ae7lnlsIKEDtCoPm-IZUhM0VhfF_hr5OgbCiCtDrfa0dozBRT7-KridG5Hx1hEodHYNRejLSQwFJzRoTva78gaVww0AFtn2Id73ZeRdc1W757oOkWDwBHUX3BKs7rMzgq8oktnL7kwQe/w640-h360/catch-me-if-you-can_6514675.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The trouble with this is that while reaching such a conclusion can be perfectly healthy and even beneficial in real life, it's not the same thing as cooking up the well written sort of plot that either the artist or the audience can get invested in. In short, while productive psychological therapy always has the chance to make for good fiction, that just turned to not be the case on this picture. <i>Catch Me If You Can</i> is the closest equivalent I've ever seen to a discarded Rorschach test from one of the artist's previous meetings with his therapist. There's every sign that the session turned out to be a good one. There might very well have even been a breakthrough, of sorts. However, it's clear the patient, or artist was a lot more focused on the achievement of that breakthrough and its meaning, rather than worrying about whether or not any kind of good art could be spun off from it. To be fair, like I said, that makes perfect sense in real life terms. If you're thrown a good lifeline, you take it, and never mind having to look back, at least not for the moment, anyway. It still leaves the task of good storytelling unfulfilled. The good news in all this is that Spielberg has gone on to greater strengths. <i>Catch Me If You Can</i> serves less as a film, and more as a jumping off point for a better future. It's a good lesson, if not a real story.<p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-25936900922126765022023-12-30T20:25:00.000-06:002023-12-30T20:25:06.786-06:00An Adventure in Art (1958).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5QRc4LYmkXoQ3RoI4dUlmloKgDt-EkCQMDz6RlPS9gpbr1Rav5ozWCGLu5L7Sevu_0LtrvmEvGSsni85GoCTIdvyDyX6BzIRlXVsPXelEcaBOJJcx56ZGViLXKWsrSsVAVzo5UGajob0oXPcaCGRkXyKBtEcMrWeujSvgI4jmrc8yzsomwXoxgBAShADp/s1266/tvguide3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1266" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5QRc4LYmkXoQ3RoI4dUlmloKgDt-EkCQMDz6RlPS9gpbr1Rav5ozWCGLu5L7Sevu_0LtrvmEvGSsni85GoCTIdvyDyX6BzIRlXVsPXelEcaBOJJcx56ZGViLXKWsrSsVAVzo5UGajob0oXPcaCGRkXyKBtEcMrWeujSvgI4jmrc8yzsomwXoxgBAShADp/w227-h320/tvguide3.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>I'm trying to recall the first time I met Mickey Mouse. One of two possible candidates, or images stand out in my memory. The first involves a picture of three figures trapped in an out-of-control mobile home as it's careening down a cliff. Mickey himself is there, hanging on for dear life, alongside two others. One of them is a cantankerous duck named Donald. The other is someone who I think is a kind of dog person? Anyway, the other fella's name is Goofy. No, I mean that's his actual name, for some reason. Not a description of his character, sorta. The point is that's the initial candidate for the first time I ever met the Mouse and his two famous friends. On a hook-up live-in trailer that's come unlatched from its 1930s Model T car, and is now literally tumbling it's helpless occupants to their certain deaths. I'm not sure how the travails of Clarke Griswold and his amusing brood hold a candle to the sort of classic slapstick I'm thinking of now. The name of the cartoon where all this action took place is called <i>Mickey's Trailer</i>, and I first saw back when I must have been no more than anywhere between five or six years of age. The second contender for the first time I ever saw these three was in a short titled <i>On Ice</i>. It featured all three of these characters once again. This time they were getting into trouble on a simple skating trip.<p></p><p>I know I saw each of these cartoons in turn when I was a child. I just can't tell you what order they were in. If I had to take a wild guess, then I'll have to go with <i>Mickey's Trailer</i> as the first time I ever made acquaintance with the work of Walter Disney. I was just a kid visiting my grandparents one Saturday, and it was at their house that they surprised me with a tape recording they'd made of a series of both Mouse House and Warner Bros. cartoons. This was a treat they made a habit of for me when I was in their care, growing up. Thanks to their efforts, I got to meet not just the Don, the Mickster, and the Goof. I also ran into a rascally rabbit named Bugs, and yet another duck named Daffy. There was also a cat named Tom and yet another mouse, this one named Jerry. Last yet not least, I can never forget the wit and wisdom passed down to me and other children of that era through the efforts of three wise, humanist sages by the names of Larry, Curly, and Moe. And I sort of owe all of these acquaintances to my dad's folks. My grandparents were kind of awesome like that for some reason.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Ysvj44doA2Uk6iU-HlDds_WYoQ6RW_vCBCIvgogYevm8kKb0UO9ah2nkK7n-JC5jtlDEbMMb2plIw_dKDnxdhPDEZcz2lq5V4fziIn5mTOq_FrI87p2ObRcNuPgAc-lF4CDRexA9NOIyiDG47nA5whztL_HpLJ87vPuoxbdhB2LI-FLqJyQPpHZFJAHs/s798/ef4d76f7-5767-4ce0-8398-12c44c8569b1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="798" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Ysvj44doA2Uk6iU-HlDds_WYoQ6RW_vCBCIvgogYevm8kKb0UO9ah2nkK7n-JC5jtlDEbMMb2plIw_dKDnxdhPDEZcz2lq5V4fziIn5mTOq_FrI87p2ObRcNuPgAc-lF4CDRexA9NOIyiDG47nA5whztL_HpLJ87vPuoxbdhB2LI-FLqJyQPpHZFJAHs/w640-h466/ef4d76f7-5767-4ce0-8398-12c44c8569b1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Looking back on those times now, I suppose the most remarkable thing is that I still own most of those pre-recorded tapes that they used to plunk me down in front of their living room TV to watch as a kid. To any 80s kids who care about that sort of thing, I guess I count as somewhat lucky. One thing I notice, going back through a few of these old VHS heirlooms, however, is that some of the content on them are of an interesting quality. Here's where I have to jump in ahead of the reader and either assure and/or let some of them down. Don't worry or get your hopes up. This is not the lead-in to some hackneyed internet Creepypasta. I'm sticking to real life here, and the content I'm talking has no curses, no secret message, or otherwise displays the by now hoary old trope of the ghost in the machine. What I find fascinating about these old tapes instead is that my grandparents sort of wound up doing me a bigger favor than they realized. It's like they created an accidental time capsule of TV shows past.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHY2GOMpe2cC6Y9tZAmQCFwHHWsFjEfrINXkmaCZ7SRs08MlWOVatWikO7Udi3aDqqf45AfQiDHQLM0B9xZQfsuy9siNHcAAykSA_kYQUM3K_3b5AqntUa1NBSwL3OjsTyZsl_pUvESYQgKQok-U20B2PNrrPZP5JGFIlroJnCAwhixE0LweVyzGshnFHL/s1783/il_fullxfull.2493269848_q8zb.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1783" data-original-width="1240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHY2GOMpe2cC6Y9tZAmQCFwHHWsFjEfrINXkmaCZ7SRs08MlWOVatWikO7Udi3aDqqf45AfQiDHQLM0B9xZQfsuy9siNHcAAykSA_kYQUM3K_3b5AqntUa1NBSwL3OjsTyZsl_pUvESYQgKQok-U20B2PNrrPZP5JGFIlroJnCAwhixE0LweVyzGshnFHL/s320/il_fullxfull.2493269848_q8zb.webp" width="223" /></a></div>Now I don't think I'm saying anything too original here. All I've said is something that a lot of old VHS collectors know about at first hand. The luckier among us get to collect whole libraries of forgotten celluloid lore, complete with nostalgic scratches and long vanished TV static. It's a shared memory that's since turned into both its own <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eut-y_B8t18&ab_channel=dimastelya">aesthetic</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wdZRSLJvPg&ab_channel=RichardFranklin">musical</a> genre. My interest in all this rests with the few bits of recorded history tapes like mine can tell us about some of the entertainment we grew up watching in an era before the digital revolution swept it all away. One item in particular that keeps cropping up across most of my grandparents old video cassettes is not such much the constant, lingering presence of Mickey and his kingdom. Instead, it's more to do with the fact that most of the Mouse's material is confined to a very specific programming block. Back then, as now, if you wanted to see anything related to the Happiest Place on Earth, you had to look to the Magic Kingdom's considerable PR arm. What this meant in practice is that every time my grandparents were able to capture a bit of that very same Kingdom on tape, it always came from just one, single source the whole time.<p></p><p>This came in the form of a TV show which had a lot of names when it was around. I'm not even sure it exists anymore, if I'm being honest. The title that I came to know is the one that I'm going to use here and throughout the rest of this article. Both because it's the shortest and most digestible descriptor I can think of, and also I guess just because it was <i>my</i> introduction to it all, if that makes any sense. So for the sake of clarity and ease, the program was called <i>Walt Disney Presents</i>. It had it's start way back in the year 1954, and was still hanging around when my dad's folks recorded reruns of it for me when I was born. That's how I first made acquaintance with Uncle Walt and his enchanted realms. It was on an obscure variety program that I think has turned into the analog equivalent of an endangered species with the advent of platforms like Disney Plus. In a way that is a shame, as I think it robs the company of easier access for its fans. It used to be you could catch all the magic you wanted on your TV virtually free of charge. If, that was, Mommy and Daddy continued to pay the cable bills. As a result, I'm one of a generational cohort that came to know of Disney through this one, charming program.</p><p>I've even talked about it a bit, once before on this very site, in fact. Not too long ago I used a book called <i><a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2020/12/disney-tv-2004.html">Disney TV</a></i> to provide as good an overview of that show as I could at the time. Whether I've gotten any better at this is something others will have to judge. I guess now is as good a time as ever to come clean and admit that brief review of an obscure critical study was meant as a kind of appetizer. Something that could maybe prepare the reader for more where that came from, and so the time has arrived. What I've begun to realize for a while now is the extent to which this old, forgotten variety program has gone on to shape a lot of my own tastes. I'm not sure if it's right to say they've shaped the lens I use to either read or watch stories. However, this simple TV show does tend to act a lot as a cornerstone that I find myself wanting to return to now and again to gain a sense of bearings. That's why I thought now might be the time to help unearth a rare, and unheralded gem by taking a look at one of its forgotten episodes. This is something I've just been able to do for the very simple reason that I'm not alone. Turns out there are a lot of Mouse House fans who grew up under the same circumstances.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieJLNxR2aKp61vzcH2t683wHe4THzuj3Dh1JX0ePwQMVIANSQWsevWFyoPzmA_RwQzmGsuHhQdvAkbrer4iME2iE3PbW9VnOB-RGIhdCC0rxeBCZ_eVonpG7kVwFlXoVBJU4QLp7blKvTafHLlE328_5g1NpRc692z6XRmz7cEk4NomwTOnDBjy9VEhO_l/s350/walt_disney_presents_1958.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="350" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieJLNxR2aKp61vzcH2t683wHe4THzuj3Dh1JX0ePwQMVIANSQWsevWFyoPzmA_RwQzmGsuHhQdvAkbrer4iME2iE3PbW9VnOB-RGIhdCC0rxeBCZ_eVonpG7kVwFlXoVBJU4QLp7blKvTafHLlE328_5g1NpRc692z6XRmz7cEk4NomwTOnDBjy9VEhO_l/w640-h480/walt_disney_presents_1958.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Our folks managed to snag VHS copies of whole episodes of a TV show that Walt started back before the idea of recordable home media was just a pipe dream. And so now I'm able to recapture moments of my past that I thought I'd lost forever. Or else I can now watch episodes that I've never even seen before, and knew only from old broadcast listings. To tell you the truth, I thought most of this stuff had vanished into the sands of time long ago. Instead, I now have the opportunity to live up to the goals of this site, and rescue an overlooked work of Disney's from the ash heap of obscurity. I think it fair to warn the reader that this is probably the kind of thing I'm going to make a habit of going forward, every now and then. This first offering is best looked at as an opening salvo, of sorts, then. I think we'll start out on an episode of <i>Walt Disney Presents</i> with a very apt title. It's called <i>An Adventure in Art</i>.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><b>Some Commentary on the Episode.</b><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNEUqUrFto6ehUQ26wKLg5hbYno6FMUCmRxEsglM5BR2WMioabnXGRenRsnJiCYs3lrvgB8K8N5jAMbZoxea2uvft5VVrNLfbUj2uLMxDkbZZ9twBy361eTtoevKMfcfAOD16mdfhYABN5pelpclnJl3jaAXRsj6OyijQOI9iJj2HOkY78bOI0pF3VZLd4/s1200/s-l1200.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="866" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNEUqUrFto6ehUQ26wKLg5hbYno6FMUCmRxEsglM5BR2WMioabnXGRenRsnJiCYs3lrvgB8K8N5jAMbZoxea2uvft5VVrNLfbUj2uLMxDkbZZ9twBy361eTtoevKMfcfAOD16mdfhYABN5pelpclnJl3jaAXRsj6OyijQOI9iJj2HOkY78bOI0pF3VZLd4/s320/s-l1200.webp" width="231" /></a></div>The show opens with the man himself seated at his office desk. In front of him are a number of correspondence letters from fans. This is how the creator of Mickey Mouse outlines the "plot" of today's episode in his own words. And now, your host, Walt Disney. "Here at the studio we get many letters from art students, and from people who are just interested in Art. Some of these letters ask questions that deserve a more detailed answer than could be given in a written reply. And so, from time to time, we're going to devote an entire program to answering a few of these questions. Now first off, I'd like to say that I do not presume to be an authority on Art. It is true that we've had a brush with Art around here, but it has generally been confined to our own field. The Art of Animation. And any opinions, or advice on the subject of Art would naturally be limited to that field of experience. So I'm going to refer to a book that has been a great source of inspiration to me, even back in my student years. It is <i>The Art Spirit</i>. Now this is not a textbook, but rather a compilation of philosophy and thoughts on Art. It's by Robert Henri. Robert Henri, who died in 1929, was an outstanding American painter.</div><div><br /></div><div>"His own paintings reflect the revolt he lead against the stodgy tradition that was stifling freedom of artistic expression in this country. But our interest is not so much in the pictures he painted. It's rather in his rare gifts of teaching and inspiring others. Not many great artists are also great teachers of Art. Robert Henri was both. And this book is a collection of thoughts from his letters, and notes from his lectures and art classes. So when I use <i>The Art Spirit</i> in answering your letters, I hope you'll get the same inspiration from it that I did when I first read it" What's notable about this opening introduction from the standpoint of contemporary criticism is just how inviting it is. Here we see Disney inviting both fans and just the plain curious to take a closer look at the <i>philosophy</i> that drove his creative output. This makes it standout to me for a number of reasons. The most pertinent being in the way that it's the artist himself who encourages his viewers to look below the surfaces of the lines and patterns that his staff have brought to life, and examine the guiding way of thinking that drove their creations.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVgu6WIY-vSQZuS_tcZPkFnjFYBmwXrwMuY5gA1mswovD2VqNiSANlGWf9LeP3LrliBUQQOLz0nhzklAfLbl1p2gwl7Hjzvm2ITHvHFSFFk6RwQ4RJHM3SCegFnlVVzg39zOotTbnoU2X082qFqgelLeHapdEmz-ecJTzUbcTe7pmZqA9PqJscsXB7yGix/s1600/29-1460751735eefbac08c-1600x900.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVgu6WIY-vSQZuS_tcZPkFnjFYBmwXrwMuY5gA1mswovD2VqNiSANlGWf9LeP3LrliBUQQOLz0nhzklAfLbl1p2gwl7Hjzvm2ITHvHFSFFk6RwQ4RJHM3SCegFnlVVzg39zOotTbnoU2X082qFqgelLeHapdEmz-ecJTzUbcTe7pmZqA9PqJscsXB7yGix/w640-h360/29-1460751735eefbac08c-1600x900.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is notable because here Walt is displaying an approach to his efforts that I've never seen given anything like real, in-depth critical attention. Most of the criticism I've ever read or seen on the man can't seem to reach past a certain point. Whenever a critic, or even a die-hard fan talks about either a Disney film, or else the history of the Company and its creator as a whole, it's like all they can focus on is a brief description of a few choice behind the scenes details, and then go no farther. We learn about the "making of" films like <i>Snow White</i>, yet few go on from there to take a deep dive into <i>how</i> Walt and the Nine Old Men drew inspiration from their source material, or <i>why</i> these particular aspects of any Myth they might have adapted mattered so much to them. There's plenty of books and documentaries out there that tells you how the story of the Dwarves came to the big screen. None or few of it, however, bothers to ask questions like: "What was it about the folklore that Walt adapted which enabled him to find so many creative ways of bringing it to life"? Another question no one bothers to ask is: "What way of thinking was it that made Walt and crew take on such a challenge"?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwCo-7gJF4ImaZqee8EYKFWHXwNwMAozjBRbEG-vYm28_uU-cnwlRAmZDJXn0V4sLLZrqNqRoYNSit3wTlP9ZHrXPcMzT6BqSZQo5JjwuCYuFTmNdxrfW9qG1aEMHA82s8ccO1NYr7z_x5fejqMnN8rLe_L89WajFMqGFQMolFOnF_wqXQn3xdW61TJF68/s500/9780253336521-us.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="402" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwCo-7gJF4ImaZqee8EYKFWHXwNwMAozjBRbEG-vYm28_uU-cnwlRAmZDJXn0V4sLLZrqNqRoYNSit3wTlP9ZHrXPcMzT6BqSZQo5JjwuCYuFTmNdxrfW9qG1aEMHA82s8ccO1NYr7z_x5fejqMnN8rLe_L89WajFMqGFQMolFOnF_wqXQn3xdW61TJF68/s320/9780253336521-us.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>To me, these all sound like very important questions that are worth asking. They might even have a greater relevance now that even the New York Times is beginning to chronicle the studio's current existential personal crisis. As I've said, though, it is just a handful of exceptions that have ever come close to diving into these deeper creative wells. It's a list that includes <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/walt-disney-from-reader-to-storyteller/">Kathy Merlock Jackson</a>, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3917612005522287441/1820786342200304484">Douglas Brode</a>, and <a href="https://www.budsartbooks.com/product/walt-disney-and-europe/">Robin Allan.</a> The rest, meanwhile, content themselves with rehashing the same shopworn details without ever pausing to think how such a sales pitch runs the risk of making the public think that the Art they were trying to make really was all just a bunch of trifles to begin with. It's a critical error that even the Company itself has fallen into in the past. The current structure at the Studio seems content with compounding this mistake, for some reason. In contrast to all this, you've got Walt himself encouraging his audience. Telling them, "Here's a good resource that has inspired all my life. You should take a closer look here, if you want to find out about what drives me to make what I do".</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not sure how often I've ever seen an actual studio CEO go that far for the sake of the customers. In other words, I don't know many movie moguls who were willing to talk <i>up to</i> rather than <i>down at</i> their audience. It's an approach Walt continues and doubles down on as he delves further into the episode's main subject. He proceeds to lead his viewers into a series of vignettes and clips from the films and shorts that have made up the Studio's history. In addressing the questions fans have posed to him about Art, Disney provides them answers through what amounts to examples of his best unsung work in animation. It should be noted that this quasi-variety show format was something close to the norm for Walt's show, especially where showcasing his now iconic works were concerned. While the show as a whole is best described as an anthology, featuring a different episode of the week, those featuring the Studio's beloved animation would always turn out to be this interesting hybrid of a series of previous cartoons spliced in with original animation and footage, all of which is organized around a theme.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOw8UrXkJk-Xki1fC_GWqa2by7zXZplBgFdgqCaoAxSeVD-l7yBC_Nqzi6ogqq_dJ-fwvc9IZ2_OsSnBYbpwuwAV-W2EyjJNfPREbMWHNEEqe5wlp9Ktb1zJbvAmManXfOEq0uQeCzWHPFmAurXRcOcFo3Mc9d-LV_w-Tq9SSLYiyH4qFijhJblNoDrU-L/s1419/qitrfCidiTQJdhn-1600x900-noPad.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="519" data-original-width="1419" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOw8UrXkJk-Xki1fC_GWqa2by7zXZplBgFdgqCaoAxSeVD-l7yBC_Nqzi6ogqq_dJ-fwvc9IZ2_OsSnBYbpwuwAV-W2EyjJNfPREbMWHNEEqe5wlp9Ktb1zJbvAmManXfOEq0uQeCzWHPFmAurXRcOcFo3Mc9d-LV_w-Tq9SSLYiyH4qFijhJblNoDrU-L/w640-h234/qitrfCidiTQJdhn-1600x900-noPad.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The result is something that's a bit too organized to be just a simple clip show review of the type you sometimes found on <i>The Simpsons</i>. For one thing, Walt would often edit some of his previous Goofy or Donald shorts together in such a way as to create a longer, more integrated narrative than what they previously were as stand-alone theatrical cartoons that used to run between new reels and the premier of films like <i>It Conquered the World</i>. Whenever his past efforts were spliced together like they are in <i>An Adventure in Art</i>, the result was often a sum greater than its original parts. Neither clip show, nor variety, like I said. Instead, very much like Walt himself, these episodes are pretty much their own unique beast. It's what helps explain the nature of this episode as Disney proceeds to answer a series of questions contained in the correspondence at his desk. "The first letter", Walt says, "is from a young lady who is in her first year of Art study. And she asks: 'Are silhouettes art"? The writer encloses a sample of her own work that looks pretty darn good enough to hang on a wall, all things considered.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqDNY6cgnRL3In_3ask4CW7zkI5Pb8fzPn_gV0j9R33ROWwfQ3HtwcnHcPo4De0ZTSdTk1rRePhGfYaOMmk-x7ebQ7-84A0W-b_jewKIdLZWAk3VpuukNOB9Bcm9wgmVn8Y5PUcKVh9VOdjf8qkY10SooUdmFsiFad6rxyds071h7xSQLeLjpUPVPbsEW/s606/cda27b3f6d030faf8ffbe5870db4e540.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="606" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqDNY6cgnRL3In_3ask4CW7zkI5Pb8fzPn_gV0j9R33ROWwfQ3HtwcnHcPo4De0ZTSdTk1rRePhGfYaOMmk-x7ebQ7-84A0W-b_jewKIdLZWAk3VpuukNOB9Bcm9wgmVn8Y5PUcKVh9VOdjf8qkY10SooUdmFsiFad6rxyds071h7xSQLeLjpUPVPbsEW/s320/cda27b3f6d030faf8ffbe5870db4e540.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Walt continues to read the letter. "She writes, in part: 'My friends at Art School insist that cutting out silhouettes of this sort are a complete waste of time, and argue that they are not a legitimate form of Art. In fact, not <i>Art</i> at all. Now I like making these, and feel they have some merit, but I don't know how to prove it. Could you possibly think of anything that will help me out with my side of the argument'? Are silhouettes Art? Well, when it came to defining Art, Robert Henri took a very liberal viewpoint. Here are his introductory lines in <i>The Art Spirit</i>. 'Art, when really understood, is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well'. And here's what he says about what means an artist may use to express himself. 'He does not have to be a painter, or a sculpture to be an artist. He can work in any medium'. So, according to Henri, <i>an artist's choice of tools is not important</i>. And as far as using scissors is concerned, there's no question that it requires a great deal of skill to cut out a good silhouette".</div><div><br /></div><div>I think that sentence or its underlying sentiment is perhaps one of the most important things any aspiring creator can hear. Because it grants them that important sense of permission a lot of budding talents need in order to even begin their most nascent efforts at crafting any kind of artwork they can imagine. For me, this can apply just as well to the world of storytelling, and its various mediums, as much as it does to painting or sculpture. In fact, this is a maxim that seems to be implicit in Walt's own philosophy of making films. More than it encourages both the artist and storyteller, I think it's final value lies in the way it nudges audiences to try and see if it's at all possible to think outside the box when it comes to how they receive the stories they either watch or read. To think in ways that will allow their imaginative capacities to expand, and be a fuller participant in the entertainment of stories.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBF4WcJ3mLGV2nbYfg3s7eUfGnPbSj0sct1m06eM3q-KxIkIt4fs1X3CUJqivNDneRdmOIJqnUc6gBPxP5pP3N7iPDRQwwn6Cp97cZK_4t2ot38T-8LxdzNt7jdfIJD_Vj92gUNf_7H29jRin9LXG1eCZKQBuaSFFkyHM1zdQEM_QjBunSKJBz261qon1p/s992/silhouette-ht-02-jpo-180710_hpMain_16x9_992.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="992" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBF4WcJ3mLGV2nbYfg3s7eUfGnPbSj0sct1m06eM3q-KxIkIt4fs1X3CUJqivNDneRdmOIJqnUc6gBPxP5pP3N7iPDRQwwn6Cp97cZK_4t2ot38T-8LxdzNt7jdfIJD_Vj92gUNf_7H29jRin9LXG1eCZKQBuaSFFkyHM1zdQEM_QjBunSKJBz261qon1p/w640-h360/silhouette-ht-02-jpo-180710_hpMain_16x9_992.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />From here, Walt goes on to prove Henri's point about freedom of expression in a twofold manner. All of it is done by answering the first correspondent's question about the artistic merits of silhouettes. And it's here that Disney showcases the other strength of his anthology program. He seems to have been one of the few adults in the room who knew how to make learning fun. I suppose a good way to say it is that he beat Jim Henson to the punch when it came to using entertainment to teach kids valuable lessons in, say, the History of the Arts. If that's the case, then Walt's own efforts at it need a bit of delineating. For one thing, he's not addressing pre-schoolers, but rather older children from the middle elementary levels on up. This episode in particular seems to be addressed to those of college age. As such things are a bit more straightforward, yet it's clear that the art of edutainment is being presented in one of its most polished, yet nascent and overlooked forms. Once again, Walt proves himself a real pioneer.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY5MLKHBRJfHWpxtyS1wnMlZeJG-xTOZ_Tb1i1IXxmb4QivAo2NGfAeekWOaIsrKJX6UvjmK-hdSzEREPnj2Pm1-dSBeWU9IGkI-1qoIyP9wfE1uLu0V8KZByVbrqA0HveneHSdsNHsFJhPhwQKZrRT4FDVT5aVn7z7pG4iSO4xEbAHkIqIzxnbjk4N8uK/s690/Cueva-de-los-manos-altamira-bull.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="594" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY5MLKHBRJfHWpxtyS1wnMlZeJG-xTOZ_Tb1i1IXxmb4QivAo2NGfAeekWOaIsrKJX6UvjmK-hdSzEREPnj2Pm1-dSBeWU9IGkI-1qoIyP9wfE1uLu0V8KZByVbrqA0HveneHSdsNHsFJhPhwQKZrRT4FDVT5aVn7z7pG4iSO4xEbAHkIqIzxnbjk4N8uK/s320/Cueva-de-los-manos-altamira-bull.jpg" width="275" /></a></div>What happens is he goes on to prove the artistic validity of silhouette making by showing how the art has been used in different mediums. The first instance takes us into the realm of the Disneyland park, where Walt has us meet two employees who specialize in cutting out the features of their customers. It's a neat demonstration of the novelty uses that the art form still has (here and there) to its name. However, Disney doesn't leave it there. He then takes that viewer on a brief, yet informative history tour. "While nowadays silhouettes are associated in most people's minds with fairgrounds and amusement parks, our files show that they are actually of an honorable and really ancient Art. Possibly one of man's first attempts at artistic expression took this form". Here Walt opens a history book to display a series of ancient cave drawings. "One authority has estimated that these silhouettes were made between 5,000 and 10,000 BC. They are called rock pictures, and are painted on the rock walls of almost inaccessible ledges high in the mountains of eastern Spain". One of these "primitive" drawings shows the clear figure of a mother and child. The child appears to be her daughter. It's enough to raise an interesting question in my mind. Was the father the artist? What made him want to do all of that?</div><div><br /></div><div>I suppose most dad's will be able to answer that one. Whoever made that image thought it valuable enough to place just out of reach, where neither enemies nor the passage of time could reach it. It's just interesting to note these are the passing ideas that someone like Walt can plant in your mind while ostensibly talking about something else. The lesson continues. We learn how the sketch outline figure began during man's so-called cave dwelling era. "They tell the story of man's artistic progress, from his earliest known pictures, to skillfully rendered paintings...Sometimes in these caves, drawings of one age are painted over drawings of an earlier age. So, if we could take them off, layer by layer, we would finally arrive at the very oldest of man's artistic endeavors. And this will invariably be the silhouette of a hand". Here, Walt's animation team demonstrate the very layering of art history he talks about. "There is good reason to believe that he made these silhouettes of his own hand by blowing pigment through a hollow reed in this manner. Although this is one of man's earliest attempts at Art, this same technique is still being used by the artist's of today". A Disney artist using this same "primitive" technique to help create the outline, or silhouette of an animated leaf is then shown to the viewer.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUNiR8d1iGYS16nEHcL6d5NG_YmZNe52pmKHBSzGCrphSzMQJUJ_clDiZEcEH_947dRpThNYybKyAx757tJO5zv4rnfJJau2426W86i2pm4O06qmbkO9dOp8-zGt1lUXa8g_wOEzzL1EQ-FcNlKv2B4Q5_XnpSPhSNqlurPnCChkLQ3-LJ80uGxLMK7Mq/s375/silhouette5.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUNiR8d1iGYS16nEHcL6d5NG_YmZNe52pmKHBSzGCrphSzMQJUJ_clDiZEcEH_947dRpThNYybKyAx757tJO5zv4rnfJJau2426W86i2pm4O06qmbkO9dOp8-zGt1lUXa8g_wOEzzL1EQ-FcNlKv2B4Q5_XnpSPhSNqlurPnCChkLQ3-LJ80uGxLMK7Mq/s320/silhouette5.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>We're then treated to further speculation on how early man might have advanced in drawing the human figure. This includes a humorous short cartoon skit about a Neolithic husband botching a portrait of his own wife. Who I'll swear is just the same model of as that of Tinkerbell, except that her wings are gone, she's average human sized now, and the color of her hair was changed. We're then shown how silhouettes were used as artistic emblems retelling story of classical myth in Ancient Greco-Roman pottery and wall murals. From there, we move on to a final brief look at the life and achievements of the artist who gave this particular form of drawing its name, way back in the 18th century. He was a French aristocrat by the name of Etienne de Silhouette. He turned out to be the one to give the method its modern face and stamp. After going through all of this education as entertainment, Walt finally displays for his first correspondent the value of silhouette making in some of his own animation.</div><div><br /></div><div>"With such a distinguished history it's not surprising that even today silhouette making continues to exert a certain fascination and interest. In fact, it intrigued us here at the Studio so much that we thought we'd try our hand at it. Since silhouettes lend themselves so well to the expression of romantic subjects, we started with a typical valentine. We combined silhouette art with the beautiful voice of Dinah Shore, the ballet dancing of Tanya Riabouchinska and David Lichine, and our own art of animation set to a beautiful ballad called <i>Two Silhouettes</i>". This piece of work was first debuted as a part of the Studio's wartime era "package features". Films that were less full-length movie and more a collection of strung together short cartoons that when put together would stretch the runtime out to an hour and a half format which was considered the typical runtime for a film back then. The ballet ballad number itself can almost be spoken of better as less of a short, and more like one of the first early attempts at what would one day become known as the modern music video. It's content, however, is just as Walt describes it. A good video of the piece can be found <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKPqnKqV-Xk&ab_channel=Bluebirdsings56">here</a>. So what makes it notable?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnDziUdVRZHuxKEM9YDp-ITCqvmBiLnM197PmtdQVE5IZtaDd9RfRclRaFCSk0-_xzG_-k-GZ8XSX5I7g8LUHnsahpeMQRk2yMJZhXKv2uMnoO3tx-WysCujK4daPkhBVUhqiKJgzYcC6TXqGJ6SXxECTa9K6801vbZld1-itzePIm_o4fxSips-ajBXPv/s640/05ccbb_aaeeebad428e4f098c5a5a2ef636426b~mv2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="640" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnDziUdVRZHuxKEM9YDp-ITCqvmBiLnM197PmtdQVE5IZtaDd9RfRclRaFCSk0-_xzG_-k-GZ8XSX5I7g8LUHnsahpeMQRk2yMJZhXKv2uMnoO3tx-WysCujK4daPkhBVUhqiKJgzYcC6TXqGJ6SXxECTa9K6801vbZld1-itzePIm_o4fxSips-ajBXPv/w640-h460/05ccbb_aaeeebad428e4f098c5a5a2ef636426b~mv2.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Well, to start with, the vignette is exactly as Walt describes it. All the viewer is treated to is almost like a stage mock-up that is then expanded and transformed into an abstract art setting through which the silhouetted figures of Lichine and Riabouchinska choreograph there way through to a roughly four minute love ballad. There's no plot to speak of. In fact, that whole thing can almost be described as a technical exercise. This might also become to the biggest criticism for any possible detractors to hurl at the vignette. My problem with such barbs is the sense of shared myopia that it always seems to speak for. The type of viewers who are willing to rip an early music video like this to pieces are the kind of who have a clear cut idea of what Disney's filmography is, or what it should be. These are the kinds who favor a more traditional narrative approach to the Mouse House product. This vantage point tends to view littler visual experiments like this with disdain. Much like the friends of the nameless and unseen silhouette correspondent who wrote to Walt, the viewers I'm thinking of now seem to view a work like the Dinah Shore segment as a waste of time that's not even worth a shred of consideration. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80jJW3TaD3r3WkS5nLRg_HAxvr2eR6SN5JzmveLy6gYsArz6Nz_HF1zn9TCIUdCGJy_TdrW9o_ysQGAKuX12CcKohyL2McLiPo4gzOFpITvYuvWs5Ly2DKM7Gp2Jf4Mrq3Iq0yGurRpagcaxccL67qhoTns2NR-LGK-ELYmWguFdQMTGU7c4_KZNXy4Gu/s404/Make_mine_music_poster.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="246" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80jJW3TaD3r3WkS5nLRg_HAxvr2eR6SN5JzmveLy6gYsArz6Nz_HF1zn9TCIUdCGJy_TdrW9o_ysQGAKuX12CcKohyL2McLiPo4gzOFpITvYuvWs5Ly2DKM7Gp2Jf4Mrq3Iq0yGurRpagcaxccL67qhoTns2NR-LGK-ELYmWguFdQMTGU7c4_KZNXy4Gu/s320/Make_mine_music_poster.png" width="195" /></a></div>My problem with this whole entire opinion is what I can only describe as its outlook of cozy laziness. It's the thought process and perception of a mental flatlander. It displays a fundamentally one dimensional understanding of Art and its inherent capabilities. As such, it is incapable of bringing anything like a full formed constructive criticism to bear on just what kind of artistic achievement Walt and his team were after in composing this vignette. Now some may ask whether or not they have a right to their own views on the matter. To which I reply that this is true in the most ironic sense. I'm sure that a dislike of a mood piece like Disney's <i>Silhouette</i> sequence is arrived at honestly. The trouble is the way that people reach this kind of outlook is less by choice, and more by a kind of mental constricting of one's imaginative horizons. There may be a type of choice involved here. Yet the final result of such a decision is often of the unconscious variety, and the observer often remains unaware of how they have robbed themselves of a certain freedom of artistic perception that instills an unavoidable cognitive dissonance that leaves them straightjacketed when it comes to different forms of artwork.</div><div><br /></div><div>It leaves the viewer <i>unfree</i> to get as much out of a work like this as he could. Hence the irony of such a self-imprisoning outlook coupled with a hazy and ill-defined demand for one's "rights". Such privileges are always there to be had. However, a person must first decide if this is what they <i>want</i>, or decide if they are willing to shoulder the responsibilities that freedom (in an equally ironic sense) entails. Limiting this notion strictly to the sphere of the Arts, what it achieves in the case of an animated performance like <i>Two Silhouettes</i> is the inability to know and hence <i>see</i> and <i>grasp</i> the kind of meaning and effect Walt was after in such an exercise. It's clear enough that Disney and his animators were all in an envelope pushing frame of mind when they constructed and illustrated this piece. They wanted to give their viewers a sense of the horizons that still remained to be conquered in the field of animation. And so they crafted this little dance number as a kind of test reel for both themselves and others to provide an example of the boundaries that animation could break to reach a higher level of artistic excellence. I'd argue that they've kind of succeeded in a way of reaching these same goals.</div><div><br /></div><div>For one thing, while <i>Two Silhouettes</i> might come off as having an "antique" quality about it. It nonetheless has to be seen in its proper proportions, in order to understand just what has been accomplished. To start with, what we're looking at here is a complex combination of live action and animation that really hadn't been seen by audiences up until that time. It was the first time in which live action footage had ever been combined with animation in such a way as to appear seamless to the viewing eye. It may have just been an experiment. However, the way you judge any such attempt is whether or not it succeeded in achieving the specific goal it set out to accomplish. In this case, I will have to give the proto-music video a passing grade, because it achieved Walt's goal of pushing the envelope. It showed both him, the Nine Old Men, and anyone in the audience who was willing to give a shit what it was possible to accomplish if you were willing to take the time and effort to see just how far you were willing to step outside of the box for the sake creating a good piece of Art.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcGDNG9xEGqYYup531ZZaD4AzaQSXRbuF3A5Wh0SQ1x88N-LuGL42RqnMozZaW9KY3pdf4AOhef8CqNWpvks-d-Sd8g8atSXY_TzC4UGOjEpms3x6aTrqzvvfzN8Lu9dkOBcXSyEyH-tg_YVLh4pcQt5eVlHHVmIfxENdSSDlD1WVZhabFDuFY3kWFpzt3/s887/image-166.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="887" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcGDNG9xEGqYYup531ZZaD4AzaQSXRbuF3A5Wh0SQ1x88N-LuGL42RqnMozZaW9KY3pdf4AOhef8CqNWpvks-d-Sd8g8atSXY_TzC4UGOjEpms3x6aTrqzvvfzN8Lu9dkOBcXSyEyH-tg_YVLh4pcQt5eVlHHVmIfxENdSSDlD1WVZhabFDuFY3kWFpzt3/w640-h428/image-166.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's true that <i>Two Silhouettes</i> has become something of an obscurity with the passage of years. However, it is nice to see that Walt thought highly enough of the work to include it as part of an episode in his anthology show. It is even possible to argue that the vignette benefits from being used as an illustration of how silhouettes can go on to achieve a genuine level of artistic finesse by making it the ultimate answer to a talented student's question. This provides the music video a context, and hence a greater sense of purpose which might make it more accessible to those critics who can't approach an art piece like this in isolation on its own terms. All that Disney has done in this instance is to explain those terms, and provide them with a setup that helps ease the viewer into the nature of the proceedings.</div><div><br /></div><div>... </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQ_ZzxHcznwwrQ0_Q3_KS_w9J6MQ1Vx6_ivZHhoV9K7L7xdk5xHkrukL8RjufpnigTU8gKhef_RZZgSIQSzN8DaEQlSfdj5T04UCVKqLzqTmPLRgfXrKP2sYKnhDtUzihBxR9DTQANJc9T57qSFVP5rpgCP49MhTLYqf8t3Ini6mcRDzyFnmFPLIzLsO6/s686/MV5BODA0ZTFjMzAtOWZhMy00OWM0LTg2YjgtMzdhODQ1NWY2ODdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxMjk0Mg@@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="686" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQ_ZzxHcznwwrQ0_Q3_KS_w9J6MQ1Vx6_ivZHhoV9K7L7xdk5xHkrukL8RjufpnigTU8gKhef_RZZgSIQSzN8DaEQlSfdj5T04UCVKqLzqTmPLRgfXrKP2sYKnhDtUzihBxR9DTQANJc9T57qSFVP5rpgCP49MhTLYqf8t3Ini6mcRDzyFnmFPLIzLsO6/s320/MV5BODA0ZTFjMzAtOWZhMy00OWM0LTg2YjgtMzdhODQ1NWY2ODdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxMjk0Mg@@._V1_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In the second segment of the episode, Walt turns the focus over to the talents of his own animation staff. Marc Davis, Josh Meador, Eyvind Earle, and Walt Peregoy are each brought on to demonstrate the need for the artist to find their own voice and style, and then be true to that expression of individual talent. To illustrate this value, Disney showcases the personal styles of all four of the animators listed above. This, to me, is perhaps the most fascinating segment and aspect of the episode. Each of these four animation legends spent the vast majority of their professional lives coming together at the Studio to blend their talents in unison to help make the sort of classic, Disney house style. Yet they were also genuine artists with their own personal modes of illustrated expression. So it's like there's this interesting dichotomy at work, where you've got the demands of the market dictating the Disney look. Perhaps a better way of saying it is that on the one hand, you've got the Tradition that has slowly been established at the Company over the course of its history. Then you've got this quartet of individual talents who work within that Tradition, while still maintaining their own unique creative voices.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is how Walt lays it all out. "Here at the Studio, we have many artists who have achieved national reputations as painters, in addition to their accomplishments in the field of animation". Now this is fascinating to learn, because it's something I've just plain never known about. Like, not once in any of the official releases I've seen from the Company has anyone ever bothered to point out to me that the Nine Old Men, and other Disney staffers had actual reputations as painters and artists outside of the Kingdom. Then again, I suppose it helps to bear in mind that this all comes from the later years of the Studio's history. Long after Walt was shuffled out of the leadership position, in other words. With him gone, it makes an unfortunate kind of sense that the Tradition of the Company would be emphasized by the marketing department at the expense of the larger careers and achievements of the individual talents that pretty much formed the actual backbone of the Studio, and provided it's life blood. For the record, this has been something of a standard procedure at Disney for some time now. It's also the kind of thing that Walt tried to make sure didn't happen under his own tenure. Which shows how it's all changed.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbGNNGpbNAOWQvng7TFfrKctCX1Vw2F4WY7YAeMLFY3flxuOfwL41F6d4qw076t7iTVe8phRx6Ep_371FUn7NtECV1-Pt_wAcWXNbWSU8GWivSsd7nOWf7L64MwJJ9iH9D8ibL3p2TUqF8paa_YgfaELv9_z3Qlx2iOSTnWG1CoYDM77ai-ZnYBg9lX3jg/s926/tumblr_23872e4f4e17b293ee0f64fa499670c5_0da4a755_1280.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="926" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbGNNGpbNAOWQvng7TFfrKctCX1Vw2F4WY7YAeMLFY3flxuOfwL41F6d4qw076t7iTVe8phRx6Ep_371FUn7NtECV1-Pt_wAcWXNbWSU8GWivSsd7nOWf7L64MwJJ9iH9D8ibL3p2TUqF8paa_YgfaELv9_z3Qlx2iOSTnWG1CoYDM77ai-ZnYBg9lX3jg/w640-h490/tumblr_23872e4f4e17b293ee0f64fa499670c5_0da4a755_1280.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />To his credit, though, Walt was able to recognize the individual strengths of his staff, and went on to give them the room they needed to flourish as artists. It's the apparent difference that exists between a corporate conglomerate and a genuine creative talent with the vision and skills necessary to help bring together other like minded artists with the goal of perfecting their skills and crafts. This means it's like Walt describes in the episode. "These men know the value of Henri's advice to be yourself. I'd like you to meet four of them, and see how they put this rule into practice". The result, as we now have it, is a segment titled <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dg8w6gk4cE&ab_channel=TOONSMAG">4 Artists Paint 1 Tree</a></i>. Once more, the content of the segment is what is summed up by the title. Rather than being an animated portion, however, this time the program switches to live action. As Walt says, "This sort of deferring to what is most important in achieving a common goal effects every individual while he is at work. But in his leisure time, he can be himself. No longer a member of a group, but a virtuoso, and individualist suiting only himself. Here now, on a Saturday, our four artists take a Busman's Holiday. On this particular day, the subject that attracts their interest is a fine, old, live oak. You'll notice that even in the operation of setting up, there is an individual approach.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglG01_Yn-G6iSUy0QgwzZIoYFOr6sChGqvOP1PxIjYlo_MaOiVGzviam2rFOYnaw178usLqqhd_UDMoNP614v1pr6ERzwq1qqCWOLnR-a3kHax-JlqBs42HJCmUeYWf84w9RUGiAezPe60Ln-rSv4EkeAYF3TwqobItMDytGoKDZhwY4hSqDaZd5b-xqvD/s654/images.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="469" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglG01_Yn-G6iSUy0QgwzZIoYFOr6sChGqvOP1PxIjYlo_MaOiVGzviam2rFOYnaw178usLqqhd_UDMoNP614v1pr6ERzwq1qqCWOLnR-a3kHax-JlqBs42HJCmUeYWf84w9RUGiAezPe60Ln-rSv4EkeAYF3TwqobItMDytGoKDZhwY4hSqDaZd5b-xqvD/w209-h292/images.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>The viewer is then shown snippets of the care and diligence with which Davis, Peregoy, Meador, and Earle arrange their materials in order to begin the attempt of capturing an element of Nature on canvas. This is a necessary, and often overlooked step in the craft of painting. "Let's listen to the voice of each artist", Walt now tells us in voiceover, "as he explains what is in his mind as we see him paint his picture". From there, the episode turns into a kind of four way dialogue as the viewer watches each Disney artist begin to capture either the oak tree, or else their own unique impressions of it on camera. At the same time, the animators share their thoughts about their respective approach to creating an illustrated picture. Peregoy's view of the oak "is that this tree is a marvelous piece of engineering. It's a structure. And I'm going to try to reproduce it graphically. Strong, straight inclines will build architectural patterns for me. I can see the tree building itself on my board like a skyscraper".</div><div><br /></div><div>Peregoy continues in this vein, saying, "I'm even more reminded of skyscraper when I study the lower horizontal branches. They are very much like steel girders, designed for tremendous stress and strain. Only a strong, geometric interpretation can do justice to this terrific strength". Peregoy then offers the following caveat. "Now, while I look at this tree as architecture, the others see it differently. For instance, Josh Meador". At this point Meador takes over the narration, and we learn his vantage point on the nature of the oak. "The Ancient Druids believed that trees were inhabited by spirits. Now I'm no Druid, but I can see how they could have gotten the idea. This tree is certainly a living thing, full of personality. I feel that I've got to work mighty fast if I want to capture my first impression of all this tremendous vitality and life. So, I'm applying these blocking in strokes with my biggest brush. And I'm using a very thin mixture of oil paint and lighter fluid. I use lighter fluid because it dries fast. I see this tree as a living personality, but no doubt Eyvind Earle sees from an entirely different point of view".</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9xrQ4VK7cP3XsjX39ET2P91ufaFQhHptsXCdlblUOss8rhGoeRblGSb4BYZx59A-iVJhhRbjr_mEPuqu5SoL-JDQs34bARuzxmlh-RmAn45GrlMNeSRFIZri4RLXzSzYIyzekY3o6Z9Zyq8kYgS4YtMhKA8nwdaaw7rdp8KKQtwd8Gw06vIdJzkjlHEH/s1680/__2022-01-13__132439.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="967" data-original-width="1680" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9xrQ4VK7cP3XsjX39ET2P91ufaFQhHptsXCdlblUOss8rhGoeRblGSb4BYZx59A-iVJhhRbjr_mEPuqu5SoL-JDQs34bARuzxmlh-RmAn45GrlMNeSRFIZri4RLXzSzYIyzekY3o6Z9Zyq8kYgS4YtMhKA8nwdaaw7rdp8KKQtwd8Gw06vIdJzkjlHEH/w640-h368/__2022-01-13__132439.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />"Yes, I do", Earle's voice replies, picking up where Meador leaves off. "I see in this tree all the richness and variety that can be found in nature. I am not going to paint the whole tree. What I'm looking for is contained in the trunk, as much as in any part of this tree. I intend to make a very detailed study of the tree trunk. In fact, you might call it the portrait of a tree trunk. I am working with Kaizen; a watercolor type of paint. I find this medium ideal for working in fine detail. Of course, the first step is pretty rough. What I'm delineating here are the outside lines of the trunk. This will establish the silhouette, or outside shape of what I am painting. While I am primarily interested in the trunk, undoubtedly, Marc Davis is interested in other aspects of this tree". Here the microphone is handed over to one of the legendary Nine himself. This man is something of an icon to the diehard Disney fans. So in a way, I think it was both fitting and deliberate that Walt saved his input for last. This is how Davis explains his own vantage and approach to painting. "There are several things that interest me in this oak tree.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hI-I9FS2yfFwSAGmu7MudtsNWLbuFAAXEynfh3vih1Iouc08AbqsPbraQ0n_Y0fDuLxLAEGB2GUcL9RyNDSWB9wOa6S0ck0Xde06vmXLyOsLPHVVT63LxwVATzF3RHnet5FOo7qjAyae7ntd5tCb3uM4W7QGydEJNaiiVcYnG3uAB_H5KZzPCAwVLCVp/s229/download.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="229" data-original-width="216" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hI-I9FS2yfFwSAGmu7MudtsNWLbuFAAXEynfh3vih1Iouc08AbqsPbraQ0n_Y0fDuLxLAEGB2GUcL9RyNDSWB9wOa6S0ck0Xde06vmXLyOsLPHVVT63LxwVATzF3RHnet5FOo7qjAyae7ntd5tCb3uM4W7QGydEJNaiiVcYnG3uAB_H5KZzPCAwVLCVp/w272-h288/download.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>"First, I like it's growth pattern and bony structure. It seems to burst right out of the ground. I'm trying to suggest this explosive force with an arraignment of lines that reach upward and outward. I'm doing this preliminary drawing with charcoal, and I'm working on light gray paper". The sad part is that this is almost everything that the award winning animator has to say about his own work. It's when you combine and examine all of their efforts together, as finished products, that things get not just interesting, but also informative. I compare it to getting a chance to examine a series of universes next door to each other. When each of these four animators explain not just what they're doing, but also <i>why</i> they paint the way they do, all of them are doing nothing less than explaining what the very Tradition of Art means to each of them on an individual level. As a result, he viewer is given not just one, but rather several worldviews on what Art is, or at least what it can mean based on individual talent. In this case, each animator details their own artistic strengths, as well as their unique set of skills and limitations.</div><div> </div><div>Peregoy, for instance, tends to approach the creative act of picture making from the standpoint of an engineer, rather than an illustrator or painter. This essentially mechanistic approach extends to his conception of what Nature is, or at least what he thinks it means. You get the sense that here's a man who tends to look at life through the lens of a watchmaker. Every aspect of life is a gear or cog waiting to be given its fine tuning. This outlook stands in sharp contrast toward those held by Meador and Earle. The first painter takes an almost Old World approach both to what a tree is, and how it should be drawn. Meador brings up the notion of how an ancient Druid might look at a tree, and then proceeds to try and capture that idea as best he can on canvas. For Meador, the tree is a "living thing...full of personality". This is a sentiment which appears to be echoed more or less by Eyvind Earle. Who seems to be concerned with capturing the essence of the tree. For him, all of that is contained in the trunk.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcrU3Syj7uzTHvfhXb4Gz_cFXAGn3KPmasuf79CC0vqJ-NcsPl9PtD-Uije6nee_8UnJzUeHLdP9h9AgfxY6Q4EgbEhRxFnmID448PmLfW28BPRNRlxEU9t8z8vChU8fKhaWa84-Xvuf-aM-FwWzItZ6TG0GnDgwsUeBcwSwh7qd4Ul3zC2PlkXCMuPg8e/s780/780x463_012219_eyvind-earle-art-twenty-three-repurpose-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="780" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcrU3Syj7uzTHvfhXb4Gz_cFXAGn3KPmasuf79CC0vqJ-NcsPl9PtD-Uije6nee_8UnJzUeHLdP9h9AgfxY6Q4EgbEhRxFnmID448PmLfW28BPRNRlxEU9t8z8vChU8fKhaWa84-Xvuf-aM-FwWzItZ6TG0GnDgwsUeBcwSwh7qd4Ul3zC2PlkXCMuPg8e/w640-h380/780x463_012219_eyvind-earle-art-twenty-three-repurpose-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In fact, the one artist who we sadly never get as much information out of as we could have is none other than Marc Davis himself. He makes a few token gestures toward structure, and then just seems to approach everything else from an almost workman like perspective. It's a particular shame because out of all the artists on the Disney roster, Davis is the one name among the others in the video that has gone on to achieve this status as a genuine artistic icon. It's what makes his relative silence on his efforts here come off as strange and underwhelming. In fact, if I'm being honest, this is also the verdict I'm kind of forced to go with when it comes to judging how his efforts stack up against all of the other three. By rights it probably shouldn't have to be this way. And so, here it is. Out of all the four painters, it is the combined work of Meador and Earle that come off the best if we're looking at this like some sort of competition. Don't forget, if Walt has given us a living illustration of four universes existing next door to one another, then there's also a fifth one, in the form of the critic writing this.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKMAa7PABjHmNAAxPYzSG1lfJramaisMur_iPa1pwEJ5oezjCthKj4QKkT4cTNgmHO1deA6HYhh_dgzyT9G1CXMFJug9K4KgeT4EoskBToZWvAZXILKZna2B3qRa9VoUv1Kn7ueubRiDzINpGBlVZuYcyfQ9-VBjbKOi0DJE3P-idNTlZWlJdwzsI3rBi/s1000/71I+aGxGAvL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="671" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKMAa7PABjHmNAAxPYzSG1lfJramaisMur_iPa1pwEJ5oezjCthKj4QKkT4cTNgmHO1deA6HYhh_dgzyT9G1CXMFJug9K4KgeT4EoskBToZWvAZXILKZna2B3qRa9VoUv1Kn7ueubRiDzINpGBlVZuYcyfQ9-VBjbKOi0DJE3P-idNTlZWlJdwzsI3rBi/s320/71I+aGxGAvL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>The vantage point I bring to all of this is sort of the capping irony. As I've said elsewhere, I am not the best judge of the visual qualities of an artwork. What I find more interesting is the philosophies, or worldviews that each of the four Disney artists bring to the table when it comes to composing their work. The reason it's easy for me to split the hypothetical award between Earle and Meador is because each of their techniques can be traced back to an essentially classic Romantic strand of thinking about the Art of Painting. Unlike Peregoy, who seems content to view even a natural (even vital) entity like an oak tree as a mere object to be used. Contrast this point of view with that of someone who values any tree as an important natural resource that humans have always been and still remain dependent on for our own survival. This is an outlook that is a lot closer to the truth of the fundamental relationship between humans and organic nature. It also appears to be a way of thinking that is of little value to Peregoy. I get the sense that someone like J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't have been that much of a fan if he knew the full contenting of Peregoy's thought. I can't say I disagree with him on this matter.</div><div><br /></div><div>Marc Davis winds up as the real headscratcher for me, in all of this. As the most touted member of the select group in this segment, he should dazzling the viewer with displays of his artistic genius. Instead, it's almost like he kind of disconnects himself from the entire point of the proceedings. The funny thing is, the more I consider it, the greater it's possible there may be a kind of explainable reason for why this is. Albeit a very ironic one. It might all just come down to one important factor. Out of all the pictures the viewer is given to look at, only one of them looks like it belongs in a movie. I don't know how confusing that sounds, yet I'll swear it's the key the whole situation. Let's put it another way. While I will never be a good judge of visuals, if you were to show me Davis's painting of the oak to me, with no context, or information on who made it. I'm pretty sure my first reaction would still be something like, "That's a Disney picture. Kinda looks like the rough draft for a background sketch. Is this one of the early storyboards for <i>The Jungle Book</i>, or something? Because I'll swear that's what it looks like to me". This is the best explanation I have for why Davis's efforts seem so underwhelming here.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbv0CKHWvCZkKlCd7aH0jcZolVCJ8l32KwNeZLjqlwSJGpc2eoi_BJLNrZzmjRgNX2ivsajs-HxgChZGfy1AXf_E2LmBQF-x2XPEoxp9v-jYfquk9FJWh7LBpDiKOrS_lKuQBbTXYmFRrLG8cDqQpFzVimikm8v7E9G9T5PPdWjLVGl8YIySunHM3h1EVK/s1894/romanticism-caspar-david-friedrich-wanderer-above-the-sea-of-fog.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1894" data-original-width="1408" height="383" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbv0CKHWvCZkKlCd7aH0jcZolVCJ8l32KwNeZLjqlwSJGpc2eoi_BJLNrZzmjRgNX2ivsajs-HxgChZGfy1AXf_E2LmBQF-x2XPEoxp9v-jYfquk9FJWh7LBpDiKOrS_lKuQBbTXYmFRrLG8cDqQpFzVimikm8v7E9G9T5PPdWjLVGl8YIySunHM3h1EVK/w285-h383/romanticism-caspar-david-friedrich-wanderer-above-the-sea-of-fog.jpg" width="285" /></a></div>What's happened is either the artists hasn't made a full-fledged painting, or else his own personal technique has become the sort of de-facto Mouse House style which went into vogue after the end of the Studio's Golden Age. Something else to keep in mind about this episode is that Walt dedicates this very same part of it to giving a brief bit of promotion to what was his then newest, upcoming, animated feature: <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>. It was the film that Disney and his staff (including Earle, Davis, Meador, and Peregoy) were putting all the hardest effort into. And while it might have succeeded as a display of artistic finesse, it was always missing that one crucial ingredient with which no self-respecting film can do without. The script just never got as much attention as it should have. In other words, the story wound up taking a miscalculated backseat to the animation. The results may be pretty to look at, however, it remains an empty display. "A rose red city half as old as time" is a pretty picture and phrase. It also remains no more than that so long as it's never surrounded by a narrative or idea that allows it to have something more substantial going for it, rather than just going "Please look at me".</div><div><br /></div><div>As a result, the Classic style that Walt had used up till then was scrapped in favor of Davis's more stripped down, Xerox approach. Perhaps this whole bit of backstory also explains why Davis's efforts with the oak seem so lackluster compared with the others. His mindset was less that of a painter making a portrait, or trying to invoke the spirit of a landscape. Instead, he made the mistake of just taking this whole affair as just another animation assignment. To be fair, there were plenty of times when this was the right frame of mind to have going into a job. This wasn't one of those times, however. Proof of this can be seen in the more elaborate and somewhat proper efforts turned out by his three other compatriots. They knew they were being asked to be themselves, and were smart enough to realize this meant thinking from a more classical artistic perspective. They were leaving the Studio behind (for the moment, anyway) and entering back into the world of canvas creators like Lautrec and Cezanne. Even Peregoy could switch into a version this frame of mind, while Davis either wouldn't or couldn't. It places him in an unenviable position in relation to the others, yet we're stuck with it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0EThuwuAA9wQ5jJ-ELSJMIIvEfx79OA-wnkeL7UFuJLwJ0gdLxIyFaAFj18mzBQSYHbRd_z-Glp0oFkRS3QkVXFAS-BJ3ficUvcwup54k5vcH73pgJfOLexxctaJJ7A4qmEnPT68T4cvi5tzSm4cHfAGChSeMBaTsnR9k_0nVuizuodhxuCvLdxwYZJU/s780/1180w-600h_TDID-an-adventure-in-art-780x440.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="780" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0EThuwuAA9wQ5jJ-ELSJMIIvEfx79OA-wnkeL7UFuJLwJ0gdLxIyFaAFj18mzBQSYHbRd_z-Glp0oFkRS3QkVXFAS-BJ3ficUvcwup54k5vcH73pgJfOLexxctaJJ7A4qmEnPT68T4cvi5tzSm4cHfAGChSeMBaTsnR9k_0nVuizuodhxuCvLdxwYZJU/w640-h362/1180w-600h_TDID-an-adventure-in-art-780x440.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is not the same as labeling the episode's second segment a complete and total bust, or any kind of failure for that matter. Rather, I think it just helps to do two things at once. On the one hand, the viewer is given a chance to see all the different ways that people can perceive, and hence create a full-fledged work of art. What the show seems to be getting at here is that all Art is, at least in part, the product of some kind of outlook or worldview. This doesn't always amount to a conscious system of thought. And to be fair, I kind of think the more unconscious the well spring of any given art work is, the better. It means the viewer or reader is being given something with a greater deal of honesty than if the artist knew full well what he or she was doing. It allows the finished work to be more open and candid in whatever it may have to tell the audience. Perhaps this also ties into the second lesson viewers are given in this segment. You have to be tapped into that deep well of the Imagination if a work of true Art is what you're going for. This is demonstrated by the almost unconscious way in which Earle and Meador approach painting, as opposed to the mechanical methods of the other two.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Conclusion: A Valuable Gem of Forgotten Lessons.</b> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEv496vIkBrwRL7Z1HCRAbdt9wC_OuGAGosdY1XITrYaXeWFcgakkX0_qBicf0Xi4rxr4AZYBUag0fTC0Fan25Y1rnf07Tt7xIHC8scc9saXIgtjBRNiptrkgyyYspWKHHU_raBGqMVUG2oymF2AfuFOD-Eu3_HWwyOAeaQkKpZOwwuRu9KWDDGurzGDzM/s2005/fantasia_1940_R77_original_film_art_5000x.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2005" data-original-width="1321" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEv496vIkBrwRL7Z1HCRAbdt9wC_OuGAGosdY1XITrYaXeWFcgakkX0_qBicf0Xi4rxr4AZYBUag0fTC0Fan25Y1rnf07Tt7xIHC8scc9saXIgtjBRNiptrkgyyYspWKHHU_raBGqMVUG2oymF2AfuFOD-Eu3_HWwyOAeaQkKpZOwwuRu9KWDDGurzGDzM/w206-h313/fantasia_1940_R77_original_film_art_5000x.webp" width="206" /></a></div>For me, it all keeps coming back to <i>Fantasia</i>. Perhaps that's no real surprise considering that Walt chose to end this episode with a snippet from the start of that Concert Feature. It's the <i>Toccata in Fugue</i> set piece, where the animators collaborated in bringing to life a series of abstract shapes, concepts, and illustrations based off the haunting music of Johann Sebastian Bach. There's a stated reason for why this particular bit of film is chosen to end the episode on (something to do with the time honored question of where does an artist get their ideas). However, I think the unstated reason for ending this show on such an esoteric note is because Walt meant it is a restatement and reassertion of the guiding the principles that underpinned his work not just on <i>Fantasia</i>, but also the Studio's output as a whole. In other words, Disney saw an opportunity to reaffirm the kind of artistic values that originally led him to first try and see if he could make a feature-length cartoon. And then let that same spirit of creativity carry things forward in trying to get away with the more experimental<i> Fantasia</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>This opportunity to reassert who he was, and what he stood for as an artist seems to have emerged organically, through the correspondence that Walt starts the episode out with. These same letters appear to have acted as the encouragement he needed to take the extra step of proving to his critics that what was doing was, in fact, a legitimate art from, in and of itself. The fact his fans and viewers (many of whom weren't just pre-teen adolescents) were influenced by his work enough to write back to him for advice seems to have been the main inspiration for this episode as a whole. Therefore is it any real surprise Walt quotes verbatim from his fan letters throughout the show. Or that he uses them as springboards for introducing his animator's own efforts, and how they in turn tie into the issues being raised by his audience. I have said that Walt's willingness to engage directly with the fans marks out the uniqueness of the Company during his tenure of it. What I also see now, when taking in this episode as a whole, is how Disney was able to use this engagement as a chance to let his fans know both who he was as an artist, and how his principles led him to take risks on films like <i>Snow White</i>, or more daring choices like the Concert film. The same spirit that animated <i>Fantasia</i> acts as the guiding thread here.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm6Eu6cWtfLZyVl7oU1hvshhbjQoQLO7keUtVNqwmj3M0ClMyn553Ad-AhIUYzTK7ZGj7sQsJMncyNCWThAGpeEM5DdUS4DLmd8_C9I87tCbGYJrmZMOKmUDhGtAbhlQVrX-OZe8Sb9f65kNMvKzQRGtymTH4IppkN3Qs3FqNG06q2E2WKJr6O3ps7-AK8/s479/An_adventure_in_art_title.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="479" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm6Eu6cWtfLZyVl7oU1hvshhbjQoQLO7keUtVNqwmj3M0ClMyn553Ad-AhIUYzTK7ZGj7sQsJMncyNCWThAGpeEM5DdUS4DLmd8_C9I87tCbGYJrmZMOKmUDhGtAbhlQVrX-OZe8Sb9f65kNMvKzQRGtymTH4IppkN3Qs3FqNG06q2E2WKJr6O3ps7-AK8/w640-h482/An_adventure_in_art_title.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />It marks out this episode as an act of both nostalgia and daring. On the one hand, the underrated accomplishments that the Studio made with Leopold Stokowski still appear to have been very much on Walt's mind when he made this entry. The more you read up about the high hopes Disney had for <i>Fantasia</i>, and just how genuinely artistic they were, the easier it is to understand his frustration when crowds and critics spurned his efforts, and demand that he stick to his own lane by going back to making animals talk. This seems to be the major sting that Walt never quite got over. And now I wonder if maybe efforts like <i>An Adventure in Art</i> was his attempt at trying to go back to those ideas and get his audience to give them all a second chance. In fact, it may be possible to go a bit further with this speculation. What if one of the less understood reasons for the strange nature and consequent fallout of a film like <i>Sleeping Beauty</i> is because there was always a part of Walt that really wanted to give that fairy tale the full Concert Feature treatment. In other words, what if one of the ultimately scrapped plans for the tale of Aurora and Maleficent was to make it a full, animated tone poem, based on Tchaikovsky's ballet, like he did once before with the help of Stokowski and Deems Taylor?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu5QFF9CEdqrA1qXn2Bmzikd0BH_Y00vB0Vuvy9u_fXjtKMzBQuZwn-N3odjqBsq6mTgo7cbMW9DrmmVNVahTXx7tEH5DkTvYyel-t61ouIpZVM1o1QxB2D_c4vX6Xc1EVysu-7zJqpouEw410NgyWI1iE23UdPz4Ci-uQh6mYOWFEy-8zhw__Y_IpHxq3/s1000/61kUcYVe8aL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="674" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu5QFF9CEdqrA1qXn2Bmzikd0BH_Y00vB0Vuvy9u_fXjtKMzBQuZwn-N3odjqBsq6mTgo7cbMW9DrmmVNVahTXx7tEH5DkTvYyel-t61ouIpZVM1o1QxB2D_c4vX6Xc1EVysu-7zJqpouEw410NgyWI1iE23UdPz4Ci-uQh6mYOWFEy-8zhw__Y_IpHxq3/s320/61kUcYVe8aL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>It's just a theory, I grant you. However, I do think it helps explain why Walt had such a difficult time with the crucial, missing narrative element of that film. If we take Walt's desire to want to go back to that more experimental, abstract arthouse presentation that defined <i>Fantasia</i> and apply it to the folktale of the princess and the spinning wheel, then we at least have an intriguing answer for why the finished product seems so uncertain of itself. It could very well be because Disney was torn between wanting to go back to pushing the envelope like he used to on the one hand. While on the other was the desire to more or less take the safe route, and try and play into what the critics wanted from him. If this should ever turn out to be the undiscovered truth behind the making of <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>, then it's kind of a shame. I'm not so sure I would have minded seeing Walt and the Nine Old Men give us an almost silent film version of the folktale, where all the major plot beats are signaled and suggested more by music and movement, rather than dialogue and conventional plotting. It's easy to imagine a version where the gestures and actions of the characters go the extra mile by suggesting all kinds of intriguing ideas about who the main cast is in terms of motivation and outcome. That might have been something to see.</div><div><br /></div><div>As things stand, however, it looks like Walt might have made the fatal error of letting someone (his brother Roy, most likely) talk him out of such an idea. And so all we're left with is the spoken yet unrealized desire to go back to the well spring of <i>Fantasia</i> in the hope if being able to put it all to good use once more. Again, however, this seems to have remained a hope unfulfilled. It's not that Walt ever gave up on such an ideal. It's just the age old case of the artist with a vision being constrained by the demands of both the market, combined with the curse of audience expectation. For what it's worth, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3917612005522287441/3381017429657254303">C.S. Lewis tried his hand at Science Fiction</a>, and once even managed to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_We_Have_Faces">retell an ancient Greek myth in the modern novel format</a>. However, so few people have heard of these efforts, because as far as we're concerned, guys like Lewis really don't exist outside of the <i>Chronicles of Narnia</i>. Walt's career seems to have suffered from a riff on this exact same problem. It's what happens when you prove to the world you can be that good at one particular thing. You run the risk of getting yourself pigeonholed.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib3wV7hh8XcL_k6vIWVATC4Il1pnizMHcnEOz8KpZ1Ae2D7ukOyV6XZ50mFOuJjya52AM5I-HuscdQsafQ4b-It4ua4zuypXwlm26M1_4Cq-rkS5JT8yVJb6MZWknjV51iIK5aAtUurVp89awnotDM1_PjuwhUT0QKBPPR1H5fPutBkjeYBk_kER_JzzQM/s950/Eyvind-Earle-Sleeping-Beauty-e1510444157834.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="950" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib3wV7hh8XcL_k6vIWVATC4Il1pnizMHcnEOz8KpZ1Ae2D7ukOyV6XZ50mFOuJjya52AM5I-HuscdQsafQ4b-It4ua4zuypXwlm26M1_4Cq-rkS5JT8yVJb6MZWknjV51iIK5aAtUurVp89awnotDM1_PjuwhUT0QKBPPR1H5fPutBkjeYBk_kER_JzzQM/w640-h312/Eyvind-Earle-Sleeping-Beauty-e1510444157834.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's what happened first to Walt on a cinematic level, and then later on to Lewis in the literary sphere. It makes sense then of <i>An Adventure in Art</i> as an attempt by Walt to once more break out of the mold people had been trying to assign him to for so many years. Once more, in the space of just a simple episode of a kid's TV show, we see Disney giving his animators free reign to let their Imaginations surprise them. The final result is that in addition to revisiting <i>Fantasia</i>, we see the Nine Old Men taking that same leap into living rooms across the country, and using it to illustrate the contents of Joyce Kilmer's famous poem, <i>Trees</i>. This is Walt wanting to go back to making the kind of Art that resulted not just in <i>The Sorcerer's Apprentice</i>, but also <i>Night on Bald Mountain</i>, or Beethoven's <i>Pastoral</i>. There just seems to have been this long running, literary-artistic streak in Walt's make up. It was a lifelong character feature, rather than any bug. It's what drove him first to see if he could make inanimate picture come to life. Then it drove him to try and bring tales of folklore to the screen. At last, it urged him on to try and see if he could use the medium of animation to bring works of art to living color.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOabteiUmgXCVZKOaynKxDpwZQ8QJdxmZ-Ks8sN2UGk3ApC0ApGziMCzH2pOIEPQUYYfGH3mAvjqEZyb9vsv7FWmIjjg-iF3wfJdC28BIaO3bwPwBOE9zLO2Ai_udqRA5COKBfNQCjQc0glqDKHV3xgsJ7gp5Z_i9w0o6tLJ5TUp82-gFks-IVRCo0WNCC/s300/The_Rite_of_Spring.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOabteiUmgXCVZKOaynKxDpwZQ8QJdxmZ-Ks8sN2UGk3ApC0ApGziMCzH2pOIEPQUYYfGH3mAvjqEZyb9vsv7FWmIjjg-iF3wfJdC28BIaO3bwPwBOE9zLO2Ai_udqRA5COKBfNQCjQc0glqDKHV3xgsJ7gp5Z_i9w0o6tLJ5TUp82-gFks-IVRCo0WNCC/s1600/The_Rite_of_Spring.webp" width="300" /></a></div>Perhaps this also highlights the single biggest frustration Disney ever had to face as an artist. He had all these interesting creative ideas that he maybe wanted to try out, and so he never could. How could this be? Because even if none of these concepts ever once strayed from the core nature of what the Disney Company stood for, it's doubtful that he would ever be rewarded for focusing in on the actual Art of enchantment. Let's say Walt had decided to take <i>The Rite of Spring</i> and turn it into a full-length feature. No matter how good it was, it would still be framed as a case of either the artist getting too far "above his station" according to the critics. Or audiences might feel that he'd gone too dark or else it was considered too far outside the brand. That it wasn't in keeping with the actual spirit of the Studio's best output. It's that last charge which carries the most weight out of all the others. So anyone who makes that claim has a higher right to be heard out. The funny thing is how I'm pretty sure that rather than straying from the core source that made the Company what it was, I'd argue that with films like <i>Fantasia</i>, or even a simple TV episode like <i>An Adventure in Art</i>, the charge doesn't hold any weight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Rather than straying too far from the core strengths or ideas that animated the Studio (in both metaphorical and literal sense of that word), I'd argue that when you get to stuff like the Concert Feature or this simple TV episode, all that's happened is that Walt has perhaps taken his fans as close to the actual wellspring source of his Art and talent as he possibly ever could. I don't think it's ever going to be possible for any artist, no matter how talented, to dig all the way down into the source of their creativity. At best, all any good work of art can do is try to capture that source in fleeting glimpses and snatches. In the case of the Stokowski picture, Walt is taking us as close to his share of the Imagination as he either can manage or dare. He seems to know that he's never going to be smart enough to understand how the Imagination works in his own mind, on the one hand. On the other, he seems to have too much of a fundamental respect for that illusive mental faculty, along with its products and precincts to ever try and tamper with it. This goes double for whenever it gives him an idea that isn't broke to begin with. It's just one of the hallmarks that helps you tell a true artist from a false one.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8G2JrmaiUpQuQAxfBO1cyB4kvu3Qcfe81boistjvbD7IHXlr25h3JDTq_jDfeK29IhKpCEgcf9whbgM1ha_w1miOowLE_eXhfrk1b6VJijyLFefz8fSrfkWq-Cae1Y5zNg147hYwJmfR8sTt-jcJu66mXCgoZ_-hFtxyjip0fgsLSXaPGlxAhzX2xcSr/s640/05ccbb_51e56ab081714eee8ef6ab03ebe856ae~mv2.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8G2JrmaiUpQuQAxfBO1cyB4kvu3Qcfe81boistjvbD7IHXlr25h3JDTq_jDfeK29IhKpCEgcf9whbgM1ha_w1miOowLE_eXhfrk1b6VJijyLFefz8fSrfkWq-Cae1Y5zNg147hYwJmfR8sTt-jcJu66mXCgoZ_-hFtxyjip0fgsLSXaPGlxAhzX2xcSr/w640-h240/05ccbb_51e56ab081714eee8ef6ab03ebe856ae~mv2.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />If there's any merit to the idea that <i>Fantasia</i> is the closest snapshot we ever got to the inside of Walt's Imagination, then it doesn't surprise me that it's contours are of a high, expansive scope. It's the kind of film where the animators are so good at creating these fantastical, otherworld style vistas, that it almost has to be the first thing I'd point to if anyone ever asked me what the term Epic means. Films like this are more or less a Dictionary definition brought to life. It's enchantment with a capital A for Art. I know that even to this day, many people don't regard <i>Fantasia</i> as an example of Walt's tenure at it's best. To that I'd say it all comes down to a simple question of how far you're willing to get on the wavelength of the guy who conceived it. It's the kind of film that always hints at greater creative possibilities that ultimately went unfulfilled. The fact that Walt was always bringing back clips from that feature to air on his show goes to prove (to me anyway) just how close the Concert film was to his heart. Perhaps that's because all it amounts is nothing less than the artist bearing his heart for all to see.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think that with an episode such as <i>An Adventure in Art</i>, Disney is pretty much doing the same thing yet again. This time, the method or mode of expression is on a much smaller scale. Yet that sense of Epic scope still remains, wanting to burst out of its limitations and reach once more for the stars. The major difference is now Walt feels the need to hold his audience's hand as he guides them through the Myth Pool that gave us his best work. He's always going out of his way to explain the logic of this or that sequence that he presents throughout the program. Now it is possible to argue in hindsight that maybe this is the method that should have been used for the original <i>Fantasia</i>. Maybe it ought to have featured more explanations, with Walt talking to the audience about why he wanted to make these little vignettes, with Deems Taylor going a bit further into how the animation and music were tied-in together. At the same time, I'm not so sure how much this would have done to get past the original roadblocks that sank the film in the first place. You might still have audiences demanding less or more.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNdqeUG9nQwTWLQn5JAzInECYO3YsMTIa_H__u9xhqQIgx6Oi6vkf8V6oi49CQreNbSeLX_2zEP1b4H2N-SVMaZ2-vm-PRJ03GllutdQIu3NjpdPuIwU8ZvErV8fXWCZAa7o4tzTCzQ0ntk9qDT_L5WeUE278Lja20PFMQmYzw5YNqmMnxyg9tLSWamS6/s1280/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNdqeUG9nQwTWLQn5JAzInECYO3YsMTIa_H__u9xhqQIgx6Oi6vkf8V6oi49CQreNbSeLX_2zEP1b4H2N-SVMaZ2-vm-PRJ03GllutdQIu3NjpdPuIwU8ZvErV8fXWCZAa7o4tzTCzQ0ntk9qDT_L5WeUE278Lja20PFMQmYzw5YNqmMnxyg9tLSWamS6/w640-h360/maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I guess all that is therefore a matter of taste, and the sometimes unnoticed limitations that can place on your outlook. I'm not about to confuse good art with bad, here. I think the the glaring levels of contrasting quality between a film like <i>Fantasia</i> and <i>Ant Man and the Wasp</i> should be sufficient to give a good picture of the vast differences in the type of outlooks that created each, as well as the gulf of creativity that separates them. All Walt was trying to do was suggest all the creative frontiers waiting to be explored. He's up to pretty much the same thing here, with <i>An Adventure in Art</i>. Disney is once more taking a stand, and trying to plant a flag for the boundless depths of true imaginative creativity. It makes the episode something of a rallying cry, as much as it is a fond look back at past glories. For what it's worth, I think it succeeds in getting its point across. It's not just a fond look back at what the Disney Company used to be. These days, it also kind of comes off as a posthumous form of challenge. The founder of the Magic Kingdom is asking us to try and learn to shoot for the moon once more. And in a day and age when his own life's work is on the line, that's a message I can recommend any time.</div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-45805345915785138912023-12-16T23:33:00.001-06:002023-12-17T16:57:24.907-06:00A Child's Christmas in Wales (1952).<p> "When I was a boy, every thing was right" - The Beatles, <i>She Said, She Said</i>.</p><p>"And I was green, and carefree...Time let me play and be...", Dylan Thomas, <i>Fern Hill</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhLLkXvHM1XaaQV7FKdJhe4FHSU2m3oTC2sD7USxgc21YgQ9kLzaKxvVDaq-eH6eCkVdA8b6BnUOWN0vDhZEWglv67-3TmerA2s8XybpqpzzaF1IswhxjM2570HUohhLBWC3RDPGCgE_gFGG27jdAsAr9N88NPAQCzTJrSs0e3_XtRNfgSj69H_420hazS/s1000/811QBqr3qKL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhLLkXvHM1XaaQV7FKdJhe4FHSU2m3oTC2sD7USxgc21YgQ9kLzaKxvVDaq-eH6eCkVdA8b6BnUOWN0vDhZEWglv67-3TmerA2s8XybpqpzzaF1IswhxjM2570HUohhLBWC3RDPGCgE_gFGG27jdAsAr9N88NPAQCzTJrSs0e3_XtRNfgSj69H_420hazS/s320/811QBqr3qKL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>In some ways, I guess I was always trying to find my way back to those first Christmases. You must have some idea of what I mean. For this is something almost everyone has stockpiled in the attic storehouse of the mind. Christmas was something else when you're young. This is not to say that it isn't special (to me, at least) now. Far from it. As of this writing, I can claim with a certain sense of relieved pride that it's still one of my favorite times of the year. There may be a bit of competition between the Winter Holiday, and the Autumn Festival known as Halloween. Yet on the whole, it's still the damn near perennial image of the Yule Tree that manages to win out time and again. Pretending or else acknowledging that you're a ghost, or some other creature of the night will always have a certain element of fun and truth in it. However, enchantment not only has its place, but will always have its day in the end. I think the reason most of us tend to gravitate toward Christmas so much is because its kind of the one time in the year when we can permit ourselves to be reminded of the Romantic potential invested in the strange order of things.<p></p><p>When I was a boy, Christmas was different. It's true enough as these things go. Though I'll swear I may never know how to get others to believe it. Rather, let's say belief isn't the issue. There's tons of us out there who have had similar experiences. Odds are even if you put us in a room together, and made us compare notes, what you'd get is this single story made up of separate voices. Each of them combing together to create a collective collage tapestry of decked halls, lights strung upon fences, branches, and house tops. Along with the requisite number of other familiar elements. Aside from the necessary inclusion of shops filled with toys, decorations, and paraphernalia, you also had a complete childhood cabinet full of Holiday viewing fare, including all your old friends, such a Big Bird, Frosty, the Grinch, and Rudolph (whose story may have been a secret parable about the treatment and plight of Judaism during the Season, though this is something you only pick up on once you get older). Then come the personal elements of the Holiday. This is the realm of memory. That moment when Christmas ceases to be a public institution, and instead becomes a part of whoever you are, because you were a child, once. When you're a kid, life is Epic even before you know the full meaning of the word.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWkZhq8OphUkavVSBNp_X8AcsHbMKxZHvenSWQ9_ubAUhbBwETu9dMNrOpTW4PR5nDQy0IErfKaSuHxb6u8_46odfhcNgm-pwbc95oWnnhHIjDBpCrQMl6BneS-_CbXcc3wc78Kr3Cl79Aqtcjil_Z_KWqrxAT55Z12plb_DLPWcX6_3NPhN3Knfdsl1sD/s703/Dylan_ak0lau-1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="703" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWkZhq8OphUkavVSBNp_X8AcsHbMKxZHvenSWQ9_ubAUhbBwETu9dMNrOpTW4PR5nDQy0IErfKaSuHxb6u8_46odfhcNgm-pwbc95oWnnhHIjDBpCrQMl6BneS-_CbXcc3wc78Kr3Cl79Aqtcjil_Z_KWqrxAT55Z12plb_DLPWcX6_3NPhN3Knfdsl1sD/w640-h458/Dylan_ak0lau-1.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />And the Season held you green and carefree under the mercy of its means. It's the moment, in other words, where Christmas becomes something you were almost able to hold in your hands, once upon a time. For me, the moment when it's time to bring a fresh cut tree into our house was always something special. It was never just a matter a looking for the prime decoration to install in some out of the way place. It was a lot more like going on a grand hunt. The journey was to make your way through a sea of green, and it was never really a tree you were after. Instead, then as now, what I look for is that same picture postcard, faded perhaps here and there, yet still vibrant in a way that time can't reach. You must know <i>something</i> of what I'm talking about. It's not the tree itself. Or at any rate, it's never just the next specimen you happen to run across. Instead, it's the Ur example. The primordial product that catches your eye, and lets you know that you've found not just the last grand decoration of the season, but also something of an icon that symbolizes not just a Holiday, but anything that can be called right in life.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaUxpJIWDrkEpwEeC1BXVi58CsyKbQqbfyHYvTN4it1MHDyL0UrT42FS9TtYrBhhMTQ0YASBIPInbbjxEp4rCM22vIV7wX0dtbAuoR8KmnvQ9F9HsozyyJsyBdt1oyeg6pHXw0-libx8RDZqxUs-Ce8V4PeLRPK51ZKWIUipiPCrQGSuJKueJukK-_pXsy/s768/6039_mcp42-christmas-nebula.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="541" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaUxpJIWDrkEpwEeC1BXVi58CsyKbQqbfyHYvTN4it1MHDyL0UrT42FS9TtYrBhhMTQ0YASBIPInbbjxEp4rCM22vIV7wX0dtbAuoR8KmnvQ9F9HsozyyJsyBdt1oyeg6pHXw0-libx8RDZqxUs-Ce8V4PeLRPK51ZKWIUipiPCrQGSuJKueJukK-_pXsy/s320/6039_mcp42-christmas-nebula.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>When I was a boy, bringing home the tree for the Holidays was almost like a solemn occasion. The kind of moment filled with a world of import that only little kids can manage. So no. It wasn't a tree my parents and I brought. It was this strange yet magnificent god of the earth, made of wood and pine. And whenever you tried to gaze up and take it all in, you might have been lucky enough to recapture at least a sliver of the mindset that once made the ancient Vikings who dwelled the in the Northern Forests regard it as just a mere branch of Yggdrasil. The great cosmic tree whose trunk and branches make up the very roots of the world itself, and on who all rely, in one way or another. At least that's what some of our ancestors might have believed, or hoped was true anyway. It's also close enough to what a Christmas Tree looks like when you're just a kid. All of which is to say that as things stand, the childhood oriented nostalgia attached to the Holidays has become a kind of cottage industry all of its own. In fact, I'm guilty of offering my own two cents to this growing field of memoir writing.<p></p><p>Though I suppose it does raise a question in the minds of the more curious among us. Where did such a literary-artistic tradition come from in the first place? Along with the stockings, Yule Logs, and gift giving, perhaps the most common and therefore unremarked aspects of the Season is the tradition of what might be termed the Holiday Memories genre of storytelling. The examples of the kind of tale I'm thinking about now are thankfully still well remembered and loved to this day. The best sample specimen of this seasonal tradition remains Jean Shepherd's <i>A Christmas Story</i>. These are the narratives in which the storyteller and the protagonist are one and the same. And we follow along with the narrator as they try to recount what their own experience of that fabled Time of the Season was like when they were just kids. The usual contents of this type of a autobiographical narrative are often expressed in a predominantly comic vein, or mode of expression. It's almost become a formula at this point, in other words. We follow the main character over the course of one Season, and observe how their experiences of that time may have helped them learn and grow. Sometimes this can result in the familiar trope of nostalgia tinged with sadness and loss, though it's the comic that continues to be the ultimate defining trait of the sub-genre. Sometimes being no more than recounting a funny incident.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX3CkJ-dyz4aefsHRU6FMqlysTwCSNk3rnsZ2YQ0AF33Kzd5kB9xIcGjaQMfbFtJCQB2nhyphenhyphen2_MyvscuKJdChMbWUnl-fAkexTbcc8aF43Uflt1BvHvgTgHqnn34o3wAEFkThDGZMhCUpLRIQA2L77zI9Rx0FDFaMVEZ3MAJ5WNgFYnY7gXYJswAMTyUUQY/s1280/z2zQfmjsNSorb4axGUU5cfea5aS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX3CkJ-dyz4aefsHRU6FMqlysTwCSNk3rnsZ2YQ0AF33Kzd5kB9xIcGjaQMfbFtJCQB2nhyphenhyphen2_MyvscuKJdChMbWUnl-fAkexTbcc8aF43Uflt1BvHvgTgHqnn34o3wAEFkThDGZMhCUpLRIQA2L77zI9Rx0FDFaMVEZ3MAJ5WNgFYnY7gXYJswAMTyUUQY/w640-h360/z2zQfmjsNSorb4axGUU5cfea5aS.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />So while the idea of the Christmas Memoir has been around for a while, and some efforts like Shepherd's have become world famous, that still leaves the question of origins unresolved. Where did this particular Holiday sub-genre come from, and who helped give it its start? I think it's useless to try and appeal here to the likes of Shepherd, Charles Schulze, or even Dr. Seuss. These are the most famous literary icons of the Season. However, only one of them has ever written down a proper a Christmas Memoir. The other two don't really count. Schulze is just so good at being a storyteller that he can sometimes make you think he's being autobiographical when in fact he's not. All Seuss is doing, meanwhile, is telling no more than just a straight made-up fable about personal alienation in relation to the Holiday Festival itself. The kind of narrative we're looking for (the one that guys like Shepherd have gone on to make famous, in other words) is a much more elusive beast. It has its ultimate origins in the field of personal recollection. And yet for that very reason, it's history and beginnings can be harder to pinpoint for those who are content to just rest easy in the winter festival itself. <p></p><p>For those of us with a more bookish turn of mind, finding out where your favorite stories come from is all part of the fun. In the case of Memoirs of the Holidays, it's kind of amazing just how sparse the bread crumb trail turns out to be. As near I can tell, the writer who came closest to first breaking ground in this sub-genre might have to be Washington Irving. Turns out the writer most famous for <i>The Legend of Sleepy</i> <i>Hollow</i> also penned an article about Christmas customs in England way back in the day. It was a short non-fiction piece called <i>Old Christmas</i>, that Irving later incorporated into his volume of short works known as <i>The Sketchbook</i> (which also contain the first appearance of Ichabod Crane and his fatal Hallow's Eve Ride). While <a href="https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2016/fall/feature/how-washington-irving-shaped-christmas-in-america">a convincing case can be made</a> that Irving deserves a place of honor as one of the key shapers or architects of the ways in which the Holiday is celebrated in America to this day, I'm still not sure whether he counts as the first person to create the Christmas autobiography as we now know it. If he does, then the caveat is that he makes for a very rough prototype. Unlike Shepherd, Irving is less interested in recounting his own Yuletide experiences, than in tracing down the history of Christmas itself, and the customs this has given birth to throughout history. To be fair, Irving's own writings on the subject make for a fascinating topic in itself.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZHWUFXf-oo_WPF0eXLvIinzzayrFMmE9lMduND_8b7RBJBgPsGtHBDKdTOXHbB9MF0zKDrxdyMu8mxJpzD-3bGGSfmTZJ1KOUeAx_Kh08jvrK6Hfe9uglR_sTy6Fkl5ezBcV64M-HfRSZh8e4llFvGMzZJqAA7hadWK9vpxzzgQgS7Lj0_5iQ7gtTpnVu/s433/P72A-Childs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="433" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZHWUFXf-oo_WPF0eXLvIinzzayrFMmE9lMduND_8b7RBJBgPsGtHBDKdTOXHbB9MF0zKDrxdyMu8mxJpzD-3bGGSfmTZJ1KOUeAx_Kh08jvrK6Hfe9uglR_sTy6Fkl5ezBcV64M-HfRSZh8e4llFvGMzZJqAA7hadWK9vpxzzgQgS7Lj0_5iQ7gtTpnVu/w640-h426/P72A-Childs.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />However, I'm not so sure this is what we're talking about when we think of the modern seasonal reminiscence as we know it today. The perfect irony here is that the best possible candidate for this kind of writing doesn't even have its roots in the United States, but rather the Welsh seaside of England. In a way, I suppose this is kind of fitting. As it ties into Irving's own explorations of the history of Christmas Customs. However, the irony is doubled in a further sense. Because while the ultimate origins of this story lies in a childhood lived out among the Welsh Coast, it's actual literary start came about once upon a time, somewhere in the very middle of the Beat Era New York City.<span><a name='more'></a></span><span></span><p><b>Where it All Got Started.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikk-3sNFISzdidQdXkx5OJggmJU1qOS5w705TRayIDIq2OczI-zaRToW5qQrEWzSN9i9iQpES35hyN67ybZXx2_sxug_fcbfUoM9PRXoV93rv3vJVc1lAyphsM5qGEsEMlUsZB8A6NRXMWlQmsInlhC5Z2MGdKKV6WH6xPEJ6oc_EZXSJUA8QQJhyMiv1B/s600/R-5707560-1414878574-8067%20(1).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="600" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikk-3sNFISzdidQdXkx5OJggmJU1qOS5w705TRayIDIq2OczI-zaRToW5qQrEWzSN9i9iQpES35hyN67ybZXx2_sxug_fcbfUoM9PRXoV93rv3vJVc1lAyphsM5qGEsEMlUsZB8A6NRXMWlQmsInlhC5Z2MGdKKV6WH6xPEJ6oc_EZXSJUA8QQJhyMiv1B/s320/R-5707560-1414878574-8067%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>To begin somewhere close to the beginning. Once upon a time in New York City, there lived a pair of college friends. There names were Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Mantell. Both were gainfully employed. Barbara worked at Liveright Publishing; the kind of bookselling firm that could only have existed in an age before the arrival of both the Internet and market conglomeration. While Mantell was busy in the soon to be heady world of the NYC music industry. Each of the girls were also Humanities scholars. Both also counted as cum laud graduates from Columbia University. Which was a rare feat for a woman to achieve in the year 1952, when this story takes place. Both of them could be spoken of as being somewhere near to the right place at an ideal time. The Second World War was seven in the rear view mirror by the time this story takes place, and the mood of the Nation was perched somewhere on a precarious tip edge. On the one hand, there still a leftover patina of patriotism from our victory in what was then known as The Big One. This tended to result in a lingering sense of national pride; on the surface of things, anyway. The flipside to all this is that the Country itself was on the cusp of a lot of changes and upheavals. Holdridge and Mantell's big idea seems to have been a part of this ongoing, national transfiguration.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrIbg1KaowPlbCsWiRF-ZX97SM_Dv_teoaBl5RG-OGaj0rPf7RNWu9OAVEa6YCtg5GdSwtx-okjXe1fupNLb59IqtxSuHvC8p0_pOW5Th8yjjwpX8gNq_kbMeaWqcovOkFOJY6QGojg9shgTjYpDpfoVJgMPRwaM6U7OHzUrlpUIAgWc3bYst0dKvH71XD/s1390/barbara-holdridge-and-marianne-roney-founders-of-caedmon-records-HA3YDX.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="1263" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrIbg1KaowPlbCsWiRF-ZX97SM_Dv_teoaBl5RG-OGaj0rPf7RNWu9OAVEa6YCtg5GdSwtx-okjXe1fupNLb59IqtxSuHvC8p0_pOW5Th8yjjwpX8gNq_kbMeaWqcovOkFOJY6QGojg9shgTjYpDpfoVJgMPRwaM6U7OHzUrlpUIAgWc3bYst0dKvH71XD/s320/barbara-holdridge-and-marianne-roney-founders-of-caedmon-records-HA3YDX.jpg" width="291" /></a></div>The two girls were Liberal Humanists to their core, because those were the values that a good education from teachers who gave an actual care about their well-being had managed to instill into them both. So they each had a good idea of how the world worked, and of how that applied to the times that were a-changin', as well as their own place in it. They saw how it might be possible for them each to make a shared, joint contribution to the shifting milieu of American life in general. The particulars of their idea was simple. They both just thought it would be a hoot if they could start up a record label of their own. This one wouldn't cater to the popular trends or artforms of the day, however. Whatever the girl's opinion about Rhythm and Jazz, or the first stirrings of that new "Rocking" sound that was emerging from the likes of Chess, and later on Sun Records, none of it would ever be a feature for their own label. Instead, their focus would cater to the written word. What they'd do is make recordings of narrations from some of the best works of literature out there. They wouldn't limit themselves to just the Classics, either. Their label would be a showcase for the best new talent on the literary scene. The girls chose to name their joint venture under the label of Caedmon Records, after England's first poet.<p></p><p>Holdridge and Mantell were also smart about how to make sure their efforts had a successful launch, right out of the starting gate. They knew their first spoken word LP had to be attached to a Name. It couldn't be just anyone, however. A writer like Charles Dickens was well on his way to becoming a holiday staple. Yet such a choice would run the risk of getting them labeled as just another novelty brand. The girls wanted this to be a prestige venture. The kind of thing you had to pay serious attention to, once you heard it. Their first release had to feature a new Talent, then. Someone whose efforts were starting to command a great deal of respect in all the major literary circles. The kind of name that both Book People and the public would sit up and listen to, in other words. Barbara and Marianne found the answer to their search on the evening of February 23, 1952. That night, a new arrival from across the pond, a Welsh poet by the name of Dylan Thomas, was going to preside over the American debut of his own poetry. May and Babs had both heard that this man Thomas was starting to make something of an impact in the world of modern verse, so their curiosity led them to show up as part of the audience at New York's 92nd Street YMCA, and they listened as Thomas recited his verse.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyh2AJCFwaeqjKSTs8wI8W38EII72BRhEgf2JhcH1K4tjnUiKF_lwmIla7RDYykDxJo_0SdtRprsGukNnTJzUUDT6Tj_0B_HidhCcZyi-Owg5w9TROoSC4E-3pYRtyi5U8iACPa3zWj5Atzf7D4tfsUpWoGMrGCzARdCfkvfG1gIBhsAjNeHmOy56Oz02A/s816/dylan_thomas.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="816" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyh2AJCFwaeqjKSTs8wI8W38EII72BRhEgf2JhcH1K4tjnUiKF_lwmIla7RDYykDxJo_0SdtRprsGukNnTJzUUDT6Tj_0B_HidhCcZyi-Owg5w9TROoSC4E-3pYRtyi5U8iACPa3zWj5Atzf7D4tfsUpWoGMrGCzARdCfkvfG1gIBhsAjNeHmOy56Oz02A/w640-h392/dylan_thomas.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />From what can be gathered, it seems that by the end of the evening, Holdridge and Mantell knew they'd found the perfect writer to help launch Caedmon Records. They enquired where the poet was staying and found out he was garreted at the Hotel Chelsea. The same place where John Lennon would later spend his final days. At the moment, however, Thomas was the main attraction lingering around the place, and so together, Barbara and Marianne called upon his lodgings, and discovered he was there. They explained the conceit of Caedmon Records to Thomas, who must have thought it sounded like a good idea. Because he agreed to their proposal of him being the first marquee name on their label. A contract was drawn up, though financing had to come out of the girls' own pockets, yet to his credit, Thomas was a true sport about the whole thing. Somewhere between February 22 to the 25th, the first Caedmon LP was recorded at Steinway Hall, and Thomas became something very like a Rock and Roll star. The first release by Mary and Babs's self-start company was received with great fanfare, and it fulfilled just about every dream they could have had for their wishes to successfully find their voices.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgflrj6Imm_8-ZgwC0yqd-Dp9vizHUoxaSkciE8JIg2vJksGJSuhSedk8U0MJsGNSYVq4eaYb0ALPwYXO2hCAac0hqAwLbmPi69gF1qOnoHzY_yAMx6skQ3naTN1YJLIMPjXB1Ij5JPT_HKFGWbRwbd52RHaj3qEfkLE5m07-bkCwSdiMkPYEMVpSEdNrSu/s1280/dylan-thomas-back.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgflrj6Imm_8-ZgwC0yqd-Dp9vizHUoxaSkciE8JIg2vJksGJSuhSedk8U0MJsGNSYVq4eaYb0ALPwYXO2hCAac0hqAwLbmPi69gF1qOnoHzY_yAMx6skQ3naTN1YJLIMPjXB1Ij5JPT_HKFGWbRwbd52RHaj3qEfkLE5m07-bkCwSdiMkPYEMVpSEdNrSu/s320/dylan-thomas-back.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In time, Caedmon Records went on to be seen for what it truly still is to this very day. It was a pioneer in the history of English literature by being the first record company dedicated to sound recordings of spoken prose fiction. In other words, Marianne Mantell and Barbara Holdridge are the women who gave us the audiobook. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Holdridge#Recognition">It's something they were both recognized for later on</a>, when they each received a lifetime achievement award from the Audio Publishers Association. It was perhaps the biggest recognition their own efforts have ever received. Dylan Thomas was just sort of the guy who helped out. The contents of that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Child%27s_Christmas_in_Wales#Pub">first Caedmon recording</a> might seem almost quaint by today's standards. The A side contains a smattering the poet's most familiar and well known works, such as <i>Fern Hill</i> and <i>Ceremony After a Fire Raid</i>. However, it seems to have been the contents of the record's B side that really helped Barbara and Marianne realize their own dreams. The whole second course of Thomas's first audiobook is taken up by what almost sounds like an entire short story. Yet it's really a Holiday memoir. It was spoken entirely by the author himself, and it's known as <i>A Child's Christmas in Wales</i>.<p></p><p><b>The Poet and the Poetry. </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBACNU4t4EKYAYYxYpGVN5uuGmKWx6EhW24XVw3BdRvCA0VlIGE3OMIH_unUeNJGS61C2OKtctf37dOh8GyxuevAgWYxhKY_wOjfSdoIGqKlCPenZDhXAIxfVPxmRmwNAXs_LKOWLF0S0EMH9dWQjuuw6kucQ5oBU84DM4kJUfBf_AN8hF7XwrfZHk8KgU/s635/dtchairsummers-e1497454112851.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="550" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBACNU4t4EKYAYYxYpGVN5uuGmKWx6EhW24XVw3BdRvCA0VlIGE3OMIH_unUeNJGS61C2OKtctf37dOh8GyxuevAgWYxhKY_wOjfSdoIGqKlCPenZDhXAIxfVPxmRmwNAXs_LKOWLF0S0EMH9dWQjuuw6kucQ5oBU84DM4kJUfBf_AN8hF7XwrfZHk8KgU/s320/dtchairsummers-e1497454112851.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>When it comes to Dylan Thomas, I'm faced with an ironic contradiction of sorts. It's like meeting a familiar face that you've never really known before. All of which is to say I'm pretty much a late arrival in terms of the poet and his work. Dylan Thomas is one of those people who seems to have survived through the years through a bizarre combination of reputation and quotability. Owen Sheers, for instance, labels Thomas as "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e57AuGoNjgo&t=2663s&ab_channel=DylanThomasTV">an unlikely rock star</a>" for his life of hard drinking and partying in between bouts of composing verse, and giving the occasional, celebrated poetry recital. Besides this, Dylan's greatest claim to fame seems to hang on that one line of verse which urges the reader, "Do not go gentle into that good night". There may be something to advice like that. The point, however, is that this seems to be as far as the poet's reputation goes among the public. If it proves anything, then it's the unspoken maxim that pop-culture has little to no memory of the Arts, its history, or the artists who make it up in general. It's not a case of the audience doing whatever it wants with any given artwork. It's more that the limits of our imaginative horizons are severely truncated almost by necessity.<p></p><p>This results less in a rich tapestry of arts and culture, along with a list of all the great names who gave us the entertainment that practically raised all of us. Instead, it's more like a rough patchwork quilt with a lot of gaps in it. What else could our pop-culture memory be when it seems like all the "grown-ups" never bothered to make us aware of the rich resources just lying around, waiting to be picked up and explored. So that we might be able to reach a better understanding of why we love our favorite books, films, and sometimes even poetry. This is something I'm guilty of myself when it comes to a writer like Thomas. I've only just begun my learner's permit on this guy and his art, in that sense. The good news is I've been able to rectify that with some help. In what follows, I've relied on the work and scholarship of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IG9vEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=goodby+the+poetry+of+dylan+thomas&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiC8vmpkPmCAxWDm2oFHbAqBQwQ6AF6BAgJEAI#v=onepage&q=goodby%20the%20poetry%20of%20dylan%20thomas&f=false">John Goodby</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8UPFm5FanoYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=dylan+thomas+early+prose+writings&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7sO26kPmCAxV3j2oFHQz7BZYQ6AF6BAgIEAI#v=onepage&q=dylan%20thomas%20early%20prose%20writings&f=false">Annis Pratt</a>, and <a href="https://archive.org/details/dylanthomasnewcr0000davi/page/244/mode/2up">Alastair Fowler</a>. These critics have been somewhat beyond value in helping to gain a clearer picture of the poet's art and life, even with those inevitable points where I find myself forming my own judgments. The view of the life they have managed to supply is as follows.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJlULeQvPQ-yp61_3NOmeOYT6TiFI4f4Izn-LSe1mqafnWfNZhrcwy7yZ5dJmJWhaOhz9ZpJu-J5wSmxOrqrGbdOoctIvkZ4-FpJlED6XWBvLcEuFPQ__P9Y9thHTZXOtsTbVPje21c_lYfpu5fu4TQh9cfrkRVhg5X3BL4U-18nL8ErjlSHtJj8mjOnR/s1300/dylan-thomas-trail-guide-booklet-number-4-west-wales-published-by-B0CBP3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="928" data-original-width="1300" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJlULeQvPQ-yp61_3NOmeOYT6TiFI4f4Izn-LSe1mqafnWfNZhrcwy7yZ5dJmJWhaOhz9ZpJu-J5wSmxOrqrGbdOoctIvkZ4-FpJlED6XWBvLcEuFPQ__P9Y9thHTZXOtsTbVPje21c_lYfpu5fu4TQh9cfrkRVhg5X3BL4U-18nL8ErjlSHtJj8mjOnR/w640-h456/dylan-thomas-trail-guide-booklet-number-4-west-wales-published-by-B0CBP3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Dylan Thomas was in many ways, a product of England's Welsh Coast, and its folklore. He was born on the 27th of October, 1914; right on the cusp of the First World War. His parents were David and Florence Thomas, and right away, that turned out to be the future poet's first major advantage and influence. David Thomas seems to have been one of those teachers of English Literature who is more or less dead serious about it. He was never the kind of gung-ho, old school, switch carrying pedagogue who is able to strangle any possible enthusiasm for reading right there in the cradle with mandatory rote memorization, followed up by endless, interminable recitals. Instead, everything I've been able to find out about Thomas's father paints him as one of those unsung Liberal Humanists. The kind of bookworm, in other words, with a genuine fan boy's enthusiasm for the written word, and who was then successful at passing this interests on down to his son. Dave Thomas's Humanism seems to have been somewhat of the Myth and Ritual variety. Annis Pratt tells that he took a keen interest in Welsh folklore and its history as a teacher, and that these were among the first literary sources that his son inherited.<p></p><p>"Dylan Thomas lived in a region that was rich not only in folklore but in the origins of folklore; as a boy he explored a landscape shaped...and marked by sites of a prehistoric, druid, sabbatic, and Christian legend. During his father's boyhood the skeleton of a "red lady" had been found surrounded by mammoth tusks in the glacial age caves beneath Gower Peninsula, near Swansea. The hummock of Cefn Y Bryn with "druid well" and reputed "King Arthur's stone" also rises out of the Gower Peninsula, while the countryside of Glamorgan and Carmarthenshire, where many of his relatives lived, is full of landmarks reputedly built by the druids.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrai0bff6dEyc_lNRfrKoNgIKXZhpPsa2-Qd4tJnEDQugumLRlLpuBL02k1fh3i7tXXXxa2LJj49hIMQ4bjZVuE-GkrA161N7Fqn-lOsw8oKYZ8_Xs8koIu70mc7fYV1fUupCIXVaxgSsiPexErghdcbRlB6bz_n9FLOS1SUH_hleXqBVsFu7fR8Ym6wJh/s1600/2137371.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrai0bff6dEyc_lNRfrKoNgIKXZhpPsa2-Qd4tJnEDQugumLRlLpuBL02k1fh3i7tXXXxa2LJj49hIMQ4bjZVuE-GkrA161N7Fqn-lOsw8oKYZ8_Xs8koIu70mc7fYV1fUupCIXVaxgSsiPexErghdcbRlB6bz_n9FLOS1SUH_hleXqBVsFu7fR8Ym6wJh/s320/2137371.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>"Dylan Thomas' paternal grandfather, Evan Thomas, was a railway guard at Johnstown, a suburb of Carmarthen. This city had served for a long time as cultural and administrative center for the west of Wales; it was a Roman and Norman stronghold and, before that, the ecclesiastical center of the druid religion. Merlin reputedly presided there as arch-druid, and the <i>Black Book of Carmarthen</i> (which Thomas parodies in "The Orchards" as "The Black Book of Llaregubb") was discovered in its priory of Black Canons. The contents of this and other books of folklore had been expounded at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Edward Davies in <i>The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids</i> and <i>Celtic Researches on the Origin, Traditions and Language of the Ancient Britons</i>. It has been conjectured that Dylan Thomas might have read these two volumes...(5-6)". If this is true, then the most likely source the poet could have found and poured through such volumes would be the copies on his father's bookshelf. It's not too implausible to imagine the elder Thomas passing along these quaint and curious items along to a willing son, who was turning out to be just as much a bookwork as he used to be.<p></p><p>Pratt then drops one hell of a bombshell for lovers of Gothic fiction, when she makes the following claim. "It seems likely that sometime before the age of fifteen Thomas immersed himself in the tales of Machen, de la Mare, and whatever writers he could find who dealt with the legends of Egypt and Wales. Oscar Williams tells us that Thomas knew <i>The Book of the Dead</i>, and besides <i>The Mabinogian</i> he may have read some such compendium of tales for the young as Baikie's <i>Wonder Tales of the Ancient World</i> (11)". Any true fans of the Horror genre will of course know and be familiar with the works of Arthur Machen. H.P. Lovecraft called him perhaps the best of his own literary mentors. And works like <i>The Great God Pan</i> and <i>The Hill of Dreams</i> have gone on to exert a pivotal amount of artistic influence of the work of Peter Straub and Thomas himself, respectively. Pratt is able to go into a convincing amount of detail that lays out the ways in which Thomas's efforts can be seen as thematically linked in several areas to the work of the fellow Welsh creator of the Folk Horror subgenre. Now, with all of this said, here is kind of where I'll have to pour some water on the fire.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1eLDMp6qh1xqyvToI2qwGwFAvdOeW9Zu08Wkyh4UMPUoDnRoCgs2A8XHSf3SQ2L5gTa9AeRHL0Xcdjcjl61OJ30pX0T1TdNdWNgR0lZJOW_YBMs-Y1U088uu53-inEvOYlxoP8xMm0ccEU3h2ksRKWetY8snaeQBfPm2o88KEZt-uyoaa0clkcXQimYn/s1600/tylwyth-teg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1042" data-original-width="1600" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1eLDMp6qh1xqyvToI2qwGwFAvdOeW9Zu08Wkyh4UMPUoDnRoCgs2A8XHSf3SQ2L5gTa9AeRHL0Xcdjcjl61OJ30pX0T1TdNdWNgR0lZJOW_YBMs-Y1U088uu53-inEvOYlxoP8xMm0ccEU3h2ksRKWetY8snaeQBfPm2o88KEZt-uyoaa0clkcXQimYn/w640-h416/tylwyth-teg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I hope I'm not curbing anyone's enthusiasm by saying that for all of the convincing evidence Pratt is able to marshal for the influence of both ancient and modern popular fantastic fiction on the poet's own work. The fact remains that Thomas's is a poetry that still winds up branching off into his own avenues of creative exploration. And while it's true that writers like Machen, or figures like King Arthur and Merlin were probably all part of the permanent storehouse of the writer's Imagination, his use of this material differed in many fundamental ways from that of a scribbler of pulp short stories. For whatever reason, Thomas's own creative expression can be described as generally "mythic". However, it's a lot less effusive and obvious than the eldritch world of Machen's secondary worlds. For one thing, however much he might have liked Gothic fiction, Thomas's own output never really falls into the same category. You won't be able to find a fictional main character wandering into a haunted wood and encountering King Arthur's magical court advisor waiting at it's heart for the reader. Thomas just never bothered with that more typical type of artistic expression. Indeed, I can't recall ever running across a figure like the original magic man in any of the poems of his that I've read.<p></p><p>Instead, what Thomas tends to do with all of this folkloric material is to combine and condense them to create this heightened view of the ultimate reality undergirding the universe in relation to human life. I know that sounds an awful lot like what Machen is up to, yet it's still different in the long run. For one thing, if there are fantastical elements in Thomas's literary output, he never makes it entirely obvious. His usual method of composition is to place before the reader a number of what I can only describe as an almost constant procession of poetic images drawn from nature. The poet will describe each of these normal seeming items in terms that can transfigure the simple branches of an ordinary tree, or pieces of hay in a farm loft into cosmological symbols of time and passing in relation to human life. Those last three concepts appear (so far as I can tell) to be the overarching main themes of most of Thomas's poetry. Here's a sample of what I mean from the poet's <i>Ceremony After a Fire Raid</i>:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg68ZE1jNcDAIf3OQkEcU7mFOXvxNo-4IDtQtjPebXBDvBLu-NvYO6a7AIsRjIYUBeHT3cR2ejhKp3Opr8Au2fu3K1esVEOOFv68T-WtT3dock_9Y_ONQ6WXJ3wBHGM9JgtDvwmOM8UbJZUx_ULk-AWjqAOwQqgT7ro7EOhsUNU-4dWL3QRBrzcO1bnyWuL/s800/NPG_NPG_4284-001.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="533" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg68ZE1jNcDAIf3OQkEcU7mFOXvxNo-4IDtQtjPebXBDvBLu-NvYO6a7AIsRjIYUBeHT3cR2ejhKp3Opr8Au2fu3K1esVEOOFv68T-WtT3dock_9Y_ONQ6WXJ3wBHGM9JgtDvwmOM8UbJZUx_ULk-AWjqAOwQqgT7ro7EOhsUNU-4dWL3QRBrzcO1bnyWuL/w180-h270/NPG_NPG_4284-001.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>"I know not whether<p></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Adam or Eve, the adorned holy bullock</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Or the white ewe lamb</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Or the chosen virgin</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Laid in her snow</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">On the altar of London,</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Was the first to die</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">In the cinder of the little skull,</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">O bride and bride groom</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">O Adam and Eve together</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Lying in the lull</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Under the sad breast of the head stone</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">White as the skeleton</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Of the garden of Eden (<a href="https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ceremony-after-a-fire-raid/">web</a>)". </span></span><div><p>That's a rather heady sounding brew in a day and age when the Art of Verse seems to be on the decline everywhere except for the music genre. It can be difficult for the reader to decipher even when not taken in isolation. The actual event the entire poem is describing is the aftermath of a Nazi air raid during England's Blitzkrieg during the Second World War. It was a conflict that Thomas got to experience up close in person as an air warden in London's Soho district. It would later become on of several meccas for the Summer of Love (more of which anon), at the time the poem was composed, however, most the neighborhood (and even some of its residents) had been reduced to rubble and ash by the German Luftwaffe. A poem like <i>Ceremony</i> was the author's attempt to make sense of all the destruction he has to witness going on around him. It's concerned with ways to mourn the lost, and what it means in the potential for a grander scheme of things. Like just about everything else he ever wrote, Thomas's verse takes the meaning of these cataclysmic events and heightens them to levels of ultra-cosmological meaning. The upshot of such literary practice is that it places the writer somewhat outside the realm of the sort of Gothic Celtic Revivalism characterized by the work of Arthur Machen. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMklm-cPhlgeuO25LkuXm4YHb2pizGpEygFr4g3YKpds0y0rdd0AiVVcicKDjyTyQAnbHuvDxF-bU3xXnyGgh2IBHbs2ai-01H1bvR-xKi0np_1BKzXo4andbg5qI3xCZoEfObYbbrgfETbcrXDtbaBad1BmoTgoiuHWRv8_Jp_dH0MibRUJD4wSlII5YG/s1280/The-Waste-Land-Featured-Image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMklm-cPhlgeuO25LkuXm4YHb2pizGpEygFr4g3YKpds0y0rdd0AiVVcicKDjyTyQAnbHuvDxF-bU3xXnyGgh2IBHbs2ai-01H1bvR-xKi0np_1BKzXo4andbg5qI3xCZoEfObYbbrgfETbcrXDtbaBad1BmoTgoiuHWRv8_Jp_dH0MibRUJD4wSlII5YG/w640-h360/The-Waste-Land-Featured-Image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Instead, Thomas is best seen as kind of this literary throwback to an earlier form of Fantasy writing. Rather, let's say that he reaches back into the deep artistic well our of which the modern Fantasy genre eventually emerged from. So far as I can tell, the best way I can find to describe the life and poetry of Dylan Thomas is to claim that he fulfills two roles in one. He's both a throwback to the Romantic Movement, while also serving as a kind of living bridge, or sorts. Thomas got his start at the height of T.S. Eliot's Mythical Modernist aesthetics in the realm of verse letters. In fact, it was Eliot who discovered the Welsh versifier when he was still just this nothing kid living with his parents. The writer of <i>The Waste Land</i> is also the one who helped him get his first start in the poetry gig by finding outlets that would publishes Thomas's work. The poet's start therefor places him as a part of the Modernist Movement that Eliot and others helped inaugurate. The crucial difference between Eliot and Thomas is that the latter seems to have progressed onward from there. His art was protean rather than static.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGRVRI4Ii5eG-QOJM3QUeMb3mVXZn7G3lQ-F-uAcWQK6t8_e5Fm5ckg_tUEX4ygCb1Sz1-ICYd3ypPrNEiorOZDo4ETIE3wkcb1driP77OT4DjyxrCCYAd7n2e_RH5cU_yN81syg7ZuVw0qqBg4YqUNFDDR1NhNci22x9SH7-uPIg0P8paMPA3roqFmzcI/s2500/9781840228465.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2500" data-original-width="1625" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGRVRI4Ii5eG-QOJM3QUeMb3mVXZn7G3lQ-F-uAcWQK6t8_e5Fm5ckg_tUEX4ygCb1Sz1-ICYd3ypPrNEiorOZDo4ETIE3wkcb1driP77OT4DjyxrCCYAd7n2e_RH5cU_yN81syg7ZuVw0qqBg4YqUNFDDR1NhNci22x9SH7-uPIg0P8paMPA3roqFmzcI/s320/9781840228465.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>While Eliot has gone on to become a fixed point for the entirety of literary Modernism, critics and readers have found Thomas a bit more difficult to pigeonhole. I'd argue that's because he became one of the few poets to effect a successful transition from one artistic milieu to another. It's crucial to add that throughout all this, Thomas's own expansive poetic outlook was one that seems to have been able to maintain its own artistic integrity. There are no discernable contradictions or reconfigurations in Thomas's method and theory like can be found in Eliot's own critical writings. Instead, it seems to be more that Thomas was able to discern the <i>kind</i> of direction that artistic trends, and modes of expression were taking as the years went on. There was a sense of movement in the air. Creative expression was starting to move out of the Waste Land and into more fertile pastures. Thomas seems to have been lucky enough to pick up on all this with a true artist's instincts. The best part for him wasn't just that he'd found a new way forward for his poetry, but also that it was one that allowed him to keep the vital artistic core of his work intact, even as its mode of expression changed to suit the current moment.<p></p><p>This is what I mean by describing Thomas as a bridge, and well as a throwback. He was an inheritor of two fundamentally interrelated strands of poetic practice at once, and was able to shepherd his own efforts through them both. He may have gotten his start in the Modernist zeitgeist of T.S. Eliot, yet he was able to go on from there when he saw the next step that English letters were starting to take. When it happened, he was there to meet the change head on, and was able to put his efforts on the map in a way that almost outshines his first phase under Eliot's wing. A lot of his success can be chalked up to the fact that Dylan knew he could change directions without compromising the fundamental core of his artistry. It's this same core that he brought to the fore in his later poetry and prose. In being able to do so, he became not just an inheritor, or a bridge, but also something of an architect in his own right.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8vQiqnTxhP7IDWBskf-ZGGLwoBdctivZUN1oaY6b3on_daXGK9db2lK4uCdDJZyn_Z2IzOUatJTY8HLL1pFiD71ot3YbD6-RSJGOMALJpBhVSaoit9YBUUKvfL8I874qmkOFnsdGUiC1GY9cyoJavNr-fZWCl_0bspjeFx57eaZ9kYVZ15SuY9CLyshZ/s1300/william-wordsworth-portrait-in-background-his-home-in-the-lake-district-ERH7RK.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="935" data-original-width="1300" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8vQiqnTxhP7IDWBskf-ZGGLwoBdctivZUN1oaY6b3on_daXGK9db2lK4uCdDJZyn_Z2IzOUatJTY8HLL1pFiD71ot3YbD6-RSJGOMALJpBhVSaoit9YBUUKvfL8I874qmkOFnsdGUiC1GY9cyoJavNr-fZWCl_0bspjeFx57eaZ9kYVZ15SuY9CLyshZ/w640-h460/william-wordsworth-portrait-in-background-his-home-in-the-lake-district-ERH7RK.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In order to understand how this is so, we need to go a bit into the core of Dylan's poetry, and what it meant for his career and legacy. To simplify a very complex argument, it makes the most sense to see Thomas as the closest thing to an inheritor to the kind of poetry exemplified by the likes of William Wordsworth. Perhaps a better, yet more complex way of saying it is to claim that it wound up being being Dylan Thomas who was able to finish what Wordsworth started. There's a great deal of history and thought behind a sentence like that. So I'm going to have to find a way to keep it simple as possible. For me, it all seems to come from what happened to the Romantic Movement after the last of its originators had faded away into the Pantheon, so to speak. I don't really think the Movement guys like Wordsworth helped start ever went away, or anything like that. In fact, as I've at least hinted at elsewhere, it transitioned from the metrical verse compositions of the Lake Poets, and found its way into what might very well have been its first proper modern prose expression in the Fantasy genre.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPrcVKZan7Pk58Ck9LvDoVcP5elgEmv91lMvPvVmHFKHaPP96vtrzBRYQ8eMBvgM9aHSC42WPeb8lHtEMYVF5SsLnWX8_Wzy-GDF5wKu0ECSqp46zzsmPFXM8siUO6L04uv8XCrMYLcI6gxLYGsMtJVSI_k0Nj1vnxIWtO-Ur5u6SLleE3a97n2BHMglrc/s1000/61tEfcTdaqL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="647" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPrcVKZan7Pk58Ck9LvDoVcP5elgEmv91lMvPvVmHFKHaPP96vtrzBRYQ8eMBvgM9aHSC42WPeb8lHtEMYVF5SsLnWX8_Wzy-GDF5wKu0ECSqp46zzsmPFXM8siUO6L04uv8XCrMYLcI6gxLYGsMtJVSI_k0Nj1vnxIWtO-Ur5u6SLleE3a97n2BHMglrc/s320/61tEfcTdaqL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>It was a series of Victorian and Edwardian children's authors, stretching all the way from John Ruskin to perhaps even J.R.R. Tolkien who kept the kind of aesthetic strain guys like Wordsworth had developed alive and kicking through their efforts in pioneering the modern fantastic. What they were doing, in essence, is taking the kind of phantasmagoria found in Romantic Poetry, and giving it a prose playground to work in. I keep singling out Wordsworth in all of this, however, because it really does seem to be his specific poetic legacy that Dylan Thomas took up and ran with all the way. The reason for this is the unshakable sense I get from each of their respective poems that both Wordsworth and Thomas are basically covering the same playing field. Both of them are poets of time, memory, mortality, and childhood. Each of them seems to present the reader with a series of snapshots of people, places, and things from real life, and then grant the reader a kind of heightened window or vantage point at which to view it all. For Thomas, the universe is almost like an alive thing. Life is like a kind of book. It's pages, settings, characters, and events can all tell of riddles, and great secrets, if you just have the eyes to see, and ears to hear. It's all very akin to Shakespeare's Great Theater of the World.<p></p><p>This is the lens through which Thomas and his poetry view the world. For a time, this was how Wordsworth might have felt as well. At least, this was how he tried to write and live his life until complications got in the way. The single most fascinating book I've ever read about Wordsworth and his poems comes from the pages of <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924102774399/page/n163/mode/2up">The English Poetic Mind</a></i>, by Charles Williams. In that critical study, Williams notes how what might be termed the "poetic enthusiasm" of the writer's artistry starts out on a high note. Williams own term for this seems to be "the joy of poetry discovering itself". It's very much like a first love. The artist has found the meter, mode, and method that he is good at, and can make well. The author has found something he's good at, for once, and he knows it. So then the poetry takes off with a wild, rapid, and almost carefree concern. Williams points out that this is how it also was for Shakespeare and Milton, along with most of the Romantic Poets. Something else Wordsworth shared with the authors of <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>Paradise Lost</i> was the onset of a personal crisis.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3TozQFbA18JdT2z_xDEy_FkcjsjbYVblBHKi_nq3X6mjYKBfvzJxmR8AwrOwoI0G_f6lgtO3KoPDyq9F7Jh3mH96OhIVtvQi1oZmAC5TCih_xLOG4297UgmbIvfHgs-4M0i89wkIsIWK6_hRGLkMlKlT_vDrlLADR20W6uwQ9HHBDZfiElLPXiTGCT7D/s750/IMG_2903.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="750" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3TozQFbA18JdT2z_xDEy_FkcjsjbYVblBHKi_nq3X6mjYKBfvzJxmR8AwrOwoI0G_f6lgtO3KoPDyq9F7Jh3mH96OhIVtvQi1oZmAC5TCih_xLOG4297UgmbIvfHgs-4M0i89wkIsIWK6_hRGLkMlKlT_vDrlLADR20W6uwQ9HHBDZfiElLPXiTGCT7D/w640-h506/IMG_2903.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For both Milton and Shakespeare, this crisis seems to have be a shared recognition that, in the Bard's words, "<a href="https://www.shakespeare-online.com/quickquotes/spiteri">The Time is Out of Joint</a>". The best coverage on the nature of this crisis and how Big Bill from Stratford faced it head on can be found within the pages of Theodore Spencer's <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/shakespeare-and-the-nature-of-man/12E5F8BEFBC9E044543E28792EFA166F#fndtn-information"><i>Shakespeare and the Nature of Man</i>.</a> For Milton's part in all this, the best resource I recommend is Nicholas McDowall's <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691154695/poet-of-revolution"><i>Poet of Revolution</i>: <i>The Making of John Milton</i></a>, the first volume of which is still currently available as of this writing. The point here is that Williams' own study is able to make a convincing case that these moments of crisis were challenges that both Milton and Shakespeare were able to meet, match, and eventually overcome. The same, however, cannot be said for Wordsworth. Much like his collaborator, S.T. Coleridge, Wordsworth faced his fair share of hardships. The difference between the two is that Wordsworth seems to have just let it all eat away at him in a way that Coleridge never did. Trust me when I say there is no greater irony than learning that a compulsive drug addict like Samuel Taylor was the one who managed to give himself the happy ending. While his upstanding friend never bothered.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MHVU29PadkacRIKzars5Ot7iVMkR7OjnlbAk6hhsHUGZFWv_kWRgJasxMg0jaVe2sSoCMHdwQ0ZaOTbZX417UbEPHTJRVvZiC9EUdsbjDjlXRnFdM3717Cjako_CvKZOEQmtsce79D4tI6cNMY2PSprKIC0TCMvfRhel3V5n0HsatPI8PH1-TpVcl2R2/s1000/61jsKgMqdtL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="715" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MHVU29PadkacRIKzars5Ot7iVMkR7OjnlbAk6hhsHUGZFWv_kWRgJasxMg0jaVe2sSoCMHdwQ0ZaOTbZX417UbEPHTJRVvZiC9EUdsbjDjlXRnFdM3717Cjako_CvKZOEQmtsce79D4tI6cNMY2PSprKIC0TCMvfRhel3V5n0HsatPI8PH1-TpVcl2R2/s320/61jsKgMqdtL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="229" /></a></div>It is one of the most fascinating and perhaps telling dichotomies that I've ever witnessed in the study and history of literature and storytelling. It's like one life-long twin parable about what makes the difference between a fighter and a quitter, for lack of any better words. The upshot for this article is that Williams is able to classify Wordsworth's poetry as a Great Work that was never truly brought to any kind of satisfactory completion. It starts out on a ringing note of promise, and then slowly begins to slip away into a morass of personal disappointment and skepticism. The years pass, Romanticism itself is able to survive and thrive, though it's a laurel that Wordsworth had long since cast aside. Then T.S. Eliot and the Modernists come along and revive the art of English Verse. Into this milieu steps Dylan Thomas, and from what I can tell, his poetry picks up were <i>The Prelude</i> leaves off. In works like <i>Fern Hill</i>, we see Thomas reaching back into the same well that Wordsworth was once inspired by. The difference with Thomas is that, like Coleridge, his poetic light never really seems to have ever gone out.<p></p><p>Alastair Fowler has even gone so far as to claim that "Wordsworth's <i>Intimations of Immortality</i> was a primary model" for Thomas's <i>Fern Hill</i>. "Thomas must have expected his readers to recognize similarities in his expression...Therefore the apparent contrasts are very noticeable. To Wordsworth, the thought of his childhood as a blessing is not so much...'that which is most worthy to be blest"...as for certain metaphysical promptings. By contrast, Thomas seems precisely to celebrate childhood's 'delight and liberty'...Again, Wordsworth's stoic resignation to the loss of joy and to a place in history - 'Another race hath been, and other palms are won' - seems very different from (Thomas)...(Dylan) sings so that his own reader 'in thought will join [the] throng' of those that play. The dreaming and waking stanzas of <i>Fern Hill</i> realize Wordsworth's 'freshness of a dream', the singing sea returns to 'that immortal sea/Which brought us hither (240-41)". This is what I mean when I describe Thomas as a Romantic Inheritor. <i>Fern Hill</i> is a poem that many critics and readers consider to be Dylan best effort, and later on it may help us to illuminate certain key aspects of the writer's own retrospective Christmas memoir. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnEFcW9kJO8X9B4ozjbChv8OiwRfUvXamj4hfvjwc6rslppFEopthXHt0ZvUQeIvSuM-ubLjUD0fAOcpiFvFO-itVTJZWnihHqqXrM7w8ZhKyVDIT9kaDrhS0hVIhhjly3oYDBjhblvL95UhBGz5IkDCnlvIdcgsqInhZJ6QTFlV-W8qd0_d29Ekwb9Ei_/s2768/on-the-road-collage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1960" data-original-width="2768" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnEFcW9kJO8X9B4ozjbChv8OiwRfUvXamj4hfvjwc6rslppFEopthXHt0ZvUQeIvSuM-ubLjUD0fAOcpiFvFO-itVTJZWnihHqqXrM7w8ZhKyVDIT9kaDrhS0hVIhhjly3oYDBjhblvL95UhBGz5IkDCnlvIdcgsqInhZJ6QTFlV-W8qd0_d29Ekwb9Ei_/w640-h454/on-the-road-collage.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Before that, however, it's seems important to note the ways in which Thomas is also a bridge spanning and connecting the poetics of the past to that of his own contemporary age. It's seems possible that one of the other reasons that Thomas was able to succeed where Wordsworth failed is because in addition to confronting the bugbear of disenchantment head on, Dylan was also able to find one other element of consolation that the earlier Lake Poet never did. Thomas had the good fortune to make acquaintance with some of the most promising names of the new rising generation of Post War artistic voices. This happened later on at the start of the 50s. It was during his first reading tours in New York that Thomas and his works met and/or caught the attention of a number of authors who were probably already taking a great deal of inspiration from the likes of <i>Fern Hill</i> even before its author arrived in the City that Never Sleeps. Some of these names might have a passing familiarity to us even today. Among them were writers like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl_(poem)">Allen Ginsberg</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE_8WK3tBuE&ab_channel=diejaana">Lawrence Ferlinghetti</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LLpNKo09Xk&t=80s&ab_channel=HistoricFilmsStockFootageArchive">Jack Kerouac</a>. Together, these and other writers and poets would go on to constitute both the Beat Generation, and American Counterculture.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ_RXsHpESb2UHxLiroF9yHf_7WKf5icu9JV1Ea9P-kJ9K4qIs1PR92zDZBDLb1Lpee0segUlfWYIjRGkxI-T3lClCHe17KGEXnolSPPvwDqRb5XnBKSb1V3fGALSLDlNy577JHXr_tI80WVi0T_nRgI2BC_UWXonNDnAz9JmgFVZ_3lDEKakSsZR1WfYb/s1000/51sozV41CRL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="788" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ_RXsHpESb2UHxLiroF9yHf_7WKf5icu9JV1Ea9P-kJ9K4qIs1PR92zDZBDLb1Lpee0segUlfWYIjRGkxI-T3lClCHe17KGEXnolSPPvwDqRb5XnBKSb1V3fGALSLDlNy577JHXr_tI80WVi0T_nRgI2BC_UWXonNDnAz9JmgFVZ_3lDEKakSsZR1WfYb/s320/51sozV41CRL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>Dylan Thomas turned out to be the writer who acted as a shared source of inspiration for just about all of the important names in this movement in underground letters. It also didn't hurt that Thomas was able to be on hand long enough to act as poetic mentor to a lot of the Beats in their early literary efforts. It was more or less as described in a line of dialogue in a documentary by director Owen Sheers. "Not very long ago, readers of poetry in the English speaking world found their senses quickening at the sound of a new voice. A man still in his twenties had quite casually walked in and sat down among the geniuses of English Poetry". As Sheers further helps elaborate the nature of Thomas's situation at this time, "There are several reasons for Dylan Thomas's extraordinary success in America. Perhaps most significant, though, was his timing, which was perfect. His leaping rhythms spoke to the Beat writers, and to great Jazz musicians like Charlie Parker. Allen Ginsburg, who became one of the gurus of this new age was enchanted. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ8HTu_MOMA&t=8s&ab_channel=Swingin%E2%80%99Pig">As was Bob Dylan</a>, who borrowed the poet's name and never gave it back". This is what I mean when I say that the writer of <i>Fern Hill</i> was also a living bridge.<p></p><p>He seems to have been one of those once in a lifetime talents. The kind of writer who might have a hand in defining his own era of literary prowess. Yet he never just leaves it at that. He has go on from there and help act as a mentor to the next rising generation that comes after him. In fact, now that I think about it, aside from maybe T.S. Eliot, the only other talents that fit this description would be Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Norman Lear, George Martin, and Peter Blake. In fact, it was Martin and Blake (two of the key background architects of the <i>Sgt</i>. <i>Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club</i> album) who would later return the favor back to where it all started, by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkgYe73zdYg&ab_channel=DylanThomasTV">staging a live performance</a> of the only play that Dylan Thomas ever wrote, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Milk_Wood">Under Milk Wood</a></i>. This then is as good a condensed snapshot of the life, career, artistry, and legacy of the author of <i>A Child's Christmas in Wales</i>. The reason for going into what might sound on the surface like a lot of extraneous detail is because for an autobiographical fragment like the one we're about to unpack, there really is no other way to unlock its secrets except by knowing as much about its overall background and context as possible. Strange as it may sound, if you want to understand what sounds like a simple holiday memoir, you need to know the forces that shaped it.</p><p><b>Conclusion: An Underrated Piece of Pioneering Romantic Holiday Writing. </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHi5D5Pv6i3zuklyXQi0Hjda5gfhGSFQNkAjgwH2sIGIMOI9cpLeZcuE43u2kHwH9Rt1Fxjvlyln8GMepqWR2LBNKwBcd9ps3yM_6L5HabkmNF1BzKWz337kcxmJj99XMy9QAsAbQJ1tMlaTxCS-17xUelAGSchhNhZDbT6gcrkZczcRT462qHInMooj_f/s1080/1321169.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="818" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHi5D5Pv6i3zuklyXQi0Hjda5gfhGSFQNkAjgwH2sIGIMOI9cpLeZcuE43u2kHwH9Rt1Fxjvlyln8GMepqWR2LBNKwBcd9ps3yM_6L5HabkmNF1BzKWz337kcxmJj99XMy9QAsAbQJ1tMlaTxCS-17xUelAGSchhNhZDbT6gcrkZczcRT462qHInMooj_f/w231-h305/1321169.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>I think that most modern readers will be reminded of <i>A Christmas Story</i> by a tale like this, more than anything else. In a way, that's kind of understandable. For one thing, it is possible to make the case that what both Thomas and Jean Shepherd are doing amounts to little more than recalling the children they were, and the kind of lives they led as adolescents as seen through the prism of nostalgic adulthood. That's also sort of what Thomas himself might have referred to as "a fair cop", so far as criticism goes. The second reason for why films like Shepherd's are the ones that most readers will be likely to latch on to probably stems from modern audiences not having that much choice or say in the matter. We're all the products of a clouded and patchwork pop culture memory, after all. Even when it comes to stories about the most famous and near universally celebrated Holiday on the calendar, the truth is that our historical comprehension and recollection of Christmas tales past seems to go just so far and no further.<p></p><p>It's the kind of thing that tends to leave the viewer or reader in a sort of interesting conundrum. When it comes to explaining <i>why</i> we like certain books, films, or most commonly, TV specials about this time of the year, we have only such meager storehouses of explanation to fall back on. This is because our memories of the Holiday and its many storied past often tend not to reach all that far to begin with. As a result, we sort of allow ourselves no say whatever if it becomes a matter of venturing further out past the basics of what little we know about the tales that are, or can be told at this time of year. So, when judging a work like Thomas's Christmas memoir, the best thing it's able to remind us all of is the misadventures of Lil' Ralphie Parker growing up on the street and lanes of small town Indiana. To be even more fair, it's always possible to claim Thomas doesn't exactly help his case in this respect. It further doesn't help when this is how he chooses to begin remembering the days of Christmas past.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5S3i4xZM80yQwlVvt-I_hKmJCCRfhx3CcmBkJjqnQbP0abuvpA6d-T7RiHltCrGNATlRbLr3-W9yrScwlWe_GG3gOpD5N8UcInOLXhaOzc28XoV2d1u96vk2l95cOGS2mDqxHgsfReadDwkXoatSo6I_NNCaFcvKGPymoJvhtpoZq8MIxgDRPfLeNOYp/s900/dylan-thomas-a-childs-christmas-in-wales-john-chatterley.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="900" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5S3i4xZM80yQwlVvt-I_hKmJCCRfhx3CcmBkJjqnQbP0abuvpA6d-T7RiHltCrGNATlRbLr3-W9yrScwlWe_GG3gOpD5N8UcInOLXhaOzc28XoV2d1u96vk2l95cOGS2mDqxHgsfReadDwkXoatSo6I_NNCaFcvKGPymoJvhtpoZq8MIxgDRPfLeNOYp/w640-h360/dylan-thomas-a-childs-christmas-in-wales-john-chatterley.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"<span style="font-family: inherit;">One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. </span>All the Christmases roll down towards the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLews2eOjH0N8FIpD7pamuL0BIk5UHfuLlsq4kO6F7Gi6SI3jTRT7FWr4idJOgkpHMEGHsxz0GgKLxQNEo7yQAV-atEmBaIIXZsX2ytMZxRrIY1Q3TNInA4Jsv-Gn4vzBhroWb67T-v-5lT8luyxZ-ApKh4lVluqD06b_ET5Xd2fVzmrHVMD-ZcbEKWR0i/s499/15810086558_ee6e8ac4d9.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="417" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLews2eOjH0N8FIpD7pamuL0BIk5UHfuLlsq4kO6F7Gi6SI3jTRT7FWr4idJOgkpHMEGHsxz0GgKLxQNEo7yQAV-atEmBaIIXZsX2ytMZxRrIY1Q3TNInA4Jsv-Gn4vzBhroWb67T-v-5lT8luyxZ-ApKh4lVluqD06b_ET5Xd2fVzmrHVMD-ZcbEKWR0i/w267-h320/15810086558_ee6e8ac4d9.jpg" width="267" /></a></div>"It was on the afternoon of the day of Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, although there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slide and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes. The wise cats never appeared. We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows—eternal, ever since Wednesday—that we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or, if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar cat. But soon the voice grew louder. "Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.<p>"And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, towards the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room. Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and smacking at the smoke with a slipper. "Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong. "They won't be here," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas." There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his slipper as though he were conducting. "Do something," he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke—I think we missed Mr. Prothero—and ran out of the house to the telephone box.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJoF_0fy4MsulI1ezgT_H6kfjErik062zVqbHM77DY66_7YubDuhVG59xQqWiH63fHD8w05JbEtuKvaOF58fwq4_exbcwimUZlDnIPOlVrvX2xwCPZlkPIA-KMy2XdEvi1pHgv8CLA8JwRCGWqX0rgt1lClpKsI8qtXNY_-oorHQnxULB0f4oklMTsE39Q/s500/15995492361_7036e7397a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="500" height="566" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJoF_0fy4MsulI1ezgT_H6kfjErik062zVqbHM77DY66_7YubDuhVG59xQqWiH63fHD8w05JbEtuKvaOF58fwq4_exbcwimUZlDnIPOlVrvX2xwCPZlkPIA-KMy2XdEvi1pHgv8CLA8JwRCGWqX0rgt1lClpKsI8qtXNY_-oorHQnxULB0f4oklMTsE39Q/w640-h566/15995492361_7036e7397a.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>"Let's call the police as well," Jim said. "And the ambulance." "And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires." But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said: "Would you like anything to read (<a href="https://www.fadedpage.com/books/201410J4/html.php">web</a>)".<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK57xqGwreZxvyqZd73v3bYM-BfCeFn8gOz7rnhNWgb_vUVcOSzvUgUmViyNi1edCa72toQCNrCWE8mSInEksCZoOnjDdTBvUt-c5ZzuHO5LEur8FbCSmG7mCaTfBwFUhUOHj5hgJXIHauV4dBeUX5JxU0K8Sx6abhF6hN63eTdWp0crv3UZ4xaY5xo7Wt/s2895/A-Christmas-Story-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-1-sheet-27x41-7893.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2895" data-original-width="2002" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK57xqGwreZxvyqZd73v3bYM-BfCeFn8gOz7rnhNWgb_vUVcOSzvUgUmViyNi1edCa72toQCNrCWE8mSInEksCZoOnjDdTBvUt-c5ZzuHO5LEur8FbCSmG7mCaTfBwFUhUOHj5hgJXIHauV4dBeUX5JxU0K8Sx6abhF6hN63eTdWp0crv3UZ4xaY5xo7Wt/s320/A-Christmas-Story-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-1-sheet-27x41-7893.webp" width="221" /></a></div>The whole damn thing reads just like the kind of vignette you expect to see waiting for you in Shepherd's memories of his long lost hometown. Like, it's easy to imagine how Bob Clark might have directed a sequence like this. It would start out with a relatively stable setup, in what is the ostensible "real world" of Ralphie's memory. Then one of the neighbors next door would yell out the other four letter F word that won't get your mouth washed out with soap (at least so long as your telling the truth, and not just being an annoying little f/$k about it). From there, the look and feel of things would begin to make a smooth transition from real to less than true to life. It would start simple. Ralphie and his friends would look around, and notice fire coming from a nearby window. Someone would say something like, "Holy cow, is that <i>your</i> house"?! Ralphie would freak while the others are all thinking the same thing that one of them finally blurts out loud. "Cool, let's go see"! They all run towards our narrator's home, burst inside and are immediately enveloped in smoke. The only clear sound is Ralph's mother shouting for someone to call the fire department, and some very familiar muffled cursing coming from below in the basement. Naturally, Ralphie and his friends make a beeline for the ruckus.<p></p><p>We cut to a shot of the basement door opening, plumes of smoke wafting out. Ralphie and the gang all stand there, at the top of the stairs, framed in the light the doorway. Cut the the shot where reality transforms into something close to a flesh and blood version of a Warner Bros. cartoon. Something complete with the image of the Old Man, cussing a mile a minute as he tries to fend off a mutant killer version of the downstairs furnace. You just know Thomas's words are the kind of thing that a writer like Shepherd would take and then try to blow up to comical epic proportions. Not only is it the kind of writer he was in real life, it also kind of makes sense to pen such a scene in a way that corresponds to the near twice than life-size way the world and events might appear to a very young boy. This is an effect that Dylan Thomas is never really interested in, or goes for in his own recounting of this event.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZI3alxtQ6MU1IfhsxdOqljtlqdm62h76Rk4dcHV_GioKiJSKiWYNzFSERZ1HVncavWdxbD_fcYQ7-00Xg-0rOL72fEGCxs1K-1jbvL6HPA99qyJrkXaj0T04RycYoS_cEZ8beffG6LDHnR-upgGNXco1s4KN1rfWnRov6ez5mD0t7_cdQ5uDBTQDtNSG9/s1200/a-christmas-story-cast-then-now-1668619876.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZI3alxtQ6MU1IfhsxdOqljtlqdm62h76Rk4dcHV_GioKiJSKiWYNzFSERZ1HVncavWdxbD_fcYQ7-00Xg-0rOL72fEGCxs1K-1jbvL6HPA99qyJrkXaj0T04RycYoS_cEZ8beffG6LDHnR-upgGNXco1s4KN1rfWnRov6ez5mD0t7_cdQ5uDBTQDtNSG9/w640-h360/a-christmas-story-cast-then-now-1668619876.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Instead, it's almost as if he finds the truth of life as amusing enough in and of themselves. He has no need to try and transform the furnace into this hulking, mutant, fire-breathing dragon like a beast out of H.G. Wells in order to get the effect he needs. Granted, such an idea is awesome and hilarious as hell, and it's a shame we never got a visual treat like that to begin with. It would have brought the house down if done right. For all that, however, Thomas remains after a different sort of Yuletide game. It's the kind where you don't ever need to shout in order to get your point across. Instead, Dylan uses both his pen and the natural, imagistic lyricism of his own style to give and evoke in his readers that same sense of Childhood that he knew growing up as a boy. It's fair to say that Thomas's experience of the Holiday was very different from that of Shepherd. Not just geographically, but also culturally, in some fundamental ways. Shepherd tends to cast his memories of Christmas with the heightened viewpoint of a child growing up in the 1930s or 40s, and whose major stylistic influence is the Looney Tunes.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLPLl9BSiRzR0Fle-0mxk1fiSXn2zoMlqkAHq_78uelV3pp1z7yevRcg3SMpxR4g9poujW_CwzYKRBT7gzDiNPg6JeuFbSXQU9KvgTNZPJ53OhSyp5scuwlcXimoWujFBS5sTLNwU3WVyi539RJ68wJ_rRs7LLezT88NrrCkpCHO6fqVL6E9M3xQrfAITF/s1024/wpid-photo-201412242325394.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="797" data-original-width="1024" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLPLl9BSiRzR0Fle-0mxk1fiSXn2zoMlqkAHq_78uelV3pp1z7yevRcg3SMpxR4g9poujW_CwzYKRBT7gzDiNPg6JeuFbSXQU9KvgTNZPJ53OhSyp5scuwlcXimoWujFBS5sTLNwU3WVyi539RJ68wJ_rRs7LLezT88NrrCkpCHO6fqVL6E9M3xQrfAITF/w279-h218/wpid-photo-201412242325394.jpg" width="279" /></a></div>Thomas approaches roughly the same experience from the vantage point of a Welsh lad growing up in England somewhere either during or just before the First World War. It's left up in the air as to whether or not his folks could even afford a radio, much less whether or not the then new media device had made its way into most British households during what was still the early nineteen-hundreds. It's fair to say that whatever early childhood pastimes the young Dylan might have enjoyed, it didn't include the likes of Little Orphan Annie. No such prize possession as the infamous Parker "lampstand", either.<p></p><p>Instead, here is the writer describing the kind of gifts he could expect once the Big Day rolled around: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp, except why.'</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #484848;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #484848;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiobtKBzEuC1GdaIO8LCH12lDSpmKzt90etv26TmCv-3cWNdw3FM5Hwi2VnN9SM0kRwEwnwI6unq1somXX_GWoXBFjQlGkyRnhvIL8tVhs3IH4avbUVQMTF7DA6ZV3TQebb6G4KTWhphVO0Bb83dJSiej-3eenydkRkwIK25Gvm_-8VvjIRaN79z1Sb6Zom/s2000/childs-xmas-in-whales-1608667838.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="2000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiobtKBzEuC1GdaIO8LCH12lDSpmKzt90etv26TmCv-3cWNdw3FM5Hwi2VnN9SM0kRwEwnwI6unq1somXX_GWoXBFjQlGkyRnhvIL8tVhs3IH4avbUVQMTF7DA6ZV3TQebb6G4KTWhphVO0Bb83dJSiej-3eenydkRkwIK25Gvm_-8VvjIRaN79z1Sb6Zom/w640-h320/childs-xmas-in-whales-1608667838.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #484848;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br />"Go on to the Useless Presents.' </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches, cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who, if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall. And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And then it was breakfast under the balloons (ibid)".</span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQu1zZxfI7TCEye_a_P3j5c0jakJsm_4XgkBYZAqsmg6jRlhr_3Du58qQYYd1adhobEcqDXZGVkh5FOm8r4n_u2iu8nBLW-kq_DQAWUBn1szE7codSaXyjBcZMEGnjws5D1LV2RwJu_ZBA7pYPYDnqlEKdyjB5zZvinjZ_-0ca8ddTw8jLvwMQHYUchWI/s2560/64NKasFKx6aOTKRg4mv76l0IwZR-scaled.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1707" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQu1zZxfI7TCEye_a_P3j5c0jakJsm_4XgkBYZAqsmg6jRlhr_3Du58qQYYd1adhobEcqDXZGVkh5FOm8r4n_u2iu8nBLW-kq_DQAWUBn1szE7codSaXyjBcZMEGnjws5D1LV2RwJu_ZBA7pYPYDnqlEKdyjB5zZvinjZ_-0ca8ddTw8jLvwMQHYUchWI/s320/64NKasFKx6aOTKRg4mv76l0IwZR-scaled.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then there's different ways each author describes their relatives over the course of the Season. The Parker family and their surroundings seem meant to evoke a combination of the kind of small town Americana found in a Norman Rockwell illustration. With perhaps just the slightest touch, here and there, of the kind of the humor that would later go on to define <i>National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation</i>. If any of those elements are present, however, the volume is turned way, way down. Shepherd isn't here to highlight the failures and shortcomings of his parents and their generation the way John Hughes is in the Chevy Chase film. Instead, it's more about celebrating those memories proper, with just a few hints of good natured ribbing here and there. Once again, all of this can be found in Dylan Thomas's memoir. Though the mood still goes off on its own familiar direction.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Were there Uncles like in our house?' </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers (ibid)".</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #484848; font-family: inherit;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #484848; font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhciBem2AuBw5QFdzEdHbxXF00CL_VDExgi6susqcxoQ4UHKz8i0HbjnSVRG_984fxaEKDFnwqJiop-AOYjRlfSfNlMJ9wR6S66WeiSwUefz3V2M41fKZJ-ZFLvKqBtGFWPzTSh6okh678PTa6U3IXHEC1JPfa3SOgFcwsB0jifamxdQhGb3A9cR9tU8s2H/s1728/A+Christmas+Story+poster+by+DKNG.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1296" data-original-width="1728" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhciBem2AuBw5QFdzEdHbxXF00CL_VDExgi6susqcxoQ4UHKz8i0HbjnSVRG_984fxaEKDFnwqJiop-AOYjRlfSfNlMJ9wR6S66WeiSwUefz3V2M41fKZJ-ZFLvKqBtGFWPzTSh6okh678PTa6U3IXHEC1JPfa3SOgFcwsB0jifamxdQhGb3A9cR9tU8s2H/w640-h480/A+Christmas+Story+poster+by+DKNG.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #484848; font-family: inherit;"><br />Perhaps its now that we begin to get a better sense of the distinction between Thomas and Shepherd. The writer from Wales tends to be a bit more down to Earth than his American Midwest counterpart. There's plenty of jollity and humor to be had, yet the closest we ever get to the type of occasional slapstick that Shepherd peppers throughout his narrative is the vignette of the Fire at the </span><span style="color: #484848;">Protheros</span><span style="color: #484848;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Once that's done, however, there really isn't anything else like it. It's almost as if the writer wanted to get the antics out of the way first before focusing on the real heart of things. In which case, it sounds very much like Thomas put the Prothero family and their fire hazard </span>misadventures<span style="font-family: inherit;"> up first in order to help draw the reader into the memories he has to share. After that, everything tends to remain on a life-size scale. F</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">or the most part, at least. Much like Shepherd, Thomas is willing to add a touch of childhood Romanticism to what he can recall of his pre-teen years. Unlike the kind of fantasies a kid growing up in the American Heartland during the early 20th century might entertain himself with. Thomas's reveries and make believe tend to have distinct Old World flavor about them.</span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nH2fEddl0JEllYsRutg6Ms7JUw5FvVRv7ho4XRVVp82xF5MLlMH_b_YfZjydugC-5pgLzTRSqNzsitAR_FXCdKAWCpuBGht4dqXfxZd7rvQP2EQaTW4fJhqsOWgV1RmmWn1429SOetyOyuPnNLCG_vH7fX7hVCAH6pNSRQeIYhdds5I5Dcr_d0uwGcRt/s863/wpid-photo-201412242326315.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="692" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nH2fEddl0JEllYsRutg6Ms7JUw5FvVRv7ho4XRVVp82xF5MLlMH_b_YfZjydugC-5pgLzTRSqNzsitAR_FXCdKAWCpuBGht4dqXfxZd7rvQP2EQaTW4fJhqsOWgV1RmmWn1429SOetyOyuPnNLCG_vH7fX7hVCAH6pNSRQeIYhdds5I5Dcr_d0uwGcRt/s320/wpid-photo-201412242326315.jpg" width="257" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: 'It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.' </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">'But that was not the same snow,' I say. 'Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards (ibid)".</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">And now, perhaps not just the difference, but also the real nature of Thomas's memoir starts to become a bit more clear. None of the author's childhood fantasies are ripped from the pages of the American Pulp Story tradition, Old Time Radio shows, or Saturday Movie Matinees. Instead, we find Dylan drawing upon the realm of old school folklore for his own entertainment. Here's where I'm not real sure how American audiences might respond to such a literary mixture. We've been raised, as a Country, on the Ralph Parker ethos of the Holiday for so long that any deviation from the formula is bound to come off as strange to us. Perhaps its also telling that while Thomas's memoir of Christmas has achieved national treasure status in Isles, it remains something of an underdog here in the States. The good news in all this is there really is no cause for estrangement. Thomas's Holiday fantasies don't include Red Ryder, but instead the world of the Brother's Grimm, and a host of ancient and medieval Welsh and Celtic sagas. Thomas's childhood fantasies all take place in the settings of Victorian Romanticism.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi59wK5WaFt2gcJGumEteMVewLYqwOYHQ_QzceQhqBWzXUdPdiIHyQADjJuJ7ZpOTXQ1pLz0QV9_wIKD1leSUn6axbqARSMxcpDF0getcwumI5m-UbbVnOZi8Tk_QO1ixnmkUaRE9TymWFI20Dc66ilpfkBE9rzVbjLncqDkKMmsOX8UI2gB4E01fsrBIjy/s900/wales_header.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="900" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi59wK5WaFt2gcJGumEteMVewLYqwOYHQ_QzceQhqBWzXUdPdiIHyQADjJuJ7ZpOTXQ1pLz0QV9_wIKD1leSUn6axbqARSMxcpDF0getcwumI5m-UbbVnOZi8Tk_QO1ixnmkUaRE9TymWFI20Dc66ilpfkBE9rzVbjLncqDkKMmsOX8UI2gB4E01fsrBIjy/w640-h326/wales_header.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><br />All of the author's Christmas games and pretending, in other words, came and were drawn from the same Victorian storybook culture as that developed by Edith Nesbit, William Morris, King Arthur, and a host of other bards, minstrels, and tellers of tall tales whose names have been lost to time. This is what colors the nature of the fantasy elements in Thomas's memoir. At one point, he even exclaims: "</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the stairs and the gas meter ticked (ibid)". It's like Annis Pratts explains. "In his earliest poems", and even apparently near the very end of his life when this narrative Holiday essay was composed, "Thomas is in terror of the witches, vampires, devils, and damned who formed part of the folk tradition of South Wales". It's an influence the poet never really seems to have shaken off. And here, in what amounts to one of his final works, they seem to be brought on to take what amounts to one last, fond curtain call.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhilCoupNoUxmlV8d8nRwVGHlWu5Joezj50nrRwbym9CJAxUTLstpMO_oijmnhy3vT-hRL8zUs8pkeUJVTgD9Y-M4iSwSEcAAWM7-KqCitEntjHpHu8PYYYc_Xq5o7aNA6d26QLAsS4KdKL-55nlD2ReTNWVLiDmFfO9av3lxZt3x-Xclqakvl8-k5g90tB/s812/DSC_1038web-frm.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhilCoupNoUxmlV8d8nRwVGHlWu5Joezj50nrRwbym9CJAxUTLstpMO_oijmnhy3vT-hRL8zUs8pkeUJVTgD9Y-M4iSwSEcAAWM7-KqCitEntjHpHu8PYYYc_Xq5o7aNA6d26QLAsS4KdKL-55nlD2ReTNWVLiDmFfO9av3lxZt3x-Xclqakvl8-k5g90tB/s320/DSC_1038web-frm.jpg" width="252" /></a></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's moments like these that not only tell the difference between American and British Christmas </span></span><span style="color: #484848;">traditions. They also serve to give Thomas's words their well-blended mixture of fascinating novelty in conjunction with a strange sense of cozy familiarity. We've been to this setting before countless of times. Yet now we're being given a chance to see it from a different lens. It's the same Holiday, a lot of the same customs or Yuletide traditions. We're just not in the Yankee version of it anymore. For most of us, the British Christmas tends to stop and start at Charles Dickens <i>Carol</i>. All Thomas has done is give the reader an opportunity to take this same familiar department store mock-up, and bring it back to life in its own true dimensions. In doing so, he reveals to us a flesh and blood neighborhood very much like our own, with its families, its parties, and revelry. Dylan is also kind enough to give the reader a sense of what the pop culture of an older era was like. By showing how he and his friends relied on old world folklore to play their Christmas games, Thomas grants contemporary readers a window onto how children used to celebrate the Holiday long ago, once upon an actual time.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #484848;">In fact, the perceptive reader might just be able to take this knowledge a bit further, and realize this means such games and tall tales were most likely never confined to household of either Thomas or his childhood friends. Instead, it's much more likely that this was a pastime indulged in by children all across the Isles whenever the Yule Time rolled around again. All of them drew from the same well of folklore for their Holiday fantasies, and some of them, like Thomas, were able to take these old fables and put them to good use later on as literary professionals. In other words, it doesn't take long to realize sooner or later that someone like J.R.R. Tolkien might have played at either the very same or similar games as Thomas when he was young. Let that stand as the final demarcation point between Dylan's approach to the Holidays as opposed to that found in <i>A Christmas Story</i>. The Welsh poet is not content to leave things at the level of either humor or satire. Instead, his own literary instincts cause him to keep leading things further up, and further in from the mundane world into the very realm of myth.</span></p><p><span style="color: #484848;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #484848;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRP7omKbf06FJwT8LkQFQ5iRA6ro6mMOaHDq-ZWB5vKjwp5LTcCGm-_wBZsw7E23zE5c5wlVnzB27B4NaxZWh37u6I-9nbhcoD_obSovvONmrGLvWVxhubLqz8Hb0XWD0gywS74zg2R18Ht_rhMMePYdgrpwgdSPvhNxI1ii9MPQybh1LZAgN7MV9rfeiR/s328/A-Childs-Christmas-in-Wales2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="328" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRP7omKbf06FJwT8LkQFQ5iRA6ro6mMOaHDq-ZWB5vKjwp5LTcCGm-_wBZsw7E23zE5c5wlVnzB27B4NaxZWh37u6I-9nbhcoD_obSovvONmrGLvWVxhubLqz8Hb0XWD0gywS74zg2R18Ht_rhMMePYdgrpwgdSPvhNxI1ii9MPQybh1LZAgN7MV9rfeiR/w640-h452/A-Childs-Christmas-in-Wales2.png" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #484848;">This also seems to be a very deliberate move on Dylan's part. And it all goes back to what I said about his being a a Modernist inheritor of the Romantic Movement. Much as in poems like <i>Fern Hill</i>, Thomas uses his experience of both childhood and Christmas as events with a symbolic significance. Much like Wordsworth's <i>Prelude</i>, the later Welsh versifier begins to discern these opaque yet vivid moments of time that are, as someone else put it, "pregnant with significance". The value of such glimpsed timeless moments are things that Wordsworth began to give up on in later life. <i>A Child's Christmas in Wales</i>, by contrast, was among the next to last things Thomas ever composed before his untimely passing. Much like Wordsworth's most famous effort, it recalls the sense of thematic splendor, and the depth of the poetic reach and scope of <i>The Prelude</i>. And it becomes clear that whatever Wordsworth may have ultimately thought, his was a crisis that Thomas either avoided, or else, like Coleridge, was able to overcome. In many ways, Dylan's Christmas memoir serves as a prose companion piece to <i>Fern Hill</i>. Each work sees the author reaching back into his childhood in search of a lost sense of significance. In contrast to Wordsworth, Thomas both finds and is able to keep it.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #484848;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #484848;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FZ8aqsyJVXTV_83QVMzrRK69XpTHipg53MX9J2rIEKnS9J4lQI7xBVxLR4P-jlS768t4zA4OsXT_H5bMyQNR58oWidn24OEXNeG5wpssp3_ZpLkvWYXRRnzePmEvLPviaFynQjT9TYD7ngqsJ3TNXnR0HIc3UrsPn11EsRjBgIAcCqo4t37vk_WyTclB/s640/4db2c752f7da28c79103194073fcd059.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="406" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FZ8aqsyJVXTV_83QVMzrRK69XpTHipg53MX9J2rIEKnS9J4lQI7xBVxLR4P-jlS768t4zA4OsXT_H5bMyQNR58oWidn24OEXNeG5wpssp3_ZpLkvWYXRRnzePmEvLPviaFynQjT9TYD7ngqsJ3TNXnR0HIc3UrsPn11EsRjBgIAcCqo4t37vk_WyTclB/s320/4db2c752f7da28c79103194073fcd059.jpg" width="203" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #484848;">Examining the finished product as a whole, therefore presents us with a memoir that's also something of an interesting dichotomy. Much like it's creator, <i>A Child's Christmas in Wales</i> is a text that serves as both inheritance and bridge. It has one foot firmly planted within the same Romantic Movement as that of Wordsworth and Coleridge. In a sense, it is able to both honor the legacy of poems like <i>The Prelude</i>, while at the same time giving it the sense of completion that the earlier great work ultimately lacked. It is this aspect that allows the memoir to have the sense of a long ago promise finally being met, kept, and fulfilled. At the same time, it's other foot isn't just situated in the future. It's more that the poet was able to blaze a new trail all of his own with just a simple autobiographical fragment about what a child's life was like during the Holidays. I can't be certain at all Jean Shepherd has ever read a word of Dylan Thomas. With that caution noted, however, it is the <i>Wales</i> memoir that has gone on to make nostalgic lookbacks such <i>A Christmas Story</i> possible even in the first place. Odds are even we wouldn't have the story of Ralphie Parker or a literal Yuletide host of others if not for this one seasonal salvo from one of the key, yet overlooked literary architects of the 1960s. It is perhaps the most influential Xmas gift.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #484848;">I'm not sure if this is the same as saying that we wouldn't have gotten to enjoy <i>How the Grinch Stole Christmas</i> without Thomas's efforts. However, it's a safe bet that guys like John Hughes might not have had as much to draw from when it came to their own memories of the Holiday. And so it all seems to be owed to this one B side of a Caedmon poetry record. It was the first Christmas single, and the initial impetus for later efforts in a similar vein. Taken within the context of the seasonal tradition is seems to have single-handedly helped establish, Dylan's informal essay has to stand as a piece of unheralded pioneer work. One that set the template for Christmas memories to come. Taken on its own, the best news of all is that the whole thing is able to work as both a nice piece of childhood nostalgia, as well as perhaps the closest we'll ever get to a final farewell from one of the great poets of the 20th century.</span></p><p><span style="color: #484848;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #484848;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD6yaR5uHnk3g9pPLfDgrouUvF4ey-WjKx6MEYrtwRiw2Qf2U-rKeaJUKAD1g-4SNJd0UH42PR_U2EAYGDCt8ibtnzIiBspzXgVQCcCRIrGJ0g8ZFPnObeqZaYfLrd9gymFeA8bWDouPTLJJCavU4S5bleVh_4J_szWWGVLFcEANVUsEIG2KUe5m1xzPJX/s470/trina-schart-hyman-frontispiece-(from-a-childs-christmas-in-wales-by-dylan-thomas).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="287" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD6yaR5uHnk3g9pPLfDgrouUvF4ey-WjKx6MEYrtwRiw2Qf2U-rKeaJUKAD1g-4SNJd0UH42PR_U2EAYGDCt8ibtnzIiBspzXgVQCcCRIrGJ0g8ZFPnObeqZaYfLrd9gymFeA8bWDouPTLJJCavU4S5bleVh_4J_szWWGVLFcEANVUsEIG2KUe5m1xzPJX/s320/trina-schart-hyman-frontispiece-(from-a-childs-christmas-in-wales-by-dylan-thomas).jpg" width="195" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #484848;">Thomas is able to look back on his boyhood experience of the Holiday with just the right amount of rueful tenderness without ever really succumbing to the kind of later saccharine platitudes that artists like Shepherd and Hughes would go on to both parody and write against. On that score, Thomas is able to keep his own efforts outside of the target line. He does this by being willing to both acknowledge and take a glance at some of the less rosier things that can happen to a kid, even at the happiest time of the year. These include incidents such as running across the remains of that "</span>dead bird by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out<span style="color: #484848;"> (ibid)". Or else there's the brief, yet knowing aside about "</span>Auntie Hannah, who liked port<span style="color: #484848;">", and who, when she got a bit too well into the wine for her own good "</span>stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush<span style="color: #484848;"> (ibid)". Thomas presents this image with just the right mixture of humor and knowing regret. He's able to love one of his relatives, while also hinting at personal problems that perhaps should never have been indulged in to begin with, and that might have held her back.</span><span style="color: #484848;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="color: #484848;">Then there are the strange hints of darkness hanging about the edges of town. The kind of thing that can mark a boy's life. These are the odd bits of life that a child might catch snippets of without ever quite knowing the meaning of right away. It's not until maturity kicks in that the memory of the event itself begins to hint at either sadder, or darker meanings. Though even here, the full import of those fleeting glimpses remains a mystery. "</span>Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always,
fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this time of year, with spats of
snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back,
as he would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes
two hale young men, with big pipes blazing, no overcoats and wind blown
scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up
an appetite, to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves
until nothing of them was left but the two furling smoke clouds of their
inextinguishable briars (ibid)". It's in moments like these where Dylan's prose and description almost begin to match that of James Joyce's recollection of growing up in Dublin.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTMTC2NxrhrTtQ6d8cF6T8UVgI2eF2a4gRsmcKKC3XfLRqSAdvRheJQKMh_4iS2rVVcRY_i8aHZFmBPbL2eYtzsrW08V-Wcm_m4RlfCguBSHd5XPIcnO49vFXwpMFkltrDJhjLf-4lxALq_VXeDsRtIMYy8y14Ase4mXMLNoqWKpPXJrRV1RwlhhU2Jlur/s750/THE-CHRISTMAS-TREE.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="750" height="514" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTMTC2NxrhrTtQ6d8cF6T8UVgI2eF2a4gRsmcKKC3XfLRqSAdvRheJQKMh_4iS2rVVcRY_i8aHZFmBPbL2eYtzsrW08V-Wcm_m4RlfCguBSHd5XPIcnO49vFXwpMFkltrDJhjLf-4lxALq_VXeDsRtIMYy8y14Ase4mXMLNoqWKpPXJrRV1RwlhhU2Jlur/w640-h514/THE-CHRISTMAS-TREE.webp" width="640" /></a></div>The difference is that Thomas never carried anywhere near the same amount of hang-ups about his Welsh boyhood as Joyce did about his Irish one. It's true both authors spent their later years making up with their respective pasts. Thomas, however, never found all that much reason to look back in anger, the way the creator of <i>Finnegan's Wake</i> did. Instead, like Springsteen, Thomas notes the darkness on the edge of town, and then is able to breath a sigh of relief. Because both he and his family managed to never let it touch them all that much. They were either lucky or blessed, in that sense. It matters little which terms you used to describe it. The important part is that unlike Ralph Parker, the clueless Clark Griswold, or even the desperate and confused Stephen Daedalus, Dylan the Younger is able, unlike Wordsworth, to grasp, know, and realize the full value of having a functional childhood, and an equally capable family life that allowed him the time and the space necessary to enjoy it in. These are all the ways in which <i>A Child's Christmas in Wales</i> is able to set itself apart from the recollections that came both before and after in its artistic wake. It's a prose poem about the fulfillment of Romantic Promise, all encapsulated at the best possible season of the year. For these and all of the other reasons excavated above, it wins a well earned recommendation. It's one of the best works to read for a Merry Christmas. <br /><p></p></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-46760398335815741822023-12-03T00:02:00.001-06:002023-12-07T21:52:01.409-06:00The Princess and the Hedge Pig by E. Nesbit (1912).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfk9PX1SQR96x64Sbm_KHphzl-tdJNuSnbHnIzRcJhe0RnHfpCzuddSJJxHfJhXdWqQubxSqTeTNbxNhiOlyKROkmPpjawf1_B1xVskMZ7o74IE60eZoRfbqUpCaHXhDIj7aHoLTb0ZfiPcO7RnvwcA3pcAKog9CoXMZn1nEdyasE1OFqjkiUEL4X5ZMt/s1000/41FDrkXzswL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="620" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfk9PX1SQR96x64Sbm_KHphzl-tdJNuSnbHnIzRcJhe0RnHfpCzuddSJJxHfJhXdWqQubxSqTeTNbxNhiOlyKROkmPpjawf1_B1xVskMZ7o74IE60eZoRfbqUpCaHXhDIj7aHoLTb0ZfiPcO7RnvwcA3pcAKog9CoXMZn1nEdyasE1OFqjkiUEL4X5ZMt/s320/41FDrkXzswL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>The trouble with books is that they fall through the cracks. Sometimes this is because either the writing, the story itself, or both are of such a low quality that it doesn't have much choice except to sink like a stone right out of the starting gate. Those kinds of volumes are the ones that are forgotten with good reason. What about the ones that don't deserve such as fate, however. What about all well written stories by any fair number of competent to flat out good tellers of tales? I wish I knew how many of us don't just read books, but also take the time to remember the actual contents of the volume we've just poured through. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the hypothetical number can be whittled down to something like 10 out of 90 percent of the populace at any given time in history. I'm not real sure this is an age that encourages reading, much less critical thought. And so reading has become an accidental specialist hobby. Something that's always at the mercy of an unreliable pop culture memory. We're no longer talking about bad books that deserve to be forgotten now. Instead, it's more a question of good works never getting their fair dues, even if they have their moment in the spotlight. As a result, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise if there's a lot of book titles and authors out there that slip through the cracks of memory.<p></p><p>A name like Chris Van Allsburg, for example, might have just the faintest hint of familiarity, yet odds are even most of us can never recall why. We might pick up on some kind of vibe that tells us, "I know that person from somewhere, don't I? He did..."? and that's about as far as it goes. Not necessarily because that's outcome we're looking for. It's just the best you can do once it hits us that we sometimes don't pay as much attention to good writing as we should. As a result, names like Stephen King and R.L. Stine amount to household words, while writers like Allsburg or Richard Matheson are stuck as brief flashpoints of half-remembered familiarity. There at the edge of our recollection for an instant, then gone without a trace. It therefore falls to the more die-hard bookworms out there to remind everyone else that a writer like Allsburg was the man responsible for given us <i>The Polar Express</i>. On a related (and ironic) note, however, how many people know Stephen King is responsible for the film <i>Stand By Me</i>? Come to think of it, who wrote <i>Jumanji</i>? This is what I mean when I say books are at the mercy of memory. It's what happens when even good stories aren't given a chance to shine.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPutULzCPk4D53EFedBnEYX4Ab9O4imZ-JIKhS_Hm969GAui16hN8sPGvF04Tb6dObLMN9y5RnwN75AjXy4oas58VTtDUFhP1-RyKfuIDJ6TN_vaiqi2x5mQtmWwRgBLtw92mxYf5tyMbyL51z381V8A0d0dA1UfdyAi0uZo_dRzmFoIfCTzCRhdLnrfTf/s654/polar_003.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="654" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPutULzCPk4D53EFedBnEYX4Ab9O4imZ-JIKhS_Hm969GAui16hN8sPGvF04Tb6dObLMN9y5RnwN75AjXy4oas58VTtDUFhP1-RyKfuIDJ6TN_vaiqi2x5mQtmWwRgBLtw92mxYf5tyMbyL51z381V8A0d0dA1UfdyAi0uZo_dRzmFoIfCTzCRhdLnrfTf/w640-h274/polar_003.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />A talented scribbler like Allsburg is just one example of this phenomenon. He's the case of a Name that's in danger of slipping into obscurity. His achievements remain popular, while the creator himself seems perched on the tip edge of that precipice oblivion where pop-culture memory begins to lose its grip. When that happens, it is possible to have a career resurrection. However, that can take time and effort, though it is still not impossible. All that's required is one of two things. It's either the help of a site like this, which dedicates itself to re-excavating the forgotten great names of the past. Or else the neglected writer can create their own comeback with a stellar literary performance that puts their name back on the top shelf. Since I'm no storyteller myself, I'll have to just go with the first option. Chris Van Allsburg is one of those names who might have to earn an article for himself on this site sooner or later down the line. Right now, I'd like to focus the spotlight on another name that doesn't deserve to be forgotten. If Allsburg remains on the tip of the tongue, then Edith Nesbit seems to be the kind of name where the average audience member has no choice except to ask me who or what on Earth am I even talking about? I'm thinking, right now, of a children's author who should be rediscovered.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFrXrSQkBeAfpDYrrnZKZG_qzacofsYi3FCJzq52xek-5od_Nk04uySwrAgTnQghjhQjFrkqLA-QZUjl2V8D1eUpG0I9SPmIVn-xK0uwdEdCZIcAEXYsynaalkU1_W8nDVSoq_9TmnsHTzXbZmAUdnRED0pSOTItpSmcG2tWLH6X0CRu9ZzdjEyUHCRW8/s445/edith-nesbit.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="273" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhFrXrSQkBeAfpDYrrnZKZG_qzacofsYi3FCJzq52xek-5od_Nk04uySwrAgTnQghjhQjFrkqLA-QZUjl2V8D1eUpG0I9SPmIVn-xK0uwdEdCZIcAEXYsynaalkU1_W8nDVSoq_9TmnsHTzXbZmAUdnRED0pSOTItpSmcG2tWLH6X0CRu9ZzdjEyUHCRW8/s320/edith-nesbit.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>Perhaps the best way to describe her is that she stands as the literary great grandmother of guys like Allsburg. She's the one who wound up creating all the templates and story devices that made works like <i>Jumanji</i> and <i>The Polar Express</i> possible. It's a mistake to claim she did it all in a vacuum. Coming of age in the same era that gave us the likes of Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, and Rudyard Kipling, I think it's fair to say that Edith had a bit of help in pioneering the children's story as we now have it to this day. However, she seems to have been the great synthesizer the sub-genre was looking for. She was the author who came along at the right place and time and began to help put the finishing touches on the mold that the <i>Mowgli</i> and <i>Alice</i> books would both belong and fit into. In other words, she's the writer who helped define the nature of the modern children's story as we know it. Perhaps the best testament to her half-forgotten status is the sketchy, patchwork quality to what little critical commentary there is on her efforts. Which is quite the way to treat the co-founder of a literary tradition. Every useful scrap of information about Edith and her art is fitful and incomplete.<p></p><p>A scholar like Marcus Crouch, however, is able to grab hold of at least one handful of truth when he explains that, "No writer for children today is free of debt to this remarkable woman...(Being) content in the main to make good stories out of the recourses of her experience and her imagination, she managed to create the prototypes of many of the basic patterns in modern children's fiction. The three books about the Treasure Seekers are the form foundations of all our family comedies. In her 'Five Children' stories she initiated the comedy of magic applied to the commonplaces of daily life, and in <i>The Enchanted Castle</i> she showed how poetic and comic fantasy might be blended. Her Arden books are, with Kipling's, the pioneers of the 'time' element theme in historical reconstruction; and even <i>The Railway Children</i>...has...fostered a host of other tales of family fortunes and misfortunes (16)".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazHmNWSTF1gNZzMQhBzNBdzR2It_aGaFDUbc92r8NdyuKExfhdYB5FUF6Un2IuQEazdi1p6TeM1STzVLw2P9abMZaER1DAo5oZqx4vgwZTpwzGebRVRI0wi89URh4_1b-nPj3CuOLb7aHjVSfHaQjjpIW4hAyHA7GqXJ2pE-y8U3qOpkdLlxhtiLH_I0V/s1920/d3htqmn-9770e9bd-49b4-4520-8a47-0e52b8ddfb56.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazHmNWSTF1gNZzMQhBzNBdzR2It_aGaFDUbc92r8NdyuKExfhdYB5FUF6Un2IuQEazdi1p6TeM1STzVLw2P9abMZaER1DAo5oZqx4vgwZTpwzGebRVRI0wi89URh4_1b-nPj3CuOLb7aHjVSfHaQjjpIW4hAyHA7GqXJ2pE-y8U3qOpkdLlxhtiLH_I0V/w640-h360/d3htqmn-9770e9bd-49b4-4520-8a47-0e52b8ddfb56.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Perhaps a better way to illustrate Crouch's main idea might to highlight all the ways that Nesbit has managed to leave a series of invisible fingerprints all throughout some of the best regarded entertainment we still enjoy today. How about if we turn to a list of beloved films from the 80s? You know that stuff with films like <i>Stand By Me,</i> <i>The Karate Kid</i>, <i>Ferris Bueller</i>, and <i>The Breakfast Club</i>? All of them can trace their DNA back to books like <i>The Treasure Seekers</i>. What about that inexplicable yet somehow iconic run of Fantasy/Sci-Fi Adventure movies we had back then? The kind that were often geared toward children, and yet wound up being fun for audiences of all ages, when they weren't (or maybe even because they in fact were) grade-A nightmare fuel, remember? <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2rSBPgLCjeYD-NAHN0KZI3gkJ7EM2RHGWyEwlaNPbb-tM0AtF3i1stfz_dKdGKuvoKv-fBkodGhq_takbe3de5Gl9w7Cy2RZMd-8Qzcn59pdLzhv8VivmaFoFfDZ3PMEFzd2Hmj1ldGgrToN2LvzRicykHarOteAOHxSM8HNGJf0e-32f1iv3dZw1a9h/s475/45183.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="297" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2rSBPgLCjeYD-NAHN0KZI3gkJ7EM2RHGWyEwlaNPbb-tM0AtF3i1stfz_dKdGKuvoKv-fBkodGhq_takbe3de5Gl9w7Cy2RZMd-8Qzcn59pdLzhv8VivmaFoFfDZ3PMEFzd2Hmj1ldGgrToN2LvzRicykHarOteAOHxSM8HNGJf0e-32f1iv3dZw1a9h/s320/45183.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>It was stuff like <i>Secret of Nimh</i>, <i>The Land Before Time</i>, <i>Labyrinth</i>, <i>An American Tail</i>, and especially stuff like <i>Gremlins</i> and <i>The Goonies</i> in particular. Not to mention cinematic adventure yarns like the aforementioned <i>Jumanji</i>? Or how about a lot of the clever kids oriented Science Fiction flicks we had back then? What about <i>Flight of the Navigator</i>, <i>Explorers</i> and <i>Back to the Future</i>? What's interesting is that you can take the vast majority of elements that go to make up those films (even down to details such as character, theme, or plotting) and trace all of them back to works like <i>The Phoenix and the Carpet</i>, and <i>The Story of the Amulet</i>. The commonality of all these books is their author, E. Nesbit.<p></p><p>I suppose a more simplified way of saying it is to claim that there is a very real sense in which Edith is E.T.'s long forgotten great grandmother. The one element that all those 80s films just listed have in common is that, like Nesbit's stories, the plots tend to focus on a child or group of young adult protagonists going off and having adventures on their own. Often times these adventures would center around encounters with the fantastic and the supernatural in the form of encounters with otherworldly beings and creatures. At other times, they could involve trips through different historical periods, which could sometimes lead to an expansion of the main character's outlook on the world and their own place and context within a grander scheme of existence. And when all else fails, you could get a series of good, slice-of-life stories about children slowly coming of age through the various inevitable adversities that most of us meet along the road of life. These include moving to a new neighborhood, dealing with the regular passage of time, making and losing friends, dealing with bullies, or even just those one chance encounters that can still go on to shape your future in ways you couldn't even imagine at first.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKSaILFE1xhbCgcAs1Xgc4yihFtHkA1Y1fB4sr3xtRifx0QC2jueFrlAefmq2Q-ZOmDvy-ufekq9E6KvlMOoN16GCSpakWKsip0hk7w3bHMKNPHlH5kUEjTpudgZxSw2vuSnpK-cIT2c9FuUPFPBlqkAvHN4N8WCAFPIoJMWeK_7MXD3ruMw2BswOGTb1/s2880/scale.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="2880" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKSaILFE1xhbCgcAs1Xgc4yihFtHkA1Y1fB4sr3xtRifx0QC2jueFrlAefmq2Q-ZOmDvy-ufekq9E6KvlMOoN16GCSpakWKsip0hk7w3bHMKNPHlH5kUEjTpudgZxSw2vuSnpK-cIT2c9FuUPFPBlqkAvHN4N8WCAFPIoJMWeK_7MXD3ruMw2BswOGTb1/w640-h360/scale.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />While all of the scenarios I've just described applies to just about every 80s movie ever made, they can also be found in Nesbit books like <i>The Wouldbegoods</i>, <i>The House of Arden</i>, and <i>The Magic City</i>. All of which is to say that when Marcus Crouch called Edith a trendsetter, anyone who bothers to pick up any of her Children's Fantasy oriented works and read them will soon begin to see that he's being dead serious. All of the 80s movie tropes that we've come to love today got their initial start within the pages of Victorian children's novels, and E. Nesbit was the author who wound up planting all of the now identifiable flags and story markers that we have in turn inherited from her, and kept alive throughout the centuries. In all of this respect, perhaps another good way to describe her is as a kind of gender-flipped version of Steven Spielberg, except she works in the book trade. While such a basic introduction might give readers a beginner's idea of who Edith was, it still doesn't answer the most important question. Is her work any good? What do the stories of an old Edwardian kid's writer have to offer 21st century audiences? I think a look at one of Edith's own short stories can helps us here.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><b>A Story that is and isn't Familiar.</b></div><div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcL0RDYrXuscZ2uReWLxJ6HO-ReG4qXITJlkReQurJKrVsF_bpAS7jfqjLVZ5sA9G4K-wxdOBrybV1O9e3YBO9ixvWcBs9Gv5G62-um-7V4l4t8Ao-a0e9AN-hDCvIGpzz_y165vDRHtj9952xX5ta_NU3J4zDs1l2jghIQFIPKXtI8O4mJecLi0V13OE/s1000/61r+-GLFiHL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcL0RDYrXuscZ2uReWLxJ6HO-ReG4qXITJlkReQurJKrVsF_bpAS7jfqjLVZ5sA9G4K-wxdOBrybV1O9e3YBO9ixvWcBs9Gv5G62-um-7V4l4t8Ao-a0e9AN-hDCvIGpzz_y165vDRHtj9952xX5ta_NU3J4zDs1l2jghIQFIPKXtI8O4mJecLi0V13OE/s320/61r+-GLFiHL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Stop me if you've heard this before. Once upon a time there was a King and Queen, and one day they had a daughter. She was a sweet tempered girl, even as an infant, and her proud parents were more than ready to dote on her. They were also looking forward to throwing a party in celebration of the birth of the new Princess. There was, one obstacle in the way, however. <p></p><p>"Misfortune comes in many ways, and you don't always know beforehand that a certain way is the way misfortune will come by: but there are things misfortune comes after as surely as night comes after day. For instance, if you let all the water boil away, the kettle will have a hole burnt in it. If you leave the bath taps running and the waste=pipe closed, the stairs of your house will, sooner or later, resemble Niagara. If you leave your purse at home, you won't have it with you when you want to pay your tram-fare. And if you throw lighted wax matches at your muslin curtains, your parent will most likely have to pay five pounds to the fire engines for coming round and blowing the fire out with a wet hose. Also if you are a king and do not invite the wicked fairy to your christening parties, she will come all the same. And if you do ask the wicked fairy, she will come and in either case it will be the worse for the new princess. So what is a poor monarch to do? Of course there is one way out of the difficulty, and that is not to have a christening party at all. But that offends all the good fairies, and then where are you (83-84)". Right about now, you may be thinking that you've heard or seen this story before.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJZyY12cJfpxbM6Lv135Nzm22cqXOZzCisf_s6eko0hqT9nCBffCP6q9heTxkMysGo_-2fwsy2LOBEAHTpabjjc9GHNDd8Kn3vpuVfMd-JG5ir9SdQnzuv8BUZJMbw-pcaRiKxytpNARAJ7SO-kUlOEkawlQ8M5Wj1YTidQqyHVp1Fm7IPWZRcOMzVcKu/s1600/s-l1600.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1179" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJZyY12cJfpxbM6Lv135Nzm22cqXOZzCisf_s6eko0hqT9nCBffCP6q9heTxkMysGo_-2fwsy2LOBEAHTpabjjc9GHNDd8Kn3vpuVfMd-JG5ir9SdQnzuv8BUZJMbw-pcaRiKxytpNARAJ7SO-kUlOEkawlQ8M5Wj1YTidQqyHVp1Fm7IPWZRcOMzVcKu/s320/s-l1600.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>And in a way, you're right. Any fan of the original animated film catalogue made by Walt Disney will tell you that the setup Nesbit has described is almost the exact same opening dilemma from the studio's 1959 adaptation of <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>. In fact, it almost sounds like all of the original cast members are here, tucked away in an unassuming short story collection for kids. You've the the King and Queen, the Princess, and the sense of familiarity doesn't stop there. Let's go back to Edith's narration and see how many faces in the cast of characters you can recognize. "<span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">The Queen’s plan was carried out. The cellars, which were really extraordinarily fine, were secretly decorated by the King’s confidential man and the Queen’s confidential maid and a few of </span><i style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">their</i><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;"> confidential friends whom they knew they could really trust. You would never have thought they were </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">cellars when the decorations were finished. The walls were hung with white satin and white velvet, with wreaths of white roses, and the stone floors were covered with freshly cut turf with white daisies, brisk and neat, growing in it. </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">The invitations were duly delivered by the baker’s boy. On them was written in plain blue ink,</span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘</span><span class="smcap" style="font-family: serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">The Royal Bakeries</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;">1 loaf 3d. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">An early remittance will oblige.’</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">And when the people held the letter to the fire, as they were whisperingly instructed to do by the baker’s boy, they read in a faint brown writing:—</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">‘King Ozymandias and Queen Eliza invite you to the christening of their daughter Princess Ozyliza at three on Wednesday in the Palace cellars. </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">‘</span><i style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">P.S.</i><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">—We are obliged to be very secret and careful because of wicked fairies, so please come disguised as a tradesman with a bill, calling for the last time before it leaves your hands.’ </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">You will understand by this that the King and Queen were not as well off as they could wish; so that tradesmen calling at the palace with that sort of message was the last thing </span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">likely to excite remark. But as most of the King’s subjects were not very well off either, this was merely a bond between the King and his people. They could sympathize with each other, and understand each other’s troubles in a way impossible to most kings and most nations. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX1PmjWVI6l0e0H-SwEU7fp_rXm9QHP0gzRachAappqCpaEdph86BTc5yLzEEtGdbYf7Bqp9KKtnRLFF1h3oVEmekJr43ycVKj6xv0kaY8SFhCihDhAdlX1RMZLuLFdmHRrvyFYd9GbJuo7OhX4YrV5OI98FREdW3ctbISdUALzASevRRqDueeELwETs5w/s640/e36b9d82beb28417722c8987020b3a6f--beauty-illustration-book-collection.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="640" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX1PmjWVI6l0e0H-SwEU7fp_rXm9QHP0gzRachAappqCpaEdph86BTc5yLzEEtGdbYf7Bqp9KKtnRLFF1h3oVEmekJr43ycVKj6xv0kaY8SFhCihDhAdlX1RMZLuLFdmHRrvyFYd9GbJuo7OhX4YrV5OI98FREdW3ctbISdUALzASevRRqDueeELwETs5w/w640-h474/e36b9d82beb28417722c8987020b3a6f--beauty-illustration-book-collection.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />"</span></span><span style="font-family: serif;">You can imagine the excitement in the families of the people who were invited to the christening party, and the interest they felt in their costumes. The Lord Chief Justice disguised himself as a shoemaker; he still had his old blue brief-bag by him, and a brief-bag and a boot-bag are very much alike. The Commander-in-Chief dressed as a dog’s meat man and wheeled a barrow. The Prime Minister appeared as a tailor; this required no change of dress and only a slight change of expression. And the other courtiers all disguised themselves perfectly. So did the good fairies, who had, of course, been invited first of all. Benevola, Queen of the Good Fairies, disguised herself as a moonbeam, which can go into any palace and no questions asked. Serena, the next in command, dressed as a butterfly, and all the other fairies had disguises equally pretty and tasteful.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJj4fcdsHBVUU0_GTJcHJ12G07lkWMUWdI1mekwGQ3lVUb8qhArpAgfAZGeDDOTZK4w4AyViYSLz4iEpwpMs9GMAVHfeM8vppUwG2agvn_Tei4UsOo_Lm4iepOtsGiw7BoFZXk2lJaXAvc_EP_uEBRpIE4F1QyrrwrUix1yDtoQLQNQVexEJuFTtmOVNq/s750/e46787ad5edd96214003f48ae7ae6463.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="498" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJj4fcdsHBVUU0_GTJcHJ12G07lkWMUWdI1mekwGQ3lVUb8qhArpAgfAZGeDDOTZK4w4AyViYSLz4iEpwpMs9GMAVHfeM8vppUwG2agvn_Tei4UsOo_Lm4iepOtsGiw7BoFZXk2lJaXAvc_EP_uEBRpIE4F1QyrrwrUix1yDtoQLQNQVexEJuFTtmOVNq/s320/e46787ad5edd96214003f48ae7ae6463.jpg" width="212" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">The Queen looked most kind and beautiful, the King very handsome and manly, and all </span><span style="font-family: serif;">the guests agreed that the new princess was the most beautiful baby they had ever seen in all their born days. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Everybody brought the most charming christening presents concealed beneath their disguises. The fairies gave the usual gifts, beauty, grace, intelligence, charm, and so on. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Everything seemed to be going better than well. But of course you know it wasn’t. The Lord High Admiral had not been able to get a cook’s dress large enough completely to cover his uniform; a bit of an epaulette had peeped out, and the wicked fairy, Malevola, had spotted it as he went past her to the palace back door, near which she had been sitting disguised as a dog without a collar hiding from the police, and enjoying what she took to be the trouble the royal household were having with their tradesmen. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Malevola almost jumped out of her dog-skin when she saw the glitter of that epaulette. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘Hullo?’ she said, and sniffed quite like a dog. ‘I must look into this,’ said she, and disguising herself as a toad, she crept unseen into the pipe by which the copper emptied itself into the palace moat—for of course there was a copper in one of the palace cellars as there always is in cellars in the North Country. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Now this copper had been a great trial to</span><span style="font-family: serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: serif;">the decorators. If there is anything you don’t like about your house, you can either try to conceal it or ‘make a feature of it.’ And as concealment of the copper was impossible, it was decided to ‘make it a feature’ by covering it with green moss and planting a tree in it, a little apple tree all in bloom. It had been very much admired. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Malevola, hastily altering her disguise to that of a mole, dug her way through the earth that the copper was full of, got to the top and put out a sharp nose just as Benevola was saying in that soft voice which Malevola always thought so affected,—</span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘The Princess shall love and be loved all her life long.’</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsAUy7fVYeliVObsNbLbZgj-P6TXmI_S53zBp_SwZxkFHtteDjBXXmQjt2wTG752X5DuIRkJsoIZj7ItHBB-Vl6lkpzPvtt0wOzeWJANqjUnwVeQ-Cc8jQdmQucv0rGukg9-3R11fPw9MyEA1e5juV8CUZ384CbCMeV0Pq_RgWD8ggW0rPRNezcKk15N-z/s600/233b4169edd7a0580841010fac8c4354.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsAUy7fVYeliVObsNbLbZgj-P6TXmI_S53zBp_SwZxkFHtteDjBXXmQjt2wTG752X5DuIRkJsoIZj7ItHBB-Vl6lkpzPvtt0wOzeWJANqjUnwVeQ-Cc8jQdmQucv0rGukg9-3R11fPw9MyEA1e5juV8CUZ384CbCMeV0Pq_RgWD8ggW0rPRNezcKk15N-z/s320/233b4169edd7a0580841010fac8c4354.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>"</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">‘So she shall,’ said the wicked fairy, assuming her own shape amid the screams of the audience. ‘Be quiet, you silly cuckoo,’ she said to the Lord Chamberlain, whose screams were specially piercing, ‘or I’ll give</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="text-align: justify;">you</i><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">a christening present too.’ </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">Instantly there was a dreadful silence. Only Queen Eliza, who had caught up the baby at Malevola’s first word, said feebly,—</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">‘Oh,</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="text-align: justify;">don’t</i><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">, dear Malevola.’ </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">And the King said, ‘It isn’t exactly a party, don’t you know. Quite informal. Just a few friends dropped in, eh, what?' </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">‘So I perceive,’ said Malevola, laughing that dreadful laugh of hers which makes other people feel as though they would never be able to laugh any more. ‘Well, I’ve</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">dropped in too. Let’s have a look at the child.’ </span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;">The poor Queen dared not refuse. She tottered forward with the baby in her arms.</span><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: justify;"> </span></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘Humph!’ said Malevola, ‘your precious daughter will have beauty and grace and all the rest of the tuppenny halfpenny rubbish those niminy-piminy minxes have given her. But she will be turned out of her kingdom. She will have to face her enemies without a single human being to stand by her, and she shall never come to her own again until she</span><span style="font-family: serif;"> </span><span class="nw" style="font-family: serif; text-wrap: nowrap;">finds——’</span><span style="font-family: serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Malevola hesitated. She could not think of anything sufficiently unlikely—‘until she finds,’ she</span><span style="font-family: serif;"> </span><span class="nw" style="font-family: serif; text-wrap: nowrap;">repeated——</span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘A thousand spears to follow her to battle,’ said a new voice, ‘a thousand spears devoted to her and to her alone.’ </span><span style="font-family: serif;">A very young fairy fluttered down from the little apple tree where she had been hiding among the pink and white blossom.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">I am very young, I know,’ she said apologetically, ‘and I’ve only just finished my last course of Fairy History. So I know that if a fairy stops more than half a second in a curse she can’t go on, and some one else may</span><span style="font-family: serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: serif;">finish it for her. That is so, Your Majesty, isn’t it?’ she said, appealing to Benevola. And the Queen of the Fairies said Yes, that was the law, only it was such an old one most people had forgotten it. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘You think yourself very clever,’ said Malevola, ‘but as a matter of fact you’re simply silly. That’s the very thing I’ve provided against. She </span><i style="font-family: serif;">can’t</i><span style="font-family: serif;"> have any one to stand by her in battle, so she’ll lose her kingdom and every one will be killed, and I shall come to the funeral. It will be enormous,’ she added rubbing her hands at the joyous thought. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfubbqJpUmdoCHJq4gfvRGCK8LsyXTb-TPdr6VoayA7fslkqcN4TlnYmx-OYbIIPIMs0wyheFnchZqtGyh-owiahDk9ljokObWla7eWAoeqZPiwmEjpf3iQEp8YmFZOb-aSyYt_TN3J0yD6hS28kqBWYCU7kAnmbjZP3ummd_SQq4ft0k0hOn0l6Nhc8Kz/s3298/375e471fa8bdc9ed07a0c5daba4b4646.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1289" data-original-width="3298" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfubbqJpUmdoCHJq4gfvRGCK8LsyXTb-TPdr6VoayA7fslkqcN4TlnYmx-OYbIIPIMs0wyheFnchZqtGyh-owiahDk9ljokObWla7eWAoeqZPiwmEjpf3iQEp8YmFZOb-aSyYt_TN3J0yD6hS28kqBWYCU7kAnmbjZP3ummd_SQq4ft0k0hOn0l6Nhc8Kz/w640-h250/375e471fa8bdc9ed07a0c5daba4b4646.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘If you’ve quite finished,’ said the King politely, ‘and if you’re sure you won’t take any refreshment, may I wish you a very good afternoon?’ He held the door open himself, and Malevola went out chuckling. The whole of the party then burst into tears. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘Never mind,’ said the King at last, wiping his eyes with the tails of his ermine. ‘It’s a long way off and perhaps it won’t happen after all.’ But of course it did (ibid, 86-91)".</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><b>The True Art of the Subversive Fairy Tale.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN3tkw9uG9O5fqOKGEXLqvOvMefEZoSqezFhu4-afLnPE6NAoDLE0BBI1FjvHwCi82enHCdaF_KDu3J3CqBbjxCwxf1xm8SNjueMWY9rn79Sy7h19b848hHiORjdOEFOPl7U9lZ0i829OvduGG0IQbccekfnPWQ15gRjiprdhhHPg4djuY_JJ_fnbUtyny/s500/51pwXYOJN5L.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN3tkw9uG9O5fqOKGEXLqvOvMefEZoSqezFhu4-afLnPE6NAoDLE0BBI1FjvHwCi82enHCdaF_KDu3J3CqBbjxCwxf1xm8SNjueMWY9rn79Sy7h19b848hHiORjdOEFOPl7U9lZ0i829OvduGG0IQbccekfnPWQ15gRjiprdhhHPg4djuY_JJ_fnbUtyny/s320/51pwXYOJN5L.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">Like I said, the first thing Edith's story reminded me of was the Disney version of <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>. In fact, the resemblances between that movie and "The Princess and the Hedge Pig" are so striking that I've sort of begun to wonder if it's at all possible that Walt might have cribbed at least the initial inciting incident for the opening of his film. I don't know how strange a claim that is to make. Though I have discovered for a fact that it wouldn't be at all surprising for Walt to do something like that. It turns out the ruler of the Mouse Kingdom was never averse to taking inspiration from the written word if he realized it could be an asset in the making of his animated features. This is something Kathy Merlock highlights in the introduction to her edited collection of scholarship, <i>Walt Disney</i>: <i>From Reader to Storyteller</i>: <i>Essays on the Literary Inspirations</i>. It's here that she notes, "Disney enjoyed reading, and he understood the elements of a good story. This insight into narrative structure provided the basis of Disney's success in his films, and, later, his television series and Disneyland theme park. As Disney once told interviewer Ted Sears, "I honestly feel that the heart of our organization is the Story Department. We must have them all worked out." </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"Not surprisingly, books provided important source material for some of Disney's best-known films, both animated and live-action, and his cinematic versions had a remarkable impact on popular reading, especially for children. Many of the tales Disney chose to film went on to become the most read books in America, eventually becoming literary classics (1)". I think Merlock has done us old school Disney fans a bit of a service here. Because it really does seem that the one element which keeps getting lost in the shuffle of commentary on Walt's endeavors is his skills as a reader of good literature. Turns out that's not something even his most die hard fans have bothered to associate with him. Even if the proof of this is sometimes staring them right back in the face with movies like <i>Peter Pan</i> or <i>Mary Poppins</i>. Perhaps this remains the final unexplored aspect of his career. The final frontier of the old kingdom being its use as a storehouse of sometimes great literature. All this sounds like a great topic to discuss another day, however. Aside from all that, the main point for this article is the sometimes downright eerie levels of family resemblance to be found between Edith's short story and Walt's animated film.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE3GFN5aWA0RH6QpCVcFLCbbXsImVpGJ06s4i4gA2Q6W4Bn1rt8s3brJzToU6b_M673rqlXITFuDhCMGED66Oas1zDjPc1BG55nLbHho6WaHk2pbXQJmO3MZpGClm6AEHeno9CgAeMfMF4dN0GxCvcsfUdb10ROkdLxThsSSGCAriHvv1_9shGrzm4lgxp/s1000/71N+G24sb3L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE3GFN5aWA0RH6QpCVcFLCbbXsImVpGJ06s4i4gA2Q6W4Bn1rt8s3brJzToU6b_M673rqlXITFuDhCMGED66Oas1zDjPc1BG55nLbHho6WaHk2pbXQJmO3MZpGClm6AEHeno9CgAeMfMF4dN0GxCvcsfUdb10ROkdLxThsSSGCAriHvv1_9shGrzm4lgxp/s320/71N+G24sb3L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="224" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">This can be traced out in just how many of Nesbit's plot beats are copied in the finished movie. There's the setup of a royal family wanting to celebrate the birth of a child while hoping to avoid the attention of the wrong company. Each story features a series good fairies who are invited to the christening of a new born baby girl. Even down to one of the characters materializing in a shaft of light from a high window. Last yet not least is the almost copy and paste nature of the Princess having a series of gifts bestowed upon her by her elemental guests. This plot point even appears to have been copied up to the youngest spell caster being the one to grant the main character her one wish or gift that proves vital in averting the worst possible outcome. Then, of course, you have to stop and consider just how alike the two wicked fairies are, even down to their very names. It's not too great a stretch of the imagination to go from a title such as Malevola to Maleficent. Because of all these moments that jump out at the reader, it's difficult not to come away with the impression that you've stumbled on a lost discovery.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"The Princess and the Hedge Pig" was a children's short story gathered together along with a handful of others for Nesbit's 1912 collection anthology, <i>The Magic World</i>. Disney himself, meanwhile, was born in 1901, making him either twelve or eleven years old when Edith released her book. It also means he would have been about twenty-three when Edith finally passed away in 1924. Walter Elias Disney, therefore, can be said to have lived during the final years of the great Victorian Romantics such as Nesbit, Kipling, Twain, J.M. Barrie, and Conan Doyle. Twenty-three years is more than enough time to have your Imagination come under the influence of all of these creators. To have your basic outlook on life molded by them, and in turn reflect that influence back to a worldwide audience in a newly created medium of animated cartoons. It's easy for me to imagine Disney picking up his own personal copy of Edith's <i>Magic World</i> and falling under her spell. Then, in turn, reading it to his own children as a father later on, and the text leaving one of those either buried or surface influences that Walt would later go on to use as a springboard for his twentieth animated feature. If any of this is true, then I don't think you can call it plagiarism. This is just the normal case of one artist being inspired by the work of another.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFr1wZNIb4q0bAQv3zoEuOPEegztXuhZSCRw5TctH8w22t1uWiDj2xFKDioYIWc51BRN1vq06YMZrNEVF0W8CHPQWNy4EAx3EoOD22ZJsSwTAJjVgBTfD1pLL27wTtiVSO0B7resgj705KEBv-lVB_PjSgvID6RKa68B5XDrCdXm1p28RtTNIOTdNrUK-6/s800/sleeping-beauty-original-concept-painting-briar-rose-216380_800x.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="800" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFr1wZNIb4q0bAQv3zoEuOPEegztXuhZSCRw5TctH8w22t1uWiDj2xFKDioYIWc51BRN1vq06YMZrNEVF0W8CHPQWNy4EAx3EoOD22ZJsSwTAJjVgBTfD1pLL27wTtiVSO0B7resgj705KEBv-lVB_PjSgvID6RKa68B5XDrCdXm1p28RtTNIOTdNrUK-6/w640-h286/sleeping-beauty-original-concept-painting-briar-rose-216380_800x.webp" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />While it's neat to point out all the similarities that exist between Edith's short story and Walt's movie, it also should be kept in mind that there comes a point at which both narratives diverge into their own thing. Nesbit's story branches off in its own direction once you get past the shared setup. It's also sort of the point at which the source material begins to outshine the movie, if I'm being honest. It's still interesting to note how well the opening act matches up to Walt's movie, though. Because in a way it kind of serves as a template that you can measure Edith's story against. To start with, rather than sending his daughter away, and destroying every sowing spindle in the kingdom: </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAn6-TtxkB5b1i9EZHY43vgM7-HYgtuKjs2hTpOjW1zAKSo5AbLE4iJcL5cxj-HFh2aPE0y6nEABeOH9OG_xoSG5b0YUAcdHDrNPutwNp04JvUnQ5dJVxS2nE8iDkGHj43FL4JTvCZklXIvdvzIuUV3Kv-EZuprrrC3RVfLHvtDVjnDC27u5cCtgv7l6h/s944/0_fhU3pYMHybkWYixg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="944" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAn6-TtxkB5b1i9EZHY43vgM7-HYgtuKjs2hTpOjW1zAKSo5AbLE4iJcL5cxj-HFh2aPE0y6nEABeOH9OG_xoSG5b0YUAcdHDrNPutwNp04JvUnQ5dJVxS2nE8iDkGHj43FL4JTvCZklXIvdvzIuUV3Kv-EZuprrrC3RVfLHvtDVjnDC27u5cCtgv7l6h/s320/0_fhU3pYMHybkWYixg.jpg" width="203" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">The King did what he could to prepare his daughter for the fight in which she was to stand alone against her enemies. He had her taught fencing and riding and shooting, both with the cross bow and the long bow, as well</span><span style="font-family: serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: serif;">as with pistols, rifles, and artillery. She learned to dive and to swim, to run and to jump, to box and to wrestle, so that she grew up as strong and healthy as any young man, and could, indeed, have got the best of a fight with any prince of her own age. But the few princes who called at the palace did not come to fight the Princess, and when they heard that the Princess had no dowry except the gifts of the fairies, and also what Malevola’s gift had been, they all said they had just looked in as they were passing and that they must be going now, thank you. And went (91-92)". It starts to get less familiar from here on in. Just to recap, we have what amounts to a rough draft sketch of the opening to the Disney version, and yet as things go on, there's no spinning needle, and the curse placed on the main character is way different. Edith's version of Maleficent's evil spell comes about this way.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: serif;">And then the dreadful thing happened. The tradesmen, who had for years been calling for the last time before, etc., really decided to place the matter in other hands. They called in a neighbouring king who marched his army into Ozymandias’s country, conquered the army—the soldiers’ wages hadn’t been paid for years—turned out the King and Queen, paid the tradesmen’s bills, had most of the palace walls papered with the receipts, and set up housekeeping there himself. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Now when this happened the Princess was away on a visit to her aunt...half the world away, and there is no regular post between the two countries, so that when she came home...</span><span style="font-family: serif;">and arrived at her own kingdom, she expected to find all the flags flying and the bells ringing and the streets decked in roses to welcome her home. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Instead of which nothing of the kind. The streets were all as dull as dull, the shops were closed because it was early-closing day, and she did not see a single person she knew (92)". And so now we come to the two major differences between Nesbit's short story and the Mouse House movie. Not only are certain characters and plot threads never picked up again (a topic we might have to circle back to, later on), the most notable aspect of Edith's story is how the title Princess remains an active player in the story.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif; text-align: left;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcFMFb6BrdWutam-2B7S9OQeg42YxbPLRKaULYS4jd59KznwmsNYkvW-B9qCBVLwA_bBF6I9JNbb7EsKsnv6Dn10gxjM3acYf2mjbF3Ihrzi5VufbLfUMDLWQXsNP9p-fSXZ4G59E7eT0UyD13WVBQdbrCW7h8iXj6qC1Fz4G_DFCjMOp8c2JH4pr0ayS2/s2048/sleep.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcFMFb6BrdWutam-2B7S9OQeg42YxbPLRKaULYS4jd59KznwmsNYkvW-B9qCBVLwA_bBF6I9JNbb7EsKsnv6Dn10gxjM3acYf2mjbF3Ihrzi5VufbLfUMDLWQXsNP9p-fSXZ4G59E7eT0UyD13WVBQdbrCW7h8iXj6qC1Fz4G_DFCjMOp8c2JH4pr0ayS2/w640-h400/sleep.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Throughout the narrative's runtime, Liza is a girl who maintains a constant sense of agency when it comes to determining the actual shape and events of the plot. It should be noted this is something even Walt struggled with, and yet this problem is nowhere evident in Edith's version of the legend. Instead, what the reader is given amounts to kind of a breath of fresh air. Yes, Ozyliza counts as a Strong Female Character. The difference, in contradistinction to the current futile efforts to checkmark this trope at the Box Office, is that Edith knows what those words mean. As a result, this means she doesn't get caught up shooting herself in the foot. There's no sense of trying to impress us with a false idea of female empowerment which just rings hollow, and serves to shackle women more than it promotes them. Instead, this version of Not Sleeping Beauty is able to first work her way out of a hostile environment that used to be her home, and then locate and reunite with her exiled parents. It's here that Nesbit's particular brand of satirical wit is able to shine through in a way that will most likely be able to sound a winning note to 21st century audiences who are familiar with the cliches of folklore.<p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiud2JqxZou0TYThflNASVB5Z856_fNDUCPRPBAzHDJz2p9QkWXYX7X1oTtnRvOZ1Ys-luKt7XaOosZ85_F528A-wCKbGO2P8wh0kGYVgx7QcmwCGgcncBe1uu5UXQdYb9wNGSv2c8jJvGr_UWIaGTQWrP0Jn4oIzZHh86zHFq-Nw3e_q97hJYcl7L7FgWm/s370/260px-Dornr%C3%B6schen.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="260" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiud2JqxZou0TYThflNASVB5Z856_fNDUCPRPBAzHDJz2p9QkWXYX7X1oTtnRvOZ1Ys-luKt7XaOosZ85_F528A-wCKbGO2P8wh0kGYVgx7QcmwCGgcncBe1uu5UXQdYb9wNGSv2c8jJvGr_UWIaGTQWrP0Jn4oIzZHh86zHFq-Nw3e_q97hJYcl7L7FgWm/s320/260px-Dornr%C3%B6schen.jpg" width="225" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">Edith writes of how Ozyliza fairs after leaving her own kingdom, "</span><span style="font-family: serif;">looking everywhere for her father and mother, and, after more adventures than I have time to tell you, she found them at last, living in quite a poor way in a semi-detached villa at Tooting. They were very glad to see her, but when they heard that she meant to try to get back the kingdom, the King said: </span><span style="font-family: serif;">‘I shouldn’t bother, my child, I really shouldn’t. We are quite happy here. I have the pension always given to Deposed Monarchs, and your mother is becoming a really economical manager.’ </span><span style="font-family: serif;">The Queen blushed with pleasure, and said, ‘Thank you, dear. But if you should succeed in turning that wicked usurper out, Ozyliza, I hope I shall be a better queen than I used to be. I am learning housekeeping at an evening class at the Crown-maker’s Institute.’ </span><span style="font-family: serif;">The Princess kissed her parents and went out into the garden to think it over. But the garden was small and quite full of wet washing hung on lines. So she went into the road, but that was full of dust and perambulators. Even the wet washing was better than that, so she went back and sat down on the grass in a white alley of tablecloths and sheets, all marked with a crown in indelible ink (97-97)".</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">I don't know why, but there's something about the way the writer draws her characters, and the situation they find themselves in that just makes it all work. I think part of the reason for this might be because of the clear fun Edith has indulging in a bit of droll role reversal. We are treated to a picture of <i>the</i> members of <i>a</i> Ruling Class reduced to the level of near paupers, and rather than feeling tragic, she's able to paint the scene in all the right broad strokes that let's us know it's okay to share a bit of good natured laughter at the event because we're sort of meant to. It all stems from seeing a group of stuck-ups brought to a clear and hard won sense of humility after a lifetime of shoddy national management. This is a theme that can be found running through all of Nesbit's Fantasy fiction. She was blessed with a deft hand for taking well aimed and executed jabs at the economic and social inequalities of the Victorian Age in which she was born. Nor is this a case of biting the hand that fed her, either. Instead, it's really more a case of following in the literary footsteps of writers like Swift, or Charles Dickens.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSy3qTxZ-QQYuRphR6BPGQeIoQGX-YyMeBZS9BHBfAzFfKPpfYt1uaCGO3IlilV_6xTP3Uv4saeF8evb6jc62Q2g74ynpzcvmhtbH9AgPfdzl-NhfAf2SpvS3OSIyo5lkJuuT_rdmSLsanyYi3-GA4kHz7_Cw4Iqom80Ucd-1GAEqCxsFhvqneGWalEhPW/s768/8ff89cfb4327c63b066265121241dd570d868eb1_2000x2000.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSy3qTxZ-QQYuRphR6BPGQeIoQGX-YyMeBZS9BHBfAzFfKPpfYt1uaCGO3IlilV_6xTP3Uv4saeF8evb6jc62Q2g74ynpzcvmhtbH9AgPfdzl-NhfAf2SpvS3OSIyo5lkJuuT_rdmSLsanyYi3-GA4kHz7_Cw4Iqom80Ucd-1GAEqCxsFhvqneGWalEhPW/w640-h426/8ff89cfb4327c63b066265121241dd570d868eb1_2000x2000.webp" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />One of the things that marks Edith out so well in the field of Victorian Romanticism is that she was one of the first major women writers who was unafraid to poke the British Empire itself, and point out how the monarch never really wore any real fancy clothes to begin with. A lot of that is on display with Ozyliza and her family. Yet what marks out even this bit of satire is that the author is willing to extend an olive branch to her targets. Her indirect belief stated throughout the short story seems to be that even fools can make a crooked path straight, <i>if</i> they are willing to make such choices, and live with them. With this idea in mind, it tends to make sense that Liza is of a better, more enlightened character than either of her parents. She's more willing to acknowledge that she's been a participant of a poorly handled monarchy, and that maybe she should have even spoken up when certain policy disasters could have been averted. What makes Liza such a strong character, even as a Princess, isn't how perfect she is. Instead, it's the story of a flawed person who nonetheless has a great deal of contrasting character strengths, and who is ultimately willing to use those positive traits to both better not just her situation, yet also herself as well. It's this greater perspective on human nature that marks out Edith's as the smarter example of how to draw well crafted, three dimensional woman in imaginative fiction.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaLWhUL_Rz7YH_5f1QGhSTAbNVoBItcCVhma3yDMwsFmkyA_xnJj-39ZhmmnAbKEbIOQ5e23TkGN2-BlSctfWIiUzhMsssD_fTmCUpXFE8PjX5K8j59SDpsjBzu4mHaeHrZaNqjWZ_LoFKj6lHSxSTPiZRBnFGchZctY-UV0sf-xa8VV1MifGz2HHlvTie/s1495/il_1080xN.2646156809_rt3j.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1495" data-original-width="1080" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaLWhUL_Rz7YH_5f1QGhSTAbNVoBItcCVhma3yDMwsFmkyA_xnJj-39ZhmmnAbKEbIOQ5e23TkGN2-BlSctfWIiUzhMsssD_fTmCUpXFE8PjX5K8j59SDpsjBzu4mHaeHrZaNqjWZ_LoFKj6lHSxSTPiZRBnFGchZctY-UV0sf-xa8VV1MifGz2HHlvTie/w158-h219/il_1080xN.2646156809_rt3j.jpg" width="158" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">Needless to say, the Princess winds up being able to save the day, and reclaim her throne and kingdom. The way she goes about this is perhaps the one plot element to leave spoiler free. Suffice to say, this is where the other title character, the Hedge Pig comes into play. The good news is I was able to come away entertained from this one. And all of it has to do with both Edith's skills as a writer, and the way she chooses to approach her material. The content of her best work is comprised of all the most famous or prototypical characters, settings, creatures, items, and events from the world of folklore. In other words, Nesbit's natural playing field is in the realm of myth. Her particular talent in this domain lies in finding all the right obtuse angles that will give her work its own peculiar identity. This is the part that's surprisingly difficult to explain. There's a quality to Edith's work that so peculiar that the trouble is knowing how to describe it. You can try and point to any one element, yet it's not a real explanation.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">For instance, you can highlight how Edith's main character works as a subversive riff on the traditional fairy tale, or even Disney Princess formula. However, this is just one element of the writer's toolbox, and isn't enough of an explanation on its own. Ozyliza, for instance, is the kind of Fantasy character who is now considered the most popular way of handling female characters in a Fantasy setting, yet her entire narrative overall seems to belong more to the world of the Brother's Grimm. Nesbit populates even her imaginary realms with characters whose personalities resemble more of the people you could meet just about anywhere in real life, rather than the abstracted, ethereal personalities that dot the landscape of Spenser and William Morris. She's even willing to play fast and loose with the precise nature and location of her secondary worlds. One minute Liza's kingdom sounds like the kind of place that can only exist in storybooks. The next minute she's living in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooting">a real life district of South London</a>. The Princess is the victim of a curse, like Sleeping Beauty, yet her approach to solving her problem always tends toward the practical, and commonsense, solving the issue by becoming a governess.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mNZlMjL1wI8Bt83md6kzsaPXOkBZMPr6Txo2jw2ZCu3C5v1KlNPB1cIM2eXUwuLCHZ86Z9NPdDZfPSeXRiWbgpfY1yzJQpWUVjX5RIVNf0wSVfY-IajN8vJoakKqm38B7tlD_bF5UBivRCQtfERHcBwiIARY9bJ2KaJ3Rrpy6DfBxwjj7m1kUDZCoiyQ/s1330/1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="827" data-original-width="1330" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mNZlMjL1wI8Bt83md6kzsaPXOkBZMPr6Txo2jw2ZCu3C5v1KlNPB1cIM2eXUwuLCHZ86Z9NPdDZfPSeXRiWbgpfY1yzJQpWUVjX5RIVNf0wSVfY-IajN8vJoakKqm38B7tlD_bF5UBivRCQtfERHcBwiIARY9bJ2KaJ3Rrpy6DfBxwjj7m1kUDZCoiyQ/w640-h398/1.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />That last plot point, for instance, might help bring us closer to a real definition of Edith's fairy tales. While the hero resorts to the stereotypical trope of using a disguise to win back her crown, there's this lingering sense that Liza has a learned a certain comfort in living among us commoners. The fairy tale goal of reclaiming the rightful heritage still remains, and is achieved in the end. However, the key fact about this ending that Edith highlights isn't the accomplishment itself. Rather, her focus remains on the Princess's character, for lack of a better word. Liza may be a member of the Grimm's Stock Company, and yet it's clear by the time the credits roll that we're dealing with a changed trope. You can't shake the idea that Liz might now be just as comfortable living in a reasonably cozy flat in Kensington Garden, or Soho Square; even with both her realm and family restored to her. It's here where I think we can get the closest to an accurate description of what Nesbit is up to with her particular brand of Fantasy. She takes as keen an interest in the magic, enchantment, and adventure of secondary worlds as Tolkien did with his. It's just that she tends to use them as reflections of the more modern sensibilities and dilemmas of her characters.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfoJ0VafJEQvHAnA9MEAzvRbrVhNyGQWNZBfSb0Ed8PByl2dFVgG9DkqEBcWhj34dAZsJZhymBsTsaNf4pmxjHY1czlu0fz0tPMQOkOeKoKLFw143M1U73vHW8JhZhJijcNVRiS6b7alaTtJrPFIwdDWGxkaESu_O9j-sDeHnOEo010fBX0t9InpskmKYC/s1350/272108630_4240435622722497_2889698701200475110_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfoJ0VafJEQvHAnA9MEAzvRbrVhNyGQWNZBfSb0Ed8PByl2dFVgG9DkqEBcWhj34dAZsJZhymBsTsaNf4pmxjHY1czlu0fz0tPMQOkOeKoKLFw143M1U73vHW8JhZhJijcNVRiS6b7alaTtJrPFIwdDWGxkaESu_O9j-sDeHnOEo010fBX0t9InpskmKYC/s320/272108630_4240435622722497_2889698701200475110_n.jpg" width="256" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">This seems to account for a lot of the contemporary feel of her best fairy tales. They manage to take place in what is ostensibly a realm of myth, while also managing to somehow make it all seem grounded in the concerns of everyday reality. It's not hard to imagine a current day version of Liza, for instance, supplementing her meager exile's income by taking a temp job in the tech sector somewhere. Thus treating the audience to the deliberate satirical dissonance of say, catching Snow White or Sleeping Beauty hunched over a computer at a desk working on a software troubleshooting headache. It's the kind of setup you expect more from a show like <i>Disenchanted</i>, or even a <i>Fractured Fairy Tales</i> segment straight out of <i>Rocky and Bullwinkle</i>. And perhaps it marks Edith </span><span style="font-family: serif;">Nesbit out as a writer who achieves the rare feat of being a story teller whose fiction is both ancient and contemporary all at once. She writes with a deft humorist's hand, and this gives all of her best works its clear, buoyant air of irreverence mixed well together with a sense of childlike wonder that accompanies a lot of the best fairy tales. What this leaves us with is the picture of an author who might have to be described as a trail-blazer of sorts. Her ability to apply a twist of satirical humor to the prototypical setup and tropes of the Fantasy genre might qualify her as </span><i style="font-family: serif;">Shrek</i><span style="font-family: serif;">'s long forgotten grandmother. At the same time, it also points out the ways in which Edith can be described as still way ahead of her present inheritors. And I think the fortunes and maybe even the hidden historical meanings of the <i>Shrek</i> films can help here. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">The initial <i>Shrek</i> franchise is built on the premise of mocking not just the structure and tropes, but also the entire existential framing of (not just Disney, in and of itself, but also, in addition) what might be termed the underlying philosophies of fairy tales in and of the themselves (or at least as much of it as artists and audiences were capable of grasping, or thinking they understood). By contrast, <i>Puss in Boots</i> seems very much like a film trying to find its way back to the very same roots it once tried to reject. This gives me a notion that I'm somewhat curious about. I think it helps to remember that the initial <i>Shrek</i> films came out at the same time period that saw the beginnings of powerhouse cable series like <i>The Sopranos</i>, <i>Mad Men</i>, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, and last yet not least, <i>Breaking Bad</i>. It may sound counter-intuitive, yet adding the original adventures of the Big Green Ogre to that roster <i>might</i> just help to grant a better sense of perspective on the kind of mindset that was animating all of these otherwise disparate endeavors. All of the cables series were dark, nihilistic explorations of the breakdown of the American psyche throughout the various social strata of society. If you put the adventures of Walt, Tony, and Don together, it's almost like watching the same character lose their minds up the ladder.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo2cH-qCMNggDfEiv_l_gsp6O76MFvZ-oxXwnzKz87j0s4DloBvVw-4fD0E5dKkRhBCRLjYAXSipxXMjArpaT988EOJ6Zv49uG1VrcGvELOLXmVWBKwMeRX8MDBmn_gbE8D1Q3V9fXOSZ6uuCD3_U0BMSRhW-j27GytNpNvW0hKSbJxHDadF42TNygAaol/s850/desktop-wallpaper-westeros-map-game-of-thrones-map.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="850" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo2cH-qCMNggDfEiv_l_gsp6O76MFvZ-oxXwnzKz87j0s4DloBvVw-4fD0E5dKkRhBCRLjYAXSipxXMjArpaT988EOJ6Zv49uG1VrcGvELOLXmVWBKwMeRX8MDBmn_gbE8D1Q3V9fXOSZ6uuCD3_U0BMSRhW-j27GytNpNvW0hKSbJxHDadF42TNygAaol/w640-h534/desktop-wallpaper-westeros-map-game-of-thrones-map.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now I'm starting to wonder if it perhaps makes sense to view the escapades not just of Westeros, but also of the Far, Far Away as this same obsession with the nihilistic upending of story conventions and their frameworks as part and parcel of the same drive that created shows like <i style="font-family: serif;">The Wire</i><span style="font-family: serif;">. Except now we get a chance to see what results it produces in the Fantasy genre, both for adults and, ostensibly, kids. If there's any merit to the idea, it still helps to notice the shift that's taken place since then. I guess the polite way to sum up a lot of difficult recent history is by saying we've had plenty of opportunity to see what happens we you try to apply the kind of </span><i style="font-family: serif;">Breaking Bad</i><span style="font-family: serif;"> philosophy to real life current events. That way lies the madness of January 6, and the like. Therefore perhaps this helps explain a lot of the reasons for why our pop-culture mindset seems to be trying to make a kind of desperate transition away from the gritty realism of a </span><i style="font-family: serif;">Boardwalk Empire</i><span style="font-family: serif;"> back to the kind of places dreamt of by Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas. If there's any truth to these further surmises, then what it tells me is the story of a society that is near ready to try and see if it can return to an enchanted frame of mind.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi662rJgzQt_cBoD1PwfdTFGU_qK1RMfCAjLsJV6FuETwmd9RQVgCBocb0ZLs8c4pu1-WTeocS8yWTmXDuBkWGJb0-EJJJMaGhfmWmsgHVm-gVLOfNlI9YqRvJG_bu-d_cEWF38wGkyBFD7m5w6OIxGupjgQr2ceS40p3TEXFgZteugXovh3kI_HrmR3QHW/s1154/MV5BNjMyMDBjMGUtNDUzZi00N2MwLTg1MjItZTk2MDE1OTZmNTYxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQ5NjA0NDM0._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="760" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi662rJgzQt_cBoD1PwfdTFGU_qK1RMfCAjLsJV6FuETwmd9RQVgCBocb0ZLs8c4pu1-WTeocS8yWTmXDuBkWGJb0-EJJJMaGhfmWmsgHVm-gVLOfNlI9YqRvJG_bu-d_cEWF38wGkyBFD7m5w6OIxGupjgQr2ceS40p3TEXFgZteugXovh3kI_HrmR3QHW/s320/MV5BNjMyMDBjMGUtNDUzZi00N2MwLTg1MjItZTk2MDE1OTZmNTYxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQ5NjA0NDM0._V1_.jpg" width="211" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">We appear to be trying to make our way back to a form of outlook somewhere beyond disenchantment. Granted, it seems clear this desire has met and continues to meet with a great deal of obvious struggle in recent years. The best witness of this being <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3917612005522287441/4472580778550571272">the misguided attempt to tack on the <i>Breaking Bad</i> mentality into settings where it doesn't belong</a>. If two philosophies just can't mix, then it's obvious that one or the other will have give way sooner or later. That's almost like basic science 101. For my own part, I think current events have left me at the point where I'm ready to wonder if it's still possible to live long prosper again. A film like <i>Puss in Boots</i> could signal at least a tentative step in the right direction. And it could be possible that a writer like Nesbit is just the writer to help us achieve such a goal. The way this could come about is by recognizing how her fantasies can speak to our own age once again. It's no lie to claim that her stories contain the literary genetics for a story like Shrek's. At the same, focusing in on just the snark and satire to the exclusion of all else is kind of self-defeating. It sort of misses the forest for the sake of just a few trees, and those aren't even the main features.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">Nesbit was the kind of writer who was always willing to hurl a well deserved barb at more than one target or two. Nor was she afraid of taking multiple swipes at people or topics that she felt had earned it. At the same time, it's a mistake to claim that this was all that her repertoire amounted to. It seems as if not only does an extreme, narrowisitc focus on the nihilistic aspects of life, and the desperate need to "get back at <i>them",</i> lead to often unhealthy outcomes. It also sells the talents and capabilities of a writer like Nesbit a bit short as well. It runs the risk of having her accomplishment of being one of the first women authors to create genuinely strong female characters (girls who didn't stay confined to the damsel in distress role, and who, like the title character of today's article, took an active role in being the heroes of their own story) ignored entirely. It also doesn't take into account the artist's larger thematic goals as a writer of Fantasy. The truth is Nesbit is the kind of writer whose work is both able to anticipate, and at the same time surpass the kind of entertainment provides by of the <i>Shrek</i> films.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3GzX76OJTxyDQXcIYZhlxm8wizT9zcSUQgFTueQEH9LzqOPAUkf-tO-0KC4EAJdyiH8PMiSDJ_v5-qBSV-K2iaSAHydiM1gi9PScXFrnMSGU9Tmh5XJZkK9AsueJtoEQqfxS33h1lkPQ3XC67fiDQwCgai2OT8kU4ok7vGqT7kMVxXRWSMIlmUA4M34ER/s1200/CDNII_CDML_DH111-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="1200" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3GzX76OJTxyDQXcIYZhlxm8wizT9zcSUQgFTueQEH9LzqOPAUkf-tO-0KC4EAJdyiH8PMiSDJ_v5-qBSV-K2iaSAHydiM1gi9PScXFrnMSGU9Tmh5XJZkK9AsueJtoEQqfxS33h1lkPQ3XC67fiDQwCgai2OT8kU4ok7vGqT7kMVxXRWSMIlmUA4M34ER/w640-h492/CDNII_CDML_DH111-001.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />Her work is always reaching higher than any of the jokes or gags you can see in any of the Far Away installments. Granted, this is also the part where the greater complexity of an artist's work becomes difficult to sum up in just one article. That's more of the proper thing to excavate one review of her stories at a time. If that sounds like too much work, the only defense I've got is that the best writers are worth it more often than not, and Edith sure as hell qualifies in this case. So while I can't hope to sum up the meaning of her artistry all at once here, I can at least point toward various ideas and literary inspirations that come close to her overall meaning. One of these artistic sources turns out to be none other than Charles Dickens. He's helpful in excavating part of Nesbit's meaning not because he's is anywhere close to being the key the unlocks the nature of her art for others. It's more to do with him being able to help us get a better read on Edith's thought process in general, and how this can apply to the story of Princess Ozyliza in particular. Besides, it's kind of fitting for this specific time of the year. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3C9jccfDRGvai_ecR3O1OOAs2o2y3rbvdc2gx3A2KWF6CMVhWRP2qu0aYVwzuwppxsRHcHtj5APcAPix6qfN0XH7dYPRhy6wM7wUhpBdZYRHk-alZCELy3UnJzi7nR23nq0-dhzA3FihuLQXtyjcBRvbI4aKJLODJhkaCHQw5lEunQbDHIyCyOsdtpf0P/s630/+-+7862319856_400.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3C9jccfDRGvai_ecR3O1OOAs2o2y3rbvdc2gx3A2KWF6CMVhWRP2qu0aYVwzuwppxsRHcHtj5APcAPix6qfN0XH7dYPRhy6wM7wUhpBdZYRHk-alZCELy3UnJzi7nR23nq0-dhzA3FihuLQXtyjcBRvbI4aKJLODJhkaCHQw5lEunQbDHIyCyOsdtpf0P/s320/+-+7862319856_400.jpg" width="203" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">Here is where I'm indebted to the work of Jan Susina. </span><span style="font-family: serif;">In a <a href="https://archive.org/details/enesbitspsammead00raym/mode/2up">collection dedicated to the themes of Nesbit's Fantasy fiction</a>, she notes how a constant vantage point of Edith's work is "the technique of "using the child's viewpoint to pierce the disguising forms of adult conventions and pretensions", and how this method of satirical attack "was acquired from Dickens. The juxtaposition of the contemporary world and the magical" which Edith uses with a curious, yet seamless trademark flair in the story of Princess Liza and her Curse, "can also be traced back to" literary conventions found in the author of the <i>Christmas Carol</i> (157). Susina suggests that what Edith learned from Dickens is what later became part and parcel of her work for young adults. Dickens taught her how to write like a subversive in a way that would be able to go over the heads of mature readers, while her true message would plain to children. It was from the writer of <i>Oliver Twist</i>, in other words, that Edith learned she could smuggle in messages about challenging unlawful authority figures into her books in a way that would talk up, instead of down to kids, while also doing so in a way that protected them from the possibility of abuse.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">That's a pretty heavy burden and/or subject matter for any children's writer to tackle. And the worst part was Edith lived in a society where such matters were in fact discouraged from the conversation of "polite society". In fact, as a woman Edith would also have found herself plenty of opportunity to be on the receiving end of such culturally sanctioned oppression. Dickens was the first author to challenge this social vice clamp by directly addressing the topics of domestic and social class abuse in the full-length novel format. He was a trailblazer in that sense, yet the irony is that even by the turn of the century, Edith was still forced to tip around eggshells in order to address the same issues in her own books. That she was able to accomplish this feat at all; with a lighter seeming hand than that of a work like <i>Great Expectations</i>; and still be able to be a financial success at it is something of a minor miracle all its own for the early 1900s. What united them both, however, is the part that's difficult to describe.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLI7JWUy3Zj3EcxB8NH8RQE-Qrqxg_88BQUXIbPvp5YsjXoY2A2yYt18emYsVY11QVkybEHCSOfrtfKKX_joTUqWfHjIFRRGS8_lKXYKYL9Z8iuB00vZYloSfITO6P-VXyFK_qMMugDPw_zMlDmiXmQtO6VzswKT5rw4AulIwd2gkNu88EOrsa85KPcvTA/s680/236102585_4172404976210037_6249192724937769225_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="680" height="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLI7JWUy3Zj3EcxB8NH8RQE-Qrqxg_88BQUXIbPvp5YsjXoY2A2yYt18emYsVY11QVkybEHCSOfrtfKKX_joTUqWfHjIFRRGS8_lKXYKYL9Z8iuB00vZYloSfITO6P-VXyFK_qMMugDPw_zMlDmiXmQtO6VzswKT5rw4AulIwd2gkNu88EOrsa85KPcvTA/w640-h610/236102585_4172404976210037_6249192724937769225_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />The best description I've got is to label it as a peculiar, yet familiar sense of shared idealism. In fact, it's very much as Susina describes it. Both authors agreed "that they must "educate the grown-up people" and that they need to "throw our thoughts into something educational for the grown-up people hinting to them how things ought to be. Let us veil our meaning under a mask of romance (158)". This is not the same thing as lecturing or hectoring. Instead, it's more like playing a game. The contest involves seeing how far you can unmask the hypocrisies of the so-called "grown-ups" in the room without getting caught. I guess another way to put it might bet to ask whether or not it's possible to school Walter White? That's a risky proposition under any circumstance. Yet it's one that Dickens and Nesbit were willing to take upon themselves. In order to play this game, each author found themselves resorting to the use of the tradition of make-believe in order to achieve their goals. Edith did it by creating entire fantastical otherworlds which she then let loose on the world of the everyday. Or else, as in the case of "The Princess and the Hedge Pig", finding ways of playing around with the Brother's Grimm formula. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2m94oI6bT4_PyTD1RadQDLAs3U6Xw5l-JnxizYpvnKMZU-YJACNQqrg0rTPp5UfGnCp2Jvy3m5VMahGYLrrKw1V4yIkkqR1gT0s3i5GNrs9kfl8tRvJ_hhfAwW3ywbPER-9TZgFlYmDrKTPJn5Jk0XEn8LGZmwNdbGGci4OEjj_lyBCimduLllWM4DRIT/s1000/charles-dickens-in-starlight-famous-author-art-print.jpg.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2m94oI6bT4_PyTD1RadQDLAs3U6Xw5l-JnxizYpvnKMZU-YJACNQqrg0rTPp5UfGnCp2Jvy3m5VMahGYLrrKw1V4yIkkqR1gT0s3i5GNrs9kfl8tRvJ_hhfAwW3ywbPER-9TZgFlYmDrKTPJn5Jk0XEn8LGZmwNdbGGci4OEjj_lyBCimduLllWM4DRIT/s320/charles-dickens-in-starlight-famous-author-art-print.jpg.webp" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">As a result, Nesbit is able to write a fairy tale which counts as one of the first examples when a Princess figure is able to find her own voice in the narrative. Another clue to the ultimate meaning of such exercises is once again provided by Dickens, who in a similar offering "describes the role-reversing country where "the grown-up people are obligated to obey the children, and are never allowed to sit up for supper." Throughout, Dickens' children sit in cool judgment of distant adults and engage in constant rebellion of adult authority (ibid)". This is all very much in keeping with the kind of stories Edith liked to tell. In that sense, it's not incorrect to claim she was in a conspiracy of sorts with the author the <i>Christmas Carol</i> against the "adults". Their targets seemed to be shared. And it's no surprise to discover that none of them have changed all that much from then to now. It's all very much the same greed, prejudice, and hypocritical pretension that we still deal with today. The only thing that's changed is I think we might be in danger of losing sight of how to handle these matters in a fictional setting.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">I almost want to say it's like we're in danger of confusing the Imagination in general, and Fantasy in particular, as a foe, rather than a natural friend and ally in all these endeavors. It's like we're forgetting how writers like Nesbit, Norton Juster, or even Jane Austen would treat prejudice with a well balanced approach of satire and entertainment. Even Mark Twain seems to have known better than to make a "mad dash" into the fray like a bull charging its way through a minefield. Anyone is welcome to try it. Though you're not gonna hit the target that way. In fact, that's pretty much a great tactic to defeat your own noble efforts. Writer's like Edith just seemed to have displayed a level of intelligence about these matters that I think we need to learn how to recollect if we want our stories to have a resonant value in this contemporary age. Something also tells me that we need to find out how to remember that fairy tales can be our most natural allies in struggles like this. It's something that Edith also held in common with Dickens. And I think Susina makes a valid point when she connects Nesbit's work to a number of sentiments that Ebenezer Scrooge's creator made in a non-fiction essay about the value of Fantasy.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">"In "Fraud on the Fairies", Dickens argues the importance of fairy tales as children's literature and insists, "In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected...a nation without fancy, without some romance never did, never can, never will, hold a great place under the Sun (158-59)". This same literary idealism appears to be what underlies even a forgotten short story like Edith's. Just like Dickens, she seems to have held that the "literature of childhood nursed the imagination and softened dehumanizing toil. What Dickens most valued in that literature was its ability to nurture the imagination. Without imagination (or "fancy" as Dickens often called it) human beings could not be truly human (3)". </span><span style="font-family: serif;">This is the closest I can get right now to a definition of that elusive quality of subversive enchantment that hallmarks all of E. Nesbit's output. It's what allowed her to re-write the conventions of a fairy tale for modern audiences while at the same time honoring all that came before. She never talked down to any of her readers, while encouraging her audience to try and make the world a better place. She's one of the handful of writers who helped bring the genre of myth into the contemporary world while also knowing how to reach back into the ancient wells of creative potential and inspiration that served as the beating heart of human mythology. This then, is as good an overall snapshot of Edith's achievement I can give in such a short frame of reference.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiHJpyUzXTY02snvcmTy7202GFD5HpoabLfvKCxMxBwwPD8JI72bnm0A-LoaMuGk-jO4IvFpU9BEy3wAFJ2ue95zCqpvGNyYS3jGyyjHeU-PNNJulHLagX8AJ_qpsUmZ1C_o6SBemSCtdbiW9FWEEs3SvaitMGjF_HfyfAOawK-LJJxVIyIEpCVjVOrSJ/s739/scroogesmall.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="739" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyiHJpyUzXTY02snvcmTy7202GFD5HpoabLfvKCxMxBwwPD8JI72bnm0A-LoaMuGk-jO4IvFpU9BEy3wAFJ2ue95zCqpvGNyYS3jGyyjHeU-PNNJulHLagX8AJ_qpsUmZ1C_o6SBemSCtdbiW9FWEEs3SvaitMGjF_HfyfAOawK-LJJxVIyIEpCVjVOrSJ/w640-h420/scroogesmall.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">It's all probably best on display in her </span><i style="font-family: serif;">Five Children</i><span style="font-family: serif;"> trilogy, more than anywhere else. Though this shouldn't be any reason to slight her lesser known work. If anything, it just serves as all the more reason to dive back into the vault of time and dig up all of her other stories that never got to have their day in the spotlight. This proves to be one of the more rewarding tasks of literary excavation. Because Nesbit's talents as a writer mean that both reader and critic can count on her to toss a greater number of hidden gems our way, more often than not. The good news is this also proves to be true in the story of Ozyliza and her Army of A Thousand Spears. It's not an epic work, by any means. And none of Edith's books are ever going to match the scale and atmosphere of Middle Earth. However, her stories don't need to reach that high in order to arrive at the their creative peak. Tolkien wound up scaling the top of Everest, while Nesbit found her home in the Alps. Both ranges are dignified in their own ways.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><b>Conclusion: A Winning Spin on a Familiar Yarn.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlH7BU1pcaJUPGMjroZeR7VaKJumALiH8Jv-pCLRPCbbg6JY4g_9XaStoSXYLocvU2BVBee1MrQmt_22ej-gR1T0fdqyuiF453XwqKVx8J6EBZ1lVz6pdO5ntRyA3Sx_9EWgZKmQPR9OWJ2qzGklRUsI_N8zN-tgyx2xCUuit1e1tJtdxSmZKaoqimZpf-/s1000/61pxRpneQjL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlH7BU1pcaJUPGMjroZeR7VaKJumALiH8Jv-pCLRPCbbg6JY4g_9XaStoSXYLocvU2BVBee1MrQmt_22ej-gR1T0fdqyuiF453XwqKVx8J6EBZ1lVz6pdO5ntRyA3Sx_9EWgZKmQPR9OWJ2qzGklRUsI_N8zN-tgyx2xCUuit1e1tJtdxSmZKaoqimZpf-/w182-h273/61pxRpneQjL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="182" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;">The secondary landscape Edith is able to give us in Liza's story manages to do several things at once. It's familiar and cozy, while also containing enough hints of larger vistas waiting to be explored just out of sight. The author may have been writing a short story, yet the reader also gets the sense that it could have branched out into the more familiar epic scale as that found in Tolkien or the Grimm Brothers at any moment. It's possible to say that we've seen this type of fairy tale kingdom before, in a sense. Yet that just helps add charm to the proceedings. Part of the reason that cozy familiarity is there to begin with is to help invite both the new and seasoned reader into the pages of the tale. Besides which, if you go back and pay close attention, you'll see that Nesbit takes special care to neither over-describe or under-describe the details of her secondary world. The narrative description of both Liza's kingdom and the other realms and forests that she travels through are all laid in an almost naturalistic sparseness.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: serif;">This may have been somewhat deliberate on the author's part. However, I think it's just a case of the Imagination providing as much economy of detail for its story, and no more. Edith doesn't need to provide a detailed description of the Towers of Gondor in order to make her narrative work. All that's needed are just a few sprinkling of details here and there. The reader is given as much as they might need in order to get a sense of what Liza's home is like, and then the story and its writer let the reader's own Imaginations go to work on the material. This is one of those tales that tries to get the mind of the reader to take part in visualizing its setting and cast. It may take a moment to realize this, yet it should soon become apparent that this could be a case of Edith encouraging her child readers to try and use their own minds to help bring the story to life. The main stage of the narrative may sound like something out of a stock company. However, that's just because its meant to talk up, not down to the reader. We're prompted to learn to help tell this story to ourselves. It makes for a kind of pedagogical bent to the action, yet it's never didactic, and instead is seamlessly enveloped in the design of the plot.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwUI366f6kchDsrnGBYDfgRJ6-vLNnBHZ2J7EhI0S5zmk4_Un8mIZaXNLei0XXpAeiH7c_h3s_6xhbkdvmRUT45Dw0C5IjS5G6NjJU_iBBgvAHKGPi5VwuQz_o2iHt2X8RtgYCrznVJNcGqNdsueTsv2FULYRBqzCHnmgRBSh4nK9n8OEC6YaM5WUAk2Xh/s1920/del7e29-c10a9569-5d2f-4a8f-89f1-e327c3bbc54d.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwUI366f6kchDsrnGBYDfgRJ6-vLNnBHZ2J7EhI0S5zmk4_Un8mIZaXNLei0XXpAeiH7c_h3s_6xhbkdvmRUT45Dw0C5IjS5G6NjJU_iBBgvAHKGPi5VwuQz_o2iHt2X8RtgYCrznVJNcGqNdsueTsv2FULYRBqzCHnmgRBSh4nK9n8OEC6YaM5WUAk2Xh/w640-h360/del7e29-c10a9569-5d2f-4a8f-89f1-e327c3bbc54d.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />It allows us to take a more active enjoyment of the story of a Princess cast out of her own realm, and her journey to reclaim her rightful throne in a way that manages to get us more invested in the pictures the words on paper can conjure in our heads. Beyond this, what stands out the most to me remains the uncanny resemblance this work bears to Walt Disney's <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>. The short story's setup sounds more or less like an initial rough draft for the film's beginning. The major differences between the two fables stems from how each wrap up their respective narratives. Now if I'm being honest, here is the part where I think Edith manages to give us a better finished product than even Disney himself could manage. Say sorry, yet I'll swear that's the truth. The main reason for this comes down to the fact that Nesbit managed to uncover a story idea that allowed her Princess to take an active part in solving her own dilemma. Walt, meanwhile, was stuck having to take the title character plain out of </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;">commission (however temporary) in order to remain true to the source material. The worst omission Walt made in that whole film is that he couldn't seem to find a good way of fleshing out Aurora herself before the story's main set piece rolled around. Instead, it's like other critics have said. She and the Handsome Prince are both left as a pair of blank, underdeveloped cut-out figures, or animated chess pieces.</span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOATTcsGIOse5rfgUxCD9pA2RrpmEMjxSlOlEa7jGmU4r-Oe-Oae19dyuhHZodJMnRMoNuvw8tstYK2SSAaQjgOwCzsCYTbq2QrJ5QVFhHaTUH0vPDKXCzqvBXs_HSkmVWZ4ReiIWPejtjNbUD6Gw42bRbhSIZ23koc19PaDcIf09keo_eZhvy6OMor1x/s1000/71WhsUyyowL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOATTcsGIOse5rfgUxCD9pA2RrpmEMjxSlOlEa7jGmU4r-Oe-Oae19dyuhHZodJMnRMoNuvw8tstYK2SSAaQjgOwCzsCYTbq2QrJ5QVFhHaTUH0vPDKXCzqvBXs_HSkmVWZ4ReiIWPejtjNbUD6Gw42bRbhSIZ23koc19PaDcIf09keo_eZhvy6OMor1x/w179-h269/71WhsUyyowL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="179" /></a></span></span></div><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;">It might have kept the action moving, yet it's just not enough to create an engaging story with characters you can root for, much less take an interest in whatever happens to them. Liza, by contrast is taught by her parents how to fence, fight, and strategize in anticipation of having to meet a future challenge. That's the first big divergence between Edith's story and Walt's, and yet it's also perhaps the most significant. Rather than being sheltered from an impending trouble, Nesbit allows her heroine to be made well aware of it. It means that when it all begins to go condition red, Liza is no one's pawn. She may be the victim of a curse put on her by an evil fay, yet unlike Aurora, she refuses for one second to let it determine who she is, or how she means to live her life. In comparison, Walt seems to have made the dull choice of never even letting his main character known completely what's happened to her at any point in what is supposed to be her own story. This makes it a very easy judgment call far as I can tell.</span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;">It's sort of a no-brainer that Edith is going to win in a toss up contest between her story and Walt's film. It's not just because of her skill in finding what were then new trails to blaze for the standard tropes of the Fantasy genre, but most importantly in the way this allowed her to discover a crucial direction to take her narrative that allowed it a greater sense of dramatic tension and interest. Strange as it may sound, here's the truth. In a competition between one of the most lavish and painstaking entries in Disney's animated catalogue and a simple, overlooked short. It's the short story that comes off as more polished and professional. The results may strike an odd note to some listeners, yet I have no reason to complain myself. In fact, the only real criticism I can toss Edith's way is that there is one conflict in the story that remains curiously unresolved by the time the credits role on her own efforts. This may be the one instance where I'll have to grant Walt at least one token point in his favor. Unlike Edith, Disney made sure to address the heart of the conflict in a way that seems to have escaped the creator of <i>The Railway Children</i>. It would have been nice to see Ozyliza take on the wicked fairy like in the movie.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTI8btvKy4Fkyar1-4Ppx4zWqTnxXSCBMj-b1W1tvOHbnq968yNNMQFEUi1ge_ZFH16t5dq3Bksc59bx3m6wVxtx3EfnicOwI731Q5PbVaXgxSMmKSL_5wyU1VwRjvuMw2j2Rlc0SrWnYHk-Z7ItPH8UxT-0aVzhNumxwLNKv1YS-8Alr4w9xqlvQEOG54/s2400/E%20Nesbit.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="2400" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTI8btvKy4Fkyar1-4Ppx4zWqTnxXSCBMj-b1W1tvOHbnq968yNNMQFEUi1ge_ZFH16t5dq3Bksc59bx3m6wVxtx3EfnicOwI731Q5PbVaXgxSMmKSL_5wyU1VwRjvuMw2j2Rlc0SrWnYHk-Z7ItPH8UxT-0aVzhNumxwLNKv1YS-8Alr4w9xqlvQEOG54/w640-h426/E%20Nesbit.webp" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: serif;"><br />Still, this is a minor nitpick, at best. On the whole, "The Princess and the Hedgepig" succeeds at being exactly the kind of story it set out to tell. It's a charming fairy tale with a bit of satire thrown in. Put them all together and what you get is the kind of story that enchants with its relating of adventure in a storybook realm that most of us have some knowledge of, one way or another. Along the journey, the author just happens to toss in a few words of encouragement to all the little girls in her audience. It's the kind of story that knows what female empowerment really is, and it never panders to any of its readers. Instead, it's just this nice, cozy, and challenging little read that is always going to be a good option for this time of the season. It's also one of those short stories that is always in danger of falling through the cracks of time. It's a well told tale that deserves its moment in the spotlight. I just hope some of what I've written here will help others to reconnect with the magic of E. Nesbit's fairy tales. <br /></span></span><p></p></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-20796655896496378372023-11-19T06:49:00.001-06:002023-11-19T06:49:52.676-06:00Invisible Essence: The Little Prince (2018).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjadictm6HcDU_3cIpYaKbtzIUz0sae377HMZm3HcH1RK5zhS-pkYfMeF71AUfjh7_uGJxU3ttR-oqHNteszjOuGl6NGHFSPmKOxPxMnwCHbwQ_Zk2vK8_N3UasKoGAK1-3JI7Mi4qIEwyPnQrxbCTYHcLvBDnJPfriXLI-g35oVdMGtDWK0Gs8qSx6oylZ/s1080/image.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="720" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjadictm6HcDU_3cIpYaKbtzIUz0sae377HMZm3HcH1RK5zhS-pkYfMeF71AUfjh7_uGJxU3ttR-oqHNteszjOuGl6NGHFSPmKOxPxMnwCHbwQ_Zk2vK8_N3UasKoGAK1-3JI7Mi4qIEwyPnQrxbCTYHcLvBDnJPfriXLI-g35oVdMGtDWK0Gs8qSx6oylZ/w223-h335/image.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><p>I was an 80s kid to start with. There's no doubt about that. I was born in the middle of the year that George Orwell made famous. In that sense, I guess you could say I lucked out. As I got here just in time to enjoy what for now remains the last great artistic Renaissance. I'm talking of course about all of the classic books, films, and TV shows that were released during that decade. So to repeat, first of all, it was the 80s. If you were a relative new born during that time period, say anywhere from about five to going on seven years of age, it was kind of like living in a playground. At least that's how all that the best times of the 80s seems to me now. I don't know, there was just something about the entertainment of that era. Our Minds and Imaginations seem to have been more expansive way back when. Like I've also said, for a kid, this was like being given an all-access key to some kind of pop-culture candy store. It's there that I made the acquaintance childhood friends like Tom, Jerry, the residents of <i>Sesame Street</i>, Larry, Daffy, Moe, Bugs, Curly, Garfield, <i>The Ninja Turtles</i>. It's amazing how times makes small things have epic proportions. This is just a list of the most well known aspects of 80s kid life. In addition to the now popular standbys, there were a host of other, lesser known entertainment that isn't talked about.</p><p>I can remember this one TV show, in particular. It's not what I'm here to talk about today, in the strictest sense. However, in retrospect, this little forgotten kid's series I'm thinking about is sort of where this whole story beings. At least this is how it has worked out for me. So here's the scenario. I'm just this seven going on eight year old guy. It's the 80s. I'm bopping along to Glenn Frey's <i>The Heat Is On</i>, like everyone else, and I've begun to grow enamored of a TV station with the curious yet memorable name of <i>Nickelodeon</i>. It likes to bill itself as "The First Network For Kids". Now I'm a fresh young mind, so the dubious veracity of claims like that aren't going to make much or seem all that important. All that mattered to me back then (and even today, if I'm being honest) is a question I didn't have the vocabulary for back then, yet I do now. Can you tell an entertaining story? In the case of <i>Nickelodeon</i>, my experience watching that channel during its glory years taught me that, on the whole, yeah, they were pretty good for the most part. Some of their stuff I was always going to like better than others. Though what else is new about that? The point is that the channel could deliver the goods.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-VUtQ6T-ji4Wi6pKiO4DAQPjRxpnRGNN4MHtGeAq6ZwnjBQBB6NAhfLtmeSWikBQAWGHHMN8BdYNkTu_IWlcZ_OjEAV-sxjk9rriBKC3iq2NLcq7PZiewa-nJXD-wJ3n3l6EoADuAydE0mk3T463UHMXFjQM3kYnNn0SA3Jju_FQBw6wBxAMHtxJCCZ1/s1600/d3a78e2b407a6062d6cc530b9135bdcd5a5b54decfa04526e8bfa4e1b2b71eec.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-VUtQ6T-ji4Wi6pKiO4DAQPjRxpnRGNN4MHtGeAq6ZwnjBQBB6NAhfLtmeSWikBQAWGHHMN8BdYNkTu_IWlcZ_OjEAV-sxjk9rriBKC3iq2NLcq7PZiewa-nJXD-wJ3n3l6EoADuAydE0mk3T463UHMXFjQM3kYnNn0SA3Jju_FQBw6wBxAMHtxJCCZ1/w640-h480/d3a78e2b407a6062d6cc530b9135bdcd5a5b54decfa04526e8bfa4e1b2b71eec.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>My own experience watching the 80s and early 90s incarnation of <i>Nick</i> is a combination hazy and crystal clear images. I'm sure that's true for a lot of us, so now I'm curious to see how many of my own memory snapshots match the experiences I'm about to describe. Some of the images I remember most from that time include: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LLb8EBU9nQ">an orange tabby cat who wasn't Garfield, prowling around an anime style neighborhood</a>; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cxLfIs051c">a live action show about a mannequin in a department store that would come to life when a magic hat was placed on his head</a>; a show about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2ObCoCm61s">that guy from <i>Get Smart</i></a>, except now <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZBhkwRF1FI">he's an animated, cartoon cyborg</a>; a comedy show whose <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l14fSKS9XS4">opening looks a lot like <i>Monty Python</i>; also, there's Green Slime</a>; a cartoon about a talking, vampire duck (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hifgIM0_OXw">yes, really</a>); a show about a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zopwFjRVuk">somehow scarily competent dog</a>; a simple, yet somehow epic shot of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ycG-xe1uSM">a group kids in a souped up flying ship that looked kind of like this giant condor thing</a>. There was also this one image in particular. It's the picture of a young boy. He has to be no older than nine or ten years of age, standing all by himself on the surface of an alien world that is no bigger than a house. The next memory snapshot I have of this same young boy flying through space, hanging on in the wake of a passing comet. The child has somehow managed to cast a net over this comet, and is using it to propel him through the infinite gulfs of outer space. <br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD4v-q8R1kHLtV-zOunV8qwyPpk-SOFTQ5q6YJa4ebWe7V8xgtTU1oU1hLggzgmyvhoo9Kzoc6L0RrxgOwzyrvKov_zxW2Pl6kr4OgLdzioJTozSnMLrUWDvvpls_fzdZ1khd4jNVUAR6C1UneKKuSIEiSqhIvBpc91feoBNUIlQfNKT2W4jvNalJFUJUC/s640/village-7685240_640.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD4v-q8R1kHLtV-zOunV8qwyPpk-SOFTQ5q6YJa4ebWe7V8xgtTU1oU1hLggzgmyvhoo9Kzoc6L0RrxgOwzyrvKov_zxW2Pl6kr4OgLdzioJTozSnMLrUWDvvpls_fzdZ1khd4jNVUAR6C1UneKKuSIEiSqhIvBpc91feoBNUIlQfNKT2W4jvNalJFUJUC/w239-h320/village-7685240_640.webp" width="239" /></a></div>It's one those <i>interesting</i> images, I guess you'd call it. Perhaps a better phrase for it is "somehow arresting". In some ways, it's nothing more than the kind of thing you might expect to find in any sensibly well made children's story. At the same time, there are a lot interesting reasons for why this image in particular can make you want to scratch your head. It's easy to get the sense that this is also the kind of picture that grows out of some kind of ill-defined stoner fantasy. This impression is sort of helped by the fact that trying to find any footage from the show itself can sometimes result in the type of visuals that can come off as slightly mind-bending. The good news is this description is meant in the best way possible. The show itself is called <i>The Adventures of the Little Prince</i>, and it's one of those notable examples of the particular imaginative capabilities that could only have come out of the 80s. It's the sort of cartoon that is willing to resort to all kinds of interesting leaps in imaginative logic while still managing to keep the proceedings going within a grounded(ish) narrative. It was the sort of TV show that you catch snippets of in between waiting for your personal favorites to come on the air.<p></p><p>In other words, that show belonged to the rare and elusive class of media that still manages to leave a strange, lingering impact on the mind, years later down the road. This happens either despite, or perhaps because your initial contact with it was so fleeting at an otherwise impressionable young age. It's the kind of thing you can't recall with perfect clarity. What you do remember, however, seems just enough to spark your curiosity. Maybe it can even get you to wonder if any of it was real, or just something out of a dream? It planted enough questions in my mind to the point where I decided to see if it was possible to track down those old snippets of childhood memory, and try to get the whole story out of them. In a way I've succeeded in this, and a good TV promo for the show can be found <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdlBpDGGea8">here</a>. However, it's one of those accomplishments that wound up being just the tip of the iceberg. Far from being the end of the story, digging up information about a half-forgotten kids show wound up being one of those adventures where you think all you'll do is to recover a bit of your childhood. While instead, what happens is you wind up unearthing a whole treasure of literary history you didn't know was there.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJ332vahtBfmT0KzM_6v5GJON7kvEvG0Q6N6O-aCtHospe0nQPCc3sPV0QAQusq-BvF7FGAguxA3wo7yn2QvYFW3-9T7XJ30SvzySYxo9ZEA4KSuTbH_nvIztmTbQ6SrFSS1TnvvzkzuCfipI2JzgqTQz7lUSBS5NZYsf1iiLcX6GhQz7lEMLI6xJIQo_/s1086/daisy-ingrosso-the-little-prince-birds-2021-2-media.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1086" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJ332vahtBfmT0KzM_6v5GJON7kvEvG0Q6N6O-aCtHospe0nQPCc3sPV0QAQusq-BvF7FGAguxA3wo7yn2QvYFW3-9T7XJ30SvzySYxo9ZEA4KSuTbH_nvIztmTbQ6SrFSS1TnvvzkzuCfipI2JzgqTQz7lUSBS5NZYsf1iiLcX6GhQz7lEMLI6xJIQo_/w640-h452/daisy-ingrosso-the-little-prince-birds-2021-2-media.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />So, as I said, I'm not here to take a look at the TV series itself. If you want someone to walk you through all of that, the best review/retrospective I've been able to find online is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GsxmJk03Hc">here</a>. Instead, this article is going to cover the history of the show's source material. Not only is it a lot more interesting than its syndicated spinoff. It also reveals a story of the ideals that can sometimes lie behind even a simple children's book, and how it was all represented in the life of its creator. All of which is to say that this review will be a close look at a documentary known as <i>Invisible Essence</i>: <i>The Little Prince</i>.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><b>The Story.</b> <div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2uXFrCAgKy4tj6sT8LEC6Ut33URd1BHb-wpEkARP4uZ3z7tw7Nm-iYKLspY5Ppqu-TQ56P_tkJUDtF8eNcGTmblbyj7d0qS8B6bdXcY5mZ132-rn0yIFnRD3DrK9mV8xq7R729FOo1NbjsVBpjheDM-hOKlVGIXUnw1epYxxmUtcXtV_AZ4mz1G_BeXG/s1024/1_i22k8anlSq6Y4z399TMlOA.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2uXFrCAgKy4tj6sT8LEC6Ut33URd1BHb-wpEkARP4uZ3z7tw7Nm-iYKLspY5Ppqu-TQ56P_tkJUDtF8eNcGTmblbyj7d0qS8B6bdXcY5mZ132-rn0yIFnRD3DrK9mV8xq7R729FOo1NbjsVBpjheDM-hOKlVGIXUnw1epYxxmUtcXtV_AZ4mz1G_BeXG/s320/1_i22k8anlSq6Y4z399TMlOA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called <i>True Stories from Nature</i>, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing and animal...In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months they need for digestion." I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my very first drawing. My drawing number one...I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frightened? Why would any one be frightened by a hat?" My drawing wasn't a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups weren't able to understand it, I made another drawing; I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it very clearly. They always need to have things explained...The grown-ups response this time was to advise me to lay aside my drawing of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable. In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't improved my opinion of them. Whenever I met one them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One., which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always says: "That is a hat."</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUXTyDEuHOlDgklgy_UuQ5HfgqyesWjazG8OiJcYR0Gp6I3SmNATo1qRGhNZOiwrcd5Mr3SJ0IAFNH0oc8_cHUn8iihQcpw8SUxSHrc5m5EFeWgumaLfzxOxi-g1gk9bgnY7ky4NDnX9K1Zpj3PXkaodqPQG2WL9G7sCCGs8jBD5MbeF5LVD_qDIGozEL/s954/screen-shot-2019-01-14-at-9-25-51-am.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="954" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUXTyDEuHOlDgklgy_UuQ5HfgqyesWjazG8OiJcYR0Gp6I3SmNATo1qRGhNZOiwrcd5Mr3SJ0IAFNH0oc8_cHUn8iihQcpw8SUxSHrc5m5EFeWgumaLfzxOxi-g1gk9bgnY7ky4NDnX9K1Zpj3PXkaodqPQG2WL9G7sCCGs8jBD5MbeF5LVD_qDIGozEL/w640-h358/screen-shot-2019-01-14-at-9-25-51-am.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />"The I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man. So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something was wrong in my engine. And as I had with me neither mechanic nor any passengers, I set myself to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a question of life or death for me: I had scarcely enough drinking water to last me a week. The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any human habitation. I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened by an odd little voice. It said: "If you please - draw me a sheep!" "What!" "Draw me a sheep (7-9)".</div><div><p></p></div><div><b>The Life of the Author.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kZEjP8yD0Tql0RtY-Uch-9ZBeBatHk7EOt7cEWdREgvZbgoC927IIhWnUd98wc0cE5JYWnHG-fVtAUOsZKQvzijOg8ysGN18P9sQiXDp8z8Dzvz4sTQvxXM0lRDIwlYAWDiRjx44YTWaakVnQEe5dCM0euGmn_Z0LaDJ2IRTxWDSJMY-5hQDWt-FpAHo/s3675/9781466869530.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3675" data-original-width="2796" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kZEjP8yD0Tql0RtY-Uch-9ZBeBatHk7EOt7cEWdREgvZbgoC927IIhWnUd98wc0cE5JYWnHG-fVtAUOsZKQvzijOg8ysGN18P9sQiXDp8z8Dzvz4sTQvxXM0lRDIwlYAWDiRjx44YTWaakVnQEe5dCM0euGmn_Z0LaDJ2IRTxWDSJMY-5hQDWt-FpAHo/s320/9781466869530.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>The story of <i>The Little Prince</i> really begins with the birth of its creator. Antoine De Saint-Exupery is the kind of name that almost sounds made up. Like it belongs more to an imaginary character in a book, rather than a flesh and blood human being. Nevertheless, Saint-Ex, as he was known by his friends (<a href="https://archive.org/details/wingedlifeportra0000rumb/page/32/mode/1up?q=Ex">32</a>), was a real life author, though he's not exactly a household name in the same vein as someone like Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm. Yet as Prof. Thomas De Koninck notes in the documentary under discussion today, Exupery's most famous work has been "translated in over 200 languages. The numbers are staggering. Apart from the Bible, there's no other example of a book that has been read by so many people from different languages, cultures. There are so many book, so many tales, and so many myths, and it seems to transcend them all. Why? Why is it? Why this huge success"? These are all question's that filmmaker Charles Officer attempts to answer in his 2018 documentary, <i>Invisible Essence</i>:<i> The Little Prince</i>. Part of the reason this real life film portrait exists is because of the irony at the heart of Exupery's achievement. As Koninck notes, almost everyone seems to be aware of the children's book in some fashion. Almost no one has any clue about the author.</div><div><br /></div><div>Officer's documentary seeks to correct this omission of an increasingly unreliable pop-culture memory by dedicating an entire full-length feature to not only giving Saint-Ex his day in the spotlight, but also in helping to bring <i>The Little Prince</i>, its meaning, values, and artistic legacy to a wider audience. In order to do that, the director begins at the most logical starting place, the birth and growth of the artist's mind. As the documentary notes, "(The) reason why a story becomes universal and timeless is when the story is also personal. (It's) the story of (the writer's) own life". In his case, Antoine Exupery was "born in 1900, and grows up in a chateau outside Lyon". Further digging outside of the documentary reveals that Saint Ex's family technically counted as what might be called an example of the defrocked nobility. It's lineage can be traced all the way back to the Middle Ages, yet it faced a democratization during and in the aftermath of the French Enlightenment. The family doesn't seem to have been bothered by this at all, and so things went more or less as you would expect of a normal middle class household situated within the confines of the French countryside. Unfortunately for Saint-Exupery, this picture-postcard child's idyll conforms to a fairy tale pattern familiar to the lives of children's authors.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3rHzPpAYWxKX1k4pFeQPYV1pyXpzWpSs0BT2CJub6ZDa2JH4w-0ht5940W3jFWrsVz2FEemnmN4RHpnYC9JWV1DYuIrVGnji7Y0et2GM3qqFLY6m7D1UwrvttYYDXdYQ5GsgsLwBfB9M58YRhZCfAzLf1lvHZ9YCKd2iwOFOCzh4qu_FfpcFOiz1xxd2K/s1024/Couverture-1024x576.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3rHzPpAYWxKX1k4pFeQPYV1pyXpzWpSs0BT2CJub6ZDa2JH4w-0ht5940W3jFWrsVz2FEemnmN4RHpnYC9JWV1DYuIrVGnji7Y0et2GM3qqFLY6m7D1UwrvttYYDXdYQ5GsgsLwBfB9M58YRhZCfAzLf1lvHZ9YCKd2iwOFOCzh4qu_FfpcFOiz1xxd2K/w640-h360/Couverture-1024x576.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />According to Prof. Stacy Schiff, "His father dies young, so he's brought up, really, by a single mother in a family of siblings where he seems to think himself, in a way, the favorite child. And he is an inventor child. He's someone who does experiments in the bathtub, or attaching wings to the bicycle. He writes poetry at a very early age, and he pretty much romanticizes the house, the family. He says, 'I will always be the child of that house'. So it's a very tight family, in which he is clearly a little bit of the eccentric, and very much tolerated by his equally creative siblings. But it's marked in some ways by early loss". Biography Alain Vircondelet singles out the early death of the boy's father as leading Saint-Ex towards this searching wanderer sort of life. There may be some elements of truth to this, however, I think it's more a case of the author conforming to a specific type of artistic upbringing. Exupery's home culture was the Parisian world of the early Symbolist Movement and the French Avant-Garde.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvpPnacg6v6Bjhbkm1qVx_RzqymSnvAPzOPFGK3MuX0geuDrgcYYwqY7Dzgk-gU684oiURKiE3tWYtH2UccI1dsdMWNai0S4aad33W0ERnb_9Y-DBcF86106l3ZvguWIZd9NEMk6VBsotPnJLJKfVPe_HYE-daF6QooOlRiyHXmQRf1LdjzDyewlIWJUD/s500/andre-sanchez-jules-verne.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="357" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvpPnacg6v6Bjhbkm1qVx_RzqymSnvAPzOPFGK3MuX0geuDrgcYYwqY7Dzgk-gU684oiURKiE3tWYtH2UccI1dsdMWNai0S4aad33W0ERnb_9Y-DBcF86106l3ZvguWIZd9NEMk6VBsotPnJLJKfVPe_HYE-daF6QooOlRiyHXmQRf1LdjzDyewlIWJUD/w241-h338/andre-sanchez-jules-verne.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>These were all intertwined developments in the Arts during the opening act of the 20th century, and a lot of that seems to have filtered down from the garrets, retreats, flats, cafes and salons of Paris all the way out into the countryside of the Exupery household. Part of the reason for this might have been because in previous ages, the author's family might have acted as one of those old, established patrons of the arts. We're talking back to a time during eras like the Renaissance, when nobles like the Medici family would act as sponsors for painters like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci. It is possible that Exupery's clan were a part of this early modern network of patronage. If there's any truth to this surmise, then it would mean that the effects of this past engagement with the worlds of painting, sculpture, poetry, and literature would all have been able to filter down through the ages to the point where this entire aesthetic milieu was capable of leaving one of the first major impacts, or influential impressions on the author in childhood. Writers like Marcel Proust would also have been affected in the same way. And so it all marks out Saint-Exupery as something of a willing artistic inheritor.</div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, at some point while growing up, the young Antoine seems to have wound up making one of those half-conscious decisions that wind up having a greater impact as time goes on. In his case, it seems that a simple childhood enjoyment of the Arts led him inexorably towards dedicating his life and efforts to the pursuit of the poetical, whether in verse or prose. Another influence that seems to have helped Saint-Ex along in his goals was a simple matter of being born in the right place and time. Two years after the writer was born, the Wright Brothers rearranged the scope of humanity's technical capabilities with the debut of their successful Flyer tests up at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. By the time Antoine was eight years old, the invention of the airplane had taken the world by storm. Nowhere was this impact felt with greater imaginative force than in France. It's like Officer's documentary says:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdQdkIx05fnSrd88u4NJgpryeRWuL5S_VCuuMlGKZ5d1HfQOSvbwCci8TKMqjqWO87EXmQTMgjEbFyQFGIJOXFy41tZY__5fX69WBRL1WRiikmzNS8Roheui1wWxet6kzQmHWLHMUG1O2QZM_HBHQY_eBTVSjo8UYrJhP_KLPPBipNMm087MWZ0MIsRPSI/s3000/img_3645.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1994" data-original-width="3000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdQdkIx05fnSrd88u4NJgpryeRWuL5S_VCuuMlGKZ5d1HfQOSvbwCci8TKMqjqWO87EXmQTMgjEbFyQFGIJOXFy41tZY__5fX69WBRL1WRiikmzNS8Roheui1wWxet6kzQmHWLHMUG1O2QZM_HBHQY_eBTVSjo8UYrJhP_KLPPBipNMm087MWZ0MIsRPSI/w640-h426/img_3645.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"There was a huge Romance of aviation in France between 1900 and 1940. Much more than in the United States. Aviation isn't simply a triumph of material engineering, but it's a triumph of the Romantic Imagination. That's very much part of the background of <i>The Little Prince</i>". I think this insight is valid, yet there's also a lot more about it to be unpacked. For instance, one of the reasons both Exupery and France as a whole were able to create what amounts to a sort of Cult of Aviation might have something to do with an influence from the writings of Jules Verne. The author of <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i>, and <i>Around the World in 80 Days</i> is often cited now as one of the pioneers of Science Fiction. That description remains sound, yet as scholar David Meakin points out, it also is true that Verne can just as easily be described as a kind of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/fs/article-abstract/XLV/2/152/579755?redirectedFrom=PDF">modern age mythologist, or writer of fantasies</a>, just as much as he was a chronicler of technology on the cutting edge of the 20th century. Verne's fairy tales describe a world in which creatures out of <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> or medieval bestiaries can sometimes find a strange uneasy co-existence with the latest model flying machine or submersible iron boat. It's there we tend to find the same fantastic, magical realist atmosphere that populates Saint-Exupery's writings.</div><div><br /></div><div>It makes for this aesthetic stance that is always balanced on the precarious tipping point between idealism and caution in the face of man's technical abilities. There's this desire to celebrate our new scientific breakthroughs, and yet it's always coupled with this lingering concern, or question. Does this mean we can still get to keep all of the fancies of childhood? This thematic ambivalence can also be found in the writings of Saint-Exupery, who can extoll the virtues of air travel while scoffing at anyone who would urge caution in the use of technology in a non-fiction work like <i>Wind, Sand, and Stars</i>, to lamenting how grown-ups always need things explained to them, and how the author fears that he's becoming too much like one himself in the <i>Prince</i> text. In that sense, Vircondelet seems to be onto something when he argues, "One could say that Saint-Exupery's life, symbolically, is a permanent quest to return to childhood". This doubled-edged approach to technology is also a defining trait of his work.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-eUgwUKWIWpdDzVztjvcgXv8aAY4N4ZI1cSW-im0vqtpCbRLBwuLk97VZYYC0DifDX2frPf2C9pttLMx3NMpBUO6eG_eU51VoY7qoDmheJfDnJ9-Vf5ayurVMTp01UX8aUB5uOZTaTFaIHoPGgaAVOnFV8gnfE70RMkwoK5uhQrSfXrQoGqkWg5BakRY/s1625/31198943971.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1187" data-original-width="1625" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-eUgwUKWIWpdDzVztjvcgXv8aAY4N4ZI1cSW-im0vqtpCbRLBwuLk97VZYYC0DifDX2frPf2C9pttLMx3NMpBUO6eG_eU51VoY7qoDmheJfDnJ9-Vf5ayurVMTp01UX8aUB5uOZTaTFaIHoPGgaAVOnFV8gnfE70RMkwoK5uhQrSfXrQoGqkWg5BakRY/w640-h468/31198943971.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Beyond this, the other ingredients that wound up being poured into Saint-Ex's cauldron of story are his decision to join in with this Romance of Aviation by finding himself in the employ of the French Aeropostale as a flying mail courier. That was where he met his future wife, Consuelo, and where he exhibited what can only be described as an admirable display of Liberal Humanism towards he African and Islamic cultures with which his job brought him into frequent contact. It's remarked in Officer's film that Exupery's own personal interactions with non-European cultures displays what can only be referred to as an Open Society policy. He not only lived amicably among the locals, he even wound up adopting some of their dress. It was there in the Sahara that the story of a strange boy from the Comet B-612 began to take on a steady outline. It also brings us to the documentary's thoughts on the book.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Meaning of the Story.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib7faG8CoejYNs7Ii5idf6BISVJryC54SI6csIm_IpwCCyn_Hb1UqcFuVzZhHik36AXIVFdhIJc0pNpBrmzJ7gXozH4aT8DhkAo581nZxYFkYwGT15neqEjFkYr2cGYq0i9Qu6LGKaPjOUl7YfM3HZ7i4oQT2agx0riMy2LyqKDdiGiB1HaLWfLGh8Uijj/s1500/71OZY035QKL._SL1500_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1173" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib7faG8CoejYNs7Ii5idf6BISVJryC54SI6csIm_IpwCCyn_Hb1UqcFuVzZhHik36AXIVFdhIJc0pNpBrmzJ7gXozH4aT8DhkAo581nZxYFkYwGT15neqEjFkYr2cGYq0i9Qu6LGKaPjOUl7YfM3HZ7i4oQT2agx0riMy2LyqKDdiGiB1HaLWfLGh8Uijj/s320/71OZY035QKL._SL1500_.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>At it's core, <i>The Little Prince</i> is the account of what happens to a nameless narrator (one of many throughout literary history) when his plane breaks down in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Sometime during the second day of his mechanically enforced exile, the Pilot is startled to meet a peculiar little boy who seems to have arrived or emerged from nowhere. And so now he'd like the narrator to make a drawing for him. This is the Prince of the book's title. The story has a bit of fun with the usual setup of a fictional representative of normal life being first confronted with, and then having to acclimate himself to an occurrence of the miraculous and the marvelous in his existence. I almost wonder if this conceit hasn't become something like the de facto narrative trope of modern literature. Because it seems like every other notable story out there reads as every possible kind of variation on this idea.</div><div><br /></div><div>Whatever the case, what matters is that Exupery's writing in these opening moments is able to walk that fine line of balance between amusing whimsy and genuine mystery. A lot of it is helped by all of the setup that has come beforehand. Before we get to meet the title character, we learn something of the narrator himself. As recounted in his own backstory, the Pilot is yet another familiar face in an equally perennial landscape. We learn that he grew as one of those children with an active Imagination, one that could have found its most natural expression in painting and illustration. However, this seemingly inherent, or natural born artistic temperament and its attendant creative potential is soon squashed by his parents insistence that he focus on a more down to Earth job. The implication here being that the narrator's choice of becoming a plane flyer is a combination of compromise and insult. On the one hand, it's practical enough to get the folks off his back. At the same time, there's also the not so implied sense that the narrator has used flying as the closest substitute for his creative sensibilities that he could get his hands on. In other words, he's thumbing his nose at his parents while obeying their wishes.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2lR-ADPqMJSjeL47QUmNNsmIgYuSpjUqqyEng_0SNVtSS61LoOsDJ77IC_vJlClm0tZ8DjLr5kEp3o3YKZj6lLeDkZ1pC1BlWc7nQPplMN2mTSi5cW4E4jVuFLTaVVhACcb2bJgc2jWu2U1vdrdAoFAQc08G4dFsACod-ZMxnp4mr30JYgyq8qKtWCcjP/s350/81RxQ7f35GS._AC_UF350,350_QL80_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="350" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2lR-ADPqMJSjeL47QUmNNsmIgYuSpjUqqyEng_0SNVtSS61LoOsDJ77IC_vJlClm0tZ8DjLr5kEp3o3YKZj6lLeDkZ1pC1BlWc7nQPplMN2mTSi5cW4E4jVuFLTaVVhACcb2bJgc2jWu2U1vdrdAoFAQc08G4dFsACod-ZMxnp4mr30JYgyq8qKtWCcjP/w640-h358/81RxQ7f35GS._AC_UF350,350_QL80_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />As the Pilot relates, however, none of this has ever improved his view of "grown-ups" very much. At least that's how he chooses to refer to his fellow human beings. So, in other words, right from the very start Exupery presents his readers with a focal character who fits well into the mold of the Romantic Outsider. This particular figure came into his own as a recognizable type right around the same time that gave us works like <i>The Prelude</i>, though I do wonder if the figure might be older than that. Whatever the case, its clear that the Pilot has more than a few Wordsworthian echoes or elements in his make up. Much like the subject of a classic Romantic poem, the narrator feels himself disconnected from the common experiences of humanity, and part of it seems down to an acute perception of the world that he struggles to make others understand. When no one can, this figure often retreats into himself until someone or some<i>thing</i> comes along and turns reality more on its head than even the Romantic Outsider could have guessed. In this case, it's the appearance of a boy who may not be at all human. After much patient coaxing, the little boy reveals that he hails from an asteroid B-612.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQEB1ziBHXfaiOb3JqTo7QAxF9HS84GSOeX88n7eRRLuBHxS0ojPFs04b2V2sW9SRmP_QiykRv83FItuBPLo8pan8hhTDiNIYXR6GGA38KzsmZAP2m4BdUOQmOGQg5vSC2vydytkhx0UFgudrn07VblEGlDe1x5gAS3C4Tgs2jlQYxCx7cdRCrglG5kt7F/s500/william-wordsworth-341x500.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="341" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQEB1ziBHXfaiOb3JqTo7QAxF9HS84GSOeX88n7eRRLuBHxS0ojPFs04b2V2sW9SRmP_QiykRv83FItuBPLo8pan8hhTDiNIYXR6GGA38KzsmZAP2m4BdUOQmOGQg5vSC2vydytkhx0UFgudrn07VblEGlDe1x5gAS3C4Tgs2jlQYxCx7cdRCrglG5kt7F/s320/william-wordsworth-341x500.jpg" width="218" /></a></div>To make a complex story sound simple, the little boy turns out to be the sole inhabitant and ruler of this little piece of the cosmos. Hence his title of Prince. The reason he's still not ruling on B-612 now is because one day he discovered what it was like to fall in love. The relationship got off to such a rocky start, however, that the Prince kind of felt the need to get away for a bit, and maybe get a better grip on what the terms love and life both mean by exploring the universe for a bit. From there, the story recounts the Prince's own exploits through a series of encounters that read like a cross between <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> and <i>The Pilgrim's Progress</i>. We follow the Prince as he winds up hopping from one micro-planet to another. Each of them contains just one inhabitant like himself. These suggestively allegorical cast members include: A king with no subjects, who only issues orders that will be followed, such as commanding the sun to set at sunset; A conceited man who only wants the praise which comes from admiration
and being the most admirable person on his otherwise uninhabited planet; a drunkard who drinks to forget the shame of drinking; A businessman who is blind to the beauty of the stars and instead
endlessly counts and catalogues them in order to "own" them all
(critiquing materialism).</div><div> </div><div>A lamplighter
on a planet so small, a full day lasts a minute. He wastes his life
blindly following orders to extinguish and relight the lamppost every 30
seconds to correspond with his planet's day and night; An elderly geographer who has never been anywhere, or seen any of the things he records, providing a caricature of specialization in the contemporary world (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince#Plot">web</a>). It's clear enough that Exupery has managed to uncover a series of useful emblems or ciphers that are able to act as an effective enough series of critiques about a number of less than helpful aspects of modern life. It's this sequence of mini-vignettes, plus a dangerous encounter with a snake, and a meaningful one with a fox that take up the majority of the book. This gives the narrative an episodic, almost travelogue feel. However, the important thing to note is that not only does the story's pacing never flag. Exupery is also able to wind an easily digestible thematic thread line which is deftly able to interweave and unite all these encounters together. Much like Jon Swift or Mark Twain before him, there are a lot of aspects of modern life that Saint-Ex feels the need to critique and point out all of the inherent flaws.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSSc0UQxGOr0fPRYZRjLOXos3bj1DGC9oWoNDvWWL54nVznVItKay5mcpfcK4Ji0PkzxVQlql2n38-cCJwPxn9z1rBXBpvbDBtRN0DMvm8lHnPhWPROQHPl779F1aXjYxqcTCCm5IvEhRC1bHvkP141b3TPQ9IQIVfO3gEzhqb3Kv97ue7IrAmOYi3wYHU/s739/EZJCXZOXkAI27ca.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="739" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSSc0UQxGOr0fPRYZRjLOXos3bj1DGC9oWoNDvWWL54nVznVItKay5mcpfcK4Ji0PkzxVQlql2n38-cCJwPxn9z1rBXBpvbDBtRN0DMvm8lHnPhWPROQHPl779F1aXjYxqcTCCm5IvEhRC1bHvkP141b3TPQ9IQIVfO3gEzhqb3Kv97ue7IrAmOYi3wYHU/w640-h452/EZJCXZOXkAI27ca.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />If there's anything like a major difference between the French Magic Realist author and the earlier two satirists, it's that there's a greater sense of consolation and reconciliation to be had in the story of the Prince and his travels. Exupery tends to see modern life as something that has gone wrong on some fundamental level, yet unlike Swift these collective problems don't lead the author to end in despair. Instead, he becomes one of the few literary satirists I know of to offer clues to a tentative solution to maybe at least <i>some</i> if not <i>all</i> of modernity's ills. It's when we get to the message at the heart of this little children's book that the nature of the story archetype that the author has dug up out of the soil of the Imagination becomes clear. My own takeaway from the book may sound strange, yet I can't shake the idea that I'm reading a familiar archetype in the hands of a different author. Saint-Exupery seems to be working with nothing less than the same story idea as the one that undergirded James Barrie's original <i>Peter Pan</i>. This does not mean that each author is telling the exact same story, however.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLPspwt4DegT4hXo1N9pdtxFxVncFP7-jW0WADLDcKIaStoC7Os5fNYLqfcEJeh53f6EFTtFZj_3yukp5SPVhr6IaWg0eshdyzeNItA-yt2-ZEIfB_yUORR1HKJGO9k_LWAywXZKqeH4wYpwXutbFfuzpNWWG8rZoPtDt4iIH9zryIHwNEcYuowDwAZXyW/s2048/20210807gulliver_1024x1024@2x.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1682" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLPspwt4DegT4hXo1N9pdtxFxVncFP7-jW0WADLDcKIaStoC7Os5fNYLqfcEJeh53f6EFTtFZj_3yukp5SPVhr6IaWg0eshdyzeNItA-yt2-ZEIfB_yUORR1HKJGO9k_LWAywXZKqeH4wYpwXutbFfuzpNWWG8rZoPtDt4iIH9zryIHwNEcYuowDwAZXyW/s320/20210807gulliver_1024x1024@2x.webp" width="263" /></a></div>Instead, what's happened is that Exupery was merely able to unearth the same story fossil that gave Neverland and its unreal estates to Barrie. All we're seeing with <i>The Little Prince</i> is what happens when this same creative concept gets funneled through the Imagination of another artist. In this case, Saint-Ex has no need for an island, or even all that large a cast of characters. Instead, the situation presented to the reader almost amounts to a kind of minimalist stage setting. It's as if the author has managed to conjure up the same kind of existentialist blank space as that dreamed playwrights such as Samuel Beckett. Into this sand filled light box are placed the two main leads, their dialogues, and the narrative threads and themes that spin out from all of it. Exupery doesn't seem to need to waste all that much time and effort in getting the creative idea set down on paper. He's willing, able, and eager to get right to the point. I think part of the reason for this is because of something else that sets him apart from Barrie. The initial <i>Peter Pan</i> author represents a case of the artist as a neurotic, highly reluctant storyteller. Barrie was always more interested in sustaining a hostile outlook on life, and everything in it. And as a result, this kept tending to get in the way of the more important task of telling a story.</div><div><br /></div><div>Exupery, by contrast, has no such mental hang-ups. Instead, his is the more straight-forward story of the writer as Romantic prodigy. He was allowed a relatively happy and normal home life that also encouraged his precocious artistic streak. This allowed him to expand on his abilities to tap into the Imagination, and as a result was given the opportunity to use his talents to grow outward toward the world, instead of drawing inward to himself, and away from any meaningful contact with others, like Barrie. A natural corollary of this nurtured upbringing is that Saint-Ex was able to maintain a sense of the kind of idealism that can sometimes be the product of a well lived childhood. This gave him a certain optimism and/or psychological resilience in the face of adversity during his adult years. Another and more important consequence of Exupery's Romantic development is that perhaps it was able to allow him a kind of insight into the goals and nature of the adult world. <i>The Little Prince</i> is very much a book concerned with all of the ways in which growing up can go wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2nYbmyyQlpbzJQk1aMsIvo6zIqRWx2s5gJ2SwhsF7bRd2yP_sQ6-XA1AAjCRgWqIZ6xk1o5nad_kXe9oOCkP7uVOsu9u81pQUDoj5pPpXZcjAulTdl7wETI8huEVHouZ5olro5Q2WKtTEkXm_K9t5sQURE-c3xWTc37Y7dLn4HMOJRPSgVYSrzB2QlrtV/s1202/Houghton_Typ_905R.06.195_(A)_-_Arthur_Rackham,_Peter_Pan_-_Away_he_flew.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="729" data-original-width="1202" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2nYbmyyQlpbzJQk1aMsIvo6zIqRWx2s5gJ2SwhsF7bRd2yP_sQ6-XA1AAjCRgWqIZ6xk1o5nad_kXe9oOCkP7uVOsu9u81pQUDoj5pPpXZcjAulTdl7wETI8huEVHouZ5olro5Q2WKtTEkXm_K9t5sQURE-c3xWTc37Y7dLn4HMOJRPSgVYSrzB2QlrtV/w640-h388/Houghton_Typ_905R.06.195_(A)_-_Arthur_Rackham,_Peter_Pan_-_Away_he_flew.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is not the hostile neuroticism of J.M. Barrie, however. Instead, it seems to be very much as Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt says in Officer's film. He describes it as "(A) meeting of the adult and the child. (Exupery) tries to create the ideal of man's life, which means the child that he was and the man he is now hold hands. The story begins when these two lost souls find each other". This is pretty much the exact opposite trajectory that the first author of <i>Peter Pan</i> was aiming for. However, Saint-Exupery was no J.M. Barrie. These words flow from the pen of a mind that has learned, like Wordsworth or Coleridge before, of the potential Romance of childhood. The story is therefore in part the author's desire to share that wisdom with others. In order to do this in an effective manner, part of the book's strategy is to contrast the simplicity of it's title character with those of all or most of the major adult figures that the Prince meets on his travels. Each of the other planet dwellers represents aspects of modern life that Exupery seems to feel has contributed to a stunting of what we call growing-up.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ud1ixK1C8qi7ALITwUYV5wMYxmeUr8msV9ziTbws8guCkBz5TphwC4OI3Jyh6zA_Bbj6v3cWlYVNp_6OnZKARad47rqcGJbd2mqbO7h_LvTz64tGKcJ95zhmvW2JA-k5k0oDpY0D5LXCHX0CkypFrg3tz8_0CJpp4GPs-vWkLa9oPY6y8fgC66Qnm5RD/s600/comp_ba532dc2-4c51-4e8f-87c2-fdf2e7343b85_x600.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="469" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ud1ixK1C8qi7ALITwUYV5wMYxmeUr8msV9ziTbws8guCkBz5TphwC4OI3Jyh6zA_Bbj6v3cWlYVNp_6OnZKARad47rqcGJbd2mqbO7h_LvTz64tGKcJ95zhmvW2JA-k5k0oDpY0D5LXCHX0CkypFrg3tz8_0CJpp4GPs-vWkLa9oPY6y8fgC66Qnm5RD/s320/comp_ba532dc2-4c51-4e8f-87c2-fdf2e7343b85_x600.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>As Schmitt further explains in the documentary, the author "spends his time denouncing the jobs that have devoured individuals. The King acting like a king, the Vain Man being vain. People believe they are consistent, but in fact they are inconsistent. Because they have forgotten their humanity". Teacher Christine Nelson provides a good elaboration of Schmitt's line of reasoning as she describes the satirical layout of the Prince's secondary world. "The way Saint-Exupery draws these planets really emphasizes the solitude (of the other adult characters, sic). He makes a pretty small orb for the planet, and then the human on top is enormous". It is perhaps nothing less than Swift's iconic and scathing imagery of Big and Little Men somehow conjoined and rolled together into one meaningful picture of a big ego bestride a small globe. "What makes the grown-ups (the Prince, sic) encounters along the way foolish is that their monomaniacal", explains none other than Adam Gopnik. "They only can see the world through one prism, through one obsession. The drunkard is the one who sort of comes closest to having some actual insight into the world. Though he just gets drunk over and over again". Then, of course, there's the planet of the Business Man, whose main addiction is filling up his account book numbers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Philosopher Olivier d'Gay (who was also a possible real life model for Saint-Ex's planet hopping child protagonist) notes of the book's treatment of the cosmic accountant that he personifies that kind of selfish, One Percent demographic attitude which is very good at keeping track of where the money goes, and then never thinking that it might always be needed elsewhere to help keep the world running, or its people healthy. In that sense, this character is the most straightforward target in Saint-Exupery's sights. Journalist and writer Daniel Laferriere gives the benediction that appears to sum up most of the figures or targets that the Prince meets on his travels. "It's only once we multiply all these ridiculous behaviors that we then ask ourselves what world do we live in"? The documentary is able to present a lot of interesting commentary on what each of the satirical figures the Prince meets in the book could mean. All of what the interview subject have to say on the matter sounds convincing enough, for the most part. However, if I had to summarize what they all suggest as a whole, then I'd say they amount to Exupery's condemnation of what the author takes to be a fundamentally flawed idea, or set of ideas that have conditioned or poisoned what it means to be an adult. It's an attack on defective ways of thought.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFyiFN2kSTU08g4VX7T18TGmqmgMM6y9zaJJ5gS9LSOhBI_fwMIoRWnctRN9oChpMRrr0IcfLhhJ31qqWVBeXi8AUG7d-SYIjCn9eBjXwOHHaMi464t0-V58fmoLzF0i1QMQVqJV9mWYKgqUq2xISKG1EipL8mh7bZtYw2BD6_eZGcdCi-3SCRRzyFESg/s894/71Lg6NywogS._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="894" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFyiFN2kSTU08g4VX7T18TGmqmgMM6y9zaJJ5gS9LSOhBI_fwMIoRWnctRN9oChpMRrr0IcfLhhJ31qqWVBeXi8AUG7d-SYIjCn9eBjXwOHHaMi464t0-V58fmoLzF0i1QMQVqJV9mWYKgqUq2xISKG1EipL8mh7bZtYw2BD6_eZGcdCi-3SCRRzyFESg/w640-h360/71Lg6NywogS._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The key thing to keep in mind, here, is that unlike Swift, Saint-Ex doesn't leave his child's version of Gulliver alone and stranded in a sea of fools. Instead, he takes things a step further, and in the process is able to find a kind of olive branch that he extends to the readers of his text. While the author may start out enumerating all the ways in which its possible for a potential adult to grow up wrong, he also holds out the idea that it's never to late to do an about face. That the modern individual is capable of turning things around, and retracing his steps in order to correct whatever mistakes have been made along the way. This is where it's possible to begin to understand the purpose of the final grown-up that the Prince meets on his journey: the Pilot. The Narrator spends a great deal of the text as a passive observer, acting in effect as an audience surrogate. As fictional events start coming to a head, however, he finds himself getting more drawn into the meaning of the Prince's experiences, and this in turn begins to have an effect on his own character and actions. The documentary gets interesting here.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-GcMasVnBECY4MG2DcrQlheqgt24tm6IxquA6rdzoFO4-8UBoPPcRo5tPZR0k1LA7MfqfO1BtU-n5VCK3DXYtjkN1XC47hP0Y7yfcoyAt9ZBnBS4pvf2Xh7HbjmzCUAtCLn643y7y-3IWaCYVbVDGfBD9tY4R9m8L6ikY0yCftGxIq2gwvyVFDxyQJr39/s900/characters-from-alice-in-wonderland-john-tenniel.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="679" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-GcMasVnBECY4MG2DcrQlheqgt24tm6IxquA6rdzoFO4-8UBoPPcRo5tPZR0k1LA7MfqfO1BtU-n5VCK3DXYtjkN1XC47hP0Y7yfcoyAt9ZBnBS4pvf2Xh7HbjmzCUAtCLn643y7y-3IWaCYVbVDGfBD9tY4R9m8L6ikY0yCftGxIq2gwvyVFDxyQJr39/s320/characters-from-alice-in-wonderland-john-tenniel.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>At one point, Laferriere and choreographer Guillaume Cote make two intriguing (and, to me, convincing) observations about both the story's Narrator, and the events that transpire in the novel. "I always saw the aviator as someone in despair who <i>arranged his accident in the desert</i> in search of meditation. At that moment, a flower of his spirit appeared, and that's the little prince". Then here's how Cote follows up on that. "The Aviator and the Little Prince, the way that they interact, I always thought that <i>they were the same person</i>. This man who is dangerously close to death in the desert, and <i>he's having this weird hallucination/dream</i>". This line of thinking would then place Exupery's book on the same sub-genre shelf as that occupied by Lewis Carrol's <i>Alice</i> books. Each tale could be described as dream narratives that their respective main characters undergo. Saint-Ex's iteration of this setup is a lot more dire than just a little girl lounging by the river Thames, or falling asleep in her living room chair. The implication is that the heat of the desert combined with a growing thirst and malnourishment slowly begin to dull and mix the Pilot's mind, until some younger part of him wakes up, From there, much like Alice, the narrator's mind begins to remind him of a lot of wisdom that he has forgot.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In her dreams, Alice begins to acknowledge and to bring forth the slow growing realization that the adults and society in her life are full of meaningless nonsense, and that it is therefore best if she learns how to make her own way in the world, on terms that are more commonsensical. This seems to be the shared over-arching theme between Carroll's books and Exupery's own. The idea that whenever some of the goals and mores of a community no longer start to work, or else just serve to hold you back from bigger and better things. That's when it becomes time to see if it's possible to make a change for the better; both for yourself and for others. It's not the most original of concepts. Nor does it seem likely that it ever originated with either Carroll or Saint-Ex. It's just one of those really useful notions to have.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Conclusion: A Very Creative Shuffling of a Familiar Archetype.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1QgyQDEz6IDTfTjfpeX286ANN87udZ5ZICvabuSD52jlnUYiDK2uC2XCy3LrywI9EzWF7-clGGJThPE1mstupwmFoswFfGmuE5rYSyu7IH_dQaPg-lCrKMNEAq2HEVoHRt4YFgwXexAgm0zRbQwQT3D2HDqbWwIMbnJKT2LIIADpPEjnKxaSfpMUjhQuw/s350/71UWwnmzh6L._AC_UF350,350_QL50_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="223" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1QgyQDEz6IDTfTjfpeX286ANN87udZ5ZICvabuSD52jlnUYiDK2uC2XCy3LrywI9EzWF7-clGGJThPE1mstupwmFoswFfGmuE5rYSyu7IH_dQaPg-lCrKMNEAq2HEVoHRt4YFgwXexAgm0zRbQwQT3D2HDqbWwIMbnJKT2LIIADpPEjnKxaSfpMUjhQuw/s320/71UWwnmzh6L._AC_UF350,350_QL50_.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>If I had to find the right way to summarize the achievement of Officer's documentary, then it would have to be described as a very good gateway introduction. The novice viewer, in other words, could almost treat this as a preface to one of the most influential yet overlooked pieces of children's literature. Nor is there any concern that the subject matter is too esoteric, or that the viewer won't be able to follow along. Instead, Officer makes the wise creative decision to to carefully guide the viewer through the history, narrative, and thematic meaning of Exupery's text. He's managed to pull off that one creative headache that all directors have to tackle at some point or another. The filmmaker seems to have decided to see if the narrative of his documentary can go from start to finish walking that delicate, tightrope balance of finding a way to speak to both children and adults at once without ever talking down to either party. In this endeavor, Officer manages to cross the chasm without ever dropping so much as a single spinning plate. Instead, his documentary manages to draw in both young and old.</div><div><br /></div><div>The film's pace keeps things moving at a brisk clip that is able to hold your interest. The commentators interviewed are lively and never let the momentum of the film bog down. And a lot of the insights they bring to the table can sometimes offer a lot of food for thought. Perhaps what's most impressive about all this from a stylistic vantage point is that Officer somehow managed to pull all of this off while still finding a way to convey the quiet, contemplative tone of Saint-Ex's novel. It's one of those creative feats that are able to impress you with their combination of confident dexterity married to a welcome sense of humility. It allows the director to find the right method of getting out of the way and letting the story of the author and the book tell itself. The result is a film that matches the excitement of a child's adventure storybook with an easygoing atmosphere that pulls you inexorably along with it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgITXNI0Uju7TAvgXvnlJUZj1gb2SIeW4rrwiAUzz87WyuVeAE-8ThZAXJoHQz22OT2WBGY9T8Phkkg0xfwJXbz2ugt4OjN-AmAP5dzsj_G00t8_sLL_LVgIacymFxWjtHfOgpEsN-6h6r9eMDGm29MQd_oXWC87i0BXHI0E52qzsQHesNX2Pz9IS4uYGpO/s3840/p15942382_v_h8_aa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2160" data-original-width="3840" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgITXNI0Uju7TAvgXvnlJUZj1gb2SIeW4rrwiAUzz87WyuVeAE-8ThZAXJoHQz22OT2WBGY9T8Phkkg0xfwJXbz2ugt4OjN-AmAP5dzsj_G00t8_sLL_LVgIacymFxWjtHfOgpEsN-6h6r9eMDGm29MQd_oXWC87i0BXHI0E52qzsQHesNX2Pz9IS4uYGpO/w640-h360/p15942382_v_h8_aa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The subject at the heart of Officer's film is one that I'll have to confess I'm sort of late to the party on. Like I said at the start, my first encounter with Saint-Exupery's 20th century fairy tale came to me at a second hand remove. The TV channel <i>Nickelodeon</i> would occasionally air reruns of <i>The Adventures of the Little Prince</i> during the mid to late 80s, and that was where it first got to my attention. I had pretty much no way of knowing the stuff I was watching was ever based however loosely off an actual book. All of this awareness came a hell of long time, and what is now practically a whole other world later. It was from seeing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-nbUq-JYJk&t=528s&ab_channel=poparena">a retrospective on the TV show</a> by YouTuber Greg Stevens. It was his video that brought the documentary <i>Invisible Essence</i> and its twin subjects to my attention. I suppose the results of this accidental discovery do amount to something of an eye-opener, of sorts. Wading into the story of the <i>Little Prince</i> and the world of its author is something I'd best describe as a pleasant surprise of familiarity. What the author has written comes across as a mixture of old and new all intertwined together in a very entertaining package. It doesn't break new ground, or anything like that. The good news is that Exupery seems to know he doesn't have to re-invent the wheel in order to tell a good story.</div><div> </div><div>Instead, it's as I've said above. What the reader is treated to with the story of the nameless Pilot and his encounter with a planet hopping child from nowhere seems to be very the case of the author uncovering a familiar literary archetype, one that was haphazardly used elsewhere by J.M. Barrie. It goes without saying that Exupery's attempt at handling this idea comes off as a lot smoother and more engaging than Barrie's initial rough draft. However, that's also a judgment call that needs both tempering and explaining. I just said that Saint-Ex's book is better than Barrie's play, and all of that is true. I'm willing to swear on however many stacks of binding legal texts you may want on that score. What I didn't say, or mean to imply was that the tale of the singular monarch of asteroid B-612 was necessarily better than what I consider to be the definitive, finished and best canonical candidate versions of Peter and Neverland. In fact, since I'm convinced what we're dealing with here is two different riffs on the basic story idea, then if asked, I'm afraid I'd have to place Exupery's story in a reluctant second place. Please bear in mind, however, that this is not the same as me saying the book is bad. Merely that the same idea has resulted in two different stories in varying imaginations across the flow and line of time itself.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqI0m3Z-rC9S81xZ5EoV8B4TFNC_jvCJYaJtCYwoWkDyTIDFgUEDT8TdVReLtwkC46XL9IYSbhwGzdiyf3nG8KbvcsHXf7jTvP5MZ4Aht4Omd4ZRt6vzSkRaW6GOCrnwQrsBUOYmWO5N2SRj4svn4t9bF2bCInUssHAh7X2FbQt5TODtPo10PQ0JHIqYF/s900/AdSE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqI0m3Z-rC9S81xZ5EoV8B4TFNC_jvCJYaJtCYwoWkDyTIDFgUEDT8TdVReLtwkC46XL9IYSbhwGzdiyf3nG8KbvcsHXf7jTvP5MZ4Aht4Omd4ZRt6vzSkRaW6GOCrnwQrsBUOYmWO5N2SRj4svn4t9bF2bCInUssHAh7X2FbQt5TODtPo10PQ0JHIqYF/w640-h426/AdSE.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Perhaps a better way to say it is that maybe it does make sense to claim that Peter and the Prince are kind of the same character as viewed through different imaginative lenses. Exupery was able to take this child archetype and put his own spin on it while still leaving its creative integrity intact. Barrie was never that lucky, however the good news is that at least two other artists reworked his material, and were able to avoid all the previous mistakes. I just happen to like these other two tellings of the archetype more than Exupery's. This is still not the same as calling the novel a bad one, however. On the contrary, it deserves to be remembered as perhaps one of the great Magical Realist tales, as Officer's documentary suggests. Indeed, it is just possible to see how a story like this contains elements of material as that of Latin American writers like Borges, Cortazar, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. <i>The Little Prince</i> might even be described as the kind of book you'd get if any of the authors just mentioned ever decided to give full vent to the fantastical elements of their imagination. Or perhaps what Jules Verne and Carlos Fuentes might have conjured up if they ever decided to collaborate on a novel.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMykSGPzKggW5Tb6htwHaMqun_3wfzI9W508PnfxPCOkgAOoy4pGoiEfWeF0hrDeWG10MZ1SaO1JAK5rN5I3fW_JRXZNz-82Xa6doOYQz8-JijvAU3NQ1CFlc45Auni1ZD0tGuEmci0x2UcEK3UNToH7jMShpZQEE7UX43kY1aqU6lmsi3TEMtz3LEsqkn/s392/Pilot-and-prince-on-globe-012.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMykSGPzKggW5Tb6htwHaMqun_3wfzI9W508PnfxPCOkgAOoy4pGoiEfWeF0hrDeWG10MZ1SaO1JAK5rN5I3fW_JRXZNz-82Xa6doOYQz8-JijvAU3NQ1CFlc45Auni1ZD0tGuEmci0x2UcEK3UNToH7jMShpZQEE7UX43kY1aqU6lmsi3TEMtz3LEsqkn/s320/Pilot-and-prince-on-globe-012.webp" width="245" /></a></div>The entire book is of enough of a quality that I'm able to say we were probably robbed of a burgeoning talent all too soon. All the historical evidence points to Antoine De Saint-Exupery meeting his end by being shot down out of the sky, in one of his beloved airplanes, during a reconnaissance mission over Nazi occupied France during World War II. He wound up, in other words, as one of that nation's fallen heroes. It's a real shame, too. Because it is possible to conjure up an image of Saint-Ex surviving the War, and going on to one literary feat after another from there. Indeed, if given enough time, it could or might have been possible for him to become one of the literary voices that helped bring Magical Realism into French letters. As things stand, all we have is this one bright star of a book, and the promise of things left unfulfilled. The closest thing to compare it to is the glimpses of certain passages of recovered notebooks of soldiers fallen during the First World War. The whole thing is enough to add a certain amount of poignancy to the entire finished fable as Saint-Exupery has given it to us.</div><div><br /></div><div>All of these elements combine to create a book that is well worth hunting down and making a part of your life. Officer's documentary is also a worthy effort in its own right. It's the type of exploration of a work of art that is able to do a necessary amount of justice to its subject and source material. It gets a very easy recommendation for me. Though I think also have to admit this is the kind of documentary that is going to appeal to a very circumspect number of the audience. This is a film for people who don't just like the Fantasy genre, but also enjoy talking about it, discussing what it all means. Anyone who doesn't just enjoy Fantasy but is also aware that the vistas of the genres expand well beyond the boundaries of Middle Earth will also find plenty to like here. Those readers who know that Fantasy can still be exciting in a calm, meditative travelogue style narrative will get a kick out of it. Anyone who understands that a story doesn't have to always have to be wall-to-wall action oriented will find this a calming, and welcome tonic after having to watch something like the downfall of Marvel Comics. There's even something in the text that will appeal to those rare fans of obscure philosophic dialogue.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLKRqRVTnuUu1infkgkkdEBQQ7NUuSkA9MUV0sG8amcHtKJhTxrEm1vXHXwcmvPIwugQtIrAJW_ZwbfXvkYXFHATXhe4RpAWuECrpPtL07qCHwURdLgkC2u8wtJ59bR1sYaeOHG5aIvj9S4uadn2jZzkJ1UzqQtpO-k0GJjbXoWRqpUMb5AGslyT_C-byP/s1200/the-little-prince-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1200" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLKRqRVTnuUu1infkgkkdEBQQ7NUuSkA9MUV0sG8amcHtKJhTxrEm1vXHXwcmvPIwugQtIrAJW_ZwbfXvkYXFHATXhe4RpAWuECrpPtL07qCHwURdLgkC2u8wtJ59bR1sYaeOHG5aIvj9S4uadn2jZzkJ1UzqQtpO-k0GJjbXoWRqpUMb5AGslyT_C-byP/w640-h384/the-little-prince-001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>These are all examples of the kind of things to be found in Antoine Exupery's children's book, as well as Charles Officer's <i>Invisible Essence</i>. The best summation I can give it is that it's kind of like a <i>Walden Pond</i> for children. It's the kind of book that will take the reader away to a quiet place where they can perhaps have a chance to re-collect their thoughts (<i>if</i> that's what you want), and then send them back out into the world with hopefully a better, or at least a clearer outlook on the nature of things. There's one line, in particular, out of all the rest of the text that seems to sum up Exupery's point. It is spoken by a Fox that befriends the Prince at one point on his journey. In one of the film adaptations of the book, this character is played by none other than the original Candy Man himself, Gene Wilder. The adaptation I'm thinking of isn't all that great, yet that just allows Wilder to steal the whole show. Anyway, I bring it up because it is Wilder's Fox who gets the chance to deliver the idea at the heart of <i>The Little Prince</i>, and there's just something fitting about seeing Wilder in full Willy Wonka mode delivering this kind of message to children everywhere. <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye (<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2180358-le-petit-prince">web</a>)". All of which is to say that Charles Officer's <i>Invisible Essence</i>: <i>The Little Prince</i> is well worth digging up, and enjoying</span> </div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-47992810682865726672023-11-05T00:32:00.000-05:002023-11-05T00:32:24.683-05:00The Peter Pan Mythos 2: The Disney Live-Action Remake and the Original Stage Play.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JtlC_l1aRZqgNMOFyRk_AJkPFzdtXDr-9Ek15Unzj07TnjdEgYqiALoFjbe2KX2B8SgcFu8JjLNNDROB1kIKaGrUj8A8Cu-PzctT-w2JC5nFn9vAfvVSCiQ9YahDgRAlxOT6h9LbKLiwFgbXwbdFMcpyce2oxgoiRHCMYYqzs4cKWIVa0rG1Yk3XOKpV/s1481/MV5BZTIzNTQ0ZTYtZGIwOC00NzIxLWI0OWMtY2JlNTNiOTM1MWZhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDM2NDM2MQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1481" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JtlC_l1aRZqgNMOFyRk_AJkPFzdtXDr-9Ek15Unzj07TnjdEgYqiALoFjbe2KX2B8SgcFu8JjLNNDROB1kIKaGrUj8A8Cu-PzctT-w2JC5nFn9vAfvVSCiQ9YahDgRAlxOT6h9LbKLiwFgbXwbdFMcpyce2oxgoiRHCMYYqzs4cKWIVa0rG1Yk3XOKpV/s320/MV5BZTIzNTQ0ZTYtZGIwOC00NzIxLWI0OWMtY2JlNTNiOTM1MWZhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDM2NDM2MQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>There are certain stories whose history is so convoluted that its easy to get lost in the forest for the trees. Perhaps a better analogy is that it's a bit like taking what seems like a straight-forward path on the outside, and it isn't until you've turned the umpteenth corner into yet another dead end that you realize you're lost in a maze. That's what it's been like for me when it comes to untangling both the history and the nature of <i>Peter Pan</i>. Yes, I know, it's not the kind of statement the average person can ever take seriously. Why on Earth get a headache over some dumb children's book? That's the basic commonsense line of thinking on matter like this. Well, the unfortunate news is that the joke is on anyone who thinks like that, at least when it comes to the jumbled history of Neverland. Not only is there no such thing as an exact straight through line to be had in this corner of the library, the conclusion at the end of the labyrinth (if you can even manage to reach it) is so damned unexpected that it's like you can't decide whether to be relieved or stunned and confused out of your mind. This, however, just begs the question of why go to all that trouble over any story if it gives you that much of a headache? My only justification for pressing on has been twofold. In the fist place, it was the idea of genuinely good story wanting to be told that acted as a guiding thread thread through all of this. The second reason is that this story has a happy ending.<p></p><p>It's true that trying to understand the history of the Lost Boys and their Flighty Leader can be a challenge at the best of times. Perhaps trying to understand this story is the sort of job that should only be tackled by the experts. The kick in the teeth there, however, is that in everything I've read on this matter by the professional literary critics, not one of them has ever been able to see the whole truth, even when it was staring back at them from the page, stage, or screen. So the task of setting the record straight falls to just some random guy out of nowhere who won't shut up about his favorite hobby. As a result, I'm here today to discuss two facets of the Pan Mythos. The first is fairly recent, the Live Action Disney remake version. The second part I intend to examine is J.M. Barrie's original stage play, as that's where this whole darn thing got started. Peter and his adventures all began as stage characters before they ever landed within the pages of a book, or on the silver screen. So today, we're going to look at each version one at a time, and what it will reveal is a history of literary ironies.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvNUHS3QLjwX6Co4EAtqQ8cMvoXybN3IkN2HS-gwNpuW54SRvzO9MrefFTmM7AUAV3wD_Vj8pS2VnAdWDqwrOM4avPdgYayqhGzOhqdtxJqoLjTR0oIhTysI35PUpOXiCfWDnC3fA7tclOuTkIrfYzuB_JZCnEbxeMAvJoQiWkUYl9sRdN_wA69kvQ6Zm/s1200/fly-over-london-with-peter-pan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="1200" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvNUHS3QLjwX6Co4EAtqQ8cMvoXybN3IkN2HS-gwNpuW54SRvzO9MrefFTmM7AUAV3wD_Vj8pS2VnAdWDqwrOM4avPdgYayqhGzOhqdtxJqoLjTR0oIhTysI35PUpOXiCfWDnC3fA7tclOuTkIrfYzuB_JZCnEbxeMAvJoQiWkUYl9sRdN_wA69kvQ6Zm/w640-h416/fly-over-london-with-peter-pan.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />What it all boils down to is this. Of all the works of literature that I've studied on this blog, <i>Peter Pan</i> is the one narrative archetype that has consistently struggled the most in order to get it's story told with as much completion, and in the best way possible. I know that's not a sentence that makes all that much sense, yet I'll swear its the truth. I've never run across a cast of characters whose story has been more at the mercy of uncaring hands than Peter, Wendy, and their friends, or even their enemies, for that matter. This is all part of an account of the Little Story that Could. The Neverland Saga has turned out to be one of those stories that wound up managing to tell itself against a ridiculous number of insurmountable odds. Perhaps the purest irony of this story is that it's greatest obstacle remained its original creator. It's a history that's worth telling if you can do it well. It's a tale of ideas with creative potential being squandered first by its initial author, and then later once more, by an industry on what appears to be its last gasps. It's also a narrative of the eventual triumph of artistic creativity. <span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><b>An Outline of the Story and It's Troubled History.</b><div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JWu5Jr-BqpRps64U9hPT6W5_uc1lpiYo21A4ZC5ZXN9AsPjS4xZ4N7qAI5sM3K2ZsKqa9FYIiGV7hhfhpIFgv_OOr3p6lTPa1dHNimGwch0i06JfhXh7qeNpnoo7iazf_Q6xIRMLRu7N_VmsrpwcwsRCO__xC8Ui411xEz5lYyZ_tUFa3xddXyi9O0lb/s400/9780393066005.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="340" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JWu5Jr-BqpRps64U9hPT6W5_uc1lpiYo21A4ZC5ZXN9AsPjS4xZ4N7qAI5sM3K2ZsKqa9FYIiGV7hhfhpIFgv_OOr3p6lTPa1dHNimGwch0i06JfhXh7qeNpnoo7iazf_Q6xIRMLRu7N_VmsrpwcwsRCO__xC8Ui411xEz5lYyZ_tUFa3xddXyi9O0lb/s320/9780393066005.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>I think most audiences still have some idea of the <i>Peter Pan</i> story. In brief, its the story of a group of children who belong to the Darling family (Wendy, Michael, and John) and the adventures they have one night when they are whisked away to a far place called Neverland by the titular Boy Who Could Fly. Once there, the children encounter all sorts of perils and excitement, featuring encounters with Lost Boys, Mermaids, a Crocodile, and Pirates. The chief obstacle Wendy and her brothers have to deal with, however, is how to survive the wrath of Peter's arch-nemesis, Capt. James Hook, and whether or not they will ever be able to return home again. This is the merest summary possible. However, <i>Peter Pan</i> seems to be one of those constant myths. Part of a handful of perennial staples of childhood. It's the sort of tale, in other words, that almost everyone has grown up with. We know Peter and his adventures, in other words. Some of us have known him since we were no more than five years old. We're familiar with Neverland also. We know its unreal geography like our own backyards.<div><br /></div><div>Peter is one of the pantheon in the great nursery of of childhood memory. He occupies the same mental (and sometimes literal) shelf space with similar icons such as Snow White, Robin Hood, Huck Finn, Mowgli, and Alice. Peter even shares something in common with the last three imaginary celebrities on that list. All of them together were the result of a very productive period near the end of the 19th century, and the early start of the 20th. This was the time when the Fantasy genre first began to make a name for itself. Together with the work of writers like Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, and Lewis Carroll, James Matthew "J.M." Barrie's initial debut of Peter Pan (first as a sideline character in a book called <i>The Little White Bird</i> circa 1902, and then as the main lead of a stage play of the same name, just two years later) marks both the author and his character as both a contributor to and staple of a genre of writing that's best described as Victorian Romanticism. It was a period of time from roughly the 1840s to somewhere just before 1914, with the onset of the First World War. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC26xNWONziUZWnH9rSNGBAalyVo7c2PYoO0fhyphenhyphena203Q1jTKhyLnZaBl2SkpXmOyd7d1rWAQmOfLVDC-cFOE9xdXY1mLg-aMPhKhYgMzhPFZG33amnz7PmcTFFS6LeCgfe-5mohH-03F3jJ1ro7KBmcQq6qxxa2loggBbE-3ID8guuuKFLLyfzharsyjGC/s674/alice.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="674" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC26xNWONziUZWnH9rSNGBAalyVo7c2PYoO0fhyphenhyphena203Q1jTKhyLnZaBl2SkpXmOyd7d1rWAQmOfLVDC-cFOE9xdXY1mLg-aMPhKhYgMzhPFZG33amnz7PmcTFFS6LeCgfe-5mohH-03F3jJ1ro7KBmcQq6qxxa2loggBbE-3ID8guuuKFLLyfzharsyjGC/w640-h406/alice.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Spanning both the Victorian and Edwardian eras, I call this birth of modern popular children's fiction a strain of Romanticism because in many ways it just makes sense to view all of the major writers who worked in this period as more or less inheritors of the same literary aesthetic practices and techniques such as those developed by William Blake, John Keats, and S.T. Coleridge. None of these poets invented the idea of folklore, or the notion of journeys into perilous realms. What makes them all count, however, is that poems such as <i>Endymion </i>and <i>The Ancient Mariner</i> were the vanguard publications signaling the first major underground tremors of a re-awakening appreciation for stories of the fantastic that would later become an eruption with the arrival of the first major spate of storybooks for young readers. In fact, it was even two of the Romantic authors, Charles and Mary Lamb, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_19th-century_British_children%27s_literature_titles">who helped kickstart the whole thing</a> with their joint publication of the plays of Shakespeare transcribed into a book of prose short stories. From there, writers like Frederick Marryat and R.M. Ballantyne would go on to write the first few Boy's Own Adventure tales, and then John Ruskin helped complete the beginning with the 1851 publication of this little fantasy book called <i>The King of the Golden River</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-g_buy6FDsGzUML9-Wzj3tbo5SHq-AGZJTtggtpDRtvyWU4xbtli4voNHmPQcbcgLZlj2ZYaleyAQDnEuprwqxIJ5W1gUXtIv6IX_DONeX13-b-8g2IpaSKbHO8pF-WjjsoZlRGh4ZO9m2o0Gixu0lFJMPSt7abVTWYh1QGeoIZUGwC5i5oI9wyn00wDF/s1000/81BISXXlNVL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-g_buy6FDsGzUML9-Wzj3tbo5SHq-AGZJTtggtpDRtvyWU4xbtli4voNHmPQcbcgLZlj2ZYaleyAQDnEuprwqxIJ5W1gUXtIv6IX_DONeX13-b-8g2IpaSKbHO8pF-WjjsoZlRGh4ZO9m2o0Gixu0lFJMPSt7abVTWYh1QGeoIZUGwC5i5oI9wyn00wDF/w148-h222/81BISXXlNVL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>In the wake of all this gradual build-up, a kind of cottage industry began to take root as writers as diverse as Edith Nesbit or more obscure names like Mary Louisa Molesworth, Juliana Horatio Ewing, or Andrew Lang began to create the first type of popular fiction ever geared toward a mass audience readership. The interesting thing is that while I'm not sure anyone involved with this Victorian Renaissance was deliberately trying to break new ground or anything like that, what they ended up doing was collectively giving the Fantasy genre its modern identity. Perhaps the most remarkable part about this particular artistic achievement has been its long term durability. While it has updated its appearances with the passing of years, its basic, fundamental nature and narrative contours have maintained a remarkable sense of cohesion; something that the passage of time has done little to erase.</div><div><br /></div><div>The key thing to remember is that this entire creative spring was and remains the result of the literary aesthetic developed by the likes of Blake and Coleridge. "The word <i>Romanticism</i> is a loose enough term to describe this shift in sensibility", <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=OZR3xMKa7_AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=victorian+fantasy+stephen+prickett&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi666Cuh6KCAxUOlmoFHeziA7wQ6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false">according to Prof. Stephen Prickett (6).</a> And that makes writers like J.M. Barrie an inheritor of sorts. There's an almost perfect irony lying in wait when we reach his part in this larger story of genre formation. While it's true enough to claim that Barrie was one of the Romantic inheritors of the Victorian/Edwardian Age, his own contributions tell a story laced with a lot of bitter ironies. James Barrie grew up in a Burgh of Scotland known as Kirriemuir to Working going on Middle Class parents. In theory, it's possible to assume that Barrie might have had the chance at a normal life. Under other circumstances, all might have gone well, and the young lad would have had to endure no more than the normal life of a 19th century Highlands boy. Unfortunately for the real author, two things got in the way of an experience of normal reality. The first was that his mother always preferred his older brother David over any of her other children, including him. And when James was 6, and David was just shy of his 14th birthday, Barrie's older brother suffered a fatal accident when he fell ice skating. These two events combined to take a toll on the writer's mind.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OwG8YveaE5-XO2ent4x7dLu1IlaRSFmlpjZZTwwr_j7N88_FfCz7RhLekTkCTu0RtiPGMo-EaQcoE8zcd_npE1E8ker9Vy4t__fzv9NebdGhgIoPVIAak-BbG5BJDem89Tu0pUxRhEJj4QgFf7lMckVGTnyU_IS64I9lufl-1OJ9WQBOGkXapC6gF8N6/s1920/jm-barrie-author-of-peter-pan-gettyimages-613514158.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OwG8YveaE5-XO2ent4x7dLu1IlaRSFmlpjZZTwwr_j7N88_FfCz7RhLekTkCTu0RtiPGMo-EaQcoE8zcd_npE1E8ker9Vy4t__fzv9NebdGhgIoPVIAak-BbG5BJDem89Tu0pUxRhEJj4QgFf7lMckVGTnyU_IS64I9lufl-1OJ9WQBOGkXapC6gF8N6/w640-h360/jm-barrie-author-of-peter-pan-gettyimages-613514158.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />What we're talking about with J.M. Barrie is the clinical case study of a writer formed out of a fundamentally dysfunctional family setting. For whatever reason, his mother became psychologically attached to her first child. Young David Barrie was made the apple of his mother's eye to the point where it soon became obvious that he was the <i>only</i> child she ever really cared for, and none else. This is the type of situation that can happen families all over the world. The parent becomes guilty of a kind of favoritism amongst their children which is unhealthy at its core, and by all means should be avoided in order to stave off the kind of simmering jealousy as that which first grew and then festered between young James and his older brother. It has to be noted that whenever a parent does latch onto a favored son or daughter in this way, the causes are often far from normal. If you dig deep enough, you'll soon find a personal psychological motivation that has a lot more to do with questions of personal comfort or ambition. The parent is more concerned with re-living their own life through their children, rather than seeing the child as their own personality in need of growth and all the proper encouragements.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkSAbjyvO73Qe6lI_FPckTTX659ejDhzz72zjquGNRt_-WtgCsf-BKepOs9lL7q3l3HtFCGko3okL7FbOs_AhEUvm5e9SuZn1UKHkUFrLpS8kludypaN_iV-aKqrYP1cmdaWQf8d6PRWwYvCWUgsnGCAixFKKNMfA29Cbv3z46e4o9sKvPdR90uqAnHg4_/s2048/MV5BNTVmZWE4NGItZmI3Ny00Nzk3LWIyMzQtOTBlYjc4Y2MzMWNjXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc3MjQzNTI@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkSAbjyvO73Qe6lI_FPckTTX659ejDhzz72zjquGNRt_-WtgCsf-BKepOs9lL7q3l3HtFCGko3okL7FbOs_AhEUvm5e9SuZn1UKHkUFrLpS8kludypaN_iV-aKqrYP1cmdaWQf8d6PRWwYvCWUgsnGCAixFKKNMfA29Cbv3z46e4o9sKvPdR90uqAnHg4_/s320/MV5BNTVmZWE4NGItZmI3Ny00Nzk3LWIyMzQtOTBlYjc4Y2MzMWNjXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc3MjQzNTI@._V1_.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>This seems to have been the ultimate case of Margaret Barrie, James' mother. When David, her favorite son died, Margaret never took it as just the obvious tragedy that it was. Instead, there is the sense that she felt that life, the universe, what have you, had cheated her out of this unspoken personal desire and ambition on some fundamental level. In other words, it wasn't David as a son that she was interested in. Rather it was David as a means to some selfish, personal end that she was ever truly interested in. Now those means and ends had been wrenched from her. In his own biography, James Barrie records how his mother was "inconsolable" at David's passing, and in a sense that's true. It was just perhaps a lot less to do with sorrow over the loss of a child, and more concerned with a now forever undefined goal of personal power being taken away from her. Whether or not James himself was aware of this remains a matter of speculation. Although one can't always rule it out. Margaret Barrie was, in short, a fundamentally selfish person, and this inability to engage with the world on its own terms went on to have a detrimental effect on her only remaining son. It resulted in a boy who never grew up.</div><div><br /></div><div>Margaret Barrie's consequential mismanagement of her son James left the author with a series of crippling inferiority complexes. Chief among them seems to have been a general lack of trust in other people, especially adults and the normal relationships that tend to develop amongst grown-ups, such as genuine romantic feelings. The result was one failed marriage that seems to have remained sexless and childless. Nor is it all that surprising considering the way his own childhood had conditioned him in a general direction away from all the normal human contacts. J.M. Barrie, then, is a portrait of the artist as a maladjusted human being. This is best on display in the one creation that has guaranteed him a very ironic immortality. Turns out the story of <i>Peter Pan</i> serves as a great textbook example of all the ways a good story idea can suffer when its in the hands of a writer whose mental capabilities are perhaps missing a few beers shy of a full six-pack. The initial concept of Neverland and its inhabitants started out as an embryonic idea that began to evolve and take shape from Barrie's interactions with the children of the Llewellyn Davies family. I covered this toxic relationship in an older review <a href="http://here.">here.</a></div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcDQgh73TnC9aknRAMgAthNiw-b-J6u7eDphb6MZVlsrCacQRLV1Ud2Qcb7zIxWfOIul7cGcXnrS0d0wt6il7Bw_0HYHugQNmR7anrs1S7fKs4fYet9l_kDoSQLX0geYDjbgW5sdyGNz6T4oM6Y-87YP-faz9rNTwtnyty_5HrY0tDyGt22a92O_PNvIF6/s3200/2018_NYR_16392_0102_000(rackham_arthur_peter_pan_original_watercolor_and_pen_and_ink_drawing_s094444).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2293" data-original-width="3200" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcDQgh73TnC9aknRAMgAthNiw-b-J6u7eDphb6MZVlsrCacQRLV1Ud2Qcb7zIxWfOIul7cGcXnrS0d0wt6il7Bw_0HYHugQNmR7anrs1S7fKs4fYet9l_kDoSQLX0geYDjbgW5sdyGNz6T4oM6Y-87YP-faz9rNTwtnyty_5HrY0tDyGt22a92O_PNvIF6/w640-h458/2018_NYR_16392_0102_000(rackham_arthur_peter_pan_original_watercolor_and_pen_and_ink_drawing_s094444).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The gist of it is that Barrie's stunted psychological development meant that his <a href="https://www.sdrelationshipplace.com/the-fear-of-trusting-pistanthrophobia/">chronic inability to develop a full trusting relationship with others</a> meant that his interactions with the Davies boys (George, Jack, Peter, Michael, and Nicholas) while never reaching the most dangerous levels of child/adult interactions, did always manage to contain this unhealthy level of manipulation about it. One gets the sense that Barrie enjoyed chaperoning the kids not for the sake of their own well-being, and instead more for the way they could serve as his own living, collective security blanket he could use to hide away from both the world, and more importantly his own troubles. This same strategy seems to have bled into his writing practices as he began to construct the secondary world of Neverland out of his interactions with the Davies boys. What's interesting to note is that the trouble of using others for one's own neurotic purposes appears to have had as deleterious an effect on make believe personalities just as it does on real life ones. In each case, we have Barrie trying to act as an author both on the page and in reality. The trouble with inflicting a fundamentally selfish behavior pattern on others is that it begins to take a psychic toll on those within the abuser's social circles. These are just basic psychological facts.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQquZLAgWDJQ7W6inydUij96jriddVQUflHvd31dIe1qYN0p1i3Hfq4KMpnShiim9FKO4iPi_bTMbVv7DY2lXigPC-UxoE053CjGUqiVxrIOZeVb37qRC0KDEzuFXqY31fjwWV5r3MauJSuP9nDz3YCqhK_bYyIMx70spVMMhcWJYYimkI4sCiOz-omPdW/s553/9781408171257.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="360" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQquZLAgWDJQ7W6inydUij96jriddVQUflHvd31dIe1qYN0p1i3Hfq4KMpnShiim9FKO4iPi_bTMbVv7DY2lXigPC-UxoE053CjGUqiVxrIOZeVb37qRC0KDEzuFXqY31fjwWV5r3MauJSuP9nDz3YCqhK_bYyIMx70spVMMhcWJYYimkI4sCiOz-omPdW/w202-h311/9781408171257.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>It's what happened to the Davies boys, many of whom came to bad ends, and a lot of it might have been due to the same kind of mismanagement that Barrie inherited from mistreatment at the hands of his mother, and which he in turn passed on to them. In many ways, it's possible to claim that the finished <i>Pan</i> faired no better. Now of course I'll have to admit the obvious here. The safety of real children comes first before works of fiction any time, day or night. Not just as a matter of commonsense, but also down to an intrinsic psychological necessity. There's just something in the human mind that won't allow us to rest easy with the suffering of others. For all we know, that might be the closest origin point to the nature of morality itself. At the least it says something when the only way to ease a tortured mind is to help prevent the same from happening to others. Sadly, no one was there to protect Barrie or the Davies children, It's just odd after noting something like this, that the same pattern of abuse also tends to play out in the pages of the original finished draft for the play of the Boy Who Won't Grow Up.</div><div> </div><div>If we apply this rubric to the finished play script, then what it reveals is a story that wants to tell itself, and yet it's never really given a chance. You start to get the sense that the author might have a legitimate idea for a very good Fantasy yarn with a lot of narrative potential in it waiting to be developed. Now the regular way this process works is that the writer just has to find the correct way to tap into that exact same potential contained within the creative idea, or archetype that has flashed up like a flare from the Imagination. Stephen King has compared the actual job of telling a story on paper to a nine to five job akin to brick laying or building a fire. I tend to think of it as an intellectual game that works like a cross between solitaire and Go Fish. All the artist can do is develop patience and commitment enough to wait for the ideas (if any) to come, and then just see if they can tap into that Imagination well enough to not just place the story on the page, but also do it in the best way possible, so that the artist can be able to unearth something similar to a living fossil with a life of its own.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixqVZ-5uLyMxhB0YvUGkITyeoCr5L8Eiz7qHV5QfKReMs7x4_wya1zsY4astJb_1prZseOavrlquRQZUHxC2qHCeTAwp58pBb5hRtE499lH0AvPuhehCDEFettwWTdCMxD2qunYUJESmbevBjMqco8fZ3gHLD1UJ0g2jLjcIn8_se7Rk8xc2E4u7UF_6h5/s660/hMkJK8Z7GUUnmK7PLSG5YU.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="660" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixqVZ-5uLyMxhB0YvUGkITyeoCr5L8Eiz7qHV5QfKReMs7x4_wya1zsY4astJb_1prZseOavrlquRQZUHxC2qHCeTAwp58pBb5hRtE499lH0AvPuhehCDEFettwWTdCMxD2qunYUJESmbevBjMqco8fZ3gHLD1UJ0g2jLjcIn8_se7Rk8xc2E4u7UF_6h5/w640-h386/hMkJK8Z7GUUnmK7PLSG5YU.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Bear in mind, I've just described <i>the normal way of writing fiction</i>. Barrie never goes this route. Instead, imagine what happens when what sounds like a cast of characters with a lot of creative potential start to form and come together, creating this enchanted island background for a secondary world. As time goes on, this cast begins to work gain a better idea of who they are, or what their roles could be, and what sort of narrative can be spun out from their interactions. There's a sense of promise as things begin to coalesce and a clearer picture of the overall story begins to emerge. It's the story of this group of average children on the cusp of adulthood, and their shared difficulties in coming to grips with the pressure of growing up, and how they chance to meet this other kid who comes from a faraway land, located somewhere "second to the right, and straight on till morning". </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNC998MAAEzsispjHMAnI4LYIbfB3-Rod7_v-_GuWFCRJXy5jLxE7j0Rb0R_i8J-4aXEdZuyyGGzugi6fhuVQ4ZkVrJXD7Q9PoqHcMkl4U_JE74WoJCgeongSIAhuqutigrJoskFq4w0Ih8JOmcf1ik0Qnnonip4i3jS5H-DHiPX1TF_UrYVMq-8-_a_1T/s450/alice-b-woodward-peter-pan-and-wendy-float-away-over-the-city_u-l-q1hdtlu0.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNC998MAAEzsispjHMAnI4LYIbfB3-Rod7_v-_GuWFCRJXy5jLxE7j0Rb0R_i8J-4aXEdZuyyGGzugi6fhuVQ4ZkVrJXD7Q9PoqHcMkl4U_JE74WoJCgeongSIAhuqutigrJoskFq4w0Ih8JOmcf1ik0Qnnonip4i3jS5H-DHiPX1TF_UrYVMq-8-_a_1T/s320/alice-b-woodward-peter-pan-and-wendy-float-away-over-the-city_u-l-q1hdtlu0.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>What follows is some kind of adventure as this flying boy named Peter takes Wendy and her brothers on a journey through this secondary world. The story then should play out as a coming of age tale for the siblings John, Michael, and their big sister as their experiences in Neverland teaches them about the tragedies and triumphs of childhood, as well as the real significance of what it means to grow up. Nor are they only ones effected by their stay in this fantastical otherworld as Peter's time with Wendy and the close calls they have in their shared encounters fighting off the schemes and machinations of the wicked Captain Hook prove to be not just a lesson for Wendy and the boys, but also something of a growing experience for Peter Pan as well. The following summary is made to give the reader a sense of how the original story idea might have presented itself to Barrie over time as it began to take shape through his interactions with the Davies family. As was said, though, if this is in any way close to how the story might have appeared in Barrie's mind, then what happened next is best described the ultimate act of creative dismantling of a narrative concept and it's creative potential by the author himself.<br /></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>You see, the best and most standard way of handling any possible idea for a work of fiction is for the author to get out of the Imagination's way, and let it weave together all the necessary narrative threads that it needs in order to produce as complete and successful a book, film, or play as possible. This creative necessity of getting out of the way, and letting the tale tell itself is of especial importance whenever it becomes clear that the story idea in and of itself contains all the artistic potential ready to order in its initial conception. This is how it was for J.R.R. Tolkien when he scribbled the words, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit" in an idle moment on a piece of paper. From there, the Professor knew his duty as author was to stand aside and let the world of Middle Earth open and bloom forth in his mind's eye. The results of that particular moment of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Hobbit-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0063330784/ref=pd_lpo_sccl_1/133-0577794-4486755?pd_rd_w=A1sxT&content-id=amzn1.sym.116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_p=116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_r=DDZ77XV5TPN1XTK4CJN1&pd_rd_wg=CdKdC&pd_rd_r=f95b1787-ba56-4453-bb21-aa99c3a4b004&pd_rd_i=0063330784&psc=1">carefully shepherded and guided inspiration</a> have created what is almost a literary institution in it's own right. Neverland has something like this reputation, yet it's never scaled to the same heights as Hobbiton and its environs. I think a lot of the reason for that stems from Barrie not being able to get out of either his or the story's own way.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicOZcQRUDJimQk7h4Y3eTjD1xfO2JDMjMJlu-0oI4hwm86FABHUil8cpqJRv99sy81DgWtx61FOo2ICirrskTNEWoXKknsyRHQebYq0ST8848XrQukPDVgOAImmFLTTmaUHRTzRzVf4dGhE76bSfcZjEsSwj2wq47V6Or4o02UldXhOJhrREY2EDSZbsn4/s2700/r6yw66zkbm961.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1423" data-original-width="2700" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicOZcQRUDJimQk7h4Y3eTjD1xfO2JDMjMJlu-0oI4hwm86FABHUil8cpqJRv99sy81DgWtx61FOo2ICirrskTNEWoXKknsyRHQebYq0ST8848XrQukPDVgOAImmFLTTmaUHRTzRzVf4dGhE76bSfcZjEsSwj2wq47V6Or4o02UldXhOJhrREY2EDSZbsn4/w640-h338/r6yw66zkbm961.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Unlike Tolkien, Barrie was the not so proud possessor of a highly neurotic outlook on life and people in general, and this bled over into his composition in a way that hurt the story of Neverland big time. Rather than stand aside in watchful attention, and letting the Imagination do as it will; it's like the moment the characters began to form and start performing their narrative, Barrie would step in, and force them into these artificial actions that just kill whatever momentum the story might be trying to build upon. To give a good idea of what I mean, it's best to take a look at the some of the worst offenses Barrie commits as a writer. It's impossible to cover the entire play, even the space of an extended essay review. What can be said about it in general, though, is that the whole thing reads like a bad imitation of a <i>Sesame Street</i> skit with all the wit, intelligence, and good humor removed. Rather than finding the right way to encourage a child audience by talking up to them in a manner that doesn't just respect but also elevates their growing minds, all Barrie can manage is to fill most of his scenes with padding of the merest Victorian treacle. The kind of stuff that was left behind years ago by the likes of Kipling, Nesbit, or Mark Twain is utilized because Barrie realizes he doesn't have much to say.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDReWujHVhBgr4M9V5gAtzjZPBISSKI62ZhbboLLymaVW2QQ0FSxQfxiEphw-pfPINaK5PX6KI6GSlbbOJ6ZScIbvedBFKDC-7YoCF_3klx0C42-ivO2Nb363Uxg70SbMCHVUmZMACSs0GQhq3x3kyriZyfetczSOINwlfqyW1Tz0CKNNbPCO8XPR20fzx/s400/%7B7A88B95C-1199-466C-BAD3-D5F2EFB44B57%7DIMG400.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDReWujHVhBgr4M9V5gAtzjZPBISSKI62ZhbboLLymaVW2QQ0FSxQfxiEphw-pfPINaK5PX6KI6GSlbbOJ6ZScIbvedBFKDC-7YoCF_3klx0C42-ivO2Nb363Uxg70SbMCHVUmZMACSs0GQhq3x3kyriZyfetczSOINwlfqyW1Tz0CKNNbPCO8XPR20fzx/s320/%7B7A88B95C-1199-466C-BAD3-D5F2EFB44B57%7DIMG400.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Instead, even a simple read through the play script gives one the somehow uncomfortable feeling that Barrie wants little children to play all the roles, because it sure as hell sounds like those are the collective narrative voices that he's written for. In other words, there's a kind of self-assured sense of possession in books by Kipling or Twain that's missing in Barrie. A lot of the reason for this comes down to a basic sense of respect for the reader present in the work of the former scribblers that's missing from every page of Barrie's text. What becomes clear is that the writer has no genuine regard for his audience whatsoever. There's none of the epic, yet somehow cozy grandeur to be found in all of Kipling's best work (even the <i>Just So Stories</i> which were specifically written for young readers, and yet whose diction and cadence recalls the mode of Homer or the King James Version). Nor is he capable of the wry, knowing, yet always inviting "It's-you-and-me-against-the-world-kids" ethos of Twain. Now there may be some who claim this might be unfair, and that each writer has their own unique style.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, to all that, I say here's the best that Barrie is able to conjure up under his own steam. The scene takes place after a prostrate Wendy has been settled into an ill-defined resting place after getting hit with an arrow. A bare bones description makes the whole thing sound like it could be a maybe suspenseful moment between life and death. So how does Barrie write all this down? Let me just apologize ahead of schedule, and place a different kind of trigger warning on the stuff you're about to read. "Peter,' shouted another, 'she is moving in her sleep.' 'Her mouth opens,' cried a third, looking respectfully into it. 'Oh lovely!' 'Perhaps she is going to sing in her sleep,' said Peter. 'Wendy, sing the kind of house you would like to have.' Immediately, without opening her eyes, Wendy began to sing:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYJLEBWujyRgk6HNhT_hY13pO9qK0O4uxtNn-GkcV1guQZfuwDfFY1vVhJBSOPAd7RRVWFzI1cWoshaoWu2jGhSWxB5mt2p6wYuO-HvKPGHmPoc_jF0gx0E1i1oDG4kPnTS_ENgR6w2bp9QDgzLQtMT9UVdm7wcttBruU3nOLwA9bsx5pzYVarcVpzU_K/s1300/away-he-flew-right-over-the-houses-to-the-gardens-from-the-book-peter-pan-in-kensington-gardens-from-the-little-white-bird-by-barrie-j-m-james-matthew-1860-1937-illustrated-by-arthur-rackham-publisher-hodder-stought.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="885" data-original-width="1300" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYJLEBWujyRgk6HNhT_hY13pO9qK0O4uxtNn-GkcV1guQZfuwDfFY1vVhJBSOPAd7RRVWFzI1cWoshaoWu2jGhSWxB5mt2p6wYuO-HvKPGHmPoc_jF0gx0E1i1oDG4kPnTS_ENgR6w2bp9QDgzLQtMT9UVdm7wcttBruU3nOLwA9bsx5pzYVarcVpzU_K/w640-h436/away-he-flew-right-over-the-houses-to-the-gardens-from-the-book-peter-pan-in-kensington-gardens-from-the-little-white-bird-by-barrie-j-m-james-matthew-1860-1937-illustrated-by-arthur-rackham-publisher-hodder-stought.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"I wish I had a pretty house,</div><div>The littest ever seen,</div><div>With funny little red walls</div><div>And a roof of mossy green.'</div><div><br /></div><div>"They gurgled with joy at at this, for by the greatest good luck the branches they had brought were sticky with red sap, and all the ground was carpeted with moss. As they rattled up the little house they broke into song themselves:</div><div><br /></div><div>'We've built the little walls and roof</div><div>And made a lovely door,</div><div>So tell us, mother Wendy,</div><div>What are you wanting more (<a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924009450788/page/n97/mode/1up?q=mossy+green&view=theater">76</a>)"?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26OgQqbNnPB-dTAEmQ2qk9vdBDnWXEG_Zi_ApftUNUOC0ELi43Ex5OrxhSRM1Qk74lPC4zBSW6PkEw20-lGPy1PiwWNpJ_B7igh7a1Vg4z51Q1xs4EmKav14o-QuzGuaEOGjOtfhTF2WQPyVIE1ZBFcVmVnwqXo8C2RsLVFfCx4bLNZWBpxH5X9XA1c8L/s1000/81iytDmos2L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26OgQqbNnPB-dTAEmQ2qk9vdBDnWXEG_Zi_ApftUNUOC0ELi43Ex5OrxhSRM1Qk74lPC4zBSW6PkEw20-lGPy1PiwWNpJ_B7igh7a1Vg4z51Q1xs4EmKav14o-QuzGuaEOGjOtfhTF2WQPyVIE1ZBFcVmVnwqXo8C2RsLVFfCx4bLNZWBpxH5X9XA1c8L/s320/81iytDmos2L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Well, I can't speak for others, yet I think I've had enough, if it's all the same. The worst part is to then go back and try to survive a read through the original play script. If you do, you'll find this exact same scene with the precise, identical lines spoken by all of the same players. It goes right down all the way to the actions of the house assembling itself to some second rate drivel that's trying to pass itself off as legitimate pantomime. Here's the real kick in the teeth about all that. I've just quoted lines from the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Hobbit-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0063330784/ref=pd_lpo_sccl_1/133-0577794-4486755?pd_rd_w=A1sxT&content-id=amzn1.sym.116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_p=116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_r=DDZ77XV5TPN1XTK4CJN1&pd_rd_wg=CdKdC&pd_rd_r=f95b1787-ba56-4453-bb21-aa99c3a4b004&pd_rd_i=0063330784&psc=1">official novelization</a> Barrie made of his own play a few years after its debut. That means the writer transferred all the creaking machinery of the stage version right into the one place where it didn't have to go. Part of the appeal of turning a play like this into a legitimate novel lies in the very sense of creative freedom that the writer is allowed to have. You don't have to rely on trick wire work and sliding pasteboard sets when it comes to writing a book. Once you've made the switch to this other medium, it is more or less the basic duty of any halfway decent writer to hand over the car keys and let the Imagination rip off into the farthest reaches it can go for. Barrie, in other words, had the perfect opportunity before him. He could have expanded the original source material into something real.</div><div><br /></div><div>He could have devoted more time and effort to letting the story and its cast have a voice of its own. He had ample opportunity to take his time with the material. To stop and observe both the characters and the imaginary settings they moved through. From there, he could have gone just about anywhere, <i>if</i> he was willing to treat the creative idea with whatever proper and natural integrity it both deserved and might have had, if given a chance to shine. The closest we ever seem to get to this potential, however, is when the narration treats us to a series of backstory vignettes about all of Captain Hook's crew members. This is the one time the book highlights the kind of creative potential it could have had. For the briefest of moments, it looks and sounds as if the story is starting to come to life in a way that matters. There's a building sense of emerging dimensionality to a group of extras who up till now have just been background figures. It's very much like watching a series of paintings stir and come to a fascinating kind of life. You want to see what the story is going to do with all of these characters. Then they're never mentioned again and relegated to the disposable extras they were from the stage play. The author allows himself to lose a chance at genuine creativity because it's not what he cares about. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgifGDrSzhqlnoaYf0FXRDyqG5n_Am_O23yvz5AgmzooJKliSRMBT-2ZftoX_7Ki4uum1vpcjWCDPTgsssxsSzrrJMkAgm0hFK3bMXidvUiJpHUdXs3YbZ7X-5x0q2vjdt8hD_Sy3badfKjUpqthDrPNSX-F8z0t1WGBfUc-ZK6-YuKgiqCOs6kLJj2j8KT/s1000/71rvRaLZ3FL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="640" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgifGDrSzhqlnoaYf0FXRDyqG5n_Am_O23yvz5AgmzooJKliSRMBT-2ZftoX_7Ki4uum1vpcjWCDPTgsssxsSzrrJMkAgm0hFK3bMXidvUiJpHUdXs3YbZ7X-5x0q2vjdt8hD_Sy3badfKjUpqthDrPNSX-F8z0t1WGBfUc-ZK6-YuKgiqCOs6kLJj2j8KT/w142-h221/71rvRaLZ3FL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>Barrie could have allowed the world of his secondary realm to open out into a depth and breadth that might have rivaled, or perhaps even gone on to inspire the size, scope, or perhaps certain elements of Middle Earth. Instead, history goes on to record that it was the kind of treacle writing like that found in Barrie's play that Tolkien said he made a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories">deliberate effort</a> to get away from when crafting his own Perilous Realm. And so a real opportunity was lost to give the story its proper voice all because the writer never truly wanted any of that. It gets worse on a technical level when you consider that the passage above is trying to describe a house assembling itself through some kind of magic. Yet the description itself is so vague that it's almost difficult to tell what's even going on. I altered nothing there. It is all down to the slap-dash, don't-give-much-of-a-shit style of none but the author himself. </div><div><br /></div><div>The problem at the heart of Barrie's execution is that it is insincere. There is no real sense of trust or of great and important secrets shared between confidants as there is in Twain or Nesbit. The author has no genuine sense of respect for his audience, young or old, and so as a correlative, he also can't find it in him to treat his character with the dignity of their office. If you can't find any value in your fellow man, why bother extending the same courtesy to a make-believe pack of cards? This seems to have been the kind of thought process going on in Barrie's head, as he never really <i>wrote</i> the story so much as he <i>manipulated</i> it all for his own personal, neurotic ends. It's like watching a grown man build a sandcastle, and have the horrific realization creep up on you that you're watching an unsound mind playing a twisted kind of game for his own amusement at the expense of others. There's bound to be a clinical term for all of this, yet it's just not actual Creative Writing 101. J.M. Barrie, then, in the strictest sense is not a writer but a manipulator, both on and off the page. As a result, both fictional and real life people have suffered for it. The irony being completed by the fact that even when he tries to construct a hideaway from others for himself Barrie is forever trapped with the root of his problems.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWTOeHgzEiHGg71eF5hxT7cwaXr7zPn04ceJSOdgSnQA3NEldlIwoynfp87EQru_h-p1C0AN9RqmfUpDnPlua7qRWGFEcMp4uRF-gh3oIdMhVZtEjrQbOf5KwQreW2mTfO8GuWPnco11QVhyphenhyphenSLjZYj56iCFjQe-hb9DhFyoIZz3_o6wAT9tYg7Sw2Iz7Zi/s1191/diego-fabbri-peter-pan-bassa-risoluzione.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="1191" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWTOeHgzEiHGg71eF5hxT7cwaXr7zPn04ceJSOdgSnQA3NEldlIwoynfp87EQru_h-p1C0AN9RqmfUpDnPlua7qRWGFEcMp4uRF-gh3oIdMhVZtEjrQbOf5KwQreW2mTfO8GuWPnco11QVhyphenhyphenSLjZYj56iCFjQe-hb9DhFyoIZz3_o6wAT9tYg7Sw2Iz7Zi/w640-h452/diego-fabbri-peter-pan-bassa-risoluzione.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>It makes for a pretty messed up life story, as well as a fictional story with little to no life or much anything much of else in it except for a catalogue of the authors bitterest complaints and resentments against what he views as a hostile world full of heartless children and devious mothers. The funny thing is how after all that, it is still just possible to say there was a silver lining to this horizon. J.M. Barrie was a failed writer who stumbled upon a good idea. In the priceless words of Peter S. Beagle, he was "A Bad Poet with Dreams". Not that he ever did much with them. However, the one correct thing he did was to write enough down so that it is still possible to get a bare bones outline of the story beats. All that remained was to uncover the story fossil by finding out how to put all the right meat on its bones. While I am happy to say that someone eventually found a way, that's still not what we're hear to talk about. Before we can make it to sunnier climes, there's still one more problem to address.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Disney Live Action Version.</b> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2Hczi6n8QbJ9HnndjYKo1Dra-vuvYXY3AKIMa4b2abc-eCb_2fF9B2Etse4zScjuVFTByBnsaW7fcCc0z9GDDL2JoyeapsqXO1TLPJaFEJ6HbCGpYfnBtJ6GQxzPYDrWx4aCE4aWrvL-HxrnCeRQyUFMKkY7jTwAgIDhh44yYkJXvIO-lJaeSYWqLPEc/s1800/Disney-Peter-Pan-Wendy-Collage-Wall-Poster-14-725-x-22-375_e59fdc88-5de3-4371-9c48-8f48b5002d44.1e647c34e3aa4ccd83002c58e49dc847.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1185" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2Hczi6n8QbJ9HnndjYKo1Dra-vuvYXY3AKIMa4b2abc-eCb_2fF9B2Etse4zScjuVFTByBnsaW7fcCc0z9GDDL2JoyeapsqXO1TLPJaFEJ6HbCGpYfnBtJ6GQxzPYDrWx4aCE4aWrvL-HxrnCeRQyUFMKkY7jTwAgIDhh44yYkJXvIO-lJaeSYWqLPEc/s320/Disney-Peter-Pan-Wendy-Collage-Wall-Poster-14-725-x-22-375_e59fdc88-5de3-4371-9c48-8f48b5002d44.1e647c34e3aa4ccd83002c58e49dc847.webp" width="211" /></a></div>I don't know what there is to say about this version of the <i>Pan</i> myth. Except that it was like watching a car crash happen in excruciating slow motion because the driver was trying to make some kind of desperate course correction that just made things worse. The current crop of Disney remakes are a peculiar, often aggravating Frankenstein creation unto themselves, and could almost be considered their own subject. I'm just going to stick with the company's attempt at remaking Peter's story. Not just because that's the subject of this article, but also because the way the studio is handling the story of Neverland is emblematic enough in itself. This is the kind of "movie" that is better at telling how Hollywood is struggling not just to stay afloat in a highly competitive marketplace, but also in terms of its ability to hang onto any creative potential at all. David Lowery's <i>Peter Pan and Wendy</i> is a very informative failure in that respect. It's not just a film (or more accurately, a <i>product</i>) that is bad. It goes out of its own way multiple times to explain all the ways it sucks, and why this happens to be the case.</div><div><br /></div><div>In that way, Lowery's aborted efforts can make their own very ironic claim to a form of artistic originality that I'm not sure anyone knew was possible, much less ever would have expected. It's the kind of "film" that doesn't tell a story, in the strictest sense. Instead, this is the sort feature that telegraphs the message "I am the product of a studio system that may very be on its last legs, and has no clear idea of how to save itself. Please send help". What we're given then works less as a legit story, and more as an interesting curio piece. It's an abortive attempt at a movie that is nonetheless kind enough to display all of its flaws in such an obvious fashion that the critic's job of dissection is made easier than one could have hoped for. I almost want to say you can take a ruined experiment like this and place it in a museum somewhere. That way anybody who wants to examine the story of artistic decline can have an almost perfect specimen to point to going forward. In this sense, what Lowery was forced to shovel out counts as a truly remarkable specimen for all of the most ironic reasons.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ndQh4grXlP6Z94BpbtmDBKIUx1eDK1uZ7f1mqAXoyIuRCzhqB80Qo7vHIEV4XLQilxS4wrML57s04CBDAgNczIbKcyGbzEErsoJ5zNcYrLR_5hn5VmoDM_FdjbA5A0S4wyw7KNDyEvXSAv6FWiZFjnRWSnO7iGWgCzVkYrz3liXMUa39A1k0LN859ePQ/s1296/eaf4c4acf73740c631948827fa7aff18_2732x4096_fb2c0e0e-H-2023.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1296" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ndQh4grXlP6Z94BpbtmDBKIUx1eDK1uZ7f1mqAXoyIuRCzhqB80Qo7vHIEV4XLQilxS4wrML57s04CBDAgNczIbKcyGbzEErsoJ5zNcYrLR_5hn5VmoDM_FdjbA5A0S4wyw7KNDyEvXSAv6FWiZFjnRWSnO7iGWgCzVkYrz3liXMUa39A1k0LN859ePQ/w640-h360/eaf4c4acf73740c631948827fa7aff18_2732x4096_fb2c0e0e-H-2023.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />To start out with, much like Barrie's original efforts, what the audience is given amounts to less of a genuine narrative, and more of an unsuccessful attempt at trying to make one. The key difference is that while the original author was too caught up in his own mental illness to bother with the actual craft of writing, Lowery and/or the Studio are coming at it from something like the opposite direction. It's clear enough that the makers of this film were desperate to try and correct what they regarded as the flaws of the original source material. And to an extent, it is possible to sympathize with this idea. Both the original <i>Pan</i> play and novel are examples of a potentially good idea that was never given enough room to breath and be its own thing. The punchline to all this, however, is that in trying to course correct, Lowery and Disney have fallen into what might termed the opposite side of the coin, or trap. In their desperation to make sure they don't repeat all of Barrie's mistakes, they managed to recreate the same mistake of enforcing a stifling control on a set of materials that needs to do its own thing.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaI_bCssS_lV8gBfloo9_tV__3hB5JLZMq9GmmNmcUDU6GgVg6XH3HtzXpIV1aBDbdf9pXcbUvmZWh8K1jzV437VEZ1rf84q3iZMOxZ4JemdBItsutCrHLMM1nz_F3bP5NqR9kPX81aBvK5O6-ynYiEhH7K9zxnbDZRwxG0lJlTWaUvQrcS4NesW6yf4rt/s755/peter_pan_and_wendy_ver4.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaI_bCssS_lV8gBfloo9_tV__3hB5JLZMq9GmmNmcUDU6GgVg6XH3HtzXpIV1aBDbdf9pXcbUvmZWh8K1jzV437VEZ1rf84q3iZMOxZ4JemdBItsutCrHLMM1nz_F3bP5NqR9kPX81aBvK5O6-ynYiEhH7K9zxnbDZRwxG0lJlTWaUvQrcS4NesW6yf4rt/s320/peter_pan_and_wendy_ver4.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>As a result, the idea for Neverland is once more firmly under the thumb of would-be authors who won't allow it whatever voice it needs. The only major difference lies in the nature of the product's final expression. Whereas Barrie's was slapdash and uncaring, the movie displays all the hallmarks of people who are desperate to make sure you know their hearts are in all the right places. The curious thing is how all this does is result in a strategy of trying too damn hard, and hence not being able to please anybody. It also doesn't help that the Studio showcases the same lack of commitment towards the archetype that Barrie did. All that's changed is the nature of the lack of discipline. Rather than being at the hands of a single, uncaring author, the story is now a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. This leads us once more into all the same familiar stifled plot beats. Wendy's not sure if she wants to grow up. Peter arrives and offers her the shelter of Neverland. The adventures the kids have their convince Wendy's its best to embrace life as it is. All of it remains a hypothetical achievement that is still underdeveloped and unexplored. Except this time, the failure stems from a bad moralism.</div><div><br /></div><div>At least that's the best way I can describe the deficiencies of this picture. It's not that the ideas the Studio is trying to get across that are bad. In fact, when removed from the context of this film, all of them can be said to be a positive benefit. The trouble is this non-movie convinces me that a lot of the trouble that major studios have had with trying to make a good moral point is that they are just too outside the lessons they want others to learn in order to understand it all themselves. The best example of this is when they try to make Wendy an illustration of female empowerment. This scene comes right at the beginning of the film, and its when she's playing at pretend swords with her brothers, Michael and John. Quite by accident, Wendy sends John's sword crashing into a mirror, leaving the household shy of one looking-glass. Now the film makes it clear this was a complete and unintentional mistake. Something not worth turning into spilled milk and crying over. However, this makes what happens next so inexplicable and counter-intuitive to the message it wants to convey. When her parents find out about the broken glass, Wendy immediately shifts the blame to her two brothers, and they just take it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQIOmBPFJzj0E2ALpL5eEtvP7JIf-FwO-V_nCoF1Sg0TCzsyls6yZRIta0asfmWhDDsfFVOgViBu6nh377si7W9g0lOWJJOIlU5z4foyAuAbQA7oiZ8-Yt7PW-dCNwYYsn07BTtVBE_uon3uhRDVUSan19tx4W_aucgbcANofZB_UsOjc9stu75yW87a6K/s1040/Screenshot-2023-03-01-at-11-1.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1040" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQIOmBPFJzj0E2ALpL5eEtvP7JIf-FwO-V_nCoF1Sg0TCzsyls6yZRIta0asfmWhDDsfFVOgViBu6nh377si7W9g0lOWJJOIlU5z4foyAuAbQA7oiZ8-Yt7PW-dCNwYYsn07BTtVBE_uon3uhRDVUSan19tx4W_aucgbcANofZB_UsOjc9stu75yW87a6K/w640-h430/Screenshot-2023-03-01-at-11-1.webp" width="640" /></a></div>After the boys have been given an undeserved scolding, and Wendy told that she needs to take better care of them, the parents leave. A rightly bewildered John then turns to his sister and asks why or how on Earth she could be so heartless like that. The gist of Wendy's response is contained in the very lines the script gives her actress Ever Anderson to read, and I quote: "It's every man for himself". It's at this exact moment that the film first commits a tactical error and then goes on to compound it throughout the rest of the movie's runtime. Nothing that happens afterwards ever forces Wendy to re-think either her words or actions in that brief moment of what sounds like abortive character building. If the purpose was to show that the Darling family sister is a spoiled brat who needs to grow up, and her trip through Neverland was then portrayed as an abject lesson in humility and courage, then this scene, however insufferable, could still be made to fit in a way that made logical sense. However, the script never dwells on this moment ever again, and instead goes out of its way to portray an immoral action as no real big deal. Instead, Wendy is consistently played up as always being unquestionably in the right.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmBz4AabKJUFYhMM8OyqzmSpEf-kfNNfAz7tcdtlUGAGWw8hTp_3nzp4KCLl6uOGoM-BVIlfejpvgp3C-PGyKRTmsg7WoHIBPrrwYPmY-rM3uZ9Nbi5rV-gdU9G0vIkVIZK1zxH7x8TnIORoRmagN8b83xq7Mizpmsmw-NRubkBB1D5UYm9-QnvA8E0Kwo/s700/30147452356e3003982082ba3305eea9.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="447" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmBz4AabKJUFYhMM8OyqzmSpEf-kfNNfAz7tcdtlUGAGWw8hTp_3nzp4KCLl6uOGoM-BVIlfejpvgp3C-PGyKRTmsg7WoHIBPrrwYPmY-rM3uZ9Nbi5rV-gdU9G0vIkVIZK1zxH7x8TnIORoRmagN8b83xq7Mizpmsmw-NRubkBB1D5UYm9-QnvA8E0Kwo/s320/30147452356e3003982082ba3305eea9.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>The screenplay never spares her a moment where she begins to reflect that she might have done a selfish thing. There's never even one instant where she goes to her own brothers and apologizes to both Michael and John. If anything, the film goes out of its way to make it seem as if they are just clueless ciphers who need to be rescued by her for an assumed incompetence. Now, most parents would realize right away that all the behavior I've been describing are the actions of a spoiled, and potentially even mean-spirited little brat. The kind of personality best considered a school bully in the making. It's the type of situation in real life where calls for some kind of disciplinary action on the part of parents, guardians, and even teachers and principles is necessary. It's therefore interesting to note the way in which the adaptation seems to deliberately fly in the face not just of commonsense, yet also the basics of human psychology. Rather than showing her in the wrong, the film makes the odd yet seemingly deliberate choice to reward Wendy for her conduct. Like I said, she is not so much as questioned for the neglect of her brothers, much less called out on it. Instead, the script goes on to try and make the case for Wendy as something of a natural born leader, even of a ragtag group such as the Lost Boys.</div><div><br /></div><div>In all of this, Peter himself appears very much to have been relegated to the role of a background figure at best. This sidelining isn't what bothers me about the picture, though. The real issue for me with this remake lies in the troubling implications of its beliefs about women in particular, and life in general. It's clear enough that the film is designed to go after a message of empowerment for women. And, to be fair, that is a goal well worth pursuing. This is especially the case in light of the abuses that girls young and old have had to suffer in life. The problem, however, is that this seems to be exactly the kind of worthy goal that this movie ought to pursue, and yet it never does, not really, anyway. The crux of the issue lies in those exact same lines Wendy is given to recite: "Every man for himself". It <i>sounds</i> like we're meant to think she is smart for holding such an outlook on life. It is yet another way in which she is to be seen as a natural leader. At one point she even tells Hook that he has "grown up wrong" to his face. The irony of this moment is that Hook for all his villainy is shown to be more of a natural leader of men than she is. It gets even worse when you apply the selfishness as a value ethos that this remake version of Wendy holds to, and realize that this Hook still manages to come off as better than her.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDQmrZuwMx7Gv6txXCXJd0UBPaCbLuoLmmNgh0oTVc2tr1gyVh2uAkh4uY4XPZ9F1wUeNVjrD5GzHH16_bY9P3PwIYJdRXCv68SYUrWzU_WncsIkNudU8Lw_jJBaGIqhVbyn0OuRrML6hzYy4B-mldx6mEvSKm8oO8w8xNHN0rrDjmk_Lr3-4BMbTbX_O/s1200/Untitled-design-28-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDQmrZuwMx7Gv6txXCXJd0UBPaCbLuoLmmNgh0oTVc2tr1gyVh2uAkh4uY4XPZ9F1wUeNVjrD5GzHH16_bY9P3PwIYJdRXCv68SYUrWzU_WncsIkNudU8Lw_jJBaGIqhVbyn0OuRrML6hzYy4B-mldx6mEvSKm8oO8w8xNHN0rrDjmk_Lr3-4BMbTbX_O/w640-h320/Untitled-design-28-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />When all of these screenplay elements are placed together, the picture it paints begins to sound a lot less like the growth of a school yard bully, and more like the origins of some future tyrant. I myself can't quite believe I'm having to write this. Yet I'll swear this is the kind of character flaw trap that the film has committed itself to. By siding with the idea of "Every man for himself", the film is essentially rewarding Wendy for being as selfish as she possibly can. In committing itself to such a vantage point, the film appears to be affirming some hard line Hobbesian view of life and human nature. If everyone is a bully or tyrant at heart, then why bother with rules, or what others think about them. This same schizoid Miltonic outlook even has its own side riff on the main theme in form of how the picture handles the remade version of Tinkerbell. They have casted her with an African-American actress, and the only major line she is given comes near the end when she tells Wendy: "Thank you for hearing me". Just to make things clear, the movie is having a Black person thank a White one, and the Anglo party in the conversation is always being painted as some kind of selfish bully, at best, or a tyrant in training at worst. And the movie wants to treat Tink's thankfulness without a single trace of irony.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxeUsXlRn3PCp8J-Z2AFp9aMpAAPohX1a6R3c2aGTO5kxqbPVB9nVW7xm-XcLajldzRGDLJ8joU3a371gkqi77vlY5udOXPiivh2dpaJyqIYBDZYOeKal7i3s1ZY4M5L4wxgyCDjSgwgxWNmuos18_vDLLdIXL0TTwxCWRvSHuQpLjc3wcTAXI3Hl1n09s/s1280/maxresdefault.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxeUsXlRn3PCp8J-Z2AFp9aMpAAPohX1a6R3c2aGTO5kxqbPVB9nVW7xm-XcLajldzRGDLJ8joU3a371gkqi77vlY5udOXPiivh2dpaJyqIYBDZYOeKal7i3s1ZY4M5L4wxgyCDjSgwgxWNmuos18_vDLLdIXL0TTwxCWRvSHuQpLjc3wcTAXI3Hl1n09s/w640-h360/maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>If it is at all possible that the screenwriter(s) for this film cannot see the sick and fetid hole they've dug themselves into, then we are truly dealing with a level of ignorance that I'm not sure anyone could have predicted. The only other alternative is to surmise that at least someone in the production behind this film secretly believes that there is no such thing as equality for either women or African-Americans, and that they are deliberately smuggling in their conviction that all life is just nasty, brutal, and short on a hidden level of trolling. Neither option is a good one, and there's no way I can even bring myself to call this a movie. It's more like a feature-length insult to human decency and dignity. I never thought I'd be able to say it was possible, yet someone has found a way to take all of the flaws of the source material and amplify them into something more than a thousand times worse. Never have I ever had the opportunity to be faced with such a thankless task as a critic than having to review this film.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Conclusion: The Good News is There's a Happy Ending.</b> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiqTyWlF-8da78x6OMY6hkZfEkwxf448CCox1oIxd20qNUdCX2NU24LxuDm8spPOEEcrVO4AVBlTZ7wy4AORl4MVnQsnizd-gfCWsaR6ETX1YoW7V1SjordMXn5uSxU-y-ZqA1DOZOwEBIFFXu8NHJOu5FzgXW0RC_PMvE09XkXnwNvtGQB2eoJYZ33zq/s1600/1709660.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiqTyWlF-8da78x6OMY6hkZfEkwxf448CCox1oIxd20qNUdCX2NU24LxuDm8spPOEEcrVO4AVBlTZ7wy4AORl4MVnQsnizd-gfCWsaR6ETX1YoW7V1SjordMXn5uSxU-y-ZqA1DOZOwEBIFFXu8NHJOu5FzgXW0RC_PMvE09XkXnwNvtGQB2eoJYZ33zq/s320/1709660.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Out of all the stories its possible to talk about, I think that <i>Peter Pan</i> is the one with the most convoluted and twisted history out there. It begins its "life" right out of the starting gate as a story idea with a lot of creative potential, only to get mangled by its original author into something trite and artificial. Jump a hundred and twenty-one years later and this current incarnation of the Mouse Kingdom outdoes the original writer by taking the initial concept and turning into something even worse. The kind of product that seems to exists solely for the art of trolling. and doesn't deserve to be called any kind of movie, much less an entertainment. It really does seem as if Peter and his friends all amount to the most put upon cast of characters in the history of fiction. Long before the mismanagement of properties like <i>Star Wars</i>, <i>DC</i>, or <i>Marvel</i>, it looks as if J.M. Barrie was the first one to beat them to the art of abusing fictional characters and situations for fundamentally short-sighted and selfish gains. Thus has been the initial struggle of the <i>Pan</i> mythos. It's no surprise then that any real discussion of the history of this particular narrative is bound to come off as meandering and uneven.</div><div><br /></div><div>And as I said way back at the beginning, any attempt to talk about the gradual creation of Neverland was going to be a difficult, if not torturous slog to go through. I also said something else, as well. Before launching into all the awkward details just gone over, I mentioned, in addition, that this story has happy ending. It's because I've seen not one, but two proofs of this that I'm able to end what might have been an otherwise less than pleasant read on an optimistic and upbeat note. Turns out I wasn't joking when I called <i>Peter Pan</i> the little story that could. In spite of all the abuse this tale has suffered at the hands of others, it really did wind up finding one or two moments in the spotlight when it was allowed the glory of just telling, and therefore <i>being</i> its true self. A lot of it goes back to the fact that while Barrie himself was never much of a storyteller, it was a genuine creative idea he'd stumbled upon. Roger Lancelyn Green has stated that "Peter Pan holds a peculiar position: his is the only story of recent centuries to escape from literature into folklore. For every person who has seen the play or read the story there are hundreds who know perfectly well who and what Peter Pan is (<a href="https://archive.org/details/jmbarrie00gree/page/34/mode/1up?q=folklore&view=theater">34</a>)".</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGZeWXT0g5UT8e8lJ2WzqTs95skK6BgRGlAGF-OgFAj2hyphenhyphenTQnCo9p9KXLP5bbkb6pQailIYhm8AdZF14MuRjDx2nlqFgEEzgF6dZknZZeyBrknEVPiayDd3Cgl5-F6aRtRqXoZQLcRvoS1A-TZBQXL3wKJ06O25-7aJBdFGnJBJlF0_89Qowa61uPwjWaq/s1500/e69df85b93d396911f1533b7419cc470.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1274" data-original-width="1500" height="544" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGZeWXT0g5UT8e8lJ2WzqTs95skK6BgRGlAGF-OgFAj2hyphenhyphenTQnCo9p9KXLP5bbkb6pQailIYhm8AdZF14MuRjDx2nlqFgEEzgF6dZknZZeyBrknEVPiayDd3Cgl5-F6aRtRqXoZQLcRvoS1A-TZBQXL3wKJ06O25-7aJBdFGnJBJlF0_89Qowa61uPwjWaq/w640-h544/e69df85b93d396911f1533b7419cc470.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This still seems to be the truth even today, and I don't think that would have happened if there wasn't a really good idea at the heart of his story. Without that, Peter wouldn't stand alongside the likes of Little Red Riding Hood or Pinocchio. So I guess that begs the question of why has Pan and his adventures stuck around for so long? Green comes close to the answer, I think, when he claims that "Besides being a fairy-tale character, (Peter, sic) is also a symbol - of what, precisely, even Barrie could not find the words to describe (ibid)". I don't think the original author ever wanted or cared to find all of that out. If he ever knew what the true meaning of the story was, then he most likely took one look and then ran like hell the other way, all while freely cribbing from the initial concept as he saw fit. Nevertheless, Green's criticism seems to be more or less on the right enough track. In trying to reach for the meaning of the Neverland myth, he has a lot of perceptive things to say about the nature of the creative idea.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BhczzIi71gXYnYaO04QAV9o_WIaotPgTsg5u7MlNmEyXkULa9gE0Z89lJDUwWFRrKNiWhgKYj7ZLfnHz22pQttgltQWf8GM7IhdONxKXYYySW-gaerq-T4XAo3DDOHQp0YZp-06-ZhgF5mWdnvefD2MImFVL3_cbrU14SrQlv0aVA2cMyqBUqpebfVLJ/s1000/81g9PafxG8L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="851" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BhczzIi71gXYnYaO04QAV9o_WIaotPgTsg5u7MlNmEyXkULa9gE0Z89lJDUwWFRrKNiWhgKYj7ZLfnHz22pQttgltQWf8GM7IhdONxKXYYySW-gaerq-T4XAo3DDOHQp0YZp-06-ZhgF5mWdnvefD2MImFVL3_cbrU14SrQlv0aVA2cMyqBUqpebfVLJ/w282-h333/81g9PafxG8L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>"Fairy tale and adventure story, legend and history, yielded scraps of coloured glass that would fall into place in the kaleidoscope of (Barrie's, sic) mind to form the picture that was to be <i>Peter Pan</i>...But the essentials were all the old dreams of children and storytellers since the world began (<a href="https://archive.org/details/jmbarrie00gree/page/38/mode/1up?view=theater">38-39</a>)". With this passage, I think Green has taken us as close as he can to the actual truth at the heart of the myth. It makes sense enough to me, at least, that Peter and Neverland really do stem from the same well of ancient dreams just talked about. In other words, the story was and remains a genuine psychological archetype, and if we accept this premise, then it is possible to theorize why it occurred to J.M. Barrie of all people, and not someone else. It goes back to something I've claimed elsewhere. I'm of the fundamental belief that storytelling is sometimes part of the mind's way of protecting itself from insanity. You hear stories of patients being plagued by dreams in their sleep. A psychiatrist like C.G. Jung would claim that in those cases, dreams can often serve as a wake up call, of sorts. It is, or can be, the mind's way of either highlighting the nature of the problem the patient suffers from, as well as presenting potential solutions couched in dream symbolism and metaphor that can be of assistance.</div><div><br /></div><div>The truth, as Jung saw it, was that a lot of dreams and story ideas are a natural safety guard. Something that is there to offer the patient or subject a solution to their problems by either pointing to or giving them the tools they need to emerge from their own neurosis, or even psychosis as the case may be. It may sound incredible, yet it is far from clinically impossible. The Collective Unconscious, according to Jung, was the mind's own built-in safety net. Far from being a mental junk drawer where we stash away and repress all the dark or unwanted material of our mind, Jung held that the Unconscious was in fact an ordered and ordering function that helps to keep us stable, even in the midst of trauma. As a result, I believe that Jung is the one psychologist who has ever come close to giving us a sense of the practical, or even scientific uses and reason for the existence of stories and storytelling. We do it to help keep ourselves sane. I further think that this is both the ultimate meaning and reason for why the idea of Neverland popped into Barrie's mind. It was there as a natural enough response to his own mental dilemmas. The problem there was that the patient was too far gone for the story to help.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdmghbFBk6YIIO7Jj9L3tzKFt00qYJmpXvp8KO8hU05cWgijvGcAN-sQy2MI3BgoZe3ECIFZjVlbj4YCD6fdYrC9so4Pet2f8zvhv14M-Ea6bAJS16x0-mx4lcbxjfL1mhrkVUHdNN-LyCZEdcgRJkUM-iRdpcQepB585QCzBnkGHfr6-ahvbbEEkAMJG/s600/Casentini-james-matthew-barrie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="600" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdmghbFBk6YIIO7Jj9L3tzKFt00qYJmpXvp8KO8hU05cWgijvGcAN-sQy2MI3BgoZe3ECIFZjVlbj4YCD6fdYrC9so4Pet2f8zvhv14M-Ea6bAJS16x0-mx4lcbxjfL1mhrkVUHdNN-LyCZEdcgRJkUM-iRdpcQepB585QCzBnkGHfr6-ahvbbEEkAMJG/w301-h250/Casentini-james-matthew-barrie.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>The Imagination was pointing out a solution to the author's problems, and yet the offer was just simply refused, no more or less. It's like they say in that all-important first step in Alcoholic Anonymous. You've got to first be willing to admit that you have a problem before you can begin to address it. That proved to be a step too far for James Barrie of Kirriemuir. And so the author eventually left the stage, leaving just the story itself in the spotlight, incomplete, yet still full of creative potential. The happy ending stems from the fact that eventually someone came along and was able to recognize that potential for what it was. While I can't tell how much of the actual story fossil was dug up out of the ground, I can claim that the excavation was good enough to say that we can now enjoy two canonical entries of the Neverland saga. There will be plenty of time to talk of each of these in turn, further on down the line. For now, it is enough to note that the story of <i>Peter Pan</i> all is that of a battle against the odds.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's the tale of an idea for a story that popped into someone's head, the same way all fictional narratives start. In this case, however, it was an example of a good idea with cropping up in the wrong place and the wrong time. It's notable for being the first example I know of where a good idea was spoiled and abused by not one, but two rotten minds. The first was its original author, and the second was a once great film company that now appears to be running on empty. It's the kind of history that I don't think I would have believed if I hadn't studied it all in detail. As it stands, I can recommend neither the James M. Barrie stage play, nor the original book. There's also no way in hell, or any possible green Earth that I'll ever be able to encourage anyone to go see an experiment in trolling women and minorities, because that's all the current live-action remake is. It is a specimen of anti-art that is beneath all possible contempt. That just leaves us with the original story idea itself. I know it sounds counterintuitive, yet I'll swear this is the truth. In spite of all the nonsense that the story of Neverland (and also its collective audience throughout history) have been subjected to, it still remains an idea worth a good telling.</div><div><br /></div><div>Roger Lancelyn Green described the character of Pan as a symbol. If I had to take a wild guess at what he represents, then I'd have to call him less a symbol of childhood or eternal youth, and more one of Romanticism in and of itself. By this I'm not saying he should be considered any kind of poster boy, or anything like it. The Fantastic genres have developed over the years into something far too grand to ever be codified and summarized by any one character or figure. However, I do think Peter can stand as one of Fantasy's prime exemplars, right up there with Huck and Alice. His is a story that, at its heart, is supposed to tell of three intertwined themes. The first is the dignity of children, the second is what might be called the need for Romanticism to come of age, and the third is how the first two ideas all seem to tie together into a question regarding where the true dignity of a human being lies. That may sound like a tall order to ask of a simple children's story. However, if you'll recall, didn't a book like <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> manage to accomplish something very similar, if not exactly the same?</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtYCDhZ1_pXOmyK9nujz0WDpuJ0Aov93ZslcxWTCiB5Mig9fCogl2iGjZBUFw0Ahx08cjdN6feA17hY9nHl8Iop-x3MgQseQc8HZk8PUS0eBSfSfmI_ARJbSEf3uTifR2KPBHWnoUvw7tP8gY_DyYSgF-mZQoh1KunqaEQB652arYbAHgLVD1XP5_Z4Vee/s2500/Flight-to-Neverland-mural.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1461" data-original-width="2500" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtYCDhZ1_pXOmyK9nujz0WDpuJ0Aov93ZslcxWTCiB5Mig9fCogl2iGjZBUFw0Ahx08cjdN6feA17hY9nHl8Iop-x3MgQseQc8HZk8PUS0eBSfSfmI_ARJbSEf3uTifR2KPBHWnoUvw7tP8gY_DyYSgF-mZQoh1KunqaEQB652arYbAHgLVD1XP5_Z4Vee/w640-h374/Flight-to-Neverland-mural.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Besides, which, as I've already pointed out, there were at least two or more creative minds out there who were able to be inspired by the Pan myth in a way that allowed the story enough room to tell itself to the fullest human extent possible. Once that was all done, what emerges is less of a children's story, and more the sort of novelistic fairy tale of the kind you might find in the pages of Neil Gaiman and Peter Straub. This more completed version of the Neverland saga is worth a further examination, as it allows us to gain a sense of what kind of story we're reading once the narrative is told in full. It's a chronicle worth talking about in not one, but at least two more examinations of the Peter Pan myth. If this review has turned out to be more of a slog, then the good news is from here on out, we get to switch gears a bit, and begin to discuss how the little story that could found its happy ending not once, but twice upon a time. That, however, as the old tellers liked to say, is a story for another day.<br /></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-46764168121247658612023-10-22T07:13:00.001-05:002023-10-25T04:20:46.971-05:00Stephen King's Fairy Tale (2022).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDNcNXy3XqYxFqeFmMUikvkXsxfwJ3pEmO_JHXQFu_Ohvkk48TNOuF3jKKvVAgcKUJoimmwoa8Uphm075I-eXaUDP9C7HXeD2k4BOfB_eRg5_RLd5CL_SlGMQCOe3iDf0BXXPZ2stOcoQGQtH7OerFXdTntOK8eBwjpn_qMhHN03iQzvvBVLaYffv_lLn/s1000/81blQfKsLtL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="658" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDNcNXy3XqYxFqeFmMUikvkXsxfwJ3pEmO_JHXQFu_Ohvkk48TNOuF3jKKvVAgcKUJoimmwoa8Uphm075I-eXaUDP9C7HXeD2k4BOfB_eRg5_RLd5CL_SlGMQCOe3iDf0BXXPZ2stOcoQGQtH7OerFXdTntOK8eBwjpn_qMhHN03iQzvvBVLaYffv_lLn/s320/81blQfKsLtL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>We all have our strengths and weaknesses. This is one of those natural facts that life is willing to teach us as time goes on. Stephen King, for instance, seems to be at the peak of his game whenever he's conjuring up tales of things that go bump in the night. It's the method and mode in which he first made a name for himself, and the passage of time seems to have proven just how tried and true this remains as the Horror genre continues to be his best creative outlet. This isn't the same as saying that the author hasn't tried to break out of his own mold and try other things. Nor is it true to say that King has found no success outside of the strict confines of the Gothic genre. One of his best known works, for instance, is a simple novella known as "The Body". Despite its title, there's little to nothing of any of the writer's usual trademarks to be found within those pages. Rather than a work of Horror, readers are treated to nothing less than a straightforward, small town drama detailing the coming of age of a pair of friend in the flagship town of Castle Rock, in Maine. These days, the story is most often seen as atypical of King, and yet it has gone on to be one of his most popular works to date. This was solidified by the later success of the novella's adaptation, as Rob Reiner's <i>Stand By Me</i>.<p></p><p>Nor is that the only time that King was able to successfully step out of his comfort zone. <i>Hearts in Atlantis</i>, for instance, is an experimental, interconnected anthology novel tackling pretty much the same themes and ideas as <i>Stand By Me</i>, except this time the canvas has been widened to include a cast of multiple characters spanning an entire generational shift. Much like with the earlier Reiner story, <i>Hearts</i> is one of those novels that will forever deserve more credit than it is ever libel to get for its efforts. With that novel, King achieved a kind of unremarked tour-de-force, and it remains one of the best examples of the author not just writing outside of his generic comfort zone. It's also one of the best go-to examples that you can point as a book-length demonstration of King's creative expression as a true, literary artist. It's the kind of book that will always telegraph that here we're dealing with a type of craftsmen who deserves a place on the shelf alongside Henry James, William Faulkner, and John Updike. The fact that it remains overlooked testifies to the way readers prefer to confine even their favorite artists into neat little pigeon holes, even when they prove they can be more than this.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZ20uCOXVlj89AOg_3a0ziiJZCYHsocvWGhWuRa7X6LlmHBt0QWgI1GB2rhax-90OY4GKowcniDc7aetOmbrWyhP53LoQixY49v5etUtFUH9R2SMaD7LTzmko5aZzSL0OlJ2mXN2LnhlyxmzxPAhaDkcHIT3FVb2qiHmxY1Wwisk784-OfgcHeYMsukUi/s2000/image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZ20uCOXVlj89AOg_3a0ziiJZCYHsocvWGhWuRa7X6LlmHBt0QWgI1GB2rhax-90OY4GKowcniDc7aetOmbrWyhP53LoQixY49v5etUtFUH9R2SMaD7LTzmko5aZzSL0OlJ2mXN2LnhlyxmzxPAhaDkcHIT3FVb2qiHmxY1Wwisk784-OfgcHeYMsukUi/w640-h426/image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />While stories like <i>Hearts in Atlantis</i> seem destined to remain as unheralded masterpieces displaying the full range of the writer's talent outside the fields of Terror, there is still one other genre that Stephen King has tried his hand at during various points in the life of his career. This time, however, the results have, for the most part, been of a pretty mixed variety. King's career serves as a kind of testimony of one man's artistic talent. And what it tells us is three things. That he's a natural at the Gothic tale. He's also underrated as a genuine artist in the non-supernatural slice-of-life story. He might also be prone to one specific weakness. Whenever King decides to turn his attention to one of his typical plot ideas, involving ordinary people caught up in extraordinary, horrific events, the writer's narrative voice can often approach a level of quality that might best be described as Tolkienesque. This is just something King has proven himself capable of in a natural and unforced way. The few times when this skill has failed him. When that valuable narrative voice has faltered, is (in the most ironic sense possible) those handful of times when he's ever tried to deliberately write in the vein of the creator of Middle Earth.<p></p><p>In other words, give King a Horror story, or a straightforward drama to write, and odds are even that the final result will be pretty darn great to decent enough, at worst. If he tries to take on the realm of straightforward Fantasy? Not so much. For whatever reason, that's the one genre that King never seems to have been able to crack. This hasn't been for a lack of trying, either. He's made at least three, maybe even as much as four attempts at writing a story in this particular field, depending on how you choose to look at it. Those efforts of his that fit this criteria include <i>The Talisman</i> (a 1984 collaboration made with his friend and professional colleague, Peter Straub), <i>The Eyes of the Dragon</i> (one of the author's most straight-forward attempts at a creating a true Tolkien or Brothers Grimm styled fantastic world), and then there's <i>The Dark Tower</i>. I'm not real sure if a book like <i>The Stand</i> fits into this criteria or not. That one is most often described as a post-apocalyptic Horror novel, and it's a description I'm willing to let stand, even if it does contain a shared villain whose arc encompasses most of the other efforts mentioned above. The point is each of these books mark all the times King has attempted to break into the proper Fantasy genre, and all of them are best seen as a series of trials <i>as</i> errors.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjo6oQbs9ZURblecLWREOfbiLnjoiLHTlUy_nXm-jaJEnCRnLk3-obhGhYA_eS2x-O0tJhcuDOP0Fe7TLdApJBLQ0nRVidgu4w7-GMJP8BqHShwKSwzkFRMyAaGkVu8bJMq9fG6qfHTpzI4xLucIWdLAVGDQUjSFbLX5oUhRi7K-UEbGni-tN01J4xPFFb/s1031/straub.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="1031" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjo6oQbs9ZURblecLWREOfbiLnjoiLHTlUy_nXm-jaJEnCRnLk3-obhGhYA_eS2x-O0tJhcuDOP0Fe7TLdApJBLQ0nRVidgu4w7-GMJP8BqHShwKSwzkFRMyAaGkVu8bJMq9fG6qfHTpzI4xLucIWdLAVGDQUjSFbLX5oUhRi7K-UEbGni-tN01J4xPFFb/w640-h360/straub.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />It seems as if trying to write in the Fantasy mode is the one undertaking that is good for just one, ironic thing. It never fails to reveal the limits of King's strengths as a writer. All the genre of Once Upon a Time can do is to mark out the dividing line where the writer's otherwise considerable talents first begin to ebb, and at last peter out in what amounts to several fits of wasted effort. Apologies for how harsh that must sound. Yet I'll swear it's the truth. None of the novels described above, not even the <i>Dark Tower</i> series can be described in the last resort as good books. Instead, all they are is displays of creative desire on the part of an artist who doesn't have the necessary skill set to conquer this particular imaginary terrain. It's got to be one of the worst dilemmas for someone who is a clear cut fan of epic quests into other worlds. It's like a situation once described with bitter eloquence by author Peter S. Beagle as being "A Bad Poet with Dreams". In King's case, a more accurate description is that he's great poet with impressive vision, and somehow none of his talent allows him to make headway in that one particular creative field that remains just forever out of reach. It remains one of the few, notable, continuous failures in an otherwise stellar career. The irony goes back to what I said at the beginning.<p></p><p>For whatever reason, King is the kind of author whose literary talents seems to run in just two, inter-locking directions, the realistic American Pastoral, or else the Gothic Romantic. He has it in him to deal with the building blocks of Fantasy. However, they only work so long as he's writing a Horror story, and not the other way around. It just seems to be the natural outline and creative expression of the artist's Imagination. King can write like Tolkien so long as he never tries to <i>be</i> him. Don't know if that makes any sense, yet I'll swear it's the truth. That's why it was kind of puzzling to learn that one of his latest releases was going to bear the simple title of <i>Fairy Tale</i>. I know was excited when the book was first announced. A basic summary of the plot sounded intriguing. It suggested to me that we might have the opportunity to get the best of both worlds; a Horror story written by Stephen King situated part of the way in a realm straight out of the Grimm Brothers. What was there not to like?</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh53UKEfFXT6R9JvrpkbOrTkA3_byEgwUIJ4ZMCk9AsTkgnQKa2ze4Qvv1VLUQHM67DIfuw45VbH0p4HGFjdtu7MPCrfXrkKocaGjpPbDJOfKcOOsOsbEFUI59FUvnxTRXes-i-S4EdwPf_nYiwUj2NQ6QN9pb2uvne2pLqrfEhGzi-UPmYScA_5zCR8aYV/s1309/Stephen-King-Fairy-Tale-Title.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="1309" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh53UKEfFXT6R9JvrpkbOrTkA3_byEgwUIJ4ZMCk9AsTkgnQKa2ze4Qvv1VLUQHM67DIfuw45VbH0p4HGFjdtu7MPCrfXrkKocaGjpPbDJOfKcOOsOsbEFUI59FUvnxTRXes-i-S4EdwPf_nYiwUj2NQ6QN9pb2uvne2pLqrfEhGzi-UPmYScA_5zCR8aYV/w640-h360/Stephen-King-Fairy-Tale-Title.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The funny thing is how, even as I played the waiting game like everyone else, it never occurred to me for some reason (at least not much) to recall that King's track record with this kind of story just never amounted to all that much. Whenever he gets in his mind to tackle that sort of material, he always winds up straining his skills on account of the well running dry. His imagination just won't stretch that far into such environs, and the result (even with <i>The Stand</i> and the <i>Tower</i> mythos) amount to examples of what King himself often refers to as him "trying too hard", and each result is an example of literary overkill. I must have been running on the adrenaline of pure expectation that whole time, though. Because if any of these reservations ever did occur in my mind, they were so muted that I'm not even sure I heard them. So instead, the big day arrived, and I was lucky enough to be gifted a copy from my own Dad. I picked up Stephen King's <i>Fairy Tale</i>, and began to read. Here, then, are the results.<p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><b>The Story.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF35Azm4On1FGNAqP3DWaBxwrRzdt45W2JR7c2FzAd0lh_9hIJ6Nlg0NXDBq95mF1Ae5JQuPMCf-7tMITRugaZTIk_xjfF386ajtH7cllL8yW8ZesIO2e6FVbYFfHodpYql2u1sKsvIcUPJd4is9qv21ocQArzgpLHcVkDGeiCOeohWgsYze1yYItf-InA/s1000/612BYerla-L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF35Azm4On1FGNAqP3DWaBxwrRzdt45W2JR7c2FzAd0lh_9hIJ6Nlg0NXDBq95mF1Ae5JQuPMCf-7tMITRugaZTIk_xjfF386ajtH7cllL8yW8ZesIO2e6FVbYFfHodpYql2u1sKsvIcUPJd4is9qv21ocQArzgpLHcVkDGeiCOeohWgsYze1yYItf-InA/s320/612BYerla-L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>This is what happens. It doesn't start "Once Upon a Time", though in a sense, it does. Rather than the usual opener to a story such as this, we get the following piece of advice, from a familiar character that most of us can recall from our childhoods. I remember her as <a href="https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Fairy">a charming girl, elegant and graceful</a>. "Always let your conscience be your guide". That's what she told me. I can still see the first time she ever told me those words like it was yesterday. Then the narration begins, and this is what the story's main character has to tell us. "I'm sure I can tell this story. I'm also sure no one will believe it. That's fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem - and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me - is deciding where to start. My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr. Bowditch first, and how we became close. Only that never would have happened except for the miracle that happened to my father. A very ordinary miracle you could say, one that's happened to many thousands of men and women since 1935, but it seemed like a miracle to a kid.<p></p><p>"Only that isn't the right place, either, because I don't think my father would have need a miracle if it hadn't been for that goddamned bridge. So that's where I need to start, with that goddamned Sycamore Street Bridge. And now, thinking of those things, I see a clear thread leading up through the years to Mr. Bowditch and the padlocked shed behind his ramshackle old Victorian. But a thread is easy to break. So not a thread but a chain. A strong one. And I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist (1-2)". From there, the scenario we're introduced to could very well come from the lore of an old folktale. It's the fairly standard enough setup. You've a house with a family in it. This consists of a Father, Mother, and most important of all, the Child. We've already met these characters somewhere before. It's just been so long that it's no longer possible to tell just where or when that was. Nor does it matter all that much. In a way, it's kind of nice to see these folks and their old, familiar setup once again. The Child's name is Charlie Reade this time around, and he's no longer a simple farm boy.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiJpFX9alamCI_f1Nna0C6yBrQIo8ZiPT6gDGug1mKgzCCd-fN2G-0yEt7FM0A-L626S6HTt3NBJW679jJU0KEMbRo9U9O3vNdsZusLl2Zn_AefmTr-j1E13u0mzlyu_nU92FuUwlKdbjeVHhim5M_l_4iSnZjTCj-H7hmIeNiRWTQC5Q7tGhVxHFhc18x/s620/GettyImages-170974255-d70f2ee.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiJpFX9alamCI_f1Nna0C6yBrQIo8ZiPT6gDGug1mKgzCCd-fN2G-0yEt7FM0A-L626S6HTt3NBJW679jJU0KEMbRo9U9O3vNdsZusLl2Zn_AefmTr-j1E13u0mzlyu_nU92FuUwlKdbjeVHhim5M_l_4iSnZjTCj-H7hmIeNiRWTQC5Q7tGhVxHFhc18x/w640-h426/GettyImages-170974255-d70f2ee.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Instead, he's taken on the role of a simple village peasant lad. He's never spent his life within the confines of the Storybook Kingdom itself (in King's novel, the imaginary locale of Sentry's Rest, Illinois, somewhere just outside of Chicago's city limits plays the role of the protagonist's home town), but rather occupies a cozy enough little cottage situated well within the parameters of his own, small village. Time has marched on, of course, and these days even the little peasant boy prefers to be called just a local neighborhood kid. His father's name is George, and we never get to learn much about his mother, because she's the one who sets this whole quest in motion. It never happens by choice, of course, it never does in a story like this. All that happens is the same thing that always does in a folk legend such as King's. One day the peasant boy's mother is on her way home in the rain, when she's struck and killed by a souped up carriage wagon known as a Ten Wheeler Big Rig on the bridge that spans a river in the middle of the township. As is usual, the mother is removed from the stage into the wings, like always in this sort of narrative, leaving both father and son the task of taking it pretty hard.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4Ee_WLvaAVrRDqaCQn7sm-K9BBRVyI_vNFrvfnCFcM6uL1_KeRXQ1rD1WLxSDyVnkc4n__k36lrOxxRdAIUrsLEyxE_V69olZ1VBvXcwe6SROdqD9CcteRTmZnkYAew4jguc01zVAE2hyphenhyphen6tUr5xagXj3Sq8BtzLO_I6ek24ENqIJMO7lh_9k4dOGUR2G/s1194/22foodeatingsunrise.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1194" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF4Ee_WLvaAVrRDqaCQn7sm-K9BBRVyI_vNFrvfnCFcM6uL1_KeRXQ1rD1WLxSDyVnkc4n__k36lrOxxRdAIUrsLEyxE_V69olZ1VBvXcwe6SROdqD9CcteRTmZnkYAew4jguc01zVAE2hyphenhyphen6tUr5xagXj3Sq8BtzLO_I6ek24ENqIJMO7lh_9k4dOGUR2G/s320/22foodeatingsunrise.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>As is further expected, Charlie's father starts taking to the bottle, leaving the little peasant boy to become the de facto man of the house. Here's where a somewhat new deviation comes into the account. Charlie is able to keep things running around the house, including looking after a grieving father who chooses to both hide from and nurse his grief. However, the peasant boy still finds ways of venting his own anger by falling in with a bad crowd, and becoming something of a small time delinquent. At one point, Charlies and a "friend" of his named Bertie Bird even went so far as to smear dog crap on the windshield of some poor guy's car, if you can believe it. Not so sure I recall that happening anywhere in the Brother's Grimm, yet the narrative arc remains the same. Things degenerate to the level where one night, in the midst of quiet desperation the peasant boy begs the Almighty for a for a miracle in exchange for a bargain. If He'll help his dad sober up, Charlie promises to find some way of paying back his debt for this request, somehow and in some way. It is always possible the that Personality, or Mind in Question was listening. For George Reade begins a fast recovery of his sanity.<p></p><p>Charlie's dad manages to kick the drinking habit with a little help from both his son and a few of their friends from the village. From there, things begin to pick up as the Father starts putting both his life and that of his son back together again. In another day and age, it might have been whispered in the town square (in particular by all of the old wives) that George Reade has done a better job of it than Humpty Dumpty. Of course, whenever the story takes a turn such as this, the little peasant boy is smart enough this time around to live up to his end of the bargain. Once Charlie sees his prayers answered, he jumps into the role of both honor student and model citizen, doing his best in the hopes that his efforts are meeting his side of the deal. Then on a clear autumn day, the peasant boy found himself making his way homeward when he heard a noise. It was coming from behind the "Psycho House".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40fRc148eF9MlohEQPwOkd7FqznfWoWgQsk44fBBhfX3pJcuQ03-HwUxyT5FqPwAHyc9ejtYKLz9_h6EKz-zUxKXJqqwfUnHVmfsumr0Zdgyf60OYynqwJ0KoT7M54-AphjzZ7ntkuJtIOTQCtW7AQkCrdMUusgTirLvLRXVu_lUsAQDNo0epUw4oHLY0/s540/33387223._SX540_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="540" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40fRc148eF9MlohEQPwOkd7FqznfWoWgQsk44fBBhfX3pJcuQ03-HwUxyT5FqPwAHyc9ejtYKLz9_h6EKz-zUxKXJqqwfUnHVmfsumr0Zdgyf60OYynqwJ0KoT7M54-AphjzZ7ntkuJtIOTQCtW7AQkCrdMUusgTirLvLRXVu_lUsAQDNo0epUw4oHLY0/w640-h388/33387223._SX540_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />That was the name given by all the children of the village (and even some of the "adults", who were still smart enough never to use the moniker out loud, or at least never in public) to an old mansion situated atop one of the hills that overlooked the town. It belonged to an elder gentleman by the name of Howard Bowditch. The "Psycho House" was the sort of place, and Mr. Bowditch the type of owner that all the little kids steered clear off. He was the closest thing Charlie's village had, in other words, to a genuine neighborhood ogre. The only reason our hero made a bee line for the House at all that day was because he heard the sound of a dog barking, followed by the faintest cries for help. When he reached the back of the great dwelling, the peasant boy found both a dog named Radar, and Mr. Bowditch himself, sprawled on his back in the grass and dirt behind his own home, with one leg caught between the rungs of an old step ladder. Both the leg and some of the rungs on the ladder had broken.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhYB6vyXGONvCp41v4iYkbEO6RAZCmh3Tn9Cg1EqnDW3hVQiTXC-LclJiCMhkReSMHsNvvwZwyJfBE9baeeJyYGYBes7ziu1ZIupPJXSqD8Hqgj8nKlULPNzDgQuUSPkuGWDJ8ntGIvwRmASL89XG7TiXNiTv_oI7-kVoOXGsd2x3YmGC_yM0isdwWHq0/s2048/06Bell-superJumbo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1773" data-original-width="2048" height="554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhYB6vyXGONvCp41v4iYkbEO6RAZCmh3Tn9Cg1EqnDW3hVQiTXC-LclJiCMhkReSMHsNvvwZwyJfBE9baeeJyYGYBes7ziu1ZIupPJXSqD8Hqgj8nKlULPNzDgQuUSPkuGWDJ8ntGIvwRmASL89XG7TiXNiTv_oI7-kVoOXGsd2x3YmGC_yM0isdwWHq0/w640-h554/06Bell-superJumbo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Mr. Bowditch had taken a nasty tumble when trying to do some meager home repairs, and now he was lamed up. For better or worse, Charlie saw an opportunity to keep his end of the bargain to Upstairs Management, and in time became both housekeeper and caretaker to Mr. Bowditch. In the process, the peasant boy found himself falling in love with Radar. Mr. Bowditch proved willing and able to live up to his title of village ogre, though even his ill-temper was able to soften enough to trust his life with the village peasant. For a time, everything seemed normal, until first a number of odds sounds, and then a literal monstrosity emerged from the shed tucked away in Mr. Bowditch's back yard. At last, the village ogre decides to level with the peasant boy, and tells Charlie all about the dark and tremendous secret that he's kept hidden and safe, right here in the heart of their own, unassuming town. The tale that Mr. Bowditch tells is enough to send Charlie first into, and then ever down under the shed, past the hollows of the Earth, and into a new and perilous realm full of magic, wonders, and bone-chilling dangers. It's an enchanted and haunted kingdom in need of a hero to rescue it. It doesn't take long for Charlie to find himself on a quest in this world, and the little village peasant boy is soon in for more than he bargained.<p></p><p><b>Weaving a Magic Spell.</b> <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68sIcAYei6epWsThRgFC3V55PSDCAQrSDnYqZhUWyuNKXsnxNH8Ji1_7mvkwshT68nTvY9UPjLj0jXSTIlbpUrvt_lXkSUVHr_cYp_IT8-TNFsyRvs9XoySpHxEQo4vXJ5SrmMFVtAnPSOvdHuiANmuz43zQuBsyG9ZpFscas5i1xQT8pQZi2yjCHFpdZ/s1000/81qOyOWDp+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="652" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj68sIcAYei6epWsThRgFC3V55PSDCAQrSDnYqZhUWyuNKXsnxNH8Ji1_7mvkwshT68nTvY9UPjLj0jXSTIlbpUrvt_lXkSUVHr_cYp_IT8-TNFsyRvs9XoySpHxEQo4vXJ5SrmMFVtAnPSOvdHuiANmuz43zQuBsyG9ZpFscas5i1xQT8pQZi2yjCHFpdZ/w162-h248/81qOyOWDp+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="162" /></a></div>This entire book came about because of the unintended consequences of a simple question. Not too long ago, Stephen King was trying his best to survive the recent spate of bad news that had been hitting the Country at the height of the COVID pandemic. I don't doubt that the recent outbreak was when this question occurred to the author. However, I can't help being convinced that it was probably never just the spread of the illness in and of itself, nor even its mortal cost, that prompted King's musings. Instead, something just tells me it was the weight of an entire slough of recent history that had left him in one of those contemplative frames of mind. The kind that can sometimes present the perfect mental ballpark for the Imagination to run wild and play around in. According to official, pre-publication publicity materials for this novel, it all began when the writer asked himself a question: <span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">“What could you write that would make you happy?” It's from here that King's own words help tell the rest of the narrative.</span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">"As if my imagination had been waiting for the question to be asked, I saw a vast deserted city—deserted but alive. I saw the empty streets, the haunted buildings, a gargoyle head lying overturned in the street. I saw smashed statues (of what I didn’t know, but I eventually found out). I saw a huge, sprawling palace with glass towers so high their tips pierced the clouds. Those images released the story I wanted to tell (<a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/fairy-tale.html">web</a>)". To put in another way, the author was most likely experiencing the same malaise that a lot of people around the entire world felt during those dangerous years, and was in need of some kind of pick-me-up, and so his Imagination obliged for him. Nor is it all that surprising. One of the main functions that the Imagination appears to serve is that of a natural, psychological guard rail. I suppose a good way to say this is that the Imagination is at least one of nature's ways (or whatever Process may be said to exist behind the appearances we call Nature) of protecting the mental subject from harm, destruction, or disintegration. It's just another part of Life's (whatever that word means) ways of perpetuating itself. As Jeff Goldblum was want to observe, "Life finds a way". This seems to have been true even during the pandemic, and the Imagination is one of the ways to in which to bring this about.<br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuI4LSrhLOZDDCWBEyn3yxplwGj-szMB_yHtpHUnmH6BrBk_w57HmCChHXXfD7yCQvd6f__ivhu3EAmMbyFp5l4Y78MEkCRc_dpLreu6GVzn7GKPKooRAYEUpzuHE9bnXROxMVR4aNg0S4E4d6FSCOyMrU8KMZu_jk4U7hYfpgehoGHFuNgHL8SLK9b9vA/s700/16440830_303.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="700" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuI4LSrhLOZDDCWBEyn3yxplwGj-szMB_yHtpHUnmH6BrBk_w57HmCChHXXfD7yCQvd6f__ivhu3EAmMbyFp5l4Y78MEkCRc_dpLreu6GVzn7GKPKooRAYEUpzuHE9bnXROxMVR4aNg0S4E4d6FSCOyMrU8KMZu_jk4U7hYfpgehoGHFuNgHL8SLK9b9vA/w640-h360/16440830_303.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><br />One of those results turned into the novel under discussion here today. And it's pretty darn interesting, to say the least. In providing its author with the needed boost of mental confidence, the nature of <i>Fairy Tale</i> is alluded to in its very title. In many ways, it's appropriate to claim this is the kind of story many of us have heard of before, in some way. Maybe we've seen it on TV or in a movie somewhere. Or else some of us got real lucky had it read to us as children. Or else it was just something we picked up out of a random tome or collection of tales in passing, and so became acquainted with one of the most familiar tropes in the history of storytelling. At it's heart, King's novel can even be broken down into its component folklore elements. One upon a time there was a simple peasant boy named Charlie who discovered a gateway to another world, hiding in plain sight, in the very midst of his humble village. The secret world, and it's hidden passageway, were all well hid under the mansion of the local village ogre, who vouchsafed this secret to the peasant. From there, young Charlie made his way into this secret world, accompanied by his faithful dog companion. Together they discovered an enchanted kingdom, grand and fair. Yet it suffered under a curse and was held in the grip of a wicked tyrant. It soon became clear that the local peasant boy was all that stood in the way of life or death for the enchanted realm.</span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZZ2rEutWLb6jpL1Gajmrh14mS26lfn3NPisFicUiEcegiCgZt63FRLd4Rmsb-_SliH-imDxJFbb6Ud6vIayDtPRVWuyXcTfBILt5UfrkmCqYg8pT3lQQR4p_glY4t0SA6w7QTHlMq-clqiE2qKPwZ_G0ssu_hk_aP5Iw8ZTYunjcWKTkLg0bZOglcZdxW/s960/olena-vecchia-pittura-82514432-3080056418717446-3101713153675755520-ofgnnerdmndsjrtjyfkg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="804" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZZ2rEutWLb6jpL1Gajmrh14mS26lfn3NPisFicUiEcegiCgZt63FRLd4Rmsb-_SliH-imDxJFbb6Ud6vIayDtPRVWuyXcTfBILt5UfrkmCqYg8pT3lQQR4p_glY4t0SA6w7QTHlMq-clqiE2qKPwZ_G0ssu_hk_aP5Iw8ZTYunjcWKTkLg0bZOglcZdxW/w263-h313/olena-vecchia-pittura-82514432-3080056418717446-3101713153675755520-ofgnnerdmndsjrtjyfkg.jpg" width="263" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">I'm trying to figure out how many times I've heard, read, or watched this particular setup. I think the version I keep coming back to the most is </span></span><i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Jack and the Beanstalk</i><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">. The basic outline seems to fit, especially if you see the giant as an evil dictator lording his power over others. That's the kind of basic narrative outline King is working with here in this book. The major difference is the one folktale that the story keeps riffing on throughout its page count is always </span><i style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Rumpelstiltskin</i><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">. It's pretty much the Ur-text undergirding the main narrative, and without going into spoilers, I can say for a fact that it proves pivotal to the story's ending. What's interesting for me is that the more you dig into King's narrative, the more a careful examination of the bones of the story fossil can reveal some pretty rich thematic insights. Most of them have to do with the mode and structure of the book.</span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">To start with, it is and isn't that much of a departure from King's usual, overarching method of telling stories. Most his narratives center around a single concept, or situation. A group of ordinary people find themselves caught up in an often elemental struggle with forces of the fantastic and the supernatural. All of this is most often played out in terms of the generic Gothic tale structure. This then is the main framework that undergirds all of King's writings. It is interesting to note in passing, however, a claim made by C.S. Lewis that the typical enchanted kingdom motif of the traditional fairy tale was once considered a realistic setting a long time ago. "We do not always notice its method because the cottages, castles, woodcutters, and petty kings with which a fairy-tale opens have become for us as remote as the witches and ogres to which it proceeds. But they were not remote at all to the men who made and first enjoyed the stories. They were, indeed, more realistic and commonplace than (Oxford University, sic) is to me: for many German peasants had actually met cruel stepmothers, whereas I have never (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/That-Hideous-Strength-Space-Trilogy/dp/0743234928">7</a>)". It means that the passage of time can make the real seem fantastic.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0aUqILhiq39dmTjLfvW-y701FNxD166qk6L_gI6wNTSy6CwqZcQe8Q0IzhiYb-T_Q3M4m3K5aj67f-7VSH5smbjnPEwytvmL9Cn4VpCe75UROa6_fmtD5-gGauO_NMC00tz6k3VuDVTnFd3yQVlIt7HNF7p07LAO5tPunWAnSvm9HbZs42OjTBNV0Q2qp/s1400/lucy-wardrobe.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1034" data-original-width="1400" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0aUqILhiq39dmTjLfvW-y701FNxD166qk6L_gI6wNTSy6CwqZcQe8Q0IzhiYb-T_Q3M4m3K5aj67f-7VSH5smbjnPEwytvmL9Cn4VpCe75UROa6_fmtD5-gGauO_NMC00tz6k3VuDVTnFd3yQVlIt7HNF7p07LAO5tPunWAnSvm9HbZs42OjTBNV0Q2qp/w640-h472/lucy-wardrobe.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><br />Most of us, after all, are willing to acknowledge that a realm like Middle Earth is a fictional place. Even it's creator said as much when he labeled it a "secondary world". That said, there was a time when all the world was a kingdom of one sort or another, and we all lived in the forest, because no one could live anywhere else, unless you willing to take your chances in the desert, that was. So in that sense, it is just possible to speak of a time when the settings of stories like <i>Rapunzel</i>, <i>King Arthur</i>, and <i>Snow White</i> could all have been considered (in a very relative sense) "up to date". Also just like King's tales, the peasant protagonists of the Brother's Grimm were also just a bunch of ordinary working class stiffs living a normal pre-twentieth century life until the enchanted creatures (whether good or bad, fair or frightening) appeared on the stage. Even here, however, the basic nature of the situation (however imaginary) remains the same, a normal person is confronted, or must confront, abnormal or extraordinary circumstances. Once again, the basic premise of either a story like <i>Little Red Riding Hood</i> or a novel such as <i>The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon</i> remain the same, regardless of century.</span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSM3k9LmAWgawMJMQ7yGB7uVD2E2fVatBV0j-pnqRTwj1WZ16zj8CjoKpQ9IgN5D-DJK0m0VsO71dwc0Jtyb7smRW-shX0KGCfDX83WbVvmi9nGllJWC-7AVDGWxd4Bx4_VwxTum-0ERaLIF1PBDTCEbrBe5rGiFZ8cA-cNXHC2aml4AVL3odhMBXoecQ3/s1000/91KS9+EfF+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="652" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSM3k9LmAWgawMJMQ7yGB7uVD2E2fVatBV0j-pnqRTwj1WZ16zj8CjoKpQ9IgN5D-DJK0m0VsO71dwc0Jtyb7smRW-shX0KGCfDX83WbVvmi9nGllJWC-7AVDGWxd4Bx4_VwxTum-0ERaLIF1PBDTCEbrBe5rGiFZ8cA-cNXHC2aml4AVL3odhMBXoecQ3/w202-h309/91KS9+EfF+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="202" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">I guess this means it's possible to say that a good way to describe a Stephen King book is that it's what happens when the traditional fairy tale mode gets updated for the contemporary modern age. Even if this is the case, then what's further notable about a story like <i>Fairy Tale</i> is not that it subverts this traditional mode of narration. In fact, it can't be said to do anything of the kind. This is one of those texts that knows it relies on its literary folk forebears, and is happy to use them like always. Instead, it's more that the arc of the Journey of Prince Charlie (as the character is eventually labeled over the course of the book) relies on a particular subset idea within the fairy tale format. This is the trope that hinges on the exploration and discovery of hidden or secret worlds concealed within the confines of our own reality. I'm not sure what the exact scholarly term is for this kind of narrative, so I'll just call it the "Hidden Realm" story. This is the main trope at the heart of King's novel, and it's one that should still be familiar enough to most audiences reading this. We've known it from Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and Looking Glass Kingdoms. L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz, or else in Lewis's Narnia series.</span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">A careful look at King's own writings reveal that this is a type of fantasy trope he is more than familiar enough with. He's even used it before, in fact, during the course of his <i>Dark Tower</i> saga. He plays on the trope once again here, in the form of the locked shed behind the "Psycho House". We're teased early on by hints that it's an important player, prop, or passage way in the drama through such narrative details as curious and odd sounds emanating within it on occasion. King makes sure enough clues are layered into the set up that our curiosity about this old shed, and what's behind the locked door stays somewhere just within our range of sight in the background of the action, even when it isn't the main focus of a given scene. Like any well used stage prop, King doles out just enough cryptic information around the shed and its contents to keep us in suspense for the moment we're all expecting to happen. It's the instant when <i>something</i> comes crawling out from that shed into our world, and whose presence will immediately turn ordinary reality well on its head. The big moment does indeed arrive, and when it does I'd have to say King is able to accomplish his goal here pretty well. The initial impact may leave you thinking of all those bug-eyed 50s monster movies, yet that's a red herring. The real surprise still awaits the next moment of expectation, when Charlie decides to see what's inside for himself.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DBf7wK7W-5OeGU5rH9nwPKmHkTPwpZI0JkHwBAbOCnvJ8FkjikB79yTkFdNQO90WjmRCSemOMbYFe-TSs4uSNpSjNp3BHfCZ6_O5LCtC3TYyL1-5AG2LpzowP1f9X4KtbeWnL6ndIRydz0JREFAdIOGecsKbcxx-Vs913RIdNobEeaAWp5DgglGBOdA5/s900/surreal-gd428b4e9a_1920-900x600.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DBf7wK7W-5OeGU5rH9nwPKmHkTPwpZI0JkHwBAbOCnvJ8FkjikB79yTkFdNQO90WjmRCSemOMbYFe-TSs4uSNpSjNp3BHfCZ6_O5LCtC3TYyL1-5AG2LpzowP1f9X4KtbeWnL6ndIRydz0JREFAdIOGecsKbcxx-Vs913RIdNobEeaAWp5DgglGBOdA5/w640-h426/surreal-gd428b4e9a_1920-900x600.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><br />This second moment of expectation is handled at a naturally faster pace compared to the more deliberate build-up of the opening chapters. This makes sense because the story's first big reveal promises more secrets behind the locked door waiting to be uncovered. So the reader is now anxious to get inside the shed and find out what's there as soon as possible. After a bit of further necessary setup business, our patience and curiosity are rewarded. King said something long ago in either an interview or an essay somewhere about how well C.S. Lewis was at writing that first major trip through the wardrobe. It's the moment where Lucy is moving past the entrance and is wading in among the coat hung on racks all around her. At first everything is normal until she begins to notice that the space inside the wardrobe seems bigger than on the outside, and the temperature seems to have dropped. It's then that Lucy becomes aware of the feel and crackle of leaves and the crunch of snow under her feet. It's a scene that apparently has stayed with King all this time. A lot of the reason why he's held onto that moment in his imagination is down to Lewis's skill in conveying the sense of a felt transition between the primary world of everyday reality, and into the hidden realm behind the locked door. It's the Oxford writer's skill in making his readers <i>see</i> and <i>feel</i> that sense of transition that has inspired King in his very similar attempt.</span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhbjXI2KeLCl6ym5AQN6DNZmUMmj9jAL5t_NtsR_buWkh_B-pCkJv_BpJy1wT0HxlgDRXkYcQBaqhWWgO0CyyJiWwi8YtoavqoJQ1yYOUX1y15WLSpaKvngswC57oWkUrxVoHn-EPTN33Xb6Ozxwuq9uTMdG8eN-oOji5VVE2vRCNVT3uiW1uDkREArcf2/s1536/lion-witch-and-wardrobe-cover-914x1536.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="914" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhbjXI2KeLCl6ym5AQN6DNZmUMmj9jAL5t_NtsR_buWkh_B-pCkJv_BpJy1wT0HxlgDRXkYcQBaqhWWgO0CyyJiWwi8YtoavqoJQ1yYOUX1y15WLSpaKvngswC57oWkUrxVoHn-EPTN33Xb6Ozxwuq9uTMdG8eN-oOji5VVE2vRCNVT3uiW1uDkREArcf2/s320/lion-witch-and-wardrobe-cover-914x1536.jpg" width="190" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Of course, this being a King book, it makes sense that his approach to opening the locked door is going to have a more familiar, Gothic atmosphere to it. For instance, in bringing us up to the secret in the shed, he writes the following: "I didn't like stepping away from the door, but I made myself do it. The outside me did it, because it meant to have a (look, sic). The inside me was basically gibbering with terror, amazement, and disbelief. I moved toward the boards with the blocks on top of them...The boards and cinderblocks were covering a hole in the floor, about five feet across. I first thought it was a well left over from the days before city water, but when I shown the light down between the boards, I saw short stone steps spiraling down the shaft. There were scuttering sounds and a low chittering deep in the dark. Half-glimpsed movement that froze me in place. More bugs...but not dead. They were retreating from my light, and suddenly I thought I knew what they were: cockroaches. They were giant, economy-sized, but they were doing what cockroaches always did when you shone a light on them: running like hell. Mr. Bowditch had covered the hole which led down to Christ knew where (or <i>what</i>), but either he'd done a bad job...or the bugs had managed to shunt...the boards aside (167)".</span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Now admitting that this is a lot cruder than Lucy entering the wardrobe for the first time, I kind of have to stop and ask what on Earth else did you expect when you picked up a book by the same guy who wrote the screenplay for freakin' <i>Creepshow</i>? That was a film that ended with E.G. Marshall being terrorized to death by the exact same species of insect, and those were normal sized critters, in point of fact. The entire hidden doorway, or passage sequence in and of itself, however, is one that has cropped up in countless Fantasy and Horror novels before, and it shows every possible sign of happening again somewhere down the line. This may not be the first time King has used this trope. Though this book does mark the first time he's used it in such a traditional fashion, even going so far as to pretty much acknowledge all the names that have trod this same terrain before him, Lewis included. While there may be some who will try to claim that King's handling of this same transitional trope is crude, I would instead argue that it's nothing more or less than the author being true to his particular artistic expression.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKTSibnIiPhM9K2uj5uAIrFEpYLqbOanJYY3zA_VZGxtQbbX3DbFA_W850pmsdXy5bmmNm2INoBKX1SJsEmjmhSI_luH4ZjFPksJMW-nPoG9zodEK9qKkIQwBSdq96j9F-9zKeSU5y0HMVVmcaCvvUz7z63OQVHXl1QSCHiLxPqRLGfSZ6Y9Yam020CPan/s778/creepshow-e1439897783729.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="778" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKTSibnIiPhM9K2uj5uAIrFEpYLqbOanJYY3zA_VZGxtQbbX3DbFA_W850pmsdXy5bmmNm2INoBKX1SJsEmjmhSI_luH4ZjFPksJMW-nPoG9zodEK9qKkIQwBSdq96j9F-9zKeSU5y0HMVVmcaCvvUz7z63OQVHXl1QSCHiLxPqRLGfSZ6Y9Yam020CPan/w640-h478/creepshow-e1439897783729.webp" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><br />It might not be to everyone's taste, yet it is a sign that the writer is doing no more than playing on the literary strengths that he does have. It's a point that I'll have to stress again near the end. For the moment, let's take a look at a few more samples of how King handles the moment of crossing through the wardrobe door. "I turned on the battery lights, went to the boards and blocks covering the well, and shone my light through one of the six-inch cracks. I saw nothing but the steps winding down into darkness. Nothing moved. There were no scuttering sounds. This did not sooth me; I thought of a line from a dozen cheap horror movies, maybe a hundred: <i>I don't like it. It's too quiet. Be sensible, quiet is good</i>, I told myself, but looking in that stone pit, the idea didn't have much force. I understood that if I hesitated for long I'd back out, making it twice as hard to get even this far again. So I stuck the flashlight in my back pocket once more and lifted away the cement blocks. I slide the boards aside. Then I sat down on the lip of the well, my feet on the third step, telling myself there was plenty of room for my feet. This wasn't precisely true. I armed sweat from my forehead and told myself everything was going to be alright. This I didn't precisely believe (189)".</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">...</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm77z_eJBwMm5OAqj6ToGB8xCyoOIkt1tPBo_pNClifL-iVc2HAqpMOVlMff-WttAPACMn8Y0fV3tihkfJ-zcbhiWddLv9sRrcPfgVHgHNa-SzgYZWzHbWdghWQ3UCFgLZY9EEBRtuU-d2l2GeyBHek-kZ0j-am9NjWyv-vrFFJ17BGg56ubGVTJ1ihfQg/s451/1560820520_22917.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="300" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm77z_eJBwMm5OAqj6ToGB8xCyoOIkt1tPBo_pNClifL-iVc2HAqpMOVlMff-WttAPACMn8Y0fV3tihkfJ-zcbhiWddLv9sRrcPfgVHgHNa-SzgYZWzHbWdghWQ3UCFgLZY9EEBRtuU-d2l2GeyBHek-kZ0j-am9NjWyv-vrFFJ17BGg56ubGVTJ1ihfQg/w201-h301/1560820520_22917.webp" width="201" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">"<i>A hundred and eighty-five stone steps of varying heights</i>, Mr. Bowditch said, and I counted them as I went down. I moved very slowly, with my back planted against the curving stone wall, facing the drop. The stones were rough and damp. I kept the flashlight trained on my feet. <i>Varying heights</i>. I didn't want to stumble. A stumble might be the end of me. On number ninety, not quite halfway, I heard rustling beneath me. I debated shining my light toward the sound and almost decided not to. If I startled a colony of giant bats and they flew up all around me, I probably <i>would</i> fall. That was good logic, but fear was stronger. I leaned out a bit from the wall, shone my light along the descending curve of the steps, and saw something black crouching two dozen steps below. When my light hit it, I had just enough time to see it was one of the jumbo cockroaches before it fled, scuttering into the black (189-90)".</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">...</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">"The corridor was there. I stepped over the blocks and into it. Mr. Bowditch had been right, it was so tall I didn't even think about ducking my head. Now I could hear more rustling up ahead and guessed they were the roosting bats Mr. Bowditch had warned me about. I don't like bats - they carry germs, sometimes rabies - but they don't give me the horrors as they did Mr. Bowditch. Going toward the sound of them, I was more curious than anything.(190)".</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">...</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY3tUiKqtX2JPAkFtVws8SlbFkTmR-iX7qpM8dXmvuSbyy1Gor9CHOhw02aTBEdteGhNS9O-EjWNn-O4xyplONiWq7b3KPxGnRPTJsA3kWDFyMRhxrYfXzS4K0NtHIP2NThQUlx8kjMXGRIpgBQZLPXx73wJeBEuiRMeb6FOFHjmAD_r2oNUHaEPa4uBDQ/s904/fairy-tale-stephen-king.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="904" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY3tUiKqtX2JPAkFtVws8SlbFkTmR-iX7qpM8dXmvuSbyy1Gor9CHOhw02aTBEdteGhNS9O-EjWNn-O4xyplONiWq7b3KPxGnRPTJsA3kWDFyMRhxrYfXzS4K0NtHIP2NThQUlx8kjMXGRIpgBQZLPXx73wJeBEuiRMeb6FOFHjmAD_r2oNUHaEPa4uBDQ/w640-h406/fairy-tale-stephen-king.webp" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><br />"The dirt floor changed to stone. To cobblestones, in fact, like in old movies on TCM about London in the nineteenth century. Now the rustling was right over my head and I snapped off the light. Pitch darkness made me fearful all over again, but I did not want to find myself in a cloud of bats. For all I knew, they might be vampire bats. Unlikely in Illinois...except I wasn't really in Illinois anymore, was I?...At last I saw light - a bright spark just as Mr. Bowditch had said. I walked on and the spark turned into a circlet, bright enough to leave an afterimage on my eyes every time I blinked them shut. I had forgotten all about the lightheadedness Mr. Bowditch had spoken of, but when it hit me, I knew exactly what he'd been talking about...I kept walking, but I felt like a helium balloon bobbing along above my own body, and if the string snapped I would just float away. Then it passed, as Mr. Bowditch said it did for him. He said there was a border, and that had been it. I had left Sentry's Rest behind. And Illinois. And America. I was in the Other (190-191)". Some may argue that these scenes are a bit more drawn out than the way Lewis handles the world's first introduction to the Land Beyond the Wardrobe Door. This criticism, however, ignores the demands of the differing kinds of story writing.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuf6tAQbTkTmpVKmzc0-JkrZzAWF6-wS_lE573A3kVLex6csgZdaJOgi2ORBNZ12xmXkUZr79frLsKNPYOKLCaqyAyC8yINPI-HOkKrJv4Rm1wPSvhdhiznxWyKFRECU5V1EG9T2nGZiG4eN348YymiMIssovSNbfCHoZn9e3up3PdHsINnHwce1kW6wxK/s1231/16915_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1231" data-original-width="800" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuf6tAQbTkTmpVKmzc0-JkrZzAWF6-wS_lE573A3kVLex6csgZdaJOgi2ORBNZ12xmXkUZr79frLsKNPYOKLCaqyAyC8yINPI-HOkKrJv4Rm1wPSvhdhiznxWyKFRECU5V1EG9T2nGZiG4eN348YymiMIssovSNbfCHoZn9e3up3PdHsINnHwce1kW6wxK/w202-h311/16915_1.jpg" width="202" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Specifically, the writer of <i>Narnia</i> was busy excavating a different type of book from the one King has uncovered. I don't just mean that C.S. Lewis was writing more of a straight up Fantasy, while King's book still manages to belong in the realms of Horror. Rather the difference lies also in the specific audience each author wrote for, and how this wound up dictating the specific nature of the text each was crafting. The fact that Lewis wound up making a story for children might be seen as allowing the author a certain amount of leeway in terms of economy of expression. This is true especially when it comes to those young readers who are still busy learning the basics of the English language. A narrative with such a Spartan and to the point style of composition as <i>The Lion</i>, <i>The Witch</i>, <i>and The Wardrobe</i> is always going to be lauded not just for its hidden levels of erudition, but also for the graspable nature of its diction. Lewis' style is Spartan in part because it is the type of literary expression that is always going to be best suited for a children's book. King, on the other hand, is busy composing a full-fledged novel. This places him under a different set of strictures from Lewis as an author.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">For one thing, it's clear we're dealing with one of those stories that is generally meant for adults. There's foul language, a lot of the Gothic imagery we've come to expect from King's other books in general, and while it's true there may be some young readers who will enjoy this text, it's clear enough that writing a book for kids was the last thing on the author's mind as he set about discovering his secondary world. That means the <i>kind</i> of novel King has written is always going to be under a lesser deal of constraint when it comes to basic elements such as length of description, or build-up of scenery, setting, pacing, and narrative tension. Adopting the more expansive canvas and conventions of an adult oriented novel gives the writer a greater sense of allowance when it comes to spearing time and attention to detail in terms of world building. It's a crucial factor in a story such as this, and to his credit, King is able to pull it off to the full that the novel requires in order to do its job. The interesting part is how it is still possible to make the case that Lewis did this better in his description of the inside of a closet turning into the outside of another world, however this can't be counted as a slight against King's effort, because he has given his own secondary world no more than what I needs in order to achieve it's goals.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8J92Srtzu-ZDdJY2adnr9oTQq3nypJRGXxYxLwPgbvfO_AVhN6FI7pT1RLi9B6JrGGOHVKZmiOvg2agGltE0Eu6f-MwZuUtHHawD_2uZn7WjLY6B4HAjuJckSwgkRKH0FXxmyP8UMwPiL9jQAt1EnarYHnUYcUdH1JheHvR4oPkrE4jtTcShAZydbYq-_/s2000/Sleeping-Beauties-Stephen-King-Owen-King-Full-UK-Jacket-.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="2000" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8J92Srtzu-ZDdJY2adnr9oTQq3nypJRGXxYxLwPgbvfO_AVhN6FI7pT1RLi9B6JrGGOHVKZmiOvg2agGltE0Eu6f-MwZuUtHHawD_2uZn7WjLY6B4HAjuJckSwgkRKH0FXxmyP8UMwPiL9jQAt1EnarYHnUYcUdH1JheHvR4oPkrE4jtTcShAZydbYq-_/w640-h308/Sleeping-Beauties-Stephen-King-Owen-King-Full-UK-Jacket-.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Besides, there are other stories by C.S. Lewis out there. Works that are definitely geared toward a more adult reader, and just like King, once the <i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Narnian</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"> author is given a more expansive canvas to work with, he'll give the reader plenty of demonstration that he can paint with just as big and broad a brushstroke as either King, or Tolkien for that matter. The real point, anyway, is the type of goal that King has accomplished with his skill in bringing the reader further up and in to the secondary world of </span><i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Fairy Tale</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">. All of the author's main and familiar narrative skills are on full display in the construction of the Other Land at the heart of his narrative. I'd have to argue that the writer has done a good enough job at bringing it to life off of the page as to qualify not just as a success. It's also one of those achievements with a very particular, and familiar thematic meaning to all of it.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><b>Conclusion: A Surprising Success, and a Gratifying Achievement. </b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjI6Yn5qQI9_xm6DJOxKOuVwRMtiaXFDsUng88VLwe9RW9dmA5IWtMtXaChPfdIEv5NezhpD8MDn1J1FfleIlZK8EdhKtWiIu8aqHvGFzP58ObUtz0ZnmyrQwDJJ2BKaAjNab8fd7Ygw1zXeUIzUcNAvwb78VxWqwC8AMKuIHqh_7STzTxK_EwyJz0wuKs/s748/Screenshot_2022-07-26_at_16_35_38.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="748" data-original-width="520" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjI6Yn5qQI9_xm6DJOxKOuVwRMtiaXFDsUng88VLwe9RW9dmA5IWtMtXaChPfdIEv5NezhpD8MDn1J1FfleIlZK8EdhKtWiIu8aqHvGFzP58ObUtz0ZnmyrQwDJJ2BKaAjNab8fd7Ygw1zXeUIzUcNAvwb78VxWqwC8AMKuIHqh_7STzTxK_EwyJz0wuKs/w215-h310/Screenshot_2022-07-26_at_16_35_38.png" width="215" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">In many ways, <i>Fairy Tale</i> counts as something of a double triumph for it's author. On it's most basic level, King has managed to tell a very well wrought and engaging story. It's page count is generous, yet the pacing is tight, even in its quiet moments, and it keeps the reading turning them, eager to find out what happens next. The story itself bears an equal division between setup and payoff that is able to achieve a neat and concise sense of balance. King is eager to make sure the readers get to know just enough about the book's character so that we care about what happens when the main action kicks into high gear. More than any of its basic achievements, however, is the one accomplishment of the story that makes it stand out, even in the midst of King's other considerable literary accomplishments. This is a book that shows us the author at last finding a way to crack whatever code (or is it a magic spell?) that has kept him from being able to tackle the one type of story that has always evaded the reach of his talents until now. I said way back at the start that King's strengths as a writer are all centered in the straightforward Horror genre, and that Fantasy is the one format that keeps eluding him.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">In the strictest sense, this may very well still be the case, and what he's achieved here may prove to be just a one-off success. Even if this turns out to be the case, I don't think it can ever quite take away from what the writer was able to achieve here. If it's true that King's true métier remains in the haunted heartland fields of the American Gothic, then <i>Fairy Tale</i> is the one exception that proves the rule. It's as if the author has found the right way into this kind of story, the one that was meant specifically for his kind of talents. This time, not only does working within a specific subset of the Fantasy genre not prove a hindrance to King's skills as a literary composer, it also manages to enhance those same talents. As a result, you wind up reading a story that is aiming for, and also contains that same sense of epic scope that King is able to give his readers even in the most insular of novels like <i>The Shining</i>, <i>Salem's Lot</i>, or even <i>It</i>. Even if it's true this newest text can never quite reach the same monumental scale as the story of Derry, Maine (nor do I think any of the writer's other work will ever be able to achieve this either; the story of Pennywise remains King's true magnum opus, and as such, remains in a class by itself) it might be able to at least approach the respectable titan style proportions of Jerusalem's Lot.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhur16HtUWZAsa5qfvK29pD8oXQZPBfltsywPRe5SSww9nkzAzU6-0x7SzDCYqY42padMiKOS3HIJnhCE6K6v-chYQtDp5Kb-YxayiVzKdqDkY1FQf8K8AOYpCQX23vwSGVbnRDLQq4lML61A2NpkrGR-ZJyS9CuckacjGmxvskjMXvzKmyVvrqOSxw2Fxz/s1024/whats-your-opinion-on-nightmares-dreamscapes-v0-7v72zz5j2yub1.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="1024" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhur16HtUWZAsa5qfvK29pD8oXQZPBfltsywPRe5SSww9nkzAzU6-0x7SzDCYqY42padMiKOS3HIJnhCE6K6v-chYQtDp5Kb-YxayiVzKdqDkY1FQf8K8AOYpCQX23vwSGVbnRDLQq4lML61A2NpkrGR-ZJyS9CuckacjGmxvskjMXvzKmyVvrqOSxw2Fxz/w640-h410/whats-your-opinion-on-nightmares-dreamscapes-v0-7v72zz5j2yub1.webp" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">For certain it's true that it belongs on the same shelf tier as that novel, or books like <i>Bag of Bones</i>. It also goes without saying that <i>Fairy Tale</i> is a definite improvement over a novel like <i>The Talisman</i>. With all due respect to that earlier tome (and with no slight meant to the efforts of the late, great Peter Straub) it remains clear that even the finished text showcases King to be struggling with the material. It's like he's Samuel Taylor Coleridge catching a faint, glimpsing vision of Xanadu. The author might be able see a basic outline of his secondary world, yet all it remains is a bare bones schematic. He can't bring it to life off the page, nor can he scale the castle walls to catch a glimpse of what life is like inside the city. This is basically the same process King has had to put up with each time he tries his hand at Fantasy. What makes <i>Fairy Tale</i> stand out from all those other times is that now it seems like at last the author has found the magic key that opens whatever door he needed in order to make a story like this work. To put it another way, it is just possible to claim that perhaps the author's Imagination went back to whatever original archetype, or story idea he had with <i>Talisman</i> or <i>The Dark Tower</i>. This time, however, for whatever reason, the vision came in clear and Xanadu opened all its secrets to him.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXSrf-Irvh4aAoMuwnv0NPt-DsoaoWDFPv_Il3bmIiSI_QaLDxaPWdACMuN-lvZ5odeSTygPS1V4fmYSHwqNvyqXFHxSman2LS7PCxzyFVrLO6odn0u3VETGzckvw-cc7wcyhsPVEWnZ1JwOd_aV8Eq5wLSyBi9SG_YFJksvdULSBubksJ52sSf9IpcaE/s1000/6287b7603f6304f3508c6187c5d2c060.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="668" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXSrf-Irvh4aAoMuwnv0NPt-DsoaoWDFPv_Il3bmIiSI_QaLDxaPWdACMuN-lvZ5odeSTygPS1V4fmYSHwqNvyqXFHxSman2LS7PCxzyFVrLO6odn0u3VETGzckvw-cc7wcyhsPVEWnZ1JwOd_aV8Eq5wLSyBi9SG_YFJksvdULSBubksJ52sSf9IpcaE/s320/6287b7603f6304f3508c6187c5d2c060.jpg" width="214" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">As a result, we're given an authentic, full-fledged fantasy world for the first time ever by Stephen King. He's not the kind of writer you ever expect to pull this off, and yet he found a way. It makes sense, for the record, that the hidden world Charlie Reade discovers inside the backyard house shed is a composite realm made up of equal parts Mother Goose, Brother's Grimm, and H.P. Lovecraft. This is something that anyone who has paged through either <i>The Talisman</i> or <i>Dark Tower</i> books has come to expect, and nor is that a complaint in this case. King's one approach to Fantasy world building is highly allusive. Places like Mid-World or the Territories tend to be what you get if you add the works of Tolkien, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, HPL, Clark Ashton Smith, and L. Frank Baum's Oz stories together. For King, this results in secondary realms that are more like Borgesian living libraries come to life. In that way, King's own efforts bear a surprising amount more in common with C.S. Lewis's Narnia than I think even I was expecting. Lewis's efforts counts as a legitimate fantasy world. Yet what it shares in common with King's practices is that both authors tend to conjure up imaginary kingdoms that contain characters, places, and situations that serve to act as callbacks to the literary works that inspired them.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">I suppose a good way to term these secondary worlds is to describe them as follows. What each artist has constructed amounts to a Kingdom of Allusion. These are worlds that play on the idea of the protagonists stepping into the covers of a book that's come to life. This explains how characters from the <i>Dark Tower</i> series can have a confrontation with the Tick-Tock man of Oz in the Emerald Palace. Or how the children who enter Narnia wind up meeting the cast of Spenser's <i>Faerie Queene. </i>Or how Lewis Carroll's Alice keeps encountering highly satirical versions of figures drawn straight from British myth and history in Wonderland. Each of these authors has composed worlds that are made up entirely of the books they've read, and that have inspired them as children now turned into adult artists in their own right. It's a perfectly legitimate form of storytelling. However, until now, King has never managed a successful attempt at it. </span></span><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Like I say, it's an archetype that King has been struggling with since he was a college student. This book marks the first time he was able to either figure a way into the archetype, or else the writer's Imagination just took pity on him, and appeared in a form that would be able to play on all of his actual literary strengths. Either way, the result comes to the same gratifying surprise.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvktAUr2JeNpPJt5niHcn7MxSVZ4K-Z8Lv8XGa5pSoOF9ruyuJSAM6SvFubu44_sabGQd9jIqvCoGwWD5DmKDKjnlO_36zfMnG1KxFpCIV0SRcRy6lx3OmQCB6djX_QG0JKwtzW1FFFPFOyiSt9ENVJu7iZwmRcD8Whmnnj-Noopc9_GzvCqrUeWLobcm/s1200/p01gz53y.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvktAUr2JeNpPJt5niHcn7MxSVZ4K-Z8Lv8XGa5pSoOF9ruyuJSAM6SvFubu44_sabGQd9jIqvCoGwWD5DmKDKjnlO_36zfMnG1KxFpCIV0SRcRy6lx3OmQCB6djX_QG0JKwtzW1FFFPFOyiSt9ENVJu7iZwmRcD8Whmnnj-Noopc9_GzvCqrUeWLobcm/w640-h360/p01gz53y.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It allows the reader to enjoy a world where the little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, or a humble Goose Girl reside right alongside Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid. It's also a place that allows King to find his own strengths in such a realm for the first time. If this story sounds like a departure for the author of <i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Carrie</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">, then King's talent is more than willing to remind us just who we're dealing with here. This is on display best when Charlie has to make his way through the empty yet haunted streets of an abandoned kingdom. It's one of several standout sequences in the novel, and it let's us know that the author has neither lost his touch, nor forgotten what kind of writer he truly is. The kingdom itself is like a fairy tale storybook gone wrong. The streets, shops, and buildings all look normal until their shapes and sizes begin to warp and twist until you'd swear you just caught the barest glimpse of a ghoulish or aquatic looking face peering out at you from one of the upper windows. Either that or else it looks as if the houses and buildings, even the palace walls are themselves turning into faces, or are ready to sprout the kind of gnarled and twisted hands that look like they want to reach out and grab you. To say nothing of a troop of ghouls emerging from their graves, or skeletons on motor-cycles.</span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp2-A8b8Pd8MJA0PqaTQeLssgt-KB6mlu18IUHOnsSXLYya8YsruhyphenhyphenHcvmVMN5wGvNa4qL0HLtwCbPOUpZ15GPJBeeo1tVPC0M6htlpctQuaPu-VF6sJPrqX43uZzMUYI2Blgby02W4ZHnuHdcTRJIm4bNwGLov0BYveoeBZZzC39u9QcCesq2g5eDrPgY/s475/31667538782.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="297" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp2-A8b8Pd8MJA0PqaTQeLssgt-KB6mlu18IUHOnsSXLYya8YsruhyphenhyphenHcvmVMN5wGvNa4qL0HLtwCbPOUpZ15GPJBeeo1tVPC0M6htlpctQuaPu-VF6sJPrqX43uZzMUYI2Blgby02W4ZHnuHdcTRJIm4bNwGLov0BYveoeBZZzC39u9QcCesq2g5eDrPgY/w180-h288/31667538782.jpg" width="180" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">All of which is to say that, yes, or course, this counts very much as what we think in terms of a Stephen King novel. Right down to a final confrontation with Rumpelstiltskin in the form of a Lovecraftian Eldritch Abomination. The first important point, however, to all of this is that after what seems a lifetime, King has found a way to make this all work for him. The entire novel is a class act, and might have to go down as one of the handful of candidates for the best efforts of King's latter stage career. It's a list whose entries include works such as </span><i style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">11/22/63</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">, </span><i style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Revival</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">, </span><i style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">The Outsider</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">, and </span><i style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Lisey's Story</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">. What marks a book like </span><i style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">Fairy Tale</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"> out from all of the others is the fact that after years of struggle, the author has finally achieved a sort of literary conquest. Success in the Fantasy genre (even within the limited form of the Dark Gothic subset) has eluded him for practically all of his life. So for King to have been able to plant a flag for himself in this territory amounts to no mean or small victory. I suppose a good way to think of it is the literary equivalent of a Lifetime Achievement Award. However, this is just the first feather in the artist's cap. The second is just as important.</span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">In succeeding for the first time in writing a genuine Fantasy story in a Gothic key, King has also managed an unexpected, yet welcome form of a particular literary accomplishment. I've said before and elsewhere that King's writing contains a Tolkienesque quality, both in terms of style as well as the content of his narratives. He's one of the few writers I know who can create an imaginary New England small town, and give that single setting all the depth and breadth of both Hobbiton and Mordor rolled into one. <i>Fairy Tale</i>, however, marks the first and so far most successful time King has been able to take those qualities and showcase them in a narrative format that is close to their original epic, fairy story grandeur. In doing so, the writer succeeds at achieving a very particular kind of poetic effect. For the first time, King shows himself capable of tapping into the specific literary "charm" or artistic quality that goes with story fables such as this. It's a case of the author as an individual talent writing within a distinctive literary tradition. In this case, it's a subgenre whose nature and contours were laid out long ago by critic and scholar Roger Lancelyn Green, in <i>The Book of Other Worlds.</i></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhy-XsWwv5b8PBlLRkUClUjDU2O97kfghaJYPL-XhI_ogVMiLCExZaH7wz79ADJa517wfa7AA-xY6jf74dl9xjqnTrA4kytw3CJfOZa8d74JxG_xwjuDqEEGyF3R8qhA6S0Hxs0tkuQQtS05dZ4W1lx2WsC8qzo5iaCfpouJbDD1-JKM-dleaYpYqrJpU/s600/limitedendpaper.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="600" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhy-XsWwv5b8PBlLRkUClUjDU2O97kfghaJYPL-XhI_ogVMiLCExZaH7wz79ADJa517wfa7AA-xY6jf74dl9xjqnTrA4kytw3CJfOZa8d74JxG_xwjuDqEEGyF3R8qhA6S0Hxs0tkuQQtS05dZ4W1lx2WsC8qzo5iaCfpouJbDD1-JKM-dleaYpYqrJpU/w640-h252/limitedendpaper.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">If we follow the logic of Green's thinking, then it is possible to claim that King's secondary world quest is able to touch on a very ancient response of the human imagination. "There is a dream", Green writes, "a waking dream or a sleeping dream - which we have all had at one time or another; a dream of finding a way out of this everyday world into some new, strange country that is charted on no map and listed in no gazetteer; a new world of the imagination that has become real...Like Robert Louis Stevenson we all have the power of looking over the wall, of finding the right pass-word, the "Open Sesame"..."that oft-times Charm'd magic casements, opening on...perilous seas, in...lands forlorn -" as Keats puts it puts it so perfectly.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKMSPkLt5OMcJL7c_PtZHn5a3itTU6EdJN0Y3sYFZ8LALZDwds7ctwSkyzqx5-IHBnzCwzGZLywNwUWRa_S4a3QvUoF1N9MZ1N_7xYFIuCLDdtMUKyPqhq-jaOLzHEIzVhl6OApstHOSMKRV02cpWVn3ZJF6gB0CswtOzwRxJoY3_P71OT7JkHaa3SS3K/s635/Hamish-Hamilton-Book-of-Other-Worlds-Roger-Lancelyn-Green.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="414" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKMSPkLt5OMcJL7c_PtZHn5a3itTU6EdJN0Y3sYFZ8LALZDwds7ctwSkyzqx5-IHBnzCwzGZLywNwUWRa_S4a3QvUoF1N9MZ1N_7xYFIuCLDdtMUKyPqhq-jaOLzHEIzVhl6OApstHOSMKRV02cpWVn3ZJF6gB0CswtOzwRxJoY3_P71OT7JkHaa3SS3K/s320/Hamish-Hamilton-Book-of-Other-Worlds-Roger-Lancelyn-Green.webp" width="209" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">"From the earliest times the dream of entering another world has been common to all races of mankind. At its most serious it is the longing to find the way back to Paradise Lost...Even stories of adventuring into the world of the dead and returning into this world while still alive have seemed possible; in ancient Greek legends Orpheus made his way down into the Land of the Dead and returned to the upper world still a living man - and on other occasions Heracles did the same, and also Psyche, and even Theseus in some stories. And Virgil told how Aeneas found his way there and back also. But usually any such journey was made by a god or a messenger of the gods, in mythologies as various as those of Babylon, the Norsemen and ancient Mexico (ix)". </span><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">"Usually the modern, invented, (Other World, sic) is a...place of...adventure. Just as Jack climbed </span><i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">up</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"> the Beanstalk and so came to a new world, Alice went </span><i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">down</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"> the Rabbit Hole to Wonderland, or </span><i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">through</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"> the Looking-Glass to the land beyond it. Just as Prince Ahmed went through the door in the rock and found himself (in the realm of </span><i style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">The Thousand and One Nights</i><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">, sic), so the Pevensie children went through the back of the magic wardrobe into the other world of Narnia (xi)". These are the ancestors of King's latest literary Fantasy.</span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">In many ways, Charlie is the great grandson of these imaginary travelers. Much like Orpheus or Alice, King's protagonist is able to find a way out of this world and into another. At one point, Charlie even compares himself directly to Jack and the Beanstalk. It's also that imaginative sense of possibility and romance tied to the idea of exploring other wheres and whens that helps drive the engine of King's book, and which the author is able to tap into to draw the reader in. These component narrative elements help to heighten the book's Tolkienesque atmosphere in another way. They do this simply by helping the story checkmark all the boxes that the creator of Middle Earth himself believed to be the key notes of a good yarn. In fact, another scholar, Tom Shippey, explains it best in a summary of Tolkien's sentiments on the matter. "Most good fairy-stories are about "the (adventures) of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marches (xi-xii)". Perhaps that's the best description that can be given to one of King's most recent releases. It's a Perilous Realm Tale; one with all the usual excitement and adventures, and marvelous encounters you might expect from just such a book as this.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;">The only major addition King's individual talent has offered this tradition is to recast it all in the literary format he's always been most comfortable in. The result is one of the few successful examples of the American Gothic Dark Fantasy out there on the book shelves. The author has entered the realm of both Tolkien and Mother Goose, and found the path that leads to the darker avenues and dungeon cellars that dot this sort of imaginary landscape. As a Horror writer, it just makes sense that King would bring his own specialized and familiar spin to the Enchanted Kingdom of Long Ago. This is best on display near the end, when the faint Lovecraftian note that has been sounded like a faint yet audible heartbeat in the background is brought on-stage for one final performance. The interesting thing about these final moments is that while King may draw on elements of Lovecraft for his finale, the narrative itself never falls into, or gives way toward that Providence author's note of Cosmic Horror. For whatever reason, this is a tale that can never end in nihilism. It all got started with the author wondering what could make him happy, and the Imagination has supplied the answer in story form.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjW7RT-dv0n2HKqWQkoxMYyAI1kJVRXCRyhwP_0D6pmtt8gFWg6aCzB5OonzuXqhNptp5nm5MHJ45DtTPfkSn04FNfjNTLyVes4cHJ3i06PncAAysKMI-wgad3JhT6mISchycivnSRpcCCms2271mCiZR0YTGJeoKPyqwtRxOEqsbJJXYt1x2s3YUvHfts/s1664/72fc5a7e-8e82-417f-902e-d3fc053c8842_1664x960.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1664" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjW7RT-dv0n2HKqWQkoxMYyAI1kJVRXCRyhwP_0D6pmtt8gFWg6aCzB5OonzuXqhNptp5nm5MHJ45DtTPfkSn04FNfjNTLyVes4cHJ3i06PncAAysKMI-wgad3JhT6mISchycivnSRpcCCms2271mCiZR0YTGJeoKPyqwtRxOEqsbJJXYt1x2s3YUvHfts/w640-h370/72fc5a7e-8e82-417f-902e-d3fc053c8842_1664x960.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.5px;"><br />This has resulted in a modern day other world epic that owes just as much to Tolkien as it does Lovecraft or George A. Romero. It's overall nature is revealed to have less to do with the Plains of Leng, and instead reveals a story that has more in common with the mystical Gothic country explored by the likes of Arthur Machen. Perhaps that's even fitting as even HPL admitted Machen was his most prominent influence, and was more than willing to speak of the Welsh author's writings as being of a higher quality than his. Machen's work reveals a secondary world much like King's Enchanted Kingdom. There are dark places, yet ultimately even this is subsumed into the same level of wonder that is most often associated with all those ancient myths that Roger Green talked about. Like the writings of Machen, King's story of Charlie's Adventures in the Underland Kingdom ends on a note of enchantment, even while it's busy giving us the familiar chills that we like. It's for all of these reasons that I'm able to say that <i>Fairy Tale</i> is definitely a book worth picking up and diving into. It's not only a rollicking good Gothic Adventure yarn, it's also one of the rarest achievements Stephen King has ever made. I think what he's written here will have to go down as one of his greatest successes, and a future classic. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: #fcf8f7; color: #252231; font-family: Spectral, serif; letter-spacing: -0.5px;"> </span><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-57866237855084275632023-10-08T00:17:00.000-05:002023-10-08T00:17:29.454-05:00Pennywise: The Story of It (2021).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4n7-T9rssgH4M_KpLZYd7m-CWskX1OG3Snp63lGOx4co5hRAc9C60ID1Ew4UwqCgo6ga7T-Q0naqexkwr0qn0nyWslkvQb4mFJadmEfmM_v7lY0Iv1Q4YbmU9BKTqjgjhdyDfKKOS9pUB_suTAuWXZg34tPPxoxRZjww9fUaMppmjhM92yXgqMfoGOWn/s2560/MV5BZDNiZWQ4YjUtYjA5NC00YWRlLThkN2MtZjNmMTdmMjA4ZTY2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1920" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4n7-T9rssgH4M_KpLZYd7m-CWskX1OG3Snp63lGOx4co5hRAc9C60ID1Ew4UwqCgo6ga7T-Q0naqexkwr0qn0nyWslkvQb4mFJadmEfmM_v7lY0Iv1Q4YbmU9BKTqjgjhdyDfKKOS9pUB_suTAuWXZg34tPPxoxRZjww9fUaMppmjhM92yXgqMfoGOWn/s320/MV5BZDNiZWQ4YjUtYjA5NC00YWRlLThkN2MtZjNmMTdmMjA4ZTY2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>This is what happened. <a href="https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781454911258/page/80/mode/1up?view=theater">According to Bev Vincent</a>,"While (Stephen King, sic) was working on <i>The Stand</i>, he had another experience that was the seed for another long novel many years later. In Boulder, the family vehicle was an AMC Matador, "an admirable car right up until the day when its transmission just fell out onto Pearl Street." Two days after the car was towed to a dealership on the east end of the city, King received word that it was ready to be be picked up. Rather than call a cab, King decided he needed the exercise and walked the three miles to the dealership, eventually ending up on a narrow unlit road at twilight. He recalls the moment vividly: "I was aware of how alone I was. About a quarter of a mile along this road was a wooden bridge, humped and oddly quaint, spanning a stream. I walked across it. I was wearing cowboy boots with rundown heels, and I was very aware of the sound they made on the boards; they sounded like a hollow clock. I suppose I should have thought of Randall Flagg, since I was all wrapped up in his life just then, but instead I thought of the story of Billy Goats Gruff, the troll who says, "Who's that trip-trapping on my bridge?' and the whole story just bounced into my mind on Pogo-stick. Not the characters, but the split time-frame, the accelerated (narrative plot line) that would end up with a complete breakdown, which might result in a feeling of 'no time', all the monsters that were one monster...(and) the troll under the bridge, of course (80)".<p></p><p>Early on, near the start of this documentary, King is shown elaborating on this brief moment of fairy tale inspiration. According to the author, after having the image of the Troll from the <i>Brother's Grimm</i>, story flash into his mind: "I thought, "Wouldn't it be a scream if something just reached up now and grabbed me; and pulled me down there, and that was the last anyone heard of old, Stephen King". To me, it sounds a lot like the rough sketch for a scene that was actually filmed half a century later on as part of a film called <i>Troll Hunter</i>. The filmmakers there utilize the old folktale idea for the purposes of mere parodic satire, however. That work (while fine in its own right), nevertheless is unable to display the same level of creative inspiration comparable to the idea that King had that night way back in 1979. The whole creative idea may have been kicked off by recalling the Troll Under the Bridge, in an old wives' tale. However, this was just the initial spark point. The initial flare sent up from the workshop of the artist's Imagination. Another way to state the whole truth of that ancient situation is to claim that even the Bridge Troll proved to be just another masque for the true entity at the heart of the story.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDUbrH93zRqllfcI-r7LFuorBSnQ1aDvqCZy_qM59rqSO0s-bLCGWgnv2vSLGezZjESp68gBvaeWJ3EYFW7f16QkvImnG9rLIRiRlflgVO8izyBUuI51mT8N3JkUSB8gVo3ttdbP2xdF-_lvkn6s2Gu4rmBG7FdtBn0hYA_6vEvYXMuDsMgkyFaw3fsJK/s3037/stephen-king-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2054" data-original-width="3037" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDUbrH93zRqllfcI-r7LFuorBSnQ1aDvqCZy_qM59rqSO0s-bLCGWgnv2vSLGezZjESp68gBvaeWJ3EYFW7f16QkvImnG9rLIRiRlflgVO8izyBUuI51mT8N3JkUSB8gVo3ttdbP2xdF-_lvkn6s2Gu4rmBG7FdtBn0hYA_6vEvYXMuDsMgkyFaw3fsJK/w640-h432/stephen-king-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In fact, it's very much as King comments on that initial moment of artistic inspiration in the documentary. "The incident stayed in my mind. And over a period of five years I would come back to that, and come back to that. And little by little, I began to evolve a story. Until now it's developed into a novel". Vincent continues: "The book that developed from these notions is <i>It</i>, which King thought of at the time as his magnum opus and the end of a phase - the last book he intended to write about supernatural monsters and kids in jeopardy. "The book is the summation of everything I have done and learned in my whole life to this point," he said. Every monster that ever lived is in this book. This is the final exam (ibid)". <i>It</i> was first released onto bookshelves everywhere on Sept. 15th, 1986. I would have been about one or two years old at the time. So I would and yet wouldn't have been around to enjoy the initial impact that book created. Like a lot of 80s kids who arrived too late on the scene to enjoy the ride, I instead wound up having to play a makeshift game of catch-up with that novel.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMZX4HcC6QjXnPRv9yA7hW7eJiRNlwl9PXLRGqiuBtLgVaeLRgzNO9kycStS0ekHgY3oDzfrbeGiLsJ9zuqVb3sMWLaS5Jj-8mzVR-vgxf_zur4ELGVpz8_Kpy3ACe_nAZh3xP9naTonHliDiXOKQu5VDs0kwQblRNi5hEc3JK9ssOzBN-UV5_zhQurg5/s929/It_(1986)_front_cover,_first_edition.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMZX4HcC6QjXnPRv9yA7hW7eJiRNlwl9PXLRGqiuBtLgVaeLRgzNO9kycStS0ekHgY3oDzfrbeGiLsJ9zuqVb3sMWLaS5Jj-8mzVR-vgxf_zur4ELGVpz8_Kpy3ACe_nAZh3xP9naTonHliDiXOKQu5VDs0kwQblRNi5hEc3JK9ssOzBN-UV5_zhQurg5/s320/It_(1986)_front_cover,_first_edition.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>From what I can now tell, it didn't take long for the book to cement itself as part of a very specific item <br />of pop-cultural history. It wasn't just that this story of monsters and children was a best-selling success story. It was also in the way it quickly seemed to go on to help frame the nature of 80s entertainment in general. Part of the reason a lot of us 80s kids look back on the decade of our formative years with such fondness is not just because of nostalgia. It is just possible to make a legitimate case for the level of artistic quality that was churned out during the years when Michael Jackson was the reigning King of Pop. A lot of it comes down to one crucial factor. The 1980s seems to have been the last great rebirth of literary Romanticism since the days of Coleridge, Dickens, and Mark Twain. It was kind of the natural enough result of the birth of the Counterculture, and then that same culture taking the reigns of artistic production for one brief moment of time. This is the best explanation I've been find for why there was such a growing number of films, books, and even TV series formatted towards the fantastic genres. Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy all seem to be the go-to genres for a Renaissance.<p></p><p>Hence, you've got your <i>Star Wars</i><u>,</u> of course, along with films like <i>Back to the Future</i>, and <i>Bill and Ted</i>. In addition, though, you also find this fundamentally Romantic strain working its way into the corridors of the straightforward dramas and comedies of that era. Nowhere is this more on display than in the films of John Hughes, who pretty much single-handedly helped codify the notion of what an ideal life in the 1980s was or could be with films like <i>Pretty in Pink</i>, or <i>The Breakfast Club</i>. This was the collective zeitgeist that King first stepped into, then was taken up by as he first began his career in the 1970s. By 1986, he'd graduated from the role of a journeyman novelist to pretty much being among the Big Names who helped to create our notion of what an 80s childhood was like, at least in terms of the entertainment we all consumed back then. Much like Steven Spielberg did first with movies like <i>E.T.</i>, and then afterwards with <i>Poltergeist</i>, and <i>The Goonies</i>, King became, or has become one of the authors you turn to in order to get a sense of what life was like back then. Let's put it another way. If Spielberg if the poet of suburban dreams, then King was the teller of American nightmares during that decade.</p><p>Both King and Spielberg have since gone on to become kind of like the standard bearers for both the light and dark contrasts of that time period, and all the terror and wonder that could sometimes go with it. Looked at from this perspective, it really does seem as if the publication of <i>It</i> might have been one of the keystone texts that helped set the tone for what the 80s would become first as a lived experience, and later a part of history. I also think the timing might have been ideal in another way. Just the year before, Rob Reiner had sent his film <i>Stand By Me</i> (an adaptation of yet another King novella) out into theaters. And it was already on the way toward becoming another key 80s text, in a matter of speaking. It was one of those films, in other words, that was fast becoming an entree in the Pantheon, for lack of a better word. So when King released a novel that contains many of the same themes and ideas in a more fantastic mode of expression, it was very much like all the stars aligning at more or less the right time.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisqCYgSQfSFmqYBUzTj9QPNgyOiWn6P3Ja-CjXR-3g_t7L_LEGbyeNG1om4VduoX74eLinh2PVlJRqDhOAStPEPxfivHlfWdPndRFtphCxl1XSQ18iZCMJhlidldbhTzBjINV4aA0UtKa_PrIk4ezsl3atUKK7XrBfw9Dg8EQ_rcX8wcIOE3P7dHGfkVkD/s1200/wkofkddn29yghm3oig3x.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisqCYgSQfSFmqYBUzTj9QPNgyOiWn6P3Ja-CjXR-3g_t7L_LEGbyeNG1om4VduoX74eLinh2PVlJRqDhOAStPEPxfivHlfWdPndRFtphCxl1XSQ18iZCMJhlidldbhTzBjINV4aA0UtKa_PrIk4ezsl3atUKK7XrBfw9Dg8EQ_rcX8wcIOE3P7dHGfkVkD/w640-h336/wkofkddn29yghm3oig3x.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The growing juggernaut of King's success during this period did not go unnoticed in Hollywood, either. By now, King was also becoming something of a mainstay on both the big and small screens. So once the studios got a good look at what <i>It</i> was reaping in terms of sales figures, it all became the standard story of how "money talks", and everyone saw dollar signs in the potential of turning the author's monumental novel of fear and childhood into some kind of a film adaptation. The result and fallout of these creative efforts is the story being told in the documentary <i>Pennywise</i>: <i>The Story of It</i>. Both the book and the miniseries are among my favorite works, so now is a good time to look back on it all.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><b>An Inadequate Historical Summary.<br /></b><p></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizaTQN3jx4tWR6zngK4-93f0rsiib-qCt4ck368DtloKP_Gc1dc7CdM_5i0WAMxRoVuGR7j9nubOlTvwefRLqCGVU077mbQrwROKLgH29Rpakd8Ye-y7rDNr69GAUcd23-dIoF5t1FuY9lYOyKubVK_me-TQv_Q_NI6UbMjUaBGs3DRblCNZy_GrwsiLGo/s2003/245156611_1330968217357199_18364819290477495_n.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2003" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizaTQN3jx4tWR6zngK4-93f0rsiib-qCt4ck368DtloKP_Gc1dc7CdM_5i0WAMxRoVuGR7j9nubOlTvwefRLqCGVU077mbQrwROKLgH29Rpakd8Ye-y7rDNr69GAUcd23-dIoF5t1FuY9lYOyKubVK_me-TQv_Q_NI6UbMjUaBGs3DRblCNZy_GrwsiLGo/s320/245156611_1330968217357199_18364819290477495_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>This whole business really seems to have begun with two elements: a screenwriter and a phone call. In the beginning (after King's book, anyway), there was Lawrence D. Cohen. And Cohen was a Hollywood player, and verily, the player had already made a name for himself in the industry by the time the fateful call rolled around. "I had written <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_(1976_film)">Carrie</a></i>" as Cohen remembers. "That had put Steve King, Brian De Palma, the actors, and me on the map. In a way that I became a go-to for Horror adaptations". Among the other credits Cohen has to his name is another King adaptation, <i>The Tommyknockers</i>, and what can charitably be described as at least <i>an attempt</i> at tackling Peter Straub's <i>Ghost Story</i> for the movie theater. "I got a call one day", Cohen says, "from my agent in Los Angeles. Who said he's been approached by producers who'd set up a new Stephen King project at ABC as a novel for television. And was I interested in that? The next day, the doorbell rang. (It was) <i>Federal Express</i> at the door. The guy is carrying the most humongous package I've ever seen. I took this unwieldy, bulky, piece from him, and was about to close the door. He said, "Hang on a minute.</div><div><br /></div><div>"And he went back to the elevator and came back with these two, giant containers. Containing the type manuscript of <i>It</i> in it's earliest stages. I sat down and read the opening with young, Stutterin' Bill, and baby brother Georgie. And what turns out to be a horrible demise at the hands of Pennywise in the sewer. I went, 'I'll do it'. From there, things shifted quickly to ABC television headquarters as the production started getting off the ground. "We went in for a first meeting with the network", as Cohen recalls. "And the executive vice-president of movies and for television, and she looked at me. She looked at me, and said, 'Tell me. What is It'?. I said, 'Well, It's an inter-terrestrial beast that has come down eons ago, and has the power to screw with kids minds, and attack their worst fears'. And she looked at me. She nodded, and she said, 'Yes, but what is <i>It'</i>? So, I nodded and went, 'Okay'. And I tried another answer. And she asked me, I don't know, five more times. I looked over at the producers, and went, 'I'm in hell". It should be noted, that's the kind of scenario any creative type is going to be up against if you want to work in Hollywood, and it never gets much better than anything like that.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7Ybwoiuqx899rvtVbKNAt6D7fxHCoG9LRspDvSogRL9TIInnVgoLdzPV8Lc40w9FPevMTQWMVmnl-TpjiQAM4wjA7zSrVaq9k6kBZwQmDTRkvITNr7mB7kl-4O55mYBtMKfAw49OKM-DLIr6uBdrHyUDUE55yOYgU_A0e4SYr6arw3iINRN3ZqNC-IYm/s1280/Larry-Cohen.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7Ybwoiuqx899rvtVbKNAt6D7fxHCoG9LRspDvSogRL9TIInnVgoLdzPV8Lc40w9FPevMTQWMVmnl-TpjiQAM4wjA7zSrVaq9k6kBZwQmDTRkvITNr7mB7kl-4O55mYBtMKfAw49OKM-DLIr6uBdrHyUDUE55yOYgU_A0e4SYr6arw3iINRN3ZqNC-IYm/w640-h360/Larry-Cohen.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />For a moment, there, it seemed to Cohen as if this whole thing just turned into just another Hollywood bust. That's been the major catch in Tinseltown for some time now. Ever since the passing of the torch from the older studio heads, in fact. It used to be the major hurdle was putting up with an assembly line process. Then it was all a matter of getting business suits averse to taking risks to put up good money in the hopes that your project will be able to "make bank", as they say, at the box office. Now it's all devolved to the point where Hollywood seems to be on it's last legs. I'm starting to wonder if we might be in a transition period. One where the focus is going to shift more or less entirely onto a crowd funded, indie filmmaking scene? That seems the most likely outcome, if I'm being honest. I just wonder what this means in terms of all the big tent pole franchises, and what their fate will be in an era where everything will most likely have to be on a smaller budget? This was, in fact, sort of the same fate with the Pennywise adaptation. After that disastrous meeting at ABC Cohen was flying home.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPrpcgXbYzBwciRDQHytd6aLVHKrf46XpHP6v2KC6EsFH-PS4IwcWn5WWTlER0MXHf6EyewbXlJoxO7LZLzaN7Ci3gZdCztkg6mpZdRACfrggxvm5O-zVl8HdaOgOcBreaK0MOqYFwwJR_03VpdeywCOYA2suJmSP9TG-zu71ovBZ-XqP9mokQ8-9rbT2D/s860/MV5BNzYxZTE2ZWYtMGYxNS00OTFlLTkyYmMtYzVkZjI0ZTdmYzdkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="580" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPrpcgXbYzBwciRDQHytd6aLVHKrf46XpHP6v2KC6EsFH-PS4IwcWn5WWTlER0MXHf6EyewbXlJoxO7LZLzaN7Ci3gZdCztkg6mpZdRACfrggxvm5O-zVl8HdaOgOcBreaK0MOqYFwwJR_03VpdeywCOYA2suJmSP9TG-zu71ovBZ-XqP9mokQ8-9rbT2D/s320/MV5BNzYxZTE2ZWYtMGYxNS00OTFlLTkyYmMtYzVkZjI0ZTdmYzdkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>"I was coming back home to New York. I'm sitting on the plane, and I see a guy with his back to me reading what is clearly the cover of my script. It's Bob Iger, who was the head of all of the programming at ABC. And he ripped through night one. Went through his briefcase. Pulled out night two. Ripped through night two. Stood up, stretched, sort of smiled, and it said to me <i>It</i> had his support. I think he decided, in that reading, 'Yeah, let's do it". From there, the production of the miniseries has a very interesting, if haphazard history. First, the ABC producers made the interesting overture of offering none other than George A. Romero the chance to direct the show. There was even a brief span of time where this was considered more or less a done deal. This left Romero and Cohen plenty of time to work around on the script. According to Lawrence, "There was never any question that (Romero, sic) thought it was going to be a gross out, lot's of blood, kind of picture. He understood what television offered was the chance for you to go right up to the line. His radar was out for what the network would allow". Somewhere along these planning stages, however, things began to fall apart.</div><div><br /></div><div>As you might expect, none of this was because of what Romero and Cohen were doing. Rather, it's the simple question of where Art meets commerce, and that moment where the willingness to take a necessary gamble craters to the opportunity to save as much revenue as possible by cutting corners. So the network chose frugality over creative risk, and Romero and Cohen's initial plans for the series were tossed to the shredder. Cohen ruminates on all of this now. "I think the dream of what we had in mind was absolutely amazing. I think we were just about twenty years early. In having it, we would have been <i>Game of Thrones</i>. That would have been the way to do this piece of material in its fullest possible way". It's one of those statements that carries its own irony around with, at least as far as I'm concerned. On the one hand, it's easy to see what Cohen is suggesting, and why he thinks that was the more ideal route that should have been available, yet just never was in the nick of time. Not whenever he and Romero needed it most, anyway. At the same time, there's been the ultimate fate and attendant fallout from series like <i>Game of Thrones</i> and its clones, like <i>Rings of Power</i>. Like I said, all of it is down to the overall health of the industry, and from my vantage point, it looks like even that is no help.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ1ONAqTfTmsg2YfQlFGpEu-dQdotTt93zLPSKSKyQgaoPx04RB9zdcGx-YAUN65tv-nXxR4OCIfK_oeAT_aHVwWYlUjG3l2wdM19vMe9l7d8aJWw-c3oX-OB5Ni4OTzOpvRumcOFZPL-D7Yd6kpyfH86TXgXbeN7hIpUOefBaV7FgIRv8llos7RhVBt9J/s863/1d4e37404242a8e29ec62ebdbf59f210.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="863" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ1ONAqTfTmsg2YfQlFGpEu-dQdotTt93zLPSKSKyQgaoPx04RB9zdcGx-YAUN65tv-nXxR4OCIfK_oeAT_aHVwWYlUjG3l2wdM19vMe9l7d8aJWw-c3oX-OB5Ni4OTzOpvRumcOFZPL-D7Yd6kpyfH86TXgXbeN7hIpUOefBaV7FgIRv8llos7RhVBt9J/w640-h428/1d4e37404242a8e29ec62ebdbf59f210.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The kind of expanded miniseries Cohen envisions had its heyday during the <i>Breaking Bad</i> era. While follow-ups like <i>Better Call Saul</i> have fared a lot better than others. The rest of the story has begun to tell a different narrative altogether, and everything else is in a state of creative free-fall. All of which is to say that I'm not sure that even this era of streaming series would have been able to help realize the adaptation Lawrence and Romero had in mind. I almost want to say that if anyone wanted another <i>It</i> adaptation, then they should take a leaf from what Neil Gaiman did with his own <i>Sandman</i> graphic novels, and <a href="https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Sandman-Audiobook/B086WP794Z">have the original manuscript translated verbatim into an extended radio drama for services like the kind on <i>Audible</i>.</a> Or at least this is the best option I think you can offer anyone at the moment. The net result of all this is just to say that one the whole, I think the makers got the best possible deal that anyone wanting to adapt that story could have hoped to ask for, whether now or way back when.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vFEdUSvm1N8wTLEEZVbl5GzSQ272wRZpzU5JXYvhRcteSyep3kCImBsReBkJ4-7bT1qdZ7yJU_KznOemx1CVJLlhmjsK_S7pidVpXeHc-F0Vkr-ynCZawY722eIn9esOQWX-A8hVmWqoPAD8sRKmbMVfyY4fMrJDJkGvZ0Ho_sy-iEV2QVluXYbdqvGG/s900/4x4_COVER_058e941b-f06b-405f-8d68-d2ac02df47f1_1200x1200.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vFEdUSvm1N8wTLEEZVbl5GzSQ272wRZpzU5JXYvhRcteSyep3kCImBsReBkJ4-7bT1qdZ7yJU_KznOemx1CVJLlhmjsK_S7pidVpXeHc-F0Vkr-ynCZawY722eIn9esOQWX-A8hVmWqoPAD8sRKmbMVfyY4fMrJDJkGvZ0Ho_sy-iEV2QVluXYbdqvGG/s320/4x4_COVER_058e941b-f06b-405f-8d68-d2ac02df47f1_1200x1200.webp" width="213" /></a></div>In any case, the facts remain the same. ABC TV got cold feet, and felt the idea just wasn't worth all that much of an investment. The implication of the documentary seems to be that the network never took it all that seriously to begin with, if I'm being honest. Which means the fact that we got a finished product at all is more or less a miracle in itself. Still, Cohen was ordered to cut and pair down his initial idea, and Romero left the project. The producers then reached out to a former protege of director John Carpenter to helm this project. Tommy Lee Wallace was one of the crew to work on Carpenter's original (and still the best) 1978 <i>Halloween</i>. In fact, it was Wallace who more or less created the look and feel of the Shape, Michael Myers. I'd argue that the suits at ABC were perhaps aware of something like this, which is why I'm willing to applaud their hiring of Wallace to direct this miniseries, even if it's clear the choice was motivated by the question of who can we rely on not to go too over-budget here?</div><div><br /></div><div>In many ways, it is just possible that King fans owe a great deal of thanks to Tommy Lee for what was already becoming something of a thankless task, and turning waste into cult classic gold. By now, Cohen seems to have had enough, and was ready to take his own leave of the project. This left Wallace with the unenviable task of having to finish an incomplete script. It's a nightmare scenario for any film production. However, in this case, the trouble was kind of exacerbated through a combination of both the network reigning in both the time and the budget. It resulted in a lot of cutting and pairing. Though here's where things get sketchy enough to make me wonder if there was more going on behind the scenes than what even the documentary told us about. It's one of a handful of moments where the presentation leaves itself open to criticism. Either through the curious oversight of not following up on the details on the production side of the camera, or else it's the fault of an interpretive lens that causes a bit of historical oversight. In this first instance, Wallace gives the viewer an interesting account of what kind of state the script was in when he was brought on board to direct. Here's how he describes it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1aSEeKiXMySsATUQGokgmm31tdLUhAl9CRb5P7R41NWI1Feltpqo60Pd7JKmBhncvkfzb4ISlh22FNp5fL9JIAiljexk-9Xwfph90_pviSP9MVcIlHwnCwaqRzM8tx0JiUw66ZsqSxdmBhIyarMAWy28pQve69iCI2vvar7j-vrftAbi5Bc3Gbqxj52E/s650/pennywise_tommy-lee-wallace.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="650" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1aSEeKiXMySsATUQGokgmm31tdLUhAl9CRb5P7R41NWI1Feltpqo60Pd7JKmBhncvkfzb4ISlh22FNp5fL9JIAiljexk-9Xwfph90_pviSP9MVcIlHwnCwaqRzM8tx0JiUw66ZsqSxdmBhIyarMAWy28pQve69iCI2vvar7j-vrftAbi5Bc3Gbqxj52E/w640-h362/pennywise_tommy-lee-wallace.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Wallace says that when it came to Cohen's script, the first act (Part I of the broadcast miniseries as we have it now) was more or less solid enough. It remains perhaps the most untouched part of the entire adapted drafts. However, as the director tells it, "I was less enamored with the second night. Because it deviated so far away from the novel itself. I didn't know that in the beginning, because I hadn't read the novel. But I knew something was amiss. It just didn't deliver the goods. The husband of Bevy re-entered the picture and became kind of the villain of the piece, being more or less animated by Pennywise. In dramatic terms, it did what it needed to do to bring the movie to an end, but it had little to do with the book. I felt like it kind of gypped the viewer. It was a much more prosaic style TV climax. I was candid with Larry about that. By this point, the impetus (of the production) is moving to Vancouver (for shooting the script under budget, sic), and Larry couldn't come to Vancouver to work with me to bring the second night up to the first". This is followed by interesting remarks from Cohen.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9yTKLpVnWJAVuhWHXb4nyMLUPNsAMXG9KWRSBceTP0D-Bx4XrY_lcANbjAYC5y2z6wKXt2fhSz89lz1hjcP1x-LyKbAY7DhddUQ_MNPKUdmN17UGk0GKLbM-rG7w-hfFtNp8oKhDxbqUJJmM6LMyzEbtboGZ5G__L1YY2GtE9gjq0lX7sv3BlzLj9tDS/s1113/Tim-Curry-Pennywise.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1113" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9yTKLpVnWJAVuhWHXb4nyMLUPNsAMXG9KWRSBceTP0D-Bx4XrY_lcANbjAYC5y2z6wKXt2fhSz89lz1hjcP1x-LyKbAY7DhddUQ_MNPKUdmN17UGk0GKLbM-rG7w-hfFtNp8oKhDxbqUJJmM6LMyzEbtboGZ5G__L1YY2GtE9gjq0lX7sv3BlzLj9tDS/s320/Tim-Curry-Pennywise.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>He says, "By this time I'd been working on the project for about two and a half, (to) three years. Not quite as long as it took Steve to write it, but, the runner-up prize. We were about to start <i>Carrie</i> with the Royal Shakespeare Company over in England. And I was owing a draft on something else. (So) I went, 'I think this is my cue to say go with God. I'm done". The result was that Wallace found the job of completing the story falling to him. He claims to have never been happy with what he considers to be rush job. However, I'd argue that hindsight is just about everything in life. With the way the later adaptation handled the second part of this story, I think I can say with full confidence that whatever flaws you might want to find and pick apart with either Wallace's final script, or its execution, it is nowhere near as bad or ridiculous as the way Bill Skarsgard was forced to go with things. This is definitely a topic I'll have to return to. For now, it's enough to say that Wallace and Cohen's remarks all kind of leave me asking more questions than when I started. This might be nitpicking, yet I wonder.</div><div><br /></div><div>For instance, how or why did Cohen settle on the idea of Tom Rogan (Bev's abusive ex-husband) turning into the final major antagonist of the adaptation? I agree with Wallace that it just sounds like a terrible idea. One that doesn't do either the original story and all of its themes any real justice. What I'm left puzzling over is whether this was the chosen plot point that Cohen's script was working toward from the start, or if the trouble Wallace talks about came around as the eventual result of ABC tightening the purse strings? Seeing as how there was still enough loose change left around to construct an Eldritch Abomination form for the title villain character, I'm left to wonder if maybe it was more a case of the screenwriter either getting cold feet, or just not being able to find his way into the heart of the story that the script needed to be complete. It gets further complicated by the fact that I have a clear memory of reading an interview King gave about this project. In this interview, he praises Cohen's original, unused script through the rafters, claiming that it was something truly epic. The sad part is I saw and read this all on a now defunct blog site. So I can't even guarantee that this was properly archived somewhere. However, I can say that so far it sounds in line with Cohen's initial statements.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0sg4URe9kUuFCcid1p79xtjw4omEuC393zHHd3FwOSouTK6cqjQ6OrulVcX9mTNCIl7I1CxiqVI6Xqn4nnQkyg-HMQ7dlO-bS2yRnT1Qiue8B6wQhPzU-pb9YQppDkr8kEYiFz-kqG_ZgEL3ouXOwxL5G7Ondar08ENmOYOeUH4arIAUC5n_GO_ao1QM/s830/04_1024x1024.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="698" data-original-width="830" height="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo0sg4URe9kUuFCcid1p79xtjw4omEuC393zHHd3FwOSouTK6cqjQ6OrulVcX9mTNCIl7I1CxiqVI6Xqn4nnQkyg-HMQ7dlO-bS2yRnT1Qiue8B6wQhPzU-pb9YQppDkr8kEYiFz-kqG_ZgEL3ouXOwxL5G7Ondar08ENmOYOeUH4arIAUC5n_GO_ao1QM/w640-h538/04_1024x1024.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />However, then comes Wallace claiming that the finished script was lackluster. Little more than a cheap TV Movie of the Week. So all the testimony points to this gap in the story where it's difficult to tell just what went down between the first and final drafts of the script, and what was left by the time Wallace got there. For instance, if King is talking about a version of the script where Tom is the main villain, then I'll have to apologize for saying this, yet it's just not like the novel as he originally wrote it. Say what you like about Wallace's final draft. At least he captures the actual content of the book. So I'm left with this empty space in the jigsaw puzzle, and I'm kind of left wishing the filmmakers had provided me with a bit more information on what sounds like a crucial part of the creative process in helping to birth this project all the way to the TV set. Like I say, this might just be a nitpick on my part. However it all just highlights some curious gaps in the chronology of composition. It's just enough to get me wondering about what I'm not being told is all. The good news is that Wallace was able to deliver a final draft that did the book justice, and soon King's text was coming to vivid life.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Stories From Behind the Scenes.</b></div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghCjbS-MloKC-R2hR3O04YIXNJDJd8X12YkrZ5pOIqUqj57yxMilQAaaa2um4s-1tq1c91PIgEbEu6aiCHbQpLck7GUzp1r13EfvlO7LyyjK4ztEcbXCT5eLGyTORRpQJGNYmHGNSiM7noFPN4oZgQT7QdCNPFMZ-OztVenac6X24vrJGk7KaJkEU0Rcz/s2022/beb89570-4f81-4cf1-90f1-1be8e503bc0d.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2022" data-original-width="1562" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghCjbS-MloKC-R2hR3O04YIXNJDJd8X12YkrZ5pOIqUqj57yxMilQAaaa2um4s-1tq1c91PIgEbEu6aiCHbQpLck7GUzp1r13EfvlO7LyyjK4ztEcbXCT5eLGyTORRpQJGNYmHGNSiM7noFPN4oZgQT7QdCNPFMZ-OztVenac6X24vrJGk7KaJkEU0Rcz/s320/beb89570-4f81-4cf1-90f1-1be8e503bc0d.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>The rest of the documentary is what you'd expect. We get to meet the dual cast and crew who got to portray the core group of protagonists at the center of the story. Along with none of than the man of the evening himself, Tim Curry. When discussing both a book and an adaptation like Stephen King's <i>It</i>, we've sort of tackled one of those subjects where it's not possible for just a single article to do the full scope of the narrative justice. Some stories are of such a nature as to require multiple deep dives in order to gain as a picture as possible of all its dimensions. Which means whatever I say here will have to be considered a preliminary sketch, at best. When it comes time to look at the actual King story proper, then it's going to have to be a more detailed subject than what you'll find here for now. In the meantime, all I can provide is the briefest useful summary of what one critic has termed "the <i>Moby Dick</i> of Horror novels". From there, we'll just have to rest content with a behind-the-scenes review for now.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story that Wallace and Company have to tell revolves around a series of strange occurrences happening within a small and sequestered, yet prosperous New England town. The locale is known as Derry, Maine, and it looks at least something like an ordinary picture postcard on the surface. It seems the kind of place where the postman delivers issues of <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i> to your door, the kids all like to congregate for games in the nearby park, and the local high school still hires chaperons for the evening. In other words, a carless glance would lead you to think it's one of those nice, quaint little towns that manage to keep up with the times, while also somehow always managing to exist outside of it. Derry looks like a town for all seasons, in other words. The one major off-note in what otherwise sounds like a flawless pastoral symphony is the one blotch the town has going for it. A lot of people seem to die off in Derry, and most of that list includes little kids, more often than not. This is something that everyone seems aware of, and yet no one bothers to talk about much. The basic line of thinking being, well, I guess that's just the price you pay for getting as close to the good life as you can.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX_6uNpXPK6rtQUmautBa5if8ounUDIBike3n1Ob-aPe2g5PIk2N2itx1m_ULJB-S6cbtBUiT1_nXTQV8wIsPHdEWANYZe8WT_f6aLlPud1gsnz2fFmejtP0mEtkEyrtHrco2UAcJAysTUCFeShqRcNSTymycrY9l3jo_uwElSf3YcRsqRi2bLEnefKa7T/s960/Derry-maqueta-00.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="960" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX_6uNpXPK6rtQUmautBa5if8ounUDIBike3n1Ob-aPe2g5PIk2N2itx1m_ULJB-S6cbtBUiT1_nXTQV8wIsPHdEWANYZe8WT_f6aLlPud1gsnz2fFmejtP0mEtkEyrtHrco2UAcJAysTUCFeShqRcNSTymycrY9l3jo_uwElSf3YcRsqRi2bLEnefKa7T/w640-h298/Derry-maqueta-00.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />However, all that changes when a recent string of murders brings together a group of disparate neighborhood kids who discover the source of Derry's troubles. What they find reveals a well of unimaginable horrors. As King fan and critic Stephen Spignesi puts it, "Derry, Maine has a dark soul. In 1958, seven friends - dubbed The Loser's Club - fight an apocalyptic battle with It, a monster from "outside" who has been feeding on Derry's children in 27-year cycles for centuries. It is gravely wounded in the 1958 battle and returns to its subterranean pit beneath the town to heal. The Losers promise to return to Derry if It ever resurfaces and, in 1985 (or 90, as the miniseries has it, sic) they must come together to honor their vow and try to defeat and destroy It for the final time (16)". In other words, the most basic summary of King's novel is that of a group of kids battling off a monster. It has to be one of the oldest storybook notions alive, going all the way back to the Brother's Grimm or the work of later Victorian fantasists such as Edith Nesbit. In fact, a good description of the Loser's Club is that they are merely Nesbit's questing collective of children forced to endure a very dark adventure.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimXgbnit3DQ9afHfpbtpt5P8p9Y5TgQNjChaIgQ7Px19A208OVdt5pRdiA3GPXnJaFOALnBhbwinCtWLg4FUVkjTtnkkJhH00oONAIOR0ZrMkNBo2quK_NgOVAIu37BeqLEf9zq38V9IJDC5A0YKbaMwEfCunGOO3aUiGTyUsLTMIlU_QiiiiXMvh5HX3W/s700/Pennywise-5-700x700.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimXgbnit3DQ9afHfpbtpt5P8p9Y5TgQNjChaIgQ7Px19A208OVdt5pRdiA3GPXnJaFOALnBhbwinCtWLg4FUVkjTtnkkJhH00oONAIOR0ZrMkNBo2quK_NgOVAIu37BeqLEf9zq38V9IJDC5A0YKbaMwEfCunGOO3aUiGTyUsLTMIlU_QiiiiXMvh5HX3W/s320/Pennywise-5-700x700.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Because of this, it's not out of the woods to claim that King's narrative does contain what has to be termed as certain levels of an Epic quality to it. This can cause the story to present itself as something of a daunting task for any filmmaker wishing to adapt it to the visual medium. All of which makes Wallace's efforts all the more remarkable in my book. They faced down a gargantuan task, and they did it like pros, however you want to think of the final product. I'd argue that it's something that all the collaborators who came together to work on this film can be proud of. Beyond this point, the documentary becomes a chronicle of how the main cast and crew members came together to help bring what I'll continue to argue is King's true magnus opus to the screen. In front of the camera, you had the Loser's Club, portrayed as both adults and children by Richard Thomas and Jonathan Brandis, Annette O'Toole and Emily Perkins, John Ritter and Brandon Crane, Dennis Christopher and Adam Faraizl, Harry Anderson and Seth Green, Tim Reid and Marlon Taylor, and Richard Masur and Ben Heller.</div><div><br /></div><div>Together, each of these actors were compiled to create what has to be one of the best ensemble performances that I think I've ever seen on either screen. It really does seem as if Wallace and his crew were able to assemble something like a genuine stock company akin to what Orson Welles once had, at least for the briefest of moments. In fact, all of the cast, both young and old, make mention of a makeshift summer camp that was set up by the production for the soul purpose of helping both the adult and child actors get comfortable with their roles by allowing them all to grow at ease with each other. The result was a lot of fun memories for all of the major players involved. Perhaps the most notable thing that this summer camp allowed was the chance for the actors to more or less organically recreate the essential character dynamics that are found in the original novel. According to Taylor, Thomas, and the others, what would happen is they'd all come to the set and just pal around with each other like either a bunch of big brothers and sisters, or in other words like the kind of friendship arrangement as initially outlined in King's own words. All of the Losers, in other words, would just hang out together.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLc54sOSfnsZLOKiWGY21x_zN_WZr1009NxhgbADaBhd0tOyUtFlDnn-1s0bh5IhGextkiwZLUDaJUowBBKY_lp8iIl-WpPVZl7pGI0fgjjEb4cGpJcewciaIX3NL2Tu2GvR_mc4t5jZNSSCYrdAL5YA7TFpCW15OixiQkAgCh0uoAAdyXCmdoM35h98Ik/s1920/MV5BNzFmZGU1N2EtYzJmNS00Mzk3LWJmOTktZjQ4OWVlYzkxZGYyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXRyYW5zY29kZS13b3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLc54sOSfnsZLOKiWGY21x_zN_WZr1009NxhgbADaBhd0tOyUtFlDnn-1s0bh5IhGextkiwZLUDaJUowBBKY_lp8iIl-WpPVZl7pGI0fgjjEb4cGpJcewciaIX3NL2Tu2GvR_mc4t5jZNSSCYrdAL5YA7TFpCW15OixiQkAgCh0uoAAdyXCmdoM35h98Ik/w640-h360/MV5BNzFmZGU1N2EtYzJmNS00Mzk3LWJmOTktZjQ4OWVlYzkxZGYyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXRyYW5zY29kZS13b3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Even Tim Curry got in a bit on this act. And here is what I mean when I say that a lot of this summer camp was devoted to helping the cast get into their roles by recreating the personal dynamics of the story. While Masur, Thomas, Perkins, and Green et al where busy chumming around and basically enjoying their childhood, and allowing the adults to rediscover their own inner kids, Curry would often be hanging around as well. The trick, however, is that he would do so in a way that seems to have been very deliberate in retrospect. Sometimes he'd chum around with the others. Yet most of the time, he could be found hanging around either just visible somewhere in the background, just off to the side, or else he'd be somewhere out of sight, but you could still tell he was there. Sometimes, Curry would just stand around. At other times, he would be off on his own, yet when any one of the Loser cast members walked by, even if Tim was busy reading a book or paper, he'd stop what he's doing and give them a hiss or a growl. Other times, a cast member would be alone and feel this soft, menacing breathing down their necks, only to turn around and have Curry be there waiting to basically jump scare them. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>If you take all of these interactions and place them together, then you get this vague, yet more or less accurate enough mimicry of the way all of the central characters in the novel interact with one another. This is a dynamic that even includes the villain of the piece, and it's kind of easy to see why. It can all be boiled down to a simple formula, or truism. No monster, no story. So of course, Curry's is going to go around the set trying to be as menacing looking as possible. If there was any drawback to this preparation strategy (something that was kept up even as the cameras began to role) then it might stem from the fact that sometimes having to play the villain could carry some maybe unwanted side effects. As a character, It or Pennywise is always one of the great, Gothic marginal figures. He's the threat from outside that's always hanging around the periphery of the action until it is time for him to stop being an observer, and become an antagonistic participant. Curry to his credit, seems to have realized all of this and played this aspect up to the hilt. There might be a drawback to playing such a role, however.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOJD-w72h5yErlETEn9oKzeqsZpwXwLHFD_ZxcavowskopmVmq08fXGs3peJ6a6rElIqABHAOHZrpN6ls8nobYloMbUbbLRaYz0_BsrNf9kMwFMXPKv3tTLL-Fs8DG0UJFhwo1wK815z-5KYHpdSy4X3xV_lA3MbJCmJxBuG7SRtcC8jp-muAtNCBE-q4A/s919/it-1990s.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="693" data-original-width="919" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOJD-w72h5yErlETEn9oKzeqsZpwXwLHFD_ZxcavowskopmVmq08fXGs3peJ6a6rElIqABHAOHZrpN6ls8nobYloMbUbbLRaYz0_BsrNf9kMwFMXPKv3tTLL-Fs8DG0UJFhwo1wK815z-5KYHpdSy4X3xV_lA3MbJCmJxBuG7SRtcC8jp-muAtNCBE-q4A/w640-h482/it-1990s.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />A constant implication with Curry's contribution is that having to be the dangerous outsider meant that often his interactions with others could become a lot more lonely compared with the on-set comradery of the Losers cast. There are even one or two snapshots of the then future <i>Home Alone 2</i> actor either hanging around, or else trudging to and from one stage to another. It's there you can tell by the look on his face that committing to the role isn't so much taking it's tole, as it is hitting home just what kind of professional costs this entails. In a way, you could argue that this makes playing one of the greatest villains in literary history something of an unintended thankless task. To his forever credit, though, Curry was nothing less than the consummate professional all the way through. Another implication, in fact, is that the actor knew he had to channel this loneliness into his own performance of the character, granting Pennywise this perhaps unspoken level of motivation towards It's aggression and hunger.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Historical American Gothic Allegory.<br /></b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc65oX5Tfs58bQGGWMu2xMZYlgqh9sGrBuQMqz7uS6__xYRpBzNSLwVoXEx71JgeQSNtx-gp4prdGP69C-MU6O9k3jlD27vID0_fUtubytZwTzYaBfNQ1kD832OQVC_UmtE0Tha362SydiQJ3ZLdKntxz3cv8hSPBu8dOpkeJu2HSBUqtJFIdruRctAekI/s265/image%202.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="190" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc65oX5Tfs58bQGGWMu2xMZYlgqh9sGrBuQMqz7uS6__xYRpBzNSLwVoXEx71JgeQSNtx-gp4prdGP69C-MU6O9k3jlD27vID0_fUtubytZwTzYaBfNQ1kD832OQVC_UmtE0Tha362SydiQJ3ZLdKntxz3cv8hSPBu8dOpkeJu2HSBUqtJFIdruRctAekI/s1600/image%202.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>On the whole, this was a very fun and informative look behind the scenes, and it comes as an easy recommendation from me. It there any criticisms I'd have to spare for it, then it would all come down to just a handful of caveats. Three of them stem from the judgment calls made about certain visual, plot oriented, or thematic aspects of the film. All of them amounts to a number of missteps stemming from a lack of insight on the part of the cast, crew, and even a handful of commentators about the nature of the adaptation they were either making or watching. The best one to get out of the way first is a critical misreading of the title villain. Because that's the one that could have a lot of negative, real life implications attached to it. At a certain point in the film, it is claimed that Pennywise fits in with a Queer reading of the miniseries. As evidence for this reading, aspects of the various disguises the character adopts throughout the runtime are cited as proof that the character is LGBT coded.</div><div> </div><div>My criticism of this take is that if this should ever prove to be true, then it would reflect the worst possible light imaginable on the Gay community. The reason for this is because if a viewer chooses to see Pennywise as Queer, then they will have turned the character into the worst possible list of stereotypes that have been labeled against LGBT people all in one fictional personification. If you follow the logic of this thinking, it means that Gay people are treacherous predators who turn on their own. Somehow, that just comes off sounding like the last sort of message to spread about the Queer community. That's because a careful close reading of the text (both on page and screen) reveals that far from being Queer, Pennywise, or It, is instead meant as the most clear-cut symbol you can ever imagine for just about everything that is wrong with the American psyche. In the figure of the monster or Horror at the heart of King's story, what you get is a personification of all the anti-social behaviors that have plagued this Country since before the year 1776 and afterwards. This includes a list of all the major, know prejudices that includes, among others: racism, sexism, pederasty, child and spousal abuse, misogyny, and also homophobia. The only vice that isn't on the list might be drug addiction.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixIpQQYajtZPCiNCBQgU1r2AmZWpcbW2YXtnG7sEPjwZgrwfb0eY0l76BCyOcBfCWnEDbz8puEcWPqmMedmTVfuXOZ-CDYUt7cIRyM4CVGe-G0RuCHv41xKFlwbjjARLlNz7jC2yEGQKjJ2X8Zv8piZJBkU0Gu9HM7UclMoUgJl_RuHqh_YyEtpiPo7LjE/s400/1648520086998.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="400" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixIpQQYajtZPCiNCBQgU1r2AmZWpcbW2YXtnG7sEPjwZgrwfb0eY0l76BCyOcBfCWnEDbz8puEcWPqmMedmTVfuXOZ-CDYUt7cIRyM4CVGe-G0RuCHv41xKFlwbjjARLlNz7jC2yEGQKjJ2X8Zv8piZJBkU0Gu9HM7UclMoUgJl_RuHqh_YyEtpiPo7LjE/w640-h442/1648520086998.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Rather than coding him as Queer, I'd argue this marks out Pennywise as one of the best modern examples of the literal, straightforward, classic Gothic villain. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UnovWufeLD8C&pg=PA15&dq=michael+r.+collings+a+concantentation+of+monsters&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgs_ia-9qBAxXnlGoFHTNtDOIQ6AF6BAgJEAI#v=onepage&q=michael%20r.%20collings%20a%20concantentation%20of%20monsters&f=false">Prof. Michael Collings has written of It as an near analogue of John Milton's villain from <i>Paradise Lost</i>.</a> However far-fetched such a critical notion may sound on paper or off, I'd argue he at least gets a lot closer to the dark heart of this character better than the commentary from this documentary. Which is so flawed that it runs the risk of encouraging exactly the kind of prejudice it's hoping to avoid. I cannot, and do not have any good explanation for why the commentary in this documentary chose to go in such a self-defeating direction. All I can do as critic is to point out this flaw, and give it the dismissal it rightly deserves for encouraging, rather than fighting against bigotry. One further thing that it's possible to do here is to go a bit further in correcting the mistake by highlight the true thematic nature of King's antagonist.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcz0mmnSQBIJeC7wFhBQiSYc1ssFVk11DjSKrGv1q3Sv-9qPoX4MDpdJSh2joLLfT8LaDxtLYo7lXj2945ERulJ-yo4LN5TtqGzxe0kWhmHIdg-fjWkbykgxhgvaDOgwJqfYBLKw6W4H6EgFdmHZ9DLQLLnfp0lKBqxFHNOje1HZaDAbDz85nHs7gt_R-p/s2684/Portrait_of_John_Milton_1608_%20_1674,_poet,_polemicist,_&_Civil_Servant_0.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2684" data-original-width="2197" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcz0mmnSQBIJeC7wFhBQiSYc1ssFVk11DjSKrGv1q3Sv-9qPoX4MDpdJSh2joLLfT8LaDxtLYo7lXj2945ERulJ-yo4LN5TtqGzxe0kWhmHIdg-fjWkbykgxhgvaDOgwJqfYBLKw6W4H6EgFdmHZ9DLQLLnfp0lKBqxFHNOje1HZaDAbDz85nHs7gt_R-p/s320/Portrait_of_John_Milton_1608_%20_1674,_poet,_polemicist,_&_Civil_Servant_0.webp" width="262" /></a></div>Bear in mind, this is the kind of task that calls for the kind of full-length, annotated master's thesis in order to do either the topic or the character full justice. The best that can be done here is to go for the journalistic broad strokes approach. It might be valid, though what it can never be is the full picture. What I believe is true enough, however, is that in the creation of Pennywise, or the monster known as It, Stephen King has perhaps gone as far as he ever can in the creation of a genuine, all-purpose Horror that not only encapsulates a list of prejudices that have constantly served to hold this country back from achieving anything like a true Democratic status, he's also written this figure in such a way that his actions within the drama create a sort of history lesson of what has to be called a chronicle of mistreatment and abuse in the United States. Here comes the part where a simple essay is unable to do justice to all the problems the story utilizes this villain to tackle in the course of an Epic novel.</div><div> </div><div>Instead, all I can do here is to point out that the story allows Pennywise to commit just about every crime known to man short of actual genocide. In doing so, both the original novel and it's adaptation hint at the ultimate thematic thread of this story. If Pennywise is meant as a symbol of the dark side of the American psyche, then both the novel and TV series create what can only be described as a neat and concise history lesson all framed and illustrated in just one character. Without going into spoilers, the story King tells all points to the idea that this Country's real troubles date all the way back to when the Puritans became the first colonizers of America. It as a character is portrayed almost as a mere, literal extension of the combined ill will of the small town in which the narrative is set. By having this story take place in New England territory, a setting which was forcibly taken from its original First Nation inhabitants, who were later subject to the same prejudice and slavery as African Americans, then it's clear that Derry and It mean to serve as a microcosm of the Nation's dark half from Plymouth on up.</div><div> </div><div>It's a very powerful artistic statement King has made here. I'd even go so far as to argue that it's this grand theme which has not only powered the true sense of Terror at the heart of the story, but has also kept it alive in the public imagination. Indeed, it's even possible to go further and claim that the past few years might even helped spiked this story's popularity. Because of the way its message speaks to the combined struggles of our own time. How could the story of a group of outsider misfits fighting a modern day version of the Boogeyman not resonate in an era that looks as if It somehow broke out of its feeding pen, and directed It's maleficent energies to devouring the entire Country as a whole? </div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi07WfqRaeOBt62zmH9hRYJzbqLs9g60rNrJNN_SlATGYg2fmX6zzFA_2qlFaF5dzio-G_aRXU5Rk8p671d1QN_nCd-AReK56O1XiTfOLTfERK9AcXvmMINdyTUhgdqIPdYy3WBdGT-HsFVIXfaLigqJtKjukgF4c19rJERaLy4x8aC5w1SaIVS5qqKbWLd/s1400/1%20QkMaTh4uslkLMYcWu2kqMQ.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="1400" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi07WfqRaeOBt62zmH9hRYJzbqLs9g60rNrJNN_SlATGYg2fmX6zzFA_2qlFaF5dzio-G_aRXU5Rk8p671d1QN_nCd-AReK56O1XiTfOLTfERK9AcXvmMINdyTUhgdqIPdYy3WBdGT-HsFVIXfaLigqJtKjukgF4c19rJERaLy4x8aC5w1SaIVS5qqKbWLd/w640-h318/1%20QkMaTh4uslkLMYcWu2kqMQ.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />If this Nation has anything like an original sin, King seems to say, then it all ultimately stems from the first Puritan settlers, who've created a dark legacy of abuse and prejudice that haunts us to this day. This is yet another reason why I have to give credit to Wallace, Curry, and the rest of the ABC crew. Because impossible as it may sound, they did a real good job of managing to capture these themes over the course of just four hours, in total, of runtime. It is perhaps one of the most overlooked yet genuine achievement in the Horror genre, and is another reason this series deserves a lot more credit than it gets.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Symbolic-Mythic Themes, and Their Dramatization.</b><br /></div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJT-BQEizMEulqjCzzrYv-WG-GRadf_R7MNjGlH81C0nTtSJp6d0AQR9nvkPZOaHnIjjuZOTa-AzCkIvwl3jMi1NU2goKgwzjuChj-zZ7J-jYhaYsWejDL3UsWwFNKlMoLBx0kphuNvrE7dYpfnHdsQin796s9wt5-M7oXx6K-b9wCBVoePkuWWVqzcLo/s1000/710QNOY3GvL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJT-BQEizMEulqjCzzrYv-WG-GRadf_R7MNjGlH81C0nTtSJp6d0AQR9nvkPZOaHnIjjuZOTa-AzCkIvwl3jMi1NU2goKgwzjuChj-zZ7J-jYhaYsWejDL3UsWwFNKlMoLBx0kphuNvrE7dYpfnHdsQin796s9wt5-M7oXx6K-b9wCBVoePkuWWVqzcLo/s320/710QNOY3GvL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The rest of my complaints are a lot less dire, and have more to do with the question of how far anyone in the audience is either willing to suspend their disbelief, or else allow themselves see the full import of the story they're being told. This is also the point that a few readers might have been waiting for (or dreading as the case may be). I'm going to have to talk about the bloody damn spider and what I think of the ending as a whole. In other words, this might be the part where I lose the audience a bit. Well, you know what, I can't help the response this story gets out of me. Yes, I know for a fact that Wallace and the cast like to poke fun about It's final form as it appears in the last act of the miniseries. The way the director puts it, in fact, is that "We had champagne ideas and a beer budget". It's the one element of the production that everyone likes to mercilessly chide and mock like tomorrow doesn't exist, so lets get all the barbs and jabs out of your system while ya still have the chance. That I can always chalk up to the current nature of "bad movie criticism". If an otherwise decent script doesn't have good production value, then a strange logic starts to come into play where it's not enough to criticize, but also destroy the offending production like it was the cinematic equivalent of the bubonic plague.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>There's something almost tribal in such an approach criticizing any possible artwork that just doesn't sit well with me. Something tells me reactions like that have less to do with an interest in storytelling proper, and more with the need to bring others down, first to your level, and then beneath it to the point where you can keep your foot firmly on the other person's neck. It may qualify as a genuine psychological malady. It definitely meets the criteria of a mental illness. Hell, it even fits in with the kind of satirical targets King is attacking in his original novel, or even in the miniseries itself. </div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAoEMES0APJnId1YmdBljgu_34T9sEafhoAv1GKzwdIRGQfb58pYQOCBYJi7DhS9CQtfEpeo-G2aDmiRtvNoip9G4j9Yy5YSnim44TbQ4A0B__8kK7Km8fmnmlc0WFqcF3XR5oEXAfwFXbJJ7Ompvgu69bhx_B0MLkb5cQuibq58A-9iml5UtAXScfCKs/s1200/REVIEW-Pennywise-The-Story-of-It-2-1200x900.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDAoEMES0APJnId1YmdBljgu_34T9sEafhoAv1GKzwdIRGQfb58pYQOCBYJi7DhS9CQtfEpeo-G2aDmiRtvNoip9G4j9Yy5YSnim44TbQ4A0B__8kK7Km8fmnmlc0WFqcF3XR5oEXAfwFXbJJ7Ompvgu69bhx_B0MLkb5cQuibq58A-9iml5UtAXScfCKs/w640-h480/REVIEW-Pennywise-The-Story-of-It-2-1200x900.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Therefore the one thing such vitriol can never be is any kind of measured response and critical analysis of a simple attempt at realizing one of the grandest epic finales in the history Horror literature. The job of giving an actual, competent critical assessment of the situation is going to call for more measured, or even-handed tones. The true criticism of the miniseries' final showdown is going to have to be one that can address faults without the need to burn the whole thing down. We'll start with the facts in the documentary themselves. While Wallace and the cast are less than impressed with the whole spider sequence, the actual designers of the entire rig are willing to defend their work for what it amounts to.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnUSaGAKd4gdwlg5DRTXbTbQAQfTZdZ41lG__qkraA7mzDcatwP2LnJXHQcvYhNnhVYGRl2aiG3SlRDEcxv9ZjjZ2WkmUqGIHsXtMQOna4ZFBzeKPNT-aeyhlGIoOV0RitZAT_YnjqFShEXxL5VA4NZ1zxXHj1YgiQPUgcDyvdVP4H8xGXAiNQBEQcozx9/s1000/81e1Nd+RAvL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnUSaGAKd4gdwlg5DRTXbTbQAQfTZdZ41lG__qkraA7mzDcatwP2LnJXHQcvYhNnhVYGRl2aiG3SlRDEcxv9ZjjZ2WkmUqGIHsXtMQOna4ZFBzeKPNT-aeyhlGIoOV0RitZAT_YnjqFShEXxL5VA4NZ1zxXHj1YgiQPUgcDyvdVP4H8xGXAiNQBEQcozx9/s320/81e1Nd+RAvL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>Here I'll have to admit, the designers commitment to their craft is an admirable thing, in and of itself. It is refreshing, in other words, to show mechanical craftsmen taking genuine pride in their work. All this while at the same time wishing they could have gone even further with their designs. It's the first really even handed approach I've seen whenever people decide to address this particular aspect of the adaptation. What this leaves us with, however, is a somewhat divided base of operations. Some are willing to more or less stick up for the giant spider sequence, while others are never satisfied with it. It's the kind of things that means Jack to the vast majority of audiences. It's also the kind of creative choice you can't believe in if you don't value it. This is a truism extends to the very possibility of books and films as subject worthy of merit and consideration. If you believe that any given work of fiction has no intrinsic value, then it's worthless to you. This just seems to be the way everything in life works on one level or another. Nor have I ever seen any conclusive evidence that the vast majority of the audience cares about this kind of thing. Enthusiasm for the Arts has never been a majority interest. To the vocal minority who does recognize the importance of stories, however, the question of how to break this ongoing spider stalemate remains. Here's the best solution I have been able to come up with.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll start off by claiming hindsight is everything, and that while time doesn't always tell on a work of artistic quality the way it should, it can offer concerned readers some occasional basis for comparison. As far as I'm concerned, if you look at the 2019 version of the monster in <i>It Chapter Two</i>, then I'll have to swear on as many stacks of books as you want that it's just no contest. The TV spider version of It may not look like much, but I'd argue it is able to maintain at least <i>some</i> level of dignity about itself compared to the way it was handled by Andy Muschietti. I think it's possible to tell which director was willing to treat the material seriously, and which came away so unimpressed in general that they just decided to phone the entire appearance of the spider form in, while throwing a bunch of generic, special effects action sequences at the wall and hoping something would stick. Wallace was professional enough to commit to the text of King's work. With all due respect, that goes far in my book. The way Muschietti handles Pennywise in the movie finale telegraphs that the director can't enter the logic of this story. In other words, it's a form of writing with which he is fundamentally out of sympathy. </div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQA9Uhf1Sylta1NEnh9ayn9Gitqex3feXO19GfJFTcEADg6qmgJiA-9UuvEc4y27GEI4WAggvrcTqsngUvyIV3sS49zmt7J6n1jScGuA_KXMnL9VNGdsPVLdUvFWcpwBs845ydg_EL-cY9HiC5zkVuBEWohMr7SaGQpoZ23pebbDE0-YVmir4qFpRNJLsq/s1134/image-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1134" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQA9Uhf1Sylta1NEnh9ayn9Gitqex3feXO19GfJFTcEADg6qmgJiA-9UuvEc4y27GEI4WAggvrcTqsngUvyIV3sS49zmt7J6n1jScGuA_KXMnL9VNGdsPVLdUvFWcpwBs845ydg_EL-cY9HiC5zkVuBEWohMr7SaGQpoZ23pebbDE0-YVmir4qFpRNJLsq/w640-h226/image-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />What this tells me is that a lot of the problems people have with the miniseries ending is that it might not just be the look of It's spider form. It might also have something to do with the nature of the finale itself as a whole. It could mean this is one of those deals where the ability of an audience member to go along with this conclusion also hinges on the level of the viewer's imaginative capacity to enjoy a denouement that is fundamentally Romantic at its core. In other words, whether you're willing to give the overall ending the of the miniseries a pass depends on how far you're willing to acknowledge that King has been writing a fairy tale for grown-ups all this time. <i>It</i> is the kind of Horror story, in other words, that tackles a lot of real world problems, yet it does so in a total fantasy setting. It might be an inability of some viewers to allow that fantastical element to rest easy in their minds that acts as kind of like a wall of separation between the story proper, and their ability to "get into" <i>It</i>, in other words.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUeF4WCkCYFqLYjemf_ApGB0bFtdD7tNVZlGkDRgvYtfdZVdkwSAwMO6OupVkxVWk19t357QabPTdcTy_ToAG4NFCD2ErklPta2WQdMH5s0OuLnVKxFX2QtrtEfVZSB11JhvNj6S1u1rw_1JFK95Q6K0xkqVInRVfbgH8_ZaZz76lFnDPHl18UuAxTXdUi/s1000/41hy0TIWqpL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="684" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUeF4WCkCYFqLYjemf_ApGB0bFtdD7tNVZlGkDRgvYtfdZVdkwSAwMO6OupVkxVWk19t357QabPTdcTy_ToAG4NFCD2ErklPta2WQdMH5s0OuLnVKxFX2QtrtEfVZSB11JhvNj6S1u1rw_1JFK95Q6K0xkqVInRVfbgH8_ZaZz76lFnDPHl18UuAxTXdUi/s320/41hy0TIWqpL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>If this is the case, then it means that <i>It</i> is the kind of story which is written at such a level as to require a greater sense of cultural literacy in order to enjoy it all properly. In other words, if you want to be able to "get" what both King and the miniseries are doing with the final form of the story's villain, then it helps to understand the literary qualities that make this character such an effect foil for a Horror story. I've already outlined some of the reasons Pennywise is such an effective threat on what might be termed the allegorical, satirical level. He's a fictional analogue for all the prejudices of American life itself. It's the most easily graspable aspect of this figure, and yet it's still not the whole story. I suppose it "might" be possible to take a life-size human figure and try for the same thematic feat. However, it seems that a genuine, fantastical creature would make a for a more serviceable vessel for the story's satire. It's the very fact that the writer has to rely on the trope of the Boogeyman in order to get his point across that is the best pointer to the literary strategy that underpins the entire story to the end.</div><div> </div><div>It really does seem as if King's story is reliant on the kind of literary techniques that were once common to writers like John Milton or Edmund Spenser. In other words, perhaps it helps to see Pennywise as a modern version of the Giant Despair, or similar characters who are ultimately defined by their symbolical qualities, rather than their concrete plausibility. In other words, it's useless to complain that the villain's final form is a Miltonic-Spenserian spider, or that the production value it's given in the adaptation looks like it might be cheap. Because each argument misses both the nature of the story that the character exists in service of, or how the miniseries itself functions as an homage to a certain type of Horror film. In terms of the character itself, the literary nature (and hence the ultimate story function) of Pennywise is perhaps best described by critic Connie Lippert in the collection, <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-many-lives-of-it/"><i>The Many Lives of It</i>.</a> It's there that Lippert makes what I take to be the correct claim that King's monster is meant in the last resort to be this sort of negative representation of the Trickster archetype. This almost demoniac, representation of the Dionysian forces that threaten the American psyche with total disintegration.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nw9rK2NUaG5ELJnYtZ_a4ateH_jWYWK4klRGJJ69w-BYbsojfxJAJ-VR8GijVLIr8eZ1Eb5CisTROm0DOIMWQeuHPu0ku-DnqJkw3Bpzy7bpTPdBnoJP0yNPkOBDA5E4pltdhs2lhZ8_RH8G8r335Ksz9tOkSrbijoIpJILEDXVQUWf3fAaXBUoA4fgL/s1920/spiders-and-myths.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1920" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nw9rK2NUaG5ELJnYtZ_a4ateH_jWYWK4klRGJJ69w-BYbsojfxJAJ-VR8GijVLIr8eZ1Eb5CisTROm0DOIMWQeuHPu0ku-DnqJkw3Bpzy7bpTPdBnoJP0yNPkOBDA5E4pltdhs2lhZ8_RH8G8r335Ksz9tOkSrbijoIpJILEDXVQUWf3fAaXBUoA4fgL/w640-h400/spiders-and-myths.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In the course of her essay, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NmndDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=connie+lippert+derry%27s+subterranean+carnival&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8nNG8iNuBAxWrlmoFHYCTCnUQ6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false">Derry's Subterranean Carnival</a></i>, Lippert goes on to claim that "Pennywise the Dancing Clown, then, is the darkest possible version of a trickster figure and the Losers oppose it by learning a few tricks themselves (127)". It's a statement that has come the closest so far to doing the symbolism and final meaning of the title character It's full justice (or maybe "Just Deserts" is the better phrase to use here). In tagging King's villain a "dark trickster", Lippert appears to have provided the final clue for this character's motivations, as well as the creative choice of a giant arachnid as It's final "appearance". As to Pennywise' choices of both a clown and an insect as It's final manifestations, Lippert helps us understand the inherent narrative logic of these moments in the finale by pointing out the original, mythic ground or compost heap that Derry's own Boogeyman emerges from, along with the tradition of drawing upon multiple masques, or personas as an integral part of It's characterization.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCA4GR5a8kM_RZQhLDmZ5Xz_PcQQT8lY1PXBldUjCUf2klaysQs-BUed_d3V1-zBddYxdMXRJomKopP2RW0__Bd9EE_BEA7cs-xT8hEP8BowrZ9OgMXWgmpxqylSf-4mTfr63bsQVtAdT36AkwdCVn0emyep9p3f2Ri66F0eyUuUq1ukiLw7lX5jhTPdh9/s1229/dansemacabre0000king_0001.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1229" data-original-width="739" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCA4GR5a8kM_RZQhLDmZ5Xz_PcQQT8lY1PXBldUjCUf2klaysQs-BUed_d3V1-zBddYxdMXRJomKopP2RW0__Bd9EE_BEA7cs-xT8hEP8BowrZ9OgMXWgmpxqylSf-4mTfr63bsQVtAdT36AkwdCVn0emyep9p3f2Ri66F0eyUuUq1ukiLw7lX5jhTPdh9/s320/dansemacabre0000king_0001.jpg" width="192" /></a></div>Going back to her essay, Lippert helps us note that "the trickster figure appears in a myriad of different forms, depending on the cultural background. In Greek mythology, for instance, there is Hermes, in Norse mythology, Loki. In Native North American (I would also add African/Afro-American, sic) contexts one can find various forms of animal-tricksters like coyote, hare, raven, or <i>spider</i> (italics mine, 126)". If we take Prof. Lippert's observations into account, then the final appearance of King's demonic serial killer becomes all the more explicable. If the story's villain is little more than a dark inversion of the trickster archetype, then of course it makes narrative sense for It to eventually assume a spider form. Indeed, to do otherwise would be the true anti-climax. All that either King or Wallace are guilty of here is merely following the traditional contours of a literary archetype to it's logical mythical end. </div><div><br /></div><div>To reiterate, Lippert's insights are of such a value, that they will have to stand as the best academic critical commentary I've been able to dig up on what is perhaps Stephen King's greatest villain. If there is anything to add to Lippert's analysis, then it might be only to make the most minor of distinctions. I believe she is correct in labeling Pennywise as a "dark trickster". Nor is she mistaken in lumping him alongside the other literary traditions or "faces" that make up this particular, extended literary tradition. All I'd like to suggest is that her realization of a negative version of the Trickster topos in turn points to what I'd term a narrative sense of ambiguity and divergence within the trope itself. If it's true that the myth of the Trickster can fall into either a light or dark category, then I'd argue it helps if we are able to come up with separate name tags for each of these aspects in order to help us differentiate the good from the bad. Here is where none other than King himself seems to have come to our rescue.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-P0T-KgN0MINnuwKqpbu5A35x3Najl23Xs-Py88gGlNleaRA0K7mAWzZXGZ-Qabqi2xcLi-bMbNue43ftodGxf88H2HWDJrJKXzj5rjOT6D5rs8kc1EtWY0bjaJvJG7UG12sjplhArO73OmRMSH8Eu_TznY6liMChzyncOeYROeg8rtKn74l0PgumllE/s640/daecdb4333c09c7906f8dbb229e46386_h264_base.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-P0T-KgN0MINnuwKqpbu5A35x3Najl23Xs-Py88gGlNleaRA0K7mAWzZXGZ-Qabqi2xcLi-bMbNue43ftodGxf88H2HWDJrJKXzj5rjOT6D5rs8kc1EtWY0bjaJvJG7UG12sjplhArO73OmRMSH8Eu_TznY6liMChzyncOeYROeg8rtKn74l0PgumllE/w640-h360/daecdb4333c09c7906f8dbb229e46386_h264_base.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In his non-fiction book, <i>Danse Macabre</i>, King makes the claim that all Horror fiction is a struggle between two opposing forces of order and disorder. His critical terms for each of these genre dynamics are titled as the Apollonian (order) and the Dionysian (chaos) respectively. It's the struggle between the desire for an ordered, Apollonian existence against the psychotic, Dionysian impulses that make up what we talk about whenever we either discuss or create Horror fiction, so far as King is concerned. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd argue that if we couple King's terms with Lippert's insights, then we've sort of helped complete a symbolic-thematic literary picture that was always staring back at us, yet was also a bit too well hidden as subtext for us to see clearly without a bit of help. Thankfully, both author and critics were willing to oblige. What you get if we add Lippert's essentially hermetic insight to King's is almost a kind of diagram of the three elements of the Gothic genre: Dionysian - Hermetic - Apollonian. This in turn acts, I believe, as a more complete diagrammatic representation of the major conflict at the heart of King's story. You have the Apollonian ideal and order on the one hand. Along with the Losers who act as its ostensible Hermetic representatives in the microcosm of their haunted small town. Opposed to them is the chaotic, or Dionysian force of It and all of its masques. When looked at from this perspective, what we're left with is a battle between two types of Tricksters, both light as well as dark.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KIEVsCg3UbGPEuu3Ho6kN6ZZhRgJ2grjZ-imfOPvlYyaBRK6joImP1hJeveBz8iLDYJqZrtPEXW-88WJbCyOJ2vvASejBJa7Czh3xSLr9q_3Nb5lbPY123IaKxuCKeXQKRkzaAJpfV7IXdKQCeqB3B6lSDRZalxgu1vH9vxsvUqUvKov0AexOjeyc5ws/s586/1_4LUIvJseXRQfDt5-7SGbIg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="586" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2KIEVsCg3UbGPEuu3Ho6kN6ZZhRgJ2grjZ-imfOPvlYyaBRK6joImP1hJeveBz8iLDYJqZrtPEXW-88WJbCyOJ2vvASejBJa7Czh3xSLr9q_3Nb5lbPY123IaKxuCKeXQKRkzaAJpfV7IXdKQCeqB3B6lSDRZalxgu1vH9vxsvUqUvKov0AexOjeyc5ws/w640-h350/1_4LUIvJseXRQfDt5-7SGbIg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I suppose another way to put is that what King has written, and that Tommy Wallace has later adapted is a kind of modern day myth. In classical, mythic terms it would have been dramatized as a straightforward battle between Hermes and Dionysus. The conflict being waged by the mercurial messenger of the gods on behalf of Apollo, who seeks to bring order out of chaos. All King and Wallace have done is to take this basic, mythic concept, and transcribe it into modern day Gothic terms. Here, it is the Losers who find themselves in the mythic Hermetic role. Each of them having to combine together in order to counteract It's malign, Dionysian influence. If this is at all a valid reading, then what it amounts to is that King and Wallace have perhaps come as close as anyone can to successfully dramatizing and translating an ancient myth into a modern day narrative format. At least here is one good reason for why I'm not bothered by the spider. It makes too much narrative sense.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Conclusion: A Pretty Good Look Behind the Scenes.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilecYLnpzadN1Sys0_iVxLlyrWtIxoPTshmZFS4FaaEbIXSrzhhCSoZjVx8vpW1eA0n-OrZiudhm6lnKkcv5AUtLFFx2t-5wiR07_lSAnFTeoFVrqgC2jmdNc3rB7C4xFeAMSZv4VNgynWRowDHoMw1bfKH92g02qqxM_9Tn-ZvE5BqT7AMRCFdbmFg9zB/s2110/MV5BMDY4ZjFmNzctOWQ1Ny00MTJiLTgxMDAtNWNkNjE5NWY3NjlkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA4NTgxMjM@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2110" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilecYLnpzadN1Sys0_iVxLlyrWtIxoPTshmZFS4FaaEbIXSrzhhCSoZjVx8vpW1eA0n-OrZiudhm6lnKkcv5AUtLFFx2t-5wiR07_lSAnFTeoFVrqgC2jmdNc3rB7C4xFeAMSZv4VNgynWRowDHoMw1bfKH92g02qqxM_9Tn-ZvE5BqT7AMRCFdbmFg9zB/s320/MV5BMDY4ZjFmNzctOWQ1Ny00MTJiLTgxMDAtNWNkNjE5NWY3NjlkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA4NTgxMjM@._V1_.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>There's at least one other reason for why I'm pretty much cool with the way Wallace both treats and presents the spider at the end. This time, it has to do with the way the entire miniseries harkens back to the kind of Horror films Stephen King grew up watching, and being influenced by. Turns out the <i>It</i> miniseries (and even the original book, if we're being honest) is one of those stories that pays greater dividends the more you know about ancient pop culture American history, in particular with regards to the Horror and Sci-Fi movies of the 40, 50s, and 60s. Critic George Beahm has described King's novel as a "pop-culture monster mash", and that turns out to be a true description in the most literal of terms.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here, for instance, is how Beahm describes the content of King's story. "That King also intends <i>It</i> as a virtual encyclopedia of horror is equally implicit in the novel. Almost every variation on the monster is present at one level or another, if not physically as one of It's many manifestations, then imagistically in the form of metaphor or simile, or verbally as King embeds the language of horror into his text. As key figures in the story, we become reacquainted with the werewolf, the Mummy, the walking dead, ghosts, things that (quite literally) go bump in the night (and in the drains and sewers), Rodan-monsters, the crawling eye, gigantic beasties, haunted places and haunted people, <i>glamours</i>, and shape-shifters, the unnamed creatures that haunt dark cellars and abandoned houses, and equally unnamed things that laugh as their teeth shred human flesh. The fact that all of these monsters are one monster that frequently presents itself initially as a clown...only adds to <i>It</i>'s ultimate effectiveness. Most of the monsters in <i>It</i> are not King's original creations. Among the authors <i>It</i> evokes are masters of horror:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK5Z1PCS7_levHlmwmFgq9nc756eKQVp1hGs2VTrKz4LmeQC4I9hbWWXdTJ5W7p4JQF0RuWm1zi_UmB3yT8mt1L-O0nEw7lAxvqxAfmSakVNAYrL7qFrqwMFxbdiyCyjhO4JOqDlmRpKJt48dlmG2UmGwkYAnaAF9MWazMtVxcjwrc6ErTaj2aaKm-TLak/s1284/STREAMIN-KING-PENNYWISE-.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="856" data-original-width="1284" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK5Z1PCS7_levHlmwmFgq9nc756eKQVp1hGs2VTrKz4LmeQC4I9hbWWXdTJ5W7p4JQF0RuWm1zi_UmB3yT8mt1L-O0nEw7lAxvqxAfmSakVNAYrL7qFrqwMFxbdiyCyjhO4JOqDlmRpKJt48dlmG2UmGwkYAnaAF9MWazMtVxcjwrc6ErTaj2aaKm-TLak/w640-h426/STREAMIN-KING-PENNYWISE-.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />"Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, H.G. Wells, Joseph Brennan, and others. And where King does not draw on literary monsters, he falls back on cinematic one: <i>I was a Teenage Werewolf</i>, <i>The Crawling Eye</i>, <i>An American Werewolf in London</i> (263)". It's that final list of three cinematic sources that are crucial to understanding this last element that makes both King's novel, and Wallace's adaptation tick like a fine peace of deliberately retro watch work. The three films that Beahm lists might sound ludicrous as hell to modern readers. The kicker is that occasional shifts in aesthetic taste do little to change the fact movies like <i>The Crawling Eye</i> really do exist, even if our current imaginative myopia had rendered them almost impossible for us to believe in, even when presented with irrefutable evidence. The simple and somewhat sad fact is that movies like <i>Teenage Werewolf</i> and <i>It Conquered the World</i> (another film from the same era that gets referenced in the pages of King's text) are all the products of an entirely different entertainment paradigm, one whose effects are now obscure.</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVr4juQOOsfmChkYXQtN8b-HRM3D7dpMgl0z3gn5pzQKWtnfo2Xc4ovGQYWUNcW9HPiOtlve8o9OGQRe1BeyCLIRm2IpOAa2BeVBVe8IRtNlmhUHqqxltWYOmsJ2OgGHo-6QA7rUupsQJSx_NeHQdjNRwLHsSQMdjps3wqREAyaBHIQpr3WLOgWc4bHWrN/s3000/I_Was_A_Teenage_Werewolf-poster.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="1974" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVr4juQOOsfmChkYXQtN8b-HRM3D7dpMgl0z3gn5pzQKWtnfo2Xc4ovGQYWUNcW9HPiOtlve8o9OGQRe1BeyCLIRm2IpOAa2BeVBVe8IRtNlmhUHqqxltWYOmsJ2OgGHo-6QA7rUupsQJSx_NeHQdjNRwLHsSQMdjps3wqREAyaBHIQpr3WLOgWc4bHWrN/s320/I_Was_A_Teenage_Werewolf-poster.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>In fact, this obscurity means that it can be difficult for modern audiences to properly understand, and hence "get into" on the level that they require. This is the paradigm of the Drive-In Movie Schlock Film. It was an entire, literal aesthetic generated during the end of the 40s, and on into the Eisenhower and Woodstock eras<i> </i>when a bunch of maverick, independent filmmakers like Ed Wood, Samuel Arkoff, Jim Nicholson, and Roger Corman discovered they could churn out genre oriented popcorn flicks for sometimes less than a $100 dollar budget. It was this discovery that resulted in the release of films such as <i>Wild Women of the Amazon</i>, <i>The Fast and the Furious</i> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fast_and_the_Furious_(1954_film)">yes, really</a>), <i>Night of the Blood Beast</i>, and <i>I Was a Teenage Frankenstein</i>. The complete and perfect irony here is that it was also this succession of poverty row productions that helped usher in the modern face of Horror and Science Fiction as we still know them today. The inescapable fact (however embarrassing, or otherwise) is that movies like <i>Alien</i> or <i>Jaws</i> couldn't have existed without titles such as <i>The Horror of Party Beach</i>, or <i>Planet of the Vampires</i>. These are the great grand parents of all that we now hold sacred in terms of Horror films.</div><div><br /></div><div>Their reputation has been in a constant state of flux for some time. They're often looked down upon in proportion as it becomes clear there's never any true "getting away" from them. Films like this are often descried as cheap trash, yet that's also a judgment that always sells them too short. The real dirty secret is that we wouldn't have had <i>Star Wars</i> or <i>Evil Dead 2</i> without these B to Z level pictures. Hell, a careful viewer will be able to observe the DNA of creatures like the Xenomorph in <i>It</i>: <i>The Terror From Beyond Space</i>. That seems to be another schlock fest which gets honorable mention in King's novel. The more accurate, yet just as awkward truth seems to be that a lot of these older B genre pictures amount to a lot of hidden gems and underrated and unacknowledged precursors with plenty of entertainment value to offer on their own artistic merits. The trouble is we've either sort of lost whatever imaginative capacity it is that allows us to enjoy these films, or else we're very much in danger of losing it altogether. Either outcome would amount to the same result, and be a sad state of affairs. These films aren't "up to date". However, that's not the same as saying they are all objectively bad. Nor is it any cause for them to be forgotten. <i>Citizen Kane</i> is no spring chicken, either. However if we apply the chronological critique to that film, then it deserves to join the others in the scrap pile.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-eSvNvqBbbWdkTlYce55CKLhrCmxZ_pWLTUIy_ihpFR6JuUaTy8U3brh6tLUQDx6R71amSLZmCNIb4_E5uRVkO0SA_CxRW48cspSGgS9febdCMrZy7wFHsMCXM6nLRoOrMQH1f8RSoyU86e1b7BI1_3VD9WBKRPwJX2R5z-FtfZmdGe6j36Zv9lYZX755/s667/ca0bce75118c9de5affbd13ce15b0442a2e94a4956032ec0896e35363855bb86._UY500_UX667_RI_TTW_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="667" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-eSvNvqBbbWdkTlYce55CKLhrCmxZ_pWLTUIy_ihpFR6JuUaTy8U3brh6tLUQDx6R71amSLZmCNIb4_E5uRVkO0SA_CxRW48cspSGgS9febdCMrZy7wFHsMCXM6nLRoOrMQH1f8RSoyU86e1b7BI1_3VD9WBKRPwJX2R5z-FtfZmdGe6j36Zv9lYZX755/w640-h360/ca0bce75118c9de5affbd13ce15b0442a2e94a4956032ec0896e35363855bb86._UY500_UX667_RI_TTW_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />All of which is to point out that calling the <i>It </i>miniseries bad based solely on it's production value is to rest easy in a kind of chronological snobbery that is never capable of seeing the whole picture on the screen (or in real life, for that matter) and hence unable to <i>see</i> Wallace's adaptation for what it truly is, or judge it by the proper critical standards that it deserves. What Tim Curry and the rest of the production crew have made here amounts to nothing less than a Grade B Horror Thriller in the style of Roger Corman, and American International Pictures. This is an artistic choice that applies to everything about the two part film, from the way it's camera shots are setup, and to the deliberately old school nature of the special effects. Even the way the film plays around with its gore effects in certain situations is reminiscent of the more low key approaches of <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i>, or the films of Val Lewton. It's the kind of film that acts as an homage to all of these older monsters flicks. And it does so in just about the only way possible, by more or less becoming one of them. There's even a way to prove just how far this adaptation leans into it's schlock horror roots, and all it takes is a trick of color.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVmj3SAIYsEEpfQcFqtHbImGYYguzQG-VXdsIrGKdQ9ka_yRPUccelYKIjcDi9ssBvYcxdXDoOJtuA5njC517R5qbrrIxWOM4_iAlRkOlAl18DZg4xpPiywRHDOcCzEfYMhYEqD9RHVNVK4LctnKo52Wm6HNbyG_wpdXAmUvUuplH84X2PeFkckRSNp2j5/s3000/MV5BNThiYzRhMTYtYmI2OC00NmJjLTkyZTUtZmJiNDRiOTY4YzQzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU1MjgyNDk@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="1172" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVmj3SAIYsEEpfQcFqtHbImGYYguzQG-VXdsIrGKdQ9ka_yRPUccelYKIjcDi9ssBvYcxdXDoOJtuA5njC517R5qbrrIxWOM4_iAlRkOlAl18DZg4xpPiywRHDOcCzEfYMhYEqD9RHVNVK4LctnKo52Wm6HNbyG_wpdXAmUvUuplH84X2PeFkckRSNp2j5/w112-h287/MV5BNThiYzRhMTYtYmI2OC00NmJjLTkyZTUtZmJiNDRiOTY4YzQzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU1MjgyNDk@._V1_.jpg" width="112" /></a></div>The next time you decide to pop this miniseries into the Blu-Ray player, before you press play, adjust the color settings all the way to zero, leaving everything in stark black and white. I think you'll find that draining the color from the images on screen can have a curious, yet genuine liberating effect. Shorn of its natural hues and tints, the adaptation becomes something less and more than what it started out as. It's like some vital aspect of modernity has been stripped away, and we're left with something that probably wouldn't have too out of place at a 1950s drive-in. The kind of picture that could serve as its own double bill. I call it the Black and White Test, and I like to use it on modern films and productions to see what it can do to reshape whatever story I'm watching. In the case of <i>Stephen King's It</i>, what it does is turn a 90s era TV Movie of the Week into one of its own, drive-in oriented ancestors. It reveals the adaptation as a deliberate throwback to all those American International B level blockbusters. The kind of films, in other words, that made actors like Vincent Price famous.</div><div><br /></div><div>This makes Wallace's creative choices ultimately fitting for the final product he was able to churn out. As I'd argue that rather than being a detriment to the kinds of effect it was going for, Wallace has instead crafted a latter day B Horror that does justice to the content of its source material. This is because all that King has done in the last resort is to take precisely the same kind of poverty row schlock plot, and dial it up to an epic scale. I'm starting to wonder if it's that sense of scale that either throws both readers and viewers off, or else just confuses them in a way that leaves us unable to gain a clearer picture of what they're either reading or looking at. I'll admit that King has created the Gothic genre's own version of <i>Lord of the Rings</i>. Yet what often gets lost sight of is the pop culture materials he uses to bring his own schlock epic to life. Any work of literature that features American International's Teenage Werewolf as one of its villains owes just as much to Roger Corman as it does Tolkien, Milton, or William Blake. With this in mind, I'm starting to think that what's happened here is that over the years, we've sort of forgotten the other components that go together to help create this story.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivPQt6ptrKfyRvx1t1KsPR6rrw-_YPRoLcnt8kst96ZUTtuLyMhPapKzpjoJiG2J2cDe2iC1SI1bz0ruSP7sFfi80sHscYggMHkrGN1WC_kootbisfJqpnkxKWIBUGzW1gR74v_CpdWTKiUp18VJaWIpLVfqABFz6_T-NPA4QSCBJsT-rNzRIctHX_07Y5/s2048/20448968_333950373725660_5744825507923149362_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivPQt6ptrKfyRvx1t1KsPR6rrw-_YPRoLcnt8kst96ZUTtuLyMhPapKzpjoJiG2J2cDe2iC1SI1bz0ruSP7sFfi80sHscYggMHkrGN1WC_kootbisfJqpnkxKWIBUGzW1gR74v_CpdWTKiUp18VJaWIpLVfqABFz6_T-NPA4QSCBJsT-rNzRIctHX_07Y5/w640-h360/20448968_333950373725660_5744825507923149362_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />We've remembered Tolkien, but forgotten Corman, even though he and the DNA of his drive-in movie ilk are on almost every page of King's novel from start to finish. As a result, it's sort of no wonder if readers and viewers find it difficult to get a proper read on a lot of the essential aspects that power the engine of King's secondary world. Apparently, critics like George Beahm are more right than they know. Both the book and its adaptation amount to a literal encyclopedia of cultural literary and cinematic references that have no choice whatsoever except to fly right over the heads of audiences that have no real knowledge of them. It explains, for instance, why even the director (and a surprising number of King fans) confesses to being confused by the ending. It's a simple case of the author having all the cultural and cinematic literacy under the hood, and then implanting it in his novel, while the rest of the world around him moves on and away from this store of knowledge. It really seems to prove the point that all reading and viewing is an act of interpretation, and that sometimes its not possible without a great deal of reading and viewing to help stretch the limits of the audience's imagination. That's got to be one of the greatest ironies that I've ever discovered about both books, films, or life in general.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe_5QCtaR3fdfXdrWdZvEZ_yBbljaUIR5XddaKyWWsh1Rxt-7clW8eOAr74Vq5Cv_9R18nlNPb3_XpYhZcaP5UrFeJCh-fZV7B5bntOkvOvxHWw4o3E223s3gZKOmfcbRwI5HJPZRGqmkrvVhHXPTK8kqAV_hflaHFdRzHa3J2S9FaDpbWiTpqtDAuFuf/s450/it_photo3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe_5QCtaR3fdfXdrWdZvEZ_yBbljaUIR5XddaKyWWsh1Rxt-7clW8eOAr74Vq5Cv_9R18nlNPb3_XpYhZcaP5UrFeJCh-fZV7B5bntOkvOvxHWw4o3E223s3gZKOmfcbRwI5HJPZRGqmkrvVhHXPTK8kqAV_hflaHFdRzHa3J2S9FaDpbWiTpqtDAuFuf/s320/it_photo3.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>As it stands, however, there are a number of inescapable facts that condition the nature of both the book and the TV Film. The first is that all of the ingredients that go to make up the Losers' final battle with It are both deliberate and inherent by turns. That entire last sequence is a combination of the epic and the schlock co-existing and shading into one another in equal measure. It's the precise nature of the combination of the epic and the pulp that both viewers and readers are just going to have to grapple with as best they can. Though it is possible to arrive at an accurate appreciation of the ultimate nature and content of King's story, always provided you're willing to take the bit of extra time and effort necessary for it. A lot of folks probably won't go so far. Though those that do will discover just how many dividends this story is able to pay back if you give it a chance. The final spider sequence in both the novel and miniseries can therefore be said to not just work, but also stand <i>true</i> as the homage to the kind of quirky, low budget fantastical Horror films that King grew up with at the local neighborhood movie theater as a child. Same as the Losers. All that's required to appreciate a story like this is a love of the Horror genre, and an appreciation for the best kind of schlock that 50s Sci Fi and Horror can offer. </div><div><br /></div><div>What we have then is a great book with a well made adaptation to its name. The adaptation has gone on to become something of a cult classic over the years. King's book meanwhile, more or less is regarded as a literary masterpiece. I just hope both versions are able to hold onto their hard won reputations. With any luck, this behind the scenes look into the creation of this underrated small screen gem might just go a long way to help keeping <i>It</i>'s legacy alive. It was made by directors John Campopiano and Christopher Griffiths, with the help of <i>Scream Box</i> and <i>Bloody Disgusting.com</i>. It's kind of a giveaway that this is clearly a film made by and for the fans. That's a real feather in the cap because we seem to be entering a time when it really is going to be up to the fandom out there to help keep both the memory and value of our favorite films alive. In that regard, Campopiano and Griffith have to be commended for what amounts to an unheralded work of public service. This is a film that has succeeded strictly on the word of mouth. So any good press is going to go a long way towards spreading it's reputation.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYyyxGkMXY0mnYEbzQrFI63zkYhBDIvLci0-GAJe8eBcBt0GCx5C_cmq_LbJ-xXRW89f9oXRjZHlcusTWpahiR6NEb4NIVBDvN0XiQReK7PCqqfOOofvokcRunQC5whosUHHfimlfJ7dZjSb7TkMYyhshPyDDF1h54KmCqG_-WR0_NbwSPKZlOt9iVkHiS/s2000/image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYyyxGkMXY0mnYEbzQrFI63zkYhBDIvLci0-GAJe8eBcBt0GCx5C_cmq_LbJ-xXRW89f9oXRjZHlcusTWpahiR6NEb4NIVBDvN0XiQReK7PCqqfOOofvokcRunQC5whosUHHfimlfJ7dZjSb7TkMYyhshPyDDF1h54KmCqG_-WR0_NbwSPKZlOt9iVkHiS/w640-h426/image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />As a documentary, their film has two goals to meet. First and last, as a work of non-fiction, it has to both inform and entertain all at the same time. In some ways, that's an even harder tightrope to walk than straight-up fiction. At least with an imaginary story you can always go back and delete whatever material doesn't work. Real life doesn't offer much of an opportunity for that. The good news is that the directors have nothing to worry about with this particular choice of subject matter. To start off with, there's a hefty enough fanbase out there for both the <i>It</i> book and limited run TV series. So it was sure to draw a substantial audience (present writer included). In the second place, the final results are just plain fun, pure and simple. That's because Griffiths and Campopiano have chosen one of the many real life subjects that was always guaranteed to be an enjoyable time uncovering and discussing, and that comes through brilliantly as they trek through the production history of a cult classic. The best parts of their film all boil down to the same number of elements. It either stems from learning how certain aspects of the finished film came to be, or in the cast regaling in all the fun times they had together on set.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsEabAmRupYtT04LbFvC-x2KDd6CRGts07WYL8kmgeJ_fPAUdcxiisKH5l0DtxJ8WmeJy2xkCNBfN2P5l-00WP29-ZQ0CTgOWiTjNeUcLEtUnAg7CAPHEMr2ktzKcwkMuWXK4ew20_M2V8ZI_zCxMxq_l1fLfsYJm2_P5kG6kK8yTMMtXkP1QVG3l13pG/s475/830502.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="290" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsEabAmRupYtT04LbFvC-x2KDd6CRGts07WYL8kmgeJ_fPAUdcxiisKH5l0DtxJ8WmeJy2xkCNBfN2P5l-00WP29-ZQ0CTgOWiTjNeUcLEtUnAg7CAPHEMr2ktzKcwkMuWXK4ew20_M2V8ZI_zCxMxq_l1fLfsYJm2_P5kG6kK8yTMMtXkP1QVG3l13pG/s320/830502.jpg" width="195" /></a></div>Listening to Curry, Thomas, Masur, and Wallace go on about what it was like to live the making of the movie is always going to be the true highlight of the entire feature. If there's anything to regret, then it's the fact that there was never a chance to get the input of the late, great John Ritter. If you go back and listen to the DVD commentary on the miniseries itself, it's clear that Ritter comes off as maybe the true heart and soul of the entire production, and so his absence is a palpably felt presence. This doesn't detract from the documentary. If anything, it gives the proceedings an added sense of resonance. It's just too bad that we were deprived of what was sure to have been a fun bit of extra insights into how things went down. Beyond all this, however, what comes through the most is the impression that Campopiano and Griffiths are genuine fans in the truest sense of the word. The whole documentary is a clear expression of their enthusiasm for this little TV Movie of the Week, and the fact that they devoted this much worthwhile efforts to it means that Tommy Wallace should be proud of what he's done here.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, if you want some interesting parting bit of advice, one final fan suggestion might be to try one other interesting experiment. It turns out Tommy Lee Wallace's creative choices are just enough so that not only does the final film amount to a faithful adaptation of King's book, it's even possible now to go back and try and fan edit the entire sequencing of the miniseries into something that closer approximates the structure of the original book. King's novel is divided into five acts with five interludes and a conclusion. It's one of his most classically structured works, in fact. Something that harkens back to the age of either Milton or Aristotle, believe it or not. The point is Wallace has given us enough material so that you can now go back and edit the film into as closer approximation the book as possible. You know, start out with the six phone calls, and then introduce Pennywise after we meet Bill Denborough for the first time. Don't spend your Curry all at once, in other words. Instead, you slowly build up to him as a big reveal, like the Shower Scene with <i>Psycho</i>. From there, you can more or less restructure the film as it was in the novel. This can be done all the way to the final showdown, intercutting between past and present like King originally did, with adult and child Losers together. That way you have the cast squaring off against It as Pennywise and spider both all in one.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2JJR4YPvvnGf-mjK69-VhBwKNMZ4dBI7HzAreRukHmDPzMgbVk6T0FuWWlz-6pnssrCrpn6F7DjDSwEg04B80TRyaXfl04eIp5l8zJpaGThySdH2LHcIwSgu0GJnWLmWjRCfTuCA929UgFV2ItqF_ARUxVcGdF19djKcB6H400pI9T5VfwVE1uEMgpMf/s640/pennywise-doc.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="640" height="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2JJR4YPvvnGf-mjK69-VhBwKNMZ4dBI7HzAreRukHmDPzMgbVk6T0FuWWlz-6pnssrCrpn6F7DjDSwEg04B80TRyaXfl04eIp5l8zJpaGThySdH2LHcIwSgu0GJnWLmWjRCfTuCA929UgFV2ItqF_ARUxVcGdF19djKcB6H400pI9T5VfwVE1uEMgpMf/w640-h532/pennywise-doc.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />To top it all off, you'd save Curry's biggest and best over-the-top performance for the very last, and you give the Vincent Price of Generation X a chance to go out in top form if you edit both death scenes just right, so that it looks like past and present have collapsed into one, and the villain falls simultaneously at the same time. Or at least, you know, there's one idea worth looking into. Whatever the case, the final results are the same. Griffiths and Campopiano have done history a quiet service here. It's the kind of thing that lives and dies by word of mouth, so I think the fans out their owe the filmmakers all they can to help make sure their documentary reaches as many eyes, hearts, and minds as possible. All I've done here is to try and help spread the word as best I can, however inelegant, because I believe it's worth that great an extent of effort. It goes without saying that this isn't the last time we'll be talking about a story like <i>It</i>. Whoever described Stephen King's work as the <i>Moby Dick</i> of Horror novels was more of a prophet than they knew. That's why there will always be more to discuss about <i>It</i> in the years to come. In the meantime, we can be thankful to the filmmakers of <i>Pennywise</i>: <i>The Story of It</i> for all they've done. This is one documentary that is well worth hunting down, and checking out. </div><div> <br /></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-80464352354222429312023-09-24T05:45:00.001-05:002023-10-12T20:36:10.878-05:00Neil Gaiman's Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch (1998).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAL1BtSEDI1OcrmftJI7f7WB54gKk78qY2CuNZpt2PoluwGPtZRUQ_wuRCP-vD5rij8INe_SnjdhziDmV4pzZ86JCC-G6rAr-Kcm6_Uirmwvz0y0OudV88J-gy9HkCB7JH_fkTHlP8wpC8cdKCxSYl7jkC7a1-fPdSJaoBvunDwqmHU1uFUMJVdUo5qsaJ/s1000/913fgdpRDQL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="652" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAL1BtSEDI1OcrmftJI7f7WB54gKk78qY2CuNZpt2PoluwGPtZRUQ_wuRCP-vD5rij8INe_SnjdhziDmV4pzZ86JCC-G6rAr-Kcm6_Uirmwvz0y0OudV88J-gy9HkCB7JH_fkTHlP8wpC8cdKCxSYl7jkC7a1-fPdSJaoBvunDwqmHU1uFUMJVdUo5qsaJ/s320/913fgdpRDQL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>Neil Gaiman still doesn't need much of in the way of an introduction, at least as of this writing. Experience has taught me that's the sort of thing that can always change, and sometimes faster than any of us fans might like. The reputation of even the best stories, and their writers, has always been a precarious thing. And it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it has always been a fragile minority of readers and viewers who have kept the reputations of even seeming titans like Shakespeare alive in a world that might otherwise consign him and every other artist to the dust bin of history. For the moment, though, it does seem as if both Gaiman and Shakespeare can count on the continued goodwill of a sufficient enough minority of audience members to know who they are, and tell others that they were or are still here. <p></p><p>For the vast majority of readers and viewers, Gaiman's reputation seems as if it can be boiled down to just two touchstone points in what is and remains an otherwise sprawling literary career. The two works of his that everybody seems to remember is either his graphic novel series, <i>Sandman</i>. Or else a smaller yet vocally substantial number will point to what looks like a simple children's novel on the surface, when in reality, it's a dark Gothic fantasy by the name of <i>Coraline</i>. These are the twin poles around which Gaiman's current reputation continues to oscillate. With either party eager to claim their preferred text as the superior product from the pen of the author. While I'll admit I fall into the latter camp that favor's the adventures of Coraline Jones over the exploits of the Dream Kingdom and its Dominions, I'd also like to think I'm smart enough to realize both texts are also not the whole story. In addition to one warped kids book, and a series of very influential graphic novels, Gaiman has had an otherwise vibrant and artistic career as a fantasy novelist. It's an example, or specimen of this other career, the one that doesn't get as much exposure, or recognition that I'd like to shine a spotlight on.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj58LOLc5ZdqVtQAr31KcNx7BTnlKPoYC-dxr76aUfNdyENw59nSGCI2QJDmr5E1n_qBV2NiTMCY85wguKC8AQYf46ZEzTp0JZBLOXVq5fOFDlQXmNuO55o6BEAIRugeeQTAuXL-TVFwWm9O_KZdPU4WkrmNahH-sKzAxjsHhnhdCdb6rXD7sLEkQAP5pi2/s1440/Neil-Gaiman-on-his-love-to-Indian-Literature.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1440" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj58LOLc5ZdqVtQAr31KcNx7BTnlKPoYC-dxr76aUfNdyENw59nSGCI2QJDmr5E1n_qBV2NiTMCY85wguKC8AQYf46ZEzTp0JZBLOXVq5fOFDlQXmNuO55o6BEAIRugeeQTAuXL-TVFwWm9O_KZdPU4WkrmNahH-sKzAxjsHhnhdCdb6rXD7sLEkQAP5pi2/w640-h426/Neil-Gaiman-on-his-love-to-Indian-Literature.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Aside from giving the neglected side of Gaiman's career a day in the Sun, focusing on an otherwise unremarked upon short story such as "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch" is helpful in serving another purpose. One of the goals of this article is to help answer the question, "What's the next best place to start for introducing new or still novice readers to the literary magic of Gaiman's work outside of either the Dreaming or the Button House"? I think that's where an underrated, easy to digest story like this one can come in handy. So let's take our tickets and see how wild the ride gets.<p></p><p><b><span></span><span></span></b></p><a name='more'></a><b>The "Facts" of the Case.</b><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAoHngIn6OGD8Z2NJ5ggNDpiBk8lBuj-hDJm6UcZ2zwF2r-bZRWqranczh4uCi6MK7v_Ecd8vo_r3zCCo_3KRvpkOSigL08tVfn3EjWuBM76sIUjitLL2Lq89f5V64hFk2pExogSiKjF_wyHXmAQyUstjPKxMOAO_o6pHAPa1fNhTvlS5Edz_8nGrsqnfM/s333/Fragilethings.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAoHngIn6OGD8Z2NJ5ggNDpiBk8lBuj-hDJm6UcZ2zwF2r-bZRWqranczh4uCi6MK7v_Ecd8vo_r3zCCo_3KRvpkOSigL08tVfn3EjWuBM76sIUjitLL2Lq89f5V64hFk2pExogSiKjF_wyHXmAQyUstjPKxMOAO_o6pHAPa1fNhTvlS5Edz_8nGrsqnfM/s320/Fragilethings.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>This is one of those stories that begins at the end, or rather in its aftermath. It's the kind of scene that doesn't get used often in creative writing, yet it can still happen every now and again. Gaiman's work even adheres to a lot of the conventions that come attached with this type of narrative opening at the close. We're given a brief cast list. Which includes both the narrator (who's name we never find out) and his two friends: Jane, and her husband, Jonathan. We then get a brief discussion about the title character, the lately departed Miss Finch. It's not her real name. As the narrator explains, "I'm changing names here to disguise the guilty (133)". This is a good place for Gaiman to demonstrate his skill at narrative construction. Everything about the opening conversation between the characters is meant to establish a proper sense of dramatic expectation. We learn that we're catching up with the main cast in the aftermath of something bad. There's been a happening in which one of their number has dwindled, somehow. Leaving the other three in state of shocked disbelief. The writing lays out all of this information in just the right ominous tone, leaving us wondering what terrors we're in store for.<p></p><p>This entire opening functions very much like an in-story version of what would otherwise be the host segment of one of those old Horror anthology shows like <i>Tales from the Crypt</i>. The major difference is that here Gaiman lets the story's cast fill in for the Crypt Keeper's role. It's not as iconic, or darkly sardonic and in your face as our favorite EC Comics master of ceremonies. However, the good news is that Gaiman's writing doesn't have to function in such over the top fashion in order to work. Instead, I think what he's done is show both readers and future writers another way in which to set up the audience's expectations for the narrative to come. We're not told right away exactly <i>what</i> happened to Miss Finch (if that really is her name), merely that <i>something</i> has gone wrong, and she appears to have been a victim of whatever calamity has befallen the group of shocked and mystified survivors. It's all a very well written example of narrative indirection. It all be telegraphs to the reader that we're witnessing the survivors of some fantastical occurrence that has claimed one of their own. And now, with this setup in place, the audience is geared up to ask the most important question: what happened?<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSFWUN05tp7ct9cEh0LsXm7eyClikaWs7f9GlS00Dglp40m-s-zsAzouMJsEdqXcgy0XPQCSJurebworPSePYciXY7ndUCjDUqoi1E5YiWht2_kEdeCCJ9hSN6apIMFZRoJ8Hc7CLZqKkvX-m5or-7zZ6sX58xAKPcK_mEn-iGzrRSUSq7GlXvgGeZ1e-y/s1200/Library-Books-Neil-Gaiman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSFWUN05tp7ct9cEh0LsXm7eyClikaWs7f9GlS00Dglp40m-s-zsAzouMJsEdqXcgy0XPQCSJurebworPSePYciXY7ndUCjDUqoi1E5YiWht2_kEdeCCJ9hSN6apIMFZRoJ8Hc7CLZqKkvX-m5or-7zZ6sX58xAKPcK_mEn-iGzrRSUSq7GlXvgGeZ1e-y/w640-h480/Library-Books-Neil-Gaiman.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />From here, the story jumps back to it's proper beginning, and the train of events begins to unfold. "In retrospect," the narrator says, "I think the whole thing might have been the fault of the late Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. I had read an article the previous month, in which Ian Fleming had advised any would-be writer who had a book to get done that wasn't getting written to go to a hotel to write it. I had, not a novel, but a film script that wasn't getting written; so I bought a plane ticket to London, promised the film company that they'd have a finished script in three weeks' time, and took a room in an eccentric hotel in Little Venice. I told no one in England that I was there. Had people known, my days and nights would have been spent seeing them, not staring at a computer screen and, sometimes, writing. Truth to tell, I was bored half out of my mind and ready to welcome any interruption(135-36)".<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-50HUnjAtSAMzx89JVXCYpa2XPErtxDYlteM4EyvcRX6ZVdIEUTFOVZiMwpjecI7yAsK1hahYOI8sAzSA6TUZOKXI-_2vP5wbtJVtBageQkGembsDwnhnxP2GqpaXr5NAqpVoYbU95ZOkJUm4nieReavxMAeVOXZzcTyHX4QLr6FjWWi6LkGewNDfuDx/s640/The-Facts-In-The-Case-Of-The-Departure.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="418" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-50HUnjAtSAMzx89JVXCYpa2XPErtxDYlteM4EyvcRX6ZVdIEUTFOVZiMwpjecI7yAsK1hahYOI8sAzSA6TUZOKXI-_2vP5wbtJVtBageQkGembsDwnhnxP2GqpaXr5NAqpVoYbU95ZOkJUm4nieReavxMAeVOXZzcTyHX4QLr6FjWWi6LkGewNDfuDx/w191-h293/The-Facts-In-The-Case-Of-The-Departure.webp" width="191" /></a></div>The narrator's opening situation almost makes things sound like one of those "Be careful what you wish for" type deals. Because it doesn't take long before two friends of our nameless chronicler phone him up to make him an offer. "Listen, if Jane and I were to offer to feed you sushi...and if we offered to take you to the theater before we fed you, what would you say (134)"? The writer naturally enough wants to know what's the catch? The answer is that Jane and Jonathan have reached out to him for what sounds like a pretty thankless task on the face of it. They wonder if he'd be willing to act as an unofficial third chaperon while the couple are stuck having to sort of babysit a friend of some friends. That would be the titular Miss Finch. Jane describes her as "something we're sort of lumbered with. She's not in the country for very long, and I wound up agreeing to entertain her and look after her tomorrow night. She's pretty frightful, actually. And Jonathan heard that you were in town from someone at your film company, and we thought you might be perfect to make it all less awful, so please say yes (135)". <p></p><p>I'm kind of surprised Gaiman didn't have his narrator at least mention the fact that the film company and the script that won't allow itself to be written count as the burdens that he finds himself saddled with, at the moment. All of it points to the fictional teller of this story as one of those classic, Literary Romantic types who finds himself stuck in a metaphorical "relationship" that has turned sour pretty fast. So now he's seizing the chance to escape from a bad affair by busying himself with those of others. At least this is the buried subtext I get from the narrator's description. It's also perhaps the true reason for why he winds up saying yes to Jane and Jonathan's request. It's all of these factors that wind up leading the storyteller to meet up with Jane and Jonathan at their house at the appointed time. He's hardly given a moment to breath, or the space to get oriented before the guest of honor arrives.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSL-I-p0E2L10KCgXIUoyjEMxxQFRKT6trBIpFL-gKKbG1OwqA4Y69g25ada3dQPp3EwQHchbfiNHdL2okHHs9mwJxzbn5QEerqjK6k_8ij6-bR2SbFjWoUiAgKOidaLHkVN2zrgRlYdLpdZcAVTnhT5Soi3dKWoqIhZa4-0VLdfc1l8rvRNzjn8fem9Op/s866/15727.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="866" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSL-I-p0E2L10KCgXIUoyjEMxxQFRKT6trBIpFL-gKKbG1OwqA4Y69g25ada3dQPp3EwQHchbfiNHdL2okHHs9mwJxzbn5QEerqjK6k_8ij6-bR2SbFjWoUiAgKOidaLHkVN2zrgRlYdLpdZcAVTnhT5Soi3dKWoqIhZa4-0VLdfc1l8rvRNzjn8fem9Op/w640-h258/15727.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Here is how Gaiman describes Miss Finch. "She wore a black leather cap, and black leather coat, and had black, black hair, pulled tightly back into a small bun, done up with a pottery tie. She wore makeup expertly applied to give an impression of severity that a professional dominatrix might have envied. Her lips were tight together, and she glared at the world through a pair of definite black-rimmed spectacles - they punctuated her face much too definitely to ever be mere glasses. "So," she said, as if she were pronouncing a death sentence, "we're going to the theater, then." "Well, yes and no," said Jonathan. I mean, yes, we are still going out, but we're not going to be able to see <i>The Romans in Britain</i>." "Good," said Miss Finch. In poor taste anyway. Why anyone would have thought that nonsense would make a musical I do not know (137)". There are a number of things going on in this little moment of introduction and the bit of the dialogue that follow it that make it worth a comment.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq8sDrWi4BovC-wE6ThJm1a9-dGzxRt4C_zvPiJpKOt9r8ezUvdNjlKjeu99kKeYZPX7UpluS4nTbJ_I3gxUvW2vwmldoh1tlaNwW7L2o9hvn4wq_m4DG70_tIkYGoZqd7rB5hJmvIW-ujcyTol8XOAvUFj-UcGkeQeD4NApxvqIuY9T_CvTB-yI2mq-Yg/s323/9780451531131c.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq8sDrWi4BovC-wE6ThJm1a9-dGzxRt4C_zvPiJpKOt9r8ezUvdNjlKjeu99kKeYZPX7UpluS4nTbJ_I3gxUvW2vwmldoh1tlaNwW7L2o9hvn4wq_m4DG70_tIkYGoZqd7rB5hJmvIW-ujcyTol8XOAvUFj-UcGkeQeD4NApxvqIuY9T_CvTB-yI2mq-Yg/s320/9780451531131c.webp" width="198" /></a></div>In the first place, the title character works as an interesting study in contrast. On our first impression of her, we begin to see why the writer's friends might have wanted someone along on their evening out together. A surface level description of Miss Finch (even down to her avian inspired name) might leave the impression that we've just met the English Nanny from hell. Everything about the woman shouts out the word "Prim" and "Proper through a bullhorn, in bold, capital letters. It's in her way of dismissing popular theater as "bad taste". Or even in the throwaway detail of the way she does up her hair. Everything is tight, and corseted in a way that mirror's her emotions. Whatever little scraps of genuine feeling Miss Finch might be wiling to spare for her fellow human beings is expressed with a sense of general disapproval. This is the kind of person who can't even manage the rueful, biting humor of a Jon Swift, much less the skeptical conviviality of Mark Twain. One gets the sense that whoever Miss Finch is, she'd be the kind who would dismiss a book like <i>Huck Finn</i> as yet another example of "bad taste". Never mind whether or not it's got anything like a valuable thematic lesson to teach.<br /><p></p><p>This then is the first, and most highlighted aspect of the character. The trick in Gaiman's description of her seems to rest in the quick, glancing remark about how her looks could also rest at home the kind of bohemian lifestyle that we know for a fact she would either dismiss outright and walk away from if anyone so much as brought it up even casually in a conversation. For the record, it's also a mistake to claim that Finch is the kind of girl who keeps a copy of <i>Fifty Shades</i> stashed away in secret somewhere. If Gaiman's quick detail points to even the merest hint of unconventionality in the title character, then it's core seems to rest somewhere else. This is the key narrative clue, or crucial detail that slowly gets built upon as the story goes on. For the moment, all the narrator and his friends can see is just another Victorian prude that's somehow become "unstuck" out of her own timeline. It's the kind of character flaw that Miss Finch seems happy to demonstrate on the ride to the evening's alternate destination. On the way, she seems to take a curious delight in describing the kind of stomach parasites that can lie in wait for people in a lot of the foods we consume on a daily basis. Or "elaborating on the symptoms of elephantitis as proudly as if she had invented them herself (138)". It's in these moments that Gaiman gives his readers the second character note that singles Miss Finch out in this drama.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqGL9bnekXEaVyl6-Bnuv0i06qj0OwHli3h0Sp-MhVyxF4w-nDytofC_KU1icVp5su9KbsLtGdfqvF-HVtGnxVNNQ7BdwtMFNqn9PyqHVl1qZ9EUaR6E6h2ncixARFIAtCE3C_d7CjEZ8TW1xaBNNlROLcC_iaYKJjvYXsvNHnCCZpMq12gwa49dcmPsmz/s390/Man-and-Woman-Gazing-canvas-oil-Moon-1824.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="390" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqGL9bnekXEaVyl6-Bnuv0i06qj0OwHli3h0Sp-MhVyxF4w-nDytofC_KU1icVp5su9KbsLtGdfqvF-HVtGnxVNNQ7BdwtMFNqn9PyqHVl1qZ9EUaR6E6h2ncixARFIAtCE3C_d7CjEZ8TW1xaBNNlROLcC_iaYKJjvYXsvNHnCCZpMq12gwa49dcmPsmz/w640-h492/Man-and-Woman-Gazing-canvas-oil-Moon-1824.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />To put it bluntly, she comes off as the kind of person with not all that much of an imagination. Rather, let's say that if there is any imaginative capacity to this character, then it is so stifled as to be next to nonexistent. Here's the place where Gaiman's narrative falls into somewhat familiar thematic territory. It signals that one of the core conflicts of the short story is going to be a long, ongoing battle between Romanticism and Realism. I've been reading this kind of story long enough to know that this theme is not original or particular with Gaiman. It's almost more like the constant, interconnected back-beat rhythm playing out in various fantasy writings from the Victorian Era up to our own. The simple fact is that most fantasy writers seem to be Romantics at heart, and a lot of their fiction tends to reflect this shared belief. This also seems to be the collective reason why so many storytellers like to pit their Romanticism up against staunch seeming realists like Miss Finch. Now if this is the kind of setup we've got going on here, then it is possible to claim that Gaiman is guilty of a straw man argument.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj18o0hHWLH-QeIpsuctiyGcyYSGRzAHllKUqacWTEk8y6qDe_EiOZeTWvxd6N7bxmZdfzb0P7dhprtnlAmk19xbsfRgNfSMU3khAJikFnOGwd1hAwbP5Cf5bIYjMzMnq8TdxdHToNLWyPRLC2iX8k1Ff63TU5ZGHZZ_I_gcE33l79Y-2YXdBR11UUicmYi/s612/gettyimages-944733144-612x612.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="476" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj18o0hHWLH-QeIpsuctiyGcyYSGRzAHllKUqacWTEk8y6qDe_EiOZeTWvxd6N7bxmZdfzb0P7dhprtnlAmk19xbsfRgNfSMU3khAJikFnOGwd1hAwbP5Cf5bIYjMzMnq8TdxdHToNLWyPRLC2iX8k1Ff63TU5ZGHZZ_I_gcE33l79Y-2YXdBR11UUicmYi/s320/gettyimages-944733144-612x612.jpg" width="249" /></a></div>Some may jump in here and claim that the writer (the real life composer behind this story, and not the fictional narrator) is in danger of falling back on the kind of stereotypes that tend to flatten out the more three dimensional realities of real life people. My response is that either Gaiman or (what seems more probable) the story itself seems to have anticipated this charge, and provided its own response within the confines of the narrative. It's an answer that might just stave off any hint of bias in this story. However, in order to make it's full meaning plain, it helps if the reader knows the rest of the story of Miss Finch and her fateful night on the town in full. Without it, then it just doesn't seem possible to grasp the full thematic import of the story Gaiman is telling. For now, let's just recall that one interesting flicker of unconventionality that the narrator threw out in passing about the story's title character, and keep that one important plot point in the back of our minds as we reach the destination.<p></p><p>Another important plot point is the one Jonathan mentions, also in passing. He and Jane had tickets for themselves, Miss Finch, and the narrator to what ostensibly was supposed to be an evening of theater in the West End. Instead, however, there's been one of those ambiguous fortuned twists of fate that means Jane and her husband have had to cancel their theater appointment, and choose another destination. This leads up to the story's main setting, the Theater of Night's Dreaming. If I had to find the right words to describe just what kind of venue this Theater is, then I suppose there are a number of options available. Jane refers to it at one point as a kind of traveling "circus (138)". The best useful information Jonathan is able to give on the matter is that the so-called circus "contacted us about being on" some upcoming TV Christmas special event that Jonathan is working in his professional talk show capacity; or something like that; the details remain vague. "I tried to pay for tonight's show, but they insisted on comping us in (ibid)". And that seems to be about all anyone knows about the whole affair.</p><p>My own terms for it is that it seems to operate as a combination carnival mashed together with a traveling theater troupe. However the bill of fair is less Shakespeare, and more like how the narrator describes it once the show begins. "The people came out. Some of them rode motorbikes and dune buggies. They ran and they laughed and they swung and they cackled. Whoever had dressed them had been reading too many comics, I thought, or watched <i>Mad Max</i> too many times. There were punks and nuns and vampires and monsters and strippers and the living dead. They danced and capered around us while the ringmaster - identifiable by his top hat - sang Alice Copper's "Welcome to My Nightmare", and sang it very badly. "I know Alice Cooper," I muttered to myself, misquoting something half-remembered, "and you, sir, are no Alice Cooper." "It's pretty naff," Jonathan agreed (140)". While this might not sound like much, there is plenty to recommend it on the level narrative setup and plotting.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrY2VcXwrfm1O7oVC1in2nYcbSgB47jBUscWaTP7Zq8M8HA6pa6ja2moKa3LoHMpYAHxeB142CZxb6NKvvwjYYqsTQoopTj5b2tM38VVl7Fopkym0OQs8DwH08w5bTWnbYnunciBDvekqYnSvjldUOTUE9bMHTuVoSsCinQA5SRPKlLHpvMcHyoyNDtIP/s1200/alice-cooper-the-last-temptation-album-image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrY2VcXwrfm1O7oVC1in2nYcbSgB47jBUscWaTP7Zq8M8HA6pa6ja2moKa3LoHMpYAHxeB142CZxb6NKvvwjYYqsTQoopTj5b2tM38VVl7Fopkym0OQs8DwH08w5bTWnbYnunciBDvekqYnSvjldUOTUE9bMHTuVoSsCinQA5SRPKlLHpvMcHyoyNDtIP/w640-h426/alice-cooper-the-last-temptation-album-image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In fact, I almost want to apologize for quoting from the story so much, though not for the reasons you may think. It's less because of spoilers, and more in the way taking quotations from these moments causes the events to lose the sense of droll and knowing humor that Gaiman imparts to these moments. There's a world of difference, in other words, between the way the characters in the story experience their circumstance versus how Gaiman relates it all to us as an audience. Looked at from the proper dramatic angle, the story is able to build the proper sense of narrative intrigue and suspense. We're curious to know that all important question of what happens next, coupled with a good dose of low key foreboding. By this point, we're interested in what the characters will experience. At the same time, we've both read and seen this kind of scenario before, and our imaginations are prepped for someone or <i>something</i> to come shambling out of the shadows. In many ways it's almost as if Gaiman has wound up playing the role of an unintentional, yet also very welcome pioneer in these key moments.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGjwWVLMt9NTGf6eRNvWTMBwsmPjW4ZhuQZtSpl79tEPEiPLAmW5aauDeLtwmOegz6p6jmXoRRfGoflZ3Kh435fhSALByBzhlMvQGVVdk5ty2v8YTgqadLG04t7G_RzgKPF7bfllDlW1LIBcMDApo-BTKXz7RFBeT_5W03cofpKnxZnH449OoY8u3hOEl/s640/b88107b7c9398113abd9f788bb48a435.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="640" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGjwWVLMt9NTGf6eRNvWTMBwsmPjW4ZhuQZtSpl79tEPEiPLAmW5aauDeLtwmOegz6p6jmXoRRfGoflZ3Kh435fhSALByBzhlMvQGVVdk5ty2v8YTgqadLG04t7G_RzgKPF7bfllDlW1LIBcMDApo-BTKXz7RFBeT_5W03cofpKnxZnH449OoY8u3hOEl/w386-h310/b88107b7c9398113abd9f788bb48a435.jpg" width="386" /></a></div>The narrative he's busy setting up almost sounds (and even reads) like the current internet phenomenon known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepypasta">Creepypasta</a>. In this case, it's the familiar setup where a group of ordinary travelers come upon what looks like an ordinary, if slightly used and rundown fun fair or the like, only to wind up discovering that the entire fairground amounts to its very own house of horrors. The basic concept may fit the description of a hoary old trope by this point, yet if it didn't still have some good levels of mileage left in it's gas tank, then audiences and artists wouldn't bother with coming back to have a drink from this particular well. It's the kind of scenario that the creator of the Dreaming seems to be both familiar with, and fond of, as well. You can tell Gaiman knows how to wind up this particular piece of literary watch work. The mechanism behind it may be as old as the hills (perhaps even as old as carnivals, in fact), yet the author knows that it can be dependable if you wind it up just right. Let's take, for instance, the way Gaiman describes the dank and dreary underground where the story takes place.<p></p><p>It's located somewhere "in the neighborhood of Southwark Cathedral (138)". And once the main cast is lead into the place where the carnival is setup for the night is when Gaiman knows it time to hit the switch that sets the clockwork behind his narrative in motion. Here is how he does it once the narrator has managed to get his bearings. "It smelled of wet bricks and of decay. I knew then where we were: there are networks of old cellars that run beneath some of the overground train tracks - vast, empty, linked rooms of various sizes and shapes. Some of them are used for storage by wine merchants and used-car sellers; some are squatted in, until the lack of light and facilities drives the squatters back into the daylight; most of them stand empty, waiting for the inevitable arrival of the wrecking ball and the open air and the time when all their secrets and mysteries will be no more (139 -140)".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5yHoDWjibAL4VxMzBrlODf3jA1PR4sEiSAqkur1vCnBqQ8eSQQZXJT1hWrD_p4hfLrnlYTL-slEEN1vDhewM0Ct4AhcismzyxuWvLeQSZYRzhQLy31kUaJJ4afFpttfa8dh2q519ffzy60B56Qh2qULEKYXLN0u0YrxD6NJc30-Aqx5ZQcefC_cZiH6D/s600/lf.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="600" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5yHoDWjibAL4VxMzBrlODf3jA1PR4sEiSAqkur1vCnBqQ8eSQQZXJT1hWrD_p4hfLrnlYTL-slEEN1vDhewM0Ct4AhcismzyxuWvLeQSZYRzhQLy31kUaJJ4afFpttfa8dh2q519ffzy60B56Qh2qULEKYXLN0u0YrxD6NJc30-Aqx5ZQcefC_cZiH6D/w640-h412/lf.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now that is a lot more like it. Not only does Gaiman manage to set the proper tone of lonely foreboding before any of the main action starts up. He's also able to do it in a way that both plays to his strengths, and utilizes the familiar terrain of this type of narrative to his own creative advantages. The astute reader can hear the familiar sound the plot's inner mechanism starting up, and getting ready to kick into high gear, and yet that's just fine. Welcome, in fact. It's okay if you can hear the gears of the story turning just off somewhere in the background or under our feet, because you can tell by the way it runs so smooth and fine, even after all these years, that all of that hoary old clockwork is in good hands. The stage is now more or less set. We have our cast, an event which looks thrown together, yet somehow conveys the sense that there is something more mysterious to it than appears on the surface. Most of all, we have just the right kind of setting for all of this to unfold in. The Theater of Night's Dreaming couldn't have chosen a better venue in which to showcase its secrets, and now Gaiman has us wondering the same question. What is waiting to come shambling out of the dark to confront us all.<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: A Good Place to Start.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwC_CxakpdyRKzIiOgwxsNnDpEJeYuTxaRfS8E2Eqf1r6qxvJpiuOXohwQ8Pv51JhYVcDTvEwzX5EB-U5ihuiibDnH-cGlHtwHKRr_CMqYnvyI2Dpj0W6jVyPcQwMMQfefoUb5OOaQcbuNvYCNBc4VoNmeAfP-jgMA31T1eXVfciGh2JYOHmWwB2rbJoyY/s530/9780061252020_1beaf925-de89-40f7-ac37-66e591c7bad0.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwC_CxakpdyRKzIiOgwxsNnDpEJeYuTxaRfS8E2Eqf1r6qxvJpiuOXohwQ8Pv51JhYVcDTvEwzX5EB-U5ihuiibDnH-cGlHtwHKRr_CMqYnvyI2Dpj0W6jVyPcQwMMQfefoUb5OOaQcbuNvYCNBc4VoNmeAfP-jgMA31T1eXVfciGh2JYOHmWwB2rbJoyY/s320/9780061252020_1beaf925-de89-40f7-ac37-66e591c7bad0.webp" width="211" /></a></div>Like I said, the formula that Gaiman has to work with here is by now so familiar that it qualifies as something of a modern, expected trope. What's interesting about it is that if you go through the back pages of literature, you'll discover that the author of the Dream Family might also be dealing one of those almost folkloric creative ideas with a surprising amount of literary pedigree to them. The imaginative concept of the "Freaky Attraction", either a ride or else an entire carnival that serves as the haunt of some particular horror lurking behind the scenes, has now become one of the most familiar types of artistic currency within the modern Gothic genre. In fact, it seems to have held on long enough to the point where it's most famous iterations right now seem to be in the realms of Creepypastas <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgfGSccYi9E&ab_ch">Whimsywood</a></i>, <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y3cLSTqSCU&t=101s&ab_channel=FreakyAttractions">Abandoned by Disney</a></i>, or the undeniable popularity of the <i>Five Nights at Freddy's</i> franchise. The thing is, if this is an example of a particular type of story setup persisting for so long through the passing of not just years, but seeming centuries, then where does it all come from?<p></p><p>If you should ever get the urge (this is something that applies to bookworms and English Majors, for the most part; strictly a hobby for enthusiasts, in other words) to try and hunt down the possible origin source for the the idea of the Haunted Amusement Park/Ride, then it's surprising what just a little digging can turn up. It's probably one of those creative concepts whose true source, or wellspring is libel to vanish into history's dark abysm of time. Something who's literary roots go so far underground that it's at a point beyond the reach of excavation. If I had to take as educated a guess as I can muster. The whole idea probably began to take a more familiar shape sometime around the Middle Ages, and perhaps even further back than that. Though it's impossible to say what kind of form this story idea would have taken in a time before humans learned how to conceive the very notion of a carnival.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOodLkzi_nwWSpwSSP2DYcN4HUxOY5LEu50arloba1r_Y8fBZxaaKrAHrLd4aMG3i2Yhllq10F-9PWqGX-Uxa9IqcE3uDufdnvaMe6pp4bCZg4y4QIjiZ0fZDz9y-Xi1fICwEgwWd77GHR9syxXgKNsCQH5DRKl2PoLFLeyWXLzq4LlaWvpJNq6YzETx1T/s1200/180236.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOodLkzi_nwWSpwSSP2DYcN4HUxOY5LEu50arloba1r_Y8fBZxaaKrAHrLd4aMG3i2Yhllq10F-9PWqGX-Uxa9IqcE3uDufdnvaMe6pp4bCZg4y4QIjiZ0fZDz9y-Xi1fICwEgwWd77GHR9syxXgKNsCQH5DRKl2PoLFLeyWXLzq4LlaWvpJNq6YzETx1T/w640-h426/180236.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />As best I can tell, it's at or around the era of Chaucer and the Gawain Poet where the most likely "modern" face of the concept began to take its familiar shape. It's the setup of a traveling fair making its way through the countryside, hawking its wares, shows, and exhibitions for nothing more than the seeming amusement of whatever village or town it passes through. In the medieval variant of this idea, the carnival would sooner or later be revealed as a literal conceit of the devil, or one of his minions as they make their way through the world, on a never-ending tour of "soul harvesting". The scenario becomes pretty familiar by this point. The carnival sets up shop in its newest locale. All the villagers flock to see the newest attraction and are enchanted, at first, by the skills of the actors, tumblers, and magicians. Because this is back when we all lived in the forest, and no one could ever live anywhere else, such chance encounters were likely to be the closest thing to novelty that a simple peasant life could hope to expect. At least that's how it starts out, anyway. It doesn't take long, however, for this sort of narrative to have a much darker turn. It happens in slow-building fits, glances, and starts.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigIWRuOLtCzBQ0Yd5OTQAye4mtvhfdQQLcbcUQBhRF80zRCQPRrB0GyulKIVaUCoUhw43j0r36sA-dc5UgTa7Xf6bg4alOIZ_j5XTPZn9khuJIq4C7ePMp0ETJTtZDnmXWo9K3-4501i_i-XK1kANkyhjckNAKuVmluL4RjbEBF6vUk16eambE9t-usx0r/s1829/the-tragical-history-of-doctor-faustus-30.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1829" data-original-width="1200" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigIWRuOLtCzBQ0Yd5OTQAye4mtvhfdQQLcbcUQBhRF80zRCQPRrB0GyulKIVaUCoUhw43j0r36sA-dc5UgTa7Xf6bg4alOIZ_j5XTPZn9khuJIq4C7ePMp0ETJTtZDnmXWo9K3-4501i_i-XK1kANkyhjckNAKuVmluL4RjbEBF6vUk16eambE9t-usx0r/w135-h206/the-tragical-history-of-doctor-faustus-30.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>First it'll be something innocuous like strange noises in the night. Maybe the local town drunkard will claim to have seen something that's driven him mad. From there, events escalate. The noises get more loud and violent, the people of the village wake up one morning to discover signs of mysterious activity left all over the town and its surroundings. Such as strange footprints on the roof that look like they were made by goats or pigs. Or else a local farmer will discover his crops have been trampled into eerie, ritualistic sigils. It doesn't stop there, however. The next time, this same farmer goes to tend his livestock, only to come upon the mutilated remains of his cows. Then the final straw is added, as people in the village start to go missing, and pretty soon more bloodied remains are found, this time with tell-tale signs that they are, or at least they once belonged to living, breathing human beings.<p></p><p>At last, the villagers put two and two together; anger and wrath grows. The townsfolk descend on the recently arrived carnival as they realize it is the source of all their troubles. Once they get there is when the true pyrotechnic showdown occurs, and the true, dark nature of the traveling fair is unmasked at last. It's the point at which the narrative brings out the works. This type of setup would end with fire and thunder, and the next morning would dawn on either an empty town which has either been reduced to ashes, or in which every dwelling remains intact, except that all of the villagers have vanished into thin air. It's through the mental spinning of such imaginative webs, or scenarios like the one I've just outlined that seems the closest bet for how we've wound up with the notion of the Haunted Carnival.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDG_teRgAEyoWfekR_LyLsA0KFCHwj_-AfiFk6-IKsSO1nWMF_hf3nrbc9zBMushR1Fq74oyJEBZ84x-M7KjW-nrmazjXXHPh9Ndlu5e-_4zCj4e_bus5PLtzWeFKVNOFpfP83y6MGVdF6NOWhx02lO5F8j1o5ce9TKzmq9jOo3GdxTZ_jzULeQuaw1i3/s899/Count-Alessandro-di-Cagliostro-Giuseppe-Balsamo-1743-1795-Egyptian-Rite-Freemasonry-Occult-by-Travis-Simpkins-the-last-alchemist.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="899" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDG_teRgAEyoWfekR_LyLsA0KFCHwj_-AfiFk6-IKsSO1nWMF_hf3nrbc9zBMushR1Fq74oyJEBZ84x-M7KjW-nrmazjXXHPh9Ndlu5e-_4zCj4e_bus5PLtzWeFKVNOFpfP83y6MGVdF6NOWhx02lO5F8j1o5ce9TKzmq9jOo3GdxTZ_jzULeQuaw1i3/w640-h490/Count-Alessandro-di-Cagliostro-Giuseppe-Balsamo-1743-1795-Egyptian-Rite-Freemasonry-Occult-by-Travis-Simpkins-the-last-alchemist.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's beginnings are out there, somewhere, in the mists of folklore. However, with the advent of books and the printing press, it's no surprise that the Freaky Attraction trope sooner or later made its way into literature proper. It may be possible to point to fictional characters such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust">Dr. Johannes Faustus</a>, or <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8_gH6IqCoNIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=cagliostro&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwieyujXxLuBAxWJlGoFHeJNBxgQ6AF6BAgNEAI#v=onepage&q=cagliostro&f=false">the enigmatic figure known simply as Cagliostro</a> as two literary creations that more or less helped add fuel to the trope of the wicked carnival. At the very least, it's easy see how the infamous renown of either character could have metamorphosed over time into the kind of twisted ringmasters who preside over these devious cabinets of curiosities. There's a bit more tell about the slow development of this particular Gothic notion, however it's not extensive beyond a certain point. It seems like the first major development of the fairground of otherworldly enchantments got its first modern creative expression somewhere in 1935. With the publication of Charles G. Finney's <i>The Circus of Dr. Lao</i>. Much like Gaiman's narrative of the Theater of Night's Dreaming, Finney's work seems to operate either a very similar, or else the exact same basic conceit. Each example relates what happens when a group of thrill seekers spend a night on the town taking in the sights and sounds of a fantastic traveling menagerie.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Y4KdH6b6LeVC_KKbABFpzY-JxZSnt_LuY6aKQ6FxfkyaAe4K-p7q5uyI9VR50pJFcyAwM7ZFCrwfbc35WvwSk8n5A7UZY--5hscmHzw-F378_711j6LoK08v8NFyWbpjA8w6hgEGbLRIHWX5bZWUTW1gBVFocqzzfLWSLO4DHcRrRNb-4D0bafjJCp_U/s1000/51m10gx3aFL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="716" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Y4KdH6b6LeVC_KKbABFpzY-JxZSnt_LuY6aKQ6FxfkyaAe4K-p7q5uyI9VR50pJFcyAwM7ZFCrwfbc35WvwSk8n5A7UZY--5hscmHzw-F378_711j6LoK08v8NFyWbpjA8w6hgEGbLRIHWX5bZWUTW1gBVFocqzzfLWSLO4DHcRrRNb-4D0bafjJCp_U/s320/51m10gx3aFL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="229" /></a></div>All that Finney does is take things to a novel length extent, and broaden the scope into an even more ambiguous realm of make-believe. Gaiman's canvas may be much smaller than Finney's yet that's not meant as a sleight of any kind. Each accomplishes their respective goals with the canvas they're given. Finney just seems to have been the first artist to give the fantasy carnival it's first major sense of identity. However, with that said, while Finney be accurately described as the one who created a space for the fantasy traveling fair, he is far from being the writer who has given it its permanent modern stamp. That honor belongs to some hayseed from Illinois, who goes by the name of Ray Bradbury. He's the one who seems mainly responsible for the idea of the <i>Dark Carnival</i> as we've come to know it. In both a collection of short stories gathered together under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Carnival_(short_story_collection)">a book of the same name</a>, along with later iterations found in <i>The October Country</i>, Bradbury seems to have found the definitive artistic expression of this trope, and all of it reached its apotheosis in <i>Something Wicked This Way Comes</i>.<p></p><p>What's interesting about all this in terms of Gaiman's story is that it seems as if the author of "Miss Finch" is well aware of this history of the trope he has to work with. With this in mind, it almost reads like Gaiman was having fun trying to find ways of playing with this idea. The Theater of Night's Dreaming is clearly Finney's <i>Circus of Dr. Lao</i>, or Bradbury's traveling Shadow Show under a different guise and nationality. However, because the writer seems aware of the storied history of the trope he's working with, he kind of decides to play around with the formula that comes with it. In all of its earlier iterations, the Dark Carnival is always portrayed as this assorted menagerie of fantastical characters, each with their own twisted histories and menaces. It's clear the main cast in each of these stories is facing off against a very competent threat. Here, however, they're portrayed almost as if they were inept. We don't get the sense that we're dealing with the spirits of lost souls, demons from the underworld, or even fantastical creatures who have banded together to cause mischief. Instead, it's like the British equivalent of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Original_Amateur_Hour">Ted Mack's <i>Amateur Hour</i></a>. Rather than presenting the circus folk as clear, non-human beings in the thinnest of masks, the story goes out of its way to show their incompetence.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw02yzBbg3uZqnPjXN8Mr0uIBcfE7jYsFrDL9bBpo5hiOsLTjLev9eDd_k__bGbLH-2KTH_SzQBJVD5pJUTWO2mzYOZkheabVfFfJKG884x5aw6U8c9yF6KfvAGdNriQ-4Pfmg2oprhQ6yXkMG2po0Pwy3quk1lHyacxsWyMfMRSnxrfWQYbX0G7xU8NAj/s1200/F3AfK0bXUAAe73W.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="1200" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw02yzBbg3uZqnPjXN8Mr0uIBcfE7jYsFrDL9bBpo5hiOsLTjLev9eDd_k__bGbLH-2KTH_SzQBJVD5pJUTWO2mzYOZkheabVfFfJKG884x5aw6U8c9yF6KfvAGdNriQ-4Pfmg2oprhQ6yXkMG2po0Pwy3quk1lHyacxsWyMfMRSnxrfWQYbX0G7xU8NAj/w640-h302/F3AfK0bXUAAe73W.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />There's even a nice bit of narrative self-awareness to the whole thing in the way the story both sets up, lamp-shades, and then neatly undercuts its own history. Once the main action gets going, the rest of the story is a tour through ten "rooms" hidden away beneath the surface of London. It's a subtle Gothic touch, combined with a clever reshuffling of the layout and pattern of descent in Dante's <i>Inferno</i>. And yet here's how the story satirizes its own main trope. One room has,"a smiling blond woman wearing a spangled bikini, with needle tracks down her arms...chained by a hunchback and Uncle Fester to a large wheel...and a fat man in a red cardinal's costume threw knives at the woman, outlining her body (141)". There's a bit more bit of business to the routine in this first room, however you've just heard the basic gist of all there is. Another chamber features an actor dressed up as the Frankenstein Monster.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWul_c5ESdVXrfzd413XvhgD-HrT5PtFdjmxwkrcP_zDu7KJ5zrjZRPopvrPkYX5Brle4mO3YXMjSN5--Aegs9O1THdGG-qbQAZ_X5HedGr68WNPAB5PxXo68bkJQHYErXZWPtgKFuvE1riec75XtbABZ9kUq1-RfUiMzIk_qA_ANXn3In6GTp8ifgxrir/s390/Sandman_no.1_(Modern_Age).comiccover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="255" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWul_c5ESdVXrfzd413XvhgD-HrT5PtFdjmxwkrcP_zDu7KJ5zrjZRPopvrPkYX5Brle4mO3YXMjSN5--Aegs9O1THdGG-qbQAZ_X5HedGr68WNPAB5PxXo68bkJQHYErXZWPtgKFuvE1riec75XtbABZ9kUq1-RfUiMzIk_qA_ANXn3In6GTp8ifgxrir/w179-h274/Sandman_no.1_(Modern_Age).comiccover.jpg" width="179" /></a></div>The whole routine here is little more than a weight lift display. "The Frankenstein's monster makeup was less than convincing", we're told, "but the Creature lifted a stone block with fat Uncle Fester sitting on it and he held back" a dune buggy being driven by a girl made up to look like your typical Goth vampire, and all with one hand. "For his piece de resistance he blew up a hot water bottle, then popped it. "Roll on the sushi, I muttered to Jonathan (142)". The narrator's comment is a good single sentence description of the what spectacle seems destined to be like. The fact that he can't even be bothered to make the comment about the quality of evening's entertainment is sort of all the reader needs to know about what the nameless protagonist thinks about it. Still, it's not that bad. There are one or two moments where it seems as if the carnival folk know what they're doing, such as the surprise that awaits the audience in the "Theater's" third display room. All of which begins in a state of utter darkness.<p></p><p>"The room buzzed at the corners of vision with the blue-purple of ultraviolet light. Teeth and shirts and flecks of lint began to glow in the darkness. A low, throbbing music began. We looked up to see, high above us, a skeleton, an alien, a werewolf, and an angel. Their costumes fluoresced in the UV, and they glowed like old dreams...on trapezes. They swung back and forth, in time with the music...We realized that they were attached to the roof by rubber cords, invisible in the darkness, and they bounced and dove and swam through the air above us while we clapped and...watched in happy silence (ibid)". </p><p>The truth, however, is that such moments are the exception, instead of the rule for the evening. By and large, the whole affair comes off like the act of a group of college level novices whose ideas about theater and performance art is too vague and derivative to be of use to anyone, even as mere rehearsal exercises for a real show. The punchline, of course, is that the entire joke plays out within the confines of the same, familiar carnival trope that Bradbury made famous. Nor is this in any way out of the norm for Gaiman. If it makes any sense at all to call him something of an inheritor of a lot of older fantasy tropes, then one of the things that marks his art out as unique is the way he presents it in the vast majority of his writings. One of Gaiman's most interesting skills is the ability he has of often bringing the fantastic down to life size, while somehow always managing to never really diminish it. If a lot of his characters are figures straight out of myth, then the author tends to make sure that they never lose that older sense of epic grandeur. Instead, Gaiman seems to like showing how the ways of the modern age has begun to take it's tole on the classic archetypal characters of fairy tales from bygone days.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Rk3KeX4RxhAK1oVFDoeqA5YlclJpmdhS3lthdiD6ThVwSj2MWUn_2FULDBGwP7yz0SjWYByKkrrULMXvHsi1HWQsVylcHXKGPRE5Jw8cr0dDUutYcefx5a7J11H_g8Ae2BK9YDqBtI3pjQpzhLYfrFTa72uy_DGJS8oA5eulfmm3OpijKdnrHR6aXgLb/s1526/Screenshot-2019-02-14-at-01.26.05.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="1526" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Rk3KeX4RxhAK1oVFDoeqA5YlclJpmdhS3lthdiD6ThVwSj2MWUn_2FULDBGwP7yz0SjWYByKkrrULMXvHsi1HWQsVylcHXKGPRE5Jw8cr0dDUutYcefx5a7J11H_g8Ae2BK9YDqBtI3pjQpzhLYfrFTa72uy_DGJS8oA5eulfmm3OpijKdnrHR6aXgLb/w640-h250/Screenshot-2019-02-14-at-01.26.05.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />This conceit of a myth brought low is one that continues to fascinate Gaiman as a myth maker. Hence, you'll find Sir Galahad getting stuck out in the modern English countryside as he looks for the Grail. Or else an average, slightly tired looking, yet still attractive young girl reveals herself to be a variation of the Fair Folk. It's just that these days she's having to struggle along economically, just like the rest of us mere mortals. It doesn't do much for her disposition, that's for sure. Yet the curious thing about this repeated narrative strategy is how Gaiman never really lets these figures ever lose sight or hold of their ancient, mythical dignity. Whenever the situation gets real serious, or else these characters feel like the it's right to assert the old powers, whether just for themselves, or often to help out another, then when the time comes for these displaced myths to display their full glory, Gaiman shows no hesitation in switching at the drop of a hat from his typical sardonic musings right back into a tone more accustomed in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, or the like. It's become one of the most notable, quirky, and yet somehow endearing, and most successful and identifiable aspects of all his work up to this date.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOqZl5ZJmbzxFSfFHmbipP0knYMHFqLHsmxXOBeVAPQTnto7Ob29Z6X9pUImuvdX1xpYtJt8rz0NyXFnPkuHLU1PGKI-qHTGy-sEn8OfHWEL93piERdX6pq9Gjvbd2AQjTVsSKTOhy7uIKkZHBoogJsrc3MC-BX83VUk1H0IwN5tMai4iFnh_I70VxYpB/s1500/il_fullxfull.583885977_i7c0.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1071" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOqZl5ZJmbzxFSfFHmbipP0knYMHFqLHsmxXOBeVAPQTnto7Ob29Z6X9pUImuvdX1xpYtJt8rz0NyXFnPkuHLU1PGKI-qHTGy-sEn8OfHWEL93piERdX6pq9Gjvbd2AQjTVsSKTOhy7uIKkZHBoogJsrc3MC-BX83VUk1H0IwN5tMai4iFnh_I70VxYpB/s320/il_fullxfull.583885977_i7c0.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>This also turns out to be the gimmick at play in the Theater of Night's Dreaming. Bradbury's "October People" have definitely fallen on hard times, yet they are still capable of a trick or two up the sleeve. This time, it comes in the form of the titular Miss Finch. It all goes back to what I said about that flicker of unconventionality that seems to run through her character. Like an underground stream whose current is still audible, faint, yet steady underneath the surface of an otherwise impregnable mountain. It's a clue to the secret heart of where this character lives, and at one point, she lets her guard down just a bit to the narrator. In doing so, she also reaches the heart of Gaiman's narrative.<p></p><p>This happens in the Theater's Fifth Room, which is really a break and rest stop area in the middle of all the other "attractions", complete with concession stands serving drinks, souvenir booths, and lavatories. While Jonathan avails himself of the latter, and Jane goes to get everyone something for the former, the narrator is left having to babysit Miss Finch, and winds up making an interesting discovery about the "Guest of the Evening"."So," I said, "I understand you've not been back in England long." "I've been in Komodo," she told me, "Studying the dragons. Do you know why they grow so big?" "Er..." "They adapted to prey upon the pygmy elephants?" I was interested. This was much more fun than being lectured on sushi flukes (143-44)". It's not just the first interesting turn of events, so far. It's also the first time we the glacial implacability of the title character begin to soften. "As Miss Finch talked her face became more animated, and I found myself warming to her as she explained why and how some animals grew while others shrank (144)". Then comes the remark that kicks off the finale.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjolxOdmwTJgcF-HbnN9gUer10Z8Ls1robJPUspST467R5QMM93EIpRQ2igaWkzXWbRvrBtt3ag4vAXiO_Ut_ePIHw6aq7q-VQ3Yjq3HhFmMmi3asvitv5bUiixkd5993cOhv5mcBiWNFtzvdxnAb06B00z1e0KWCPgSH3XKxOowgHSi2j9tl6p7h7kdw_F/s1200/medieval_illustration_ato_logo.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjolxOdmwTJgcF-HbnN9gUer10Z8Ls1robJPUspST467R5QMM93EIpRQ2igaWkzXWbRvrBtt3ag4vAXiO_Ut_ePIHw6aq7q-VQ3Yjq3HhFmMmi3asvitv5bUiixkd5993cOhv5mcBiWNFtzvdxnAb06B00z1e0KWCPgSH3XKxOowgHSi2j9tl6p7h7kdw_F/w640-h360/medieval_illustration_ato_logo.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's more like a number of interesting facts that Miss Finch rolls off about her favorite subject, really. Turns out she's a bit of a geek girl when it comes to the prehistoric past of this planet, and all the curious, ancient wildlife that sounds fantastical on paper, and even still looks that way when their bones and remains are displayed in museums. However, they're still true for all that. Perhaps it's all in the way they were made. There's something about dinosaur, mammoth, and saber tooth bones that always strikes one as a bit fanciful. They are (or were) real creatures who always look like they shouldn't be. Perhaps its in the way their basic shapes put us in mind of the type of creatures you can only expect to see on the other side of a Wardrobe door. And even then, you'd only expect such a land to exist solely within the pages of a book, or as film set for either the big or small screen. That's the funny thing about prehistory, when you think about it. If you look at the fossil record long enough, you can perhaps begin to understand why our ancestors once believed dragons and manticores used to walk upon the Earth.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vPCxj3dNIvsQ5fsXwEuQPgr68-lmWXvyNLlKl_IczlaauFJuFR11lkJOezQWpMeWd4p5P0x-lIGHdJ-vECZvzWg5CKmoNVDXVZjcjdZ7Dci_FNJeirVbH4eNgCowZRdCcZPLVIjc9FWX9-nEAgxO4s8S5M6ZoGSG6vTj9-VNcGTLiyMY21fu9J1iLve4/s500/9780060934705-us.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vPCxj3dNIvsQ5fsXwEuQPgr68-lmWXvyNLlKl_IczlaauFJuFR11lkJOezQWpMeWd4p5P0x-lIGHdJ-vECZvzWg5CKmoNVDXVZjcjdZ7Dci_FNJeirVbH4eNgCowZRdCcZPLVIjc9FWX9-nEAgxO4s8S5M6ZoGSG6vTj9-VNcGTLiyMY21fu9J1iLve4/s320/9780060934705-us.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>This at least seems to be the underlying idea animating Miss Finch's train of thought as she rattles off a number of quaint and curious forgotten lore about these ancient animals. Such as how the "last aepyornises were killed off by Portuguese sailors on Madagascar about three hundred years ago. And there are fairly reliable accounts of a pygmy mammoth being presented at the Russian court in the sixteenth century, and a band of something which from the descriptions we have were almost definitely some kind of saber-tooth - the Smilodon - brought in from North Africa by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespasian">Vespasian</a> to die in the circus. So these things aren't all prehistoric. Often they're historic (144-45)". It's then that Jane asks Miss Finch the crucial question that sets up the ending. Whether she believes there could still be such animals roaming around out there? "I wish with all my heart that there were some left today. But there aren't. We know the world too well (145)". I think that's got to be the most significant line in the entire story. It's the first genuinely Romantic statement that the title character has ever spoken in the drama.<p></p><p>It may also prove to be significant in what happens next. Over the loud-speaker, a voice from the Midnight Carnival chimes in with a peculiar announcement. Almost as if the shadow's were lying in wait for someone in the audience to make such a remark,"the lights were flicked on and off, and a ghastly, disembodied voice told us to walk to the next room, that the latter half of the show was not for the faint of heart, and that later tonight, for one night only, the Theater of Night's Dreaming would be proud to present the Cabinet of Wishes Fulfill'd (ibid)". What happens next is best left for the reader to discover for themselves. I'll just say here that it does involve Miss Finch. Whether or not her own wishes are fulfilled is something others will have to make up their minds about. Beyond this, what I can say for sure is that not only is this story entertaining, it's also a good place to start with Gaiman's fiction.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xvElYddGu26j2JObg5a_agJAN5LuyLOmvLN8AaHcMm3aXPErHOKgbvgxydcbbKM7cF7wyXs375l2SxTjygfrITf3iFc8hLC_EGxae3WpU6bwG_ihU7qss8PNgyePc2QG1XT1vkeW9jbIS6SA67iz4bywUP8cdjKN3e-ylwt2ZcS9FDbA059J9Dheuk0Z/s560/abandoned_merry_go_round_by_concept_art_house_d1is868-350t.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="560" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xvElYddGu26j2JObg5a_agJAN5LuyLOmvLN8AaHcMm3aXPErHOKgbvgxydcbbKM7cF7wyXs375l2SxTjygfrITf3iFc8hLC_EGxae3WpU6bwG_ihU7qss8PNgyePc2QG1XT1vkeW9jbIS6SA67iz4bywUP8cdjKN3e-ylwt2ZcS9FDbA059J9Dheuk0Z/w640-h400/abandoned_merry_go_round_by_concept_art_house_d1is868-350t.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Like I've said before, sometimes when an artist is able to carve out as big a name for themselves like the author of <i>Sandman</i>, one of the potential pitfalls is how sometimes you're best work is what gets you pigeonholed by audience expectations. It's happened countless of times, and not just in the field of literature. These days, Steven Spielberg is probably just that <i>Indiana Jones</i> guy. Didn't he also do a film about a little alien, or something like it? Likewise, all people seem to remember Stephen King for is <i>The Shining</i> and <i>The Stand</i>. Trick question: are those two books, or films? That seems to be the current extent of pop culture awareness at the moment, and it's something I've begun to find myself kind of fighting against. It makes no sense to me that an artist as talented as Gaiman can spend a lifetime churning out one great book after another, and yet the vast majority will turn right around and focusing in on just one or two of his offerings, and leave it at that. What's galling about such rush judgements is the implicit statement that the author has never done anything else of value. With all due respect, that's an absolute garbage take, and it's also one of the reasons why this blog even exists.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN2JnzvGFdBwZOjEV0a4AELACKMps5qp9_ZnH534yA72DOblAK_WL6fGBV8UKDn0mjta1CmJOVMiNPR-Qg0gOCZHX_E7T8dcDAPK90xCSzHwTfxTXbvALw8ior4RDuzoa6HQMtOC7jlKeOurr0O4uUTvyRPImfgB_j-tIf5xbItqeLiwCfw-U1nN9UfNxL/s986/a80106_30487c01e451431eae3d22315fdbd4cc~mv2.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="986" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN2JnzvGFdBwZOjEV0a4AELACKMps5qp9_ZnH534yA72DOblAK_WL6fGBV8UKDn0mjta1CmJOVMiNPR-Qg0gOCZHX_E7T8dcDAPK90xCSzHwTfxTXbvALw8ior4RDuzoa6HQMtOC7jlKeOurr0O4uUTvyRPImfgB_j-tIf5xbItqeLiwCfw-U1nN9UfNxL/s320/a80106_30487c01e451431eae3d22315fdbd4cc~mv2.webp" width="208" /></a></div>If I can wake up at least a goodish enough number faces in the crowd to the availability and sometimes even the artistry of obscure works like this, then I'll consider that time well spent. When it comes to a story like "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch, what the author has done amounts to little more than providing his readers with a genuine favor. This is one of those neat little pulp magazine style stories whose ease and accessibility serves as the best possible introduction to the literary career of Neil Gaiman. The whole thing acts as a catalogue of many of the tropes that the author has gone on to utilize in most of his other fiction. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable aspect of the story is its ability to both portray and enter into the realm of what is (or used to be) the modern Goth culture. This may or might not be an aspect that dates the story. Such things like this always depend on what is considered the major cultural trend. However, what can't be denied is that it was this initial engagement with the sort of Goth Punk culture of the 80s that lent Gaiman his start.<p></p><p>He seems to have been the first writer to directly engage with this cultural sub-set in a way that made clear he at least understood both its language and its own terms in a way that was, at the very least, somewhat empathic. As a result, it was kind of no surprise that this was the first major audience for his stories, and they helped launch the writer onto the public stage. "Miss Finch" sees Gaiman returning to that well, and putting it to good use, along with the story's other elements. Another one of these is the modern day setting which looks normal on the surface. While the always implied truth is that it acts as the thinnest veneer over a far greater, enchanted reality. This has become perhaps the most common setup in modern fantastic fiction, going perhaps as far back as the Victorian era, and it makes Gaiman something of an inheritor. He was never the first to play this particular tune (that honor goes to the likes of Ray Bradbury, Edith Nesbit, and perhaps even Charles Dickens), yet the good news is that Gaiman has proven himself time and again to be a worthy heir, and this trope seems to be his home.</p><p>That's certainly the case with the tale of the Theater of Night's Dreaming. It's the kind of place that looks like a dilapidated, rundown and worn out idea. The truth, however, is that Gaiman's skill in illustrating this setting and its cast shows not just how well aware the writer is with the trope he's using, but also just how much fun he's having in using it to play his style of conjuring trick on the audience. While the Night's Dreaming show might seem like the work of a bunch of amateurs with little talent, and not much promise at first glance, when it comes time for the story to pull off it's final magic trick, it does so with a confidence and craft that is seamless. When this happens, the reader starts to realize what sort of game is being played here, and this is the final element in the story of Miss Finch. The truth is we've been guests of the same Midnight Carnival that folks like Bradbury and maybe even Christopher Marlowe wrote about as far back as the age of Queen Elizabeth. Much like its earlier incarnations, the final trick of Gaiman's Theater of Night's Dreaming is one that momentarily pulls aside the veil of the everyday to show the greater reality lying in wait underneath. It's one that goes all the way back into prehistoric times, when great beasts, and other <i>things</i> used to walk the Earth. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8RxcW2bKRKvF_X8czCiaSbewrNGbE6HqKUADJ1lQa9SQrxgbHjVvHBFceFqFAp5RyQuDoqevEb29KAapmT1QdL07BhickZc5ucwT279Kw_gbsbcM12CyeIYXp0Nrbu_y-pPAcrmU345jQgBW1iX-AVS2jQQf5XuVI62udTbOWXA-s5PXJ8iDO58JBo-fa/s706/2f58f9ade04dd8b9cce9dade9a934c61.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="706" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8RxcW2bKRKvF_X8czCiaSbewrNGbE6HqKUADJ1lQa9SQrxgbHjVvHBFceFqFAp5RyQuDoqevEb29KAapmT1QdL07BhickZc5ucwT279Kw_gbsbcM12CyeIYXp0Nrbu_y-pPAcrmU345jQgBW1iX-AVS2jQQf5XuVI62udTbOWXA-s5PXJ8iDO58JBo-fa/w640-h446/2f58f9ade04dd8b9cce9dade9a934c61.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Like I said, this is the kind of narrative that showcases the writer playing to all of his strengths. In this short story, it's as if Gaiman has found the perfect way to showcase these elements in an introductory primer fashion. I suppose that's the best reason I have for saying this is probably the closest candidate I'll ever have for the best place to introduce new readers to the <i>Sandman's</i> creator. It features a nice beginner's entre of the writer's style, main tropes, and just the first hint of one of his main themes. It's a mistake, of course, to claim that this is all or the only type of way that Gaiman writers any of his stories. There's a lot more to this writer's secondary worlds than just Goth characters, and a riff on Bradbury's <i>Dark Carnival</i>. If that were the case (if the author really was just a one trick pony, in other words) then the variety, and inspirations in all of his work wouldn't have managed to capture the imaginations of several generations of readers, with no signs of that momentum slowing down anytime soon. Instead "The Facts in the Case of Miss Finch" works as a good way to start with Neil Gaiman. <br /><p></p><p> <br /></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-48476073041637358642023-09-10T00:59:00.001-05:002023-09-10T01:02:34.003-05:00The Black Phone (2021).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipvol0qnVeFNmGPDaQru62-OZirdAmdVTcX_o396Gb5dUbxs2NaGNWzaIYSBCYWq6QTWj-I9EyGJmgxv6mLyozOWeu3pE_957aRlcbq_nmT9tsRdXN4IY6Ahrv3jZGfUl363R10ccOGNy9Kq0DIHJgnh_Puld84fgcFJLLbg93141k39AV0RfLzNIzp7EJ/s1066/MV5BNjAwZTEyNzItYWJmZC00ZDU3LTk2NWYtNjNmNDlmYzEwNWEzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTMzODk3NDU0._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipvol0qnVeFNmGPDaQru62-OZirdAmdVTcX_o396Gb5dUbxs2NaGNWzaIYSBCYWq6QTWj-I9EyGJmgxv6mLyozOWeu3pE_957aRlcbq_nmT9tsRdXN4IY6Ahrv3jZGfUl363R10ccOGNy9Kq0DIHJgnh_Puld84fgcFJLLbg93141k39AV0RfLzNIzp7EJ/s320/MV5BNjAwZTEyNzItYWJmZC00ZDU3LTk2NWYtNjNmNDlmYzEwNWEzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTMzODk3NDU0._V1_.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>What's the best way to tell a Horror story? It's a question I haven't asked before, thought it's probably something that a lot of hard core enthusiasts of the genre might wonder about. I think I should clarify here that when I bring this up this idea, I'm not asking what is the best work of fiction ever written within the Horror genre. Nor am I trying to set down anything like a definitive "method" by which all such works must be composed. That kind of notion is easily disproven by common, everyday creative practice. Instead, I guess what I'm really concerned with is trying to figure out at what point does the Tale of Terror stop being effective, and risk the danger of drifting into the realms of, maybe not the unbearable or purely tasteless. Gothic fiction, after all, is the kind genre that sort of relies on a sense of bad taste in order to get its effect across. As Stephen King points out in his near text-book quality study, <i>Danse Macabre</i>: "The work of horror is not interested in the civilized furniture of our lives.<p></p><p>"Such a work dances through these rooms which we have fitted out one piece at a time, each piece expressing - we hope - our socially acceptable and pleasantly enlightened character. It is in search of another place, a room which may sometimes resemble the secret den of a Victorian gentlemen, sometimes the torture chamber of the Spanish Inquisition...but perhaps most frequently and most successfully, the simple and brutally plain hole of a Stone Age cave dweller (4)". King then asks a very important question. "Is horror art? On this second level, the work of horror can be nothing else; it achieves the level of art simply because it is looking for something beyond art, something that predates art: it is looking for what I would call phobic pressure points. The good horror tale will dance its way to the center of your life and find the secret door to the room you believed one but you knew of - as both Albert Camus and Billy Joel have pointed out. The Stranger makes us nervous...but we love to try on his face in secret (ibid)". It helps to notice where King is going with this particular notion of his.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbDJ5Hh5KdpBlHmVf2CnE2a-LX-KUVlIK6EEBUn_5DIcL2Uma2URG1nfcLFrrD0vIB8ljoXzAYNltoSjndaKyY4up5ZiGJjRoET7ba4iBLjt0FjjVNheIq2L2RG_RtE8EMIhEo_SQhM4iz5UGDMIPW52_wVRnSUaY_NTBMrWKZ5wfPu4k-DNuh7j86zVi/s2000/1120996.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbDJ5Hh5KdpBlHmVf2CnE2a-LX-KUVlIK6EEBUn_5DIcL2Uma2URG1nfcLFrrD0vIB8ljoXzAYNltoSjndaKyY4up5ZiGJjRoET7ba4iBLjt0FjjVNheIq2L2RG_RtE8EMIhEo_SQhM4iz5UGDMIPW52_wVRnSUaY_NTBMrWKZ5wfPu4k-DNuh7j86zVi/w640-h360/1120996.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />As I've said above, he's not about to dictate what the writer of modern Gothic fiction <i>can</i> or <i>should</i> write. However, I think it is possible to claim that what he does with <i>Danse Macabre</i> as a whole is to plant a flag, of sorts. The whole study text serves as an illustration of what the Horror story is like <i>at its best</i>. This is what King seems to mean by saying that the genre can achieve a level of artfulness that is often denied by the mainstream critics, even to this very day, after all the years since <i>Macabre</i> was published. A lot of it is down to pure snobbery. Even at it's best, the Terror Tale is always going to be the black sheep of genre fiction. Another reason for it, however, might be down to a sense of unnecessary overindulgence. Here's what I mean. For the longest time now, I've been convinced that the worst thing to ever happen to the Horror genre was also its greatest moment of triumph. The genre experienced a kind of mixed blessing renaissance during the 1980s. It was something that happened in the wake of a string of blockbuster performances at the box office during the 60s and 70s. It started with Hitchcock's <i>Psycho</i> in 1960, and John Carpenter's <i>Halloween</i> is what took it all mainstream.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLPyyQuaqH96JegWGRemXlFuzMj05XZbOjFXJw43KDwhAxaXW1-lAYo6NAWoC5Ww8YS8W87YVVvnvmtckafmHKTEqCt2qwL-QeIZnqHJjzcMhYAgarRrw-C73a6PaVmh1Um7NeDYLKkKlCN6EAN9SXdWQ5T9SOWIaFbWeBM10cnW9X-d5dNiAuPRpARQPH/s384/Halloween_(1978)_theatrical_poster.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="259" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLPyyQuaqH96JegWGRemXlFuzMj05XZbOjFXJw43KDwhAxaXW1-lAYo6NAWoC5Ww8YS8W87YVVvnvmtckafmHKTEqCt2qwL-QeIZnqHJjzcMhYAgarRrw-C73a6PaVmh1Um7NeDYLKkKlCN6EAN9SXdWQ5T9SOWIaFbWeBM10cnW9X-d5dNiAuPRpARQPH/s320/Halloween_(1978)_theatrical_poster.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>The success of Michael Myer's big screen debut seems to have been the film that let the genie out of the bottle. It was the key that opened the doorway for the genre boom of the 80s. In retrospect, it's success at the box-office was enough to prove to movie studios (mainly the independents, thought some of the major also took a kind of sideline interest) that Horror was a bankable commodity. Hence you've got the genre explosion that has since become one of the defining features of the Brat Pack era. I've called it a mixed blessing, however. A lot of the reason for that is because while it's true, in a sense, that Horror had arrived in a big way. The catch was that this arrival probably always came with a price tag that no one ever paid perhaps as much attention to as they should have. In their eagerness to carve out a name for themselves in this newly opened playing field, the majority of Horror film creators sort of wound up tripping themselves up on the banner of creative excess. This is where the problem sets in.<p></p><p>When most people think of 80s Horror, the two names that come to mind are always the same: Freddy and Jason. For better or worse, they've become the twin poster boys for that decade, and my concern is that this is what most audiences think of whenever they even hear the word Horror. If that's the case, then I'm afraid the vast majority of filmmakers did the genre a disservice in that decade. By letting Fred and Jay become the de facto "faces" of the genre, they've saddled the Weird Tale with a reputation which it probably doesn't deserve. It should also go without saying that each of them doesn't even begin to exhaust the creative potential the what good Tale of Terror can do. Not by a long shot.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_B2kMyRhDUJO8QIu9ukUNvXpS7IqRoPdmatwJqH2C34rMCaD3369ixs09nvfPEqI3E1MTSa0LXOysiUwyPkI4MWfGi0Z_yujYLTpNDvLsosEBpiMKHhD5oq-zjDbk2kIIkhQqAiJyzDRjLFh1_Id17EC_YJSfuyBA8lS3qNzTrPwyaCfKOKyw_lgrq_VY/s3000/joe-hill.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1996" data-original-width="3000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_B2kMyRhDUJO8QIu9ukUNvXpS7IqRoPdmatwJqH2C34rMCaD3369ixs09nvfPEqI3E1MTSa0LXOysiUwyPkI4MWfGi0Z_yujYLTpNDvLsosEBpiMKHhD5oq-zjDbk2kIIkhQqAiJyzDRjLFh1_Id17EC_YJSfuyBA8lS3qNzTrPwyaCfKOKyw_lgrq_VY/w640-h426/joe-hill.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The trouble is that if a lot of the makers of the Cinema of Frights during the "Morning in America" years indulged in all kinds of excesses (by which I mean drowning the screen in as much fake blood and rubber and/or plastic guts as the budget will allow) and so the trouble begins to set in when this is all that the filmmaker can focus on in terms of any larger point to the story. My own experience has been that the more the director keeps training the camera on the grue and viscera, the more obvious it becomes that their efforts at going for excess is pretty much telegraphing their own poverty of invention. If you go too far in that direction, what you risk happening is audiences walking out on you. The irony here lies in the reasons for why you'd start to loose customers. It's not for the reason you might think. They're not walking out thinking, "This is too much, I just can't take so much gross out, etc". Instead, the real thinking behind the dwindling box-office return is more along the lines of, "Give me a break! This is so damned ridiculous. How can anyone ever think this is scary? It's the most laughable thing I've ever seen". This, then, is the complete irony at the heart of most 80s Horror films.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbge0fYLWZz9lM3w3UKli61LPDxkMhglXN30JJvvRt3pCx5RmMIqTq-x0J8xER__S-OetRCXAmOSoLK5AnnyFkp16Rd0s3BemqERE-REcwz0bHoTDd7c9NuN89zqKDCZLnGXYOayjyWlSTcM1TjL4RsXbfYCMolejfzeAR03MhVhEaG2LHxlSWyCpupgIr/s326/9788876845949_0_200_326_75.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbge0fYLWZz9lM3w3UKli61LPDxkMhglXN30JJvvRt3pCx5RmMIqTq-x0J8xER__S-OetRCXAmOSoLK5AnnyFkp16Rd0s3BemqERE-REcwz0bHoTDd7c9NuN89zqKDCZLnGXYOayjyWlSTcM1TjL4RsXbfYCMolejfzeAR03MhVhEaG2LHxlSWyCpupgIr/s320/9788876845949_0_200_326_75.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>By letting excess become sort of like the unofficial, guiding principle of the day, it seems to have created a license for creative laziness. This in turn lead to the mistaken notion that the buckets of stage blood will be enough to carry the day. If things look like they're lagging, just toss a bit of gross out at the screen. It doesn't matter how much. People just tend to eat this stuff up, anyway, right? The trouble is such a mindset totally underestimates the audience, it seems. Horror in general appears to remain the most difficult of genres to <i>get into</i>, even at the best of times. It always requires greater leaps of imaginative sympathy than what is required of other storytelling formats. Even with this fact in mind, the one thing most audiences tend to agree on is that gore never seems to work all that much unless there is a good point to it, and even then, it only seems to work without the principle of excess. This is how come, while I can't write off all the examples of 80s Horror, a lot of it is just overrated.<p></p><p>Don't get me wrong, there were and are plenty of examples from that decade of the Gothic genre firing on all cylendars up on the screen. The trick here is that there's what has to be described as a shared reason for why the best examples work so well, even as most of them diverge in terms of plot, pacing, and overall dramatic approach. What separates a work like Joe Dante's <i>Gremlins</i> from a myriad of <i>Friday the 13th</i> clones is that Dante is the kind of artist who takes greater care of how he handles the titular horrors at the core of his story. He knows not just when to bring the proper note of Terror on-stage. The director is also careful not to overplay his hand. Dante seems to realize that less is always more, even when the subject matter is a Jim Henson Muppet from hell being roasted alive in a microwave. While I don't think it's possible to point to Dante's efforts and claim it as any kind of gold standard. It does seem reasonable to cite it as a good workman's sample of the difference between excess and one of many best possible examples of the right display of the art of fear. Whereas someone like Wes Craven is content with relying on showing his villain walking around in a bloody ambulance bag, Dante first gives his horrors a legit build-up so that we know the moment of shock is coming.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2t-yuJWjy2PhNqk5Yn4V3Rrwt5KzYXYg8HIOsyARIxq6Z3Zj94lhAuA8Fk-rRFzIej7i7-fH5DsXDSmY-hqA-Uymv4xkN1pplvGQOQ4MZOYsg1GEFNon9WVEMgPClWuljNTwZ2F93yyF6xLAh1ruRkW7I5eF0VhknG0Ja-CEu21D_M1J6a3AUGWGNuW3/s500/41POB-WXpfS.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="332" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2t-yuJWjy2PhNqk5Yn4V3Rrwt5KzYXYg8HIOsyARIxq6Z3Zj94lhAuA8Fk-rRFzIej7i7-fH5DsXDSmY-hqA-Uymv4xkN1pplvGQOQ4MZOYsg1GEFNon9WVEMgPClWuljNTwZ2F93yyF6xLAh1ruRkW7I5eF0VhknG0Ja-CEu21D_M1J6a3AUGWGNuW3/s320/41POB-WXpfS.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>Then, when it comes time to give his creature the proper introduction, Dante has set things up to the point that the big reveal has a greater sense of dramatic impact. Seeing the mother in <i>Gremlins</i> come upon the first major specimen of the film's title works on not just an artistic but also something of a genuine thematic level. To borrow King's own terminology, Dante has managed to hit several targets, or phobic pressure points at once. First, the family home twisted from a place of warmth and comfort into a de facto hunting ground for dangerous animals. Second, is the more elemental level of threat. Will the monster be bested, or will it feed? The third level is what gives the Terror of the scene its necessary sense of thematic weight. The only reason the gremlin is there at all is because the Horror of the story was <i>invited in</i>. Sheer human fallibility is what has turned a human place into a den for inhuman monsters. While offering up some of the most famous moments of fright in the history of cinema, it's that final level of thematic depth that elevates the Terror into the realm of literary art.<p></p><p>This is what King was talking about when he discussed the best possible artistic levels of the Gothic genre. It's a lesson the writer appears to have learned over the course of a long apprenticeship of trial and error. The best place to look into how King made himself into a writer is to pick up a copy of his still essential autobiographical, how-to manual, <i>On Writing</i>. The question lingering over all of this background context is what does any of this have to do with a recent Horror film that was released just two years and a half ago (at leas as of this writing)? The answer is I brought up all this context because I'm hoping to show the reader just how a film like <i>The Black Phone</i> works as an example of Horror done right. One of the best surprises about it is how it almost fits in well with the best examples of Gothic fiction that 80s cinema had to offer. The trick here is that in order to demonstrate this idea, the audience will have to learn to look beyond the Freddy-Jason splatter-fest style of storytelling, and see if it is at all possible to arrive at an appreciation for a more artistic style of Gothic storytelling.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4Sb49dSYxPQOSAhc3gI5b1lAsixI5w0WPRapVl55OHESHPmNh7VN07uSHRwz2i0RCJaVYeAhIdkAmQmqON7d5YrK41_H2TDUqip6n8TbVbN5L1pLJG_JinehDb0Xb_B-PUY68cFK2fRodPirhsqIGTwaXeIp6FPg1SKfUdJO-FZA2WLXrFiUsD9jGf_j/s339/Untitled.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="339" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4Sb49dSYxPQOSAhc3gI5b1lAsixI5w0WPRapVl55OHESHPmNh7VN07uSHRwz2i0RCJaVYeAhIdkAmQmqON7d5YrK41_H2TDUqip6n8TbVbN5L1pLJG_JinehDb0Xb_B-PUY68cFK2fRodPirhsqIGTwaXeIp6FPg1SKfUdJO-FZA2WLXrFiUsD9jGf_j/w640-h282/Untitled.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In order to see if this is possible, I've chosen to take a look at the kind of Horror film that might have been made under the Spielbergian lens of 80s supernatural fantasy. It has a bit in common with films like <i>Gremlins</i>, while at the same time telling it's own narrative. Perhaps its also somewhat fitting that it was initially written by King's own biological son, Gothic writer Joe Hill. So why not join in and let's unpack what has to be one of the best sleeper hits of recent years, by answering <i>The Black Phone</i>?<p></p><a name='more'></a><p><b>The Story.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB88UImH28TMbK2MmMxjRXGLesUhM8MvPyOVVPWY28bcGB0bHqlmiXcRG0rMFRaW3_TAwbype-7WkOeuOH022lyvF8BaKHRg55cNxvZaK0rckAicn-dasYRBRIjOPxanblJxuNgBy9ikj8n_B0cbxs80kdYMFnhyb0DIrd0JM3DDO8TMiC0cYGfdwyJju4/s1950/TheBlackPhone.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1950" data-original-width="1300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB88UImH28TMbK2MmMxjRXGLesUhM8MvPyOVVPWY28bcGB0bHqlmiXcRG0rMFRaW3_TAwbype-7WkOeuOH022lyvF8BaKHRg55cNxvZaK0rckAicn-dasYRBRIjOPxanblJxuNgBy9ikj8n_B0cbxs80kdYMFnhyb0DIrd0JM3DDO8TMiC0cYGfdwyJju4/s320/TheBlackPhone.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Good evening, Colorado. And here once more is the news. Our top story tonight is sadly a familiar one to all of us by now. Police officials have alerted all local law enforcement officers of the disappearance of 13 year old Finney Shaw (Mason Thames) from his neighborhood today, sometime just past 3:00 PM, this afternoon. Shaw is registered as a student at the (Name Withheld) High School District. All credible eyewitness reports suggest the young man had just left school for the day, and was on his way home. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a destination he never reached. Initial thoughts were that Shaw might have run away from home, as both he and his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) each lived in an abusive household. The children's father, Terrence Shaw (Jeremy Davies), was well known to suffer from a drinking problem, and it has been rumored around the neighborhood that Mr. Shaw would turn his hands against his children whenever his drinking got out of control.<p></p><p>Further investigation, however, confirmed to the police that rather than lighting out on his own, Mr. Shaw's son was in fact most likely the latest victim in a troubling string of disappearances that have rocked the Denver area for the past few months this year, and which continue to cast a shadow of fear and tragedy over the local communities. Finney Shaw's disappearance marks him as the sixth possible victim of an assailant that newspapers have dubbed as "The Grabber" (Ethan Hawk). Law enforcement as yet have no visual confirmation, and just a handful of clues, or potential leads to this individual. A few possible witnesses have spoken of seeing an unmarked black van in the areas where the Grabber is believed to have struck. However, no usable evidence has been uncovered that would verify these accounts. Finney Shaw's disappearance has added his name to a list of missing persons, all of them early to pre-teens who are all at or about the same age. The list includes Griffin Stagg (Banks Repeta), the boy who was later pegged as the first victim in the Grabber's crime spree. Others included are:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHuzR3uugt6P7jMwdHUAPWJ1rPgvjjnWjSqdVJ0EnppWsqSlYVv0rHO6uwqtPEhNSIFHYuKklq5WJ6eXsxPe_45dUokJYzndR2Mt-uzu1nYFZZ_DGQLuKY71LerBxWFlb8qQI_m2xGGnliDbACksURGAaxXZnaivxfmQ-jCZ3w9_CceKgdhM4PrAGoscW9/s2000/the_black_phone__039_s_opening_scenes_secretly_spoiled_the_ending_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="2000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHuzR3uugt6P7jMwdHUAPWJ1rPgvjjnWjSqdVJ0EnppWsqSlYVv0rHO6uwqtPEhNSIFHYuKklq5WJ6eXsxPe_45dUokJYzndR2Mt-uzu1nYFZZ_DGQLuKY71LerBxWFlb8qQI_m2xGGnliDbACksURGAaxXZnaivxfmQ-jCZ3w9_CceKgdhM4PrAGoscW9/w640-h320/the_black_phone__039_s_opening_scenes_secretly_spoiled_the_ending_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Billy Showalter (Jacob Moran), a local paperboy whose part time occupation serves as one of the few, identifiable links between all of the other victims. Showalter's delivery route seems to have taken him past or through the same streets where all of the rest of the victims came from. This includes the residence of Vance Hopper (Brady Hepner), an area juvenile delinquent who was no stranger to the police before his sudden disappearance. This has caused some debate as to whether Hopper counts as a proper victim of the Grabber's exploits, when there could always be a more mundane explanation for his missing whereabouts. Hopper (nicknamed "Pinball" by his few friends) had worked up a considerable enough rap sheet with a number of police at the county Sheriff's office that the idea of simply pulling up roots, and moving away might have been the safest option. Beyond this, however, Hopper's whereabouts remain unknown. The two final entries on the list are the most recent, and somewhat interrelated. Bruce Yamada (Tristan Pravong) and Robin Arellano (Miguel Cazarez Mora) are notable for their indirect connections to the latest supposed victim of the kidnapping spree.<p></p><p>Both Yamada and Arellano were classmates of Finney Shaw. While the three students do not appear to have ever been close friends, they are reported as being seen together off and on, with Yamada even belonging to a rival children's baseball league, whose team once squared off against the same group that Shaw served on at school, the (Team Name Withheld). The disappearances of both students (first Yamada, then Arellano) happened in quick, rapid succession of each other. This had initially led to worried speculation among law enforcement officials that the culprit has stepped up his game. The possible abduction of Finney Shaw, coming so soon off the vanishings of his two classmates seem to have confirmed those fears. As of now, the single thread that ties together all of these occurrences appears to be the bike route of Billy Showalter, which was able to weave its way in and out of all of the alleged victims streets, houses, and lives. However, police remain unable to determine the kidnapper's exact location based on this information alone. And so the desperate search for answers continues.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg61FOFDnWTEOXCaqezdQwqwkRnEm4WeaBN9jGIk_CYOCtnG0hS6KzXcQbaUIUsKwLNozUedMRg7lnbs5G4G3kg8BNKHhKqrlaEsLlIEQVAlvP7-c-4ydFNjp2Z9aswYZGVoopcykOdXk8WkeRnNr_gF2kSnWtF888PxxozPuOjLEI2_sMgQbrir2GaM_eV/s700/The-Black-Phone-Hawke-Magician-700x293.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg61FOFDnWTEOXCaqezdQwqwkRnEm4WeaBN9jGIk_CYOCtnG0hS6KzXcQbaUIUsKwLNozUedMRg7lnbs5G4G3kg8BNKHhKqrlaEsLlIEQVAlvP7-c-4ydFNjp2Z9aswYZGVoopcykOdXk8WkeRnNr_gF2kSnWtF888PxxozPuOjLEI2_sMgQbrir2GaM_eV/s16000/The-Black-Phone-Hawke-Magician-700x293.jpg" /></a></div>As of now, Denver county detectives Edgar Wright (E. Roger Mitchell) and Jonathan Miller (Troy Rudeseal) have released an official statement asking for any citizens with possible information relevant to the case report it as soon as possible. With that said, hope is starting to dwindle for the victim's prospects, or even whether the young boy is still currently alive. All anyone can do is hope. Up next, the travails of the Boston Red Sox. Right here on Channel 19, the best news East of the Rockies.<p></p><p><b>The King Family Universe, its Cinematic History, and its Narrative Parameters.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xbjB664LqirS6gqb4YIYbtmPdF8jhg5_N8krzkZtssaU_x-DsACTYqpLzB68c6MFtJlZ32cAsr7Zzm7DyQmfpiOMwkn4G-Zd71ZWd2867YVFHA0y8NVUn8CvekZs-AtwRbGZcYVBgRjXv2rUjyvP4RP3FP9iX-c_FF8avw6TFsC_szXG01XuHIfDaSz-/s1082/Josh-Spicer_BlackPhone.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xbjB664LqirS6gqb4YIYbtmPdF8jhg5_N8krzkZtssaU_x-DsACTYqpLzB68c6MFtJlZ32cAsr7Zzm7DyQmfpiOMwkn4G-Zd71ZWd2867YVFHA0y8NVUn8CvekZs-AtwRbGZcYVBgRjXv2rUjyvP4RP3FP9iX-c_FF8avw6TFsC_szXG01XuHIfDaSz-/s320/Josh-Spicer_BlackPhone.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>I'm not going to lie. This one was like a breath of fresh air. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it was like finding your way back to one of those favorite neighborhoods you used to frequent as a kid, and were able to discover that not only is it all still pretty much the same, it also still manages to have this same, inner vital quality to it. A power which hasn't been dimmed by the passage of years. Saying that you like a film, however, isn't the same as explaining why you think it works. The good news about a film like <i>The Black Phone</i> is it's the kind of story which also serves as a treasure chest, of sorts. There's a lot to unpack in a narrative like this. So I think it's best to start out with a few ground rules for how I judge this kind of film in general, before moving on to a consideration of the particulars.<p></p><p>Let me start out by saying that I've always had this quirky, off-centered relationship with films like this. I'm not talking about just any Horror film in general, either (though what I'm about to say next applies just as well to the vast majority of entries in this always peculiar genre). Instead, I mean that I've always had this curious history with the films of Stephen King and his family. It's a qualification that's important. Not just because the ultimate creator behind this movie is King's own son. It's also because Scott Derrickson, the director of this vehicle has done a masterful job at preserving the original voice of the narrative. It's a way of speaking that shares a great deal in common with works like <i>Salem's Lot</i> or <i>Misery</i>. It's also no great shock to discover that the setting of this narrative reads like it could easily blend in to the same universe where vampires can haunt the ruins of an abandoned town, the bogeyman can lurk anywhere in the sewers, and antique cars can take on a monstrous life of their own. The sense of identification that exists between fiction of Joe Hill and that of <a href="https://stephenking.com/index.html">his Dad</a> is so strong that it makes sense to claim that one day, the son will probably one day take up where King leaves off.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLgLd8myAtKFcGavkKZXowdx5iZOTZO72Y8tYJx7NqJpNbYQltGB9cLsXKNBi5VdU3SnIkSao0lP_bYvw5idv82M9v0vlA_-zxuO54Yo-3HwflnMTVO1mVcTU4i80VntMx7U_a7wCzIYjPUP1po24pvFt15bvRuAj_GBJ4LYwSeF6Qe3XZwWJheGpR0hs/s1048/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_83915c9c-81c9-11eb-b718-da0821f7ec01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="1048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLgLd8myAtKFcGavkKZXowdx5iZOTZO72Y8tYJx7NqJpNbYQltGB9cLsXKNBi5VdU3SnIkSao0lP_bYvw5idv82M9v0vlA_-zxuO54Yo-3HwflnMTVO1mVcTU4i80VntMx7U_a7wCzIYjPUP1po24pvFt15bvRuAj_GBJ4LYwSeF6Qe3XZwWJheGpR0hs/w640-h360/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_83915c9c-81c9-11eb-b718-da0821f7ec01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It makes sense, in other words, to see Joe Hill as something of a natural inheritor of the secondary worlds first ploughed and then brought to life by his old man. If King is the one who created this grand edifice with his initial stories, one day Hill will most likely be the one to become the future lord of the manor. If there's any truth to these surmises, then the good news is the future of the King Family Universe couldn't be in better hands. Hill is not just a chip off the old block, he's also an accomplished wordslinger in his own write.<i> The Black Phone</i> and its adaptation is just one case in point. It's a movie that stands on its own two feet, while at the same time telegraphing its shared continuity with a lot of his father's older works. This is all stuff worth diving into. However, before discussing any of this, the point I'm driving toward at the moment is that the history I have with these two has been peculiar in a very particular way. Stephen King has had something of rocky relationship when it comes to the adaptations of his movies. Most of them are seen as either lackluster, or else they don't do justice.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJQKCa1kvqPvFp053WaccZYhku9rfH4G3HtpjrdobdaDcZxiMpTAFBTd4wrbawtykD8QHpdkMUv4Sfgqx0EB9pLzB09FgKHC4gXzyYVd1-_5DXyFn2QpkWZdvOFC_3tWK_jI_DZuGMSW-nnUQmm-a3jMHT0frLvWSl4Jh9a6spYgbK0XcfFgsVzienifCX/s398/Cat's_Eye_(poster).JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="258" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJQKCa1kvqPvFp053WaccZYhku9rfH4G3HtpjrdobdaDcZxiMpTAFBTd4wrbawtykD8QHpdkMUv4Sfgqx0EB9pLzB09FgKHC4gXzyYVd1-_5DXyFn2QpkWZdvOFC_3tWK_jI_DZuGMSW-nnUQmm-a3jMHT0frLvWSl4Jh9a6spYgbK0XcfFgsVzienifCX/s320/Cat's_Eye_(poster).JPG" width="207" /></a></div>Only a handful of films like Kubrick's <i>The Shining</i>, <i>The Shawshank Redemption</i>, and <i>The Green Mile</i> are cited as anything approaching some vaunted level of high quality. The rest are just dismissed as crap. Without denying the obvious skill of a film like <i>Green Mile</i>, however, I've always been the odd man out when it comes to such a consensus opinion. Not only do I find myself with a genuine liking for the vast majority of these page to screen attempts. I even find myself willing to claim that a lot of these obvious B-picture movies have a great deal of authentic, artistic merit that is worth defending. I'd also claim that even the films of Mick Garris deserve a full, respectful critical excavation with pick and shovel. That's a very puzzling stance to take, even in this day and age. It's a critical perspective that I've taken flack for in the past, and have even gotten caught in some debate over, here and there. The good news is that all of this remained cordial and collegiate, with no bitterness to go around. And still, the puzzlement remains. How can one say anything good about a cheese fest like 1985's <i>Cat's Eye</i>?<p></p><p>Well, I think here is where King himself can help us begin to frame at least the start of a full, ongoing answer to that question. In the pages of<i> Danse Macabre</i>, King offers his readers a useful insight, almost a kind of rubric which can help in the judgment of a work of Horror fiction. This is something that is meant to apply to the cinema of scares in general, however I'd argue this includes written works of Terror just as well. It also serves as useful description of the kind of adaptations that have been made out of King's work over the years. In his book, the writer claims that "If you're a genuine horror fan, you develop the same sort of sophistication that a follower of the ballet develops; you get a feeling for the depth and texture of the genre. Your ear develops with your eye, and the sound of quality always comes through the keen ear. There is fine Waterford crystal, which rings delicately when struck, no matter how thick and chunky it may look; and then there are Flintstone jelly glasses. You can can drink your Dom Perignon out of either one, but friends, there <i>is</i> a difference (150)". I think King has done me a bit of a service in focusing on the <i>hearing</i> more than the quality of <i>display</i> in Horror cinema.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1Jq43olt_ff7TIOcY5aNoggL1Q5HbUTHoPejq7NxkOqeG5mj_Na8Y57O-wfnkQHz6tKIy-vJQaxfpQQ7yaMhVXxlmgjJEguy787x8jKzkKNo0n6EevBg9OMq3BRnCdcWoXrW-dkoTtFy-GUiKr-N5TCnfxOgnLQ3uxhZySsQAwKsGRtL4hVTIUwcCDtx/s1280/it-vintage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1Jq43olt_ff7TIOcY5aNoggL1Q5HbUTHoPejq7NxkOqeG5mj_Na8Y57O-wfnkQHz6tKIy-vJQaxfpQQ7yaMhVXxlmgjJEguy787x8jKzkKNo0n6EevBg9OMq3BRnCdcWoXrW-dkoTtFy-GUiKr-N5TCnfxOgnLQ3uxhZySsQAwKsGRtL4hVTIUwcCDtx/w640-h480/it-vintage.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's a judgment call that asks the viewer to try and see if they can bypass, for just a moment what they may <i>think</i> their eyes are telling them in favor of trying to zero in on <i>what the writing is </i>really<i> saying</i>. It's something I'll have to be grateful for, because it now means I have some genuine backup for all the supposed lapses in taste I could be accused of. It means films like Mick Garris's <i>The Shining</i>, or Tim Curry's version of <i>It</i> can be allowed a set of artistic principals which grants them a voice at what would otherwise be a very closed table. When it comes to Horror in general, King flat out tells his audience that it's a best idea to <i>let the nature of the writing be the true marker of quality in any given work</i>. This is a maxim I'm willing to take further and say that it's probably a good rule of thumb for all creative storytelling, regardless of whatever the genre may be. King's thoughts on the issue are still a useful guidepost for the Horror genre in particular. For instance, what he says next could count as a good marker by which to judge not just other Fright films, but those based specifically on his books.<p></p><p>"There are no "big moments," such as Linda Blair puking pea soup on Max Von Sydow in <i>The Exorcist</i>...or James Brolin dreaming that he is axing his family to death in <i>The Amityville Horror</i>. But as (one critic) points out, a person who loves the genre's genuine Waterford (and there isn't enough of it...but then, there never is enough of the good stuff in any fields, is there?) finds a great deal happening in" hidden gems such as <i>Riding the Bullet</i> "- that delicate ring of the real stuff is there, it can be perceived". Or at least this is a possibility, <i>if</i> you've enough imagination that allows you to enjoy such works. If that's ever the case, then, "The ear detects that true ringing sound, and the heart responds.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2dY94yRCL1IDDMUGZlv5_NS2zTLxjnQhWL58A-AvxcGN8VPSz49HtMvOp6yZVk8U-Ig_Y2Oktvo9g3IT3hi-GITZ-tMBnYhGC3OxKkN1g_rMBhMnUMtSALy4NDpu8mD1hoGRvl8nBV8taz_1LHA6L42ykzRvyARdeezWMCJA-hDQpOm0oN-gn-phGM2rA/s1024/Riding_the_bullet.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2dY94yRCL1IDDMUGZlv5_NS2zTLxjnQhWL58A-AvxcGN8VPSz49HtMvOp6yZVk8U-Ig_Y2Oktvo9g3IT3hi-GITZ-tMBnYhGC3OxKkN1g_rMBhMnUMtSALy4NDpu8mD1hoGRvl8nBV8taz_1LHA6L42ykzRvyARdeezWMCJA-hDQpOm0oN-gn-phGM2rA/w640-h480/Riding_the_bullet.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />"I said all of that to say this: that the opposite also applies. The ear which is constantly attuned to the "fine" sound - the decorous strains of chamber music, for instance - may hear nothing but horrid cacophony when exposed to bluegrass fiddle...but bluegrass is mighty fine music all that same. The point is that the fan of movies in general and horror movies in particular may find it easy - too easy - to overlook the crude charms of" a mini-series like <i>Rose Red</i> after experiencing films like <i>It Follows</i>. However, "(in) a real appreciation of horror films, a taste for junk food applies...For now, let it suffice to say that the fan loses his taste for junk food at his or her own peril, and when I hear by way of the grapevine that...film audiences are laughing at a horror movie, I rush out to see it. In most cases I am disappointed, but every now and then I hear me some mighty good bluegrass fiddle (151)". If King has to be stuck playing fiddler to the cello or aeolian harp as performed by guys like Hitchcock, or John Carpenter, that's fine by me, just so long as his own "creepshows" can have a place at the table.<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: A Possible Future Classic?</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkw6VVnrACmvV7tt2f0jdDMlt2td_j8bRwoXmS6TmUafMl8LOVzgmEnafKOWR0Y-JejyNQwHyR6c8zZGgcrnC2HZZdNSCEeTcVdxBJEOAt4ukip3NvgY7rAb-1Tk0W2DAeXf_veXgIA-GxuN_EiAaXs1m7p4v9Ggp9RC7r4vBs0XxhIuJ3lFuiFvDzRX5/s648/9780061843617_432x.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkw6VVnrACmvV7tt2f0jdDMlt2td_j8bRwoXmS6TmUafMl8LOVzgmEnafKOWR0Y-JejyNQwHyR6c8zZGgcrnC2HZZdNSCEeTcVdxBJEOAt4ukip3NvgY7rAb-1Tk0W2DAeXf_veXgIA-GxuN_EiAaXs1m7p4v9Ggp9RC7r4vBs0XxhIuJ3lFuiFvDzRX5/s320/9780061843617_432x.webp" width="213" /></a></div>This just leaves us with the really important questions we came here to ask. Is a movie like <i>The Black Phone</i> any good? And if the answer is yes, then why is that the case? What is it about the inner watch work of this film that makes it tick so well? Once more, I think Joe Hill's Dad can come to our rescue in answering all these inquiries. According to King, most Horror films are a combination of "text and subtext". For the writer of <i>Carrie</i> (where the most notable sight is of the title character getting drenched in a bucket of pig's blood), any promise that the work of Terror may have will have to rest in "the concept of value - of art, or social merit. If horror movies have redeeming social merit, it is because of that ability to form liaisons between the real and the unreal - to provide subtexts. And because of their mass appeal, these subtexts are often culture wide (139)". The interesting part is just how well this rubric applies to his son Joe's own work, and to <i>The Black Phone</i> movie as a whole.<p></p><p>At it's heart, this is a story that combines two themes into a single narrative. On the one hand, you have the plot of a young boy going through what could be called the ultimate suburban nightmare. Finney is just trying to survive a turbulent home life, combined with an equally hostile turf in his school experience, when suddenly he finds himself the victim of some random child kidnapper. At it's core, then, Hill and Derrickson's movie is concerned with the kind of incident that is the stuff of nightmares for any parent who really means that word, as well as being the type of incident that often winds up the topic of evening news stories, as well as just about every amber alert that happens to crop up on your iPhone at random, odd hours. What's notable about this familiar American nightmare, however, is the way that both the writer and director approach their scenario. And it's here that the second element of the movies subtext slowly begins to seep into the proceedings, right away at the story's opening. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw1xrxqV6c82Y_9PQNEa2ADhdbhrbmtdJ09Rw-Tp0y4KBedR2WEPYCFeObedzlqrrPOiDLBdVTiyRhS9eyR1-EL_C8wZkN3YV-0aI39E-sJ1gsRdxj12GFgtp9zmncnjS--jmW5hBfYcjm4-iMCXqVUbr30w1CQH3dxLyyUs4g9HHMbh9y5c12-eN9ytV0/s1024/salems_main.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="1024" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw1xrxqV6c82Y_9PQNEa2ADhdbhrbmtdJ09Rw-Tp0y4KBedR2WEPYCFeObedzlqrrPOiDLBdVTiyRhS9eyR1-EL_C8wZkN3YV-0aI39E-sJ1gsRdxj12GFgtp9zmncnjS--jmW5hBfYcjm4-iMCXqVUbr30w1CQH3dxLyyUs4g9HHMbh9y5c12-eN9ytV0/w640-h410/salems_main.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Derrickson opens the movie on a deceptive note of cinema veritae. Framing the camera shots as if the audiences is glimpsing snatches from a series of local area home movies capturing snippets of daily life in the Colorado area. These moments play out as the opening credits role, slowly immersing us in what sounds like the familiar rhythms of a seemingly ordinary, yet fundamentally troubled slice of life in the suburbs. Before any true sense of naturalistic realism can set in, however, we are catapulted in the secondary world of Hill's plot, and the narrative takes an immediate left turn into the kind of heightened reality that can only exist in a setting of pure fictional fantasy. And it's here that the second main ingredient of the film comes into play. For all the naturalistic trappings that surround the main character, we are clearly being told a fairy tale from opening to closing shot. Yes, the main character is just an average boy next door type, and while a bare bones description of the movie's the first act makes it sound like he's just this kid trying to deal with average life experiences, the way these elements are written takes the viewer through what amounts to a medieval style fantasy kingdom dressed up in the garb of middle American life in the 1970s as Derrickson and Hill fantasize it, rather than as it was.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJMJw_SYVx0r2LxvuM5ybiz4HhfJtlwCg1TOdIIYbUX0bDxoM4N2PZg8Sc27mUE3G12tVG9qYxl4ptlkGML1h4JKicFGV9J00YGZkurVRJnlLesnp9aGD3gMQRsyGl7QdkFwVwj9ueikvuo83E-_Pu84JU6bngGG0O1QmwVr6e3WZzvJfnVaWNnIgJrIt/s442/It_cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJMJw_SYVx0r2LxvuM5ybiz4HhfJtlwCg1TOdIIYbUX0bDxoM4N2PZg8Sc27mUE3G12tVG9qYxl4ptlkGML1h4JKicFGV9J00YGZkurVRJnlLesnp9aGD3gMQRsyGl7QdkFwVwj9ueikvuo83E-_Pu84JU6bngGG0O1QmwVr6e3WZzvJfnVaWNnIgJrIt/s320/It_cover.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>The world they are building for their audience is one that consists of kids who are often left to fend for themselves in an environment where it seems, for all intents and purposes, as if either the grown-ups have given up completely, or else they just can't muster the competence necessary to protect all the young charges in their midst. Now if all this sounds in any way familiar to you, then it is not unreasonable to speculate the possibility that Hill has managed to unearth the same kind of imaginative archetype, or story fossil as the one that his own father struck upon years ago when he had the idea that later grew into the novel <i>It</i>. Like <i>The Black Phone, It</i> details a world where the adults don't seem to give much of a shit about the very offspring they've helped bring into the world. This in turn creates a situation that leaves countless sons and daughters at the mercy of a lurking terror that stalks the neighborhoods on a daily basis. All of these elements find their narrative analogue in Hill's setting.<p></p><p>Now, with all of that said, however, it is perhaps a mistake to take the parallels too far. Doing so runs the risk of making this story seem, at best, derivative, or at worst, a blatant case of the son stealing from the father for the sake of his own name and career. The good news is none of these charges hold up, and what allows the film to stand up on its own two feet is the way in which the film's thematic sights and trajectory are less epic and more small scale in terms of its own narrative scope. If King's <i>It</i> is best described as a symbolic examination of the beginnings of what we now call the Generation Gap that started not long after the Second World War, then Hill and Derrickson's story is less concerned with any of these matters. Instead, it seems more concerned with what can happen whenever the economic and corresponding social conditions in an Every Town American neighborhood begins to deteriorate.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjfN2HUhYSE7ph9fez1xb5aKFhS78mibkoaimUHB7bp0njcCLNFQovJiUbsW5YGORPPqwYkS5Y2jR-_dXOZep2Y7p5osd5yJgrAVpOL3GLWIuAf77166M3db_8ZQnZMf6DmjWehqZ51RWdjwFJjrPO8mfJlLuC5L5RYT7cbIUfyH3s_j9NXAJ9XXUc0eAi/s375/The%20Black%20Phone.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="375" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjfN2HUhYSE7ph9fez1xb5aKFhS78mibkoaimUHB7bp0njcCLNFQovJiUbsW5YGORPPqwYkS5Y2jR-_dXOZep2Y7p5osd5yJgrAVpOL3GLWIuAf77166M3db_8ZQnZMf6DmjWehqZ51RWdjwFJjrPO8mfJlLuC5L5RYT7cbIUfyH3s_j9NXAJ9XXUc0eAi/w640-h358/The%20Black%20Phone.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is an idea that Derrickson himself was keen to explore, and this is the element that allows hill's narrative to have its own identity. <a href="https://movieweb.com/black-phone-scary-true-story/">In interviews with the press</a>, Derrickson has gone on record to say that a lot of elements in the film came from his own experiences of growing up in a working class neighborhood that was slowly turning to shit during the 70s. This was a personal, early life experience that had been on his mind for sometime when the idea of adapting Hill's story finally landed on his desk. Before then, Derrickson had been toying with the idea of taking his traumatic childhood, and going the same route as Francois Truffaut did with his days as a kid, and creating his own <i>400 Blows</i> style project out of it (<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/black-phone-explained-real-life-010551336.html?guccounter=1">web</a>). The difference here seems to be that it was all still too close and painful for the director to deal with in such an immediate, unveiled way. In that sense, Hill offering him a chance to adapt a short story that first appeared in an anthology entitled <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/20th-Century-Ghosts-Joe-Hill/dp/0061147982">20th Century Ghosts</a></i> way back in another world known as 2005 was sort of like an accidental, yet very welcome lifeline.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXK0Y-8gjiY4U_bnbE3MpsiHQbwQtrqUKX9m73ODgnHyDvi6_uWQNx1Q7cBwYGYwyJgDP0GM_FwuY4z7gbV0Om8ZvyvfhsdKhBPDYxXw696eZ7zYyjHYdIuMCuGkv22rguRti6CyrfFI1cwHvCnJa3ipSuGdB1DKSgznTA67dRvDzG_Osu7ImOqtT0tZXE/s1000/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.u1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXK0Y-8gjiY4U_bnbE3MpsiHQbwQtrqUKX9m73ODgnHyDvi6_uWQNx1Q7cBwYGYwyJgDP0GM_FwuY4z7gbV0Om8ZvyvfhsdKhBPDYxXw696eZ7zYyjHYdIuMCuGkv22rguRti6CyrfFI1cwHvCnJa3ipSuGdB1DKSgznTA67dRvDzG_Osu7ImOqtT0tZXE/s320/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.u1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>In addition, when the writer and director set out to make their adaptation, they both made the deliberate choice of distancing the premise from that of Stephen King's by making a series of deliberate changes. This is where <a href="https://screenrant.com/black-phone-it-pennywise-comparison-explained-joe-hill/">Hill came up with the idea</a> of letting his villain be nothing less than a modern day riff on the fantasy trope of the evil wizard. King's son recalled to Derrickson a bit of trivia he learned about certain magic stage acts that were popular during the 30s and 40s, where the magician would perform an elaborate sort of pantomime pageant play, where the lead performer would double both as himself and the devil over the course of a single performance. The star would put on the show first as his (or herself), and then would be banished by the devil until the final act where the stage conjurer would banish the evil one back to the pit. Hill's imagination seized upon this idea, and Derrickson ran with it the moment it was suggested. As a result, what the writer and director have done by making their antagonist a twisted stage magician is to take the wicked sorcerer of old, and give him an American Gothic stage in which to perform his art. Think Sauron if he were reduced to flesh and blood.<p></p><p>Also, you would add a few character notes drawn from Norman Bates and real life menaces such as John Wayne Gacy, and the final result of this mixed brew winds up as Ethan Hawk's maniacal child kidnapper. As brought to life by the former <i>Dead Poet's Society</i> alumnus, the Grabber acts in many ways as the culmination of the various problems that are plaguing the main character and his surroundings. Mason Thames' Finney is the product of a neighborhood that has seen better days, and appears to be going through a slow state of decay. Unlike King's Derry, the environment that Hill's protagonist finds himself in is not a prosperous stage set threatened by an outside menace. Instead, this story is content to examine the themes of the evil that lurks within, and how it can sometimes manifest itself in what is otherwise designed to be a welcoming, family surrounding. The film seems to imply that such ideals are dependent on certain pre-conditions, and when those supports are taken away, in the words of W.B. Yeats, "the center does not hold". Once close families start to break apart, parents neglect children, who are then left to <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-black-phone-movie-review-2022">devise there own interconnected support system</a>, and the home is no longer a safe haven, but rather turns into or becomes a human place that makes inhuman monsters.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHoV8wdL-4gBPZP8WM0A5NLm8OOhHXdLixueObVByjOTjECgQ7LKozNhAV67Ck0jLzPRCrAi_RPvkid0ZYGeL2kBMWjGq5cnbtF3nreIkH36GhQ70oqgtHi9dA9E8RXC9ka8BvFdydrn8bAUBRwgzpHFmtgdBW2nK8eI5qyoQZ0KapazInnj_RDdbTJAoD/s1423/Screenshot_20220622-185922_YouTube.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="801" data-original-width="1423" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHoV8wdL-4gBPZP8WM0A5NLm8OOhHXdLixueObVByjOTjECgQ7LKozNhAV67Ck0jLzPRCrAi_RPvkid0ZYGeL2kBMWjGq5cnbtF3nreIkH36GhQ70oqgtHi9dA9E8RXC9ka8BvFdydrn8bAUBRwgzpHFmtgdBW2nK8eI5qyoQZ0KapazInnj_RDdbTJAoD/w640-h360/Screenshot_20220622-185922_YouTube.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Hence, the implied creation of the Grabber, and insecure life that is Finney's daily existence. Derrickson has claimed that he wanted to frame all of these elements into what he hoped would be a kind of anti-Spielbergian aesthetic and tone. The somewhat ironic (if by no means bad) news here is that despite the director's best efforts, it seems impossible for the film to shake is more idyllic, fairy tale origins. The story suffers from a chronic inability to totally escape from a sense of genuine nostalgia for a simpler time. It also probably doesn't help that the film's main villain also just happened to play one of the child hero's in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_(film)">another Joe Dante film</a>, way back in 1985. To his credit, Derrickson seems to have reached a point where he realized the adaptation would have to rely on this old, Spielbergian element in order to the narrative to do its proper job, and so the director simply leaned into it, got out of the way, and let the story tell itself. You get the sense that no matter how conflicted the director may have been about these things, the truth seems to have been that Derrickson could never really shake the kind of admiration that most 80s kids have to the entertainment they grew up with.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc1TK_Rcx55zGCx9Mssnz9WqNAvXjPLTD62Aw7nIw6LKMenTe2hCxc0q0d8REZon8N90LjwJgsMfSuMkJIuPwHaGXkGmkZUf63WvR1bYPlsC6UGha4WbxKzom97i0rDPgiI53dX_Dj6BVHR5hztYDwMfbsfeKl6o7OPWyTeavT_lIndKILRmg0xGgR96Z/s389/Explorersposter1985.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwc1TK_Rcx55zGCx9Mssnz9WqNAvXjPLTD62Aw7nIw6LKMenTe2hCxc0q0d8REZon8N90LjwJgsMfSuMkJIuPwHaGXkGmkZUf63WvR1bYPlsC6UGha4WbxKzom97i0rDPgiI53dX_Dj6BVHR5hztYDwMfbsfeKl6o7OPWyTeavT_lIndKILRmg0xGgR96Z/s320/Explorersposter1985.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>It also works to the movie's favor in another sense as well. Because if Derrickson is in any way guarded about his nostalgia, then it's pretty clear that Joe Hill, Stephen King's son, as both an artist and just a former child of those same decades, is unbridled in his enthusiasm and nostalgia for those times, and its clear all of this has wound up in the script. So the film is left having to capture that sort of classic, <i>Goonies</i> and <i>Gremlins</i> style of storybook suburbia. Even though it's painted in more faded Autumn shades, and the action is a lot more dire and brutal, you can still tell its the same kind of stomping grounds we've visited before in films like <i>Stand By Me</i>. Name dropping that earlier film, in particular is a good example of what kind of story Derrickson and Hill are telling here, as well. The vast majority of what happens in <i>Black Phone</i> is not too far removed from the earlier King adaptation. In other words, a lot of the shit that the kids get up to is still the same kind of thing that Will Wheaton and River Phoenix would have to encounter and either put up with, or else just plain try to survive in the former, Rob Reiner film. It's just that now there's an extra added supernatural element to it as well.<p></p><p>With this in mind, the story that Hill has written really does qualify as a modern Suburban Gothic fairy tale of the purest possible kind. And it's here that the second element of the story comes into play. Once more, it fits right in with the same artistic perspective that his father talks about in <i>Danse Macabre</i>. In King's terminology, <i>The Black Phone</i> works as the "sort of horror film that has more in common with the Brothers Grimm than with the op-ed page in a tabloid paper. It is the B-picture as fairy tale. This sort of picture doesn't want to score political points but to scare the hell out of us by crossing certain taboo lines. So if my idea about art is correct (it giveth more than it receiveth), this sort of film is of value to the audience by helping it to better understand what those taboos and fears are, and why it feels so uneasy about them (139)". I'd argue that Hill's film fits this description largely based off the most basic outline of his story. The setup of an average young boy being stolen away into a horrific encounter with stranger danger is one of those ideas that is best described as a taboo that everyone is aware of on some basement level of their minds, and so we do the best we can to try and avoid it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzA3-cpPbmpFzniRDSY_lnymJtwhMAY5MvCl-olebZKYiROOXpz-HdYcUuMX3lLXAFW0jFkEYOF21sdZP6fbEa0upUK20LFu_XcxrEjczunAZbE4DkafTQ1A90d-j6OaVLAJGUbRhW5f-B0xBK2B7A3SkLOPD3Rib_KJhAepwRKhQkgcD7z9oxh0Eikwng/s1366/the-werewolf-howls.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzA3-cpPbmpFzniRDSY_lnymJtwhMAY5MvCl-olebZKYiROOXpz-HdYcUuMX3lLXAFW0jFkEYOF21sdZP6fbEa0upUK20LFu_XcxrEjczunAZbE4DkafTQ1A90d-j6OaVLAJGUbRhW5f-B0xBK2B7A3SkLOPD3Rib_KJhAepwRKhQkgcD7z9oxh0Eikwng/w640-h360/the-werewolf-howls.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />All that Hill's Imagination has done is to take this unsavory potential and turned it into a modern day folktale. Indeed, the way the plot beats of this story play out on-screen is so familiar in many ways, that it can almost be expressed in that most familiar of story book terms. "Once upon a time, there was a timid young boy named Finney, who dwelt in a poor village, whose land was located somewhere near the mountains. One day this boy had a chance encounter with an evil magician who kidnapped Finney, and took him back to his lair. It was there that the magician revealed he was really the Big Bad Wolf, and that he planned to use the boy as a kind guinea pig for his own twisted, magical experiments". This quasi-folkloric summary is really the best possible description of the kind aesthetic that Hill's tale is wrapped up in. It's to Derrickson's credit that he was able to recognize this fairy story element, and give it room to do all the talking it needed. Without this ballpark to play in, I don't know if the film would have been as good if its voice was smothered in any kind of naturalism. This is the kind of story that wants, or needs to go on a flight of fancy in order to achieve its effect, and it does so pretty well.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBrtJA-A1LvANntjVu0YQARXJyO-KhvESAdbNWRgZzCqDIGpN3xd9szNO7cx8TKP2UvoL2OysoPOClI6m-MDEnMY_tRWVvcXF9VrZyk1oNQ4YEv8Z0plI3eGj2iZGiDFHGUjg0hmGbPQI-s-YaRlrBZmXbJjWAUQUFAtLyPvSdNfQTvha-4Z0cns13j7F/s1783/TS155-copy.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1783" data-original-width="1783" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPBrtJA-A1LvANntjVu0YQARXJyO-KhvESAdbNWRgZzCqDIGpN3xd9szNO7cx8TKP2UvoL2OysoPOClI6m-MDEnMY_tRWVvcXF9VrZyk1oNQ4YEv8Z0plI3eGj2iZGiDFHGUjg0hmGbPQI-s-YaRlrBZmXbJjWAUQUFAtLyPvSdNfQTvha-4Z0cns13j7F/s320/TS155-copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This is not to same thing as claiming the film is all style and no substance, however. If the tale of Finney and the Evil Wizard is a kind of modern fairy tale, then a lot of what makes it work is the way it has of playing upon a very specific real life fear. In this regard, the good news is that it never cheapens or under sells the myriad threats implied by act of child abduction. Indeed, here is where the film shows an admirable sense of restraint, which helps mark it out as a work of higher quality. It never degenerates into any kind of exploitation. Instead, once Finney is placed in the Bad Bad Wolf's magic lair, the action maintains a palpable sense of slow building threat. The potential of violence at the hands of the Grabber is looming and ever present. The stakes of the situation are neatly laid out in a way that the audience can grasp, without ever quite having its hand held. You know you're in the hands of a guy who is pretty much a human time bomb waiting to explode and lash out fatally. However, with these parameters in place, Hill displays these horrors with a skill that is admirable as it is very difficult to pull off. The writing constantly keeps the terrors of the story walking a fine tightrope at all times.<p></p><p>Finney (and by extension, the viewer) begins to realize the immediate threats he is faced with, while deftly keeping the worst case scenarios as vaguely ill-defined threats that are left lingering just out of sight. It is a masterful use of a less is more approach, where what the viewer isn't shown winds up being left up to the imagination, thus making it infinitely more frightening than anything we actually do see. In this way, Hill's narrative is able to thread a delicate needle through a lot of taboo subject matter without exploiting any of it, and yet still keeping the story running on a level of maintained threat that stays strong right up to the denouement. The thing is therefore an exercise in creativity, like walking a tight rope while trying to spin plates at the same time. It's to the credit of Hill's skill as a writer that it never comes close to either the plates, the writer, or the story are in danger of falling.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ac89s_aJwM-4KoHtcFYu76FL0uXkpnLdPd-yEbcrlEKilShFFyVmlmNFfq8fbJB1r1F8OU935kqPKIOUO6vtsvywRjd5spKllyKpbZVOHT6hG86c3IzjmtCgHqffOrFPwJ8UvcJSPRXMwAPxNRX0mQujZbJimrhL266XNKN9W7eQ1fnsE6_8KaPOPit3/s680/wh5ndu8nr5y61.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="571" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ac89s_aJwM-4KoHtcFYu76FL0uXkpnLdPd-yEbcrlEKilShFFyVmlmNFfq8fbJB1r1F8OU935kqPKIOUO6vtsvywRjd5spKllyKpbZVOHT6hG86c3IzjmtCgHqffOrFPwJ8UvcJSPRXMwAPxNRX0mQujZbJimrhL266XNKN9W7eQ1fnsE6_8KaPOPit3/s320/wh5ndu8nr5y61.webp" width="269" /></a></div>Of course, if all Derrickson and Hill had to offer was just a mere bit of popcorn escapism, then there probably wouldn't be all that much worth commenting about. Don't get me wrong, escapism will always have its place. However, the reason that the best fairy tales are able to last as long as they have, throughout multiple centuries and civilizations, and cultural shifts is often because they contain a kernel of thematic value which grants them their ultimate sense of importance and durability. It also seems to be the case that these themes often contain a sense of permanence, or constant applicability to them. Looked at from this perspective, Hill's narrative stands as a true definition of the modern fairy tale. Like many of the classics, it can be boiled down to a simple message about stranger danger. However, it's to Hill's credit that he never seems content to just leave the material at such a basic level. Instead, the writer continues to burrow down into the narrative fossil he has uncovered, always trying to excavate further until he has reached the true beating heart of the story. Once he gets there, the true themes of the tale share an unsurprising relationship with the work of Hill's very own father.<p></p><p>This is because, in many ways, the son could be describe as mining one of the same rich fields like his Dad used to do, and still often does. Perhaps it therefore makes sense to turn to the words of scholar Tony Magistrale, who even at this late date remains the best critical examiner of the fiction of Stephen King. Now, the ideas Magistrale is discussing all come from King's work, however, they are also applicable to <i>The Black Phone</i>. As it turns out that Hill winds up exploring the exact same themes in his own story. It turns out that both writers share a thematic concern with the dangers that can occur in the wake of the breakdown of the family unit, and the evils that can both lead to, and spring from this disintegration. As Magistrale explains, 'The breakdown of interpersonal relationships in both the workplace and the family is a recurring element in" both King and Hill's "canon. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5OT96k_Wa3tsClWpG4KVkmb2C0IguPhIKp9k4Jrtt_9v20EaNtrqY42FMhs0Gr5JD7zHNwO_TTY2SiSSqBx-lv4Jc6rUps6XdW0eziWVu11eVQy48mqJrAobnxG1fsZPONDbfFDNzyNJyR1i3FkTYEokGZodQLwQ732d9UdVq6B40NI17kVNpCnbCiQVy/s1920/rob-wood-needful-things.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1304" data-original-width="1920" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5OT96k_Wa3tsClWpG4KVkmb2C0IguPhIKp9k4Jrtt_9v20EaNtrqY42FMhs0Gr5JD7zHNwO_TTY2SiSSqBx-lv4Jc6rUps6XdW0eziWVu11eVQy48mqJrAobnxG1fsZPONDbfFDNzyNJyR1i3FkTYEokGZodQLwQ732d9UdVq6B40NI17kVNpCnbCiQVy/w640-h434/rob-wood-needful-things.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"The very real themes of marital discord, gender antagonism, and workplace alienation are used by supernatural agents in there assault on the human realm. In spite of the imaginary landscapes which are often the settings for his tales and novels, King" and Hill are "profoundly aware of the discontents and conflicts which are exempla of contemporary American life. The horrific elements in King's world often emerge through the cracks of societal fragmentation made visible and inescapable. These breakdowns are either directly responsible for unleashing the irrational forces of the underworld ("Graveyard Shift" and <i>The Shining</i>) or are indirectly reflected in the shape these forces assume (<i>Cujo</i> and <i>The Stand</i> (<i>Landscape of Fear,</i> 31-31)". In the case of <i>The Black Phone</i>, we seem to be dealing with the latter option, rather than the former, as Magistrale outlines it. The reader is dealing with a legit tale of the supernatural, and yet it's presence in this story differs from the usual way it is presented in the works of the King family. Here it emerges in response to a natural threat. Rather than constituting as the actual and ultimate source of the story's menace, this time it plays the role of guide and helper.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uIA8xzKRDQmjexD0u42g7-AnufzEgd_zvMHelgtWRnEJhqXxanE9Xrif2EEnDne_b8n-AcFDP2ndGtrrSGhUqFVw9wHV47K1jEaEBADBldfeZ_GeNNRg7LJagkWRQBJulXhLYnCqrC9rnoRxxrirIncIygNfkQ7xITBkPuPAeXudXr7Z02OJhVAwE84e/s800/NuMa3h7r_2510191650321gpadd-1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uIA8xzKRDQmjexD0u42g7-AnufzEgd_zvMHelgtWRnEJhqXxanE9Xrif2EEnDne_b8n-AcFDP2ndGtrrSGhUqFVw9wHV47K1jEaEBADBldfeZ_GeNNRg7LJagkWRQBJulXhLYnCqrC9rnoRxxrirIncIygNfkQ7xITBkPuPAeXudXr7Z02OJhVAwE84e/s320/NuMa3h7r_2510191650321gpadd-1.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>The true danger in Hill's narrative winds up taking the form of a familiar trope that King has described in the pages of <i>Danse Macabre</i> as "Inside Evil". "The stories of horror which are psychological - those which explore the terrain of the human heart- almost always revolve around the free-will concept; "inside evil" if you will, the sort we have no right lying off on God the Father. This is Victor Frankenstein creating a living being out of spare parts to satisfy his own <i>hubris</i>, and then compounding his sin by refusing to take the responsibility for what he has done. It is Dr. Henry Jekyll, who creates Mr. Hyde essentially out of Victorian hypocrisy (64)". It's also a good description of the villain of Hill's story. While we are never given anything like a complete backstory on the Grabber, he does hint at least once that the lair where he takes his victims was also the scene of his greatest suffering as child. <p></p><p>Coupled with the fact that the kidnapper (we never learn his proper name) has an unemployed brother named Max who is currently crashing with him after presumably failing at being able to hold down a job and look after himself, and who is a bit of a high strung coke fiend into the bargain, all point to the Grabber's confession having a good deal to substantiate it. It all points to a former victim of childhood abuse making the ultimate decision to give into the anger, resentments and frustrations that such mistreatment has created within him. This, in turn, has led him to not just keep returning back to the scene of his own miseries. It's also left him with the need to take out the pain and frustration he felt and still experiences from it all out on others. Hence the reasons Finney and the other boys have slowly gone missing over what seems to be the course of a year, indicating that the Grabber's crime spree has got off to a fairly recent start. We're dealing then with a villain who has just now given in to the worst impulses literally bread into him through an abusive childhood. It's with this in mind that it's possible to see what kind of thematic purpose the main character at the heart of Hill's story has to serve.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvoE6Tn6mYr1urWXzn8jM8t48kQH7DsihGpZ4pYvK2qq423YGHmWsbGODGZmnSeIlNFmXBF6gwv5iAhdIUUCABmDxSgzTA1EbJfpx7cbH_-PbQTvSpGeFm1_4NxG3KKg2R0eTDRnblNES-VUAPfH75SNPGSvYFIA932iypuNkXdJUYKNv7bCzyEMbi70es/s1152/blackphone19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1152" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvoE6Tn6mYr1urWXzn8jM8t48kQH7DsihGpZ4pYvK2qq423YGHmWsbGODGZmnSeIlNFmXBF6gwv5iAhdIUUCABmDxSgzTA1EbJfpx7cbH_-PbQTvSpGeFm1_4NxG3KKg2R0eTDRnblNES-VUAPfH75SNPGSvYFIA932iypuNkXdJUYKNv7bCzyEMbi70es/w640-h426/blackphone19.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In many ways, Finney is the exact polar opposite mirror image of the Grabber. Much like the villain, he comes from a broken and somewhat abusive home. The key difference between them is the implication that Finney once belonged to a reasonably normal, and more closely knit family unit. It's true the hero's father is now an emotional train wreck who can't seem to hold his liquor all that well. However, the main character's backstory details how it was losing his wife to insanity that has driven Finney's dad first to the bottle, then on occasion the use of the belt on his kids. This is an event that is never shown, and only spoken of, yet it is made clear that this has taken quite a toll on a man who, for all we know, could have been just one of the guys beforehand. Finney's dad might have always been something of a working class type, yet in turn it's quite possible that, like the Grabber, his own internal breakdown was and is a recent affair brought about by the unfortunate turn his personal life has taken at the moment. In addition, unlike the Grabber's unseen monster of a father, whose ghost seems to haunt his own son, Finney's dad show's clear signs of remorse for his actions, and he tries to do his best for his kids.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHTX_C2dJUA7zrs3QlWzteG_IzFpQ_QLxlEPbvRtoGqh_Buml9tLq-iV_r8NNqvj9gt0eQRu7JjOVZPlH3NHXVLf1qDzVhYvKpPkfDgLChIMmaBNeFrJOnSem3-jlKGdTEtu7JgeYn_Hto8yr89EF1cQj2_GZl9Ft6fpw07nXZsRfWzA4Xy8dSfKIrNOS/s900/Black-Phone-2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="520" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHTX_C2dJUA7zrs3QlWzteG_IzFpQ_QLxlEPbvRtoGqh_Buml9tLq-iV_r8NNqvj9gt0eQRu7JjOVZPlH3NHXVLf1qDzVhYvKpPkfDgLChIMmaBNeFrJOnSem3-jlKGdTEtu7JgeYn_Hto8yr89EF1cQj2_GZl9Ft6fpw07nXZsRfWzA4Xy8dSfKIrNOS/s320/Black-Phone-2.jpg" width="185" /></a></div>This is yet another area in which the film can be said to triumph in its handling of even the minor side characters. While Finney's dad doesn't get too much screen time, the script gives just enough hints to allows his actor, Jeremy Davies the chance to show the viewers just how conflicted and tormented he really is. Indeed, it's the kind of character note that creeps up on you the more the film is revisited. On my first watch through, I saw him as little more than just another abuser-loser hassle for the film's two main leads to put up with. It was only on the most recent re-watch made for this article that the full import of the father, and even what might be described as his own subtle, yet effective side arc jumped out at me. The full import here being that we're dealing with what used to be a good man who has sort of let a recent setback drag him down, and yet who still harbors some genuine love and affection for his kids, and in the end resolves to try and do better for them in the future. In this way, the story sets him up as yet another doppelganger and foil to the Grabber's own troubled and haunting background.<p></p><p>In much the same way, the film's young lead is perhaps the best possible counterpoint to it's villain. Much like his father, Finney is growing up in a troubled environment, yet he shows plenty of signs that he and his sister Gwen are capable of coping better with their setbacks than most of their peers, and even some of the adults. Again, this is a direct contrast to that of the kidnapper. The very fact that both hero and villain have siblings of their own serves the thematic establishment of light and dark parallels between the two. In essence, what the story gives us is a pair of opposing principles on a collision course with one another at the insistent, compulsive, and overall deranged instigation of the antagonist. In fact, the writing seems to hint that it is this clash of twin polar opposite personalities, each of which seems to exemplify some sort of universal principle and its anti-type, which serves to trigger the final ingredient in the make up of Hill's drama, this being the arrival of a series of ghostly visitations.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3p9BFNMWfh4l1TXfntbIa9SmytV3fQSmZCYLUIjiJThAJ0P1Ip-8iwXL-g7TSLTmToqdtFTaiahZ2an9-q2kgqL_I3rzqVN2YAoztmwlymntO8Q_OgoDh--aNB8E06chS-xlFD8uK1jrH8NJFg-u8-g4m-ROajTrxySqKEiWGACX66tZmVuN3IyQvF1V5/s800/The-Black-Phone-Season-2-Cast.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3p9BFNMWfh4l1TXfntbIa9SmytV3fQSmZCYLUIjiJThAJ0P1Ip-8iwXL-g7TSLTmToqdtFTaiahZ2an9-q2kgqL_I3rzqVN2YAoztmwlymntO8Q_OgoDh--aNB8E06chS-xlFD8uK1jrH8NJFg-u8-g4m-ROajTrxySqKEiWGACX66tZmVuN3IyQvF1V5/w640-h360/The-Black-Phone-Season-2-Cast.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now, strange as it may sound, I have heard and read complaints from others saying that often the arrival of the supernatural into a number of King stories has proven enough to take the reader or viewer right out of the narrative. This has always been a puzzling response to me, when it was always clear that the supernatural element was always meant to function as the main attraction, and pretty much the entire point of the story. This is a criticism that has been lobbed at more obscure works such as <i>The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon</i> to even <i>The Shining</i>. The basic ingredients of this complaint all seem to boil down to one element. A viewer who looks at the vast majority of the King family fiction is reading or viewing the whole thing through a Naturalist lens. This is fundamentally out of place in a literary collection which is devoted in its entirety to an otherworldly strain of Gothic Romanticism. The work of King and Hill is devoted to giving the audience a shared secondary world where all the normal laws eventually wind up turned on their head. Use of supernatural is therefore the entire point in this setup.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnYyKNXUhVlw_Z_7WTjiF6MDayaXLSocVx9W0cx8nNL55uqDH3lS0INb3HLj4mZcBfsOTeN53VwW835NDpllPgqvuntIbk2R2q06YSKCu4XyvPue9r4nDF9q-_AgkT8YzLBWtyfuS7NkEw1hg--ULLGYC51uM8EGaJmPnfKNyd1WehoGgrU2tbVdqFNlD/s1000/91KS9+EfF+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="652" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnYyKNXUhVlw_Z_7WTjiF6MDayaXLSocVx9W0cx8nNL55uqDH3lS0INb3HLj4mZcBfsOTeN53VwW835NDpllPgqvuntIbk2R2q06YSKCu4XyvPue9r4nDF9q-_AgkT8YzLBWtyfuS7NkEw1hg--ULLGYC51uM8EGaJmPnfKNyd1WehoGgrU2tbVdqFNlD/s320/91KS9+EfF+L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>In fact, the more I think it over, the more this complaint seems to hinge on just how little or how much tolerance the reader can muster for the full aesthetic contents of the ghost haunted genre of Gothic fiction. Even outside the King family stories, the work of other authors in the genre is riddled with ethereal specters, and other unnatural creatures whose sole purpose is to stalk the night in pursuit of giving the audience a chance to be taken deliberately outside the "natural" run of things (whatever that's supposed to be). The Horror's story's purpose is to enchant the audience with hints of realms greater than our own. This appears to have been the genre's main goal as far back as its ancient beginnings in the mists of antiquity, when some old storytellers realized you could get just as much entertainment by focusing on the element of fear present during encounters with the troll under the bridge as you could with the enchantment of a hero on a quest. Rather, the same sense of enchantment was still there, it was now just spoken of, and shaded in with a more ominous tone, and a few darker shades of light.<p></p><p>This seems to be what the Horror story is at its very core, and so it always comes off as confusing to me when people try to demand something of it that the genre was never meant to fulfill. The whole field is about enchantment through the artistic use of Terror. It doesn't want to be tamed or limited to the natural. Now this is something that most fans of the genre seem to realize, and for all those folks reading this, I kind of have to apologize for what seems like a digression. None of this was aimed at any of you, and you're welcome to skip this part. I am addressing these words now to any who seem to have a peculiar problem with knowing what to do with, or make of the Horror genre's main ingredient. With all this said, all I can say is this is something the other half of the audience will have to either take or leave as it is. Horror is a field of the Imagination that is just as intent on reaching for the stars as Fantasy or Science Fiction, and it doesn't make sense to me to try and stifle such a creative impulse.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_jRUUfhMbW12NAmEmgquJl0ON2QUF0FpXw9Pp_ZMN-ccZZJ1a3rMQpVHY1h7qPJ8UN29Kmpu89IwzeLhfYN7Cpz5lQ04-L_3lSGPwsTbzAZiFwD6IJRjCdhAghtkiqNeGQiS072BntkRtO3bBrCXI8MfePQggWj2tZYVLHNhdidxa2ALd3Q2nD6s_efp5/s1600/l-intro-1656118620.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_jRUUfhMbW12NAmEmgquJl0ON2QUF0FpXw9Pp_ZMN-ccZZJ1a3rMQpVHY1h7qPJ8UN29Kmpu89IwzeLhfYN7Cpz5lQ04-L_3lSGPwsTbzAZiFwD6IJRjCdhAghtkiqNeGQiS072BntkRtO3bBrCXI8MfePQggWj2tZYVLHNhdidxa2ALd3Q2nD6s_efp5/w640-h360/l-intro-1656118620.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is especially true when it comes to a story like <i>The Black Phone</i>. What makes this film so notable from the vast majority of other times the supernatural has appeared in a King story is that here its appearance is relatively benign; in intent if not always in appearance or method, at least. What happens is that as Finney finds himself trapped in the Big Bad Wolf's enchanted lair, an old, disused telephone begins to ring, even when its power cord is no longer functioning. Once he answers the titular phone, our hero is soon put in contact with the haunted and haunting souls of the Grabber's former victims. Rather than being here to torment the main protagonist as in the case of the Overlook Hotel, the Ghost Boys are instead reaching out to the living in the hopes of ending the evil magician's reign of terror. It is here that the story's fairy tale qualities are at their height, and full display. Like I said, whatever problems this type of setup may pose for some viewers all hinges on how much leeway you are willing to give this kind of narrative. Like Horror in general, Hill's story is designed to reach for the stars.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEianASag7py82gaDEvy1zKQtHX1N4WgXOKFy9b_36aXbzMYSoTJK1S40KyerUtvc9zU9w5UkJmjMSfiZgNzQCRt-eUu5HhoIrCWoV_daX3VWX-_nt9mGHWYUqu4uQS4TidnwCY2VNLZ7OGiqDoI8ygUyBfV5ANk8TxmN5yp9sZzmtdZoNXY2uEq0kg9NvRf/s500/9780575082151-us.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEianASag7py82gaDEvy1zKQtHX1N4WgXOKFy9b_36aXbzMYSoTJK1S40KyerUtvc9zU9w5UkJmjMSfiZgNzQCRt-eUu5HhoIrCWoV_daX3VWX-_nt9mGHWYUqu4uQS4TidnwCY2VNLZ7OGiqDoI8ygUyBfV5ANk8TxmN5yp9sZzmtdZoNXY2uEq0kg9NvRf/s320/9780575082151-us.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>And in my opinion, it does all of this pretty well. Without going into any kind of spoiler territory, I will say that my overall impression of this narrative of a modern day Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Evil Shape-Shifting Sorcerer is one that had me grinning with excitement from beginning to end. In fact, when the opening credits started to role, I was already starting to get incredibly good vibes about this one. My immediate impression was that I was in good hands. The director seemed to have a knack for understanding the particular type of story that the father and son King team specializes in, and he was treating the material like a genuine fan would. In fact, as the credits rolled, I just kept thinking to myself, "Yeah, alright, go with this and run with it". Or words to that effect. In case you still couldn't tell, I tended to have an absolute blast with this movie. Here's just a handful of final impressions.<p></p><p>For one, I think my biggest take away is just how refreshing it was to get another solid King family adaptation after what turns out to have been something of a dry spell. The last time I can recall having this much fun was probably way back in 2007, with the twin releases of King's attempt at translating a Danish TV series <i>Riget</i> to our own shores as <i>Kingdom Hospital</i>, followed by more straightforward takes on two of his own stories, <i>Desperation</i> and <i>Riding the Bullet</i>. Ever since then, however, it's been kind of a dry century, and watching Derrickson's film was a good way to recapture a lot of all that.</p><p>It's success seems to be down to two intertwined strengths. First, it manages to capture the shared narrative voice that marks out the kind of particular style of King and Hill's fiction. It's one of those crucial, and therefore often overlooked skills when it comes to the art of adaptation. The good news is Derrickson is the kind of professional who knows what it takes to capture this literary quality on film. The entire style and aesthetic of that voice can often be crude, and sometimes downright brutal in places. However, what needs to be remembered is that neither King nor his son is ever interested at all in letting mere violence be the heart or engine that powers their stories. Like his dad, Hill is smart enough as a writer to realize that the work of Horror can never entirely exist for its own sake. What I mean is the violence, shock, and scares of great Gothic fiction are never the whole point of the story. This is something that the vast majority of filmmakers seemed to have lost sight of way back in the 1980s. The inevitable result was the mindless hack and slash school reputation that the genre has regrettably been saddled with. It's an old shame that it's been trying to shake off ever since.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV33Y18HV-EWPYPwbKYB0aJg0PgSrbTOvqW0ZVBzzH1EycFBSkQGGJaRb8ZrWC_ni3lundCzify1eiv-464bP8qg9LLpuaCsHK5kB3jrTDcFB3KRNcqG2auiKyN2xqLayP9kruIRFAOTMF1fDJBxIBJFww9xAuUWUb95m6Enyi7jIPbmv9LJsQ9_vefGYS/s1024/SEC_111155387.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="1024" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV33Y18HV-EWPYPwbKYB0aJg0PgSrbTOvqW0ZVBzzH1EycFBSkQGGJaRb8ZrWC_ni3lundCzify1eiv-464bP8qg9LLpuaCsHK5kB3jrTDcFB3KRNcqG2auiKyN2xqLayP9kruIRFAOTMF1fDJBxIBJFww9xAuUWUb95m6Enyi7jIPbmv9LJsQ9_vefGYS/w640-h336/SEC_111155387.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />I'm even willing to go so far and claim that this is something King and Hill recognize, and have been trying to assist with throughout their careers. Part of their goals as writers seems to have always been a an unspoken dedication to helping the genre raise its game. To show both audiences, and their fellow practitioners in fear that the tale of Terror has resources within it that will allow even the most pulpish concept of trying to spend a night or two in a haunted house can be elevated to levels of pure, genuine literary art. It's this second quality of raising schlock into art that is the final ingredient that makes Derrickson's adaptation work as well as it does. On the surface level, we're dealing with little else except a fairy tale for adults. At the level of thematic symbolism, however, what we've got is a story of "redeeming social merit", as King has said. At it's heart Hill's story seems to be concerned with the sense that the safety of any human life (to say nothing of one's own sanity) is often dependent on the communal, maybe even existential bonds that help glue a workable living existence together.<p></p><p>With this in mind, the story seems to hint that it's up to us as fellow microcosms to work together to see if we can't strengthen the bonds that unite each to the other. Only that way, the narrative implies, can we hope to avoid turning further human beings into inhuman monsters. Peel away all the layers of Hill's fiction, then, and all that's left is nothing except a simple plea for a greater sense of shared ethical responsibility, one that can stretch from the microcosmic stage of Finney and his own, troubled neighborhood, and out into the larger macrocosm of the audience, and the world we've got to share. All that might sound simplistic on the face of it, yet I don't think this should come as all that big a surprise. In the first place, it's not like we're dealing with a novel such as <i>War and Peace</i> here. Hill isn't trying to become the next John Updike, or anything like that. At the same time, this is not to say that what he's writing isn't art. Merely that sometimes the best fiction relies on the simplest, even the most universal of thematic notions. Going back once more to <i>Danse Macabre</i>, it's just like King says: "These "areas of unease" - the political-social-cultural and those of the more mythic, fairy-tale variety have a tendency to overlap, of course; a good horror picture will put the pressure on as many points as it can (142)".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt5Vdn-Y__jP9JcyKbCdi5AIsb5zkdIv19bk47x8YdnGjxJ-ziCDW5x38fKu5_AncTyTZc9UGOSn8M6UQgFrYmvQFi1e-B9s37AAvWMVE09rX1R04O1A9AVZtj324yuUbva9ABBzwbO9LYJOXPbgKgDycBWzthMK-wBKz_MzGTkylkGo5vOnIyTVEZ91lw/s640/stephen-king-and-joe-hill-v0-yzz0ybfmd6f91.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="640" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt5Vdn-Y__jP9JcyKbCdi5AIsb5zkdIv19bk47x8YdnGjxJ-ziCDW5x38fKu5_AncTyTZc9UGOSn8M6UQgFrYmvQFi1e-B9s37AAvWMVE09rX1R04O1A9AVZtj324yuUbva9ABBzwbO9LYJOXPbgKgDycBWzthMK-wBKz_MzGTkylkGo5vOnIyTVEZ91lw/w640-h488/stephen-king-and-joe-hill-v0-yzz0ybfmd6f91.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />I think this is something that <i>The Black Phone</i> is able to succeed at very well. It might even be the best compliment that anyone can pay it. All of which is to leave off by saying that this comes as a very easy recommendation for me. It's a fairy tale for adults with a serious yet very fun edge to it. In fact, I do wonder if it might be possible to utilize a film like this in helping newcomers gain an appreciation for the genre of things that go bump in the night. For the more squeamish initiates I suggest starting out small, with movies such as Lewis Teague's <i>Cat's Eye</i>, followed by any number of King adaptations by Mick Garris, before working your way up to a film like this, and then kicking the doors of the genre open wide. Whatever the case, a story like <i>The Black Phone</i> is an example of a Horror story finding itself lucky enough to be elevated to the level of pure art, and it is well worth the time and effort. <br /><p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-69763219503586601292023-08-27T02:17:00.000-05:002023-08-27T02:17:43.208-05:00A Tribute to the UPA Cartoons (1943-1970)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlCNmH-sGJuwUlM2h1wQi5QQZiYCy0de4MRk9nBDy2rb9-AYXaSTpNbBy3cCsJGQQUmCONwmmYQh5fb871m_uJ7sCnNnWhjrqmd_zx86ex9KedgOxK-1OLJU4aVAOEk0qkwHC1f8_1qSpZYN704kROwn_wrhtbceNdOitKmYBq3xbpNL2IdvbXjEJCd-tp/s1000/81WEJ-eCUHL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="734" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlCNmH-sGJuwUlM2h1wQi5QQZiYCy0de4MRk9nBDy2rb9-AYXaSTpNbBy3cCsJGQQUmCONwmmYQh5fb871m_uJ7sCnNnWhjrqmd_zx86ex9KedgOxK-1OLJU4aVAOEk0qkwHC1f8_1qSpZYN704kROwn_wrhtbceNdOitKmYBq3xbpNL2IdvbXjEJCd-tp/s320/81WEJ-eCUHL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="235" /></a></div>This article is really best thought of as a sequel, of sorts. For a while now, I've been on something of a self-reflective kick here on <i>The Club</i>. It's not anything like a mid-life crisis sort of deal. Instead, it's more a case of a critic being reminded of a lot of the reasons for why this blog ever got started in the first place. I've been reviewing a lot of films and books on this site for a while now. What I'm not so sure I've done quite as good a job at, however, is laying out, or getting readers to see the vantage point from which all of this stuff is critiqued. In other words, whenever I've looked at a book or movie on this informal digital diary, everything I write, and all the judgment calls I make (whether it be a major blockbuster like <i>Ready Player One,</i> or an out of the way episode of an obscure radio show, or forgotten short story), all of it is based on an aesthetic philosophy, or at least a rough idea of what Art or storytelling is, and what it can accomplish. To be fair, though, none of this is anything that any of the best critics out there have to work with. Even Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert tend to give away hints of their ideas about movies and films over the course of their careers. Kind of like an open secret.<br /><p></p><p>What I'd like to do now is not just toss off the occasional hint in the midst of talking about something else. That's something every critic winds up doing over the course of any review. However, my focus today is going to be just a little bit different from all of that Instead, I'd like to take some time to actually share one of the tenets that underlies the work done on this blog. And the interesting thing is I know just the subject that will help me share all of this with you. It all has to do with a cartoon studio.<br /></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><b>U.P.A. Cartoons: An Introduction.</b><p>As I've said, this post is really just a chance for me to explain a bit of where I'm coming from as a critic of books and films. I suppose another good way to say it is that I hope to get across my own aesthetic vantage point. In order to do that, however, I need some sort of art piece to work with. The task of criticism can never exist in a vacuum. You always need something to examine if you want to do a job like this right. What I've been looking for quite a while now for is some art work or text that could give the reader at least some idea of the kind of values I have and use when it comes to judging a story. In this case, what I've been searching for is anything that could help others understand my own relation (or lack thereof) with the question of visual storytelling. This is something everybody insists on as an important component of stories told on either the big or small screen. For the longest time, now, I've always found my own thoughts on the matter to be different. And I needed something, whether it be a book, or a piece of cinema history that would help me to explain my own, alternative point of view. </p><p>I think I might have found at least part of the answer for what I want to say on the matter of visualization in stories. It came from the unexpected help of the Royal Ocean Film Society, and a three part retrospective on what I think might now be a very forgotten, or at the least criminally overlooked indie studio known as <i>United Productions of America</i>, or UPA, for short. They were an animation house whose advent was in many ways the byproduct of a number of factors. Chief among them was the field or genre of the animated picture achieving its first, real, mainstream acclaim at the box office. There's more to this story than that, of course. What matters most about it all, for my purposes, is that I now have something to point toward that might help explain the way I relate (or otherwise don't) to the visual element of whatever stories I happen to like, and perhaps the work of UPA studios can help with at least the beginnings of an explanation for my own vantage point. In order to get there, however, will need to take a little tour of history into the life and downfall of a once influential film studio.</p><p>Part 1</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A8-09DbxHBU" width="563" youtube-src-id="A8-09DbxHBU"></iframe></div> <div>Part 2<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='561' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzVreQ6CVJ9gZFIPn0GOMIL241-CxkUi7hdbC5ka8pnS-wkAShiQ_BGr09yFK1Px2TwKttudzrcxosvSnFo2w' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div><p>Part 3</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L2jg1RrneJ4" width="557" youtube-src-id="L2jg1RrneJ4"></iframe></div><br /><p><b>The Origins, Nature, and Art of UPA.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1A-TiKstt7nlOomlatfSw3HWA4ckkssK7rQF4d_WR51PN3ZZ56RFXIhKNrXIM8_ZeTpe5j9jkaIHdD6qB3qkz8YMbUixoSz-0vCBiPAW5_K6TnuMUUkcHsuiuCnwYesKJtvKME7BqdJ8KIcgoTwY0nvvlrj_sMlNHJrSILQLeKFu8b4yFDQHcinRsA3ZU/s200/UPA_(1956)_(Taken_from_The_Gerald_McBoing_Boing_Show).png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="200" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1A-TiKstt7nlOomlatfSw3HWA4ckkssK7rQF4d_WR51PN3ZZ56RFXIhKNrXIM8_ZeTpe5j9jkaIHdD6qB3qkz8YMbUixoSz-0vCBiPAW5_K6TnuMUUkcHsuiuCnwYesKJtvKME7BqdJ8KIcgoTwY0nvvlrj_sMlNHJrSILQLeKFu8b4yFDQHcinRsA3ZU/s1600/UPA_(1956)_(Taken_from_The_Gerald_McBoing_Boing_Show).png" width="200" /></a></div>Something tells me I'd better apologize up front for those of you who bothered to watch the videos above. There may be moments here that will seem repetitive. These instances are written down solely for those who preferred to skip to the critique proper, without bothering to look at any of the evidence martialed above. Consider this a just in case heads-up. With that in mind, there's a surprising amount of things to unpack here. I'll start with a brief summary of UPA studios, and the cartoons they made. I'll then close things out with how their product ties into my own critical concerns, as it proves a handy reference point for one of the ways I approach the telling of stories. A lot of what I have to say about the animation company in and of itself is expressed well enough by the Royal Ocean Film Society video essay linked above. There, the history of this oft-overlooked company is described as follows:<br /><p></p><p>"This is the story of a group of rebels who changed the world of animation forever and for the better. The latter part of what I just said is partly my opinion, but hopefully I can convince you that I'm not too far from the truth". It's the kind of proclamation whose only purpose seems to be for the sake of getting shot down, and tossed away into the gutter. Still, the documentary continues to press on from this somewhat hubristic beginning to tell a bit of the facts. For instance, they chronicle that the UPA studios had its start in the early part of the World War II 40s, and continued all the way until about the same time as the Beatles broke up. Way back in 1970, this would have been. "In their own time, they completely upended every conception of what animation could be, and turned it on its head. Creating for themselves a legacy that has kept their work alive ever since. The UPA-ers were titans, rebels, artists, and innovators, and this is their story". The punchline to all of this sort of rests in the way that UPA ultimately came about. If the creation of the then new enterprise can be counted a success story of a kind, then one of its unintentional lessons has to be that if you want to help foster the creation of a new, independent animation division, all you have to do is make sure to piss off your staff.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5fdLoajFlVVbaqKrLO7D32_xlv_x2ODdxbIdaty57-tELgPSwyRmGtEERdE1pKLK3BS4n-QSPl-yEjRFPat54Xs3_UjdMZEMxJWp3kseAyZvp4faFni50HZUeHOrQ_EjIPtOX3W_NuM5QXU3QFsbJRuIZ0Xj0wX1Nyq-Id3rH13XtIQv5w6lP19xG3B1/s1280/disneyrevolt_interview-1280x600.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5fdLoajFlVVbaqKrLO7D32_xlv_x2ODdxbIdaty57-tELgPSwyRmGtEERdE1pKLK3BS4n-QSPl-yEjRFPat54Xs3_UjdMZEMxJWp3kseAyZvp4faFni50HZUeHOrQ_EjIPtOX3W_NuM5QXU3QFsbJRuIZ0Xj0wX1Nyq-Id3rH13XtIQv5w6lP19xG3B1/w640-h300/disneyrevolt_interview-1280x600.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is something Walt Disney, of all people, fell into during May of the year 1941. Now to be fair, everything I've read or seen about the incident I'm about to relate next leads me to believe that Walt never meant to alienate anybody. It also, however, went to highlight one of the animation pioneer's few weak spots. The honest truth seems to be that Walt had two main strengths. The first was a knack for having a very creative imagination, and then being able to pick and choose the cream of the crop to help him bring the pictures flitting around inside his head to a kind of vibrant, imaginary life. That's how Disney managed to build up his company. He would keep an eye out for animators whose style and technique showed signs of potential, or else whose talent was undeniable, and then try and see if they would come and work for him. This was no small feat on his part, and it highlights the second of Walt's main skills, his knack as a deal maker. He was nothing if not a good salesman, however, it was the one talent that seemed to come with its own built-in limitations. While Disney was good at being a builder, there were plenty of times when it was clear he didn't have as good a had for business as he should have had. It was his one major weakness and this time it got him into trouble with his own animators.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XjeKFIpH8152NtYmbPOSjl_Vr_TMrEOPrlarpI7rhIsH-rb7ZyjpUtmmQgMgaNp5WKvW7wZ-b8AYnms1z5zvdgBz2uvVXZopy1YiWlhdS14H0eh081btQ-jeFDM4uJ4eRy6ZTvOGRgfwjc3DeFYSEW8QVVA2Qb_tNn0HKRGjs0JrLgJ-H4X7itzUvOrw/s1600/ff5f79b3-2758-4aba-bb2d-9a65c14e4762.225a4c1fb7101bd44816bbd6cadcbb30.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XjeKFIpH8152NtYmbPOSjl_Vr_TMrEOPrlarpI7rhIsH-rb7ZyjpUtmmQgMgaNp5WKvW7wZ-b8AYnms1z5zvdgBz2uvVXZopy1YiWlhdS14H0eh081btQ-jeFDM4uJ4eRy6ZTvOGRgfwjc3DeFYSEW8QVVA2Qb_tNn0HKRGjs0JrLgJ-H4X7itzUvOrw/s320/ff5f79b3-2758-4aba-bb2d-9a65c14e4762.225a4c1fb7101bd44816bbd6cadcbb30.webp" width="256" /></a></div>In retrospect, perhaps it was a case of too many conflicting demands piling up in a situation where no one would have ever really been able to get whatever they wanted. You see, the animation staff at the Disney studio, the guys and gals who had helped Walt bring folks like Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Snow White, and Pinocchio to the big screen where starting to feel a certain amount of fatigue with the way things were going at work. All of it ultimately centered around a question of the paycheck, and therein lay the crux of the matter. The employee's needed a bump in their income if they wanted to keep afloat at the same time that the studio they were working for was beginning to think the very exact same thing. The punchline here is that by now Walt had managed an ironic achievement. All of his major entries to date had been critical successes that had allowed Disney and his company to place their name on the map. On the financial side, however, Walt and the studio were facing a number of setbacks. This included a contract with the studio's distributor, <i>RKO Pictures</i> (a company which no longer exists, by the way, even if they did help release <i>Snow White</i>), plus an unexpected freeze on all overseas income from places such as Britain, France, and Germany, as the oncoming War put a financial sinkhole in the studio's earnings. This left Walt clueless, and with an untenable, unworkable situation on his hands.<p></p><p>His animators wanted more pay that he couldn't give them. They wanted more credit for their work, which in turn meant more income that wasn't available at the moment. So that even though Walt would later go on to grant all of these demands, it was an impossible promise to make, at least at that particular moment. To top it all off, the company itself was sort of taken out of Walt's hands when the U.S. military stepped in and commandeered the studio, it's buildings, sound stages, and lots for the purposes of helping in the war effort. This provided Walt with enough easy income to stay afloat, and that's all it could do. Momentum on whatever animated features had been ongoing at that point came to a halt. A great number of the former staff had to be let go. The only material that could be focused on at this time was a handful of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy cartoons, with the only major motion picture entry of that time being <i>Dumbo</i>, which was the only safe option left after the failure of <i>Fantasia</i> the previous year. The rest of the studio's time and effort would be spent on churning out a lot of propaganda short films meant to boost the Country's morale for the War effort. It was the kind of situation where something has to give, sooner or later. In this case, it was a walk out of staff.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1osPzfOOJSd1us6Zh-LTbycPGudBK94xlHG8UYjawSczGcwbyofZ95tFallPLJSYfAEkJwoCa2AX9fwzv_XzTxpR1tPcuRf9DCZvD7-RA1wtdhzsdysf00D1pG5mWgPa0ZaUw-sAScHmovhmUW4bibUiR-E5z4QhmDZjaE0GESEKxhZuEsSebPC36UuA/s660/independent_spirits-01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="660" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1osPzfOOJSd1us6Zh-LTbycPGudBK94xlHG8UYjawSczGcwbyofZ95tFallPLJSYfAEkJwoCa2AX9fwzv_XzTxpR1tPcuRf9DCZvD7-RA1wtdhzsdysf00D1pG5mWgPa0ZaUw-sAScHmovhmUW4bibUiR-E5z4QhmDZjaE0GESEKxhZuEsSebPC36UuA/w640-h358/independent_spirits-01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It was perhaps the lowest moment of Walt's life, and I think what it highlights most is the point at which his strengths as a businessman come to an end. The trick with the old Mouse House was that its priorities were always sort of split down the middle. Walt was the dreamer, and his brother Roy was the one in charge of keeping the company afloat. This often meant having to scrounge up funds for his little brother's next flight of fancy, and there could sometimes be a certain carelessness in the way Walt pursued his dreams, even during what is now seen as the company's golden age. The fact is Walt was always better at being a Romantic than he was an administrator. The War years sort of forced him to gain a crash course level of experience in this regard, yet by the time the lesson had been learned, the damage was done, and a few employees who had been there with him in the beginning had moved on to pastures of their own. What happened next is that these walk outs from the House of Mouse, a group that included "story men, layout artists, in-betweeners", and "animators" all wound up meeting together to discuss what, if anything, might come next. Their informal headquarters of the moment was the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and one of the leaders of this meeting was named John Hubely.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHApq7Gw3Xm_2bsaBVkt2_wm-Kin0N0fBPxlWlx8QfBq-bgoNC8h60RoMaqPWT_-TvUqrpIBvfdPeWTr-Eh2e6YMV6dFJOyVXDGqhdrxuzQUHxbyH8WBQXIA13-Tw81nNSuOHP3L9_nU-LlWI8OM861n8tkcv1_Q2fNhVGwaBBVR3CRxGS7asoVlG9iv4a/s640/sddefault.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHApq7Gw3Xm_2bsaBVkt2_wm-Kin0N0fBPxlWlx8QfBq-bgoNC8h60RoMaqPWT_-TvUqrpIBvfdPeWTr-Eh2e6YMV6dFJOyVXDGqhdrxuzQUHxbyH8WBQXIA13-Tw81nNSuOHP3L9_nU-LlWI8OM861n8tkcv1_Q2fNhVGwaBBVR3CRxGS7asoVlG9iv4a/w364-h273/sddefault.jpg" width="364" /></a></div>"Hubely's complaints didn't just stop with pay or credit disputes. See, he was part of a growing number of animators who had grown entirely bored of what the big animation studios were churning out. 'The marvelous training at Disney developed your imagination and ideas, which were then inhibited by the need to conform to a standardized style. We just got so sick of humanizing pigs and bunnies...Select any two animals, grind together, and stir into a plot. Add pratfalls, head and body blows, and slide whistles for taste. Garnish with Brooklyn accents, slice into 600 foot lengths, and release". The review, however, claims "it went much further than that". And it is here where things get close to my own way of reading a work of art, whether on the page or screen. "If there's a spectrum that has abstract art and realism on either end, Disney in the 1930s sat far too comfortably to the right for Hubely's taste. <p></p><p>"It was that Snow White and the Prince not only looked very much like humans, but also moved pretty much exactly how humans do. Which, impressive as that was, and is, was an attempt to push the look and feel of animation closer and closer to live action. Whereas Hubely wanted to go in the exact opposite direction. He didn't want his animation to look and behave like live-action. He wanted his animation to do what live action couldn't. His colleague Zack Schwartz (explained, sic) 'Our camera isn't a motion picture camera. Our camera is closer to a printing press'. Their films didn't have to be <i>films</i> in the three-dimensional, live-action sensibility. There was an entire world of unexplored graphic expression, and like Jazz, modern art, or method acting, Hubely saw an entire world divorced from traditional conceptions of artistic realism that was begging to be embraced". Hubely, his friend Stephen Bosustow, and a handful of other Disney vets who left the company got their first big chance to take a shot at the kind of animation they wanted to see from what has to be the most unlikeliest of places. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxCAlxDow7InoPnEjbA7f5tE2RQEFnPpqV3arQPSO73bqoAcqhC0F58N7_JNB2Mow6FY6fMTv1o1G0mpZJfnay39YFvcmH8is4Gd2PffbHxUmbwKgZUtP2BCpqhceseKMFG-axH5PxX-fu9PdQjhjmBWAujnbOuYXqAVdAg3ZawDGNI3mJVSxpnIIkx9r/s1000/41JUSYKV+LL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="1000" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxCAlxDow7InoPnEjbA7f5tE2RQEFnPpqV3arQPSO73bqoAcqhC0F58N7_JNB2Mow6FY6fMTv1o1G0mpZJfnay39YFvcmH8is4Gd2PffbHxUmbwKgZUtP2BCpqhceseKMFG-axH5PxX-fu9PdQjhjmBWAujnbOuYXqAVdAg3ZawDGNI3mJVSxpnIIkx9r/w640-h282/41JUSYKV+LL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It was while serving in the U.S. Military during World War II that Hubely and the crew that would go on to form the nucleus of UPA would ironically get their first true taste of artistic freedom. For a bunch of enlisted grunts who were hired on to do little more than propaganda animation for the War Department, the powers that be were surprisingly hands off on how Hubely and the others went about their assigned task. The thinking seems to have been: "As long as you can either stick to the script, or at least suggest a usable idea for our purposes, then have at it. We don't really care how you say it, just so long as it stays on message". It's a fair bet that this is not the sort of carte blanche deal that any artist today could expect to get from the Armed Forces, which makes the opportunity that the future UPA crew was given all the more remarkable. "Ironically, many of the animators found that they were given freer artistic reign than they'd ever received when they were working for the top studio dogs. But with that free reign came a massive caveat, one that forced the artists to find newer, faster, and cheaper ways of telling stories and communicating ideas. And the result was raw, artistic innovation. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JIGLUV8Gu0gC8rJDWPe1BBLzZWWEGGRrZX5Yq5Q2ma7-wY-g3lAcOh8IdQ9sFUlDn3decvGrDRmzg8V-CEypRaklbyVJryegVRmkAodBDmAoN5v8SfGAfJkDYgN_Kf93r7Dc5glRfsmvEUtYEArq6tQZG65IHDsN0na_S1tKA0GB0zVUHIVBFnrS7O31/s407/insideupa.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="352" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JIGLUV8Gu0gC8rJDWPe1BBLzZWWEGGRrZX5Yq5Q2ma7-wY-g3lAcOh8IdQ9sFUlDn3decvGrDRmzg8V-CEypRaklbyVJryegVRmkAodBDmAoN5v8SfGAfJkDYgN_Kf93r7Dc5glRfsmvEUtYEArq6tQZG65IHDsN0na_S1tKA0GB0zVUHIVBFnrS7O31/s320/insideupa.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>"It was the working world John Hubely had always wanted". During this time, Stephen Bosustow created the prototype studio for what would later become UPA, the Industrial Film and Poster Service. "The year was 1944, and the company's first few gigs were propaganda paid for by the United Automobile Workers". It was this initial round of early gig economy work that both helped Hubely and Bosustow pay the bills, and the staff, as well as allowed the animators to stretch their visual imaginations. The new studio's first major achievement, <i>Hellbent for Election</i> "was baby steps. For the real triumphant leap came with the company's next films". The entry <i>Brotherhood of Man</i> represented not just a technical but perhaps (some may argue) a kind of social leap forward. The entire cartoon short is an 8 minute treatise on race relations that is surprisingly resonant for the time is was made in, and the real feather in the cap is that Hubely and the future UPA staff do not condescend or denigrate when it comes to the depiction of other races. Instead, all of the character models maintain a laudable respectability.<p></p><p>It was "a cheerful instructional on tolerance and diversity. and it was the culmination of what Hubely had been working towards. In his words, 'A total breakthrough from the Disney style'. It was the flat, sharp layouts. The striking designs that left the background interpreted through only the simplest color and curve of the line, and the dynamic visual storytelling. These were conceptual ideas turned into images, and breathed into life through the magic of animation. And there wasn't a talking mouse or singing tree in sight". It was perhaps an opening salvo of sorts, though it might be telling to consider just how few people out there know of it at all today. Whatever the case, the facts of history remain the same. After the War, Bosustow opened a new company for Hubely and the ex Mouse animators, this time christened United Productions, and the rest has since gone on to become history, albeit a very overlooked one. What matters for the rest of this review is the UPA style and what it can tell us about the different ways of looking at a visual work of art, especially as it relates to the other art of reading.</p><p>The first two years of the 1950s proved to be UPA's watershed, as "they released two separate films that were both wholly radical in their own proper right. The first, Robert Cannon's <i>Gerald McBoing Boing, </i>based off of the Dr. Seuss story. A triumph of color and layout that wouldn't have looked out of place hanging in a museum right in between a Picasso and a Matisse. It was the way the color of the background blended in with the character's skin tone. The way that backgrounds and locations were stripped of detail. A suburban home designated by only the odd door-frame or lamp, here and there. It was the low, striking angles, and the way that shots morphed into each other rather than being cut.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTW90fXX3A2ecJFtCne51H6oT3PT3GdvgjaEDR_V8Q2g9S7ticgf6j7EvnMTh58P9JUsn1ADWcwoGsd1kc1rBm464HCVic25bTBb1MUWOPHJE4BtxeB2b_atiGfMF7-4b_XbninUoiDNStwpVtG1eNDBbHO-CvQG3sHfDDJj4IMOy4VxYy1qUKtpRJuKq/s640/ffc193_7cf75eab1c1840449b771cecce55e543~mv2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTW90fXX3A2ecJFtCne51H6oT3PT3GdvgjaEDR_V8Q2g9S7ticgf6j7EvnMTh58P9JUsn1ADWcwoGsd1kc1rBm464HCVic25bTBb1MUWOPHJE4BtxeB2b_atiGfMF7-4b_XbninUoiDNStwpVtG1eNDBbHO-CvQG3sHfDDJj4IMOy4VxYy1qUKtpRJuKq/w640-h480/ffc193_7cf75eab1c1840449b771cecce55e543~mv2.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />"All of this being complimented by the sophistication of the second film: John Hubely's <i>Rooty-Toot-Toot</i>. Based on the popular song, <i>Frankie and Johnny</i>, a ballad about a love affair that culminated in violence. Here it was a triumph of character and design. A perfect marriage of Jazz, dance, and color that tied movement to music, and each character to a different instrument. All while the entire frame was, again, stripped of detail, but in effect made all the more striking and bold. Practically demanding and owning one's attention. These were cartoons as <i>art.</i> In the capitol lettered, unashamedly pretentious, fuck you, we're doing it the way we want to method. The kind of thing people post as #aesthetic. 'An innovation', as Dan Bashara described it, 'based off of creativity, ideology, and financial necessity. It was UPA". So what does all of this have to do with the way I read any given story? Then there's the most important question to ask. Is the product churned out by UPA any good at all? <p></p><p><b>Conclusion: Overlooked Gems, and a Testimony of Personal Aesthetics.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_pwoMutJPEBNQoKGzAsMuX7sLr6ECbsvXJyIhQk_XSl09t_ehhCkYqCE1iDfpWCZZ098mp3E1d7TvMDjrGIe7XWHYLGM-F-mg-fpeT8JnkK7cfehizXNC9Nvm4WKbqU-KfQupXG1hxi8koSYQpKU-RAS3-H7WiXC4ZpEYkafv2iCOwYfzxdbabvHPXjT/s334/3878526.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="334" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_pwoMutJPEBNQoKGzAsMuX7sLr6ECbsvXJyIhQk_XSl09t_ehhCkYqCE1iDfpWCZZ098mp3E1d7TvMDjrGIe7XWHYLGM-F-mg-fpeT8JnkK7cfehizXNC9Nvm4WKbqU-KfQupXG1hxi8koSYQpKU-RAS3-H7WiXC4ZpEYkafv2iCOwYfzxdbabvHPXjT/s320/3878526.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I think I'll answer the second question first, and start by saying that yes, the UPA cartoons are things that I would give an easy enough recommendation to, with one caveat. That you see how far you can stretch your current, 21st century imaginative sympathies. This is not a trigger warning notice, by the way. There's nothing offensive in these old theatrical cartoons. Instead, it's more a matter of finding out where the current audience stands in relation to older entertainment that isn't racist, merely different from the current expectations. This difference rests nowhere in terms of offensive characterization, and resides instead with the more complex matters of style, pacing, and overall presentation. Here is where the crux of this whole matter comes into play, and it's a struggle to find the right description for it all.<p></p><p>If I had to find the words to sum up the UPA style, then it might be to term it all as Abstract Surrealist Minimalism. Another way to say this is that it is perhaps the closest representation of what the initial draft of a creative idea looks like in the mind of the artist. This is the point at which the barest bone, sketch, and outline of the characters, background, and even the plot are starting to take shape. As the writer begins to get as clear a vision as he can of the work, then the pictures in his head begin to fill in, and take on a greater sense of shape and solidity. Now what the UPA crew do is something interesting. They will do all the work necessary to make sure <i>the story proper</i> is as complete as any of them can possibly make it, whether it be a story about a fox and a crow, or a fable drawn straight from the pages of the <i>New Yorker</i>. The interesting thing is while the story gets completed, the outline and shape of the characters and setting are always left vague. If you took and novel like <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i>, and gave it to UPA studios, the Joads and their narrative journey might all be there intact. It's just that the style would be so minimalistic that it would be like watching abstract figures in a medieval tapestry come to life. In the strictest sense, there are no human beings in a UPA cartoon, just characters and events.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNlLctfcGywCUd-tbPTT2560FItwEVVIiDIq5y9xNeMMZ-feEMk2AeZ6_1sYlyh2-a4JRToqP65RTGTOmhPAq21wLK1G72WsZRaLgKDmx_7rUUAQG2T9_cZCs8Uj1Zwsrm_XLIVj-kuYSP_lhbosqkSt6MLwe4JGlyUJlMmOMQn01HLmfrIKYURB2KVT9G/s600/menanddemons-600.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNlLctfcGywCUd-tbPTT2560FItwEVVIiDIq5y9xNeMMZ-feEMk2AeZ6_1sYlyh2-a4JRToqP65RTGTOmhPAq21wLK1G72WsZRaLgKDmx_7rUUAQG2T9_cZCs8Uj1Zwsrm_XLIVj-kuYSP_lhbosqkSt6MLwe4JGlyUJlMmOMQn01HLmfrIKYURB2KVT9G/w640-h422/menanddemons-600.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The Ocean Film Society likened UPA's work to that of paintings in a museum come to life, and it's one of those cases where the more you keep examining the cartoons put out by the studio, the more comparison seems not just apt. It's also perhaps a literal description of what happens on-screen whenever Hubely and his animators are in control of the canvas. The second video essay above puts the whole thing in what is perhaps the best perspective possible, at least at the moment. "All of this was wrapped up in the popular Modernism of the mid-twentieth century. Saul Bass; Frank Lloyd Wright; the French New Wave; and if there's a label we can apply to what UPA brought to the arts and crafts table. If we can summarize all of the philosophical gooiness that animator John Hubely wanted to chase after. Then it's what's come to be known as limited animation. An ideology heavily informed by...<i>The Language of Vision</i>, by Hungarian born painter and theorist, Gyorgy Kepes. Who advocated for every unnecessary detail to be eliminated. There is no time now for the perception of too many details. The duration of the visual impact is too short. Clarity, precision, and economy are compelling values in a world suffering under the dead weight of undisciplined individualism", Kepes claims.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJD9a62J_Imu9G1QSEstiwVIyPvb7De6Mb5A30gwdmLRURx6LcNoCAigxupmc_S8DVrfvtgirm-8iDgAcSaUnA73I0NMpzbYFgrJnyOJewfaQf5IPfSRb39z9z8eIDulPrnn2YKYGcBpnB3tDyu3aP5fM2lSjTNuAzqZ-HvWXXdtoRj9KALJ_zgd5lPB8B/s561/MV5BY2VkNDM4MzMtMDY3MS00N2FhLThhODAtM2Q1NzgzNTM1ODgxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQ3Njg3MQ@@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="366" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJD9a62J_Imu9G1QSEstiwVIyPvb7De6Mb5A30gwdmLRURx6LcNoCAigxupmc_S8DVrfvtgirm-8iDgAcSaUnA73I0NMpzbYFgrJnyOJewfaQf5IPfSRb39z9z8eIDulPrnn2YKYGcBpnB3tDyu3aP5fM2lSjTNuAzqZ-HvWXXdtoRj9KALJ_zgd5lPB8B/s320/MV5BY2VkNDM4MzMtMDY3MS00N2FhLThhODAtM2Q1NzgzNTM1ODgxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQ3Njg3MQ@@._V1_.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>I think the Ocean Film Society has done readers a bit of a service here. As the citing of Kepes and his work of artistic criticism serves to ground things in an actual working theory of art. However you want to regard the UPA style, whether you find it inspiring or dull and insipid, there's no way you can claim it all as the product of artistic laziness when the entire thing is itself inspired from a genuine theory of what art should be. The theory itself may serve as a headache to some. Yet it's ideation and practice remain real for all that. The ironic thing to note is that a respect for the individual artist was the one aspect where UPA seemed to diverge from Kepes' theory. Otherwise, both theorist and practitioners seemed to be united on more or less the same, minimalist page. "Here at UPA, they're all about the artists. So if you want to build a cartoon you got to start with your crew. Maybe John Hubely is off busy upending all manner of tradition. So you hire Bill Hurtz, who gives you a play on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qClGYJbx5Y">James Thurber's classic fable about a man, his wife, and the unicorn in their garden.</a> Maybe you think it ends up being a little too adult, but learn to deal with it. Because a lot of UPA's films tend to lean that way. <p></p><p>"Infidelity, neglect, murder, all fair game. Maybe you hire Ted Parmelee to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCEdRES08Y4">bring Edgar Alan Poe to life in a style one page away from Salvador Dali.</a> Because you want to give your audience, regardless of age, horrific nightmares for the next two and a half weeks. Or maybe you hire Robert Cannon. Since he's hands down UPA's best working director. If John Hubely was the one who set up the ball with all his ideological radicalism, then Cannon was the one who spiked the heck out of it. His wasn't the crash, bang, boom world of Warner Bros. His were stories about families, domestic life, and parent-child relationships. Classical parents clash with Jazz children. Little Christopher is an absolute terror" who for some reason is obsessed with owning a real rocket ship, instead of a toy model (how or whether this kid gets one is a story that deserves not to be spoiled). Meanwhile, a hen-pecked husband and father named "Fudget has to follow a budget. And unlike Mickey, Daffy, or Woody Woodpecker, Gerald doesn't want to be special or extraordinary. He just wants to be normal. Cannon's was a soft approach to animated storytelling. Struck sideways and blown into something astronomical with damnedest visuals the medium had ever seen. It was the abstract, photo-negative world of Fudget's budget. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig6WeZL8z38Whpr4vZ90op4r1L2gN321V1i6qHAid1HrS4mNaWxq15GyEkobYnkDmSShyLlNUEc8SD-Ee-IpOCgRDTUMUZEGNlbqQjs1tFZsZCOoDl2EUamWmYkDS9CeOby7jn7sbgE2W4AYYBVNwL7_GAh1OonMxtxIRPzHRN-kI0209KNVZFTdgN3vfV/s720/TELL%20TALE%20HEART%20(3).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig6WeZL8z38Whpr4vZ90op4r1L2gN321V1i6qHAid1HrS4mNaWxq15GyEkobYnkDmSShyLlNUEc8SD-Ee-IpOCgRDTUMUZEGNlbqQjs1tFZsZCOoDl2EUamWmYkDS9CeOby7jn7sbgE2W4AYYBVNwL7_GAh1OonMxtxIRPzHRN-kI0209KNVZFTdgN3vfV/w640-h480/TELL%20TALE%20HEART%20(3).png" width="640" /></a></div><br />"The warm, storybook color pallets of the Gerald McBoing Boing films that would make Wes Anderson drool. The flat, anthropomorphic, stop-motion of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWrJF5bgeCw"><i>The Oompahs</i>.</a> And the smudgy impressionism of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHuQlcO7hyI"><i>Madeline</i>" (based off of the award winning children's book of the same name).</a> "(Cannon, sic) was UPA's grand experimenter, and one of the all-time, underrated masters of the medium. Each world he and his compadres created was separate, unique, and beautiful in its own right. To design those worlds, you've got to hire someone like Paul Julien or Jules Engel to take care of the color. And because their work is so vital to the film, we do what Uncle Walt never did, and we throw them a bone in the opening credits. We're all about keeping things cheap here at UPA, so as much as you can, you've got to limit everything you throw up on the screen, including color". <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib0BEq6dN3uli2qHrPeiLnBuhY960Sl2fKlReVhC0fugmv7PfRVFKvUNm4GuWAEjg9c8VrfwE2jTJK-y9HcMn8tLWeCK50A7Mh8nvDAMaizg8kjqLScTnHRO6koKY543N7CqJ02lG21gO_E0xf4CaFxPEFvUjbypm27RjsCgLNnPJ8if8RQl23ZDerG84N/s873/MV5BOWQ0YzcyNzEtYzg3OC00YWJlLTgwMDYtOWNmNmJiNDAwYmU0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA0MTM5NjI2._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="582" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib0BEq6dN3uli2qHrPeiLnBuhY960Sl2fKlReVhC0fugmv7PfRVFKvUNm4GuWAEjg9c8VrfwE2jTJK-y9HcMn8tLWeCK50A7Mh8nvDAMaizg8kjqLScTnHRO6koKY543N7CqJ02lG21gO_E0xf4CaFxPEFvUjbypm27RjsCgLNnPJ8if8RQl23ZDerG84N/s320/MV5BOWQ0YzcyNzEtYzg3OC00YWJlLTgwMDYtOWNmNmJiNDAwYmU0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTA0MTM5NjI2._V1_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The second video then arrives at the final point which is also the crux of their documentary. "(Like) everything else about these cartoons, you'll find that less is way, way more. Cut corners by eliminating skin tone, and have those background colors bleed through. When you get comfortable with that you can really start playing around. Nothing's clean here, like a bunch of kids drawing outside the lines with crayons, leaving splotches everywhere.<br /><p></p><p>"Don't worry, someday a bunch people will stroke their chins and glorify it with the term Minimalism...Now remember we're not after anything resembling Realism. We're not looking at people like Edward Hopper or Gustav Courbet for inspiration. We're looking at people like Charles Demuth or Kandinsky. But more importantly we've got a pile of <i>New Yorker</i> issues sitting in the corner. So we steal everything we possibly can from Saul Steinberg. It's all about what we can do and say with simple shapes and textures. The very angle and curve of a line, and that goes whole hog for the animation as well". One character, for instance, will "devolve into a mass of squiggles when he transforms. Sonic circles denote the blast of a (car) horn. The characters" in another cartoon will "morph into lines to move about the frame". I've quoted at such great length from the documentary above because I wanted to make sure the reader gets as close to a clear picture as possible of the kind of outside the accepted norm house style that UPA took as its own standard. If it plants any notion in the collective mind of today's audience, then it might conjure up the image of a sketchpad gone wild and untamed.</p><p>If this is all you can imagine based off of just a bare bones description the studio's avant-garde creative strategy, then I won't be too surprised if all this stripped down approach to visual storytelling language leaves one with the vague impression of a jumbled, indefinable muddle. It's as if the Ocean Film Society is trying to describe smoke, something that can't be seen real well, and is impossible to pin down. If this is all the audience is left with, then none of it surprises me, because of what it is able to tell the astute observer. For me, it speaks of just how far the audience has gone in the exact opposite direction from the aesthetic outline sketched by Hubely, Cannon, and Bosustow. If you say the word animation today, or ask who makes the best animated films, then you're likely to get one of two answers. A small segment of the audience will reply that it's no contest. Disney and/or Pixar remain the undisputed champions of turning cartoons into the movies, though there may be some murmur that the titan is in danger of turning into a shell of its former self these days. The rest of the audience, which makes up a majority that far outnumbers the fans will admit they have no idea what I'm talking about.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH0Hy3h3ZZIBvNlC0oxTGuT5kXMTuTMppWnbkQkhY7AJAY75StpMdBIN6dFRJq9_pevR6LlKsVvATdcohblPWqvLrNi6DLbz5_-LmOX_-HflMA0P_VuZWX1I2dfVgNu8UmvjMYOPGvSPwA2AgyiKmHK7JgEQR1Z2G1ZDZKQNuLqsutMUF-gPNoLSM9J0Ml/s1280/image-w1280.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH0Hy3h3ZZIBvNlC0oxTGuT5kXMTuTMppWnbkQkhY7AJAY75StpMdBIN6dFRJq9_pevR6LlKsVvATdcohblPWqvLrNi6DLbz5_-LmOX_-HflMA0P_VuZWX1I2dfVgNu8UmvjMYOPGvSPwA2AgyiKmHK7JgEQR1Z2G1ZDZKQNuLqsutMUF-gPNoLSM9J0Ml/w640-h360/image-w1280.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The majority may also go further and ask what seems a very commonsensical question, at least as far as they are concerned. "And anyway", they'll say, "who on Earth cares for a bunch of cartoons, anyway? It's all just the stuff you turn on in order to keep the kids quiet for however long you need to make sure their bellies are well fed, and they can go on having a place to live. The inarticulate assumption of the majority is that with the daily task of survival staring you in the face the moment you open your eyes each morning, who has time for either cartoons, in particular, or make-believe in general"? It's the kind of sentiment that's bound to shock any die hard Pixar fan out there, for the record. What it also tells me is just how unlettered the vast majority of the audience is, and has been, for quite some time now on just how many ways there are of reading a story besides the current zeigeist in which we live on a very unconscious level. This is something that begins to be driven home for anyone who is willing to stop and take a look outside the box that is our contemporary reading habits. It's a lesson that has been brought home to me not just through studies of long, forgotten film studios like UPA, either. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNlIpMn7JocIlnI5DETIdxR8V6JTVXFXyJ40iRYrQ7FUYIP-SoNtqopzgUR5k1h3evYoFpRU090vAoKQLGtdE4bO4KOTJ7-0xc-xVdYyorigurnGQ2D1yReBTAmRIwMI-dWF8PipNzaGFqKPryXCDj1h2ueLwG-GYGgrWdLFlBjyCgM68L3pG9WV47IPgv/s1000/51XeJ052kFL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="652" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNlIpMn7JocIlnI5DETIdxR8V6JTVXFXyJ40iRYrQ7FUYIP-SoNtqopzgUR5k1h3evYoFpRU090vAoKQLGtdE4bO4KOTJ7-0xc-xVdYyorigurnGQ2D1yReBTAmRIwMI-dWF8PipNzaGFqKPryXCDj1h2ueLwG-GYGgrWdLFlBjyCgM68L3pG9WV47IPgv/s320/51XeJ052kFL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>In fact, a surprisingly greater scope, or perspective on the way we perceive the art we create can be found when you turn from mere film studies to criticism that deals with creative writing. It's the kind of notion that is so counter-intuitive to how we think today, that it's no wonder if few have ever considered there might be a handful of literary critics out there who can help us understand that our current way of looking at stories is not only relatively recent, yet also subject to shifts and changes with the passage of time. This is something I learned not just from filmmakers like John Hubely, but also decorated literary critics like Alastair Fowler. If you're lucky to find the time, try and hunt down a copy of titles like <i>Kinds of Literature</i>: <i>An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes</i>, or <i>Renaissance Realism</i>: <i>Narrative Images in Literature and Art</i>. Both texts are good places to arrive at a gradual realization of just how often our conception what is the "right" or "proper form of dramatic presentation" has not, and probably never has been the same as the current set of artistic expectations we bring to storytelling.<p></p><p>What critics like Fowler, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_and_Illusion">E.H. Gombrich</a>, or <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780942299533/perspective-as-symbolic-form">Erwin Panofsky</a> can help us realize is not just how our understanding of what makes a "proper narrative presentation" has never really stood still over the years, regardless of medium. In addition, they can sometimes help us recapture a sense of how older audiences were able to enjoy the favorite stories of their own, long gone time periods. A final bonus here is that they can also make us realize that our current way of seeing and appreciating the books and films we like are also just as much of a <i>phase</i> that is having its day for the moment, until the turn comes when it too will give way to a different way reading and seeing on an imaginative level. Here's Fowler's point in a nutshell. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AVQrFrK4Kfwn4rQQBmp8agZLcgU3SVQ562lXBBXwmW2-B2QubfMmwO8HsRjNtQCSkSos690t7mJCuRkWuGZBk8_-DLHAriKwszwJQmA5ow86_CYOygJkhVag-sgRsFnr_jAhrOr0aOQ6XgoXqwXLuwdsCxjzjM6H43SB9gsrXJvLDR5DGvd2abICmq1k/s3000/lf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1246" data-original-width="3000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AVQrFrK4Kfwn4rQQBmp8agZLcgU3SVQ562lXBBXwmW2-B2QubfMmwO8HsRjNtQCSkSos690t7mJCuRkWuGZBk8_-DLHAriKwszwJQmA5ow86_CYOygJkhVag-sgRsFnr_jAhrOr0aOQ6XgoXqwXLuwdsCxjzjM6H43SB9gsrXJvLDR5DGvd2abICmq1k/w640-h266/lf.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />While it's possible to point to a kind of teleology in the history of artistic representation, there is nothing inherently progressive about it. It is less a matter of forgone destiny, and more a question of choice that applies to both the artist and their audience together. Indeed, it is not too out of bounds to consider that we might now be living through an age of mixed old and new aesthetic expectations and generic narrative practice's, with both modern and primitive reading and storytelling techniques existing together side by each. All of this taking place on such a submerged mental level, that our conscious minds can barely register the differences and clashes that make up the current moment of artistic cognitive dissonance. It takes a very determined effort to break outside of the viewpoint box we are currently in. This is the sort of achievement anyone can make in theory, yet very few of us have tried in practice. Leading me to wonder how different things would be if the majority really managed it?<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk53Sci8FBKLxpY80_9Ql-mcR2034e-iWZ4Q9LBWSQXtC62k3AJJUh3E9rnAnr-CBNqAXQ028zwRSCsX9lsfIK56YFrWyTFdZYODvyJeWgMQGu1mGLp5umBmeU-KpmO9xurPLIJBW7DJUGKX-EQEnrqV03PviyQ2O5zZhVntL6Cw_rDnI67MdI73MQnZdy/s1358/lf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1358" data-original-width="937" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk53Sci8FBKLxpY80_9Ql-mcR2034e-iWZ4Q9LBWSQXtC62k3AJJUh3E9rnAnr-CBNqAXQ028zwRSCsX9lsfIK56YFrWyTFdZYODvyJeWgMQGu1mGLp5umBmeU-KpmO9xurPLIJBW7DJUGKX-EQEnrqV03PviyQ2O5zZhVntL6Cw_rDnI67MdI73MQnZdy/s320/lf.jpg" width="221" /></a></div>As things stand, all I can do is give a field report from outside the box, and let everyone else on the inside know how things are like once you've been able to take a step back, and look at both art and audience with a greater critical scope. From where I'm situated, what I'm looking at is an audience whose fundamental artistic assumptions rest on an uneasy, unstable kind of narrative realism. This is less a well held together, coherent thought, and more a haphazard set of notions that have accumulated together over the years. Most of it shows signs of being drawn from the Ivory Tower, of all places. It's a case of the reigning zeitgeist of older critics from the 19th century, such as John Dewey, trickling down into the larger public mindset, and thus conditioning the audience's expectations for literal generations. The irony here is that while someone like Dewey might be able to construct a long thought out rationale for why a narrative based on a Naturalist mindset makes for the ideal type of narrative storytelling, the vast majority of the people out there, in the aisles, cannot justify such a belief however they want. Instead, it's a question of the long, worn out opinions of an earlier age filtering in among the readers in a highly debased standard.<p></p><p>Much like John Hubely, I find myself confronted with a way of looking at things in general, and stories in particular, that is long past its due date. It seems that the time is ripe for a change of audience perspective, yet we seem to be in a holding pattern for the moment. That new insight which will help us look at, or read stories in a fresh way has yet to materialize. If and when it does, then as the saying goes, everything old may be made new again. Until such time, I find myself having to look for ways of conveying a more outside the box way of dealing with the fictions we write for ourselves. It's not an easy task, by any means. The funny thing is how it is still possible to say this is one of the most stimulating tasks I've ever tried to shoulder in my life. The good news in all this is that I've never had to do it alone. Guys like Hubely, Bosustow, and Cannon have been a lot of help in this. Without setting them up as any kind of gold standard, or anything. What I am able to say with a fair amount of certainty is that the animators and artistry of UPA has done a critic like myself a bit of a double service.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPd2yFFDSH2ow6YQgGXsj0JrZ2tPqiTYYwlL5LWnvoeUw9jjtQhbJHzHIL1U0p94JnzySwF6hVYExyTRiJ6BifwFBts5u5KKCUYPUrRBid7U2IxIeafpYWr5psqAwPM_Inx9Cd2seiuogOQb0rumgOYtk-dZTC4YfYweTAFNp_5ez5vXaqVGnE-yZIau7/s1630/FZ6_RMvXkAEwfuD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1630" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPd2yFFDSH2ow6YQgGXsj0JrZ2tPqiTYYwlL5LWnvoeUw9jjtQhbJHzHIL1U0p94JnzySwF6hVYExyTRiJ6BifwFBts5u5KKCUYPUrRBid7U2IxIeafpYWr5psqAwPM_Inx9Cd2seiuogOQb0rumgOYtk-dZTC4YfYweTAFNp_5ez5vXaqVGnE-yZIau7/w640-h314/FZ6_RMvXkAEwfuD.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In addition to churning out some pretty impressive cartoons that don't deserve to be forgotten, they've also perhaps managed to set up, not a goal post to aim for, so much as helpful sign or bus stop along the way. What the efforts of artists like Hubely, or critics like Fowler and Panofsky have helped me in understanding is the need to never rest cozy with any potential visual style when it comes to picturing the stories I enjoy. I don't know how strange of a thing that is to say. All I can say is that it has helped enrich my ability to take in a ton of different types and styles of stories beyond the ones that exist at the current (and right now, somewhat precarious) blockbuster box office. And part of the debt is owed to the animated secondary worlds created by UPA. What all of this has helped me realize is that visuals count for a lot less than the quality of the writing. Perhaps it helps to think of it as a way of reading that refuses to be boxed in. It never rests on a specific style of visualization, and instead knows the real smart choice is to just leave the table open to a lot of different voices, vantages, or perspectives. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL8iy3vwfLp6xjQ7QeB3RjqUMDZFh1uNGkQpXpTqO8TtmkCLg5Jww7FnwO8dfb7MyVD6Ky-6yFwp1Xfu9PF3Ur_VeJJxtYk4TH6Yb7jeBxmJp53peu5D4pkGb2jxmmYO22ig58mTelfzEvWdGOVzgbIpC3rHygTBq1SYPsmBByxw_DeDED1SsgKYLDp-Sn/s629/e5a109e6404179abedb01c4060581795.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="282" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL8iy3vwfLp6xjQ7QeB3RjqUMDZFh1uNGkQpXpTqO8TtmkCLg5Jww7FnwO8dfb7MyVD6Ky-6yFwp1Xfu9PF3Ur_VeJJxtYk4TH6Yb7jeBxmJp53peu5D4pkGb2jxmmYO22ig58mTelfzEvWdGOVzgbIpC3rHygTBq1SYPsmBByxw_DeDED1SsgKYLDp-Sn/s320/e5a109e6404179abedb01c4060581795.jpg" width="143" /></a></div>Whatever the case may be, or however you think of this, the uneraseable fact behind all of this theorizing remains the same. I can never judge films as good or bad based on the way they looked. Instead, it has always remained the skill on display in the <i>writing</i> which has been the ultimate decider in whether I look at any book or film as bad. This is something that has born itself out for me in practice, time and again. There have been a number of films with great visual styles which have nonetheless left me bored to tears because the script was never anything worth bothering about. This has been true even in a number of films that have long since been considered classics. The titles among this ironic list includes such names as <i>A Nightmare on Elm Street</i>, <i>Vertigo</i>, <i>2001</i>: <i>A Space Odyssey</i>, the Disney <i>Star Wars</i> trilogy, <i>Ben Hur</i>, <i>Tenant</i>, and a lot (if maybe not all) of Ingmar Bergman's films like <i>Persona</i> and <i>The Seventh Seal</i>. I just can't get into any of these works because while the cinematography is some of the most impressive work ever done, it stops at being just a nice coat of paint with nothing else to recommend it. Then what happens is I'll turn around and watch a cheaply made Vincent Price flick, or a simple, straightforward rendition by UPA of James Thurber's <i>Fables For Our Time</i>, and come away with the kind of story whose enchantment will be able to last maybe more than just one lifetime.<p></p><p>To me, the whole thing has amounted to one ongoing lesson that looks are never the whole story when it comes to judging the quality of either a book or film. All stories are at the mercy of the writing. This is something that was born home to me the more I studied the history of how audiences or readers related to the stories they were told. I've even boiled it all down to a kind of maxim within a proverb. No one has ever been able to leave the theater stage, and the stage itself has never been able to leave the page. All narrative depends on the written word for its existence, and even that resides ultimately in the mind, seeing as how art is the ultimate product of the Imagination. What all of this has left me with is an aesthetic outlook that has offered me a greater degree of freedom from the kind of established norms that have been dictating the way we read and/or watch the tales we tell ourselves. It's also gone that one step further by helping me realize that even the current gold standards we use to judge a work of fiction will always one day be replaced by another. I seem to have found an ideal vantage point for this. As it's one that exists outside of all standardized styles of visualization, and it might be true that the UPA cartoons have turned out to be at least one of the helpful guides towards this realization.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1_4yc-LZupLDcBl4GV5DwJZH78wmz4u3c4B39swEtwiC2JBhf8e5T9zE5F8Rew66IfCfDUdO00A6L06Yt4BPZ6s9UJvBTqz63BG94rQSybYNP5IgXzitnevoCVsaAUtpPG5ZFSOa8MN2QG64VnKhsjRqWTiw0Jb_AyqfLi4o3X6MNKvVgI3yGBfTRX_RQ/s1170/Perspective-as-Symbolic-Form-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="1170" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1_4yc-LZupLDcBl4GV5DwJZH78wmz4u3c4B39swEtwiC2JBhf8e5T9zE5F8Rew66IfCfDUdO00A6L06Yt4BPZ6s9UJvBTqz63BG94rQSybYNP5IgXzitnevoCVsaAUtpPG5ZFSOa8MN2QG64VnKhsjRqWTiw0Jb_AyqfLi4o3X6MNKvVgI3yGBfTRX_RQ/w640-h360/Perspective-as-Symbolic-Form-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />So does this mean I'm willing to recommend the studio's cartoons to the audience? Well, I'd have to say yes, they deserve to be rediscovered and given a look. The trick is knowing whether or not the current reigning tastes of the audience will even permit such a thing, at least for the moment, anyway. If there's one thing half a lifetime of paying close attention to trans-medium "texts" and the way they are "read" has taught me, it's that the full import and content, or meaning of the words in any given story can never be taken in at a single glance. The other lesson life has taught me on this score is that the audience can never see whatever it wants, only what it is capable of perceiving in any given narrative. This can have a vert crippling effect on the reader's ability to properly enjoy any story. Indeed, it is possible that such circumstances can lead to unintended, yet very unfortunate effects. It is not impossible for a reader to have a copy of Dickens' <i>Great Expectations</i> (or one of the best of its many adaptations) placed in front of them, only for the audience to come away bored, because it doesn't match the current style of storytelling that they are used to receiving. This may sound strange, yet really it's what to expect.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGm_XWm5vnqdESar1kTQkdjkFmqJo2QL_mOEK65xU_vEKJVPLnqG0dmWYWtft3lqrx6wifwjv4TjO4O49G3myb3LupMdiWeutBvMym5oMOn9-yH2neU9TD7XoBCDL6D4GEFwkPM6U9VB8v6kKZjFoWArOwa7mbPtF-mQS7Dkdk-lh_T_G1xxbGa5QuloAF/s1920/ST00001184.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGm_XWm5vnqdESar1kTQkdjkFmqJo2QL_mOEK65xU_vEKJVPLnqG0dmWYWtft3lqrx6wifwjv4TjO4O49G3myb3LupMdiWeutBvMym5oMOn9-yH2neU9TD7XoBCDL6D4GEFwkPM6U9VB8v6kKZjFoWArOwa7mbPtF-mQS7Dkdk-lh_T_G1xxbGa5QuloAF/s320/ST00001184.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>What happens in this case is there are a number of competing factors at work here, each one serving to cancel the other one out. On one hand, you have a complete text which time has proven to be objectively good. In other words, the first ingredient in the equation is a legit great story well told. The second component, however, is not just the audience, but also whatever artistic expectations of the moment that have been slowly accumulated and acclimatized into their minds as they have grown from infancy to adulthood. It's a process that happens in every age. Up till about the 19th century, however, it was possible to claim that readers grew up under a relatively stable and unified sense of artistic expectations. This is a mindset that has apparently undergone some kind of shift or breakdown. Meaning that we now live in a situation where in order to gain any possible appreciation for a work like <i>Great Expectations</i>, or a simple UPA cartoon, the audience would first have to undergo a much slower, halting, maybe even somewhat awkward process of acclimatization in order to be able to fully appreciate the genuine art of the creators that went into the finished product as a completed whole.<p></p><p>If that sounds like a lot to ask from the next faces you see in the aisles, then perhaps that's true. Like I said, there seems to have been a breakdown of some kind in an audience mindset that once possessed a greater sense of shared artistic expectation. I suppose another way to put this is that readers used to possess a greater deal of imagination, once upon a time. In recent years, however, say, sometime after the turn of the millennium, this imaginative capacity has begun to shrink. What's more worrying, this reduction, or imaginative sterility appears to have occurred in spite of the best efforts that genuinely knowledgeable teachers and educators have made to counteract it. This has left the artist of today in an unenviable stuck position. They're forced to play an unintentional game of catch as many readers, or eyeballs as they can, and who can say how well even the most accomplished storyteller will fair in the contemporary climate? For instance, I once saw a review on the films of Akira Kurosawa, and while it was clear the critic was a genuine fan of the director's work, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmqzJX9LS9s">he was also aware of how few modern viewers out there would be capable of even caring about one of the creators of contemporary cinema</a>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1Neaot1stBL-v_HxM9yJWiALaDi-bm43_mvxmBg_Y_fCRCr3jOLRZz-wtvjVfoyJ1aEdg-OZ8IaEsM4zJd_-DxtRQiPuJh-fIt81AwfkU6ukXQCMukJ1CjJW7ohRILa-jT8Hn66yngxkivzW2k2sOdyReH8VhetD3KR3VvB74CIfRJiu8Iv3BcJm6S28/s2448/MV5BYjUyYjBlMTQtNDI4ZC00YzcyLWFjYWMtZTA0YmVkMzFiNjE5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDU4MTQ0Ng@@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1836" data-original-width="2448" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1Neaot1stBL-v_HxM9yJWiALaDi-bm43_mvxmBg_Y_fCRCr3jOLRZz-wtvjVfoyJ1aEdg-OZ8IaEsM4zJd_-DxtRQiPuJh-fIt81AwfkU6ukXQCMukJ1CjJW7ohRILa-jT8Hn66yngxkivzW2k2sOdyReH8VhetD3KR3VvB74CIfRJiu8Iv3BcJm6S28/w640-h480/MV5BYjUyYjBlMTQtNDI4ZC00YzcyLWFjYWMtZTA0YmVkMzFiNjE5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDU4MTQ0Ng@@._V1_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This seems to be the challenge that all art, whether classic or contemporary must labor under, and the cartoons of UPA are no exception to this somehow unstated, yet very real (for the moment, anyway) rule. Because of this, I'm going to have to be very careful in how I recommend a series of short films like these. Are they worth watching? Absolutely. In fact, it is possible to argue that they are just as good, in their own right, as a book like <i>Great Expectations</i>. It's just that now you have to temper those expectations in terms of the possible reception they can get nowadays. I write this all from the perspective of someone who wants to see the legacy of UPA continue on, in the hopes that it can inspire a future generation of writers, artists, and animators out there. In much the same way that the art of Max Fleischer has gone on to inspire contemporary popular works such as the <i>Cuphead</i> franchise, so the work of John Hubely and Robert Cannon has the potential to act as an inspiration for further artistic endeavors in the same vein. In order for any of this to happen, though, all art now seems to require a bit of education on the part of any interested segment of the audience, if they are to be really understood.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kUpm7mbaJKemkrVSxU5sJWVyev682rvH3G7kgJkdfHwBidB6A10386b3IIwvy8MdiPVKc1hDgYMWlmWODtULxuhpf08yveQ-sCQf3rsdmk5MYGJ3AKjQ8n_WmV7fF6vWt4Ze4I8n_PrH_2oBRSQRmeqvBJkojcrUtZiLyzFh3DVoB7q3Au1ImigERC_K/s300/Madeline-197x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="197" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kUpm7mbaJKemkrVSxU5sJWVyev682rvH3G7kgJkdfHwBidB6A10386b3IIwvy8MdiPVKc1hDgYMWlmWODtULxuhpf08yveQ-sCQf3rsdmk5MYGJ3AKjQ8n_WmV7fF6vWt4Ze4I8n_PrH_2oBRSQRmeqvBJkojcrUtZiLyzFh3DVoB7q3Au1ImigERC_K/s1600/Madeline-197x300.jpg" width="197" /></a></div>From here on in, it really does seem as if all proper appreciation of the arts and storytelling has become a matter of what E.D. Hirsch described as <i>Cultural Literacy</i>. We seem to have reached a point at which there is a disconnect between artist, or writer and audience. It seems to be a case where the artist is often creating their art from a perspective of background information that is often in danger of being alien to most readers and viewers. This puts all art at a disadvantage, as it means both parties will get left out in the cold unless some effort is made to bridge this gap. In the case of UPA, this means finding out how to learn about the artistic principles that undergirded its unique style of telling stories. "These were Modernist worlds. Worlds that quite often followed one of Modernism's central tenets: self-consciousness. There were animations that were frequently about the very fact that they were animated. Or as John Updike described it: 'contained within them the need to confess artifice". <br /><p></p><p>What I've begun to learn from all of this is just how much the current process of understanding (or lack thereof) of the art of storytelling mimics the current clashes that are rocking the entire world today. It leads me to wonder; what if the possibility of being entertained by stories rests on a similar need to understand the vantage point of another person? The importance of such a possibility would of course be doubled if the artist is from a different culture altogether. If there is any truth to this surmise, then maybe one of the unintended side benefits of discovering the art of a simple UPA cartoon is that by helping us to gain a sense of the history of our own culture, it can then help spark the curiosity to learn about those of others, which might just turn out to be a very necessary skill in the 21st century. Perhaps this sounds like a lot to ask from just a handful of animated cartoons. All I can respond to this is that it seems as if the demands of just plain living in the current moment is now demanding that all citizens in audience learn a greater deal of knowledge about the world and the people in it, if we wish for stability.</p><p>The demand itself might seem strange, yet its fundamental logic is sound. Not only that, but it's also true all good works of art can be of help in this regard. The only trick to keep in mind seems to be the need to tell the difference between a genuine expression of art, and the false pretenses propaganda. True art always opens doors to a fuller understanding life and all the people in it. All propaganda is concerned with is the will to power, thus entailing a very narrowistic conception of what life is, or could be. Besides, it's also something that means to get other people hurt, and that's the last thing that any true art should have as its goals. All that guys like John Hubely and Bob Cannon cared about was telling goods tales that could help widen the expanse of the imagination. The artwork may look crude or passe from a viewpoint that has been raised to view all animation from the Pixar reference. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_eQf7I2ZNMbX9rp8gxv1Z18Z7o4UfWTx5QmvUAwrUKqfaAubO2YsbFpbI_Kyf9NfbMbo94vsYE9ug0azfyZizPMXK9mJ2XtLA2xCsCJztwmysArIDdUZzfz6KfJvu0pYs-0xMD_7EqbVgbLZLjLTuytt5A1ntQJPvk3yqN1lPS1DULrrCZddYTM2rjrF/s750/UPA_20_Animation_20Studio__20logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="750" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_eQf7I2ZNMbX9rp8gxv1Z18Z7o4UfWTx5QmvUAwrUKqfaAubO2YsbFpbI_Kyf9NfbMbo94vsYE9ug0azfyZizPMXK9mJ2XtLA2xCsCJztwmysArIDdUZzfz6KfJvu0pYs-0xMD_7EqbVgbLZLjLTuytt5A1ntQJPvk3yqN1lPS1DULrrCZddYTM2rjrF/w640-h398/UPA_20_Animation_20Studio__20logo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />However, I'd argue that's exactly why the work of UPA can help serve to shake us out of such sterile complacency. It might help give us a sense of the other frontiers out there waiting to be explored. For all of these reasons, I'd have to recommend that you hunt down the work of the UPA cartoon studio. You might be surprised at the way it has of helping to expand the horizons of your Imagination. <br /><p></p><p></p></div></div>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-5994139916440947132023-08-13T00:48:00.002-05:002023-08-13T17:51:13.656-05:00Rated K For Kids (1986-88).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wiI-QYVzyd5uFOsBTqPU3TjFt7OmOTmyPp6yqiM45Bv2_1r1kZLofVXvpqvLtveyhWMwatR3W5WWBFEVm18V-2DRybXAJRdDNx-A_hzGAD99yz327NbQZ6K7VTIOcfjxoV0nl2RMdIjCfmR-6wVW8H_88Jr3XTa9-FdPjUYy_SUNBUokCGUKWgDn39yq/s238/Untitled.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="212" data-original-width="238" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wiI-QYVzyd5uFOsBTqPU3TjFt7OmOTmyPp6yqiM45Bv2_1r1kZLofVXvpqvLtveyhWMwatR3W5WWBFEVm18V-2DRybXAJRdDNx-A_hzGAD99yz327NbQZ6K7VTIOcfjxoV0nl2RMdIjCfmR-6wVW8H_88Jr3XTa9-FdPjUYy_SUNBUokCGUKWgDn39yq/w282-h251/Untitled.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>This next entry in <i>The Scriblerus Club</i> is somewhat unique, and calls for a special kind of introduction. I'll have to backtrack just a bit in order for any of what I say next to make sense. A good way to start out is by stating the simple facts. This article is written in something of a reflective mood. No need to worry, however. There's not going to be any grand, Wordsworthain rhapsodies here. I may be a sentimentalist, yet I'm also smart enough to know when to reign it in. Instead, it's more that the last review I did contained a lot of food for thought. It was enough to get me thinking on my role as a blogger, and what that means in terms of wanting to be the kind of critic who reviews books and films for a living. I have Martin Scorsese to thank for this (believe it or not as you will, I'm telling nothing less than the truth here). His work on <i>The King of Comedy</i>, with its cautionary fable about the wages of fame and notoriety made me aware of how much of an ethical responsibility is needed on the part of not just the artist. It's a moral imperative which appears to also be demanded of both the audience in general, and of any actual, legitimate critics there might be somewhere in the aisles.<p></p><p>I'm not sure I can even pretend to fit the role of a legitimate critic by any stretch of the imagination just yet. It's the job description I want to have someday. Until that moment arrives I'm just a journeyman, at best. However, what Scorsese's film made me realize is that even a trainee isn't exempt for seeing if they can do a proper job well, even if it's just at the beginner's level. Scorsese seems to be arguing that there's a lot of responsibilities that comes with being a critic, just as much as there is with being a storyteller. And it is with this brief moment of insight that the last film I reviewed set off a spark in my mind. Because a lot of the themes he and De Niro tackled in their little comedy project goes right to the heart of what a blog like this is all about. <i>The Scriblerus Club</i> is a digital space concerned with a number of interlocking topics. The first is relatively straightforward. This is just a place where I can satisfy my own myriad fascinations about the making and telling of stories. This includes what they are, where they come from, and what they mean to both writer and reader. The other part of this blog concerns the latter half of the equation mentioned in the previous sentence. In addition to an incurable wondering about stories, I've grown increasingly aware over the years of the role of the audience.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfm0F5bbTXEiUmdql41k8dJUscruvwxKIm4pbe_AZLYxV4H--YTiGmYxklfAuzkwoWCwRW_uE6n0djaTE6R0ufMOuSZL_gGS9HkdmKK6jxr5QGJpsKmoCVbHAjVg7jqJi14f6zotf1270jnZXg_D-2SRv1-ORY7IKhswuFu_kAjQAOCKEAVIggYr6h32lW/s600/438425.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="600" height="530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfm0F5bbTXEiUmdql41k8dJUscruvwxKIm4pbe_AZLYxV4H--YTiGmYxklfAuzkwoWCwRW_uE6n0djaTE6R0ufMOuSZL_gGS9HkdmKK6jxr5QGJpsKmoCVbHAjVg7jqJi14f6zotf1270jnZXg_D-2SRv1-ORY7IKhswuFu_kAjQAOCKEAVIggYr6h32lW/w640-h530/438425.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This was a topic whose importance I first began to realize maybe as soon as 2015 or 14. The irony is it was an exposure to online troll culture that brought this to my attention more than anything else. It was through stumbling across the work of "internet personalities" like Doug Walker and a host of copycat imitators that first made me aware of the various kinds of roles and outlooks that the audience can adopt or embrace in their dosing or intake of art. It also brought me to a slow growing realization of just how much of a problem this kind of toxicity is for any possible discussion of the arts. The good news is that it does at least seem as if the vast majority of the audience is aware of the issue as well, and really does wish for a healthier social space in which to discuss our enthusiasms for the art of stories. So that's been one aspect of my concerns as a reviewer. The other one has sort of taken me by surprise. I also don't seem to be the only face in the crowd whose noticed a kind of collective fumbling when it comes to something like telling a mere story on the silver screen. I can't even begin to give you explanation for why Hollywood in general seems to be going through its own moment of existential crisis.<p></p><p>As of this writing, there is a mass walkout strike in all of the major motion picture studios, and television companies. There seems to be talk and rumors on the street and in various chat forums that the American film industry is headed for a collapse of some kind. At the very least, it won't surprise me if the entertainment complex undergoes some kind of shake-up transformation as a result of all of these events. What the fallout of the Hollywood strikes will be, whether it will reshape American filmmaking, and what new form (if any) this next phase of cinematic storytelling may take, I couldn't really say. If I had to go out on a limb, then I do wonder if one possible result could be a new democratization of making movies. In other words, one potential outcome could be the either reduction or rebirth of motion pictures on a worldwide independent basis. In other words, we could see all movies in the future as the product of a worldwide indie filmmaking model. One with no real studio system to speak of anymore, and instead its all just various artists, actors, and crew coming together to create what they can on an open, crowdfunded environment. At least this is one possibility out there.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglt4ZpUeusFA3y9fklo6R-kE7QFpr7qafpn1QpYL2ji5f5ZbB4MmRIPkQHEsJIkGW62qdjuEtytM_vJfRu06VPoJoFXF-vRtBA_m1a08_RTlIhPJ5_c4z1ZDQZGDzigs_FWomSj9MTYv2nBgG1H0mZ8OlhWdlqk31ScD6Z65LDhFRx3E8Yc_R0iAMp-CyV/s361/RatedKForKidsbyKids.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="361" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglt4ZpUeusFA3y9fklo6R-kE7QFpr7qafpn1QpYL2ji5f5ZbB4MmRIPkQHEsJIkGW62qdjuEtytM_vJfRu06VPoJoFXF-vRtBA_m1a08_RTlIhPJ5_c4z1ZDQZGDzigs_FWomSj9MTYv2nBgG1H0mZ8OlhWdlqk31ScD6Z65LDhFRx3E8Yc_R0iAMp-CyV/w640-h490/RatedKForKidsbyKids.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This article, however, can't hope to begin to address all of these matters; or at least not all at once. Instead, for this entry, I've decided to tackle another issue, and set my sights more on the way audiences take in the art and stories that they enjoy. Part of the reason for a blog like this is a growing curiosity about what people are thinking when they either enjoy or dislike an offered story, and what this information might be able to tell on a broader level. I'm wondering if maybe a review of the audience can help us figure out what kind of stories we like to tell ourselves, and see if this, in turn, can tell us something about the state of the arts. Now, in order to do that, I've chosen the help of an old TV show.<p></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p><b>The TV Program.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97L-FxMH7hQUfA9e-soO6E2hLlVhzCVR-baNyPgffJr_x3wzqh2668Q6lt7LO-giZwaLUbHSn2HaiyanJKyEXfYJ4tVg7DclWCUYzgbnw4Lq7dH3aa0AczKm7LQETa-GfB5KNAI7BpfGVJxOsGS0vZ0fDctK83olHcoexsixcvGay0QX-6-ufWqPaMbCg/s900/Poparena37.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97L-FxMH7hQUfA9e-soO6E2hLlVhzCVR-baNyPgffJr_x3wzqh2668Q6lt7LO-giZwaLUbHSn2HaiyanJKyEXfYJ4tVg7DclWCUYzgbnw4Lq7dH3aa0AczKm7LQETa-GfB5KNAI7BpfGVJxOsGS0vZ0fDctK83olHcoexsixcvGay0QX-6-ufWqPaMbCg/s320/Poparena37.webp" width="320" /></a></div>This brings us to the main subject of the article. I'd like to invite the reader to watch something, if they have a moment. The video enclosed below is the product of a YouTube vlogger named Greg Stevens. He's the owner, proprietor, and operator of a video series known as <i>Pop Arena</i>. Like many online content makers, Stevens is a video essayist whose work tends to concentrate on the minutia of pop culture as it was defined over the course of both the 80s and 90s. If the <i>Pop Arena</i> series is known for anything, then it might stem from two continuing sources on his channel. The first is his ongoing examination of R.L. Stine's <i>Goosebumps</i> books. The second is the one we're concerned with today. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL63ushetAZ-xoXYf46MkIywbmLq_3qXRw">It's a batch of web videos known simply as <i>Nick Knacks</i></a>. It's an essay set dedicated to examining the entire history of the TV channel <i>Nickelodeon</i>. This is a project that has been made in as complete a chronological order as possible, from the channel's nascent beginnings in the late 70s (along with its first major kids show, <i>Pinwheel</i>), and it might presumably go all the way to the cable network's current incarnation, if that's what called for, anyway. So far, Stevens work on this project has been impressive.<p></p><p>The playlist of for his documentary set runs up to 96 entries as of this writing, with the promise of more to come. During the course of each episode, Stevens has always reached for that extra necessary mile that turns a merely competent fan opinion into a legitimate work of criticism. All of this is down to the amount of effort the vlogger has put into not just his editing, timing, or delivery, but also the wealth of research and archival resources he has been able to dig up and draw upon for his videos. We're dealing with a product from the type of critic who will go out of his way to track down long forgotten people like Paul Saltzman, Julie Weissman Markovitz, or Thomas Hill. You may not know the names of these people, yet all of them were responsible for giving 90s brats, or 80s kids like me the kind of childhood we've all grown up to look back on fondly. It's a testament to Steven's skill that he is able to bring this childhood back to life time and again in each of his videos. Even if it's possible to say there are times when I find myself in disagreement with some of his final judgment calls, what can never be denied is that <i>Pop Arena</i> in general, and <i>Nick Knacks</i> in particular is the work of a genuine critical talent.</p><p>I think Stevens's efforts is one of those examples you can point to as a good illustration of the best type of creative promises that a forum like YouTube can aspire to, if you're just willing to raise the standards not just of production, but also talent and insight. The good news is Stevens doesn't appear to be working in a vacuum, as the medium is now showing a healthy crop of other competent to flat out great video essayists out there. With all this background info in mind, I thought I might take a closer look at episode 50 in the ongoing <i>Nickelodeon</i> retrospective. It concerns what happens when you try to see if it's at all possible to figure out what ordinary, average kids think about the movies they watch. It was a short lived effort from the network back in 1986 to around 1988, and it was called <i>Rated K For Kids</i>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='597' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dykfaFZ7j-EqKHfGtFgor0Vd70Um3yOHgovYe0QJqDKrQN3AhHQWmT0ASxGRiLqnZEUYQ43qoqTb61018woSg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><p><b>The Nature and Context of Rated K for Kids.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhDUS0mEuPR73FAcKsSW-U6hIOhLxR5I8h9sPpwqrxFa-NE8hptAhZYkHoIaK0ub8bBoUMyrRFSh7ovaz-iDEvEDH4pdMzrsIRDKlc8V0IxEKUEEOTpTm4zZfpMbiT5WHona6uN2seEs5kaHGObs4yeoweizWXyElTUP6MviPeauS6LDchuB-YvTIZB7x/s611/nicklogos2.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhDUS0mEuPR73FAcKsSW-U6hIOhLxR5I8h9sPpwqrxFa-NE8hptAhZYkHoIaK0ub8bBoUMyrRFSh7ovaz-iDEvEDH4pdMzrsIRDKlc8V0IxEKUEEOTpTm4zZfpMbiT5WHona6uN2seEs5kaHGObs4yeoweizWXyElTUP6MviPeauS6LDchuB-YvTIZB7x/s320/nicklogos2.webp" width="183" /></a></div>I do hope everyone bothered to watch the video linked above, as it contains all the crucial information we'll be looking at for this article. For those who would rather skip the documentary, and prefer the information in written form, a brief summary is that it is Greg Stevens's retrospective look at an old children's TV show about films and movies. A more in-depth explanation of the content is that this television series, <i>Rated K for Kids</i>, is something of an intriguing anomaly. In Stevens's own words, the premise of this series centers around a single idea. "...This was what (<i>Nickelodeon's)</i> young viewers wanted. That seeing people like themselves running their own TV show was engaging in a way that (the network's) other content was not". This conceit "would prove to be a key element in the channel's success going into the 90s. But <i>Nick's</i> first stab at it came in 1986, with a movie review show called <i>Rated K for Kids</i>". In retrospect, this is the kind of creative decision that would never get the green light from any network today. The only place you can even begin to try it is on forums like YouTube.<p></p><p>In a way, though, this is what makes the network's decision to even try and go there all the more fascinating. It marks this choice out as the product of a more open minded time for the arts in general. This all happened back during an era when the current rules for tent pole film productions, with the heavy emphasis on tightly controlled, pre-packaged blockbusters under immutable, social media age studio regulations still hadn't become the new abnormal. Instead, as an 80s kid, I'll have to ask younger readers to imagine a time when a lot of young prospectives eager to break into showbiz and many older countercultural artists had managed to carve out this peculiar niche for themselves during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It was the successful construction of this artistic beachhead that gave both Movie Brats and budding, new artists a chance to make a name for themselves by creating pretty much whatever content they wanted, and being able to get away with it to a large extent that just is no longer possible today.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASvu0A7pSWgL1Vdt_8GBQT2gp2Omj4KyHoYVR_DuaV-I-ggWjrkOYPuqExbQ3DeONCN0L_NkzP2gjOq_ma5YfYyOu_vbyCe0P5ovN40xcdelLnDUAfru7bzGFrH_3IoJz1KVnhQq6pkTr9jnkwBgxWTY_Xb4IOftWXDuFwYqR1IpYLPO3W8ggE0_KFeT3/s748/vincent-price-roger-corman.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="748" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASvu0A7pSWgL1Vdt_8GBQT2gp2Omj4KyHoYVR_DuaV-I-ggWjrkOYPuqExbQ3DeONCN0L_NkzP2gjOq_ma5YfYyOu_vbyCe0P5ovN40xcdelLnDUAfru7bzGFrH_3IoJz1KVnhQq6pkTr9jnkwBgxWTY_Xb4IOftWXDuFwYqR1IpYLPO3W8ggE0_KFeT3/w640-h508/vincent-price-roger-corman.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />For instance, a producer like Roger Corman was able to set up his own indie studio that would allow then youngsters like Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese a chance to break into filmmaking in a guerilla style that emphasized learning through real experience behind the camera, and growing that way through trial and error in order to see if you had what it took to be a legit filmmaker of whatever kind. In that sense, it is possible to claim that ventures like those of Corman are what helped set the template for the kind of experimental, anything goes ethos of those earlier three decades. It's what helped usher in a brief shining moment when there was enough freedom and loose change in the industry to devote time and effort to whatever creative expression a newcomer or old pro felt like doing. It could be a high concept art film, or the deliberately schlockiest popcorn flick you could imagine. If you had the commitment to try, go for it. That was the basic mindset back then. If you can reach for the big screen, whether it was a hit or a flop, at least <i>you</i> did it. <i>You</i> made and found your own creative voice and were able to put it out there for all to see. It was this type of mindset that gave us the classic 80s films. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13WW8JQnCNmewQO9zVbpgr5E1jRllE9hln8F5fuO3oJORsWLGJy_bYYxS5n_odJA_KqwHbKJar90X0_pL-69JFQ__6gLgSgK_14OdLUZ5ctt5ZOsAfNii0kXYyrOxsbXsL4kHNdhUQztl6kLEoFnDfbFe_ER2si5NoGtt-IuX4IJbfN-EOwQp9LbrqsDX/s500/515eRYuVckL.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13WW8JQnCNmewQO9zVbpgr5E1jRllE9hln8F5fuO3oJORsWLGJy_bYYxS5n_odJA_KqwHbKJar90X0_pL-69JFQ__6gLgSgK_14OdLUZ5ctt5ZOsAfNii0kXYyrOxsbXsL4kHNdhUQztl6kLEoFnDfbFe_ER2si5NoGtt-IuX4IJbfN-EOwQp9LbrqsDX/s320/515eRYuVckL.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>I think it also helps to bear in mind that it was also this particular mindset that was responsible for the guiding ethos of TV networks like <i>Nickelodeon</i> back in the day. As it was this same "go for broke" sense of creative freedom that was also able to expand into the realm of the then new medium of cable television. I do wonder if this might be an unnoticed and therefore little understood aspect of the type of creative flourishing that existed back then. The time seems to have reached a point where many critics are prepared to look back and say the 80s might have been (so far, at least) the last major artistic renaissance in Hollywood. It's a contention I'm willing to go along with well enough. Yet how many out there might be willing to pause and ask themselves how this same artistic dynamic applied to the world of cable television? The internet is full of myriad compilations of look backs at all the favorite TV shows we grew up with as kids. The <i>Pop Arena</i> reviews are just one example of this. It also, however, seems to be one of the few to ever get close to a consideration of just how many artistic risks that TV producers were willing to take in terms of stretching the limits to the sort of content they were willing to try and place on the then new medium of cable television. This is where what I'll have to call the countercultural aspect of 80s entertainment came into its own from the family living room box.<p></p><p>It was a time when breakout TV channels like HBO and <i>Nickelodeon</i> showed a greater willingness to push the boundaries of what programming they could place on the small screen. Yes, there was plenty of familiar fair to be had. Things like reruns of old classic movies from decades past, along with the syndication of the more famous network series that tend to get mentioned more often on internet retrospectives, like <i>The Smurfs</i>. However, you would also see them takes risks every now and then by running more obscure and outré fair such as a student animated short about two young, pre-teen girls talking together about growing up and what it means to live a life. All of this done in the style of a pre-school child's drawing brought to an expressionistic life. Or else they would import shows from overseas such as <i>Babar the Elephant</i>, <i>The Adventures of Tintin</i>, or even create space for passion projects by famous Hollywood stars, such as <i>Shelley Duvall's Storybook Theater, </i>where Jack Nicholson's co-star from <i>The Shining</i> would serve as the host of animated segments featuring adaptations of famous children's books that were popular back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Or HBO could turn around and air an obscure George Lucas project called <i>Twice Upon a Time</i> in whatever time-slot they had available.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJxEpdN_snK_XaVKJ9Exl5XwsmDbSU-E6bKZhlI--fRVbrRvDyhCFUxBcTro9itFu7XhhdDbL7NAIym5ZMbaQ2Re9mtaxJj0fBkeEVIZqg1WlmLngicWZEcGE5ZL05RyNn-4LQ03GBuixeeWh_x7gH4OckvQ1eGUTJH1NHBajgOltWrj6JIuO5_3Qdcrs/s1920/backdrop-1920.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJxEpdN_snK_XaVKJ9Exl5XwsmDbSU-E6bKZhlI--fRVbrRvDyhCFUxBcTro9itFu7XhhdDbL7NAIym5ZMbaQ2Re9mtaxJj0fBkeEVIZqg1WlmLngicWZEcGE5ZL05RyNn-4LQ03GBuixeeWh_x7gH4OckvQ1eGUTJH1NHBajgOltWrj6JIuO5_3Qdcrs/w640-h360/backdrop-1920.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is perhaps the best memory snapshot I can provide of what it was like to grow up with cable television of the time. Much like Roger Corman or the Movie Brat generation, cable networks and providers were very much in an experimental frame of mind, and willing to see how far they could push the boundaries of what could be shown to audiences. In that sense, I think it goes without saying that most of us 80s kids were lucky to have such a rich childhood as we got back then. Or at least this was the one I wound up with. My parents would tune the channel into all of these little maverick cable stations, and I would be treated to a wider range of movies, short films, and series from what seemed to come from everywhere, and all of it done in a style that has come to typify what the last creative renaissance of the 20th century was like. What's more important for the purposes of this article is how this same opened ended mindset applied to networks and cable subscriptions such as <i>Nickelodeon</i>. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHWaOMnW4ioboA6kyWBtFyRRzThlTqs06RyTs9r9LbE_8W43ZDtUT-yEFRKzNeykeCuyIZikubuUw0dmfuZ9LMlR6cUMn42dX2xezXwXfFt-3RUaL2YcQYZ3ZDK5FBOUhrVUZ9-KmGSqK6VWE93usOnfl2THjZzCZqub5EeAUinS_S0cNeDYvP3Ud9SCa/s1000/71NLZoAz45L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHWaOMnW4ioboA6kyWBtFyRRzThlTqs06RyTs9r9LbE_8W43ZDtUT-yEFRKzNeykeCuyIZikubuUw0dmfuZ9LMlR6cUMn42dX2xezXwXfFt-3RUaL2YcQYZ3ZDK5FBOUhrVUZ9-KmGSqK6VWE93usOnfl2THjZzCZqub5EeAUinS_S0cNeDYvP3Ud9SCa/w224-h320/71NLZoAz45L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>In practice, what you got was this span of years in which kids had an opportunity to be introduced to all kinds of different stories and narrative techniques from different cultures and societies. In fact, looking back on it now, I've just realized an astonishing thing. In retrospect, that exposure to the channel during its early years (for me, this would have been from 1987 or thereabout) probably marked the first experience I'd ever had of different world cultures at that point in my childhood. The mid to late 80s version of <i>Nickelodeon</i> was where kids could get their first glimpses into European culture with shows such as <i>Danger Mouse</i>, <i>Count Duckula</i>, or <i>David the Gnome</i>. Along with their first acquaintances of Japanese and French animation with series like <i>Belle and Sebastian</i>, <i>The Little Prince</i>, and even have a taste of Latino American culture thrown in with a serial known as <i>The Mysterious Cities of Gold</i>.<p></p><p>What shows like this did was grant the child audience a gradual and unforced exposure to the art forms of other societies that were, at the time, still well outside the awareness of mainstream American culture. As a result, it is just possible that some of us back then were given what might be called a series of unintentional civics lessons in not just being a good citizen, but also a good neighbor. In other words, it is just possible that for a time <i>Nick</i> was more or less replicating what Mr. Rogers tried to do on PBS, except this time the scope of the goal was expanded to take in neighborhoods around the world. Looking back, it seems that the best part of all this was that none of that seems to have been a deliberately intended purpose. All the business suits at the network were concerned about was creating a channel that would put its focus deliberately on the desires and enthusiasms of kids. The funny thing there is that this does seem to have been a genuine concern on the part of the network's showrunners. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkOXidvMA6yA-X4pnAWyWjlTHB98HIe6loAK2R504JxlsXsFbxhO-Ij6kqlTEyy-tagnywH3fzT30BmbRQ6MOk_JCdWIKhcyK5a588hoqLhsDTQNSaawDKmOxTO11JAh6yWd9fzidWqKB35FSUGne24cb0rcZqGXeBMppmwHxMNClJ-qh3TmCx3BOc67op/s1600/71eKVGklQeL._RI_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkOXidvMA6yA-X4pnAWyWjlTHB98HIe6loAK2R504JxlsXsFbxhO-Ij6kqlTEyy-tagnywH3fzT30BmbRQ6MOk_JCdWIKhcyK5a588hoqLhsDTQNSaawDKmOxTO11JAh6yWd9fzidWqKB35FSUGne24cb0rcZqGXeBMppmwHxMNClJ-qh3TmCx3BOc67op/w640-h480/71eKVGklQeL._RI_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />They really wanted to find not just material that had never been seen anywhere on American TV before, but they also wanted to make sure that it spoke to young audiences in a way that spoke up, not down to them. The result was a lot of effort with a sincerity that now seems touching as it is quaint. We no longer expect any television network to have the interests of its viewers in mind. Yet this is exactly the goal that <i>Nick</i> achieved for a second there. In doing this, they were able to create one of the first spaces just for kids. It was a format that would later be followed by the likes of <i>The Disney Channel</i>, <i>Cartoon Network</i>, and the later spate of child oriented PBS affiliates. It was quite an achievement to make, and in the process of doing so, they just wound up as accidental cultural ambassadors there for a second.<p></p><p>To repeat, all of this was made possible because of the almost Open Society mindset that was channeled through the entertainment industry during the 80s. It's what allowed <i>Nick</i> to take risks on shows like <i>Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea</i>, or to try and expose young kids to great works of literature such as <i>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</i>, <i>Around the World in 80 Days</i>, or <i>Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics</i>. This idea of a TV network by kids and for kids extended all the way into the channel's original programming. This is where a show like <i>Rated K</i> comes into play. Here is also where Steven's summary of this program tells all we need to know. "The concept is as simple as can be. Airing on the weekends, <i>Rated K</i> features three hosts, rotating in from an initial cast of four young adults: Matt Nespole, Lakmini Besbroda, Mark Shanahan, and Rebecca Schwager. Over the next half-hour, these kids would give their opinions on what's new in movie theaters, and occasionally what's new on video tape. Each review is capped with a Letter Grade which is entirely made up by the host, and inconsistent per review. With the exception being "Rated K", the ultimate, five star, must-see score of the show.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH6U48UsakN3nNFVfohXhfXMi-nbwqcRf2i1snRS9iB8neNTQhYdpw58Kq3VHzqB3qe4DB2PkiyDNUOXdoAQt4y4WXiMp9WkjSf0EjAmAD4WV-H-hpCuEu4ry9LVPbWqzJ8dF_pnpUMrsypZgDNkvyJGYCKasKoaCMuszw0IR7g5eBaps8pVNvsLsyWdjy/s1290/CN_Logo_Wallpaper%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="748" data-original-width="1290" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH6U48UsakN3nNFVfohXhfXMi-nbwqcRf2i1snRS9iB8neNTQhYdpw58Kq3VHzqB3qe4DB2PkiyDNUOXdoAQt4y4WXiMp9WkjSf0EjAmAD4WV-H-hpCuEu4ry9LVPbWqzJ8dF_pnpUMrsypZgDNkvyJGYCKasKoaCMuszw0IR7g5eBaps8pVNvsLsyWdjy/w640-h372/CN_Logo_Wallpaper%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"Each review is (introduced) with a scripted segment summarizing the film. Playing clips, and the odd interview segment from time to time. But the review itself is completely improvised by the hosts, with active discussions between them usually resulting in playful teasing and ribbing. And that's it, really. A few other kids were added to the host rotation over time, but for that first year in change, <i>Rated K</i>'s format remained simple and consistent. So, does it work"?<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: A Helpful Look at the Tastes and Enthusiasms of the Audience. </b> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cog9jpBX4DL7k4EWtEdIst5DiaRnKN_zVjMppsVS3nPIItJ3ACJ8C2lqEpFebR_9mHf5a7U1YBHK2di6TqY0K0EWeVzM9Dm7i7czFEMRg6dV9sAVi2GUz7kRfJrJMVA-vtfblGQ_hmPrhEnNqPRefri9aG8415R5GX0df35EzeUHLW4Lyku9Uyuf9D3_/s328/hirsch_cultural-literacy.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="208" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cog9jpBX4DL7k4EWtEdIst5DiaRnKN_zVjMppsVS3nPIItJ3ACJ8C2lqEpFebR_9mHf5a7U1YBHK2di6TqY0K0EWeVzM9Dm7i7czFEMRg6dV9sAVi2GUz7kRfJrJMVA-vtfblGQ_hmPrhEnNqPRefri9aG8415R5GX0df35EzeUHLW4Lyku9Uyuf9D3_/s320/hirsch_cultural-literacy.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>In some ways, it would be very easy to just cite Steven's own verdict on the show, and leave it at that. What he has to say about <i>Rated K</i> as an attempt at a movie review series for kids is as valid as its possible to be here. However, I think the point can be driven a bit further home. Because while it's correct to say that there are reasons why this show doesn't work, I'm not sure all of them have been exhausted by just this single documentary. My conviction is that in the course of critiquing an unsuccessful children's show, Steven's has managed to unearth a greater problem faced by not just by cinema, yet also the Arts in general. If I had to give this issue a name then the best label for it I can find isn't my own. It comes from the title of a book that may or might not be all that influential, and its from educator E.D. Hirsch Jr. It is within the realm of probability that Hirsch might identify the problem on display with a show like <i>Rated K</i> as one of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Literacy-Every-American-Needs/dp/0394758439">Cultural Literacy</a>. In other words, there's a fundamental lack of aesthetic knowledge on display in a series like this, and it gets in the way of being able to talk about stories in an intelligent manner. I'd have to argue this is the crux of the show's problem, and it's the kind of issue that can't be covered in its entirety in just a single vlog or review.<p></p><p>Instead, all anyone can do right now, I think, is to use a forum like this to open the discussion of the topic. It's one of the final themes that guides the working of this blog in particular, and it's gratifying that someone like Steven's has found a subject that broaches this very topic, as the ultimate goal of the <i>Scriblerus Club</i> is to try and foster a higher level of literacy in the enjoyment of both films, shows, and above all, books. So while it's impossible to encompass Hirsch's concerns in the course of a single article, I can at least address it in terms of a basic introduction, and the <i>Rated K</i> retrospective is just the example to help in this case. I think the best way to approach the problem of Cultural Literacy is to first let Stevens explain why this obscure TV series doesn't work. Then I'll try and expand on those insights, and why they all point to the larger problem of not knowing how to understand and read the full spectrum of any given work of art, whether this applies to either any possible movie or book. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOi2kC2YxeBsMvEpwlBdMceZphPrL5CDFxnD8AAPgeVo3PP50krlLy5OXQjLYqAawabtCThsRjb5grUav9SdJbQvbzLwmfoAZc5k7DxZ1PNCD30maxUHG-kBiZzauPjIHETwYHo9_Ep_TAQp0y-7F_494y9Ozra2sK2VHOeGkVVeFWqZii41K7xmoQIudr/s667/c2901408d28124015f075b0eab62a41a3f4f49e6545cdd9759afdd54efc9c436._UY500_UX667_RI_TTW_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="667" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOi2kC2YxeBsMvEpwlBdMceZphPrL5CDFxnD8AAPgeVo3PP50krlLy5OXQjLYqAawabtCThsRjb5grUav9SdJbQvbzLwmfoAZc5k7DxZ1PNCD30maxUHG-kBiZzauPjIHETwYHo9_Ep_TAQp0y-7F_494y9Ozra2sK2VHOeGkVVeFWqZii41K7xmoQIudr/w640-h360/c2901408d28124015f075b0eab62a41a3f4f49e6545cdd9759afdd54efc9c436._UY500_UX667_RI_TTW_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />When Stevens asks if <i>Rated K</i> works as either a series, or just a basic creative idea, his response is, "Not really. There are two fundamental problems when it comes to a kid's film review show: the kids, and the films. Let's start with the latter. The target demographic for this show is young teenagers. That's the age of the hosts, and the perspective that they bring. This limits the kind of films you can feature; mostly G and PG rated programming; occasionally PG 13. And only R rated films if they were deemed relevant to the young audience. For example, the kids talked about <i>Stand By Me</i>. A film about four young boys "going on an adventure", starring some of the best rising young talent in Hollywood today. And you know, if you squint, it kind of looks like <i>The Goonies</i>. Corey Feldman's even in it. They talk about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goofy">Goofy</a> in one scene, we can have our hosts can talk about that. Of course, they don't bring up the cussing, or River Phoenix smoking...or the stuff that makes it an R rated movie. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijYW4pzvYc0kphovnCFtNnmQ-KupZiPyRP29gHcymqpWxEvuC_FH4RcgLu-J6VmyT_cLswVWHzwY8e7_rlvM46CfngGyxwkm4Grc7-7bC4nteADjMsB_aZsCHNPpG-tURYuq0HJ4smeSIekENqzbQgqeRcMs0qD64gaI67HGViBgE8JBH0PiwsYNawvlLR/s1000/71HAW-f87VL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijYW4pzvYc0kphovnCFtNnmQ-KupZiPyRP29gHcymqpWxEvuC_FH4RcgLu-J6VmyT_cLswVWHzwY8e7_rlvM46CfngGyxwkm4Grc7-7bC4nteADjMsB_aZsCHNPpG-tURYuq0HJ4smeSIekENqzbQgqeRcMs0qD64gaI67HGViBgE8JBH0PiwsYNawvlLR/s320/71HAW-f87VL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>"And that's fine. <i>Stand By Me</i> is a great film, and while I don't think a twelve year old is entirely going to get its themes, most can take what it dishes out. However, this was an exception. Most R rated films weren't even considered for the show. But you don't always get enough child-appropriate films every week to fill a half-hour review show. So sometimes you have the <i>Rated K</i> kids talking about movies that aren't R rated, but have virtually no appeal to the youth. Sure, you're kid could go see Jack Lemon and Julie Andrews in <i>That's Life</i>, but I'm not sure how much crossover audience there is between a drama about a man's anxiety over turning 60, and <i>Danger Mouse</i>. Sometimes the lack of appropriate movies meant digging into the VHS vault. 'Well, we don't have a lot of movies to talk about this week. How about if we spend most of the episode talking about half a dozen Alfred Hitchcock movies on video'?<p></p><p>"Now that's kind of cool, right? Introducing young viewers to Alfred Hitchcock through a young person's perspective. But that brings us to <i>Rated K</i>'s other conceptual problem, the young film reviewers. As many as 2,000 teenagers auditioned for the four spots. With the aim on finding genuine, everyday kids. 'The criteria for selecting hosts, says [executive producer Geoffrey] Darby, were weighted toward merely "liking to go to the movies" and away from youngsters with a particular knowledge of film or "stage kids from agents." So basically, they didn't want kids who were professionals in front of the camera, or kids who were film hobbyists. They wanted your average kid on the street, in an attempt to make <i>Rated K</i> a genuine experience. 'This isn't some show made by phonies. These are real kids. Just like you. With opinions just like yours'. The problem is that your average thirteen year old is a really bad film critic. I certainly was at that age, as I hadn't quite developed the understanding of what makes a good movie versus a bad movie. And I certainly hadn't developed the vocabulary to communicate my opinions in a way that's clear and engaging. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfkkm2bfBGpd00LW1k5qLQPlbM5tnk2WRNDzQUMCRFdDUZG2yPbC8zmigIrVC1tZkWuOoFh6Dpd307f0b7s__lCE5NE1cQpjmPHpFgzXkh-c963RjGcOGVSRfGbAULwPzHVVD3HdkXiM7K1NQtEwIHdm0l3--UUM7bsP-9iiqYEWxzx4_YshdUdWJHFi1/s993/1987-04-04_1600pm_Rated_K-_For_Kids_By_Kids.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="993" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfkkm2bfBGpd00LW1k5qLQPlbM5tnk2WRNDzQUMCRFdDUZG2yPbC8zmigIrVC1tZkWuOoFh6Dpd307f0b7s__lCE5NE1cQpjmPHpFgzXkh-c963RjGcOGVSRfGbAULwPzHVVD3HdkXiM7K1NQtEwIHdm0l3--UUM7bsP-9iiqYEWxzx4_YshdUdWJHFi1/w640-h484/1987-04-04_1600pm_Rated_K-_For_Kids_By_Kids.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />"And certainly not in a way that would make for good television. The <i>Rated K</i> kids seem to prioritize two things: whether the movies are 'predictable' (however they qualify that); or how the actors look in their wardrobes. Now if you had kids on this show who were actually interested in how movies work, or film history, or anything like that, you could have them making a case for a film that would add an element of learning to the proceedings. Having an adult tell kids why they should watch Alfred Hitchcock is probably too much of a disengage...But even if one of the <i>Rated K</i> kids likes Alfred Hitchcock, they can't really articulate why. If you had a kid who knows what they're talking about, making a case for Alfred Hitchcock, explaining why he's so influential, and why his films effect us as they do, then you might be opening the Hitchcock door to a whole new generation of young people".<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oPKxDIlJY7_fD4p3KDNNIh54EvgzBEhQEPDNJILafBO5vS_ZS8Hjdz_P5YXcvr9IzlenwkPZjTpjtTO7kHd621bOi3SGzlYWxDK2GEQqxJ_PPenbcV8bEcvuRYiGX0pafBCpYcS3b4NGlbGhsPccIubMWLXqh8FFavKEMxpiGJMhLkXHQazELORpGCnM/s3066/The_Birds_original_poster.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3066" data-original-width="1999" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oPKxDIlJY7_fD4p3KDNNIh54EvgzBEhQEPDNJILafBO5vS_ZS8Hjdz_P5YXcvr9IzlenwkPZjTpjtTO7kHd621bOi3SGzlYWxDK2GEQqxJ_PPenbcV8bEcvuRYiGX0pafBCpYcS3b4NGlbGhsPccIubMWLXqh8FFavKEMxpiGJMhLkXHQazELORpGCnM/s320/The_Birds_original_poster.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>Here is where I think it helps to give an example of what Steven's is talking about, as right after he makes the above observation, he provides his viewers with a sample clip of one of the <i>Rated K</i> gang discussion one of Hitch's films. Here's how a freshman high school kid approaches a classic, Nature Run Amok, Gothic picture like Alfred's adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's <i>The Birds</i>. "First of all, I hate birds. And these little guys are really, like, coming through, attacking everyone. And it's just like, it made me really nervous and I didn't like it. And then, the ending was, I was really disappointed. Because it seemed totally without hope. It's kinda depressing, and that's the way the movie felt, (or) made me feel, kinda depressed. So I didn't really like it that much. I hate to say, but I didn't". <p></p><p>Now, in reply to these thoughts, I have a number of questions to ask, and an observation to make. First off, could the <i>Rated K</i> reviewer be more specific? Which scene are you talking about? There are a number of attack sequences scattered throughout the course of the film. Are you talking about the scene, where Tippi Hedren (the film's main lead) is attacked in a phone booth? It's become <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D15HPy4x73g">one of the most iconic sequences not just within the Horror genre, but also of cinema in general</a>. The trouble is this begs a further set of questions. Why is the scene, as well as they entire film of which it is just one central part of held in such high regard? What about this story makes it important? For what it's worth, I will grant you this much. You may not be alone in wishing more from the ending of this film. <br /></p><p>The funny thing is how even the director of the movie might have agreed with you. It turns out Hitchcock went so far as to storyboard an entire climactic sequence involving a final chase as the main characters try to fend off one final attack from the sky as they try to flee the town. It would have been a real technical achievement to pull off, and it also would have tipped the film's final moments into near post-apocalyptic territory. The viewer would have been treated to shots of an abandoned small town lying in ruins, much like in the works of Stephen King. The storyboards even featured a shot of the body of a dead citizen torn to shreds, his skeletal hands still clutching his living room TV set. The whole thing would have ended with a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge covered in whole flocks of birds.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLFiOM4XFlRbFEhNalpljL5MmljmQSIymKlfUg4ZOBL3_w8WlrHUVT7B3KBy0-yisleC1FintVzZU-HFueOaLDjuF7tPyvZnMdTAq3W9Xt1mlo-d9NuMMxtpN8gKKPE8Tu4nhicIQ2RqSs4pKipTU16XIg-bk9fno1xaQpkDsyqM7tAQktSkrHb-fzvXtv/s1200/42d0608a80ba69511adecebaacc61884.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="1200" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLFiOM4XFlRbFEhNalpljL5MmljmQSIymKlfUg4ZOBL3_w8WlrHUVT7B3KBy0-yisleC1FintVzZU-HFueOaLDjuF7tPyvZnMdTAq3W9Xt1mlo-d9NuMMxtpN8gKKPE8Tu4nhicIQ2RqSs4pKipTU16XIg-bk9fno1xaQpkDsyqM7tAQktSkrHb-fzvXtv/w640-h334/42d0608a80ba69511adecebaacc61884.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I'll admit that's a bit more of a satisfying payoff for what does count of as one of the first slow-building roller coaster rides at the box office. What Hitchcock turned in there was perhaps close to being called the <i>Jaws</i> its day and era. The only reason we didn't get the ending featured in the storyboards is because neither the budget nor the technology was available to the director at the time, and there are indications that this was a genuine shame, as Hitch wanted to give his viewers a bigger payoff. It could have been one that maybe counted as the first post-apocalypse Horror movie ever shown in theaters. Something that later writers and artists such as Vincent Price and Richard Matheson would capitalize on with an underrated gem such as <i>The Last Man on Earth</i>. The point of all this backstory, however, is that this is what counts as a display of genuinely unpacking the contents of a movie in an attempt to explain what makes it work (or otherwise, as the case may be). The ability to examine any story in such depth hinges on Hirsch's notion of Cultural Literacy as a crucial part of the critic's toolbox.<br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoVD-0K6c_GHjIMt2qRx_jUz4Q0RsH2MUIZEoc1BY2TLbw-PrfhOnkCEZxQCWSOorT6MAvm5QSi59Gke2QmK2n7-ZlVJ4lXDgDLK56ovflpLvHdHB3X3EeCPfWOwSucmjyKW3dfY18vXHhyg3I9caYIHqa2EoGlkV2KID9ti_2b4cZ-meL-tpiynx4B-8/s1525/MV5BOGNjODEyNDgtYWNiYi00NDEwLWI2YTMtM2JmZWYyNjg2ZTczXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzczMzE2ODM@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1525" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFoVD-0K6c_GHjIMt2qRx_jUz4Q0RsH2MUIZEoc1BY2TLbw-PrfhOnkCEZxQCWSOorT6MAvm5QSi59Gke2QmK2n7-ZlVJ4lXDgDLK56ovflpLvHdHB3X3EeCPfWOwSucmjyKW3dfY18vXHhyg3I9caYIHqa2EoGlkV2KID9ti_2b4cZ-meL-tpiynx4B-8/s320/MV5BOGNjODEyNDgtYWNiYi00NDEwLWI2YTMtM2JmZWYyNjg2ZTczXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzczMzE2ODM@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>This conclusion then raises one final question. How much literacy do the cast of <i>RK4K</i> have when it comes the movies they watch, enjoy, or just can't get into, or don't care for? Here's what Steven's has to say on the matter. "Having young hosts who just can't express complex thoughts about art also becomes a detriment when you have films that are, well, more socially complicated than your average blockbuster...And then there's just the matter of presentation skills. <i>Nickelodeon</i> didn't want show business kids. They wanted something genuine, going so far as to let the hosts improvise their own reviews. Meaning you get these kids stuttering over their lines, pausing, repeating themselves, and talking over each other". Steven's then concludes, "It's a mess". He then continues: " The <i>Rated K</i> kids aren't completely devoid of charisma. Lakmini Besbroda, in particular, has some good screen presence. But the ultimate aesthetics for the show are 'Friends Chatting about Movies during their Lunch Period". It is an attempt at something authentic. (It's) also something you can get by chatting with your friends about movies during your lunch period". In other words, it stops at being just that, and never develops further into anything informed or enlightening. This is also a major irony.<p></p><p>"You don't need a cable subscription for that. And you friends taste are probably more in line with your own tastes". Stevens then brings up a particular highlight of <i>Rated K</i>, and its one the showcases all of the series shortcomings in one single meeting of the minds. This is a part I don't think I should spoil for the viewer. Instead, I'll just say you have to see it to believe it. What I can say without spoilers is that it's a moment that exposes the gap between the show's aims, and the experience and knowledge of its cast, which is also an audience. I'd like to close out this review by giving my own samples of the sort of pitfalls that a show like this has, and what it might say about the state of the audience. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvuL6wBDoXYLRJXIH3vxq1akiQwOLzb6AJ27z71JJ8HaPLP3uI68mudtw_xBXDgRBYM5uBCC2-z_468mIwtrEHIFmVevu8xJNcEKiXds-LDli3Bx_d4nrDUKnPJjjN0dODexOYwlqykuaojy5IRR_lUTOdgctPeKUdQM_ACvhWtG1fwGDFj5jmLOY-rwd/s678/somewhere-out-there-header.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="678" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvuL6wBDoXYLRJXIH3vxq1akiQwOLzb6AJ27z71JJ8HaPLP3uI68mudtw_xBXDgRBYM5uBCC2-z_468mIwtrEHIFmVevu8xJNcEKiXds-LDli3Bx_d4nrDUKnPJjjN0dODexOYwlqykuaojy5IRR_lUTOdgctPeKUdQM_ACvhWtG1fwGDFj5jmLOY-rwd/w640-h360/somewhere-out-there-header.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In order to do this, I'm going to try a little thought experiment. We'll print out a transcript from a given episode of the series, and then I'll interject my own two cents as if I were a cast member on the set, like the others. In doing so, I hope to prove something about how Cultural Literacy is a necessary given when it comes to the work of properly critiquing a story that is meant to be unpacked through a close reading. This is how we can gauge the story literacy of the very same audience that <i>Nick</i> was banking on. We'll take, as an example, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYXP-E_k-UI">the <i>Rated K</i> examination of a<i> </i>little children's film which has become something of a standby for 80s kids</a>. With this in mind, why don't you guys get us started?<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMluz-Zqa0Xlu8QRtpykB3Xf8HykoDBssPDu7hgnnt2wJRA-aSJClO524dSWeAdCF1WVCm_DH_SNZ98yOv4yUC0gOGRSJqU1BcZMYquaRMyvWX5w9PwUeaCWmZkJNdTRrXca13cfRQAlkWzO6nVkl7CuHedW6ySEZs7ouNdxy8ZEuBZT_Xmoxm2A8m156C/s1000/gettyimages-1221460977.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="983" data-original-width="1000" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMluz-Zqa0Xlu8QRtpykB3Xf8HykoDBssPDu7hgnnt2wJRA-aSJClO524dSWeAdCF1WVCm_DH_SNZ98yOv4yUC0gOGRSJqU1BcZMYquaRMyvWX5w9PwUeaCWmZkJNdTRrXca13cfRQAlkWzO6nVkl7CuHedW6ySEZs7ouNdxy8ZEuBZT_Xmoxm2A8m156C/s320/gettyimages-1221460977.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Matt: "Hi, I'm Matt Nespole".<p></p><p>Lakmini: "And I'm Lakmini Besbroda".</p><p>Mark: "And I'm Mark Shanahan".</p><p>Me: And I'm just along for the ride here.</p><p>Mark (cont.): "Welcome to the only review show just for kids. The first movie we're going to view today is an animated musical produced by Steven Spielberg. You know, the guy who brought you <i>Jaws</i>, <i>E.T</i> -"</p><p>Me: Well if I may interject here. I almost want to ask what you guys think of him as a filmmaker? If I had to give my own two cents, then I can tell you this much. Right now things have reached a point where it does seem as if the consensus view is that he's achieved that kind of level which is reserved for those directors, or storytellers, who managed to achieve what might be called "auteur status". In other words, the vast majority is pretty much convinced that Spielberg counts as a classic filmmaker. It's also true there may be some dissent in this conviction. However, by and large, it seems like this will remain a minority opinion, at best, for quite some time. The rest of the world seems to view him as one of the great directors of the of both the 20th and 21st century. It's a consensus opinion I happen to share in, and I'm sort of wondering what you guys might think of it? Does Spielberg count as a great artist?<br /></p><p>Lakmini: "Yeah, yeah, we know you know this stuff"!.</p><p>Mark (begging off) "Alright".</p><p>Me: Ummm...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibvqqnNHmYZAaMJGYSryEBjH7ITG1c6cZTJcZVj9C5JI1uKppPCBVLEns9HkLigzRNw0kLLc5luDFe5ykw8FRHT4KaPhggiZCRyRZ066hC2SWMeSx2G8EmQe-2UJ5SC95IEaG_Y8lm4wyAP9vq_q43GR2QZ2bQ4QCUP3py6YxrShYV7pMUxerPv0u68tz/s600/large_fhH66ICozOBLpDavTBLTJYkm1AX.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibvqqnNHmYZAaMJGYSryEBjH7ITG1c6cZTJcZVj9C5JI1uKppPCBVLEns9HkLigzRNw0kLLc5luDFe5ykw8FRHT4KaPhggiZCRyRZ066hC2SWMeSx2G8EmQe-2UJ5SC95IEaG_Y8lm4wyAP9vq_q43GR2QZ2bQ4QCUP3py6YxrShYV7pMUxerPv0u68tz/s320/large_fhH66ICozOBLpDavTBLTJYkm1AX.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Matt: "<i>An American Tail</i> is about a family of Russian immigrant mice who decide to come to America because the cats are eating them all in Russia, and there aren't supposed to be any cats in America. But when they get here they find out that there are cats in America. And to make matters worse, the little kid in the family, Fievel? Well he gets taken prisoner by the Mott Street Maulers. The meanest cat gang in New York City. But the guy whose guarding him isn't as mean and ugly as he really looks.<p>Here a clip form the movie plays. It's Dom DeLuise's first big scene in the film. </p><p>"Matt (v.o., cont.) "While Tiger and Fievel are becoming buddies, across town, Warren T. Rat, the neighborhood con artist, well known for preying on the innocent new immigrants is counting the dough he got today".</p><p>Another film clip lays. This one introducing us to the picture's villain.</p><p>Matt: (v.o., cont.) "More than anything, Fievel wants to find his family. He knows they're out there, somewhere".</p><p>A clip for the <i>Somewhere Out There</i> segment plays. </p><p>Me: (I can't help breaking out in a nostalgic smile at this moment. I'm not the only viewer of this film who has had this reaction, either. In my case, it's kind of like a homecoming in an of itself).</p><p>Matt: (v.o., cont.) "Fievel's voice is really Philip Glasser's, who is seven years old. In the movie he sang the song, but there's also a music video with Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram". </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfcxOb852U_1mw9YdhNbLxh-J8iMaWLn0mfVwrIiItqkuwegp5uy3FeFhPFDB1Kf2Xz0awIDNcmfgdEj5xRGpl9yT_VAm8sDV6_TMYafg-FwX_hB7YnCC5sLhWzGE9HhmVN0HkXHzw1oAVb_bXXHFztfes5pAZ_E8LYM5MBn5Sxd828GPQlb1AXHiOJC0/s1200/gUgGaAaRSqY8NiShf6vrrQ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfcxOb852U_1mw9YdhNbLxh-J8iMaWLn0mfVwrIiItqkuwegp5uy3FeFhPFDB1Kf2Xz0awIDNcmfgdEj5xRGpl9yT_VAm8sDV6_TMYafg-FwX_hB7YnCC5sLhWzGE9HhmVN0HkXHzw1oAVb_bXXHFztfes5pAZ_E8LYM5MBn5Sxd828GPQlb1AXHiOJC0/w640-h320/gUgGaAaRSqY8NiShf6vrrQ.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Clips from the MTV music video promo for <i>An American Tale</i> play on the video.<p></p><p>Me: (Now I'm flat out grinning watching this, and somewhat misty eyed, because: my childhood).</p><p>Matt (v.o. cont.) "The other voices are done by some famous actors, like Dom DeLuise, who plays the character of Tiger".</p><p>Here clips from an actual, contemporary making-of promo documentary, featuring both DeLuise, and even Spielberg himself commenting on the work.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGazm0tNZMjnsSTZ0TeeHed2tg88S1qqtaZPTziqi2nzoLZp66r2sMNuZ6IqGPGrimXYGPLanesF6u9qkcYuh_YFPOmoniBXRFIwil_ywjGcxANMaC1RbeU2-a1RgA1q5RCj0YxcLBtHXVT5nvhuo-a7xj5hNlUCyGDTsA-NG92w21_vxvKr65yV_B8Go/s1200/s-l1200.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSGazm0tNZMjnsSTZ0TeeHed2tg88S1qqtaZPTziqi2nzoLZp66r2sMNuZ6IqGPGrimXYGPLanesF6u9qkcYuh_YFPOmoniBXRFIwil_ywjGcxANMaC1RbeU2-a1RgA1q5RCj0YxcLBtHXVT5nvhuo-a7xj5hNlUCyGDTsA-NG92w21_vxvKr65yV_B8Go/s320/s-l1200.webp" width="240" /></a></div>Me: (I'm just watching all this stunned. I never knew something like this actually existed, and I love it. I'll have to see if its at all possible to track down the rest of this documentary on the Net).<p></p><p>Meanwhile, it at least <i>looks</i> as if the film has been able to work <i>some</i> of its magic on the rest of the <i>Rated K</i> cast. They're all wearing the same, identical, goofy grins like mine, and chuckling to each other. For a instant, at least, it seems as if the audience achieves an important moment of singularity.</p><p>Matt: "I liked this movie a lot. I thought it was a lot of fun to go to. But at first, when I walked in, I looked at the rating, it said G with the little mouse on the billboard. I was like, "Aw, I can't get into this". But as you sit there, you really start getting into Fievel's character, and all the other characters who are hanging out. It's a lot of fun, you know. It's great to watch".</p><p>Me (interjecting): Well, now, Matt. I think you might be onto something there. It does seem possible to make the case that one of this film's strengths rests in its handling of characterization. The cast of this story really does manage to leap off of the screen, and carve out a permanent residence somewhere in the audiences imagination. It's one of the many fascinating aspects of this picture. And since you've brought it up, I'm curious as to what sort of argument can be made in support of that claim. In other words, what is it about the characters in this film that helps to make it so memorable?</p><p>Matt (cont.): Well, "you really get into it, and you start to get that feeling of when your face gets all tense, and you get this hundred and six temperature shoot-up, and your heart gets all hot. You want to cry, but you don't. Which is really nice, because you usually don't have that happen in movies".</p><p>Me: Okay, granted. However, there's just one problem. All you've done is describe the contents of your own emotional reaction to this film. What I'm asking is <i>why did that happen</i>? What is it about a film or movie like this that can draw out such powerful emotions in an audience? Don't just describe the reaction it gave you. <i>What was it about the content of the story that causes such a powerful stock response</i>? You almost had something there, for a moment. You mentioned how all of this, for you at least, came from the narrative's portrayal of its characters. I myself, meanwhile, likened the film as a whole to a homecoming, of sorts. Now the question is whether there is any validity to either one or both of these insights? Is it possible each of us has hit upon a genuine aspect of the story we are watching? If this is at all plausible, then what can it tell us about this <i>Tale</i> as a work of fiction?</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGpR4MnZekqkgNBKQj4d066ELM9aDxP_MwN-o_8dEbTEVSnJ2CaNjN7uuPDL3fjCdALnXkxAIMgoKbvMtLRuCdTkeDq_ww-X02e6uFl3C0rUtXCEn-uSnSRfT_uKPgWhtfTj7OmGfJjNVdqiLIkQqg5VRBFm2jvnQWdanH0VtXHvav0gHcr7UCiHWfOwJd/s1200/americantail.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGpR4MnZekqkgNBKQj4d066ELM9aDxP_MwN-o_8dEbTEVSnJ2CaNjN7uuPDL3fjCdALnXkxAIMgoKbvMtLRuCdTkeDq_ww-X02e6uFl3C0rUtXCEn-uSnSRfT_uKPgWhtfTj7OmGfJjNVdqiLIkQqg5VRBFm2jvnQWdanH0VtXHvav0gHcr7UCiHWfOwJd/w640-h426/americantail.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Matt: "What I thought was great was the marketing"!<p></p><p>Me: ….Huh?</p><p>Matt: "Now Steven Spielberg did all these movies like <i>Jaws</i>, <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i>, <i>Temple of Doom</i>...And I thought, you know, this is nice the way they don't have no eyeballs in the soup.</p><p>Me:...Did you just say? - </p><p>Matt: "It was really sweet and a lot of fun".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ahJ2P3dY9DmqJPXm30W_KFGn1jWLsDWov81yvj4uCljvpvGU0DraUsw4Nn4N3OJ1NDCXm-Ct6KqKUQeB59Ym_AY-E07RX8ATUkUodaJ-Tep2388ZMjrrisuahRwmQ1O2wQPNTyft9lW7QxxPK6CClzhrFFBWIICG5YvzCQV82YWoiqDwP3M0zwWU20EQ/s500/51o77tJNO4L._SL500_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ahJ2P3dY9DmqJPXm30W_KFGn1jWLsDWov81yvj4uCljvpvGU0DraUsw4Nn4N3OJ1NDCXm-Ct6KqKUQeB59Ym_AY-E07RX8ATUkUodaJ-Tep2388ZMjrrisuahRwmQ1O2wQPNTyft9lW7QxxPK6CClzhrFFBWIICG5YvzCQV82YWoiqDwP3M0zwWU20EQ/s320/51o77tJNO4L._SL500_.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>Well, I guess we do agree on that. There's just one problem. None of this answers the question of what makes a film like <i>An American Tail</i> a great story. My hope now is that the reader is beginning to get at least a beginner's notion of what Cultural Literacy is, and what a lack of it looks like when trying to understand the entertainment that we enjoy. In that sense, the perhaps perfect irony of a show like <i>Rated K for Kids</i> is that it does serve as a very useful sort of accidental petri dish for getting a good look at the audience and the way it thinks about the stories that they either watch or read. <p></p><p>Of course, all entertainment depends upon the ability to read well, sooner or later. It's like an unbreakable clause in a never spoken of, yet somehow very real agreement between the two, inter-locked parties of artist and reader. If you go into any story, regardless of medium, without a necessary given amount of literacy in the attic, then odds will always tend to be even enough that you won't entirely understand why you either dislike or love the story that is presented to you. This is a lesson that <i>Rated K</i> presents to its viewers well, albeit in a way that the showrunners never really intended.</p><p>It works as an unintentional, yet nonetheless informative snapshot of at least one segment of the audience. My question remains just how far this general inability to form a coherent thought about the art we either make or read extends out into the aisles? It's the type of question that can't be answered just by looking at one group out of many. In that sense, the <i>K</i> show is just one sample. It makes sense to believe there will be others out there to find and gather more data from. The funny thing is how it is just possible to owe a strange, yet very real sort of debt to a failed showbiz experiment like this. </p><p>While it ultimately doesn't work as an informative review of the work of Hitchcock, Spielberg, Don Bluth, or just films in general, it's very shortcomings do offer the critics a surprisingly useful well of information to draw from when it comes to trying to figure out how the average person in the aisle relates to the stories that are told to them. This in turn can help the critics gain a greater sense of the overall picture they have to work with, both on and off the screen or page. This in turn can help us when it comes to both talking about the works of fiction that are both good and bad, and give us better insight on ways of sharing these sometimes necessary enthusiasms or critiques with the rest of the people in the audience.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTUpxo5ea2OZF_rvRWw0CuKoQGAkQesp0hvD3GJXPCL2ynfGtDNjjGA2sS7rg-wdVFVWM1_gUZjfPhx9CI1dRm7VpqAs-ASqxVHW4GLBvIMghyDmUnlmW7-pcV5-YWmdvyoyBXLFpqszR9YbHJzW82XGQJXST_2wGWwX7A_X5CVZjPlH2O8HNR671x6dP/s640/604_8708107b2f_004.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTUpxo5ea2OZF_rvRWw0CuKoQGAkQesp0hvD3GJXPCL2ynfGtDNjjGA2sS7rg-wdVFVWM1_gUZjfPhx9CI1dRm7VpqAs-ASqxVHW4GLBvIMghyDmUnlmW7-pcV5-YWmdvyoyBXLFpqszR9YbHJzW82XGQJXST_2wGWwX7A_X5CVZjPlH2O8HNR671x6dP/w640-h480/604_8708107b2f_004.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's with this in mind that I want to give the most cautious an ironic endorsement to this old <i>Nickelodeon</i> show. I agree with vlog critic Greg Stevens that the final product just doesn't work, either as a movie review show, or an entertaining variety program in its own right. The irony comes in when you realize that it's very failure is also what makes it a valuable tool for film and literary enthusiasts who are looking for insight into the thought processes of the audience in order to gain a better understanding of what viewing and/or reading is, how it relates to stories and storytelling, and what it can tell us about the state of both art and its receivers and creators. So while I can go along and agree that there's a lot to critique about this show and its quality in particular, I'm also going to say don't just throw it way. Stuff like this has to be kept around for what it can tell us about how we watch and read the stories we like. <p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-82188587356522921212023-07-30T00:36:00.000-05:002023-07-30T00:36:51.693-05:00The King of Comedy (1982)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaFahJ15lQtJBB_wCm6hDI_Oaeq338grsHHVvBJ9LUEVlZLXyXha2CHov_CORCL3dfUcFDozaNPJqLzJ26mMkLonwjYumKPOmsRVGBWfxyE5jprFBri5K7Ohkz2oXqjJ6RVoTVJYaIP0P2VS0QjOsCXz9Qy6-cy94eqH0ViHJ6bAy9FS8GKaiRyYxxZt07/s1500/MV5BNzZhNTEzMjUtY2Y3Mi00NTIwLWE5NWQtMDk3YThjZTBiYjA1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjQ0NzE0MQ@@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1197" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaFahJ15lQtJBB_wCm6hDI_Oaeq338grsHHVvBJ9LUEVlZLXyXha2CHov_CORCL3dfUcFDozaNPJqLzJ26mMkLonwjYumKPOmsRVGBWfxyE5jprFBri5K7Ohkz2oXqjJ6RVoTVJYaIP0P2VS0QjOsCXz9Qy6-cy94eqH0ViHJ6bAy9FS8GKaiRyYxxZt07/s320/MV5BNzZhNTEzMjUtY2Y3Mi00NTIwLWE5NWQtMDk3YThjZTBiYjA1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjQ0NzE0MQ@@._V1_.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>There are some artists who are difficult to talk about. This is not for any of the usual reasons. There's little in the way scandal or gossip to go around here. Nor has the artist ever done or said anything controversial or incorrect. In fact, he's gone on the record of making a number of worthy comments, and donating to generous causes. Instead, the real challenge comes from having to deal with a filmmaker who has built up such an artistic reputation for himself, that any attempt to so much as tackle even the least of his films is intimidating to the critic. This goes double for when you're trying to talk about the cinematic career of Martin Scorsese. It's reached a point where just saying his name can sometimes make even the boldest of cinemaphiles speak in hushed whispers, as if some long honored potentate had entered the room. Bear in mind, this is the response that he manages to get out of all of the major headline critics out there (however little of them remain). Now can you imagine what kind of an impression he's bound to leave on someone who is literally just a face in the aisles? The prospect of knowing where to begin with a director like him is discouraging, to say the least. This stems from the fact that it seems in order to talk about Scorsese, or his films, one would have to talk a little bit about everything else there is in life, or whatever it is you choose to call an experience like this, such as it is..<p></p><p>Or at least this is crippling sense of obligation that his reputation is bound to leave the average critic saddled with. The reaction is a purely psychological one, and it probably has even less basis in actual fact. Odds are even the man who helped create Travis Bickle is a smart, mostly even tempered and mild, magnanimous sort of person if you ever met him. It also doesn't help to keep a maxim of Stephen King's in mind, even when talking about the guy who made <i>Goodfellas</i>. King said he has to put his pants on one leg at a time, every morning. No doubt this inescapable fact applies to Scorsese as well. It still leaves the critic with a formidable challenge. Where do you begin to discuss the art of someone who is held to be <i>the</i> American Filmmaker? Right now, the best place I can think of is with a brief history of the development of the artist's mind. For Martin Charles Scorsese, the entire process of thought began on the day of November 17th, 1942. His city of birth, the main setting of his life which would go on to become something of a recurring major character in all of his work, was New York City.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWEDGQoPnYU9_z0nLmvZirXJG2sgYCMozbZWc_A-uMpl2XevEfSijMXO5nenK9PLVM3hP9yb1U90YM_VQAzXZk3XkuGmRWa-wL0pBcMxJxse03htvb5HwMCc_w8rLMc7EgzD27Qi9FYixcl3Y3zpG9jWaFmp1-IWs2H_J40RqRjCEvDIGR48H0gHTJOE0/s5712/Scorsese.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3213" data-original-width="5712" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWEDGQoPnYU9_z0nLmvZirXJG2sgYCMozbZWc_A-uMpl2XevEfSijMXO5nenK9PLVM3hP9yb1U90YM_VQAzXZk3XkuGmRWa-wL0pBcMxJxse03htvb5HwMCc_w8rLMc7EgzD27Qi9FYixcl3Y3zpG9jWaFmp1-IWs2H_J40RqRjCEvDIGR48H0gHTJOE0/w640-h360/Scorsese.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />To claim that the Big Apple has left an impact on the kind of artist Scorsese has become is a bit like saying that Charles Dickens knew how to write about street life in London. Both statements are true, and therefore don't even begin to take into account the ways in which an early exposure to the often perilous street life of a gritty urban center went on to shape the aesthetic approach of each of these creators. In both cases, what the reader or viewer is confronted with is a pen or camera that can't seem to help showing off the Best and Worst of Times. Whenever Dickens or his New York counterpart focus the lens in on a particular incident, it doesn't take long for either of them to start recounting all the important narrative details with an immediate, visceral quality that either makes the characters jump off of the page, and directly into your mind for all time. Or else the imagery and the incidents depicted will grab you by the jugular, and then not let go for the entire runtime. In Scorsese's case, his camera always winds up lingering on matters of transgression, guilt, and the held out possibility of redemption.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWxRJLdnJQKkqf7IzrX28Eerc92dMfGHswzKkp_XBbM2-1BHDGVDtdTNYrJSCiomi1l-ic_iCHBUXxlWA2BYPUdf6_pNx8Ie1pQJy5f__ZzyN46y1otAGSPArB5jQGL9qKBWXjaKfmTDAu2bpvoC6zd-VES-IvxVguGFBNo7KPB8yMrtIeAWRLqWOsy4i3/s1032/Charles-Dickens-Henry-Charles-Bryant-Oil-Painting.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWxRJLdnJQKkqf7IzrX28Eerc92dMfGHswzKkp_XBbM2-1BHDGVDtdTNYrJSCiomi1l-ic_iCHBUXxlWA2BYPUdf6_pNx8Ie1pQJy5f__ZzyN46y1otAGSPArB5jQGL9qKBWXjaKfmTDAu2bpvoC6zd-VES-IvxVguGFBNo7KPB8yMrtIeAWRLqWOsy4i3/s320/Charles-Dickens-Henry-Charles-Bryant-Oil-Painting.webp" width="248" /></a></div>These appear to be the three intertwined themes that have haunted the stage of his particular brand of cinema, from the very first. In every movie he's ever made, he returns to these three hands in the tarot card deck, and then will always proceed to play a constant stream of variations on these ideas with a passion that borders on the obsessive. What's important to realize is that it was New York itself which seems to have taught him his first important lessons in exploring these related ideas. It's a cinch to say he grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood. For whatever reason, his parents, Charles and Catherine, moved into the Little Italy district of Manhattan. Both of them deserve a bit of credit here, before we continue to look at the way NYC molded the artist's imagination, because in a very real sense, it started with the both of them in a way I never would have expected. Both of his folks worked in New York's Garment District, yet each of them also moonlighted as (very small) part time actors. Now this was something I wasn't aware of until I started doing research for this article. It's one of those minor details that tend to jump out at you from left field. It's the puzzle piece that helps to complete the picture.<p></p><p>Knowing that Scorsese's parents were actor paints his childhood in a light that I'm not sure how well known this was. Although it's possible this crucial snippet of information probably is known among his most ardent fans. Whatever the case, one key fact remains. It is now possible to assume that the director was the product of an artistic household. If this is the case, then we have an important answer in terms of figuring out where Scorsese originally got his artistic temperament from. It was nurtured in him almost from the start, by the very people who helped create him together. His parents were able to pass along their shared enthusiasm for the arts along to their son. He, in turn, appears to have gone on to put some very good use to it. The city itself, meanwhile, has gone a long way to conditioning the type of art that Scorsese utilizes in his stories. Most of the director's films contain a heightened sense of gritty urban realism. The major focus always tends to revolve around life on the street in various capacities. It almost makes sense to describe the director as one of the major poet's of the City.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi86wgYZuoOAA6gzs5cnLHCOd_tBlUbT0EwutAhxecV19syJqfhTnAdj2hpXZ1qYNkHyZHCUuEzvnigvAA-aRx8KffCdzCXJJ79sheArNrN1P6eiv6f1B_VPyWJRo55lSooIElr4s6I3MNKxgvCIAfMWta1v2S9PvJ0F-bhSMQVZF871oeVCcwtG79UoO3b/s1200/main_1200.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="793" data-original-width="1200" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi86wgYZuoOAA6gzs5cnLHCOd_tBlUbT0EwutAhxecV19syJqfhTnAdj2hpXZ1qYNkHyZHCUuEzvnigvAA-aRx8KffCdzCXJJ79sheArNrN1P6eiv6f1B_VPyWJRo55lSooIElr4s6I3MNKxgvCIAfMWta1v2S9PvJ0F-bhSMQVZF871oeVCcwtG79UoO3b/w640-h422/main_1200.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The way this aspect of his career got started appears to stem from a bout of childhood illness. Scorsese was the victim of asthma as a boy, and this meant that he often was unable to participate in sports, or a lot of the other extracurricular outdoor activities that children were allowed to get up to in a more permissive age. This meant the director was often confined to his room, or else the stoop of his apartment complex; the closest thing he had to a family household. It was from both of these enforced vantage points that the young Martin was turned from a participant, into a viewer. It might have even turned him into an accidental sort of voyeur, though never in the usual sense of the term.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9E1DTfcmBeKTpJJ6c38m54krwai5C51pU93R09Q0qwa1CStkUby1OKa5lGij_tf5b13h08musvd-_TVJ_O9PZlfO-3fMqDMIgCCXC48JMaQCSAbn-DnCeQuDRbnzwvVOKniO73IfXaZVtn8DmniAb4dipq2WRZPtNrMuXRt5p8J_nJ-yz8UQUVKtsdYk/s1000/71+RBurZ8bL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="698" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9E1DTfcmBeKTpJJ6c38m54krwai5C51pU93R09Q0qwa1CStkUby1OKa5lGij_tf5b13h08musvd-_TVJ_O9PZlfO-3fMqDMIgCCXC48JMaQCSAbn-DnCeQuDRbnzwvVOKniO73IfXaZVtn8DmniAb4dipq2WRZPtNrMuXRt5p8J_nJ-yz8UQUVKtsdYk/s320/71+RBurZ8bL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>Instead, his asthma had the effect of turning him into an often unwilling observer of New York street life. Here's the part that's difficult to write about because of the relative lack of information. This is one of the few topics that has resulted in a certain reticence on the part of the filmmaker. It's clear that the time spent staring out the window of his own childhood room has left one of the final decisive impacts on Scorsese's cinema. It appears to be the first vantage point that gave him an unwanted insight that the world could sometimes be a violent place. One is reminded of a few early scenes in <i>Goodfellas</i> where the young Henry Hill sometimes catches sight of the brutal and violent crimes that are committed on the street, whether in broad daylight, or the darkest side of night. While that film is based on the autobiography of another person, it has been implied, here and there, that the event of a young mind witnessing acts of violence on the "mean streets" is something that both Scorsese and the real life Hill share in common. This also accounts for the director's seemingly natural indirectness, whenever he's seen fit to mention (he's never truly discussed) the criminal acts that crossed his path.<p></p><p>Unlike Hill (both on screen and in real life), Scorsese was never allured by gang land life as it played out in front of him. Instead, much like Stephen King, it drove into his impressionable young mind that he should always watch out for the bad men, while also giving him the nagging curiosity of wanting to understand how seemingly normal people can be driven to such heinous acts. If there is any influence that one should point to as perhaps the final determining factor in the kind of artist Scorsese has since become, then any future scholar on his life would do well to focus in on that childhood window. For strange as it may sound, it was this location that might be cited as one of the crucial inflection points for the development of the street poet's mind. It is just possible to look at that whole real life scene, and realize that one is looking at a reality which is also a kind of symbol, perhaps even a parable. The image of the young child at the window conjures up the curious notion of the young man almost as the accidental spectator of an ongoing pageant play. For a brief moment, it's almost as if <a href="https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/all-the-worlds-a-stage/">Shakespeare's notion</a> has taken on an ironic life of its own. All the world has become a stage for the child, and all the men and women in it merely players with their entrances and exists, some of which are violent.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrqPemHONIdumTB7nN8hdUoRrRATXr4SVTAFGtsWaMRNwY_vODSkQVqxF7p_vYglyIyz44uw2Tqb9TUW5B_VMj8yur9ExjAbp7G8tJSlPpxQIgqUB5LBIplHTAzOhFR647kWjGFfKk803D_Qmn0TI5L3GJc3PpFtf3WNkLJA1Kk4_L5oZWa-TNUDkkazr/s612/gettyimages-525582174-612x612.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="612" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrqPemHONIdumTB7nN8hdUoRrRATXr4SVTAFGtsWaMRNwY_vODSkQVqxF7p_vYglyIyz44uw2Tqb9TUW5B_VMj8yur9ExjAbp7G8tJSlPpxQIgqUB5LBIplHTAzOhFR647kWjGFfKk803D_Qmn0TI5L3GJc3PpFtf3WNkLJA1Kk4_L5oZWa-TNUDkkazr/w640-h428/gettyimages-525582174-612x612.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />More than this it's impossible to say or comment on. Scorsese's exposure to New York gang life appears to stem from the time when a bad chest turned him into a spectator of the mean streets. It's clear enough that it left a mark on the young artist, and that a lot of his art stems from what he saw from his bedroom window as a boy. In this, Scorsese's experience bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Robert Louis Stevenson, of all people. The Scottish writer was another artist for whom <a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2020/11/thus-i-lived-with-words-robert-louis.html">the bedroom window became a kind of natural proscenium looking out onto a real world stage</a>. The difference is Stevenson's experience resulted in giving him a lifetime of inspiration for Romantic adventure. While it's a mistake (even a gross simplification) to call Scorsese the Mr. Hyde to Stevenson's Jekyll, what can be said is that with the director of <i>Taxi Driver</i>, it's almost as if the childhood theater window has been flipped on its head, or else the "entertainment program" consisted of a far gritter kind of drama.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSzhn8rTAnilnuldBS_saqWhD02KajdO-7RCrjQRnjHczfq_kxumJ5eP_snfo5-f1FkFLXmDlJWyeYmOL6Y6E6-us5LfcP-pVfVdxHT2xRKfAp-4aWrT1cUdZLkkrx2j0x90V_AmAHb6SpfztoZY8yCBtJMYAEmKPOkzhCpimZNP76TVnkgdMxkNHZzJV_/s500/51v4wVLKztL.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSzhn8rTAnilnuldBS_saqWhD02KajdO-7RCrjQRnjHczfq_kxumJ5eP_snfo5-f1FkFLXmDlJWyeYmOL6Y6E6-us5LfcP-pVfVdxHT2xRKfAp-4aWrT1cUdZLkkrx2j0x90V_AmAHb6SpfztoZY8yCBtJMYAEmKPOkzhCpimZNP76TVnkgdMxkNHZzJV_/s320/51v4wVLKztL.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>From his experiences at the window, the artist soon learned not just the reality of both personal and gang land related violence, but also the stirrings of wondering why and how such things occur in the first place. What is it that could drive a human being to go so far out on a limb as to be in danger of losing himself? It's a question that serves as the driving engine for just about every one of the director's films. And while he seems to have arrived at his own answers to this obsessive question, there seems little doubt that it all got started by both the window and the street. The final ingredient in the artist's development is the most straightforward. Once again, it was the product of asthma, more than anything else. Since young Marty couldn't just go outside and play like the other boys, his parents took pity on him, and escorted him through the streets to the location of their own favorite pastime, the local movie house. It's the last piece of the puzzle that is Scorsese's mental storehouse, and it could almost speak for itself, if everyone in the audience had a greater knowledge of the history of the movies (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Scorsese#Early_life">web</a>).<br /><p></p><p>The fact is Scorsese is one of those people who are best described as a walking encyclopedia of film. He's seen and is knowledgeable about more films that most of our parents have forgotten by the time they got out of college. Scorsese is the one with an actual devotion to the medium and its history. Something tells me that if you want to know the contents of the director's min,d you should either ask him to show the world both his library of books and films. If a list or catalogue was ever made of those items, it would go a long way toward giving us the literal inside of the director's mind. When it comes to catching a glimpse of the other directors and artists who have shaped Scorsese's mind, and hence his art, then a basic roll call would give you the following names: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Samuel Fuller, John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Roberto Rossellini, Akira Kurosawa, Elia Kazan, Alexander Korda, David Selznick, Roger Corman, Orson Welles, and John Ford. Now there are two ways of reacting to a casting call like that. One of them is optional, the other isn't. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXse7ByLnOum8kt1z1_PEWjFR-C6kMrotZm4sLP6gqTqGaCYf_Zc57FcvOC4Lpurc8vk4L0OZB-GRimRXh7WYpzLAo0R6OmU-1Yo-9LziBkXBbHBIi0Ez94oxuZMpyZkY6AgWD_SvoCMgMtLEowk6n4MZdmUJZgppt5-ozbaLFoHXsL8Jk82ltACxHsZa/s612/gettyimages-543117863-612x612.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="612" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuXse7ByLnOum8kt1z1_PEWjFR-C6kMrotZm4sLP6gqTqGaCYf_Zc57FcvOC4Lpurc8vk4L0OZB-GRimRXh7WYpzLAo0R6OmU-1Yo-9LziBkXBbHBIi0Ez94oxuZMpyZkY6AgWD_SvoCMgMtLEowk6n4MZdmUJZgppt5-ozbaLFoHXsL8Jk82ltACxHsZa/w640-h484/gettyimages-543117863-612x612.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The optional one is open to anybody in the aisles who winds up taking more than just a passing interest in the narratives that unfold up on the screen. These are the people who don't just treat films, or storytelling in general, as a passing moment's diversion. Those who believe the Arts to have an objective life value of its own will often wind up studying the narratives they love. Their reasons for doing this all come down to one motivation. They found something they enjoyed. This enjoyment has reached a level in them that it doesn't for the rest of the audience. Sometimes an exposure to the right story at just the right time can be enough to help the cinemaphile set their own course in Film Studies, and from there, they go on to learn all they can about the directors listed above. They'll study their careers, which means acquainting themselves with all the films they made. They'll grow a familiarity with the history of the movies beyond the current, late stage blockbuster era, which seems to be all that the rest of us know. They'll learn about all the different types of stories you can tell, and of all the possibilities for artistic creativity this can lead to. This is the kind of thing that guys like Scorsese, and later his friends such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg did when they were growing up.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgth9Zqt6rmrf8_Sf2WZbL2UrnFrBOLR5UKpMFb1HEVLmfhLFJ0i4f1cDM393k9m2Fq6G2ja97SFw6vjZgWYq87l1i4qQZ9nWgpECP9ME43wFHJvjazPgnIqR2i_-I_0HRwQzzKeJtN4MekaKWu04vZj-sBgj0lCwQsEraPihPK4rOxFA7XYPryLuKZYNna/s1202/Citizen_Kane_poster,_1941_(Style_B,_unrestored).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1202" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgth9Zqt6rmrf8_Sf2WZbL2UrnFrBOLR5UKpMFb1HEVLmfhLFJ0i4f1cDM393k9m2Fq6G2ja97SFw6vjZgWYq87l1i4qQZ9nWgpECP9ME43wFHJvjazPgnIqR2i_-I_0HRwQzzKeJtN4MekaKWu04vZj-sBgj0lCwQsEraPihPK4rOxFA7XYPryLuKZYNna/s320/Citizen_Kane_poster,_1941_(Style_B,_unrestored).jpg" width="213" /></a></div>They've since been labeled as <a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2021/08/the-movie-brats-1979.html">The Movie Brats</a>, and that's how they were as kids. These were the geeks tucked away in the corner of the classroom who often took the brunt of bullying in school, weren't all that popular with the girls, and always they tended to be considered kind of "out of it". There was pretty much no way in hell someone like young Marty was going to be Mr. Popular growing up. He, Steve, or George might have their own circle of friends, yet if you'd been around back then, you could have told from just one glance that they were the original Geek Squad, and their reputation back then wasn't as improved as it is now. Basically they were all just a bunch of lonely outcasts who often went to the movies as a means of escaping from the hassles most of their classmates put them through. The ironic outcome is that in looking for a place to escape to, all three of them found a shared way of plugging into reality. It was the movies that gave them a sense of purpose, and above all, a future.<p></p><p>That's what separated them from the rest of the faces staring back up at the screen. If you mention names like Sam Fuller or Kurosawa to the average person on the street, odds are even that person won't have much choice in the matter. All he or she will be able to do is give you a puzzled look and maybe ask you why you're wasting their time? Or if they're the Good Samaritan types, then they'll say maybe I can help you look for them. Is your friend lost? In either case, the result is the same. Both examples are good enough snapshots of what became of Scorsese's classmates after they all left high school and college. They all became Mr. and Mrs. Next Door, and have gone on to have lives that devotes little time to people like Melvin Van Peebles, or Frederico Fellini. It really does seem to need a proper artistic temperament, like the one Scorsese has, in order to give those names a real appreciation.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWP_frWitzyUTtxqvoZ809fbSOhA3P3QWSIXYfM90Ym12TE_-6R8yeK1axROSYZc2no50GLBDaV5wMJCzQihtg7CkmiLII1j4oNWQI5ZMturnCA1IEMQimxBBTnDh36ditJWzla8YqMqM5mVGkcChS5wzjhUkJqG8Owvzy-ZJNhBqeKD3xPv0Hkkyb_EN7/s1200/scale.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWP_frWitzyUTtxqvoZ809fbSOhA3P3QWSIXYfM90Ym12TE_-6R8yeK1axROSYZc2no50GLBDaV5wMJCzQihtg7CkmiLII1j4oNWQI5ZMturnCA1IEMQimxBBTnDh36ditJWzla8YqMqM5mVGkcChS5wzjhUkJqG8Owvzy-ZJNhBqeKD3xPv0Hkkyb_EN7/w640-h360/scale.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />And so, that is a pretty good beginner's summation of the career of a guy who is still regarded (in most pop culture circles, anyway) as the premiere filmmaker in America to this day. Also, here I'm still left with the question I opened this article with. Where do you even begin to talk about a director who has gone on to cast as big a shadow as that of Martin Scorsese? As with every monumental task, the greatest advice on hand to offer seems to be that it's best to start out small, and then work your way up as you go. That's why I've decided to begin my discussion of Mr. Goodfellas by talking about one of the more obscure pictures he's made over the course of his career. It's also something of an oddity in the director's filmography in that it's one of the few comedies he's ever tried to tackle. The only other films of his that fit this description are <i>After Hours</i> (1985), and <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i> (2013). The one I'm here to talk about counts as the first time Scorsese ever tried to make the audience laugh. It was a minor release that happened way back in 1982, starring Robert De Niro, called, <i>The King of Comedy</i>.<p></p><a name='more'></a><p><b>The Story.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgINVLbXaqueZ_vNXIacaNhtnXfCY4rZ69MdUx7EYdorhomdGgCPPh4UknxZK5Y6XH-Ah5bdrPDwsAVRcUl-qarc4rIl8HcxZiYecBORZB4HC1z26VSO-EXDrOKO2saKp20a8pKbHPiVAiCv84yx_49O4QqUQuov0usjcgTTWXmFCzkn5gPX8Sv7PXinpkg/s2821/MV5BMjE1YjBlNTItYjM0YS00ZTBjLWI0Y2EtNDg2NGZlOTZlMDk2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc5NjEzNA@@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2821" data-original-width="1880" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgINVLbXaqueZ_vNXIacaNhtnXfCY4rZ69MdUx7EYdorhomdGgCPPh4UknxZK5Y6XH-Ah5bdrPDwsAVRcUl-qarc4rIl8HcxZiYecBORZB4HC1z26VSO-EXDrOKO2saKp20a8pKbHPiVAiCv84yx_49O4QqUQuov0usjcgTTWXmFCzkn5gPX8Sv7PXinpkg/s320/MV5BMjE1YjBlNTItYjM0YS00ZTBjLWI0Y2EtNDg2NGZlOTZlMDk2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc5NjEzNA@@._V1_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>I wonder how many of us out there know of guys like Rupert Pupkin (De Niro). There's a curious kind of ubiquity about his sort. It's like they belong to an invisible fraternity that occupies a space somewhere at the back of our mind, on occasion. At the same time, these days, it's like you can see others just like him everywhere you turn, or for instance whenever you log in online. I think most of YouTube is taken over by guys like Rupert nowadays. You must have some idea of the kind of person I'm talking about, right? They start out as just faces next door. Sometimes they can be polite. They at least <i>try</i> to do their best to take an interest in others. And it's always easy to spot the one, single, off-note that all of them seem to share. Sooner or later, no matter what happens, they'll make themselves the center of attention. It's always got to be about them. Often this desire comes at the exclusion of others. It's like there's this homing beacon inside of their heads. Guys like Rupert are always on the lookout for the nearest spotlight. It can be an interesting experience living near them, in many ways.<p></p><p>Here's this guy, for instance. He starts out as nobody, just a face in the crowd from Clifton, New Jersey, and here's where things get "interesting". People like Rupert tend to be wary about discussing their pasts. Have you ever noticed that? I don't mean anything like a life story confession, or something like that. I just mean the kind of personal details anyone might share or casually drop during the course of a normal conversation. Then again, it's not as if the Ruperts are all that in to a normal dialogue between equals. Instead, it's like that have this way of making sure they tell you only what they want yo to know. Everything he says, or whatever else he does, it's always got to be about the public image.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92Tp95SH7158c05kT-PwdTOCSEAwW8HVCfRS9Xns42Er32zX16-KpUbcuJFJ0_d_YY3Zbv3rtgrcrLiBdoQ1WzjZULJ4Q0uO_dlRosiDJZBsaiRARcT3xOr9gj0sw8qHEJ-n9kqbS6pl4BzqNaByBjVHoDieFMO4HWQyd0-Cu_mMv3xWa-saK2CiZg-DU/s1598/KingOfComedy_7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1598" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92Tp95SH7158c05kT-PwdTOCSEAwW8HVCfRS9Xns42Er32zX16-KpUbcuJFJ0_d_YY3Zbv3rtgrcrLiBdoQ1WzjZULJ4Q0uO_dlRosiDJZBsaiRARcT3xOr9gj0sw8qHEJ-n9kqbS6pl4BzqNaByBjVHoDieFMO4HWQyd0-Cu_mMv3xWa-saK2CiZg-DU/w640-h360/KingOfComedy_7.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />A psychologist named Carl Jung once claimed that sometimes people will construct a series of mental masks (for lack of a better word) known as Personas, that they will then "wear" as part of how they present themselves to the outside world. Basically, it's a psychological strategy that some of us develop as a means of keeping a wall between ourselves and others. It goes without saying that in Jung's view, the need to rely on a Persona was never a good sign for that person's mental health. That's kind of how it is for Rupert. He's always trying to put on a show, or everything is all about the <i>act</i>. That's sort of the key word that sums up this guy. All their lives, people like this are on a constant search for their own place in the spotlight. I guess there's nothing too wrong in that, as long as you go about it the right way. The trouble with Rupert is he can never be bothered about right or wrong ways of doing things.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWD7ATeFkRr4amvcotbm8f_NVzOaOjTZ-SxKSIvWtOSyzauCqgmVr09gzyB-2fHjI6xL8cOBlDOns8EdSp3neMrw4IqmwNaZmwMOcxzFfXCSbqm0ZqFezMAKwbjsP7jIkmZWMZi7BlLtC3cHAXbKaUKuw_53FLCL7YvRe7mBmhnkfU5bxnbGD7vlOByuLe/s903/King_of_Comedy-The-bfi-00m-rhc.jpg_rgb-e1493311086693.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="603" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWD7ATeFkRr4amvcotbm8f_NVzOaOjTZ-SxKSIvWtOSyzauCqgmVr09gzyB-2fHjI6xL8cOBlDOns8EdSp3neMrw4IqmwNaZmwMOcxzFfXCSbqm0ZqFezMAKwbjsP7jIkmZWMZi7BlLtC3cHAXbKaUKuw_53FLCL7YvRe7mBmhnkfU5bxnbGD7vlOByuLe/s320/King_of_Comedy-The-bfi-00m-rhc.jpg_rgb-e1493311086693.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>His big goal in life appears to have been the same for some time now. He wants to get a career making Big Break into showbiz, as a guest star on <i>The Jerry Langford Show</i>, the top rated program on American television. Rupert is a big fan of Jerry's, or at least those are the "terms" he uses to describe it. What can be said with any degree of certainty is that Rupert can often be found stationing himself in and around the places that the talk show host likes to frequent (though if he knew he was being followed, I wonder how long any lingering fondness for those places would last?). Rupert is always hanging around outside of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, waiting for a chance to catch the TV personality's eye. One night after a show, Rupert is lucky enough to corner Langford (Jerry Lewis) in his own limo as he's trying to reach his apartment. It's there the schlub from Clifton gets to make his big pitch. Just a one shot chance, that's all he'd like, at best, at least maybe to start out with. His thinking is that if he can make it on Jerry's show, then from there he can move on to bigger and better things. Maybe even a TV series of his own. Right now, however, he'd very much appreciate it if Jerry gave him the spotlight.<p></p><p>Now to his credit, Langford is able to stifle the same natural impulses or reactions that any of us would have. Rather than cringing, flinching away, or ordering the creep whose just cornered us to get the fuck out of the car, Jerry at least grants Rupert want he mistakenly thinks is all he wants. He gives the outsider an audience, and a bit of actual good advice. If you want to make it in showbiz as a comedian, then there are several avenues worth exploring. The surest way to make in comedy is to take the same way everyone does in order to reach Carnegie Hall: practice, man, practice. In other words, first try and see if you have any actual talent. Come up with material of your own, then try and see if there's anything really funny about it. If there is, then focus in on what works, or at least has even the slimmest chance of drawing a laugh from the audience. Work on both the material, and the craft that's necessary to make it ready for the public stage. Brush up on your performance skills. Work on your delivery, and that all important sense of comic timing. Try out for some local comedy clubs around the neighborhood, and if you get any good notices, then maybe Jerry will hear about you someday.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYrb-kxtdMo3El2_wCdEqk3frtcpqFf1BudToSjY88qKGIwkadvGQ38v74A_X2KxY3OdLRVDr0R_VFLqxhXod2I_LRpbCfPyH2kp_wQjwFzkizAa0w0NdGjM5guRGJlRpMKDZfqRYAzBVCn0R_I4VhJDkWUEWTfJD8B0w4a5zgQFHpNKH197mXJiZulV86/s1920/jfehqtW.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYrb-kxtdMo3El2_wCdEqk3frtcpqFf1BudToSjY88qKGIwkadvGQ38v74A_X2KxY3OdLRVDr0R_VFLqxhXod2I_LRpbCfPyH2kp_wQjwFzkizAa0w0NdGjM5guRGJlRpMKDZfqRYAzBVCn0R_I4VhJDkWUEWTfJD8B0w4a5zgQFHpNKH197mXJiZulV86/w640-h360/jfehqtW.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />All of this advice is good, and to the point. In fact, all that Jerry is telling Rupert in that cornered moment is little more than his own story of what it took for him to reach the big leagues. Every great comic started out small. It's a truism that remains as unshakable whether you're just the latest audition at a nearby bar, or else just some Morningside Heights kid by the name of George Carlin. Think of any of the biggest names in comedy, and then realize they all started out small. In fact, it's even possible to think of someone who used to be in Rupert's shoes, and started out with even less to work with. If Pupkin thinks he's at the lower end of the food chain, then let's put him in his place with just two, never to be forgotten words: Richard Pryor. He had it worse in ways that the boy from Clifton will ever realize, and yet look at what that guy accomplished. Compared to Pryor, Pupkin is living his best, and the real punchline is he can't even see it. This irony is compounded by the fact that Rupert thinks he's ready for Prime Time, when it's painfully obvious this is still not the case, not by any long shot.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2IARZWgp8zzIfggY_LDp4zY0Kx6rnT5iGeoa_e9ODyzT3NLJXxHqb4PfU3QRxZD8eX0KCUX9xUnw1HE3zU03raPdfZ_dqgGS2ggY4mhF5emOTTo8uv85SxVnScAYKCOMwgjBbUqfZAXt5YqPk8rWOg44uR7BZYNP4RrjzBwyYCh4ceFM781vVPcOdyEgw/s640/king-of-comedy-1-e1466704758571.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="640" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2IARZWgp8zzIfggY_LDp4zY0Kx6rnT5iGeoa_e9ODyzT3NLJXxHqb4PfU3QRxZD8eX0KCUX9xUnw1HE3zU03raPdfZ_dqgGS2ggY4mhF5emOTTo8uv85SxVnScAYKCOMwgjBbUqfZAXt5YqPk8rWOg44uR7BZYNP4RrjzBwyYCh4ceFM781vVPcOdyEgw/w640-h348/king-of-comedy-1-e1466704758571.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In a way, though, it's possible to make a case that none of these obvious, and natural roadblocks matter. Not to guys like Rupert, at least. There's a few other things the Pupkin's of the world have in common. Aside from a cloying sense of narcissistic neediness, a lot of them have this easily acquired sense of drive and determination, even if it all of it applies to nothing else except getting their own way. It's here where the real trouble starts to come in. At best, Rupert and others like him are just these pathetic outcasts with no people skills, and little desire to either learn or earn them. Trying to live normally amongst others is not the topmost life goal for the type of person Rupert is. What he is interested in is where the worst case scenario comes in to play. Some don't just crave the spotlight. For a select few out there, it's more accurate to describe the stage lights as if they're an incandescent fix they need in order to satiate the invisible monkey riding their backs. We're not talking about any cute little organ grinder's pet. What Rupert's got is one mean baboon that likes to bear its teeth every time he grins.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLfJaaldmJgRFg7aZtvrgbOZzGNCbTjQm43CDz5IGOsdOfueUNXVY9D_XYTHK0yr8oR6ab1oyqCv5gvF17pfTQSCQ_uUD5SMDkVWLzVCY_Ti2o_jjRtd7VmySmv3KuABtfUa0lhbwTh8GvjBr7SUaUbc0LF6X_yLLsJ2gM3hEunNgHZEfrLKj9nnleUb3f/s1920/Jerry-Lewis-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLfJaaldmJgRFg7aZtvrgbOZzGNCbTjQm43CDz5IGOsdOfueUNXVY9D_XYTHK0yr8oR6ab1oyqCv5gvF17pfTQSCQ_uUD5SMDkVWLzVCY_Ti2o_jjRtd7VmySmv3KuABtfUa0lhbwTh8GvjBr7SUaUbc0LF6X_yLLsJ2gM3hEunNgHZEfrLKj9nnleUb3f/w640-h360/Jerry-Lewis-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The trick with a monkey like that is the way to its heart isn't via all the usual routes. The bottle, needle, or pill is not what satisfies this particular imp of the perverse. The only thing that makes that ugly bastard happy is the roar of the crowd, whether they've earned it or not. And Rupert isn't the kind of guy whose willing to either earn those accolades. Nor is he ever going to be willing to rest content in waiting for it to come to him. Patience is not a virtue that Pupkin is interested in cultivating. Like any good little junkie, all he desires is his fix and he wants it several yesterdays ago, and heaven help any poor soul who gets in his way. See, the thing is, guys like him just don't take no for an answer. You can turn them away at the front door, and there they'll be the very next day, bright and early, as if they've never learned a thing. In a very real sense, they probably haven't, not where the monkey is concerned.<br /><p></p><p>There's a pattern to behavior like this. The way these things escalate is that they start out small. First, Rupert will just ignore the fact that they've been told "don't call us, we'll call you". That is not what he wants, nor what he hears. So, there he is again, right at the front desk, putting on a air of patience that doesn't exist. If you turn him away again, he'll just show up once more, wanting to know "is Jerry in yet"? You can of course show him the door once more. The next day? "Excuse me, please. I have to get in to see Jerry. We've got a very important meeting, him and me". Go ahead and toss him out again, for all the good you might think it will do. All it accomplishes is that Rupert decides to barge his way past the secretaries, and begin stalking the halls of NBC, looking for, not his "idol" so much. It's really like I said before. All that matters is "the fix", and he's here to get it. So now you have grounds for barring Clifton, NJ from the premises. Problem solved, right? If only life would just cooperate every now and again on such a simple level. That's not too much to ask, at least I hope it isn't. It could be all kinds of bad news if it turns out there's no surefire guard against persistent pests like that. And if that's the case, well, I guess it just begs an obvious yet troubling question. Then what do you do?<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNXPWYyiElZD27d16tQQPdTCqColsMci9kPTE7wK0jitJ8gId3oYnqYH83IWkjR1ieRDkZcpmSBO74W3ogJx0_kmq30f_ei9YGiQKg5xuto9bVxT2k4yNXGQJ7BTcEA7JOt21Avm69aXxSe8ivesMB6fm0-fZ2pn4MdavOD3Vix4wdwU2D_9aG4jNCbWD/s1024/232.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="1024" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNXPWYyiElZD27d16tQQPdTCqColsMci9kPTE7wK0jitJ8gId3oYnqYH83IWkjR1ieRDkZcpmSBO74W3ogJx0_kmq30f_ei9YGiQKg5xuto9bVxT2k4yNXGQJ7BTcEA7JOt21Avm69aXxSe8ivesMB6fm0-fZ2pn4MdavOD3Vix4wdwU2D_9aG4jNCbWD/w640-h346/232.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Whatever the answer is, the one thing that is certain is you don't solve a problem like Rupert just by telling to keep the fuck out of your life. The sentiment is more than understandable, and sometimes its still less than spit in the ocean. See, here's where all the dials begin to tip over into condition red. If you confront someone like Rupert, and threaten them with legal action if they don't leave you alone, well, sometimes guys like that have a tendency to get..."creative". I'm not just talking about tracking you down to where you live, and then inviting themselves into (and thus in some sense violating) your own home. No, sad to say, it doesn't end there. You've got to pay attention to all the warning signs here. Can you dig it? Some junkies lost the ability to take no for an answer years before they even met you. If they are that desperate for the kind of fix only the spotlight can give them, then rest assured, they'll find their way toward it, by hook or crook. This determination can apply even to the point of tracking down your chosen "idol" and kidnapping them at gunpoint, then threatening to end your life if the producers of Langford's TV series don't grant him some time on tonight's show. Some of us have known guys like Rupert Pupkin in our lives. I just hope those who do have some way to keep safe.<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: Taxi Driver, the Comedy.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagxd-C34h_0cSbqxGpfApHTQgCR1sxM5U24sVG2P9rtPqKjsNefqDlPCzZKwcgIFSLsmvprtkrmQtWcKtBn2WxvVq1jVRZwuDbY140THhMl4ENuikjhAglr56eWh0DfpY-ZRn9nRc5eucuYlvoQzIMk-BcNlvnxarA6iINbC5ILDY0rcl2vx5MXYBZVGg/s2197/jOVgZl9LwLxX1OgxBPfJ4SJ8Yka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2197" data-original-width="1476" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagxd-C34h_0cSbqxGpfApHTQgCR1sxM5U24sVG2P9rtPqKjsNefqDlPCzZKwcgIFSLsmvprtkrmQtWcKtBn2WxvVq1jVRZwuDbY140THhMl4ENuikjhAglr56eWh0DfpY-ZRn9nRc5eucuYlvoQzIMk-BcNlvnxarA6iINbC5ILDY0rcl2vx5MXYBZVGg/s320/jOVgZl9LwLxX1OgxBPfJ4SJ8Yka.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>If I'm being honest, this is a film forced me to think about a lot of things. That's a compliment, by the way, and its also one of the best achievements that any well written story can hope to accomplish. The trick with this movie, however, is that it will probably say different things to different viewers. I think Scorsese has told the kind of narrative that will come off as a refreshingly light-hearted barb thrown at both the entertainment industry, and its fans. To be fair to the majority, this is a definite part of the film's strategy. However, I think such a basic take kind of misses just how far the satire goes, or the kind of rabbit hole De Niro and the director are leading us down. For people like me, those in the audience who take a vested interest in the arts, the pathetic story of Rupert Pupkin is going to sound much harsher, because a lot of the warning signals it telegraphs are a lot more true now than when it was first released. Which explains why it sounds like I'm still trying to collect my thoughts on this film. This is the kind of film that will hit any English or Arts Major and Cinephile where they live.<p></p><p>Perhaps the best part about the underlying strategy of Scorsese's film is that it can sneak up on you, without the viewer ever being aware of it. In my case, the first thing that caught my attention wasn't the picture itself. Instead, it was <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-king-of-comedy-1983">Roger Ebert's visceral bashing of the movie</a> in his syndicated column. Now just to be clear, though with no disrespect, I belong to the camp that thinks time has been a lot kinder to this film than history's most famous movie critic. The current verdict is a lot more favorable to Scorsese and De Niro's efforts than Ebert ever was to start with, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=r7ZF4_PUwccC&printsec=frontcover&dq=roger+ebert+the+king+of+comedy&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL9Yv1sqyAAxU5l2oFHY2ZCxMQ6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q=roger%20ebert%20the%20king%20of%20comedy&f=false">and even Roger was willing to cautiously revise his views of the story when revisiting it for a later article</a>. This was how I first heard of <i>The King of Comedy</i>. It was the occasional monitoring of the critic's going back and forth on the film that eventually led me to think it would probably be worth checking out, if only out of curiosity.. Any picture that can get that much of a rise out of the mighty Ebert is bound to deserve some kind of an audience, at the very least. So that's how my history with this film began, and the way it has played out is just as humorous. I actually stopped watching in the middle of my first viewing, believe it or not.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL1iu4XpTYUQg0AemWFNARfWQ0xUmnAPuGfPMnSrqAylXdi2_xQVS5VFUyh98RUnRJfx-LIns4Q6CAwDwA47GrLv-WejWZL-6r0oZCWqAkE1EIq_DzrKOMcpw02DxjL8G-oT9JZT1HyaTOXDP0973sJD6_vFNodaedUlT90yQXhwE2hJy9ZHDxIuAwuFVi/s1000/roger_ebert.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL1iu4XpTYUQg0AemWFNARfWQ0xUmnAPuGfPMnSrqAylXdi2_xQVS5VFUyh98RUnRJfx-LIns4Q6CAwDwA47GrLv-WejWZL-6r0oZCWqAkE1EIq_DzrKOMcpw02DxjL8G-oT9JZT1HyaTOXDP0973sJD6_vFNodaedUlT90yQXhwE2hJy9ZHDxIuAwuFVi/w640-h360/roger_ebert.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />My my case wasn't like Ebert's, however. I didn't quit the picture because it was too emotionally exhausting, or anything like that. Instead, I was confronted with a story that appeared controlled and measured for a film about a stalker fan. In fact, it seemed to contain a great deal of thought put into it. Maybe that's one of the reasons for why I bailed out that first time. Some part of my mind realized it was being shown a lot of food for consideration, and maybe I just needed more time to ponder over what I'd already been given. At least this is the best reason I think of for why I acted like that. What I can say with any degree of certainty is this. I know my initial reaction wasn't negative. At worst, I might have been struggling with the mildest form of puzzlement. The key here is that it wasn't a form cognitive dissonance. I wasn't watching the story and thinking, "This is too complex for me". Instead, my initial reaction went something like this. "Huh, well now that's kind of interesting. I wonder what it all means. I'd better stop and try to think this over a spell". In other words, I was doing my best to give Scorsese the benefit of the doubt, and one of the unintended results (for either of us) is that I wound up treating the film like I would a book, if that makes any sense. In other words, I would read a few passages, set the text aside, and then sooner or later pick it up again and carry on where I left off.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2RTn-jy6ZYpk3YZfsG94E5x0TF6JZL49NfLn5-0sED5Fhss1fWnsqOD3FH7_zlvv5fSYbJKSIwLnB9ccB2PBajJ0-AtisPbIzf4e0yF8-2Fhw9EhHrK5lTmEA4SfCut5UELmLwx1i9buqwVWWuoFQh_9YOoXJVfmC2gqP77hz7KE1rDWUmbTz4rnx8Zh/s1200/4b25371ca2efbcf1bf8bc4ad5d7c93e3_9cefe90e16e7a83c9c8d3619b4cc9a15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="857" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2RTn-jy6ZYpk3YZfsG94E5x0TF6JZL49NfLn5-0sED5Fhss1fWnsqOD3FH7_zlvv5fSYbJKSIwLnB9ccB2PBajJ0-AtisPbIzf4e0yF8-2Fhw9EhHrK5lTmEA4SfCut5UELmLwx1i9buqwVWWuoFQh_9YOoXJVfmC2gqP77hz7KE1rDWUmbTz4rnx8Zh/s320/4b25371ca2efbcf1bf8bc4ad5d7c93e3_9cefe90e16e7a83c9c8d3619b4cc9a15.jpg" width="229" /></a></div>In the case of this film, however, when I returned to it after a length of time, I decided to go right back to the opening page. This time, the film kept my attention riveted from beginning to end. A lot of the answers to the questions I'd had about it the first time were beginning to fall into place as the story played out to its inevitable, tragicomic conclusion. When the end came, and Van Morrison's <i>Wonderful Remark</i> began to play over the closing credits, there was no longer any doubt. I knew I'd seen a pretty decent comedy thriller. There were still a few lingering questions in my mind, however. So I knew I'd need at least one more viewing in order to get as proper a reading as I could on the themes of the story. So, I came back to it no more than just a week or two ago, and hence the article you're reading now. It wasn't a case of third times the charm. The film had already caught my interest with that first, groping towards understanding viewing. Instead, it's more that this is when all the puzzle pieces fell into place.<p></p><p>I'm now able to say that there are plenty of reasons for considering <i>The King of Comedy</i> to be an underrated entry in a very powerful list of directorial efforts. In fact, I find myself siding with those who claim it as one of Scorsese's unsung gems. It's when we come to the reasons why the film works so well that a lot of soul searching has to come into play. I don't know how that must sound, yet I'll swear it's the truth. This is a film that forces anyone with a love for the Arts to take stock of what it is they think they're doing, and why. All of this stems from the way the story portrays its main character. </p><p>As brought to life by the director's long time collaborator, De Niro's protagonist leads us on a narrative journey through what is revealed to be a wickedly deceptive, even manipulative part of the American psyche. The best part about this story is also its most disturbing. For it reveals a few harsh truths about the way people relate to storytelling in general. It reveals just how possible it is have an unhealthy relationship with the arts, and the costs that can entail. It's telling, for instance, that when we first meet Rupert, he emerges as just another unremarkable face in an otherwise lonely crowd. He'd probably escape our notice if the camera didn't stop to single him out among a flock of autograph hounds.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQxxzShEmuDV7tbikP9bFxUTDp5xftze1eMYUGawDg08p9nZlkzKpgdMKzi_fllvfB2qVgDgPTZ7JAW6jE7BfCZFQLQ-3yN_tftaiKs_-PZcTvsSBvCzOIKbvlRlIJrlp63YxhCLoxTGDFCvs-g4H1MhguxRONeHf2Lnu2w7KkCV-EpO5QCNrEA8utLjf/s1280/kingofcomedy.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="1280" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQxxzShEmuDV7tbikP9bFxUTDp5xftze1eMYUGawDg08p9nZlkzKpgdMKzi_fllvfB2qVgDgPTZ7JAW6jE7BfCZFQLQ-3yN_tftaiKs_-PZcTvsSBvCzOIKbvlRlIJrlp63YxhCLoxTGDFCvs-g4H1MhguxRONeHf2Lnu2w7KkCV-EpO5QCNrEA8utLjf/w640-h344/kingofcomedy.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />From the moment he's brought to our attention, however, the script doesn't waste it's time in letting us know something is off about this guy. At first he gives off this air of a shy, awkward nerd (and it's something of a marvel to see De Niro play against the type of tough guy mold he's famous for), yet it doesn't take long for him to reveal a subtle note of cunning as things begin to unfold. Right away, Paul Zimmerman's script presents the viewer with a few tell-tale signs that the main character is perhaps less than centered in his own story. For instance, Rupert has this compulsion to dominate any conversation he feels is important. He then seems to casually slip back into himself and not interact with any others around him, even on the crowded streets of New York. The narrative will then treat us to glimpses of Pupkin's home life, and it's here that the first warning bells begin to trigger. It isn't that Zimmerman paints a picture of Rupert living a very lonely existence within the confines of his own home. It's what he does with his spare time that cues us into just how wrong things truly are. For instance, we are treated to scenes of Pupkin practicing dialogues and monologues between himself and Jerry.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaxHzwwJ3l2euLz7IGm8t4ccprNVBneKEVxNrXquaTHNfTLXSkuOXeq7iGgPkyMiFeP1ktHbPFRtwcfdxsWiZNk88_64xHrF16HAs6yDa70gXg6jOlAeTtYGLwsMHKPA63mg-MRv3bjNgxvhNLc6RcXA_nT-BGwjXSBx9GCDxG6twgX7QL0frMpinaqR5w/s1200/2015061800002275.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="936" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaxHzwwJ3l2euLz7IGm8t4ccprNVBneKEVxNrXquaTHNfTLXSkuOXeq7iGgPkyMiFeP1ktHbPFRtwcfdxsWiZNk88_64xHrF16HAs6yDa70gXg6jOlAeTtYGLwsMHKPA63mg-MRv3bjNgxvhNLc6RcXA_nT-BGwjXSBx9GCDxG6twgX7QL0frMpinaqR5w/s320/2015061800002275.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>Now, it helps to bear something in mind. Rupert is aiming for, first, a spot on Jerry's show. After that, he hopes to one day be a successful comedian on his own. It's all a bit of a lofty goal for the most of us. However, knowing this is what he wants, the idea of a wannabe stand up artist running through skits and going over routines and sales pitches should, in theory, be no more different than the millions of other people who need to prepare for any possible success in their chosen profession. The trouble is Rupert is never really shown doing what's necessary to make it in showbiz. Rather than time spent honing his craft, and developing his talent, he instead holds forth in an imaginary jester's court of his own devising. The man has somehow propped up a picture perfect cutout of Jerry Langford and other celebrities (one of whom is former Scorsese co-star, Liza Minnelli)), and he'll then situate himself between these prop figures and pretend to hold witty conversations in his head with them. In addition, one entire back wall of his house is plastered with a blown up photo of an applauding audience.<p></p><p>All of this is verging into the realm of the creepy by this point. The image of Rupert laughing at his own jokes while trying to entertain a series of lifeless mock ups gives the impression of watching a demented child playing with dolls. The part that really tips everything into the red zone for me are the moments whenever Rupert is interrupted in his fantasies by the off-screen voice of Mrs. Pupkin, his mother (played, interestingly enough, by the director's actual, real life mom, Cathy Scorsese). Now, the first time we here from her might not be just interesting, yet also telling. She remains an unseen presence in the drama of her son's life. She never appears on screen at any time. She's just heard from, on occasion, and even then it's mostly just telling her little boy to try and keep the noise down. </p><p>However, I'm starting to think there might be something important about the first time we hear from her. She first breaks in on her son's daydreams to ask him just what it is he thinks he's doing? Now it might help to notice just exactly what Rupert does when Mrs. Pupkin speaks up for this first time. The main character does something you probably might not think about much, yet it may linger in your mind. You expect Rupert to look at someone just out of camera range, and talk to her that way.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2andiqbegfK_BbxAHBRwg0saRQiBYXuvefWPZ--nV37k40kZOzfHsbe-yxzFmljs3g3vPm46FIpafE0q9OA8saK1c3RH5AAkN99Czb_GSMqh6RcrvmMDZVrtCWR2cul_u9DDhX2G4u8p4fw5Ltr6QHYb88Mj6nflwD1cqGInypqz7asCdAIwdmG2KUNn8/s1800/Robert-De-Niro-in-The-King-of-Comedy.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1010" data-original-width="1800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2andiqbegfK_BbxAHBRwg0saRQiBYXuvefWPZ--nV37k40kZOzfHsbe-yxzFmljs3g3vPm46FIpafE0q9OA8saK1c3RH5AAkN99Czb_GSMqh6RcrvmMDZVrtCWR2cul_u9DDhX2G4u8p4fw5Ltr6QHYb88Mj6nflwD1cqGInypqz7asCdAIwdmG2KUNn8/w640-h360/Robert-De-Niro-in-The-King-of-Comedy.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />However, go back and look at this scene carefully, because that's not what happens. Rupert doesn't look anywhere in a direction just off-screen, as if the person he's addressing is behind and to the left or right of the camera. Instead, Rupert turns around, and addresses his whining comments to the open doorway of a bathroom that's just visible off to his left. All Pupkin says basically amounts to a little kid whining that his mother is interrupting his fun. It's a moment that serves to make the protagonist look all kinds of pathetic, if you read it one way. However, a closer examination of this embarrassing exchange leaves room open for a more unsettling interpretation. We hear Rupert's mother, yet we never see her. Her son's gestures, however, tell us that she's just behind him in an adjacent restroom. The trick is this exchange and action all take place in the course of a single, long take static shot. The only movement from the camera is a slow dolly in toward De Niro as he's delivering his lines, and the toilet and sink are always just visible in the background We never see anyone come in or go out of that restroom, and then suddenly a voice just echoes out from there, and Rupert responds to it as if he was never alone at all.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwngVQUzvMAS3sPjIh_11n8CTX--8ByAC8Fsow1EVZANCwDxZF2nUrbEYqelOUR-wfVYLWJN0dIvNdBS-tqeUMKfIsX1KI1zKmkPCFqavAuozWxws23qSMf4GD0MSD0ivvv4lcExr5ef5IJLX3TNPShjm34ljGQL3yETgiAXV4h1Jkza433uUpjR4ijLiU/s1024/HP2478_0ab87001-f0de-4d88-b6a4-63719a4ba8a8_1024x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="683" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwngVQUzvMAS3sPjIh_11n8CTX--8ByAC8Fsow1EVZANCwDxZF2nUrbEYqelOUR-wfVYLWJN0dIvNdBS-tqeUMKfIsX1KI1zKmkPCFqavAuozWxws23qSMf4GD0MSD0ivvv4lcExr5ef5IJLX3TNPShjm34ljGQL3yETgiAXV4h1Jkza433uUpjR4ijLiU/s320/HP2478_0ab87001-f0de-4d88-b6a4-63719a4ba8a8_1024x1024.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The trouble is the shot establishes that there's not much space in that part of the house. It's basically a walk in closet with a few bits of plumbing attached. <i>That bathroom has been empty this while time</i>. And yet Pupkin thinks his mother is yelling at him from there. Now I could be misreading that whole brief scene, yet I'm not the only one. What Scorsese and Zimmerman seem to be hinting at in this moment is that Rupert is so delusional that he's sometimes prone to audible hallucinations. In other words, the guy is plagued by voices only he can hear. It's got to be one of the most subtle touches that I've ever witnessed in a Scorsese film, strange as it may sound. It comes and goes in such a blink and you'll miss it moment, that it's no real wonder if just <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvsb3GeGMd8">a handful of viewers</a> in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1KVGdvmUl0">the audience</a> has picked up on this hidden character note. I'd argue its the one that whispers to us just how unhinged the story's main lead really is. It's the secret ingredient in the movie's recipe which tells what kind of story it is.<p></p><p>If it hasn't become obvious by now, then it ought to be clear that the film De Niro, Zimmerman, and Scorsese are all making together concerns the kind of story that often winds up as one of the minor items on the eight o'clock evening news. The world is full of stories like the one about the time this crazy fan tried to stalk a famous celebrity. The trouble with this kind of plot is that it's one of those narratives with a disturbing habit of refusing to keep itself confined to the pages of fiction. The world is full of guys like Rupert Pupkin. I'm not even sure how far-fetched things are when De Niro's character reaches his breaking point and decides to kidnap Jerry Lewis's talk show host, and then hold him for ransom in exchange for a chance to perform his stand up routine on live television. It's the kind of thing that has never really happened yet. However, this is not the same as saying it couldn't happen one day. In fact, a more tragic take on this kind of idea has played out not once but twice before in Hollywood history. The less well known, yet still horrible versions of this tale are the unfortunate deaths of Judith Barsi and Dominique Dunne. The most infamous example, however, remains the Manson Tate killings, and I wonder if Zimmerman was inspired by events such as this for his script.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrOL5TPo56cyCtACEdx-hfeeY3V817s7eDl0XUtkUFO6w-XG8F0blqM2rV52DAwbeGpRF2Nr8kBZzQnljQUebKCap4aJfyMo38w_0lObEVqYyUAgO_27Jc8H28ATms9LaANIC7ijs46KOWekNE88rdmtzdTqytmcWxLOK2FcIiWGffF4Ed1323A8i7Hzb/s1200/51IQQZ~1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrOL5TPo56cyCtACEdx-hfeeY3V817s7eDl0XUtkUFO6w-XG8F0blqM2rV52DAwbeGpRF2Nr8kBZzQnljQUebKCap4aJfyMo38w_0lObEVqYyUAgO_27Jc8H28ATms9LaANIC7ijs46KOWekNE88rdmtzdTqytmcWxLOK2FcIiWGffF4Ed1323A8i7Hzb/w640-h336/51IQQZ~1.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />Whatever the case, it's clear the film is meant to tackle some pretty heavy real life subject matter. All that's left is to ask the question of whether or not it's any good at what it's trying to convey? Well, it's like I said above. This movie sneaks up on you with its theme and meaning. It's a bit too polite to claim it's pretty good at this. I almost want to say the picture has a wicked and knowing sense of humor that was ahead of its time in many way. I'd also like to claim it still has a lot to teach the audience in the age of social media. The fact is that as time has gone on, we've sort of caught up with this movie in a literal way. Paul Zimmerman wrote his screenplay during the waning days of television, just before it started to lose its prestige as the dominant form of media in American life. TV's Golden Age might have come and gone, and yet it was still kind of going from one strength to another. In fact, the movie was made during the heyday of the classic 80s Saturday Morning Cartoon phase. That was like the era that launched a thousand childhoods, in other words, mine included. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTiIuisDf6A">someone like Johnny Carson was still considered the reigning king of late nights</a>, and the script reflects all of this.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmE-hNPqAqxN-nSNZxHZqKoDnZIKK_Hzvpy4IMjou71bXRdqP924ztiuIydTscXu8stJLcdBu6ohB3P9XFfesRBqXwR_YOH5ZWNEWX5FflkkNf28nTDSNS5osRI8Vt-8CmMiqFNypPEWaPz4OHstl5H-q1wUVDdXFJltbhkWZKRk9NuNXseiYBN4wP3er9/s477/IMG-20230220-WA0022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="477" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmE-hNPqAqxN-nSNZxHZqKoDnZIKK_Hzvpy4IMjou71bXRdqP924ztiuIydTscXu8stJLcdBu6ohB3P9XFfesRBqXwR_YOH5ZWNEWX5FflkkNf28nTDSNS5osRI8Vt-8CmMiqFNypPEWaPz4OHstl5H-q1wUVDdXFJltbhkWZKRk9NuNXseiYBN4wP3er9/s320/IMG-20230220-WA0022.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In many ways, it's possible now to say that we were a lot more naive then than we are now. Yes, there had been cases of celebrity stalkers in the past. Yet it's like every one of these incidents were so isolated and minuscule that we never thought it might be the signal of a larger problem afflicting a sizeable portion of the national psyche. And I bring this up because I believe all of these factors help explain the initial backlash reaction this film got on its release, and how or why it's climbed the ladder with the passage of years, to the point where it's now seen as a hidden classic. In many ways, <i>King of Comedy</i> was and remains a film that was ahead of its time. It's really a diagnosis of a malady that was little recognized when it came out, and yet it's become all too clear in the age of social media. For instance, as I was watching Scorsese's movie for this review, a funny thing happened. I know what the main character's name is. At the same time, it's like I was watching this Everyman figure who's name and face kept shifting from one moment to the next. One minute he was Alex Jones. Another time he was Bill O Reilly. In an earlier age people might have seen such real life figures as Rush Limbaugh.<p></p><p>Then again, you might have seen figures like Justin Kjellberg, Noah Antwiler, Justin Carmichael, Doug Walker, or any of a number of online celebrities who have managed to gain the kind of fame for themselves that Rupert always wanted. And the way they've been able to achieve all this is pretty simple. It's all summed up in two basic words: Social Media. I think that stands as the key reason why this film has begun to garner so much acclaim in recent years. There's also this correlative reason why it's starting to gain a greater fans base, as well. I've described the movie as diagnosis of sorts, and what makes me think that description is true is because of how people have begun to turn to Scorsese's story as a kind of help, or tonic, if that makes any sense. In other words, this overlooked comedy has found a new audience in a lot of social media users who are growing more concerned with the troubling nature of the new(ish) digital landscape. In particular, this film seems to help them cope with the troubling levels of toxicity that continues to spread and go unaddressed by the people in charge online.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGcaZn-6QojXAlpwm4KrztgmwjVbRwVRwSvr84tnZYfNwP5KLn5Z6WQcjZ1LDegzPJ14P8MGF-bKa7ff9vlUZfjHDTXpE0K72t7mE_bIdKIZYNbXdj5li_hHD2tPZgc0Eeu9Isa32k1AVBVBghVvbCvNtlPZ_krZOuh4MsRsNYjNSRD-ivGORhf_wpuDmC/s1200/jbareham_180911_ply0804_0002.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGcaZn-6QojXAlpwm4KrztgmwjVbRwVRwSvr84tnZYfNwP5KLn5Z6WQcjZ1LDegzPJ14P8MGF-bKa7ff9vlUZfjHDTXpE0K72t7mE_bIdKIZYNbXdj5li_hHD2tPZgc0Eeu9Isa32k1AVBVBghVvbCvNtlPZ_krZOuh4MsRsNYjNSRD-ivGORhf_wpuDmC/w640-h360/jbareham_180911_ply0804_0002.0.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For most contemporary audiences, Rupert Pupkin is the poster boy for that kind of toxic online personality whose very repugnance is sort of this built-in reason for both his fame and celebrity. Like perhaps it makes more sense to label it as celebrity as notoriety, in the negative sense of the term. It's no real secret that we've shifted into an age where trolling of various sorts has begun to replace a lot of the more traditional forms of entertainment that we used to rely on. This is not something I condone, nor is there any way I can see this as any kind of positive development. Then again, the people I'm thinking of would be more than happy to tell me to go fuck my feelings, and that goes for my life and family, too. There is also a chunk of the audience who is willing to parrot those sentiments as well. <p></p><p>Just so long as we never have to meet face to face, and I have all the physical and mental advantages. In which case, <i>he did it.</i> <i>He</i> made made me do it! Let all of this stand as a good snapshot of where a troubling segment of the American population stands at the moment. As troubling as it all is, my one hope in the midst of it is that at least I was able to be of some kind of public service by bringing attention to a national malady that still needs some kind of firm addressing. In doing so, all I wish to accomplish is more or less the same thing Scorsese, Zimmerman, and De Niro have done together.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgypnC_FnSlh2AJpDqQGg5yRqh04R8MUqrt5N-CK5ORigza7gxBwsBabAoJFbcviusgE4esQ-saC5-ISDCrgxs9Mn2RwZLGV3uVa7IKYom8ZUyQwuLlzsP7LzHEyUaKcPzr1MDQFyK0Gy6oOSo92E-fMuKIllBJpIYxGUn9P2ytsB-3WmLT_Zck2NJukPp-/s388/Taxi_Driver_(1976_film_poster).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="257" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgypnC_FnSlh2AJpDqQGg5yRqh04R8MUqrt5N-CK5ORigza7gxBwsBabAoJFbcviusgE4esQ-saC5-ISDCrgxs9Mn2RwZLGV3uVa7IKYom8ZUyQwuLlzsP7LzHEyUaKcPzr1MDQFyK0Gy6oOSo92E-fMuKIllBJpIYxGUn9P2ytsB-3WmLT_Zck2NJukPp-/s320/Taxi_Driver_(1976_film_poster).jpg" width="212" /></a></div>What this film has made me realize is that sometimes you really do need to learn how to watch for the Ruperts out there. That seems to be the overall message that Zimmerman and Scorsese are aiming at. Now with this in mind, it is possible to claim that Rupert does bear a
similarity or two with one of De Niro's more iconic roles in a previous
Scorsese film. And perhaps it's best to admit here that it's easy to
see a certain level of thematic resemblance, and plot overlap. In fact, the critic Joe Leydon once gave a pretty accurate one sentence summary that helps explain this film. In his book, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leydons-Guide-Essential-Movies-Must/dp/B007HWJSSE">Movies You Must See</a></i>, Leydon describes this story as "Taxi Driver: The Comedy". It is just possible to argue that this is the necessary phrase that helps put Scorsese's picture in its proper perspective. In all of its major plot beats, <i>King of Comedy</i> can be described as a mirror of the scarifying downward spiral of Travis Bickle, the director's premiere Lonely Man. This figure appears to be something of a modern archetype that the filmmaker has returned to time and again in his movies. Sometimes he's a social outcast like Travis.<p></p><p>At other times, he's a down on his luck nobody with little in the way of future prospects like Henry Hill, Jordan Bellfort, or Amsterdam Vallon. At other times, they are individuals who have turned their own alienation to (whatever they regard, at least) as their own advantage. These can be seen in the director's master criminals, such as Frank Costello, the Goodfellas, Bill the Butcher, or the aforementioned Hill and Bellfort. The key thing that unites all of these disparate groups is what has to be described as a shared sense of fundamental alienation. There's this disconnect between these protagonists and the world around them. It is this personal, inner schism that often winds up as the unspoken driving force for the majority of their actions in all of the director's films. The story of Rupert Pupkin is no different, by any means. In fact, if we take Leydon's observation and choose to develop it further, it might be possible to claim that with this movie De Niro and Scorsese are taking stock of their career up to now.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSuMtxkyEY2bCIThwawl9Ffbm9fIahcatJd8xLRfQxm-XLe0es25zTEHJ7xvF8cCGf2gPkcU-G4DGx7tP0gPm8a7NSDZ51XRMZ0klXNwCOt1HYiLWjMPykiUqQbAHHQOgwWIGTaA4w20i8k9SAq3AQhV0fGf1tHFRn-VmtkJWAAJT18zumjOUa5g5Jy1ZH/s1300/DIRECT~1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="984" data-original-width="1300" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSuMtxkyEY2bCIThwawl9Ffbm9fIahcatJd8xLRfQxm-XLe0es25zTEHJ7xvF8cCGf2gPkcU-G4DGx7tP0gPm8a7NSDZ51XRMZ0klXNwCOt1HYiLWjMPykiUqQbAHHQOgwWIGTaA4w20i8k9SAq3AQhV0fGf1tHFRn-VmtkJWAAJT18zumjOUa5g5Jy1ZH/w640-h484/DIRECT~1.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />You could theorize that this film was made at a point where both the actor and the director were starting to grow maybe a little reflective on their respective lives up to now, and where their creative choices had taken them. It's something that may account for another reason why the film was an initial disappointment on its first release. A better way to say it is that this movie is more careful, observing, and analytical compared to the sometimes surrealistic dreamscape that is <i>Taxi Driver</i>. That film is nothing less than a Stygian journey through one man's Dark Night of the Soul, and the cinematography reflects that in the way it can sometimes warp and distort the natural urban landscape of New York. It tries to convey the sense of a fundamentally warped perspective, establishing the idea of what its like to look at the concrete jungle through the eyes of a semi-hallucinatory madman. It was a deliberate choice on the part of the director, and the result is that Scorsese is able to transform Travis's journeys through the streets into something akin to exploring the avenues of hell itself; New York City as a waste land.<p></p><p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAch-mwtGxDUFke7Eh732fqOgfcwGCNDsErMxGGJwbAp3Q-OZwyJtDGx2Hp3VRiRgWX2EJTwl3VNPkiXI7bQ9wlT9fXIePi-HZgXD0ZLqHJNzV4SA_IQYJSKG_TZlumrARbHm1MSwCQO3VGye4VpegF7mfFEnIN5nL3noYu9eLLAgBIZTKDOB4KGHvh6bM/s750/tumblr_m88jppdPsd1rs1ef6o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="485" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAch-mwtGxDUFke7Eh732fqOgfcwGCNDsErMxGGJwbAp3Q-OZwyJtDGx2Hp3VRiRgWX2EJTwl3VNPkiXI7bQ9wlT9fXIePi-HZgXD0ZLqHJNzV4SA_IQYJSKG_TZlumrARbHm1MSwCQO3VGye4VpegF7mfFEnIN5nL3noYu9eLLAgBIZTKDOB4KGHvh6bM/s320/tumblr_m88jppdPsd1rs1ef6o1_500.jpg" width="207" /></a></i></div><i>The King of Comedy</i> therefore might have had little choice expect to come off as something of a shock even to the filmmaker's most devoted fans at the time. Because while it can be argued that the basic story is the same, the technique has been switched around. Rather than the swiftly flowing, cocaine cinematography of De Niro's breakout performance, the camera work on <i>King</i> is more controlled, less hectic, and more or less best described as professional static in its composition. It never rushes anything with Rupert's story, even while the narrative itself keeps moving at a swift and steady pace. <p></p><p>Indeed, there are times when it almost looks as if you are watching a TV movie of the week. I think this is where the director's reputation might have wound up an unintentional handicap against him, at first, anyway. Scorsese's reputation at the time of the film's release was as this wild, anarchic street poet. He was someone who would could use the camera to plumb the dark heart of the American psyche, and I wouldn't be surprised if audiences and critics might have seen him as the Hunter S. Thompson of cinema. <i>King</i> was the first time he showed he could use another language to tell his stories, and I think the real problem was audiences didn't quit expect or know what to make of it.</p><p>It seems to have been a case of the artist getting pigeon-holed by the curse of a popular reputation. Everybody was expecting more <i>Raging Bull</i> and <i>Taxi Driver</i> from this guy, and here he turns around and delivers the exact same story as he's done before, expect now its a comedy. I think there might have been too much cognitive dissonance in the audience of the time for Scorsese's efforts to have ever had as fair chance as he probably deserved. In a way, though, that's probably also kind of telling. Because it could be argued that the audience's initial reaction back in the 80s is something of a mirror for the themes this movie is trying to tackle. I have said that Rupert should be seen as belonging to the long line of Lonely Men who populate the landscape of Scorsese's films. From a storytelling perspective, there's not much difference between Pupkin and Travis. The only change is that one of them is good at pretending to be extroverted and outgoing, while the other is more paranoid and withdrawn. Each of them, however, is united in their lonely alienation from their own kind.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwd7JKJjOotOUph9fbFVuhF7NAZ9lQz6k5XQzpGCxXMOQnXOFG8pPcQoVAdk-EOlljpJRcNGoh_aJoAEHqZ1UGN-PU9z9KZq3kkX4jQoFN2imRmJ5tqHXqQYtX2ulZIq38LNi6dnhU69Zbm7Ha0FXd9DdZqJmkBxt36xY-F8klyF5JOCUJjk05vIeNZipt/s1300/JERRY-~2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1112" data-original-width="1300" height="548" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwd7JKJjOotOUph9fbFVuhF7NAZ9lQz6k5XQzpGCxXMOQnXOFG8pPcQoVAdk-EOlljpJRcNGoh_aJoAEHqZ1UGN-PU9z9KZq3kkX4jQoFN2imRmJ5tqHXqQYtX2ulZIq38LNi6dnhU69Zbm7Ha0FXd9DdZqJmkBxt36xY-F8klyF5JOCUJjk05vIeNZipt/w640-h548/JERRY-~2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />These are the plot elements that need to be paid attention to if the viewer is ever to make sense of a picture like <i>The King of Comedy</i>. Part of the reason so many had trouble with this is that I don't think anyone was quite prepared for the kind of presentation, or vantage point that Scorsese presents in this feature. <i>Taxi Driver</i> is best described as a story told through the eyes of madness. <i>King of Comedy</i> is the same narrative told with a different perspective. Travis's story keeps the audience locked inside an inner chamber of a lunatic's mind. Here, the reader is given room to breath. We're are witnessing madness at a remove, from the relative safety of our own sanity (assuming we have any). This is the director allowing us a greater chance to reflect on the illness caused by the existential alienation shared by his characters, rather than allowing us to get swept away in the lurid excitement such stories might offer. With someone like Travis, the danger is that it can be easy to get caught up in identifying with the main character's illness. In this film, however, Scorsese is not going to let you off the hook. If this film is self-reflective, then it represents the director bringing a major ethical concern to the fore.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNV8pTfnE7sbiqeFazFRTJz-GCNSRzT77jeXEBQVO4OlXEhAiXwcJ5Hu3AvTtv-kRccguWUX_UcDyw6f8LxYPZ6LVYcVc8UpIQqYXoeuEoUuUdaaBRFTCV34632uwh4rwA6w1xpaatlU0uq2kDobiAEFY2MP-X-5YCz-c7vV3y3JLirC0zAcpK0yu4ap3G/s500/9781529331271-us.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNV8pTfnE7sbiqeFazFRTJz-GCNSRzT77jeXEBQVO4OlXEhAiXwcJ5Hu3AvTtv-kRccguWUX_UcDyw6f8LxYPZ6LVYcVc8UpIQqYXoeuEoUuUdaaBRFTCV34632uwh4rwA6w1xpaatlU0uq2kDobiAEFY2MP-X-5YCz-c7vV3y3JLirC0zAcpK0yu4ap3G/s320/9781529331271-us.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>This film displays a concern on Scorsese's part for the kind of film's he likes to tell, how he presents it to his audience, and especially a preoccupation with what kind of an influence is he giving to the viewer? These are questions the director seems to be asking himself with this film, and the conclusion he comes to is that he owes it to people that he show there's nothing really admirable about the Travis's and Rupert's of the world. These are dangerous men, Scorsese intimates, and you probably need to keep a cautious eye out for them. What really jumps out at me in all this is how the director has almost expanded the scope of his concerns to include the world of show business itself. In doing so, I almost want to say that he's helped put the themes of <i>Taxi Driver</i> and <i>Raging Bull</i> into a greater perspective.<p></p><p>Here comes the difficult part to talk about, because in a way, this is where the film hits home for me the most. I've said just a moment ago that Rupert is best seen as one of Scorsese's Lonely Men, same as in the story of Travis Bickle. I also said that guys like Rupert put me in mind of several toxic online personalities. I think that here is where we reach the more disturbing implications of this uncomfortable comedy. One of the frightening things to consider in both of De Niro's films is that the characters he plays can never be confined to the realm of the imagination. This is a lesson recent history has been teaching us with increasing frequency lately. There are the obvious suspects such as that weird, Viking guy, and a lot of the others that come along with him. Such real life figures have their natural analogue in a character like Travis. Rupert, however, presents a more interesting example, in that he's almost like a shake up of a familiar formula, or an all too common type of troubled personality.</p><p>Folks like Travis are (in the most ironic sense of the term) reasonably straightforward in their psychosis. You don't have to spend much time around guys like him to know you're dealing with a few too many aces shy of a full deck of cards. In other words, it doesn't take long to realize that while the lights might be on upstairs, you don't want to find out anything about the owner of the house, because you know its haunted by monsters. The paradox is all this unsettling behavior makes the Travis's of the world relatively easy textbook cases to understand and avoid (as much as any of us ever can, anyway). </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyXM99TJ9GT3ISMHl_9JvILGzX85pSZSR9riECM2mMfdNaJ4M6tqC07MAQwisHhUKsC7FtkgGpjapTzPqk3A2wA-uZXhIQQGFic_3UXifAi2nKZEl5h3kjpvvSBTC-immN87Q6VP0ePMIEY0IrGNClIiIJ3Lag-eDJoDef599ol7Pkhx4kRuNvf4RSRfWc/s1536/Notes-From-Underground-by-Fyodor-Dostoevsky-Book-Review-Kristopher-Cook.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1536" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyXM99TJ9GT3ISMHl_9JvILGzX85pSZSR9riECM2mMfdNaJ4M6tqC07MAQwisHhUKsC7FtkgGpjapTzPqk3A2wA-uZXhIQQGFic_3UXifAi2nKZEl5h3kjpvvSBTC-immN87Q6VP0ePMIEY0IrGNClIiIJ3Lag-eDJoDef599ol7Pkhx4kRuNvf4RSRfWc/w640-h426/Notes-From-Underground-by-Fyodor-Dostoevsky-Book-Review-Kristopher-Cook.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />When we turn to Rupert, however, the situation doesn't change so much as it gets interesting, and therefore more precarious. A person like Travis tends to wear their psychosis on the sleeve. Rupert is very much the same way, and yet they can sometimes be more tricky to spot. It's not that the self-described Comedy King is less unhinged than Mr. "Are You Talkin' To Me". It's just that Rupert is a lot better at hiding his mental illness than the troubled protagonist of the earlier film. The scariest thing about Rupert Pupkin is that he can almost pass himself off as normal, and therefore move around with a greater degree of freedom, and a lot less scrutiny than some schmuck who carries a gun around.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwmbTURDVZklL9KUmCAESacYjXBleNf5iJEpeOLx2pWDwV4Gpc7x2b-zvHuAV-AdgMdZ93g88E4QFiKsVt4DpmZ_WI8u1MAZTStj_-QzgvokbftKYkvyzh_gFfuubJ9fzu4m82yl1NDTIeqIiHNYYLrc4bzRAp5oiFMt4iUmmR0DQmiYH1zt1yD2-fQhKZ/s800/4865406_orig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwmbTURDVZklL9KUmCAESacYjXBleNf5iJEpeOLx2pWDwV4Gpc7x2b-zvHuAV-AdgMdZ93g88E4QFiKsVt4DpmZ_WI8u1MAZTStj_-QzgvokbftKYkvyzh_gFfuubJ9fzu4m82yl1NDTIeqIiHNYYLrc4bzRAp5oiFMt4iUmmR0DQmiYH1zt1yD2-fQhKZ/s320/4865406_orig.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>To an outside observe, Rupert would come off as just this awkward nerd whose trying to compensate for a lot of personal lacking by putting on this big show of a persona. He'll try to pass himself off as a Cool Cat whose always where it's at, in other words. The trouble is that's also just a mask hiding a mind that's just as fundamentally messed up and disconnected from reality as someone who tries to assassinate a politician on the grounds that they're politics don't match up with yours. A further difference is that Rupert is more adept than Travis at finding ways to make his psychosis work for him in the public sphere. I know that must sound not just crazy, but downright indecent. It won't surprise me to learn that some readers might feel as if I've just uttered some unknown blasphemy. That I've crossed one of the unseen taboo lines of modern life. All I can say in reply is that Pupkin isn't the only person out there who has been able to make a living off their mental illness. Scorsese's film all resolves when Rupert gives fully in to his delusional mental state, and uses it to successfully first commit a crime that threatens to explode into violence, and then turns the tables so that he makes this work out for him.<p></p><p>I've heard fan theories about this film which say that the ending, where Rupert is released early from jail, pens a book about his experiences, and parlays it all into a successful showbiz career as a nightly talk show host in the vein of Jon Stewart, David Letterman, or Stephen Colbert, is meant to be seen a just a delusional fantasy on the part of the protagonist. Some would have us believe, in other words, that the ending to the film all takes place in the main character's head as he's probably confined to a cell somewhere. I can understand a lot of reasons why some might try to comfort themselves with such a notion. The reason I can never believe this is because I've seen too many people like Rupert gain just the kind of fame which he is after in real life. As I've mentioned before, in a world populated by people like Alex Jones, or online abusers like Justin Kjellberg and Doug Walker, to try and dismiss the resolution that Scorsese presents us with is to try and make a desperate escape from reality. It's a dangerous strategy as far as addressing such problems goes, and it's also the reason I'll always have to accept the fact that what happens to Rupert just as the credits role is all too real because fact has caught up with fiction. We live in an age where the media sometimes awards psychosis with accolades.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinp_AiHRCfV2S53RhfTRUBeOHzhBATNfgzfcKr7Y6blgs3HobzPAW6L0n4_0-tn8_Ayjc1khiFhbnWrJeTkJEe-WX6DUR4AeYvOdK07qnQzaVtK3MnvoiqSgt_DSuS9sK6-56LGl_U3A6YzUrJbhegHiaOpY-2s5sGuWSbat2EbXOHSKOuE9tgqguseuHl/s634/4183DFCE00000578-4615060-An_internet_troll_has_opened_up_about_his_sickening_lifestyle_se-a-1_1497777803044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="634" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinp_AiHRCfV2S53RhfTRUBeOHzhBATNfgzfcKr7Y6blgs3HobzPAW6L0n4_0-tn8_Ayjc1khiFhbnWrJeTkJEe-WX6DUR4AeYvOdK07qnQzaVtK3MnvoiqSgt_DSuS9sK6-56LGl_U3A6YzUrJbhegHiaOpY-2s5sGuWSbat2EbXOHSKOuE9tgqguseuHl/w640-h428/4183DFCE00000578-4615060-An_internet_troll_has_opened_up_about_his_sickening_lifestyle_se-a-1_1497777803044.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />What makes its worse is that is possible to claim that you can draw a line between toxic media personalities and people like Travis Bickle who go on to commit seemingly random acts of violence. Again, recent history has provided us with too many examples for comfort. The news these days seems to be full of stories about someone who walks into a public place with a loaded gun, and then puts it to fatal use. One of the corollaries to these events is that a lot of them will go on to claim that the reason they committed their atrocities is because of the "encouragement" they've received from the likes of Jones, or any other dangerous media influencer you'd care to name. We've reached the point where life starts forcing us to be careful of the information we consume, and who is saying it. I wish that wasn't the case. It's like being stuck in a bad fairy tale. However, one of the thing's Scorsese's film makes us aware of is how life has a way of forcing these ethical dilemmas on you, whether they were asked for, or not. In many way's, his comedy has looked forward to a time when the link between a media influencer and the troubled consumer has become a sick type of commonplace. In other words, Rupert is best scene as the guy
who winds someone like Travis up, and then leads to him committing the kind of acts
he's become infamous for. It's the case of plot point in a simple movie taking on an increasingly prophetic note with time. It's also the most dangerous type of warning you can imagine.<br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeEV26eKCG8adpl6zuyEDFfxpreG1JXUoujleERwJd8v4VMB2VLs6Z96PjWRz43z7T8NV7kybEvu5gHPLbh8TJ81j81qWpdvY6eGKxk0qVcgJ-L5wdU0mf21t9wnOzLcBqi_n47CbeITDUdsxhTakh7FYTOekJOLjcs510QsQBHEzTcPa9hE9yRcTMLt0A/s2880/p6785_p_v13_ae.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2880" data-original-width="2160" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeEV26eKCG8adpl6zuyEDFfxpreG1JXUoujleERwJd8v4VMB2VLs6Z96PjWRz43z7T8NV7kybEvu5gHPLbh8TJ81j81qWpdvY6eGKxk0qVcgJ-L5wdU0mf21t9wnOzLcBqi_n47CbeITDUdsxhTakh7FYTOekJOLjcs510QsQBHEzTcPa9hE9yRcTMLt0A/s320/p6785_p_v13_ae.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>It's this theme of pop culture rewarding toxic, anti-social, even sociopathic and/or psychotic behavior that is the main engine driving Scorsese's film. The entire story works as a scathing satire of something that is incredibly foul and rotten somewhere within the mindset of both the entertainment industry and its audience. It is this aspect, in particular, which has given me the most pause I've had in watching a film for some time. The way it tackled the subject matter more or less forced me to stop and think about a number of things. Specifically, it got me to ponder a lot of questions relating to the health of both the arts and the audience. A lot of it, for me, goes back to stuff I talked about in my <a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2019/04/descent-into-escapism-problem-of-ready.html">review of <i>Ready Player One</i></a>, where I mused about a certain shallowness on the part of the art we're consuming at the moment, and how this could have the potential for a negative impact on the audience. What Scorsese, De Niro, and Zimmerman have made me realize is just how much the advent of social media has led to almost a kind of normalization of the alienated psychoses that they document in their story.<p></p><p>We've entered and era where a window of opportunity has been left open for the dangerously detached individuals of the world, who can now create any platform they want, just so long as they can be noticed and attract as many eyes and clicks, ping-backs, links, and likes as possible. Even though it seems that the vast majority of the audience is aware of, and maintains a healthy concern with watching out for the threats posed by a thought process like this, that still leaves a sizeable, indeed, maybe even an influential segment of faces in the crowded aisles that will flock to people like Rupert, whether they are called Alex Jones, Bill O'Reilly, or any other similar name you can think of. There's a fundamental problem with Scorsese's Lonely Men. It's almost as if their single purpose in life is to cause trouble for others. What Zimmerman's comedy shows us is how this same strand of insanity can sometimes infect the world of arts and storytelling. It fits in with what another filmmaker, James Adams, has said. In his own reaction to the film, Adams notes that "Once you unearth the surface level (of the character at the heart of this story, sic), it's dangerous waters whenever you tap into something like that. Because this is a dangerous mindset. As much as I'm laughing, this is dangerous. This level is <i>intense</i> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvsb3GeGMd8">8:47-9:02</a>)".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioMVw1gNAS6ORR8v266UvOgjt9BxoI8kIC5LW1q5agyqiQnsxiENCCD0NZjK_fQKha5FzyLMDOnpeVRk8knfNMVlJITLS4M-HSUIiBq9oh1L7xTu0XSdJnumv5dO-BhYE8aB_RcucygGqpLYvb1rZ7l-Sm9kF7KBEX2Lu2YsmbJ73LjWzrIhaKrAr4933m/s1280/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioMVw1gNAS6ORR8v266UvOgjt9BxoI8kIC5LW1q5agyqiQnsxiENCCD0NZjK_fQKha5FzyLMDOnpeVRk8knfNMVlJITLS4M-HSUIiBq9oh1L7xTu0XSdJnumv5dO-BhYE8aB_RcucygGqpLYvb1rZ7l-Sm9kF7KBEX2Lu2YsmbJ73LjWzrIhaKrAr4933m/w640-h360/maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It is even possible that the director of this film might just agree with Adams' sentiment. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOEb_WyBd_k">documentary on the making of the film</a>, the people who worked on it offer some very important food for thought. Sandra Bernhard, for instance, claims "Nothing has been as needy or desperate as the Rupert Pupkin character...I think Rupert's a passionate character, but his passion only runs for completely selfish reasons (2:36-2:58). Scorsese, meanwhile, comes in with a particularly fascinating insight. "Is Rupert more violent than Travis," he asks? Then he comes to a very revealing conclusion, "Maybe". I'd argue the validity of this statement rests on what I said above. It helps if you see the toxic media personality of someone like Rupert (or Jones, or Brietbart, or Q-Anon) as the wind up, and then guys like Travis (or the Q-Anon Shaman, James Alefantis, and even John Hinckley Jr.) are the pitch, or more accurately, the extremely dangerous, and sometimes deadly payoff. In making this film, it seems as if Scorsese and his collaborators were able to shine a light on a troubling aspect of American life.<p></p><p>It may sound crazy to hear this, after all that I've just tried to talk about, but all of that heavy themes and subject matter are precisely what make this not just a good film, but also (in an admittedly warped way) an inspiring one. The caveat here is that <i>The King of Comedy</i> can be an inspiration provided you find the right frame of mind in which to view it. If you read the film in the right way, then it is just possible to take in all the valuable lessons it has to teach. I know I'm making the guy who directed <i>Goodfellas</i> sound like an old Sunday school teacher here, yet the truth is this is a story with a heavy ethical bent. It's main character is meant as a very prescient cautionary tale. His narrative is a textbook case of what exactly not to do if you want to have a viable career in the arts. In giving us an example <i>not to follow</i>, Scorsese's film seems to be urging the audience to ask a number of corresponding questions. What is art, anyway? Why does it exist? Why do people create it? Why do some us of dedicate our lives to the making and telling of stories? Why do some of us enjoy it enough to want to examine the stories we like in such greater detail, hence the existence of blogs like this? Here I think Scorsese is smart enough to know this is the big question that artists, critics and audiences have to answer for themselves.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaz5HAoBcDzp3NorKSxkAoBz5n_y8VQUgzE5Wpl7IrI6FRjCZgPkxcRqKWtFVPmWoWI4RFpLQwzCLjLqs07j2Rmg_12YlWn9154IDsuIcor5nU3vzsL0-tMFLTbt8CuLhWxbLwA_kBCuntu35Gk7tTtJ-U-JuoYW7baFexACssNEJW0je-xfMuY0jAYCb/s1920/x1080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzaz5HAoBcDzp3NorKSxkAoBz5n_y8VQUgzE5Wpl7IrI6FRjCZgPkxcRqKWtFVPmWoWI4RFpLQwzCLjLqs07j2Rmg_12YlWn9154IDsuIcor5nU3vzsL0-tMFLTbt8CuLhWxbLwA_kBCuntu35Gk7tTtJ-U-JuoYW7baFexACssNEJW0je-xfMuY0jAYCb/w640-h360/x1080.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is a film that is more content to ask questions as it is in presenting a moral dilemma that also is meant to wake up the makers and consumers of fiction to the shared ethical responsibilities that we both have to bear. To that end, it seems like the director, the screenwriter and the former cab driver are all asking us to maybe just pause, every now and then, and ask ourselves what we expect from the art we consume, and what it says about our own desires, and whether all that tends for good, or bad. It's a film that also acts as plea, of sorts. The implication seems to be a thematic desire for us as artists, audiences, and critics to maybe not make <i>too</i> big a deal of all this. Don't let it dominate your life, in other words. However, perhaps (Scorsese seems to hint) it might do us all a bit of good if every now and then we stop and ask ourselves where we're going with our opinions, what they mean, and where they might lead us if we're not too careful. For all of these reasons, I'll have to give <i>The King of Comedy</i> my strongest recommendation. It's the first, yet by no means the last time he'll appear on this website. Martin Scorsese is one of the kings of cinema, and there will be a lot more to talk about from here. <br /><p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-27536683233492480382023-07-16T04:11:00.000-05:002023-07-16T04:11:57.324-05:00Renfield (2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPsc8f21bEKNnTsYN-4ZLGPgFGZm0iRKN1S6UATi6eA65fbnIiZDJ6iLtoCPpuWBhd8vSt2AYWwfNGBZsysFo5yXzSszaoUjxZgu3F_-IZu6zRjs1eDpm-tmepMolkmi4isWGF1y4UZf2qV3Li2mpggkvMZOyWQKH8o2-OMB-7Kwtjz9z76f-1aSgmu3lW/s1584/MV5BNDIwYjVjMDMtOGYxMy00ZTRiLWE0YzktMjIwYmNhOGE4NGQ4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjY1MTg4Mzc@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1584" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPsc8f21bEKNnTsYN-4ZLGPgFGZm0iRKN1S6UATi6eA65fbnIiZDJ6iLtoCPpuWBhd8vSt2AYWwfNGBZsysFo5yXzSszaoUjxZgu3F_-IZu6zRjs1eDpm-tmepMolkmi4isWGF1y4UZf2qV3Li2mpggkvMZOyWQKH8o2-OMB-7Kwtjz9z76f-1aSgmu3lW/s320/MV5BNDIwYjVjMDMtOGYxMy00ZTRiLWE0YzktMjIwYmNhOGE4NGQ4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjY1MTg4Mzc@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>I can remember the first time I met Count Dracula. I might have been no more than six to eight years old. At the time, I was being carted around by my folks in between a business errand, and we had some free time so they let me step into one of those old, now long defunct brick and mortar indie bookstores. What made this place unique is that it was one of those bookseller-toy shop combos that I don't think you see much of these days. Progress, and all that, especially where a person's childhood is concerned. Because: reasons, or so say the "grown ups", anyway. Whatever the case, I was browsing around the book racks and these quaint looking Playmobile display cases. At some point I wandered around to a small corner bookcase, tucked away somewhere near the glass windows at the front of the store, and there he was, glaring balefully out at the reader from the cover of an old, children's beginning reader's edition. The pale ashen face, those eyes that have a way of boring into your skull. And then of course, there was the mouth pulled back into a feral snarl, revealing those deadly sharp teeth. No question about it, I was eye to eye with one of the indisputable greatest icons in the entire history of the Horror story. A legend, in essence. And yet here he was, presenting his story in a way that was sure to capture a young genre fan's attention.<p></p><p>It was copy of a book series whose imprint was known as <i>Ladybird Classics</i>. Has any veteran reader out in the audience ever heard of these? They were really no more than just one in a long line of what might be labeled as Junior Primers. I think you still see variations on the format to this day. It's little more than an attempt to instill in the child an interest in the great classics of literature. The way they do it is by packaging them in a format that youngsters can understand. In that sense, a book like Bram Stoker's <i>Dracula</i> is a natural candidate for this type of venture. It's the kind of narrative that has all the right ingredients for a built-in page turner about it. Yes, it's one of (perhaps even <i>the</i>) premiere works of Gothic Supernatural fiction. Yet the way its written, along with how the actions builds and progresses as the plot unfolds makes it one of the great "ripping yarns" of old capital L Literature. In many ways, despite all the critical readings that have raised its esteem in the public's eye throughout the years, the essential seems to remain that behind all the book's Gothic trappings and machinery, what Stoker has given the public is something that is very much a kid's own adventure novel. It's almost like a dark, modern day version of a fairy tale, complete with heroes, a villain, and and incredible quest.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNzJ5MUhR1xpStgtIsFjsxBAU-ofDH-SgmQSpdrbrGIkdrXsxcPPeHJzRa08Ua5Id4jJEwux0AfVZPC52QdyRhlyukKj3FUuatvP_Y4JFi7bYyASNOGtDiyZpp4WGasmkAygXfOiTJqZyW6OTLbGKbDyElR8GNvncbf6LrUIB2XKL7FcURENbWHRpJjqo/s743/c96a5d5d66f085d5cf2b2d37f46bf5a5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="743" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNzJ5MUhR1xpStgtIsFjsxBAU-ofDH-SgmQSpdrbrGIkdrXsxcPPeHJzRa08Ua5Id4jJEwux0AfVZPC52QdyRhlyukKj3FUuatvP_Y4JFi7bYyASNOGtDiyZpp4WGasmkAygXfOiTJqZyW6OTLbGKbDyElR8GNvncbf6LrUIB2XKL7FcURENbWHRpJjqo/w640-h492/c96a5d5d66f085d5cf2b2d37f46bf5a5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In other words, it's exactly the kind of story that can survive, and even thrive from being condensed into an easy to read format for children. I just turned out to be one of the lucky recipients that day. I bugged my parents to get the children's version, and they proved just how good sports they were by letting me take it home, where I immediately dived into the pages. Perhaps it's only in retrospect that we recognize whatever Rubicons might exist in our lives. It took a while before I began to look back on my life as a reader (and hence the ultimate reason for this blog, I suppose), and it wasn't perhaps until just now (as I write this, in other words) that I begin to realize just how much of a turning point the choice of picking up that old, by now defunct<i> Ladybird</i> edition of Stoker's novel really was. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8uaChmengkbznqTrTTiNTFOvrLUaAzmaoVlk3IyNDX9iPK6zR0tE66I5IfJXbm6A_i3l-f7FMGXvbH571unqBComWvbvrEyY9azxekcbQOOyu39nIXwlUrgsmbV0ROCHaLTHG9nFjtUiebS0EHvOe8OH-s3hQeeFtFpDzXX-YAJ-Wq89anYha-P_o4vLp/s1426/13458443775.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="950" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8uaChmengkbznqTrTTiNTFOvrLUaAzmaoVlk3IyNDX9iPK6zR0tE66I5IfJXbm6A_i3l-f7FMGXvbH571unqBComWvbvrEyY9azxekcbQOOyu39nIXwlUrgsmbV0ROCHaLTHG9nFjtUiebS0EHvOe8OH-s3hQeeFtFpDzXX-YAJ-Wq89anYha-P_o4vLp/s320/13458443775.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>In fact, I've just realized something. It was a few years after reading through that Junior version that I soon began to take greater strides in the kind of author's I read. Not long after that <i>Ladybird</i> book, I found out about Edgar Allan Poe's <i>The Raven</i>, followed not long afterwards by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, and from there it was on the to the likes of Stephen King, Peter Straub, Richard Matheson, Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, and Ray Bradbury. In other words, I'd watched, listened to, or paged through some titles in the Horror genre before then. Yet with the exception of Alvin Schwartz's <i>Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark</i>, most of it was geared toward younger audiences. That <i>Ladybird</i> edition might have been the first one that encouraged the reader to aim higher, to venture further up and further in to the type of more mature stories that were out there, waiting to be read. <br /><p></p><p>I guess what I'm trying to say is that this was the book that showed me it was possible to expand my tastes in terms of reading material, that I lot of what I liked as a child could still following along with me as I grew into adulthood (whatever that it), and would always provide me with some type of companionship through the years. At least there's one other explanation of why I continue to enjoy reading of things that go bump in the night even after all this time. And I suppose this means I have the figure of Count Dracula to thank for everything that's come along since that day in the little toy shop.<br /></p><p>That's quite the feat for a literary monster whose really supposed to be the villain of his own story. In a way, time has been both cruel and kind of to Stoker's greatest creation over the years. He's been kept alive (or <i>undead</i> for those in the know) in the public consciousness ever since the character's ink and paper debut way back in 1897. Since then, the character's proliferation in popular media is perhaps best described as a mixed blessing of abundant generosity. Even people who've never read the book or seen any of the films have at least this curious working knowledge of who the Count is, seemingly based on little more than the general grapevine of pop cultural awareness. It's a form of ubiquity that few Set Texts are able to garner in a life where the only constants are either change, or at least the nagging desire to get away from something. This makes Stoker's creation nothing less than a genuine achievement, both artistic, and otherwise. For those who don't know of the world's most famous vampire from the original source material, there remains several shelves worth of movie adaptation to choose from.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLVtWOskvr6mYZQ6lrT6HgG95CSBfFfUeXveLSyUidyRrYBnIWcedxSboWcLR3gqjaWWRCJU3dArMJV2E91leCUzNKGA0Dp5bLl-qyd0OA8Zp6JLDfjeidl2FIbYPYyw-miVvM1tvphIHxKG5008RFkWTddRoL8h8Naot30OM1AZV3v8PI3n27wEw8VOs/s1440/Dracula-%E2%80%93-1931-Crypt.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="1440" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLVtWOskvr6mYZQ6lrT6HgG95CSBfFfUeXveLSyUidyRrYBnIWcedxSboWcLR3gqjaWWRCJU3dArMJV2E91leCUzNKGA0Dp5bLl-qyd0OA8Zp6JLDfjeidl2FIbYPYyw-miVvM1tvphIHxKG5008RFkWTddRoL8h8Naot30OM1AZV3v8PI3n27wEw8VOs/w640-h484/Dracula-%E2%80%93-1931-Crypt.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />These movies appear to span the entirety of the history of cinema, from its beginnings in the Silent Era with F. W. Murnau's <i>Nosferatu</i> (1922) all the way up to the current film we'll be looking at today. There's even been <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/buellerstudios/found-footage-dracula-movie">a recent indie attempt (made with the cooperation of the Stoker Family estate) to recreate the original Victorian novel in the style of the Digital Diary Unfiction format.</a> This kind of makes sense if you go back to the book, and realize its entire narrative (and even the title character himself) is made or composed of a series of fictional letters, newspaper clippings, and personal journal entries written by various members of the story's cast. It might not seem like much. In fact, the whole conceit of a novel written in such a fashion might even seem quaint to those who don't pay close attention to the nature of what they're reading. That's when the details tell an intriguing story. <br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPDcCReFDG4zC_uWRGlDfKbFUpEqoYkbQWsWz0RSUzx88Jwz8sF7c0IkY3xN_ds4UOb0VnXLLto_hj9fEQe2mgbAzVS-Rjl4rOhkPO7yNeSCnHD9m0Nd0AXeMZ9AvqWo0kBI7d3cEzS5UCr-YSDWNx5SdIBrRlRsWs6gMPyI_Bqn0quDDf40d2gh9GAe2N/s1477/MV5BMDhmYjgyMmEtYjMzNS00MmM5LTkxY2QtMzY0ODFjODEyMWFmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzg1ODEwNQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1477" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPDcCReFDG4zC_uWRGlDfKbFUpEqoYkbQWsWz0RSUzx88Jwz8sF7c0IkY3xN_ds4UOb0VnXLLto_hj9fEQe2mgbAzVS-Rjl4rOhkPO7yNeSCnHD9m0Nd0AXeMZ9AvqWo0kBI7d3cEzS5UCr-YSDWNx5SdIBrRlRsWs6gMPyI_Bqn0quDDf40d2gh9GAe2N/s320/MV5BMDhmYjgyMmEtYjMzNS00MmM5LTkxY2QtMzY0ODFjODEyMWFmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzg1ODEwNQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>Any pop culture nerd whose also a dedicated bookworm, probably can't help noticing that what Stoker has done in those pages is to craft a narrative which is told in what was, for the time, the only known form of documentary storytelling that human beings were capable of at that particular moment of history. It was the equivalent of what Sanchez and Myrick did when they schlepped a crew and a couple of battered Circuit City cameras into the backwoods of Maryland, and created the <i>Blair Witch</i> <i>Project</i>. Looked at from this perspective, it is perhaps just possible to say that you can have Bram Stoker to thank for that. As he's given us an example of one of the very first Found Footage stories ever told in a successful, full-length format. That's not too shabby for a two centuries old pulp novel.<br /><p></p><p>The say that the Count and his story has been a trail blazer, in these sense, is a bit of an understatement. Out of all the adaptations ever made of Stoker's book, however, it has fallen to just a handful of films to stand out as the best remembered examples of that epistolary novel's legacy. Aside from the Murnau film mentioned above, the other two notables are the star making turns done by Bela Lugosi's Universal Studios classic of 1931, along with Christopher Lee's breakout performance as the King Vampire a decade or so later in 1958. There also seems to be a small cult following for the Francis Ford Coppola version from the 90s, featuring Lee Harvey Oswald and one half of <i>Bill and Ted</i>, from <i>The Matrix</i>. </p><p>However, that's a venture that still seems to exist within the twin shadows cast first by Lee, and yet more so by the figure of Lugosi's pop cultural osmosis performance. In between exists the honorable mentions (such as <i>Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein</i> and <i>The Monster Squad</i>, two very respectable and fun entries in their own right), and the cheap knock offs, such as the later sequels and cash ins that Lee wound up having to do in order to just stay in the acting industry, and which he always looked back on in shame and derision as unworthy of Horror as a genre altogether. The latest entry we're here to look at was the brainchild of none other than the <i>Walking Dead</i>'s Robert Kirkman.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1zvFEGe1mBXC_0Zg15FU_8wF6_Qk8JI_RSODxKjB0AFRTPqwIGdTo-qDmylAR8hM9TTkY5qT1-LTpiSjQa0tfDLGRP5VgdcmGpjb4t7VPCae5zJvJQpfNFKjCnUOXIUXstmET8DNcopQCV3yriknLTNmnvj9EXBP42nNyHqHuQ4hMBruJzh9cjVzJ-T3X/s464/11055_7939.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="464" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1zvFEGe1mBXC_0Zg15FU_8wF6_Qk8JI_RSODxKjB0AFRTPqwIGdTo-qDmylAR8hM9TTkY5qT1-LTpiSjQa0tfDLGRP5VgdcmGpjb4t7VPCae5zJvJQpfNFKjCnUOXIUXstmET8DNcopQCV3yriknLTNmnvj9EXBP42nNyHqHuQ4hMBruJzh9cjVzJ-T3X/w640-h480/11055_7939.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Somewhere along the way, it seems as if his mind turned from the subject of Walkers, to that of vampires. Specifically, his imagination seems to have got caught on a very particular creative hook found within the overall myth. To be specific, Kirkman got to thinking about what it must be like to be the servant of the world's most famous vampire, and that seems to be the beginning of the story.<p></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><b>The Story.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZVKZhg78NWTveqMU2zbWohLGIdXbPZX9MR7MFNCOBOtMjeGu83Jp_UwnPG77PY_N3xqjNoV6FpV2pbuZEAB4kxfp4-vwVdEAK3ibj272XLNxm1hYhNY4OPoT02Gexm_HtPLOrgsFOBI40FfQ6Edqqflj4AyCvWEVFcq2iP5NpEa81cTSKTF1ZUZMf2JF/s1350/Renfield.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZVKZhg78NWTveqMU2zbWohLGIdXbPZX9MR7MFNCOBOtMjeGu83Jp_UwnPG77PY_N3xqjNoV6FpV2pbuZEAB4kxfp4-vwVdEAK3ibj272XLNxm1hYhNY4OPoT02Gexm_HtPLOrgsFOBI40FfQ6Edqqflj4AyCvWEVFcq2iP5NpEa81cTSKTF1ZUZMf2JF/s320/Renfield.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>Hello, my name is Robert. And, like many of you here today, I guess you could say I'm trying to look for some good advice, or maybe just flat out help is the better word to use. I have a..."problem", you see. I'm trying to get out of a toxic relationship. It's work related, nothing personal. It's just I have this boss who...It's like being stuck in a nightmare, really.......You know what, maybe I'd better start things at the beginning. My full name is Robert Montague Renfield. I am, or was, once upon a time, a solicitor with a very profitable firm in London. I've moved on since then, as you can probably guess. Though I'm still surprised how all of that keeps managing to cast a reflection in the rear view mirror, even after such a...a very long time....<i>Anyway</i>. The day that changed my life arrived when my firm received the commission to execute the purchase of an estate located in Purfleet. And yes, that's the name of an actual town, by the way, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purfleet">you can look it up</a>. It's just to the north of London. My firm had done business in the area before, yet never on a job as big as this was. The estate up for purchase was known as Carfax Abbey. I'm not real sure of this detail (it's been such a long time, you see), however I think it might have been an actual monastery at one point, At least up until the dissolution via Henry VIII.<p></p><p>Whatever the case, the place was big, huge, Gothic, abandoned, and it was up for sale and my firm was the one that got rights to the securing the deal. I was just a fresh face to the world of Real Estate at the time. My story up to then was one of at least potential success. It wasn't long after I'd successfully graduated from Uni. I'd married my life-long sweetheart. I was the father a very welcome daughter, and now I was making my start at climbing life's great ladder. When the Carfax account landed in the firm's hand, I was the one who campaigned the loudest for a chance at what sounded like a big break. The one I'd been hoping for. The deal which would cement me and family's future forever. As luck would have it, I got the assignment. When it landed on my desk I phoned the wife up and practically shouted the good news at her. That night the entire family dined a bit more expensively than we could perhaps afford, yet all spirits were high, and our shared future together seemed just on the horizon.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqyps8fnnmGa4jlhIoFT15w3tlKsTEDt-El8uhDHu3TB4U2ttkh6gbYDDwNhc_LYqTy5l3yP4MG-iBOHDSrgHrLmUilNdKdWYRb_v6Spc4jEjFQ2ZRAFVn_Bz0mp1D9-BS3xW2s9sswf2T44hB7YJlL3Y71BmwoRDspbxmhZShETVcPxfbAa9bul7aJ1HB/s490/Dracula-Castle.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="490" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqyps8fnnmGa4jlhIoFT15w3tlKsTEDt-El8uhDHu3TB4U2ttkh6gbYDDwNhc_LYqTy5l3yP4MG-iBOHDSrgHrLmUilNdKdWYRb_v6Spc4jEjFQ2ZRAFVn_Bz0mp1D9-BS3xW2s9sswf2T44hB7YJlL3Y71BmwoRDspbxmhZShETVcPxfbAa9bul7aJ1HB/w640-h466/Dracula-Castle.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />So like a fool I packed my bags, made a little business trip (snickers) to the meet the prospective buyer. I met the um, "gentleman" in question. The deal was sealed, my fortune was made, and just like that, everything went to hell. It's kind of funny, really. You can even make a literal joke of it the more you think things over. Go-to-<i>hell</i>. It's all quite amusing don't you think? <i>Isn't that funny</i>!!?....Erm, yes, well, as you might have guessed, this is the part where it all gets...sort of complicated. I'm, er, no longer in the soliciting business for the record. It didn't happen almost overnight, or anything like that. It's just that everything that happened afterwards seems to encompass such a short and hectic span of time. At least that's how it all seems to be how I recall it. The way the worst years of my life began was with the prospective buyer (now I guess you'd call him the former owner) of Carfax Abbey (he's...<i>we</i> have moved on since then).<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnxCLXCO1z4733u_UHLmtrL0fktTRxeaKKq4f3nB9Dph4aRkpSePlXjEpqB8hQpBkK-NaCNFjXaZ9jpD_TZVnVxrmim6DADHmvYMD1oUj9HHK7WDPqY9WtmFusoEHIU0R3rhgusXPi7CCNdkpAiU6TnrEwvoXA_657SX15b4_qgPLs0OeBACRcUtgzUrm/s1057/014582_1057x793_638211628602564626.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="793" data-original-width="1057" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnxCLXCO1z4733u_UHLmtrL0fktTRxeaKKq4f3nB9Dph4aRkpSePlXjEpqB8hQpBkK-NaCNFjXaZ9jpD_TZVnVxrmim6DADHmvYMD1oUj9HHK7WDPqY9WtmFusoEHIU0R3rhgusXPi7CCNdkpAiU6TnrEwvoXA_657SX15b4_qgPLs0OeBACRcUtgzUrm/s320/014582_1057x793_638211628602564626.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize it didn't start all at once, yet make no mistake. It was my boss who set this whole thing in motion. I used to have a normal life, and now I'm stuck at the beck and call of my current employer. What's he like? Well, I guess you could say he comes from, or rather he is the literal product of what you might call "Old Money". Would believe me if I told you he technically counts (snickers), um, as a member of the aristocracy? Well, you may laugh, and perhaps you're right. Maybe that sort of thing went out with the Dodo a long time ago. At the very least, maybe it should have. Though if you stop and give it a thought you'll realize it's not so out the ordinary in this day, even when it probably should be. I mean after all, we've still got the House of Lords back in England, and that's a country where a lot of the old Manor Houses dot the countryside. So really, what makes my boss any different? He's never talked about his family much, although he likes to brag a lot (quite a great deal, in fact) about their so called "glory days". From the way he goes on about the topic, this seems to mean his family tree stretches all the way back to Romania at or about the 15th century, if I've got the math right. Or at least these are the best guesses I can make based on what I can go by. <br /><p></p><p>Apparently his folks were quite influential back then. To say that he's proud of his roots doesn't do him justice. Which I suppose is a polite way of saying that he's got an ego the size of several Mack Trucks. That's one of his many bad qualities, though it's by no means the worst, as you'll see if you keep listening. In order to make you understand what I'm talking about, a bit more of the history of our working partnership is in order. I said I'd gone to make a real estate deal with him for the sole reason of making both a name and a life for myself. My entire family were initially included in all of these plans. It wasn't too long after the purchase of Carfax, however, that those plans began to change, in all the worst kinds of ways. Though the irony is that it didn't seem like that was the direction things were headed, at first. At the start, it seemed like all the plans and ambitions I ever could have had for my life were coming true. You see, when I'd "helped" my employer settle into his new estate, the first thing he did was to seek me out with the promise of furthering my career in the world. All that would be required was my services for a few, "menial task" as you might call them, and in exchange, my boss would help my star rise in society. And for a time it seemed like I'd found my way to Easy Street.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVXemJhemz2mlpS6PJ5GOlg5yG0lBI-ez-sM1f6wEd1nWD2TvljzDVKT4qd_OeZwyse50MBmBaMIwNWVLFY8HbuT6998pV5oz1ANyAnn6qFWbeP8RdAaqUL8JVO-cdJ7-esvz7fXLROavA4Ni6nUsvg3jg2FfSDmNPxgq0uCUR17-S2mN3kAH_aL2XTnf/s600/bran_201-2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="600" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVXemJhemz2mlpS6PJ5GOlg5yG0lBI-ez-sM1f6wEd1nWD2TvljzDVKT4qd_OeZwyse50MBmBaMIwNWVLFY8HbuT6998pV5oz1ANyAnn6qFWbeP8RdAaqUL8JVO-cdJ7-esvz7fXLROavA4Ni6nUsvg3jg2FfSDmNPxgq0uCUR17-S2mN3kAH_aL2XTnf/w640-h374/bran_201-2.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />In the beginning, my boss was as good as his word. He was able to take a lower middle class clerk and grant me and (for a time, at least) even the misses and our child into the realms of the upper classes that I think most of those in my position up till then had only ever dreamed about. It's strange, I know. After all, Nero was a man who had everything, and it killed him in the end. That still doesn't appear to stop a lot of individuals from thinking if they can just reach that same level that everything will be solved. I know that's what my employer still believes, at any rate. I did say he had an ego, correct? Well during those first few years, that wasn't all he had. It turns out there were plenty of clout and connections to be made, even miles away from his homeland. Let's just say it helps to get a leg up in the world if you have recognized member of the ruling classes putting in a good word for you in all the high places. For the first time ever, I was permitted into the fanciest restaurants, the best seats in the theatre, the most celebrated galas. You've no idea what it's like to be able to afford Harrods. My daughter thought she'd found the key to Alice's Wonderland. At any rate, this is how it all started.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy_WFEvdWiAiD1z9xs-MZ5lL5SDq6XeNv82yidKNlBTmydNFbn8Oq4Nq0GLTMaPoESyeqPNSp3htCgGduFHWT4LS9jv2KRgJq8piYlrnbqE3Uwl79WtDojmQ78YOmXYv58FiZIYffOqAsOX46-odig9a09a6--HfMV9oR01c5i9tFDg-D_ljBhManUXJv/s768/53ca50f5-3573-4ab7-92bc-8da4ea2d48f0.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="716" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy_WFEvdWiAiD1z9xs-MZ5lL5SDq6XeNv82yidKNlBTmydNFbn8Oq4Nq0GLTMaPoESyeqPNSp3htCgGduFHWT4LS9jv2KRgJq8piYlrnbqE3Uwl79WtDojmQ78YOmXYv58FiZIYffOqAsOX46-odig9a09a6--HfMV9oR01c5i9tFDg-D_ljBhManUXJv/s320/53ca50f5-3573-4ab7-92bc-8da4ea2d48f0.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>Things have changed in that time, as they always do. The world has moved on, and so have my boss and I. Here we are, as it turns out. Both of us miles away from our homes and family. You could almost say it feels like literal centuries since I've seen my wife and child. In fact, if I'm being honest, I've been having difficulty recalling what they look like. In Fanny's case, all I have left if the image of a little girl with an empty blank space where a face should be, running towards me in Kensington Park with her hands out-stretched. There are no lines in the palms of those fragile little hands. Let that stand as an example of the kind of damage my boss is capable of, and you'll see how my lonely life has unfolded over the years. Now you've begun to get some idea of how bad things have become, anyway. <p></p><p>Even that's not the worst part. My employer is one of life's literal leeches, if that makes any sense. He's a King Bloodsucker if there ever was one. It's true he's an expert at ruining lives with just a simple invitation, yet that still doesn't get at the heart of the matter. To call my boss powerful is a bit like saying that the launch of the Challenger space shuttle was just a bit off in its calculations. He's perhaps the most capably destructive person I've ever met in what are many a long years. Here's the worst part.</p><p>It isn't that he can enter a room without you noticing him (until it's too late, that is). It isn't that he keeps odd hours, or has bad feeding habits, and next to non-existent table manners. It's not even the fact that he's one of life's great leeches in human form. You want to know what the worst part of all this has been? It's that my employer has always been good at getting into other people's heads, my own included. He's always had this uncanny knack of finding out just where it is you live, whatever spot there is in the mind where identity and choice more or less merge into one single character, and then he starts to play you like a violin of his own choosing once he reaches that particular mental place. I know it seems trite to claim the worst thing about my boss is that he's a manipulator. Though I'll swear that's only because you've never been on the receiving end of the kind of abuse he's able to dish out whenever he gets cross. That goes double for whenever you've royally fucked up any of his plans, even if you never meant to. To call my employer a manipulator is to do him too much of a kindness. Hell, he'd probably take that as mere flattery. He's the most twisted master puppeteer that you could ever meet.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1UcYV_BwUtHLym2ZP7lNM3Os9iEAuyNMAqylU4U3idKvty4AjIhLqCpwYvSUzYMrGIirhQbhwbUnAa0pnIpceLFAiHsuVOfBuD8R248B4RE0pzTEbfUgmZC6kEDlTRmwcQvbSG3wXHW4HBo0KbjmkNb5imd_JcuCSRGu-0kMloBvlCiPwATQmziHLLHuE/s1920/R23-Renfield-B-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1UcYV_BwUtHLym2ZP7lNM3Os9iEAuyNMAqylU4U3idKvty4AjIhLqCpwYvSUzYMrGIirhQbhwbUnAa0pnIpceLFAiHsuVOfBuD8R248B4RE0pzTEbfUgmZC6kEDlTRmwcQvbSG3wXHW4HBo0KbjmkNb5imd_JcuCSRGu-0kMloBvlCiPwATQmziHLLHuE/w640-h360/R23-Renfield-B-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />He'll con you. Get into your head. Turn into the worst kind of junkie you can imagine (and trust me, needles and pills are as nothing to what this "gentleman" can get you hooked on). He'll make you ruin your life of your own free will. And if you ever have a bout of conscience, and begin to think of trying to run from it all, he'll be right there to make you turn around and come crawling back, because there's no other place left to go. My name is R.M. Renfield, and I am the familiar of Count Vladimir Tepesh Dracula. And if anybody out there is reading this, I have just one request. Please send help, fast. <p></p><p><b>Conclusion: A Pretty Decent Piece of Modern Day Schlock. </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxUhyTxIMm45B9DZv1_8-7ZZSWYQ6Nbw9TapkqLOTcSNsBWLkxcddOIwt3wkhZiRhZ6R6MuIDpNi3XQTol4a1fm1OMfLPlDZjY0RaMog_J7xOus_WtRvHOgV4UjJQbeWkKHWhfFUADH1qGx88_vfZMazKI96cpyq0Ex46SBRiV8gBN-B5AvzAJrlnwA-Dn/s2880/Renfield.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2880" data-original-width="1920" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxUhyTxIMm45B9DZv1_8-7ZZSWYQ6Nbw9TapkqLOTcSNsBWLkxcddOIwt3wkhZiRhZ6R6MuIDpNi3XQTol4a1fm1OMfLPlDZjY0RaMog_J7xOus_WtRvHOgV4UjJQbeWkKHWhfFUADH1qGx88_vfZMazKI96cpyq0Ex46SBRiV8gBN-B5AvzAJrlnwA-Dn/s320/Renfield.webp" width="213" /></a></div>This is one of those films that came and went, like the proverbial flash in the pan. There was a brief amount of buzz generated during the lead up to its release. I can recall being both stunned and and bemused as hell when the first trailer for the film dropped way back in perhaps what was April or May of this year of writing. I can recall thinking I was looking at one of the most ridiculous things I'd ever seen, yet at the same time, a little reflection made me realize that with a career like Nicolas Cage's, there was also perhaps something of an inevitability to a project like this. In the strictest sense, this isn't even the first time Mr. <i>Face/Off</i> has starred in a movie concerned with vampirism. Way back in 1989, one of Cage's breakout starring vehicles was a rather twisted "Romantic" (the word should be used very loosely, to not at all) Comedy titled <i>Vampire's Kiss</i>. It's been labeled as "what could quite possibly be his craziest performance in a career full of crazy performances (<a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/VampiresKiss">web</a>)". That was a film were it seemed as if the actor was always on the verge of tilting into being his own, personal Renfield (unless the whole thing was just in his head). It's the film that Cage has often cited as the favorite of all the movies he's ever done (<a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/VampiresKiss">web</a>). It's also where <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lct6x-XqWrw">this meme</a> comes from. Because: he's Nicolas Cage, I guess.<p></p><p>Yeah, in order to get the elephant in the room out of the way, perhaps the best way to describe the career of Francis Ford Coppola's nephew (yes, really, as if he couldn't get any weirder) is that it's pretty clear what we're dealing with here is one of life's most notable, self-styled eccentrics. In other words, I think it helps to make sense of the life-long quirk that has become Cage's entire cinematic career if you realize that all the goofy clown has been doing this whole time is to choose a kind of "out there" shtick as a personal public strategy. It's something that he's always banked on as a means of keeping his career afloat in show business. It's the same kind of public persona, in fact, that has been donned not once but twice before to more or less good effect, by actors such as Jeff Goldblum, and Tim Curry. I think the real difference between the three of them is that Goldblum and Curry know just as much when it's better to dial down the theatrical antics just as much as they're smart enough to known when over the top is called for. It's this delicate balance of oddity that that each of them seems to have mastered, and yet it appears this is the main acting trick that Cage seems to struggle with. The result is kind of telling. Where the other two artists are recalled fondly, people still scratch their heads at Cage.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblM-6rozwyLJ0K1vE2Ru5I7tK5ktqmoeCZ_lWMzsD9wfifB0wXhC3f61CWOY_M92BGqcf7wQKMJwYS11tsJhjzvjQu7FKWbbei-WlPlw8HIfi1LsXuJ-Ke6HWH1Sz9FeA3bxLzYPiH-rlAGDNXFhvZAwr2NwBicEm5HDOgklzzrOtzkI4jp8aCDxTdq0i/s1023/MV5BMTM1MDAyMDYxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDQwMzc3NA@@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="682" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiblM-6rozwyLJ0K1vE2Ru5I7tK5ktqmoeCZ_lWMzsD9wfifB0wXhC3f61CWOY_M92BGqcf7wQKMJwYS11tsJhjzvjQu7FKWbbei-WlPlw8HIfi1LsXuJ-Ke6HWH1Sz9FeA3bxLzYPiH-rlAGDNXFhvZAwr2NwBicEm5HDOgklzzrOtzkI4jp8aCDxTdq0i/s320/MV5BMTM1MDAyMDYxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDQwMzc3NA@@._V1_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Then again, maybe even this can be said to work in his favor. I mean, after all, no matter how bizarre his behavior, or the films he's done, he's still managed to get crowds and critics talking about him. I mean, that's got to <i>some</i> kind of achievement, right? I just hope it's the kind he was always banking for. Because if not, I've never seen an actor so dedicated to having egg all over his face. So you want to know the really weird twist? The funny thing is how even with all this in mind, it's still possible to claim that Cage has it in him to be a good actor. Indeed, when he's focused on the job, and has a good script to work with (and yes, believe it or not, this has happened on occasion) then he's got what it takes. All of which begs the question of just how well the artist from Mars fares in this picture?<p></p><p>The first thing that has to be made clear is that a film like this almost requires a kind of psychological loyalty oath. By that I mean whether or not you like this story depends on how well either your tolerance, or else your genuine enjoyment of cinematic schlock is, or how far you're willing to go with that kind of story. I brought up Tim Curry a moment ago, and perhaps the type of roles he's famous for can act a measure of where the audience's sympathies lie in their indulgence of material that is always a bit too ridiculous to ever be taken one hundred percent seriously. There's no way you can go into this flick with the same expectations you would take with you to a film like <i>The Departed</i>. We're not talking a high list A movie by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, this is the kind of picture that doesn't think twice about having the protagonist rip the arms off a bad guy using the some of the most deliberately fake CGI you can muster, and then turning around and using them as nunchucks and or clubs in order to fight off a whole herd of gun wielding maniacs. Did you get all that okay?</p><p>Does any of it make sense? That answer to that last one is of course it doesn't. Did the description at least sound kind of fun? If you've found somewhere in your heart the capability of saying that it might at least sound like an amusing show to take in, then this could just be the type of film that was tailor made for you. If you find it easy to imagine the original Pennywise the Clown partaking in that kind of a <i>Kill Bill</i> lite scene, then you might have just come to the right place. The Dracula character has seen many cinematic afterlives, and some of them have been pretty darn schlocky. This film is no exception to that rule, and while I suppose its possible to conjure up an alternative version of this plot where it takes the examination of the Renfield/Vampire dynamic in a much more serious and sole searching direction, I can't help but wonder if such a creative choice would leave the audience bored to tears.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAR1APaKmbs1o4DDQHpg8iMi0GPr0_5gjzk8OIWJbF--OC4-EjkDwp8OK7Ad7-e0wheViC9cygWCaoF7DylNadnuAAiIJ-WRGsXMdUsVQ1fudqeBNK7T2WxQkjErzGmTH80pLxmz_7fbBu5RxPQ-zE326r1a-kQEVQ0nHJWYhO5riuOlBTAcZ1w7NOkDFX/s4240/Ben%20Schwartz%20&%20Cage%20in%20RENFIELD.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2832" data-original-width="4240" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAR1APaKmbs1o4DDQHpg8iMi0GPr0_5gjzk8OIWJbF--OC4-EjkDwp8OK7Ad7-e0wheViC9cygWCaoF7DylNadnuAAiIJ-WRGsXMdUsVQ1fudqeBNK7T2WxQkjErzGmTH80pLxmz_7fbBu5RxPQ-zE326r1a-kQEVQ0nHJWYhO5riuOlBTAcZ1w7NOkDFX/w640-h428/Ben%20Schwartz%20&%20Cage%20in%20RENFIELD.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Dracula is as much a figure of fun as he is of terror.<i> </i>This is something that a lot of his fans have been well aware of through literal generations. In fact, it's kind of something he shares in common with fellow Horror icons such as the aforementioned Pennywise, or Uncle Freddy Krueger. All three have wound up on the same shelf space that lets audiences know it might be possible to have a great deal of imaginative fun (strange as it may sound for a Scary Story) with the type of creative potential you can have with such characters. A lot of that comes down to what might sound like a paradox, yet it's a really a formula that's been tested and proven true time and again. I guess the best way to express it is that it all hinges on what might be termed the level of "charm" or "personality" that comes attached with these imaginary figures. Another way of saying this is that Dracula, It, and Freddy are all able to remain popular with audiences due to the way they are able to win over the crowd. All of this stems from the fact that they can sometimes be amusing, as much as they are frightening. This appears to be something that their respective performers were able to understand and implement well in their portrayals. The one thing Robert Englund, Bela Lugosi, and Tim Curry all have in common is that they knew just the right type of personality to grant their characters, thus winning over their audiences.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm8kJGQng8tfRzVEwHmW2nisBYrfqWHJNu06v5he0q63aUufEy7WmIYSYWi5G7ZXp7n98OwYon44neD9DrNg1EPv59rEoAzij6U_3VZpqe2_YrrtUTtM_aDD2p003Xq-FkQsxoepmu7mjFV7Z_u2IdfFtlFDHARWMNd5IhDEzcJBUGMALsa7vzIa1spQR/s495/fe06a59ea816a71fc67bb7cad1656dd3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm8kJGQng8tfRzVEwHmW2nisBYrfqWHJNu06v5he0q63aUufEy7WmIYSYWi5G7ZXp7n98OwYon44neD9DrNg1EPv59rEoAzij6U_3VZpqe2_YrrtUTtM_aDD2p003Xq-FkQsxoepmu7mjFV7Z_u2IdfFtlFDHARWMNd5IhDEzcJBUGMALsa7vzIa1spQR/s320/fe06a59ea816a71fc67bb7cad1656dd3.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>They all seem to have separately realized that it helps not just the actor, or the performance, but the complete story as a whole if you can find the right way of giving your character the appropriate bit of charm (again, for lack of a better word) that will help set the audience at ease, even as you're scaring the daylights out of them. It's the success of artistic strategies like this that helps explain in part why so many people claim that its fun being scared. They make this claim because they are telling the truth, and actors like Curry and Lugosi are the reason why this is the case. They all knew that sometimes the best way to leave an impact as a cinematic monster was to try and make the frightening endearing, if that makes any sense. The way each of them did it was by combining the unabashed monstrous aspects (the true Horror of their characters, in other words) with a few other complementary elements that help lend an added sense of weight to their characterizations. In Lugosi's case, he seems to have been the one bring out the inherent sense of suave debonair that the Count always had in the books, yet the Hungarian actor was the first one to give its proper display. At the same time, Bela made the smart choice to throw in an added element of the comic to his portrayal, lending the Count this creepy, somehow affable quality that Curry and Englund would later take a possible inspiration from.<p></p><p>The result has become a trio of Fear Icons that are able to showcase what can only be described as the proper dramatic mixture of straight forward fright tactics in harmonious conjunction with a deliberately warped, yet very genuine sense of humor. It's not an example of the character or actor giving the audience a self-knowing meta wink at how ludicrous things are. Instead, it's more a matter of letting the fans know that sometimes being scared on an artistic level really is all a matter of having a very authentic sense of fun and enjoyment, and it's letting everybody know that they're fundamental purpose is to be there to help share this fun with others. I think all of that, more than anything else, is the major reason why Dracula remains such a popular character after such a long passage of time. It's also this same sense of frenetic excitement that <i>Renfield</i>'s director Chris McKay is able to tap into when it comes to telling this particular iteration of the popular Gothic characters. In particular, this might be the first Dracula film to ever shine a deliberate spotlight on the Renfield character. It's notable because he's kind of like the Gollum of Gothic fiction, if that makes any sense. He's probably the second most remembered element of the Stoker mythos more than any other figure in the original novel itself.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit67bQxK7KevR24SNLweHurtoaqypO8iEuj25GdTIesMAR2unakB-d4Jcb8Tv0l-0LJAQgd3-xHwMomKJ3c046Pyjx1kcUiegewFRxG5p5xJ0AYeH5_vc_vHbi9GHNGBXYTaDO5kcnWVAqqRcZMn7SdZgPPDvoWc1iLah8UmvNhwWmGXk9D9qXcKBgpejK/s1000/Dwight-Frye-right-in-Dracula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="1000" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit67bQxK7KevR24SNLweHurtoaqypO8iEuj25GdTIesMAR2unakB-d4Jcb8Tv0l-0LJAQgd3-xHwMomKJ3c046Pyjx1kcUiegewFRxG5p5xJ0AYeH5_vc_vHbi9GHNGBXYTaDO5kcnWVAqqRcZMn7SdZgPPDvoWc1iLah8UmvNhwWmGXk9D9qXcKBgpejK/w640-h332/Dwight-Frye-right-in-Dracula.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />What's interesting about approaching a story from this angle is kind of the fact that anyone has ever chose to really notice Renfield at all, or that they found a viable way to make him genuinely sympathetic. The trick with literature's most famous familiar is that he's traditionally been seen in a way that's known as a popular unpopular character. In other words, yes, there's a sense in which he's a household name, yet not because there's ever been anything necessarily likable about him up till now. <p></p><p>Instead, the comparison with Gollum is rather apt. Both are fundamentally broken individuals whose respective portrayals call to mind the state of what's it's like to be a junkie. In other words, it's possible to read allegories of addiction, abuse (chemical or otherwise), or the problem and struggles of co-dependency. Each character, in their own ways (which also tend to contain a great deal of eerie similarities) is at the mercy of their respective "fix", in druggie terminology. For Gollum, it's the power and life stealing longevity that comes from handling the One Ring. For Renfield, it's the power and lifeless immortality granted to him by "the Master". It's even possible to argue that all the Count amounts to is what happens when you take both Sauron, and his Ring, and then combine them into a single character.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKMNlRkSXb7_yQg9MLtEHdDLkqcZdRrWB07t9ZZTPHHA-_vzuV_GCuAS1sf7mThdv6nbYHU6FrOv2lCc07XQ67qJsYW2TIBEjPGz1BMeE7oc1b7LDuwEuwBLf4bA3Uz63-qPtYDO-NLKeclJ6iUFpTBAU1j-OSbsL_3FguqG2JD2gz_vKFxm2LY2_VneZE/s1418/0%20JC8hFV4RcgsLYLG3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1418" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKMNlRkSXb7_yQg9MLtEHdDLkqcZdRrWB07t9ZZTPHHA-_vzuV_GCuAS1sf7mThdv6nbYHU6FrOv2lCc07XQ67qJsYW2TIBEjPGz1BMeE7oc1b7LDuwEuwBLf4bA3Uz63-qPtYDO-NLKeclJ6iUFpTBAU1j-OSbsL_3FguqG2JD2gz_vKFxm2LY2_VneZE/s320/0%20JC8hFV4RcgsLYLG3.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>This, then, is the main burden Renfield is saddled with. And the events of this movie are a chronicling of this servant's struggle as he, for perhaps the first time ever, tries to see if its possible to break free from one of the most toxic relationship's in the history of fiction. This how the movie portrays things, although in all fairness, Stoker's source material has the character arrive at the exact same conclusion, and also sees him make a valiant effort to escape from the Count's control. So while it's maybe not the most original concept that McKay and Kirkman are working with here, they are able to lend Stoker's subplot premise a greater deal of fun than it's had since the close of <i>Monster Squad</i>, way back in 1987. And perhaps it's here that I should add that despite all of the heavy thematic baggage that tends to come associated with these two figures, the filmmakers are quick to recognize all the moments of light levity that can be found even in a lot of otherwise dark corners. This is shown from the start where the entire story is being framed as a support group monologue, of sorts. We open on Renfield situated in just such a basement share circle. The opening makes clear just how much Renfield has in common with such issues, and the story forgrounds the underlying themes that have shaped the character's history.<p></p><p>In fact, it's a minor bit of literary awareness on the film's part that is so subtle, it's always going to fly under the radar of most viewers, especially those who aren't familiar the content of the Stoker book. From there, everything kicks into full tongue and cheek mode as we follow our hapless schmuck protagonist (played this time by Nicholas Hoult) as spending an extended amount of time amongst mere mortals once more begins to stir the improbable yet beguiling notion that it might just be possible to escape from the worst possible workforce oriented relationship that any employee can ever have with a Bad Boss (brought to life this time by Nic Cage). The premise alone carries enough amusing overtones that it's easy to see that humor can be mined from it, and this realization seems to be the creative spark for which Kirkman and McKay's project. Needless to say, they manage to have a lot of fun with the idea.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RzEnBSRCe7Ydbf9N8SELlZZc5JS_VfSzcB0uOFJFeSJawHUYBarNhWdOIH_Pa0hdZ-zP9Muu71sndQyFj71SgBZutp-6C5pTflwZiusI33o_ftY-j0zJZ0ysr7VphlhnWxkMK8x4eYjXHz0Kzkv5OM9aaok1crolYggKtZBSBjRBiHgl883HYr4uZxTB/s1280/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RzEnBSRCe7Ydbf9N8SELlZZc5JS_VfSzcB0uOFJFeSJawHUYBarNhWdOIH_Pa0hdZ-zP9Muu71sndQyFj71SgBZutp-6C5pTflwZiusI33o_ftY-j0zJZ0ysr7VphlhnWxkMK8x4eYjXHz0Kzkv5OM9aaok1crolYggKtZBSBjRBiHgl883HYr4uZxTB/w640-h360/maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />To give just a sample. Kirkman and Co. get a lot of humor from exploiting the lore of vampirism. Two of the most notable instances come when Dracula tracks his erstwhile familiar down, after Renfield takes his first tentative steps at moving on from his former life as a lackey to the King of the Undead. The main character comes home to find his very pissed off ex-boss waiting for him in his living room. When Robert wonders how on earth Dracula could have (a) found his address, and (b) much less walked in uninvited, all Drac has to do is draw the character and the audience's attention to the fact that Renfield has carelessly left a literal Welcome Mat on his front doorstep to get one of (if not <i>the</i>) biggest laughs in the movie. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNvZK8hZmpEOGUQF4BM06ac9hiLP7vr3eQCTGwMQa0CHtXcU_1jPShvv3RB75zPzgcGDv6cT1iYwhwiW7_CvEn_2BkiD9YM37o_kH4m38OnUqL8f1ufA79GjDgJrJeWragR1xAgPSPTmZcsVd0reLLGaSVZvfUtDNgXZjdz0RgV-shq--0oD8PPbbRgWr_/s300/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="168" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNvZK8hZmpEOGUQF4BM06ac9hiLP7vr3eQCTGwMQa0CHtXcU_1jPShvv3RB75zPzgcGDv6cT1iYwhwiW7_CvEn_2BkiD9YM37o_kH4m38OnUqL8f1ufA79GjDgJrJeWragR1xAgPSPTmZcsVd0reLLGaSVZvfUtDNgXZjdz0RgV-shq--0oD8PPbbRgWr_/s1600/images.jpg" width="168" /></a></div>It's one of several subtle nods the movie contains towards the myths that have gathered around the modern concept of the vampire, and which the film plays upon in ways that are a welcome change from the more in your face style that a lot of modern comedies have been settling for lately. It showcases a healthy confidence that the movie has in its own comedic strategies that is refreshing from the kind of manic desperation that a lesser parody film would have felt compelled to resort to. The problem is this is the one approach that would have sunk the story's chances, and its to Kirkman's credit that he trusts the material's inherent drollery to carry things as far as they deserve, and then no more or less.<p></p><p>It's this restrained, yet genuine wit that allows the film's various punchlines to have a surprising amount of weight to them (when Cage's Dracula complains that he's the real victim here, it might cause the viewer to wonder just how the character became a vampire in the first place), or else it allows the film's more deliberately outrageous moments to have a dignity they might not otherwise have had. This has to be the first Count related film to where the full extent of Renfield's abilities as a somewhat (or relative) otherworldly servant to the forces of darkness are given anything like a proper, feature length exploration. Here again, Kirkman takes an element of Stoker's book, and gives it an entertaining kick. </p><p>The novel's version of Dracula's servant is presented as a bug eater and so Kirkman will up the ante by letting this habit be to the movie's Renfield what spinach is to Popeye. All he has to do is take so much as a bite out of whatever creepy-crawly is lying within reach, and he can take down an entire room of mask wearing gunmen in just less than five minutes. What's shocking to realize in retrospect is that the filmmakers didn't capitalize on the opportunity such a plot point would showcase for presenting Renfield's enforced eating habits in a knowing way. Like why not have the character point out to anyone who looks at him askance that insects are considered a delicacy in some climates? It's a missed opportunity, to some extent. Though thankfully this all nothing more than a minor nit-pick.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKgX0YrZ1H8yyqKj83OaMSPGDV6a4zzcubKqIVw81KWbA9sIhS7S2fVRlyUfFVKVyff3UxQGGJ_KYj-sCGSCRs2Xc3ZbK6m5P37xf1OAfpFyP692PqnJjJUCW8xfSmTjPcmBJuktyesNIyb8NY1cJzWGMD8byeeb5YvPju00XAjA7B4xjrekkRKh-37G_o/s942/Abbott_and_costello_meet_frankenstein.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="815" data-original-width="942" height="554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKgX0YrZ1H8yyqKj83OaMSPGDV6a4zzcubKqIVw81KWbA9sIhS7S2fVRlyUfFVKVyff3UxQGGJ_KYj-sCGSCRs2Xc3ZbK6m5P37xf1OAfpFyP692PqnJjJUCW8xfSmTjPcmBJuktyesNIyb8NY1cJzWGMD8byeeb5YvPju00XAjA7B4xjrekkRKh-37G_o/w640-h554/Abbott_and_costello_meet_frankenstein.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The biggest laugh, however, comes in during the final showdown between the former familiar and his toxic ex-boss. There seems to be this informal showbiz tradition which dictates that Dracula be dispatched in the most elaborate way possible. All of which is little more than an attempt to try and honor the denouement of the original novel, which shifts gears from an ordinary Gothic novel into the kind of slam bang action set piece that wouldn't have been too out of place in an <i>Evil Dead</i> film. The more things change, in other words. Here, Kirkman and McKay do a good job of paying homage to their main inspiration, and then it's when the time comes for the Count to take his latest final bow that they get creative in a way that I won't spoil here. Suffice to say that the last laugh of the movie comes in the form of a payoff that the director and writer show to the audience in full, and yet the it's the thematic content of the punchline that they carefully let linger in the mind of the perceptive viewer. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWnNndxcRRePSoAjwNFBYCSox8iGx1nWDvrlQic_5ivkmluYXSYi0sc9rRLzCPLzF5anI52nteYTpi-DopukJIh20l2797ngwApQmnl-e3H7s4m-lRpZ2uHejI98QQXr0kJ-YFUxjgXxkqfKyTpnHg4GiM_-HqEPCaLK31jPiggudn8VxiP2wlO0iVvOGx/s1041/PaulMann_ArmyOfDarkness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1041" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWnNndxcRRePSoAjwNFBYCSox8iGx1nWDvrlQic_5ivkmluYXSYi0sc9rRLzCPLzF5anI52nteYTpi-DopukJIh20l2797ngwApQmnl-e3H7s4m-lRpZ2uHejI98QQXr0kJ-YFUxjgXxkqfKyTpnHg4GiM_-HqEPCaLK31jPiggudn8VxiP2wlO0iVvOGx/s320/PaulMann_ArmyOfDarkness.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>The way they dispatch everyone's favorite bloodsucker is done with a sophistication that sneaks up on you in such a way that it's full impact might not hit you until after you've left the theater. When you realize what you've seen, then the you realize the film's best laugh was saved for last. Let's just say that the more you realize that the vampire myth is a metaphor for addiction, the more the ending will leave you in stitches. It's not making light of a serious topic, but showcasing a clever way in which abusers can sometimes wind up paying the price for their actions by getting a taste of their own medicine.<p></p><p>Beyond the humor, the film is also very clever in the awareness it has of its own cinematic history. The opening moments of the film contain a very impressive, almost seamless recreation of Tod Browning's now iconic 1931 version. The audience is treated to the sight of Cage and Hoult digitally spliced into the same Gothic footage, as well as the exact same roles and dialogue that was originally occupied and spoken by Bela Lugosi and his co-star Dwight Frye. The latter of whom was the original actor to bring the first major portrayal of Renfield to life on the big screen. Together with the figure of Van Helsing, it is Frye's almost Joker like performance as the insect wielding madman that remains the other most talked about, or famous element from Browning's movie. These are all vital background details for McKay's film, and Kirkman's story. And both filmmakers display a canny awareness of their predecessors, and utilize the classic 1930s iteration of these characters with a respect that manages the surprising feat of actually honoring the legacy of what came before, while also finding a way to bring the cast forward into the modern day with an actual appropriate contemporary artistic expression.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-XmBHcXwdu8rLzgj8uh1Gp11o7Wj2ViT0W-AlZZP7JqpUcJRSOf7NwVzrGCT5T5-WxnA65ANqXH3fq6t4udPUnKLJeurcKbf7V6nPYawEkHs_1KaLJSTj7aDHI1FpEZGTmRAY2Wtul1R9c5uZUfyEGAAxxV6R1EMPVd_fDkIfA-JOHm6r8eVsFM9J0x2c/s1000/26458.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-XmBHcXwdu8rLzgj8uh1Gp11o7Wj2ViT0W-AlZZP7JqpUcJRSOf7NwVzrGCT5T5-WxnA65ANqXH3fq6t4udPUnKLJeurcKbf7V6nPYawEkHs_1KaLJSTj7aDHI1FpEZGTmRAY2Wtul1R9c5uZUfyEGAAxxV6R1EMPVd_fDkIfA-JOHm6r8eVsFM9J0x2c/s320/26458.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>I only bring that up because I'll swear it's the first time I've seen this goal done right. Right now, in an era when Hollywood keeps blundering in its attempts to resurrect its past glories, the fact that it's a relatively minor studio B picture creature feature that manages to get it right has all kinds of satisfying ironies to it. For instance, take the way Kirkman and Cage handle the progression of Dracula's character in this film. There comes a point where the Lord of the Undead is left having to find a new replacement for his erstwhile, former servant. So he finds one in the form of the matriarch of a brutal crime family. Again, without too much in the way of spoilers, these moments are where the movie works as a pseudo-sequel to the 1931 Lugosi film, and how it really is the Lugosi version of the character that Cage seems to be channeling as the film reaches its pivitol halfway point. <p></p><p>This makes sense because one of the greatest ironies of Lugosi's performance is that you can still imagine him as a lady's man. Christopher Lee's portrayal often winds up leaving the Count as little more than a feral animal with little to no social graces for the character to fall back on. Lugosi, meanwhile, always portrayed the role as that of a master strategist who was more than capable of blending in with the crowd, or else using his air of foreign intrigue to act as a means of dominating the room. These are all the kinds of ploys used by someone who is capable of thinking tactically in the achievement of his goals. That's what Cage winds up doing when he finds himself in need of extra help, and its clear that all the notes the actors is taking in these moments all come from the original cinematic supernatural nobleman. I'd also argue that Lugosi's performance as the Count is still the best, yet that's another day. The point is that it's rare to see a film treat its own mythology with genuine respect. That's what Kirkman and McKay do here, and you can tell they really are actual Horror fans.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCPI1iEg0kJ2rMRTfqVGqWf18kYY9DTzAH1SmAIyZ45N44sQNzYKoKpxMdIxAGg6LVWxA51hRBQ8Jfx_V9hyswzOR22OlYzIYJR8zxxmQ54hFZMLMOteIXmpwkOltvsBVgPczqTer742UB9jBiXcdh2pfWZz402o0_xp0T-BcXTaj9YkPit1zPnPlQ945r/s1200/renfield-review.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCPI1iEg0kJ2rMRTfqVGqWf18kYY9DTzAH1SmAIyZ45N44sQNzYKoKpxMdIxAGg6LVWxA51hRBQ8Jfx_V9hyswzOR22OlYzIYJR8zxxmQ54hFZMLMOteIXmpwkOltvsBVgPczqTer742UB9jBiXcdh2pfWZz402o0_xp0T-BcXTaj9YkPit1zPnPlQ945r/w640-h360/renfield-review.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />At it's heart, what McKay and the <i>Walking Dead</i> creator have constructed is a deliberately schlocky tribute to one of the greatest set of characters in the history of Gothic fiction. It also acts as a love letter to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Classic_Monsters">the Golden Age of Universal Horror Pictures</a>. Indeed, I wouldn't mind them releasing a special Black and White edition of this same film. No major changes, or anything else, just turn off the color palette, heighten the contrasts a bit, then desaturate and grain the image so that it closely matches that of a film released in the 1930s. Granted, we've also reached a point where it may one day be possible for any enterprising kid with a keyboard and the right equipment to be able to once more revive Dwight Frye and Bela Lugosi from their cinematic graves, and splice them over the figures of Cage and Hoult to create an actual sequel to the 1931 gem. It might be interesting to view the results of such an endeavor, merely as an experiment. For the most part, however, I'm remain on the side of caution, and say let the film speak as it is. In this case, the result is that so long as you're a fan of Classic Monster Movies, B Grade Schlock flicks, and just Horror in general, the more you'll come away enjoying a work like <i>Renfield</i>. It's a love letter to a character and a genre, made by fans, and definitely for the fans.<br /><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-79444107447936975352023-07-02T01:29:00.000-05:002023-07-02T01:29:18.026-05:00Jonathan Lethem's The Spray (2004).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYO1hYt8kN4Ha9qvgYZHKW7O2ZBANcDoS9NnYDFu4Y0ppj2XHKczmlgy5P6mZoVqxTpm_kPa4dGtaesI5bXuxwvtlEcezmaP1AiHodSeNIpDrAUXmkoLmxl42Wg9fJijw6gP6fcCEVHOWud4CEQQIRxHoRbLTnQ6ITfkkjsoUwpk9DMqvSinlPAmdbhiNR/s1000/A1hYg-tSw6L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYO1hYt8kN4Ha9qvgYZHKW7O2ZBANcDoS9NnYDFu4Y0ppj2XHKczmlgy5P6mZoVqxTpm_kPa4dGtaesI5bXuxwvtlEcezmaP1AiHodSeNIpDrAUXmkoLmxl42Wg9fJijw6gP6fcCEVHOWud4CEQQIRxHoRbLTnQ6ITfkkjsoUwpk9DMqvSinlPAmdbhiNR/s320/A1hYg-tSw6L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>I've talked more than once on this site about the concept of Writer's Collectives. It's what happens when a number of different and disparate author find themselves assembling together in these kind of informal, off and on again groups that will sometimes meet up together, sometimes just to chat, though more often than not, the real goal of these literary gatherings of for the purpose of "talking shop", or to "compare notes", as the sayings go. It's roughly the same thing that happens whenever car enthusiasts gather together and discuss the finer details of makes and model, and how well you can get them to run. The major difference is that here, the topic of discussion often turns to the mechanics of storytelling. What's the right sort of phrase to use, does this particular scene play well, or does it need some work? How good is the story at telling itself? Is it okay, or does it need some sort of shot in the arm? These are the types of questions that few of the majority in the audience will ever have cause to ask themselves. The reason for that is because, by and large, most people out there will never have any intrinsic reason to bother themselves about what is the right way to tell a story. It's a writer's concern, more than anything.<p></p><p>I suppose that's as good an explanation for why guys like Coleridge and Wordsworth would tend to meet up often to critique each others works. For better or worse, a story never really exists unless it can find an audience. That's the only way to tell if a creative idea has any life in it, when you can see the reaction of the crowd, and whether they like it or not. If there's ever any moment when the author has managed to make them smile, laugh, scream, or else just hold their attention spellbound, that's when you know you've at least started to do something right. Good luck trying to find out whatever that is, because most writing is a lot like a dice game. You have to throw your hand out there and hope you've landed a good roll. I guess that's a further explanation for why you get so many cases of ink stained wretches congregating together. Sometimes you just need someone out there who can tell you whether out not you're doing right or wrong. An unspoken rule of every one of these collectives that I'm familiar with is that if you want a sympathetic ear that's not just willing to listen, but also have some kind of idea of what it is you're even talking about with your novel or short story (or even something as simple as a mere piece of poetry) then the best person to turn to is someone who toils the same trench.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCOFfy5TU25QOaEYrDXBsKy2Bk3xvk8Oz6vp2hh5QFZshCZRNqw8MfWlyakPBhf47m7i0pWDDY-Ocho-9Z7AA3bygukewSvv_lB9JGIB-Q-9KQOZLlSgYCWueBsyYijM5kLZ_Az09oSihZTrTunLJ4Jh-U2nWXamvl_da9CvDvfzNEI47NhSL1K8Q4_VU/s967/evening-landscape-with-an-aqueduct-theodore-gericault.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="967" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCOFfy5TU25QOaEYrDXBsKy2Bk3xvk8Oz6vp2hh5QFZshCZRNqw8MfWlyakPBhf47m7i0pWDDY-Ocho-9Z7AA3bygukewSvv_lB9JGIB-Q-9KQOZLlSgYCWueBsyYijM5kLZ_Az09oSihZTrTunLJ4Jh-U2nWXamvl_da9CvDvfzNEI47NhSL1K8Q4_VU/w640-h330/evening-landscape-with-an-aqueduct-theodore-gericault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Hence, history is full of folks like Wordsworth and Coleridge forming the nucleus of the Romantic Movement. Or else you'll get T.S. Eliot and James Joyce inaugurating what's now known as Literary Modernism. Or else its Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Dylan Thomas forming the Beat style of writing. That seems to be the case with the writer I'm here to talk about today. Jonathan Lethem is best described as one of those obscure household names. He is (or was?) regarded as kind of big deal amongst "Book People" back in the day. This was around the time that Neil Gaiman was helping writers see just how many heights a literary artist could scale, provided they had the talent, and, above all, the Imagination necessary to pull a groundbreaking feat such as <i>The Sandman</i> off. Lethem seems to have been one of the many new creative voices that were emerging roughly at or about the same time, along with other luminaries as Jonathan Carroll, Alan Moore, or Dave Mckean. The one thing that unites all of them is the type of fiction that they have all helped spawn thanks to the informal Writer's Collective that they each belong to in varying ways. They are known as the New Wave Fabulists.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyhg7rBN0QdGvUZlHhKbosDRAeH1JBVFQxVpnsZNPP8L0_HjTUH_QY-1fOvo2Q8SwwORzNPrr8yPpC2_CP4j3dMENladSpumrjqve8B5QsntmeIJTdutnxF-TQYThse3P5-C5fhv0RpGMtdDC7zku1Csfwu7axj3WzKgM_hnGTU72CiTdi9kZHwbUE5Kr/s500/51EkxP9Lh3L.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="328" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSyhg7rBN0QdGvUZlHhKbosDRAeH1JBVFQxVpnsZNPP8L0_HjTUH_QY-1fOvo2Q8SwwORzNPrr8yPpC2_CP4j3dMENladSpumrjqve8B5QsntmeIJTdutnxF-TQYThse3P5-C5fhv0RpGMtdDC7zku1Csfwu7axj3WzKgM_hnGTU72CiTdi9kZHwbUE5Kr/s320/51EkxP9Lh3L.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>I've talked about their efforts here and there in the past on this site, and now with today's offering by Lethem, we have our latest entry from this particular creative group. There is a bit of a trick involved here, though. It turns out we're dealing with one of those cases where in order to talk about Lethem's fiction, it kind of helps to know something about his life. It's a key piece of useful information to have tucked away under the cap if you want to go in with any chance of making sense of his writings. This is not the same as saying that Lethem is one of those writers whose books are to obscure for his own good. That's far from the case. Instead, one of the first things that became clear to me is that Lethem is one of life's great, unaplogetic, literary avant-gardists. It's not that his books are difficult to understand, he just likes go a bit "out there" with some of his plots. How far out are we talking about here? Well, his first novel is a Science Fiction story with a private eye Noir plot at its center, and one of the recurring characters is a cigarette smoking kangaroo that talks, wears three piece suits, and has fondness for whiskey. This is something that actually happens in the author's first debut novel, and he just puts it all out there with no apologies, and expects the audience to just roll with it. It's the kind of fantastical surrealist touches that dot the pages of all his work. His plots tend to be straightforward for the most part, it's just that now and then, it's like walking through a landscape made by Salvador Dali.<br /><p></p><p>All of this is explained by paying attention to Lethem's childhood. His was a fundamentally artistic upbringing. Lethem himself has described it as a bohemian experience that was "thrilling and culturally wide-reaching". His dad was an avant-garde painter, and while he grew up in Brooklyn with his family, the way his mother is described puts me in mind of a particular type of artistic activist. You know, the kinds of youthful, bright faces that used to dot the landscape of New York's Greenwich Village back in the day. In other words, Lethem's mom strikes me as the kind of woman who would spend her nights trying to find out if Bob Dylan was playing at any of the local folk music joints, and then by day she'd be keeping in touch with whatever contacts she might have in the Civil Rights movement. His mother was also Jewish, and if you are unaware of the contributions they made toward the fight for equality in this Country, then someone's obviously been withholding the whole story from you. The point is Lethem was born, in some ways, into something of the best possible idyllic household for a kid raised in New York. His mother gave birth to him in 1964, and as was fitting for the time, Lethem's folks were part of an artistic community in what is now the borough or district known as Boerum Hill.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-NxxKYnPgGD_rLdRrZyi3c6rMKDifXvDKtKipGIQlWn6H91vFz5Rgiaa7eV6DMShPiwpXG6Akey4Fs1Jmrb07TQFtg-ki29Dx5iZDecoqHY344DEyVlYVJZG92PlAF7vaN_2wD2Us5aH7a1qiqH1Q9ilTJdMpFlJYvkd3O9UbIOaRRemcC6MUcW0nD80/s1200/GVSHP_8_Wha.0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-NxxKYnPgGD_rLdRrZyi3c6rMKDifXvDKtKipGIQlWn6H91vFz5Rgiaa7eV6DMShPiwpXG6Akey4Fs1Jmrb07TQFtg-ki29Dx5iZDecoqHY344DEyVlYVJZG92PlAF7vaN_2wD2Us5aH7a1qiqH1Q9ilTJdMpFlJYvkd3O9UbIOaRRemcC6MUcW0nD80/w640-h426/GVSHP_8_Wha.0.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It was there that the future writer was introduced to the realm of the Arts more or less from the start of his existence. His upbringing meant that by the time he'd entered the school system, Lethem was bound to have already had a pretty good head for reading, painting, and writing on his shoulders. He lucked out once more in fourth grade, at NYC's P.S. 29. That's where he met Carmen Farina, one of those teachers who seem to be an unaccountable blessing from on high. She not only recognized Lethem's burgeoning talent, and encouraged him, she might have also taught of the future author a few of the ropes and tricks he later employed in his published works. Lethem has listed the music of Bob Dylan, <i>Star Wars</i>, and the fiction of Philip K. Dick as the major influences on his life and books (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lethem#Early_life">web</a>). I think there's one more element that helps explain the way he writes, and its a bit more diffuse and intricate. The simple way of putting is to claim that Lethem is a product of the entire artistic zeitgeist of the 1960s in or itself. It was and remains (to my thinking, at least) perhaps the last great time of artistic expansion and experimentation.<p></p><p>It's like there was this kind of willingness to see how far you could get away with pushing the boundaries of artistic expression in all of the major fields; from music; painting; film; books; and cinema. It's the kind of envelope pushing that required a much more open mindset than the one we currently labor under today. And no, for the record, there's very little in the way of daring to be had in our current selection of storytelling. When it's possible to claim that there's a kind of lock-step rote quality to a lot of the major releases and franchises going around, then the last thing we are dealing with is innovation, much less the kind of mindset that would allow artists to break out of the mold and explore new vistas. It's a further example of the way in which Lethem, once more, just seems to have gotten lucky. He was able to imbibe the sights and sounds of pop-culture in a way that allowed him to mix high and low art forms together in a method that has since been described as "genre bending".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_XE3Xh9PK99PSct0TWWUWcbrpViaofW__XBR9bzpZ3Lf0NAAJeUpIletDdqZ8KwfMreJL86DaeQzKWIqhgtwIzH1mrm33g5gi7YV2-J43mI5RSLvEweryUGsry20Uu3gzN1ZtitoeStesTtRSkcljHCuqD59iqoMIaPerg1kWdep0yocP4rzffaGo5Z-m/s1200/bb16a74d5d30e6663a2e1d9e5508dd5dee-05-jonathan-lethem.rsocial.w1200.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_XE3Xh9PK99PSct0TWWUWcbrpViaofW__XBR9bzpZ3Lf0NAAJeUpIletDdqZ8KwfMreJL86DaeQzKWIqhgtwIzH1mrm33g5gi7YV2-J43mI5RSLvEweryUGsry20Uu3gzN1ZtitoeStesTtRSkcljHCuqD59iqoMIaPerg1kWdep0yocP4rzffaGo5Z-m/w640-h336/bb16a74d5d30e6663a2e1d9e5508dd5dee-05-jonathan-lethem.rsocial.w1200.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />I think it says something about just how much we've allowed our imaginative capacities to shrink when the search for the perfect free form of literary expression is described in such an unimaginative term. Lethem himself later came to see it as a label of momentary convenience, and just explained that all he was trying to do was find out how to tell the kind of stories he either wanted or felt he had to write, in whatever way they were meant to be written. In that sense, all of his works can be described as the search for the perfect form of open art. In his case, this just tends to result, time and again, in the appearance of occasional surrealistic, inter-textual, meta-commentary touches populating the pages of his secondary worlds. A good place to start with all of this is by looking at the story up for discussion.<p></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p><b>Conclusion: A Good Introductory Primer.</b> <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlUXEtj9rCyyf0Klo1IL8G-SYlL_2phYXBDfnV0hhhqJRrwOUA6S-co2MKuM7HGoGLxGGucd1Uh2uf7yMFbxi-a0pBjUzMb8-npfF8SfD10z2WQirKjihV3eu19gNQbSKAslhZqp8-aXqlJGLl7L51t9HgUN99rNGn4cNUiH7p7eeSdVH5DDSmrMhtyom/s1000/51EYQG7SQEL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="738" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlUXEtj9rCyyf0Klo1IL8G-SYlL_2phYXBDfnV0hhhqJRrwOUA6S-co2MKuM7HGoGLxGGucd1Uh2uf7yMFbxi-a0pBjUzMb8-npfF8SfD10z2WQirKjihV3eu19gNQbSKAslhZqp8-aXqlJGLl7L51t9HgUN99rNGn4cNUiH7p7eeSdVH5DDSmrMhtyom/s320/51EYQG7SQEL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>I've foregone the usual plot summary in this post for a number of reasons. The first is a simple question of length. At just five pages in all, what Lethem has written isn't even a short story so much as it's a very brief vignette. In cinematic terms, this would be like one of those old super short films that would run on networks like HBO or Nickelodeon back during the golden age of cable TV. They were always meant as these one-off space fillers that would be purchased by the networks just so they could shoehorn them into whatever empty slots they might have had back when they were just finding their sea legs. Often these short films would feature the kind of surrealist plot lines and animated techniques that make up the entirety of a story like "The Spray". This is not to say that Lethem's efforts here are light-weight, or anything like that. On the contrary, I'd argue that this story might be the best starting point for anyone looking for the right gateway into Lethem's secondary worlds. This kind of approach is ideal not just for the possible challenges some writers pose in terms of the intricacy of their works. It also helps when dealing with names that cast a big shadow. Some artists manage to leave an impact so big that it can sometimes be difficult to know where to start in exploring their work and legacies.<p></p><p>Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino are two examples of the phenomena I'm talking about. Alan Moore, Will Eisner, and Charles Schulz are the same for their respective mediums. They've all wound up creating such a formative impact that the best course of action is to find the simplest point of entry for the newcomer, and then begin one step at a time. I'm starting to think that's what stories like "The Spray" are for. They help the first time reader get oriented in a new secondary world without too much hassle or confusion, while also providing a good introduction to the kind of story the author has to tell.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigy12DwHpuA828xzagVjs2MgTyv7_zSDGCKSbagf-p_129p9P3M9ZTsTqIy8aLWV7dDd5L-0g4SXPBg3yhV-l-t0PNxNi3za4cWi4VKs06bRJ4ZVpWTT62cCWTLOXZufzdO6-3pbjmx10IPVJpQXJ8dcFgPDcuYD8Cirj6rJuvRnh8yNo-9u12JROPLPpf/s599/2a34d8_5a33ccba3ab7437390c05d934a5b1775mv2.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="599" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigy12DwHpuA828xzagVjs2MgTyv7_zSDGCKSbagf-p_129p9P3M9ZTsTqIy8aLWV7dDd5L-0g4SXPBg3yhV-l-t0PNxNi3za4cWi4VKs06bRJ4ZVpWTT62cCWTLOXZufzdO6-3pbjmx10IPVJpQXJ8dcFgPDcuYD8Cirj6rJuvRnh8yNo-9u12JROPLPpf/w640-h368/2a34d8_5a33ccba3ab7437390c05d934a5b1775mv2.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />At it's core. "The Spray" is the account of a burglary experienced by a lower middle class, white collar couple (presumably living somewhere in New York), and the very peculiar aftermath of the break-in. The burglary itself is a very straightforward affair. Someone jimmied the lock on the couple's apartment complex. Whoever it was made their way inside and managed a sizeable five finger discount. Among the item missing, according to the husband (who is also the narrator), is "a jewelry box that Addie's mother had given us...A...television and fax machine...a Walkman and a camera and a pair of cuff links" among other items (48)". The interesting part is how none of this matters in and of itself. Indeed, the burglar is never identified, the missing items are never restored, and the theft itself doesn't even wind up being the main focus of the story. That honor instead goes to a simple, unassuming item that the police trot in during the course of the otherwise routine investigation of the crime scene. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHs_I3DEoMOi9Ak_9Be4v6iGbKsviInHAk__RrVD844m12zhejMAZpsmvQM-toqoNFmmROyxoWnCiBBGdNCIAELWjQaxVszIoLz7gl2CUiB1O0d_jZpXIgMWCfzASqVoMkXtq-W0jx31sw-vS1g_RMn4C3RPsA9NNu0o-wJePpslPZW036NJqUPrz_1KXt/s884/155297.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHs_I3DEoMOi9Ak_9Be4v6iGbKsviInHAk__RrVD844m12zhejMAZpsmvQM-toqoNFmmROyxoWnCiBBGdNCIAELWjQaxVszIoLz7gl2CUiB1O0d_jZpXIgMWCfzASqVoMkXtq-W0jx31sw-vS1g_RMn4C3RPsA9NNu0o-wJePpslPZW036NJqUPrz_1KXt/s320/155297.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>This is the titular Spray, and while its effects prove to be somewhat extraordinary, perhaps the most shocking thing (even to the couple at the heart of the story) is that the cops can be so nonchalant in the midst of a demonstration that is, on the face of it, pretty darn miraculous. What the investigators do is they'll take out the spray can, give it a good shake, and then spritz the apartment. Covering everything in a fine, invisible film; floor, wall, ceilings, you name it. The idea of using a modified Lysol can to explore a crime scene is a bit of an off-note in and of itself. The real tilt out of the land of the norm and into that of the surreal, however, is the effects the contents has on whatever surface it lands on.<p></p><p>"The spray settled through the house...and afterward glowing in various spots were the things that the burglar had taken. It was a salmon-colored glow. On the table was a salmon-colored image of a box, a jewelry box that Addie's mother had given us. There was a salmon-colored glowing television and fax machine in place of the missing ones. On the shelves the spray showed a Walkman and a camera and a pair of cuff links, salmon-colored and luminous...We walked around the apartment, looking for things. The eye-tic policeman wrote down the names of the items that appeared...I couldn't smell the spray. "How long will it last?" we said.</p><p>"About a day," said the policeman who'd done the spraying, not the oldest. "You know you c-can't use this stuff anymore, even though you c-can see it," he said. "It's gone." "Try and touch it," said the oldest policeman. He pointed to the glowing jewelry box. We did and it wasn't there. Our hands passed through the visible missing objects (48)". This odd little gimmick is what passes for the big reveal, or I guess you could call it the story's major set piece, or prop. Everything else about the crime scene investigation is routine. Questions are asked about the neighbors, the couple are informed that their intruder wore gloves. Odds are even this is going to be a difficult to solve without much in the way of any solid leads (which is a case of the author displaying a harsh yet very solid Truth in Television). The investigators are offered a drink which they all turn down ("Addie had a drink, a martini (49)". Hands are shaken, the police depart, and the couple are left stranded in their own home, now incomplete with a few family items and memories missing. Oh yeah, and also there's still that weird, lingering glow of the spray can hanging around. Creating artificial ghosts out of items that are no longer there (ibid). It's almost like living in the psychedelic version of a haunted house.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdI1i6hp6Svkjv4ihD1tedb-rt6nFyaOm_Jbl1PGfvZx4hsAGYX1Mv8Hjxrh4kL6z5afb-eI5X-wvjigaEs6QDOCoh89SHhRFrf30BwGQmNrG8i7g9ULKwOpwKmC1LU3rMOvKRN_yU3mYL0iWqLJZ4geY7xSqDFxRhVHuxkWZ4UvXPibXn8KeMKuK-0Rd/s3380/hopper.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1686" data-original-width="3380" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdI1i6hp6Svkjv4ihD1tedb-rt6nFyaOm_Jbl1PGfvZx4hsAGYX1Mv8Hjxrh4kL6z5afb-eI5X-wvjigaEs6QDOCoh89SHhRFrf30BwGQmNrG8i7g9ULKwOpwKmC1LU3rMOvKRN_yU3mYL0iWqLJZ4geY7xSqDFxRhVHuxkWZ4UvXPibXn8KeMKuK-0Rd/w640-h320/hopper.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The difference is this time the ghosts are keepsakes, and are even probably floating out there, in some sort of nebulous, low level black market. Nevertheless, the effects of that spray can offers up the same uncanny sense of being haunted. The couple appear to have discovered what it's like to be reminded of the past in a visceral way that neither of them was expecting, and as the story goes on its clear that this new form of "haunting" is starting to go to their heads. The ghastly visitation might be somewhat new, yet its effects are well within the wheelhouse of the traditional Gothic story. This is proven as the sudden personal crisis brought on by the robbery begins to drive the couple to a breaking point. It doesn't take long for the narrator to divulge that even before the break-in, things were already a bit less than solid at home. This is a detail that Lethem spares just enough words on, and nor more. Here the author is able to showcase what by now was already a sure-handed sense of narrative confidence.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuruRjtWuDObtIKOu1IO7Lc_cmjBFwahqAUjwT2uqzWovRvLTANBtW5U_vR0yhLkulCn1h-1lHb_1WugRAr1ed2XEDwSVrfbqoHvF-DgAq0sMoQb2O1_nIr03hGny6rzQYVczpwdAsM4LyYDEY9HhaMNXmSQ4t56rFhgBjCuFAdEvnK6bPJhZsTXkAGJPw/s640/james-thurber-seal-bw-617x640.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="617" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuruRjtWuDObtIKOu1IO7Lc_cmjBFwahqAUjwT2uqzWovRvLTANBtW5U_vR0yhLkulCn1h-1lHb_1WugRAr1ed2XEDwSVrfbqoHvF-DgAq0sMoQb2O1_nIr03hGny6rzQYVczpwdAsM4LyYDEY9HhaMNXmSQ4t56rFhgBjCuFAdEvnK6bPJhZsTXkAGJPw/s320/james-thurber-seal-bw-617x640.webp" width="309" /></a></div>By this point in his career, Lethem knew all about what might be called the art of literary economy. In other words, how to convey the most meaning out of as few words is possible. This is where the writer has an opportunity to prove the old maxim that "Brevity is the soul of wit". At the very least, whenever an author is able to pull this particular trick off, the results may sometimes prove that a few short choice words can go a long way. Sometimes they can even speak leagues and gulfs of experience. This kind of artistic performance has often been held up as a gold standard to aspire to. However, the real truth seems to be that it's just another tool in the writer's repertoire. There's no shame in admitting that sometimes (probably more often than not, if we're being honest with ourselves) brevity has little choice except to give way to the longer format paragraph description if they story wants to have any chance of survival. Besides, there's kind of a built-in irony to the phrase, inasmuch as it was coined by none other than just some guy by the name of William Shakespeare, an author who is notorious in English 101 classrooms everywhere for his decided lack of brevity. And yet his best work sort of mocks the rule.<p></p><p>All of which is to say that none of this gets in the way of the type of story Lethem has to tell. The writer does nothing more here than find the least amount words necessary to tell his story. It's a show of skill on the artist's part, and it stops at being just that. The performance may be admirable, yet all that matters is the story proper. In this case, those few choice comments by the husband are enough to reveal a marriage that seems on the verge of breaking apart. One almost gets the sense that we've been allowed to eavesdrop in on a snapshot from the life of the type of mismatched relationship that dots the landscape of Woody Allen films (a subject on which Lethem, if anybody, might know more than a thing or two about). Or else we've stumbled upon one of <a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2022/08/james-thurbers-my-world-and-welcome-to.html">James Thurber's unhappy couples</a> as they suffer another miraculous misfortune. What Lethem's story stresses throughout its runtime, however, is this Gothic, haunted quality. The intrusion of the unseen burglar, along with the arrival of the policemen with the magic spray can has done the ironic service of bringing the couple's crisis way out in the open.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm1YPFCrfN4xGod5PPZOap_1r6jbmg2_WEm_VoCagjA-Gys8JrwycE1OVldMs8Iuvs8251FrWmKuBNv_9AouW7tEa0jmUuW-WBUadloneaITTh2lBmliQEw-GGYp4RaF2zKfrP61bYm6If4oA-XzPaSOVX0uIgIQijnVVLoUhN1xTEM9gXai26d56rKym0/s680/u-58-272804964630-1969-47-43-1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="680" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm1YPFCrfN4xGod5PPZOap_1r6jbmg2_WEm_VoCagjA-Gys8JrwycE1OVldMs8Iuvs8251FrWmKuBNv_9AouW7tEa0jmUuW-WBUadloneaITTh2lBmliQEw-GGYp4RaF2zKfrP61bYm6If4oA-XzPaSOVX0uIgIQijnVVLoUhN1xTEM9gXai26d56rKym0/w640-h508/u-58-272804964630-1969-47-43-1a.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />This sense of crisis is brought to a head when the husband notices something. The policemen have left the spray can behind. It's just been sitting there, unnoticed until the narrator draws our attention to it. That's when things get desperate. It's age old case of one thing leading to another. A lot of bitterness and regret starts to generate in the air between the couple. A bit of snark in unleashed. With emotions and all kinds of personal disappointments starting to run high, the jab is taken with a bit too much fragility, where in other cases, it would probably just be shrugged off, or treated in jest. Instead, one of the players wants to know what that's supposed to mean. The basic reply amounts to: "What you <i>think</i> it means"? A few more words are exchanged, the temperature in the room starts escalating as sniping morphs into criticism, and criticism soon gives way to recrimination, and backlash. With this in mind, what happens next might not have been inevitable. Though it does have this innate sense of a chosen just desserts about it.<p></p><p>All that happens is that the wife, Addie, reaches for the neglected spray can in fit of anger and regret, aiming it straight at the man she thought was a husband. "I jumped up. "If you spray me I'll spray you," I shouted. The spray hit me as I moved across the room. The wet mist fell behind me, like a parachute collapsing in the spot where I'd been, but enough to get on me. An image of Lucinda formed, glowing and salmon-colored.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKx78oPNtd3RKKkLsR4K84xCnCn-4ifbyDb_30_4FaQrwHGPM-4TF7_xcyHfTeh_L9BP9OVfrBCaTFtq6xF9dV6Ekld1P_jEFNbflcAucM8i08qWID25gozAiIExvXlegh32wqx9bV7kDJ2n4RhLJIlQKujv9OAsShV9Ev6H09eCodiidPriQk6Z2sBEY/s1000/71OOhbkMENL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="664" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKx78oPNtd3RKKkLsR4K84xCnCn-4ifbyDb_30_4FaQrwHGPM-4TF7_xcyHfTeh_L9BP9OVfrBCaTFtq6xF9dV6Ekld1P_jEFNbflcAucM8i08qWID25gozAiIExvXlegh32wqx9bV7kDJ2n4RhLJIlQKujv9OAsShV9Ev6H09eCodiidPriQk6Z2sBEY/s320/71OOhbkMENL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>"Lucinda was naked. Her hair was short, like when we were together. Her head lay on my shoulder, her arms were around my neck, and her body was across my front. My shirt and jacket. Her breasts were mashed against me, but I couldn't feel them. Her knees were across my legs. I jumped backward but she came with me, radiant and insubstantial. I turned my head to see her face. Her expression was peaceful, but her little salmon-colored eyelids were half open.<p></p><p>"Ha!" said Addie. "I told you it would work."</p><p>"GIVE ME THAT!" I lunged for the spray. Addie ducked. I grabbed her arm and pulled her with me onto the couch. Me and Addie and Lucinda were all there together. Lucinda placidly naked. As Addie and I wrestled for the spray we plunged through Lucinda's glowing body, her luminous arms and legs.</p><p>"I got my hands on the spray canister. We both had our hands on it. Four hands covering the one can. Then it went off. One of us pressed the nozzle, I don't know who. It wasn't Lucinda, anyway (53-4)".</p><p>In the end, the couple seems to wind up both condemning and revealing themselves, and the novel ends on this moment of revealed self-disclosure, with the husband and wife (or are they now just man and woman?) unsure of where they are each headed next, whether together, or apart. Like I said, the whole thing amounts to little more than a vignette on the writer's part. Now doesn't even count as one of the more original concepts that the author has done. In a way, though, this is what makes it so fascinating from a readers perspective. It might not be obvious to most in the audience, however any seasoned fan of the old, pulp Sci-Fi works of the past will be able to spot where this brief blackout sketch came from. It turns out all Lethem has done is to swipe or deliberately repurpose an idea from a novel by Philip K. Dick. This is sort of important, and it turns out the old, paranoid SF scribe is sort of the key to Lethem's entire short story. He's the one element that helps explain all of the others in perspective.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pQNndd_874QNS6ZgAhZAJr710WT8X4lA_CZxWc9R3bdjW3vdYl5sSymj7N1kWbECOCsenwTY0Pe96B9ssPyJdffbqQqZ6rf5l0rObK6Y4PcJslgaz0mhctUR7424y63nKsn16UnjvbYJa2u2gvQyxzpSEd5Yf1-5s8ZO2Y3ZTYoBa21yUpBJ8ub16VpA/s2000/giorgio-de-chirico-obelisk-art-history.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1667" data-original-width="2000" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pQNndd_874QNS6ZgAhZAJr710WT8X4lA_CZxWc9R3bdjW3vdYl5sSymj7N1kWbECOCsenwTY0Pe96B9ssPyJdffbqQqZ6rf5l0rObK6Y4PcJslgaz0mhctUR7424y63nKsn16UnjvbYJa2u2gvQyxzpSEd5Yf1-5s8ZO2Y3ZTYoBa21yUpBJ8ub16VpA/w640-h534/giorgio-de-chirico-obelisk-art-history.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The long story short is that when it comes to Jonathan Lethem, we seem to be dealing with the world's undisputed Philip K. Dick fan. Now, to be fair, it makes sense that there will be tons of other PKD enthusiasts out there who will be more than happy to dispute that last statement. All I can say to any of that is, take it up with Lethem, okay? I'm just here to report on whatever I'm given, or can find out. And right now, all the available information tells me that what we've got here is this pulp Sci-Fi nerd both cribbing from, and trying to pay homage to his favorite author. This also appears to be one of the handful of subjects Lethem is more than willing to geek out about at length, if you just give him the space and the time. Take for instance, the author's introduction to a collection known as <i>Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick</i>. It's there, in the pages of his introduction to that edited collection that Lethem pretty much sets down all of his views on the more or less creator of <i>Blade Runner</i> as follows:<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggwwdnP0SxBn9iYwHbPYde7lcqGElkGxyOOtsAlYs11eA3Twtoy_rJOAsCTljvP1iwEsK5sKyfYJHnRj2hlFWH1iPFEuf-C10AWx1D23xLK6a69fMaStRLxAXzXG8glTtaK7WxOmLyUJrh3vF7QndyolJDyxBfZOYTJcRhdvftbEXjvugGIaoe-m3k5wR_/s540/27371390._SY540_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="382" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggwwdnP0SxBn9iYwHbPYde7lcqGElkGxyOOtsAlYs11eA3Twtoy_rJOAsCTljvP1iwEsK5sKyfYJHnRj2hlFWH1iPFEuf-C10AWx1D23xLK6a69fMaStRLxAXzXG8glTtaK7WxOmLyUJrh3vF7QndyolJDyxBfZOYTJcRhdvftbEXjvugGIaoe-m3k5wR_/s320/27371390._SY540_.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>"On a personal note, I'm proud to make this introduction. Dick's is a voice that matters to me, a voice I love. He's one of my life's companions. As Bob Dylan sang of Lenny Bruce, <i>he's gone, but his spirit lingers on and on</i> (xi)". This is a statement that Lethem has solidly backed up in his short story. The key giveaway here lies in the conspicuous presence of that incredible, miraculous spray can. It's a story prop if one ever existed. Yet what matters for the purposes of his story is that Lethem has borrowed the item (almost "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Wholesale">wholesale</a>" if you will) from a PKD novel by the name of <i>Ubik</i>. It's a novel that details (or at least it "appears" to catalogue) the aftermath of a deadly act of sabotage, leaving the protagonists stranded in a world in which it seems as if reality itself can be reshaped with the simple application of the unexplainable contents of a simple cane of spray. This is the "Ubik" of the novel's title, and it's amazing how much satirical and paranoiac fun PKD is able to squeeze out of just one, single stage prop. Lethem's ambitions are a lot more circumscribed than Kindred's. His action is confined to the single stage set of a New York apartment complex. It's really just a two actor drama. And to top it all off, there's the fact that the author can only take the borrowed premise so far under his own effort.<p></p><p>I think it's telling, for instance, that Lethem's story doesn't grant PKD's spray can the same level of reality warping powers as his original source text. Instead, this time the ubiquitous prop acts more like as little more than a <i>Twilight Zone</i> equivalent of a fail proof lie detector test. When applied to mere objects, all it does is show what might be missing from its proper place. When it's used on human beings, however, it appears that it can potentially reveal the past transgressions or regrets of those it comes into contact with. This version of Ubik can't be said to ever really alter reality, as such. Instead, it's much more that the real world remains the same as it ever was. It's just that this time the spray can is capable of revealing those aspect of life that its users might have otherwise preferred to keep hidden from themselves and others. When the truth is shown, however, is when the real trouble starts. What's interesting to note, however, is that even here, when the same prop is being used with the volume turned down, Lethem still manages to capture a lot of the particular themes that Philip Dick wrote about in his own stories. This is something that Lethem himself can help us understand a little bit further.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdSRT9qIHh0EwsFpmPPqHv_aIUgW17K1WImYwIawSbl0exjdAJ8WII1P1bV1MnhpF4gUvnADsmzC_QUCnynpCXXg9Y4VL72T2-nlI9O6FJggKVWBzF0Vqgiv5veOY1Vza-StnYPsnNmZjFCqS5qE0M1CsKFtp0pWwZ6e4FgdkICnaSnjmdN_g49YwCdLwv/s320/mqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="320" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdSRT9qIHh0EwsFpmPPqHv_aIUgW17K1WImYwIawSbl0exjdAJ8WII1P1bV1MnhpF4gUvnADsmzC_QUCnynpCXXg9Y4VL72T2-nlI9O6FJggKVWBzF0Vqgiv5veOY1Vza-StnYPsnNmZjFCqS5qE0M1CsKFtp0pWwZ6e4FgdkICnaSnjmdN_g49YwCdLwv/w640-h360/mqdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In using the work of Philip Kindred to compose what amounts to his own vignette homage, Lethem winds up drawing inspiration from two, crucial tap root sources. Each of them stem from PKD's own creative artistry. It's the "second set of motifs Dick employed" that Lethem seems to be using as the first basis for his short story. This he describes as "a perfectly typical 1950s obsession with the images of the suburbs, the consumer, the bureaucrat, and with the plight of small men struggling under the imperatives of capitalism (viii)". Another way to say it is that Lethem has taken one set of PKD tropes, namely those associated with the kind of lifestyle that was lampooned and satirized by shows like <i>Mad Men</i>, with its cast of characters at the mercy of a monstrous process of pretty much their own creation, and the conflicts this creates in both their public and private lives. These are the struggles of what were known in Dick's time as the Men in Gray Flannel Suits, which is pretty much the required uniform of the unfortunate Don Draper and his fellow office drones. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr51X97Fd6HuaZ9_YBYY_Dz1uvUpXRXxYWJVs9d_u8-by9a3-Lf07p7ljcj-W7L584TFUzWAY2N3b3zGhb_cf_XXSLgb-5-U5xJAk4dWpnxxZD5kVqGoclTmHnUkVlRgUuFWKspyLqiqMGPY4Wb-JhyjeuR6XJgH9Dj6Q-lMM73peXsEc3Bw5BY9Z06SL7/s300/The_Man_in_the_Gray_Flannel_Suit_-_1955_-_poster.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="197" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr51X97Fd6HuaZ9_YBYY_Dz1uvUpXRXxYWJVs9d_u8-by9a3-Lf07p7ljcj-W7L584TFUzWAY2N3b3zGhb_cf_XXSLgb-5-U5xJAk4dWpnxxZD5kVqGoclTmHnUkVlRgUuFWKspyLqiqMGPY4Wb-JhyjeuR6XJgH9Dj6Q-lMM73peXsEc3Bw5BY9Z06SL7/s1600/The_Man_in_the_Gray_Flannel_Suit_-_1955_-_poster.png" width="197" /></a></div>Much like the <i>Mad Men</i> series, Lethem has shifted the focus of this modern form of cubicle malaise to the high rise apartment setting of the Big Apple, as opposed to Dick's more suburbanite settings, encompassed as they are on all sides by the Californian wilderness (an aspect of the Sci-Fi author's life which might, in retrospect, have helped him <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Time-Slip">develop his own version of the Martian landscape</a>). In Lethem's case, its just an example of the author playing into the trope of "write what you know". Both writers were familiar with the potential lack of fulfillment that comes from being at the mercy of modern Corporatism. Dick knew it as it existed in the phrase "To Live and Die in L.A." <p></p><p>Lethem has experienced this same conundrum as it exists on Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets". Each of them, however, are reaching similar conclusions. However, both also seem less than content to leave their seemingly realist situations as they initially stand. In each of their cases, it doesn't take long before some inciting incident comes along with the ability set off a chain reaction that sooner or later will pull both the rug out from under their suffering, everyman and woman protagonist, while also revealing hints of greater cosmic revelations (for either better or worse, or sometimes a combination of both at once) on the nature of reality itself. This is the second aspect of Lethem's inspiration. Once again, this is something he has borrowed from the writings of his favorite Sci-Fi scribe.</p><p>According to Lethem, PKD's primary accomplishment "was to turn the materials of American pulp-style science fiction into a vocabulary for a remarkably personal vision of paranoia and dislocation. It's a vision as yearning and anxious as Kafka's, if considerably more homely. It's also as funny. Dick is a kitchen-sink surrealist, gaining energy and invention from a mad piling of pulp SF tropes-and cliches- into his fiction: time travel, extrasensory powers, tentacled aliens, ray guns, androids, and robots (vii)". This also includes the make believe prop of a spray can with miraculous powers. It amounts to the same item being put to similar uses by different authors. Each of them utilizes the trappings of the fantastic to act as a commentary on the nature of and problems of people in a modern society. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-TqcpSgNu8hmu8M0MBkseaDxqGMzku9kUSrhfskOWJBLvX_YSfxnBiCMIUNC3xhVQIzMkjkrnI0IH2IXPA_dz-xfZpJgaruq3yB_rJwvIQEIDb2ilHrtyI_zXYyg_pQKQf8AM6eI-oFt0pFRfvMpJL8AKunRCGqgAFWDPgY8asUJqiEdCjJDfR4x5cgt/s540/17059749._SX540_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="540" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-TqcpSgNu8hmu8M0MBkseaDxqGMzku9kUSrhfskOWJBLvX_YSfxnBiCMIUNC3xhVQIzMkjkrnI0IH2IXPA_dz-xfZpJgaruq3yB_rJwvIQEIDb2ilHrtyI_zXYyg_pQKQf8AM6eI-oFt0pFRfvMpJL8AKunRCGqgAFWDPgY8asUJqiEdCjJDfR4x5cgt/w640-h290/17059749._SX540_.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />When taken together, both of these elements of PKD's writing combine to make up the literary well from which Lethem has drawn inspiration for his own story. It's little more than an homage, rather than anything else. There is at least one big special effect going on in the narrative, and yet its all in the service of an author trying to pay tribute to one of his main artistic inspirations. In that regard, "The Spray" does work as a dedication from a fan to his favorite writer. In terms of Lethem's own artistry, it's just a small stone thrown into a larger body of work. However, for the purposes of this blog, it seemed like the best place to start mapping out a much larger, more deliberately surrealistic terrain. Lethem is the kind of writer who likes to experiment with his work. That's a polite way of saying he's never met an obtuse angle that he didn't like. He's the kind of guy who, if he sees an oblique avenue in which his story can go, he'll make a literary U-turn and veer off down that unexplored alley. In practice, this means we're dealing with the kind of author who lets the story take him wherever it wants to go. There's nothing abnormal about that. It's standard operating procedure for most writers, in fact.<br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLRWUhFBQc_KF7bjNfqxH-Omw-k12YVEstjbixu8XsiFFg8uDnijGQ-H4gUS9NuxYYTSSv2uLBE6S7t-i5BwvQj_OJYI0hepmw8JuUZBFtd_a7fIWlDePkxRC6z2vohXRAYOilgrsVro178VYwYBQKyGkYgcgMayWKgYWeLyCBktzAr3cCXR5R12C66ig/s390/Sandman_no.1_(Modern_Age).comiccover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLRWUhFBQc_KF7bjNfqxH-Omw-k12YVEstjbixu8XsiFFg8uDnijGQ-H4gUS9NuxYYTSSv2uLBE6S7t-i5BwvQj_OJYI0hepmw8JuUZBFtd_a7fIWlDePkxRC6z2vohXRAYOilgrsVro178VYwYBQKyGkYgcgMayWKgYWeLyCBktzAr3cCXR5R12C66ig/s320/Sandman_no.1_(Modern_Age).comiccover.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>The thing about Lethem is that taking the oblique angle means he's the kind of author who doesn't mind taking his readers on as many side trips through Weirdsville USA as he pleases. This is not the same calling Lethem a difficult writer. Indeed, there is a lot about his short stories and novels that places him on the same shelf as writers like Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. The difference is that while there's a great deal of overlap between the three of them, there's bound to be a reason why Gaiman and Moore are more or less household names, while Lethem fits more into an obscure niche. This is where comparing notes between the three writers can help clear up just what more you can expect from the author of a story like "Spray Can". In the strictest sense, it's not out of bounds to say that all Lethem is doing is following in Moore and Gaiman's footsteps. All three have been able to find new ways of bringing the old tropes of Fantasy fiction into the contemporary scene. What separates the creators of <i>Sandman</i> and <i>Watchmen</i> from the guy who wrote <i>Fortress of Solitude</i> might best be described as "accessibility".<p></p><p>A great deal of what makes both Gaiman and Moore so well liked by legions of fans is that while it's true that they never write down to their readers, they also don't leave them clueless, and scratching their heads. Even their wildest flights of fancy are written or designed in ways that the average reader can follow along. Indeed, if you stop and examine the vast output of Gaiman's work, then what you've got is the kind of narrator who tells stories that are never too far from the same wheelhouse as that operated by authors like Stephen King and Peter Straub. Like the people who made <i>Salem's Lot</i> and <i>Ghost Story</i>, Gaiman is no stranger to exploring the darker corners of human culture and history. The major addition that he brings to the table is that he will just as often shift or blur the usual Gothic focus so as to not just let the light in, but also transition a work of Horror into a flight of pure Fantasy. This kind of narrative strategy is best on display in his <i>Dreaming</i> series. Each story in that cycle will lead the reader on through all kinds of imaginary landscapes and scenarios. Yet Gaiman keeps finding ways of making his imaginary situations digestible and comprehensive for his audiences. Moore, meanwhile, went out of his way to provide his readers with neat illustrations of every one of his creative ideas. In doing so, each writer was able to make himself available to their readers in a generous and accessible way.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPG4xT75d46rdgCj09mgCl09EEtKkTYHas-sp_ZmM7ZKKTCrqOAYozHf66fRrtw5JxNazlv9eS72KT3bVWWQhWdb-og7MJErx748SJQ3tLDZgLNv_iGg879OlZYTFq_qE3tZbuYk-ORE6SQY8YEFaooNOCizF1QKTqt8MQX4EgYMVz4eXTGHyu4WVelSdF/s1000/rorschach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPG4xT75d46rdgCj09mgCl09EEtKkTYHas-sp_ZmM7ZKKTCrqOAYozHf66fRrtw5JxNazlv9eS72KT3bVWWQhWdb-og7MJErx748SJQ3tLDZgLNv_iGg879OlZYTFq_qE3tZbuYk-ORE6SQY8YEFaooNOCizF1QKTqt8MQX4EgYMVz4eXTGHyu4WVelSdF/w640-h400/rorschach.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Lethem tends to veer off from this approach of narrative accessibility. It should be noted this is not the same as saying he's a bad writer. It's just that sometimes there are lingering questions over whether he's getting too clever for his own good. This also doesn't mean I'm accusing him of being a snob. If you meet the guy in person, what you'll find is the prototypical picture of a pop culture nerd eager to share his enthusiasms. The last thing you can call anyone like that is a snob. It's just that I think he gets carried away with his excitement for literary experimentation ever so often. It's a trait he shares in an ironic way with the late (yet undeniably great) Peter Straub. I once spoke of the latter author as someone who sounded, on occasion, as if he was always to trying write a story with the notion that a high class critic from magazines like <i>The New Yorker</i> was always about to peer over his shoulder, and judge him on how "sophisticated" his efforts were. Lethem strikes me as suffering from this exact same case of literary inferiority complex. This is not a judgment call on stories written in a sophisticated manner. In fact, if any writer can find a way to do that, they have my blessing. I just hope they make sure to never lose sight of the ultimate maxim of creative writing. The story is the boss, above all else.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN25E_rw5_Qisls66RJJpdMXpwXJjWuCNXMg3b51ejMeWhfogzo6Nb37AI3ZsyV66rwnhPRyR5RBT3xvSklHJk6m75H5l1uQCoNsBVSV_mHbtjcpdFoKtCsqqx5iu139VhhJrkhZdocbBUKsbKG98MJb35WCxOSL9-XOnl8TZimh5RWu8jPMzxKTImWk-c/s1000/flat,750x1000,075,t.u3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN25E_rw5_Qisls66RJJpdMXpwXJjWuCNXMg3b51ejMeWhfogzo6Nb37AI3ZsyV66rwnhPRyR5RBT3xvSklHJk6m75H5l1uQCoNsBVSV_mHbtjcpdFoKtCsqqx5iu139VhhJrkhZdocbBUKsbKG98MJb35WCxOSL9-XOnl8TZimh5RWu8jPMzxKTImWk-c/s320/flat,750x1000,075,t.u3.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>This applies just as well to techniques of style as it does to various other narrative tricks that guys like Lethem try to apply in their fiction. All of which is to say that every writer needs to keep his focus on what happens in the plot. This is a rule that Moore and Gaiman recognize on an instinctive level. I get the impression that Lethem also agrees with this notion. Yet he often seems to forget it sometimes in the execution of his own stories. He'll become so enamored with being artistically clever, that he'll sometimes get carried away with pulling off a slight-of-hand trick at the expense of the all important narrative and its momentum and overall point. The one pitfall Jonathan Lethem has to beware of is that in getting too clever for his own good, he's in danger of falling into the trap of mere empty naval gazing, or what's worse, trotting out a literary trick for sake of pure, egoistic, self-display, rather than remembering its all there to serve the purpose of telling as good a story as possible.<p></p><p>Again, however, this is not the same as calling him a bad writer. Whenever he remembers that the story comes first, Lethem can prove himself to be a pretty capable fantasist. You may have to be on your guard in case he drops a narrative thread in favor of parlor games. However, this is less of a problem than you might expect. I have chosen "Spray Can" as the starting point for this author. The reason is pretty obvious, if you've been paying attention. Lethem is the kind of writer who likes to keep readers on their guard, and reading as close as possible. In that sense, he's always looking to challenge his readers and himself. This can make a for a reading experience that is as difficult as it can be rewarding. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2n3dwlmyEtSSy3Dj9ob66-ylwY41g4X17GFh2S63hUxIsOFn6GRF8gRT14P0RcqTkL9DW_v7quNWMelFq4xLeDW3hX9fYZI-Sg6ixB8jo-nqwggp-vCitN78JkeV6n29lkSmWcGNZZq1isXFKOVyyRr-fZda0snS4kVIdmQ5l1OS8zTQT8w2heMFZj1UC/s5630/TXET7UU77VGF7DKS7AX67TMJ2M.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3754" data-original-width="5630" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2n3dwlmyEtSSy3Dj9ob66-ylwY41g4X17GFh2S63hUxIsOFn6GRF8gRT14P0RcqTkL9DW_v7quNWMelFq4xLeDW3hX9fYZI-Sg6ixB8jo-nqwggp-vCitN78JkeV6n29lkSmWcGNZZq1isXFKOVyyRr-fZda0snS4kVIdmQ5l1OS8zTQT8w2heMFZj1UC/w640-h426/TXET7UU77VGF7DKS7AX67TMJ2M.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />With this in mind, it's safe to say he's the kind of writer to likes to turn his stories into labyrinths for his readers to wander through. Someone like that often demands that the reader have a helpful guide to assist them along the journey through the book. That's sort of where essays like this one come in. It's purpose is to find the best possible first introduction to the kind of writer Jon Lethem is, and the type of stories he likes to tell. It also helps if you can find a beginner's sample that's small enough to digest, while also hinting at further avenues of exploration. For all of these reasons, I think a story like "Spray Can" is the best introduction you can find. It's mysterious, yet it draws you into its secondary world with a dash of kitchen sink surrealism that is endearing as it is beguiling. It's the best possible way I know of getting a reader introduced to the cool and crazy jazz riff worlds of Jonathan Lethem. <br /><p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-54890857142271714112023-06-18T01:26:00.001-05:002023-06-18T01:26:22.170-05:00The Curator (2023).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU03LSm5naFyE260aNdjlDuUqwsjrdg2z7vzHMtQEHyJdKasNoFmCgBOGpf3-y-JQw_SSqriLsVNCrygS6mxEdEADeR1xPtOq6Igvw6NCPkTkevD1C7RTxtaOIsJJcXKOOLi4flrt-PxHuBChaZPm0fuhO39euDAq2VjFzrhmAKEsJGG7qKuSiNUyq7Q/s2125/the-curator-9781982196806_hr.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2125" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU03LSm5naFyE260aNdjlDuUqwsjrdg2z7vzHMtQEHyJdKasNoFmCgBOGpf3-y-JQw_SSqriLsVNCrygS6mxEdEADeR1xPtOq6Igvw6NCPkTkevD1C7RTxtaOIsJJcXKOOLi4flrt-PxHuBChaZPm0fuhO39euDAq2VjFzrhmAKEsJGG7qKuSiNUyq7Q/s320/the-curator-9781982196806_hr.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>I think I found out about this one quite by accident. It was in the aftermath of rather euphoric literary rush. I'd just completed a successful read through of the latest Stephen King novel (which is a story for another day), and I guess the pleasant stock response I was left with must have made me curious to see if there was anything else similar to it lying around. Either that or I stumbled across the news about the novel I am here to talk about today quite by accident. Whichever one of these events turns out to be the truth, the upshot is that somehow, I found out that a book titled <i>The Curator</i>, by Owen King, was set to be published in March of 23. Seeing as how I'd just had, not the first, but definitely one of the best experiences of pouring through a King book in recent memory, it only made sense to think I'd found the next book that would pick up where the previous one had left off. The name sort of helped in this case.<p></p><p>It's not a complete accident that the author's byline caught my attention, either. The reason for that is because Owen King happens to have a famous father named Stephen. Nor is Owen the only literary progeny of the reigning Monarch of American Frights. For all intents and purposes, it seems as if Stephen King has been blessed with a certain amount of luck. When it comes to the case of writers in general, the basic rule of thumb is that most of them tend to be one-offs, the genetic equivalent of an on-going series of freaks of nature. There's a sense in which they can be described as natural occurrences. Yet most are willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that there's something out of the ordinary about a mind that can create entire imaginary worlds and personalities out of whole cloth, or whatever fabric the Imagination is made out of. Nor is that the only weird thing about the scribbling arts. Perhaps the strangest part is that it's possible for some of them to make a kind of actual living off peddling lies for whatever meager sum any of them can get. The only thing that can match that, to my reckoning, anyway, is that we're willing to be entertained by these fictional, secondary worlds.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNMPsKAdbOsrZfbgYY5ZDcY1_nHSgnnEARi_BHLRU5K1Fn0V-UcPdB6KIllSM4BHjCZZvrpv6voHiubbGZpdk1tEwWalfepI4oUWCwk2GDiZxlxW5eEk5Li_1pwv5wZk8GiuF4tM58zrKNKFUs-ruFA-nT2yITdQL2lDowfRPjykr6qP0ofI5xuyXjg/s2000/image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmNMPsKAdbOsrZfbgYY5ZDcY1_nHSgnnEARi_BHLRU5K1Fn0V-UcPdB6KIllSM4BHjCZZvrpv6voHiubbGZpdk1tEwWalfepI4oUWCwk2GDiZxlxW5eEk5Li_1pwv5wZk8GiuF4tM58zrKNKFUs-ruFA-nT2yITdQL2lDowfRPjykr6qP0ofI5xuyXjg/w640-h426/image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's one of the few constants that any of us are able to say or figure out about literary artists. For the most part, by and large, they're not the sort of figures you can set your watch by. Each of them keeps to their own erratic hours, hunched over a keyboard or word processor, and just hoping against hope that whatever words they need to get the job done will be there when they set down to their peculiar task. The only other definitive thing you can say about the species amounts to just two maxims. The first is that the vast majority of them seem to be at the mercy of the Imaginative faculty, in and of itself, 90 to 99 percent of the time. The second is that, as a rule, most writers are by and large isolated occurrences. They'll crop up here and there like creative runts in an otherwise normal looking litter. While the arrival of an artist on the scene may be taken as a matter of course (up to a point, anyway) the fact is that this natural, solitary nature of most of their existences tends to mean that there's always this lingering sense of isolation about them. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that all the writer's in the world combined would amount to no more than just one percent of the total population. Hence, this lingering sense of solitude, which seems to emerge almost as a natural byproduct of their chosen profession.<br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5O4qnmdbuLxznnZ6phSb0buUJW9yIIEytoszrdoxVW-WYWmatNcezRuHwS5x1cILOmADtk8y2GGaySySDtjhuuAY3tPpPKHSffoLYTMcYeQVBsBWN5HSI_KTVVc_XV0AtOh-UVN3-1taM-nSoeixV6pwbEhPEP4iLaY5JumUes7nIDHiA3LC74acdg/s500/51EkxP9Lh3L.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="328" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5O4qnmdbuLxznnZ6phSb0buUJW9yIIEytoszrdoxVW-WYWmatNcezRuHwS5x1cILOmADtk8y2GGaySySDtjhuuAY3tPpPKHSffoLYTMcYeQVBsBWN5HSI_KTVVc_XV0AtOh-UVN3-1taM-nSoeixV6pwbEhPEP4iLaY5JumUes7nIDHiA3LC74acdg/s320/51EkxP9Lh3L.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>It also seems that most authors tend to have a kind of sub-basement level awareness about their lives. Each member of this solitary collective can often be found congregating in various types of writer's groups, some of which can sometimes manage to form the various literary movements that go on to bear their name, such as the Romantics. There seems to be at least two good reasons for why this happens. The first is relatively self-explanatory. It turns out that art can't exist in a vacuum. If a story has no audience, it remains mute, and therefore may as well not exist. Hence the need for the artist to always be putting "the work" out there for consideration of the crowd. It's one of the few times a writer can be said to emerge from their half natural solitude. Yet even there, the peculiar function of the Arts in general means that this tends to heighten the sense of isolation that most writers tend to have in comparison to whatever normal people are supposed to be (and good luck trying to define something like that). The other reason has to do with the awareness of the insular, retiring nature of writing.<p></p><p>This is the second reason why writers can sometimes feel the urge to seek out the company of fellow liars. Just because the best writing is often done all by their lonesome isn't the same as meaning they like to be alone. Hence you find scribbler's collectives like the Modernists. The San Fransisco Beats, the Algonquin Round Table. Even a writer like Stephen King has found himself part of an informal group of authors known as the <a href="http://peterstraub.net/exclusive-text/conjunctions-39-the-new-wave-fabulists/">New Wave Fabulists</a>. What makes it all interesting in King's case, however, is that he eventually turned out to be never as alone as he might have thought he would. Far from conforming to type, the major writer of American Gothic fiction has turned out to be something of an exception that proves the rule. It turns out there are (as of this writing) not one, but three published authors in the King family tree, and each of them were fathered by the same guy who wrote about stuff like a girl getting cover in pig's blood at the prom, or a demonic clown living under the sewers of a small town. These literary off-spring are his two kids, Joe Hill and Owen King.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7YViH08lUm4-VsGLKdcZmXy5GBgJyVvpEUrZRdpU2VmPVs7iPn9rMHL3eGaetIMmkrGHydS9EmSrpF_bVdsXZJFUyJUkhBnEQoI4ncroQjCb7I6QwDmMsQJEOsQbjUC_V0GdIGhmKaWKtmKmGsvbkKY2uvz7znIKhLbMpAqef3WvdXdYqr5vpgyNxA/s1136/d1enpmm9klw71.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="852" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7YViH08lUm4-VsGLKdcZmXy5GBgJyVvpEUrZRdpU2VmPVs7iPn9rMHL3eGaetIMmkrGHydS9EmSrpF_bVdsXZJFUyJUkhBnEQoI4ncroQjCb7I6QwDmMsQJEOsQbjUC_V0GdIGhmKaWKtmKmGsvbkKY2uvz7znIKhLbMpAqef3WvdXdYqr5vpgyNxA/s320/d1enpmm9klw71.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>The curious part is how both of them have managed to find their little niches, both in terms of personal success in a tough market, and also as writers with something of a family legacy to carry onward. This is perhaps the main feature of King's life that makes him so unique. It's not often you get a case where creativity runs in the family. It's like you have to go way back in time in order to find something like this. The most famous cases that I know are all clustered around a small span of time from the 19th to the start of the early 20th century. There are the two Bronte Sisters, Charlotte and Emily. Then there was a brother and sister act with Dante and Christina Rossetti. And of course, there are a pair of brothers known as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who wound up giving some guy named Walt Disney an entire career later on. The most curious case I've uncovered belongs to none other than Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It turns out he had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Elizabeth_Coleridge">one niece</a> and a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Coleridge">daughter</a> whose own talents extended to carrying on his legacy in poetry, and philosophy. So in that sense, you could say that Owen King and Joe Hill are part of a very informal, and haphazard tradition in which Imagination tends to run a bit in the family.<p></p><p>As of this writing, it seems like Hill is the closest one with any kind of genuine brand recognition to his name. Stephen's oldest son seems to have done pretty well in carving out his own space in the pop culture landscape. His breakout success came in the form of the still popular <i>Locke and Key</i> graphic novel series. In addition, he is a published print author in his own right, whose titles include a 2005 anthology, <i>20th Century Ghosts</i> (one of whose tales has since been turned into a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eGP6im8AZA">successful motion picture</a> not too long ago), and a series of novels such as <i>Horns</i> (2010), <i>Heart Shaped Box</i> (2007), <i>N0S4A2</i> (2013), and <i>The Fireman</i> (2015). He's also written a more or less decent short story with his dad, that was itself later turned into a film that deserves a lot more credit than it's gotten, known as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7afc9gTbVFI"><i>In The Tall Grass</i></a>. By and large, the best way to sum up Hill's accomplishments is that it looks like he's well poised to one take up the mantel of King of Horror from his own father. Indeed, it seems like Hill is set to inherit the same secondary world that made Stephen King famous, and that he'll one day pick up wherever the creator of Derry, Castle Rock, and Salem's Lot leaves off. That just leaves us with the figure of Owen King to discuss. And perhaps here is the point where the task becomes a bit difficult.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGQXyxWG80cNi6dRrsAHqku6bROgiGZhk4OkhqHW5gZfvHnOi1UqUc8zfM7kE8o2QbCiq8wCYVAGOoNArgy5qTm1eDsrrnMF4PaetdlvgA7LjDSRrPOm6Bq1WTa99Kg9X9_ilDYEFopltMS1AUn0z6rc_YITr6nJlx-6d63JsThHJXzCSVHXzoEIOQA/s2048/mag-04King-t_CA1-superJumbo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1534" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGQXyxWG80cNi6dRrsAHqku6bROgiGZhk4OkhqHW5gZfvHnOi1UqUc8zfM7kE8o2QbCiq8wCYVAGOoNArgy5qTm1eDsrrnMF4PaetdlvgA7LjDSRrPOm6Bq1WTa99Kg9X9_ilDYEFopltMS1AUn0z6rc_YITr6nJlx-6d63JsThHJXzCSVHXzoEIOQA/w640-h480/mag-04King-t_CA1-superJumbo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In distinction from Hill, Owen seems to be very much the writer in the family who often gets overlooked. Part of the reason for this is because of the relative sparseness of his output compared with that of his dad or brother. So far to date, Owen has been responsible for an entry known as <i>We're All in This Together</i>: <i>A Novella and Stories</i> (2005), <i>Double Feature</i> (2013), <i>Sleeping Beauties</i> (2017, which was also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTvPT2ouC4">a collaboration with Stephen King</a>), and finally there's the book that's up for discussion today, 2023's <i>The Curator</i>. The danger here is the risk of turning him into a cliche, and that's something that's best avoided. Right now, perhaps the best thing to do is to try and examine Owen's latest text, and see how it holds up on its own merits. With that in mind, <i>The Curator</i> seems like the best place to start.<p></p><a name='more'></a><p><b>The Story.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwf_KHf-8Y8lNi67iHXH5JDnw4CWkiLS_SlI92RmYbchRrXEOMF1rLQmyu9OaDLDXxqjKnrv3xZQoWy85zJfeJXY3gDSpc-2Tjq64Jru_ecNH71XzAAvhHop9pqPHqTWuMNGvq1Fw15MVIB2uU0R8jS-i9xp6CUvAXhTAwlfUpRsmhqVnxoGgKKNq_5w/s2835/9781399715089.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2835" data-original-width="1843" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwf_KHf-8Y8lNi67iHXH5JDnw4CWkiLS_SlI92RmYbchRrXEOMF1rLQmyu9OaDLDXxqjKnrv3xZQoWy85zJfeJXY3gDSpc-2Tjq64Jru_ecNH71XzAAvhHop9pqPHqTWuMNGvq1Fw15MVIB2uU0R8jS-i9xp6CUvAXhTAwlfUpRsmhqVnxoGgKKNq_5w/s320/9781399715089.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>At it's heart, the narrative tells the story of the aftermath of a seemingly successful political revolution. We open in an otherwise nameless city, in what appears, for all intents and purposes to sometime in the mid to late Victorian Era. The setting largely evokes the London of Charles Dickens and Jack the Ripper, yet the book makes a clear demarcation between the two, with the Isles being mentioned as its own separate place within the novel's secondary world, alongside several other real life world capitals. The closest the novel's main stage ever gets to a proper name is derived from its Thames inspired river, The Fairest. In this setting we're introduced to our main protagonist, a former chamber maid at a local, Oxford-ish University. Her name is Dora, or D as she prefers to be called. Her story opens in the proper Dickensian penny dreadful fashion, as we find our young heroine the somewhat unexpected beneficiary of the recent uprising that seems to have displaced (or at the very least driven off) the former tyrannical monarchy which has been the cause of generations of suffering for its citizens, D included. Imagine a version of Dickens' London in which Oliver and Company manage, through a combination of determination and sheer dumb luck to overthrow the Crown and you get the idea.<p></p><p>Because of this recent turn of events, it only makes sense (inasmuch as such things ever can) that the current functions of the city are in something of what might be termed a prolonged period of uncertain transition. With most the of the aristocracy that formerly was in charge of keeping the trains running on time out of the picture, the task of keeping the city a going concern has now fallen to the conquering revolutionaries, one of whom just so happens to be Dora's lover, Robert Barnes. He's a Lieutenant in the uprising, and he's just managed to grant D a position as the new curator at the Museum of the Worker. It's the best anyone can afford for her right now, under the circumstances, and Dora knows its better than nothing at all. That doesn't change the fact that the real position she was angling for was in what used to be the building next door. It's nothing but a pile of rubble now, though once upon a time it used to be known as the Museum of Psykical Research, and it is, or <i>was</i> a place D has been fascinated with since she was a child. A lot of it has to do with the fact that her brother once took her there when she was very young. Both her parents were away on business and Nurse was in need of a little break.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ycBvR1sF-QMGyNNTChbrkk7QhGjN_DIK_4bwq-XVgmfss-CRykyq7Dq5YbBUpJzNGv8PBaldpT2EyC-3CO9fEypOWekMJKheuhyCTd1e2PctjcVdISflHqgBGSPg7753ag-CMNzdHISH1kW2uD34dRfKdaWSqzpXkpBqAF3CXn_4YFb3W7FFlzJc3Q/s674/Leadenhall_Street_Victorian_London.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="674" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ycBvR1sF-QMGyNNTChbrkk7QhGjN_DIK_4bwq-XVgmfss-CRykyq7Dq5YbBUpJzNGv8PBaldpT2EyC-3CO9fEypOWekMJKheuhyCTd1e2PctjcVdISflHqgBGSPg7753ag-CMNzdHISH1kW2uD34dRfKdaWSqzpXkpBqAF3CXn_4YFb3W7FFlzJc3Q/w640-h428/Leadenhall_Street_Victorian_London.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />So, with no other options left, Dora's older brother, Ambrose, took his little sister (who could have been no older than six to ten, at the time) off with him to his place of business. Ambrose appeared to have been some sort of important member of the Psykical Society. When D asked him what it was he did there, Ambrose told her that he and his friends were "going to save the world". He never did elaborate on what he meant by those words, and by the time an oncoming Cholera epidemic that swept through the Fairest had caught up with her beloved sibling, Ambrose was no longer in any condition to tell his beloved sister anything more about the Society, and how it planned to save everyone. It was these occurrences (her brother's death, the Psykical Society, and its strange, never realized mission for the world) that have sort of become the defining moments in Dora's life. When that sort of thing happens, it can go a great deal toward determining the choices a person makes with their life. It can focus all their thoughts around the achievement of one, singular goal, with all the other details of living serving as secondary considerations (at best) in relation to whatever fixed point it is that you're aiming at.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3TpeL2GchLxWHoGvtIbk_HBPdTTcWFVCj1UQjd3MLUuXKHnzEq2G2EOmIsishmaQXsFPmPt67z8fZlHeTX6gKAItYBej-9O_phXDOwFZgpzPYcoxtYjQl7cFrTYZ5vzC77Y6Ub8NwLOhPIYEb3gADBQ64GqHdpJuoW9VYrp-llvHasfDjRSRGzHjmgQ/s1682/kathleen_jennings_papercut_silhouette_for_owen_king_s_book_the_curator.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1682" data-original-width="1086" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3TpeL2GchLxWHoGvtIbk_HBPdTTcWFVCj1UQjd3MLUuXKHnzEq2G2EOmIsishmaQXsFPmPt67z8fZlHeTX6gKAItYBej-9O_phXDOwFZgpzPYcoxtYjQl7cFrTYZ5vzC77Y6Ub8NwLOhPIYEb3gADBQ64GqHdpJuoW9VYrp-llvHasfDjRSRGzHjmgQ/s320/kathleen_jennings_papercut_silhouette_for_owen_king_s_book_the_curator.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>In D's case, it's left her with the nagging desire to find out more about the Society, what her brother did there, and what his mysterious last words to her meant. A lot of it is much more personal than even she is willing to admit to herself. In fact, in the moments when she feels like she can be truly honest with herself, Dora is driven by the desire to know if it is possible to contact the departed from the other side. To call this a lofty goal is a bit like saying that Niagara Falls runs downhill. To be fair, she is also not the first person to be sized with such a notion. History is full of plaintive souls looking for some semblance commune beyond the veil of things. Looked at from that perspective, Dora is pretty much just the next in line. She spends most of her time divided between days of trying to refurbish the Worker's Museum as part of her new government responsibilities, and the occasional nights of trying to find out whatever information she can about the Psykical Society along with its work, and whatever information might be out there about what role her brother might have had to play in it. The trouble is that what starts out as a simple personal desire is soon swept up in a wider circle of social intrigue.<p></p><p>All around Dora, the city is starting to come alive in ways that neither she, Lt. Barnes, or their fellow revolutionaries did not expect. First there are the prosaic facts. While the monarchy has been dethroned, there is a threat that the reprieve may be temporary. None of the major players have been taken into custody, for instance, and the king himself is rumored to be sequestered away in the hills not too far away, and slowly consolidating his own power for a triumphant return to the throne, however hollow it may be. The biggest fears whispered in the liberated halls of power is that the king might try and reconnoiter with the Great Gildersleeve, supreme commander of the Fairest naval fleet. If the ruling class can get their hands on all that fire power, then the tide could turn against the nascent revolution very quickly. In addition to this threat, there a rumors of even stranger things abroad.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ5dhcOHoZshb_ID6tKw5H_Bj95aGgzvLNSRLkxrVn66U1067WVrDnakHlt4QStXhTF2NWB_Mj9AVlu_OO9xtWK18zQE6A7meQ5Gv5bKJjwck5_46NUZAqmAxW365kDV-NAExyuc693UYBUfFSuYnUjeeT7vqOHKR-UK3UcvpvsX7NukP_yjdDpwS1PA/s750/Charles_Dickens_books-1.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="519" data-original-width="750" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ5dhcOHoZshb_ID6tKw5H_Bj95aGgzvLNSRLkxrVn66U1067WVrDnakHlt4QStXhTF2NWB_Mj9AVlu_OO9xtWK18zQE6A7meQ5Gv5bKJjwck5_46NUZAqmAxW365kDV-NAExyuc693UYBUfFSuYnUjeeT7vqOHKR-UK3UcvpvsX7NukP_yjdDpwS1PA/w640-h442/Charles_Dickens_books-1.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />There's talk of odd, unexplainable occurrences afoot. One of them concerns the remains, or rather the lack thereof, of a man named Joven. He's sort of the one responsible for the recent "change of state management". It all began when Joven, a ceramics manufacturer got into a bit of feud with the former Currency Minister over the lack of payment for a recent job produced at his Lordship's request. Joven was the kind of businessman who saw himself as an artist, first and foremost. He never lacked a head for business, he knew a genuine article from a phony ten, and it stood his firm in good stead. The one thing that was sure to get his always considerable temper riled up was if someone refused to see the hard earned work that went into every single one of the ceramics he produced. If it didn't come as close to perfection, then Joven sort of became like Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. That's the kind of insane level of dedication that the manufacturer brought to the job. The fact that the Minister of Finance was not just unimpressed with the Art of the Craft, but also impudent enough to pay less than was offered for the work was enough to make Joven see red. It marked the start of a long feud between the two men. As far as the Minister was concerned, the whole thing was a very one-sided kind of affair.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HzxJU94PP-Hbo38fu2A1CI6uLtKwFns_tfSJjVJ1WW7SmW4OmdhgmwRjRLxxsoa__qDgZo5p2qtZYVCj1FgtkdTqMVDUoNUtcGfRdiZ2IZOBCA5mxj96owk2mfnIb464jeQRlkFJtTETKYJ87v889ht0D1lILacwV2HYvYfXpAUPFSCRDaCOV40S5Q/s900/SailingIntotheMoon30x20.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HzxJU94PP-Hbo38fu2A1CI6uLtKwFns_tfSJjVJ1WW7SmW4OmdhgmwRjRLxxsoa__qDgZo5p2qtZYVCj1FgtkdTqMVDUoNUtcGfRdiZ2IZOBCA5mxj96owk2mfnIb464jeQRlkFJtTETKYJ87v889ht0D1lILacwV2HYvYfXpAUPFSCRDaCOV40S5Q/s320/SailingIntotheMoon30x20.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The last thing the the head of the country's economic situation was expecting was to step out of his house one day, only to find the incensed pottery maker stood right outside of the gates of his palatial estate. Words were exchanged, the Minister tried to ignore this, so Joven aimed a few shards of sharp pottage at the main financier's head. Some of it reached the target. What happened next was that the Minister of Currency order his men to hold Joven down, while he took up a piece of smoldering goal, and pressed it to the ceramic maker's face. To his great surprise, this did nothing to deter the insolent pest. He just got up and started to to make a lunge for his throat. Seeing the look in the man's eyes, the Minister drew out his pistol and shot Joven square in the head. That might have been a mistake, in retrospect, at least. What should have been the end of minor private inconvenience turned out to be one of those things where word of mouth spreads all over the city like a virus. Before too long, decades of resentments at a long line of similar, shabby treatment at the hands of the monarchy became a spark ignited into a revolutionary flame. It didn't take long for the Finance Minister and the other ruling class to realize things had gotten a bit out of hand, and soon the tables were turned in ways they didn't expect.<p></p><p>Now, however, the advantage might be turning back in their favor. It's all a simple question of attacking the weak points in the rabble's defenses, such as food supply, or moles within the ranks, sabotaging, or in some cases even subverting their improvement efforts. If the ruling class can just hold out on these fronts, then sooner or later the riff-raff of this fetid town will once more learn their place. The real hassle is wishing that a lot of the odder rumors going on about the city would stop. Most of it has to do with that blasted Corpse Ship that broke free of its moorings, and wound up drifting off to who knows where. In fact, it's the exact same place where they stored the remains of that malingerer Joven, come to think of it. Oh well, nothing to write home about, except perhaps as a minor bit of amusement. Good riddance to bad rubbish, and all that sort of thing. Except that the rumors persist, and they show no signs of stopping. There are whispers on the streets that the Morgue Ship and its charnel crew can be seen floating in the skies above the city at night, like a veritable Flying Dutchman. Or else that you can catch glimpses of it trawling through the current of the river Fairest at night.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIZdC7yE3w4Fi1zazTqOWLgzBCUJh6JQ-g_pPr1VRpUIcz95zX3-txdb4cV7VcYYIBpj2mCAZcqTily7hanywVtwLnaKQ4Gca8JBch3qLnLfpW-QYfhQuSFRlRkLM_WR6biRn6YicvHIPSN5GTCH1r6SZuRcHHYlfp1fhrfOE9_4UWMJczzKMFcVIpnw/s600/07KING-articleLarge.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="600" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIZdC7yE3w4Fi1zazTqOWLgzBCUJh6JQ-g_pPr1VRpUIcz95zX3-txdb4cV7VcYYIBpj2mCAZcqTily7hanywVtwLnaKQ4Gca8JBch3qLnLfpW-QYfhQuSFRlRkLM_WR6biRn6YicvHIPSN5GTCH1r6SZuRcHHYlfp1fhrfOE9_4UWMJczzKMFcVIpnw/w640-h512/07KING-articleLarge.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />What's more, some of the city's older local inhabitants, the ones who can still remember back to a time before the Industrial Revolution, all seem to connect this wife's tales of a phantom ship with the strange behavior of the town's resident feline population. And now here's Dora somewhere at the center of all these peculiar happenings. She's just one girl trying to find answers to her own personal questions. And the ironic thing is that her own search could lead down a greater rabbit hole than she ever knew.<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: The Potential for a Good Story that Never Gets Off the Ground</b>. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpQQMVRmpmYgyoI8vKMClBKdOUtpCQV1KPPynEKSTsdP_4uTagYJf5J6EzOfKaB2swmOLRiFkz05xzBeCfmIF2jWoI-uHShCDQQtdwrnorZ02XmNkU-mpI8BxFe-HBis66EVIWwqkK9tk5-suD5q7KfJEKsWC33ViNyfb-Bgq6zbMYdDIVClHxhYz-AA/s1189/curator-front-barry.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1189" data-original-width="801" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpQQMVRmpmYgyoI8vKMClBKdOUtpCQV1KPPynEKSTsdP_4uTagYJf5J6EzOfKaB2swmOLRiFkz05xzBeCfmIF2jWoI-uHShCDQQtdwrnorZ02XmNkU-mpI8BxFe-HBis66EVIWwqkK9tk5-suD5q7KfJEKsWC33ViNyfb-Bgq6zbMYdDIVClHxhYz-AA/s320/curator-front-barry.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>This is one of those stories that starts out with the promise of one
thing, only to end up delivering another. To be fair, this in itself
doesn't have to be a bad thing. There are plenty of good stories out
there that are able to make good on a setup like this. Some of them can
even be called great. With a book like <i>The Curator</i>, however,
the task is a bit harder, and that's down to a question of focus,
driving incidents, and forward narrative momentum. The trick with this
kind of story all rests in the three elements just outlined. If the
writer is able to juggle all of these parts well, and stick the landing,
then it is possible to give a passing grade to their efforts. So here
is how Owen King's efforts hold up.<p></p><p>The reader is treated to what sounds like a strong enough beginning. The author starts by bringing out a handful of what later turns out to be a large ensemble of characters. We get to meet Dora, her lover Robert Barnes, the secondary world both characters inhabit, and the general situation they find themselves in. We're then treated to vignettes of Dora's back story. These are among the strongest elements in Owen's narrative, as it clear the writer has at least some kind of a fondness for his lead character. As such, we're allowed to get know about Dora, her plight, and her own personal quest in a way that allows us to sympathize with the story's main lead in a manner that can hold our interest, provided the writer is able to keep a sure hand on the trajectory of his narrative. Looked at on these terms, it really does seem as if all the elements of the story that pertain to Dora and her ongoing search for the mysteries of the Society for Psykical Research are the strongest parts of the book. These are the moments where Owen seems to be playing to all of his strengths as a writer. And perhaps it really shouldn't come as much of a surprise that he shows a flare for the macabre in much the same vein and meter as both his father and older brother. The King family appears to have a knack for frights.<br /></p><p>The way Owen helps to bolster this part of the book is with a series of background details that help deepen the mystery Dora is trying to solve. It starts out with a few hints here and there that the world the titular Curator inhabits is perhaps less realistic than our own. To start with, we're told soon enough that the planet she inhabits has two moons, instead of one. There is also a strange religious practice involving the worship of cats which is popular in Dora's neck of the woods. This stands out as one of the most intriguing aspects of the narrative for me, and a lot of the reason why that might be is because it sounds so familiar. The first irony is that it is possible to find actual historical records of cat worship in real life. It used to be a staple of the ancient Egyptian civilization. It's more or less the product of a bygone age now, yet it was enough to strike a bell within the mind of writers like H.P. Lovecraft, who was so taken with the notion as to go about writing an entire short story around the idea. It was called "The Cats of Ulthar" and it forms a side show place within his larger Cthulhu Mythos. I can't shake the idea that it is this particular story that Owen has drawn from as an inspiration for his own novel.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTWxqLe1RV1u9QaxLedvQaQjXkt6KBg8oS78W7Y8m69jM6TPNdxHNYLELT18xJ2NCpb43UJqghOv5KHqmmk33U9gcBJHZ1wIyx_xo68YfYnOLbv1QfGiTazA6tfDWlPHCuQOIUUhFqSp60O6DG9W6mg0soGPM-_tmavjXwPRcE9sT1ytqNfzJTHpA3g/s1920/7o+bwI.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1920" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTWxqLe1RV1u9QaxLedvQaQjXkt6KBg8oS78W7Y8m69jM6TPNdxHNYLELT18xJ2NCpb43UJqghOv5KHqmmk33U9gcBJHZ1wIyx_xo68YfYnOLbv1QfGiTazA6tfDWlPHCuQOIUUhFqSp60O6DG9W6mg0soGPM-_tmavjXwPRcE9sT1ytqNfzJTHpA3g/w640-h346/7o+bwI.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />The two other major ways he helps build a mystique around Dora's quest is with the aforementioned Morgue Ship, plus a set of museum mannequins that come to life in a way that recalls both <i>The Twilight Zone</i>, as well as some of the more Gothic stories of Edith Nesbit. Now so far, all of this at least <i>sounds</i> like it could be promising. You've got a plucky Gothic heroine seeking answers to a troubled past, and slowly building upon a series of supernatural encounters as she gets closer to the explanations for the mysteries that have dogged almost her entire existence. Stripped down to such bare essentials, it really does sound as if the author had a winning idea on his hands. If you play this kind of setup right, then what you might have is the kind of setup that contains elements of Charles Dickens, Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and E. Nesbit all woven together into what could be a fine modern day penny dreadful.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9D7tGIR7ZKPYUvdgOXljRCWkr86R3iZ_iuRcDN5MzXuhyIoDmIGM3szCYvaMejnwuy5_1fZwVsybAtM0L7B8BYFFKGLicqzvhjLfRLXPCN-CL7mSFR5V49N3NSBZYyANYTDh5t0M0p6MKDRY3cwxmMzjVZ_cjGoLrB7zxtPen8jY7wrtOlHelvev0g/s2210/0345a7_6403d535ffb44ddbb7b1ae53ffa78b49.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2210" data-original-width="1480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9D7tGIR7ZKPYUvdgOXljRCWkr86R3iZ_iuRcDN5MzXuhyIoDmIGM3szCYvaMejnwuy5_1fZwVsybAtM0L7B8BYFFKGLicqzvhjLfRLXPCN-CL7mSFR5V49N3NSBZYyANYTDh5t0M0p6MKDRY3cwxmMzjVZ_cjGoLrB7zxtPen8jY7wrtOlHelvev0g/s320/0345a7_6403d535ffb44ddbb7b1ae53ffa78b49.webp" width="214" /></a></div>In all honesty, I just wish that was the kind of story we've got on our hands. While the setup may start out with a great deal of promise, that's all it winds up as. It stops at being just a lot of creative potential that remains unfulfilled. The worst part is its easy to figure out why this happened. The long story short is that somewhere along the way, the author allowed his mind (at the expense of the Imagination) to be side-tracked by what is really little more than a whole lot of B plot material involving an imaginary revolution in a fantasy version of the British Isles. It's frustrating to have to write this, yet this the vast majority of the book's focus. It's also what ultimately brings the whole narrative down. <p></p><p>The basic fault of this novel is best explained by the history of my own response to the book as I read along. I started out with a lot of high hopes. It was a novel by one of the sons of the King of Horror, which appeared to share a similar approach and aesthetic, and better yet, it was set in its own, separate, secondary world, such as Middle Earth, or Narnia. This meant the writer had free reign to let his imagination soar as high as he could possibly want, with no restraints whatsoever in his way. The sky was the literal limit. And I'll admit, at first, it looked for a minute or two as if everything was going in a pretty positive sounding direction. The opening chapters are able to display a certain amount of setup that is vague and open enough to the point where all of it could have gone just about anywhere, and vague hints about the Morgue Ship or the Cult of Cats promised the idea that we could have been headed for the same kind of territory as that explored by Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore in his more Gothic frames of mind. The problem for me is that it all gets derailed as it soon becomes clear that the story is headed in the least possible creative direction the writer could have chosen to take everything.</p><p>Something tells me I've got to stress the word <i>choice</i> on this one. Because in retrospect, it really does seem as if Owen wound up making some kind of deliberation about where to take things in his book. The impression I get is that he knew he was seeing all this material gathering around the campfire of his imagination, and yet he still didn't have much in the way of an idea where it was all going, or what even to do with the materials that were being assembled. Now to be fair, so far as that goes, such a state of circumstances is no crime, especially not where fiction writing is concerned. In fact, if we're being honest, that's pretty much the standard operating procedure for 99 percent of all the books ever written. In this, Owen is doing no more than following the normal run of things. I thing where it all went wrong is when he made the choice to take it in a course that was pretty much guaranteed to take things in the worst possible direction. All the implications of the basic building blocks of his inspiration point to the idea that what was always meant, or should have been, was a modern Gothic fairy tale with a creepy Victorian overlay that was thoroughly supernatural and arabesque at its core, and then it got lost.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj48XNjSbFHv0OW-eQhhfY--QUbUFx2EDj-fKWFrOXQSt2mCO5cE1b9uGrwMTtY13khu_t4Tu2YS2TsgHwi4YCSeAKyfysS-dD86TDzUyV3I6sM4dluZRG60bcLnXaWEYHh3JSY2BJoC0054h_O-fjQdWmiOxUjMrLWwPLSxWPffDQyU8E1SOPttvssCg/s662/89be38780a7dbf9dd723c85bab3e3619.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="662" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj48XNjSbFHv0OW-eQhhfY--QUbUFx2EDj-fKWFrOXQSt2mCO5cE1b9uGrwMTtY13khu_t4Tu2YS2TsgHwi4YCSeAKyfysS-dD86TDzUyV3I6sM4dluZRG60bcLnXaWEYHh3JSY2BJoC0054h_O-fjQdWmiOxUjMrLWwPLSxWPffDQyU8E1SOPttvssCg/w640-h484/89be38780a7dbf9dd723c85bab3e3619.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />To be fair even further, all of those elements can be said to still be there. However it's clear that the creative choices of the author have wound up diluting the intrinsic narrative drive, or power contained in such archetypes, almost reducing them to the level of extras within their own story. The trouble is that if what you're describing is fundamentally a Horror story at its core, then this is precisely the last sort of thing you should do with all the ingredients it needs to work. By choosing to let the plot ultimately revolve around the political machinations of an imaginary revolution, I'm afraid all King has done is to rob the story of any creative potential it might have had. While it's true Dora's story forms the heart of the book, I think it was a mistake to have it all ultimately tie in with a story that wound up being a rumination about politics. We're dragged from one tedious scene of various factions and revolutionaries as they go about their various schemes, then we'll return to Dora's explorations, and back again, until the two merge into one, and by doing so, all the creativity just gets sapped away.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKuP_qHcSWclmDyVUTSQApYLF2MSUYF63j3CT3lM-RmKKuU6Ik2ievzfBPZDMzk8UbzlK8PieYkM097xzHk5Ya_CBqKNkbnZDO605p5M6Ru5vxq3Z-K0lV-xe9DN3jYua8he3j9CjQN1vPcmRLFmNmwoSYiMj0hyLd_KbNJfVeGgRk17P70jQrSX_rVg/s707/hith-charles-dickens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="548" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKuP_qHcSWclmDyVUTSQApYLF2MSUYF63j3CT3lM-RmKKuU6Ik2ievzfBPZDMzk8UbzlK8PieYkM097xzHk5Ya_CBqKNkbnZDO605p5M6Ru5vxq3Z-K0lV-xe9DN3jYua8he3j9CjQN1vPcmRLFmNmwoSYiMj0hyLd_KbNJfVeGgRk17P70jQrSX_rVg/s320/hith-charles-dickens.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>When the supernatural plot elements make their final big entrance, it arrives with a whimper instead of a bang. Without going too much into spoiler territory, what it put me the most in mind of was a long ago Terry Pratchett novel in which the denouement is resolved by the aid of bringing a bunch of clay statues to life and having them pretty much trample all over the armies of the bad guy. Now, that could be a good idea in its own right, and Pratchett at least was able to make the concept work in his own handling. The trouble is I'm not sure this is the approach that is good for Owen's book. For one thing, it's clear the writer's heart is much more aligned with a clearly supernatural ethos, much like his father. This means the basic thrust of all of the Gothic ingredients in his story are always trying to point toward some greater kind of otherworldly resolution at complete variance from the one the reader is left with by the time they reach the final page. I suppose one other work that the finale of <i>The Curator</i> reminds me of is the scene in <i>Lord of the Rings</i> when the ghosts and spirits of the past swoop in to save the living at the Battle of Gondor. The difference here is that Tolkien found a way to make it all work.<p></p><p>Owen, on the other hand, just isn't able to pull off such a feat. I think a lot of the reason for this is because he makes a cardinal mistake that the other two writers were able to avoid. Owen seemed to be under the false impression that a lot of head scratching and amateur theorizing about politics was enough to carry an entire novel that the vast majority of the audience would be willing to sit still for. It betrays a kind of naive shortsightedness on the author's part, and sort of leaves him vulnerable to the charge that he was painting a target on his head, and never even knew it. Perhaps the capping irony is that the way he tackles the political angle in the book is so damned vague that the writer might as well have been speaking in the vaguest of abstract terms. There's a kind of basic hand waving about the Haves and Have Nots that doesn't advance anything beyond the notion that we should help the poor. To be fairest of all, that's not the worst idea anyone's ever had. It's just that everything about the main thrust of the plot is left so vague, that's almost as if nothing was ever said at all. It's the major issue that dogs the novel from start to finish. The writer chose the wrong path, and the story suffered for it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8lApfNNTw2HzhcbYPeRSVn8r0rSa8xTfH0qGXSyRx75a5XbwFs44VrqWeZk495DAU0-6NyrTQrUY9wZ9dAwIqh4b8a9b9vEmInUwQe-QjuklsSMwmibdplBAcVLgN-JfCkWnWiBQT_jEgcAzV6IIQSTao1Rb-h8dFvQxrPmhj22gf1R4f5stNG9S1Q/s700/ahc37_a4_art.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="700" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8lApfNNTw2HzhcbYPeRSVn8r0rSa8xTfH0qGXSyRx75a5XbwFs44VrqWeZk495DAU0-6NyrTQrUY9wZ9dAwIqh4b8a9b9vEmInUwQe-QjuklsSMwmibdplBAcVLgN-JfCkWnWiBQT_jEgcAzV6IIQSTao1Rb-h8dFvQxrPmhj22gf1R4f5stNG9S1Q/w640-h352/ahc37_a4_art.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />If I had to figure out why Owen did it, then I think the answer is discoverable enough. The sense I kept getting throughout the novel was that I was dealing with the contents of a mind that was more busy trying to figure out just how loopy 21st century politics has gotten in the last few years, and the sad irony there is that the writer doesn't seem able to arrive at any definitive conclusion. Which acts as a further detriment to his plot. In doing all this, Owen seems to have wound up joining an ongoing chorus of voices looking for the right artistic statement that will capture our current moment in a way that helps us move forward, only to somehow wind up making various types of mistakes that sabotage a lot of efforts made in a good cause. I think that should stand as a testament to just how much of a muddle the 21st century mind is in at the moment. Everyone has been so damned thrown off kilter by the last couple of years that our minds are still too far shook up for anything coherent to be made of it. There may come a day when the perfect artistic expression of our present plight comes along. Until then, it seems like all either critics or writers can do is just hold on, and wait for the right moment.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdzWU5f4xEaj9rUaH5WgB4o43GrzpsyX8VoHkBYtyvq_W9MgcEn679lGFgKH1Xr2uJso1n8zoRdK4h7qUAZv4uNCBN21LlJpAh4dXxRBmIWFbSnTZu17MNWTFC067fdj2yZA65YOkBkCIZxOwEVeSnZ4Yp3pgc5mjj43tN8GrsSfnb4e89Ko7gU799qQ/s5269/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_bc5b37fc-a219-11e7-8955-1ad2a9a7928d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5269" data-original-width="3513" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdzWU5f4xEaj9rUaH5WgB4o43GrzpsyX8VoHkBYtyvq_W9MgcEn679lGFgKH1Xr2uJso1n8zoRdK4h7qUAZv4uNCBN21LlJpAh4dXxRBmIWFbSnTZu17MNWTFC067fdj2yZA65YOkBkCIZxOwEVeSnZ4Yp3pgc5mjj43tN8GrsSfnb4e89Ko7gU799qQ/s320/_methode_times_prod_web_bin_bc5b37fc-a219-11e7-8955-1ad2a9a7928d.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Sadly, that day hasn't arrived with <i>The Curator</i>. What we have on our hands is not so much an anomaly as it is an irony. We've got a story that appears to want to go in one direction, and an author whose personal concerns with public matters is driving him away in another direction. If there's any truth to this surmise, then what has happened is that the right artistic idea has arrived at the worst possible time, when the artist is too distracted by other matters to attend to the proper care and fashioning of his craft, and the narrative that it is meant to help create. It's possible this sort of thing has happened before, and yet never have I ever witnessed a case where the experience of a public crisis has driven the writer into such a mental disconnect with his own Imagination. It used to be the case long ago, writers would find all the inspiration they needed when confronting the crisis of their time. This is something that the work of scribblers like Tolkien, Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, or eve Shakespeare can attest to. They were all spurred on to create some of the most lasting art in any century by tackling the challenges of their own times. What stands out is the way they were able to handle their respective issues.<p></p><p>Each of the four latter authors display a combination of moral outrage, mixed together with what can only be described as an interesting amount of levelheadedness that allows even their most strident works to have not just a certain level of authority, yet also this universal sense of thematic applicability. They were storytellers for all seasons, and that seems to be at least a dimly glimpsed goal that King was aiming for here, in his latest novel. The trouble he's facing seems to be a collective one in the current world of the Arts. We've been through a crisis of some sort. Most people out there know this, but perhaps none of us knows quite what that dilemma is, or how it came to be, and why. We're a culture that's been rattled to our core, and apparently it still seems like it's all we can do to just gain our bearings, even if only for a little while. This is all perfectly understandable, though it seems like there might be some time before the art of storytelling is able to catch up and orient itself to this new social reality in any meaningful way. With all this on his plate, is it any wonder that Owen King's book sort of falls apart under the weight of all the ideas that are packed into it. Sometimes stories can bear just so much heavy lifting. We had the opportunity to get either a very good supernatural Gothic novel, or else an intriguing sort of political thriller, and instead we've wound up being able to enjoy neither.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgZoBvHMUG3qK94X64WO_vzVdCI5qBi2ZdafoZmuMtfIR7DJQvh4dkjtav2MFiLzQJl6dZW2Eq4v21HCxrlzYd4NJJb_BjVzlux3hYaScWxia-zcM1APvw2eOT0-vquIJYCc2CFDTbpg1vOByA6O8gtdOBPSSRFt1v_EeacISY4uyQ6kW3oXZiNGRjg/s1080/owenking-thecurator-scribner-1080x675.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgZoBvHMUG3qK94X64WO_vzVdCI5qBi2ZdafoZmuMtfIR7DJQvh4dkjtav2MFiLzQJl6dZW2Eq4v21HCxrlzYd4NJJb_BjVzlux3hYaScWxia-zcM1APvw2eOT0-vquIJYCc2CFDTbpg1vOByA6O8gtdOBPSSRFt1v_EeacISY4uyQ6kW3oXZiNGRjg/w640-h400/owenking-thecurator-scribner-1080x675.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I came into this book wanting to like what I read. The cover description alone made it sound like the kind of story that would be just right up my alley. I can only say that I wanted things to be good. As it stands, however, <i>The Curator</i> by Owen King offers up a promise it just can't deliver on <br /><p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-28862396496767595832023-06-03T23:30:00.000-05:002023-06-03T23:30:24.998-05:00Cocaine Bear (2023).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixRvFizH5E1RT2dtgUOGGpvpGPU9C5JIPoTiJ4KEFJ12gW3ijxG9EO07CfMJthbcYho63vVrih2SDgaLl_-6NBVMiWtnlZV5ChE5bKezNDbMLKZ2d8x252zuXYIjkFd_9jt3LHutZVlO4oMAy_daGpYUl-s7PGKOoOA-E8kaWzIbchMO19huas1-k1rQ/s2836/MV5BODAwZDQ5ZjEtZDI1My00MTFiLTg0ZjUtOGE2YTBkOTdjODFhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODE5NzE3OTE@._V1_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2836" data-original-width="1920" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixRvFizH5E1RT2dtgUOGGpvpGPU9C5JIPoTiJ4KEFJ12gW3ijxG9EO07CfMJthbcYho63vVrih2SDgaLl_-6NBVMiWtnlZV5ChE5bKezNDbMLKZ2d8x252zuXYIjkFd_9jt3LHutZVlO4oMAy_daGpYUl-s7PGKOoOA-E8kaWzIbchMO19huas1-k1rQ/w151-h224/MV5BODAwZDQ5ZjEtZDI1My00MTFiLTg0ZjUtOGE2YTBkOTdjODFhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODE5NzE3OTE@._V1_.jpg" width="151" /></a></div>Sometimes a critic gets lucky, and is able to claim they were part of the audience when word of mouth first began to spread about a must see film. That's sort of what happened to me in the case of the picture up for review today. I was one of the many who were bombarded with advertisements for this movie, and all of it was set to the dulcet tones of Melle Mel's <i>White Lines</i> playing on the soundtrack. That's pretty fitting, considering what the subject matter of this flick is. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a marketing campaign for a cinema release conducted with such slick and consummate skill as I have on <i>Cocaine Bear</i>. Yes the title is ridiculous, and the premise sounds like something tossed off by <i>Mad Magazine</i> during its drug fueled, 70s hey-day. And yet I'll be darned if the promoters of this film didn't find the right way to at least get me interested in their product. Which begs the question, how well does it hold up?<p></p><a name='more'></a><b>The Story and It's Real Life Inspiration.</b> <br /><p></p><p>The first thing to understand about a film like <i>Cocaine Bear</i> (aside from how the title is one of those notions that just gets stuck in your head the moment you even hear it) is that it's one of those movies that always comes with a "Based (however loosely) on a True Story" moniker attached to it in the credits. The real punchline seems to be how the film's director, Elizabeth Banks, is still able to use that phrase with a relatively straight face. It turns out there is a kernel of fact tucked away within the folds of the otherwise complete fantasy that Banks has to spin for her audience. It's one of those minor anecdotes of history which are so unbelievable that's it's almost bemusing just to realize it was something that happened. That's why I think it's best to get the history out of the way first, as it helps give us a factual starting point for understanding the basic story Banks has to tell. We'll begin, in other words, with the facts as real life presents them, before letting the fairy tale assume the narrative control.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbD3TisJ8VvataC4UTnkvl-Jzq-uowJZ72L23-Fo6nFN_j8yLgCNs74qFwT3brCx_m51qMEehUERjo9cyY3RpQTHZPiUMAWn7SkKuiQlLe0w2OPW3RAwRXBmtZWWtURJ8UQZAQpsq96xHNVnhAJiyC9kSWHkjW6bSgUqNBMVPJuEqSwu1X43ES8BsS5Q/s1200/1200x0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbD3TisJ8VvataC4UTnkvl-Jzq-uowJZ72L23-Fo6nFN_j8yLgCNs74qFwT3brCx_m51qMEehUERjo9cyY3RpQTHZPiUMAWn7SkKuiQlLe0w2OPW3RAwRXBmtZWWtURJ8UQZAQpsq96xHNVnhAJiyC9kSWHkjW6bSgUqNBMVPJuEqSwu1X43ES8BsS5Q/w640-h426/1200x0.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In real life, the whole thing seems to have begun with a face in the crowd. The name that belonged to it was Andrew C. Thornton II. Here's a guy who would otherwise have never stuck out in any notable way in life if it hadn't been for all the choices he made throughout his career. He was just some nothing kid from Bourbon, Kentucky. His parent's owned their own horse breeding farm, might have been local community pillars, the usual sort of thing, you know? They send their kid to a good private education school, complete with a Polo Club. He later graduates to military academy and lasts one semester there before dropping out to join the army. He winds up at Fort Bragg, where Thornton trained as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. It was there that our young instigator learned he had a kind of natural talent for chute jumping. He got to be so good at it that he was later allowed to participate in the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic. In retrospect, maybe that's where everything started to go wrong. The mid 60s was a time when a lot the world's major governments got up to a lot of skeevy activities behind the scenes. The basic idea is that everyone kept up a false front of being at odds in public, while all sharing more or less the same bed in private, and places like Santo Domingo were no exception. They never made the same headlines as Vietnam, yet they kept their hand in the games.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOR5UhipeIbm0fvzGc_jeb0LdQJqMLq7t0JIsxs3HEuOhDk2mHZUZlX4w9MijFYQ2zjqXN9qFWCpolGXMOyBA2ewioWY4KLI2rKSUqhl6zvZTwKmPzcMTIYCGGyiHrZrrQj8a-7DquMxhp96ixqplugAtwUiGkk9vn9we96Hhn-R78HOaSK0KdaAOYQ/s5897/ef31a16d-aec4-406a-8388-c5045eef4e1c-img255.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5897" data-original-width="3644" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOR5UhipeIbm0fvzGc_jeb0LdQJqMLq7t0JIsxs3HEuOhDk2mHZUZlX4w9MijFYQ2zjqXN9qFWCpolGXMOyBA2ewioWY4KLI2rKSUqhl6zvZTwKmPzcMTIYCGGyiHrZrrQj8a-7DquMxhp96ixqplugAtwUiGkk9vn9we96Hhn-R78HOaSK0KdaAOYQ/s320/ef31a16d-aec4-406a-8388-c5045eef4e1c-img255.webp" width="198" /></a></div>Long story short, it was another "theater of war" where a lot of the adversaries seemed very cozy with one another more than they let on, American troops were dispatched to the region as a combination of distraction and easy scapegoats. The outcome was a steaming hot mess with no real glory or honor to be found anywhere, and the conflict itself seems to have been little more than the launch pad for the modern narcotics trafficking as we still know it today. Somewhere in the midst of all that, it seems like Thornton might have got caught up with the nascent, yet fast growing (and reaping) Narcos crowd. In other words, it seems that what happened is Andy Thornton went into the Dominicans as your average, clean cut soldier boy. The guy who emerged after the dust and fog had settled was a classic example of a guy suffering from what Glen Frey would have called a clear cut case of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSXKyHM133c">Smuggler's Blues</a>. I almost want to say that the later music video that was spun out of Frey's hit single acts as a more or less neat summation of the kind of career Thornton had for the remainder of his life. His wiki page claims that Andy started smuggling during his tenure as an officer in the Lexington Police Department.<p></p><p>That seems to be true as far as a bare surface description of the subject's actions go. The problem is it doesn't give a good idea of what the whole picture seems to be. Like, for instance, what's the first thing Thornton does once he puts on the badge? He somehow gets himself assigned to the the county's Drug Enforcement division. Not long after, he's busted for smuggling. What does that tell you? To me, none of this sounds like accident or happenstance. It all just sends out alarm bells, with the phrase "Fast One" blaring in red neon letters. Everything here tells me that it's perhaps a mistake to claim that what we've got on our hands is the simple case of a good cop and former soldier boy gone bad. I think everything was a bit more arranged than that. Whatever career Thornton might have planned for himself, he emerged out of the Dominicans a bonafide "Made Man" for the drug traffic trade, and his getting into the Narcotics division of the Kentucky police force was just Andy obeying his orders. In other words, the most likely scenario is that he was always placed their in order to help speed up the trafficking of all the real heavy stuff into the veins of the American mainstream. All it ever amounted to was little more than a case of dirty deeds and done dirt cheap, and Andy was in the middle of it all.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8rs7WBohej-1jw30Xyye5oorZSYnQWL-uhISqOq_pxDKueD9-DKySwCa39HYjM34KQLeErcF6ZVr2XnTO09lIzWmVsGSskfJNOUAhNd4Kkkt5pD0PgYLUbqlEteSpccREJIfqbrYMH9uaWjG3T_PDFfuScN0LywN-J8jGRsnsv8zicmpucVqPPqLtzQ/s1168/Smugglersbluestitle.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="1168" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8rs7WBohej-1jw30Xyye5oorZSYnQWL-uhISqOq_pxDKueD9-DKySwCa39HYjM34KQLeErcF6ZVr2XnTO09lIzWmVsGSskfJNOUAhNd4Kkkt5pD0PgYLUbqlEteSpccREJIfqbrYMH9uaWjG3T_PDFfuScN0LywN-J8jGRsnsv8zicmpucVqPPqLtzQ/w640-h480/Smugglersbluestitle.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />He got busted eventually, as you might expect, and when he finally got out of the slammer, his handlers seemed to have realized he'd be more useful working the "trade routes" rather than being stationed higher up the ladder where the walls had more ears than anyone was comfortable with. So Thornton spent his remaining time as what might be termed a "company courier" sending cocaine across the country. It was during one fateful run in 1977 that really kicked off the story proper. Thornton and another accomplice were transporting a supply of Colombian White to a rendezvous point that was further down the line. At an earlier point, somewhere between Blairsville,<i> </i>Georgia and Knoxville, Tennessee, Thornton and his accomplice discovered the weight of their cargo had overloaded the plane. The freight was so much that even if they unloaded some of the "merchandise", there would still be nothing they could do to keep themselves from falling out of the sky. There was nothing to try except tossing a goodish number of traveler's duffel bags full of cocaine out the window, and then following after on parachute. I've been unable to find out what happened to Thornton's accomplice.<p></p><p>All I can say for sure is that when it came time for Andy to jump from the plane, one of two possible things happened. The first is that everything went smoothly. He dumped the payload down into the forests of Tennessee, he was geared up for such an emergency situation, and was ready to go, come what may. This smug attitude lasted for all of however long it was from the moment he jumped from the falling plane to the point at which he realized his parachute was defective, and wouldn't open. The other possibility is the one dramatized at the very start of Banks's film, where Thornton succeeds in dumping the payload, yet the moment he makes a run for the exit, the damn fool wrapped his head a good one on the roof of the plane, at the exact moment he decided to pull a Geronimo. The impact of the concussion leaves the poor, dumb sap out stone cold, and that's about all she wrote. Either way, what is certain is this. Andrew Thornton fell to his death on what turned out to be his very last drug run. His entire life became a parable of wasted opportunity and misspent youth. Here is where the troubled young Mr. Thornton exits the story (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_C._Thornton_II">web</a>) and the really weird part of everything begins.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBn3ZQXQg5RAWf2tPX8AuntB7TpYqyVQY7jwbGmPG10_TWtGHsR0VeNfBmdwYmq741va9rFFmuEYeuRuA2lTZmLLV-x2GESbuIPdGd0L9QkSUBBMQ2htKNL4cMHHDY2YNH3o-WaKu4Iwn-yR-2mf-eQeu2-wLdYo2-1-tMM7e7QTPOT1LOcHlRNDswg/s660/2375b572-e8d1-43a4-a062-cce0f00cfa9b-thornton.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="660" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBn3ZQXQg5RAWf2tPX8AuntB7TpYqyVQY7jwbGmPG10_TWtGHsR0VeNfBmdwYmq741va9rFFmuEYeuRuA2lTZmLLV-x2GESbuIPdGd0L9QkSUBBMQ2htKNL4cMHHDY2YNH3o-WaKu4Iwn-yR-2mf-eQeu2-wLdYo2-1-tMM7e7QTPOT1LOcHlRNDswg/w640-h360/2375b572-e8d1-43a4-a062-cce0f00cfa9b-thornton.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Like I said, I've been unable to find out whatever happened to Thornton's accomplice. I do know what happened to the payload they both tossed overboard. It wound up scattered to the four corners encompassing an area of the Knoxville wilderness. For the longest time, no one in the local population of the region seemed to have any clue as to what had just transpired way above their heads in the middle of the night. There's also no intrinsic reason why they should have, either. Indeed, it is possible to suggest that the whole affair would remain a kind of quasi-non-event. The historical equivalent of a tree falling in the woods, and no one around to witness it. Perhaps it would have remained like that if someone hadn't stumbled upon the bear. In other words, I guess that old parable about the tree falling turned out to be kind of false in this case. There was someone who found out about the mysterious, missing bags of coke in the woods. The trick of the tale is that it wasn't anyone human. Instead, the first "person" to discover Andy Thornton's coke was a North American Black Bear. And it is precisely at this crucial juncture that the history ends, and the fantasy of Elizabeth Banks and her crew begins.<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: The Best Richard Bachman Story That Was Never Written.</b><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHcElu2ewubqrdSglhnueucadjc8v0gyWKBtUR7RhKvzPUUU8gaTKpWy3zvQKGYPeDo12EzmC4cZLeJcn2X0yX8aMcmrKIzdabr4-xi7Q82gunlqYXFxbQ8R1_vj9aXdyWjD4gTA_nbsgyg7IDXHzjaZG24om6UrHiiVo_mt-dqI0cIiWAfufr8-x2GA/s2202/Cocaine_Bear_Poster02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2202" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHcElu2ewubqrdSglhnueucadjc8v0gyWKBtUR7RhKvzPUUU8gaTKpWy3zvQKGYPeDo12EzmC4cZLeJcn2X0yX8aMcmrKIzdabr4-xi7Q82gunlqYXFxbQ8R1_vj9aXdyWjD4gTA_nbsgyg7IDXHzjaZG24om6UrHiiVo_mt-dqI0cIiWAfufr8-x2GA/s320/Cocaine_Bear_Poster02.jpg" width="218" /></a></div>Perhaps the best way to describe this story is that it's an ensemble piece. We start out with a more or less straightforward retelling of Thornton and his failed payload drop. From there, the narrative of the film begins to expand outward. Not a whole lot, the cast list is limited to just a handful of characters who all come to occupy the same small stage space, yet the film does take its time in slowly setting up all its pieces on the board, allowing audiences time to get to know all of the main cast as they assemble and gather round the playing field. This is a common courtesy the story is willing to pay both its central players, such as the great Ray Liotta's smuggler kingpin Syd White and his subordinates Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) and Daveed (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), to even such relatively minor figures such as Detective Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), with his touching concern for his newly adopted dog, even if she is the wrong one he sent for. The film seems almost willing to go out of its way to find reasons to make us care about a group that could have been depicted as a stereotypical ship of fools. The opportunity to phone it in, and portray the cast as a collection of Red Shirts waiting to be picked off is always staring the director right in the face, and it's to her credit that she instead gives the characters a warm embrace.<p></p><p>Even those figures who are ostensibly meant to be the bad guys, such as Liotta and his posse are treated with the same general sense of big-hearted generosity that is able to give the characters a crucial layers of extra added depth. This is a particularly notable feature, as while Liotta and a handful of kids (Brooklyn Prince, Christian Convery) and their mother (Keri Russell) are the story's main focus, there are plenty of moments dedicated to the antics of a lot of other individuals that dot the landscape. This extends to folks like Margo Martindale's Ranger Liz and her bumbling assistant, Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), to a pair of paramedics (Scott Seiss and Kahyun Kim) who somehow manage to leave a pretty good impact, despite showing up for just one sequence of the story. Each of these characters is able to add to the overall sense of purpose that's driving the plot, even though just a handful of them are ever the film's main focus. It makes me wonder if Elizabeth Banks might be a fan of movies like Stanley Kramer's <i>It's a Mad, Mad World</i> (1963). That's another film centered around an expansive cast of players whose exploits all revolve around a carefully hidden stash of items. Banks' story is a lot less ambitious than Kramer's, who was able to assemble a cast of literal thousands to help stage a parable of human greed and stupidity. Banks limits her scope to just three main groups, while much like her earlier counterpart, she makes sure the proceedings are handled with tongue firmly in cheek.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmbJpKPOr9iE9o2yrI5Tuj_-MYTtzBK3-4ATdiyzx7K44ZqOQ-X50StLx_DtAd9yx5OyyL0kbaZ3FuY1J4jlF7sBFWiJBTc3psHE_lcsH2BvAk3JrGiuw8xSx6jA29QDisJjncFDPp_aNprxLSaKE5uIsuvNdsFLPKRou24BcQwaSLshjxIjIuya39A/s1015/mad1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="1015" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmbJpKPOr9iE9o2yrI5Tuj_-MYTtzBK3-4ATdiyzx7K44ZqOQ-X50StLx_DtAd9yx5OyyL0kbaZ3FuY1J4jlF7sBFWiJBTc3psHE_lcsH2BvAk3JrGiuw8xSx6jA29QDisJjncFDPp_aNprxLSaKE5uIsuvNdsFLPKRou24BcQwaSLshjxIjIuya39A/w640-h482/mad1.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />Indeed, the notable aspect of the film is how it is able to deftly handle its delicate balance of both humor and horror. This is the other major component to the story. In many ways, <i>Cocaine Bear</i> deserves to join the ranks of a specific type modern Gothic cinema, that of the sub-category known as "Nature Run Amok". This is the type of narrative that owes its existence to the breakout performance of Steven Spielberg's <i>Jaws</i>. It's the kind of story featuring a cast of wildlife chow that's basically turned loose in an imaginary room with a predator, and the audience is left to see who gets to make it out alive. If the 1975 adaptation of a now obscure Peter Benchley novel had never turned into the first Summer blockbuster, then it's an open question of if we would have ever had similar films of this kind, such as Joe Dante's <i>Piranha</i> (1978), <i>Lake Placid</i> (1999), or <i>Deep Blue Sea</i> (ibid). All of these films take place on or adjacent to the ocean, though there have been examples in the past which are situated on dry land. <i>Cocaine Bear</i> is just the latest in a long line of such films, yet it may also wind up as the most well regarded land predator of the species. What we have then is a very specific hybrid style film.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7iU3gATVPZ8sXWQmDnZ3DmizNO8Rd6xj3LZgUnmUw1nFIw0UlSWJS5ts17wteCWm9XJEj5uorDXBq7flM2wMH-uAoun_q5Ysq2JOZa50bkqLU2bm9_Fsio1U3K2uT67HN3eSkvnk8tR186LTq2nnjNpIETmrr2_rcmzHHO5IbyS9XQtWSZV_11t2ag/s389/JAWS_Movie_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7iU3gATVPZ8sXWQmDnZ3DmizNO8Rd6xj3LZgUnmUw1nFIw0UlSWJS5ts17wteCWm9XJEj5uorDXBq7flM2wMH-uAoun_q5Ysq2JOZa50bkqLU2bm9_Fsio1U3K2uT67HN3eSkvnk8tR186LTq2nnjNpIETmrr2_rcmzHHO5IbyS9XQtWSZV_11t2ag/s320/JAWS_Movie_poster.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>What we've got on our hands is a combination Screwball Comedy spliced with "Nature Run Amok". In other words, a good description of this film is that label it as <i>It's a Mad World</i> meets <i>Jaws</i>, except this time the predator is giant, hulking Mama Bear that's high on Panama White. It's as ridiculous and crazily enthralling as it sounds. The real question left to ask is how well all these ingredients play out when they are mixed together. Well this is the part where Banks is able to surprise you. The movie opens by giving you the impression that once the maguffin has been established all you should expect is for a bunch of random encounters between the titular Bear and whoever the script decides the throw into its jaws first. That's not the sort of film we wind up with, however. Yes, it's true this movie deserves to be seen as a throwback to the kind of late night, Drive-In schlock fests that made guys like Roger Corman famous, and yet much like the creator of <i>Little Shop of Horrors</i> (1960), Banks proves her skill as a director by finding an actual story worth telling at the heart of her otherwise cheesy premise. It's a talent she shares with Corman, and it puts her in good stead. The main plot hinges on two groups of people. The first is Liotta and his crew, looking for the payload. The other is Keri Russell's worried mother looking for her missing daughter. All the other figures in the play are ancillary as they weave in and out of the paths of the narrative's two main leads or focal points.<p></p><p>Perhaps the biggest strength of the script is that it allows Banks to include a crucial ingredient that makes all the difference between a passable mediocrity, and fairly decent entertainment that's probably worth the occasional re-watch. The writing is able to sketch out its two to four main leads in a way that finds all the best possible ways of making you care about them. Screenwriter Jimmy Warden seems to have realized that the actual heart of the film never quite rests with its setup, or if it does, then something extra is needed to make sure the story sticks in your mind after you've left the theater. He appears to have been smart enough to realize a movie like this can't survive on schlock alone. Rather, let's say that all the best schlock has to have some sort of extra weight to it, so that you've been given a memorable experience at the same time as you're probably laughing your ass off. In order to do that, the filmmakers need to find out whatever that extra quality is that helps elevate the material above just another hack work cash-in. This was something guys like Corman excelled at, and why his work is still remembered to this day. In the case of Banks and Warden, the solution to their problem comes from two intertwined components. The first is the aforementioned big-hearted atmosphere that Banks works so well at grounding her characters in. The second is that she let's the film have real stakes.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDnKqcUswedfywQu21xvauGNa7pyAcZIqqG7dSb-jAq8_lmWaO1W5VyCn61T06iAHp984RMBR2eNtxwX_t7pIZfBzC3MllKFEb8xRlXbXqVkvOx5QzrQIMJCTMmGOiX87p1w_6A3j6YrHh1MJAwFORMmIzX56GKaR1Zekd21rGxon7WQX1rOantTibRw/s1000/6c248154-612c-4f28-bb25-ee0a32da3966.sized-1000x1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDnKqcUswedfywQu21xvauGNa7pyAcZIqqG7dSb-jAq8_lmWaO1W5VyCn61T06iAHp984RMBR2eNtxwX_t7pIZfBzC3MllKFEb8xRlXbXqVkvOx5QzrQIMJCTMmGOiX87p1w_6A3j6YrHh1MJAwFORMmIzX56GKaR1Zekd21rGxon7WQX1rOantTibRw/w640-h426/6c248154-612c-4f28-bb25-ee0a32da3966.sized-1000x1000.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It's true that the vast majority of the film consists of the title character stumbling across random hikers and disemboweling them in a lot of hilarious ways. It's the film's major selling point, yet it's not it's ultimate focus. Like I said, Bank's skill behind the camera, and Warden's gift with the pen is that they each are able to find and maintain the proper sense of balance between Horror and Comedy. Everything starts out on a very humorous note with Thornton and the failed drop. This comedic tone keeps up as we meet our first group of Bear chow (Elsa and Olaf, respectively, which gives you an idea of the kind of light-hearted tone the film opens with) and proceeds to keep with this style as we move first from one secondary character to the next, until we reach the point where we are left following Russell and Liotta as they make their way through the forest toward their respective goal (the cocaine for Ray, the children for Russell). The crucial thing that happens is so imperceptible that sometimes the audience might not notice the tonal shift until later in the third act of the film. This is because Banks is able to play with the movies tone in a way that calls to mind the more subtle approaches of John Carpenter.<br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO1cE6-sLhMP1qW9nsYVP3mzUR6frcHeJcWhvHr-wG4LS_dNsOAvPuslwj0mUyIQq2O7PTsroJQJqRLSmFCq083Jzia3qhuyZlYzgJFwxv5y-xnIvN-JdPzaDu4AUekJ5473HLF9JPIifhMZjTtvWtEJDtlHPRzDaNhDrIXzSGsFPh1CQwX36YkLgL6w/s524/Piranha_Poster.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO1cE6-sLhMP1qW9nsYVP3mzUR6frcHeJcWhvHr-wG4LS_dNsOAvPuslwj0mUyIQq2O7PTsroJQJqRLSmFCq083Jzia3qhuyZlYzgJFwxv5y-xnIvN-JdPzaDu4AUekJ5473HLF9JPIifhMZjTtvWtEJDtlHPRzDaNhDrIXzSGsFPh1CQwX36YkLgL6w/s320/Piranha_Poster.webp" width="183" /></a></div>Her film is a lot less serious, while still being gorier than <i>Halloween</i> (the capping irony, of course, being that it's the Carpenter flick which is still more frightening than any bear in the woods), yet the director is able to pull off what amounts to a very clever tonal shift as the film progresses. Without ever losing its sense of humor, the story does begin to take on this macabre sense of drollery as the Bear continues its rampage. Nowhere is this best on display than in the film's first major set piece. It features Russell's worried mother figure as she's slogging through the woods looking for her daughter, along with the kid's best friend. At this point in the story, she's accompanied by Peter and Ranger Liz, when they come upon the young boy sequestered up a tree. He's decided to take shelter after his first major encounter with the Angel Dust Ursine of Yellowstone, and it's one of those scenarios where the child tries to warn the adults of impending danger, only for the grown-ups to be slow on the uptake, and then the threat is brought on-stage to do its thing. In this case, mayhem and hilarity ensues. What's notable about it is how neatly the scene transitions from one of humor, to that of horror.<p></p><p>It starts out with a few shenanigans, in which the characters prove they wouldn't be out of place in a Preston Sturges film, and then the Bear jumps them from behind, and its as if someone spliced one of the shark attacks from Spielberg's film in with a Loony Tunes skit. It's a delicate balance, and yet the writing sells it. Your able to laugh when one of the characters says or does something in what's clearly a comedic fashion, and then the everything transitions to Horror the minute the Bear turns around and begins to maul and reduce them to a red pulp up a tree. It's gone from a situation of authentic humor to one that's genuinely horrific in just a few short beats. This is the dichotomy the film maintains throughout its runtime, and once more, the best way to describe it all is a very fine balancing act. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEbaT4zzsKPgrKVhrA7OMBaJ8g1ygVp8UX6l2A-IhWPiKjkUzMpDREyeL0CPiw0vIGvmHVMGQDLljoK_ILAiczkQSjU6zL09rqAwh_SIvwS6yhvHvbdBN1ZqGSexQd5XI9t1zRo0On77BQE-nUkPcEO9vFEEJFqOFxiUM8DzBHXX-EBmIuRmWe_8eyzg/s1050/00583f27-c0f5-44f8-9ae0-fbcc8f574d10-large16x9_2549_D036_00241Rcopy.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="1050" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEbaT4zzsKPgrKVhrA7OMBaJ8g1ygVp8UX6l2A-IhWPiKjkUzMpDREyeL0CPiw0vIGvmHVMGQDLljoK_ILAiczkQSjU6zL09rqAwh_SIvwS6yhvHvbdBN1ZqGSexQd5XI9t1zRo0On77BQE-nUkPcEO9vFEEJFqOFxiUM8DzBHXX-EBmIuRmWe_8eyzg/w640-h360/00583f27-c0f5-44f8-9ae0-fbcc8f574d10-large16x9_2549_D036_00241Rcopy.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Banks has the difficult job of keeping these two plates spinning the entire time without ever once letting either one drop. She has to maintain this dual tonal stance while at the same time making sure the story that's generating these elements remains entertaining. The fact that she's able to maintain this precarious tonal stability from the opening all the way to the closing shot amounts to an open display of talent that is both surprising and gratifying by equal tuns. What helps is that you don't see it coming.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKj6sSRUedPx9Tp4d0tc-hl6ChcDkz6px3Etj0qcwJS6QKN7md77pPqQyRUxak4yEyIrDYXjle_NGDTDsJjnc4TTtwBlrSc4V3vGI8O0MoKwsNs2IKrlJW_4SBJ7Yvdx8fA9fGTXEVzNzpA2E4HIGIYqV-XR6D87lKIS17CcSRz3vUbMtrfJ-BNIciaQ/s1000/518Mn8E0LwL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="707" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKj6sSRUedPx9Tp4d0tc-hl6ChcDkz6px3Etj0qcwJS6QKN7md77pPqQyRUxak4yEyIrDYXjle_NGDTDsJjnc4TTtwBlrSc4V3vGI8O0MoKwsNs2IKrlJW_4SBJ7Yvdx8fA9fGTXEVzNzpA2E4HIGIYqV-XR6D87lKIS17CcSRz3vUbMtrfJ-BNIciaQ/s320/518Mn8E0LwL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>Even when you know the Bear is out there, Warden's script keeps you guessing where its going to pop up next, and then it reveals the creature hiding in plain sight right in front of you all along, thus doubling the sense of threat, and making you laugh all at the same time. Banks is able to realize these qualities in such a way as to create what amounts to a hybrid species of cinema. It's not the first Horror comedy that anyone's ever seen. For that to be the case, films like <i>Ghostbusters</i> and <i>Shaun of the Dead</i> would have to not exist. Instead, much like the Edgar Wright film, Banks is able to locate that happy medium where a comedic film can manage to create a genuine sense of Gothic threat, even as it's making you laugh. Where the two films differ the most (aside from obvious questions of basic setup) is is in the greater sense of tonal payoff that each is aiming for. Even in its darkest moments, Wright's film remains this essentially cheery, even heartwarming affair. Now to be fair, Banks's movie can be said to do something similar. The major difference is that she packs her film with this somewhat grotesque sense of humor. While it's true that there's this great sense of big-heartedness, the story never flinches on its Horror elements when they occur. Like <i>Shaun</i> when it commits to the darker aspects of the story, it goes all in, and this time the narrative carries a harder edge to its terror, with a real bite.<p></p><p>This is the real reason why I almost want to label the film as a hybrid. If that's the case though, then the irony is how (for me at least) it's also a very familiar mixed breed. What I'm about say next is the kind of thing that's only going to make sense if you're the kind of book person who's also a fan of Stephen King. Because believe it or not, what this film winds up doing is reminding me of some of his work. Specifically, it's like watching the kind story that King used to sometimes write under the fictional name of "Richard Bachman". He was a pseudonym that the reigning Monarch of Frights used to employ for a time in order to see if people were buying his books because of the stories, or else just because it was his name on the cover. The result was a series of book with a familiar enough sounding tone for those who are Constant Readers of King's works. The major notable factor about the Bachman books is that there was always this off-kilter, slightly skewed angle to them. Here's what I mean, and I swear I'll explain how a bunch of long ago novels ties into a film of a Bear that's high on cocaine.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOoL92DwnY5uluiBME5H4XTxxZXwDG8rOZZFKOlsjfwmKWUx9jYvbM5w1QSXYrJprV8CYqeZxAWd_j50hWLddiWsULAkQl2kOpSE8Obl740QzHHjAKEZagOf-oRQNhIMYTP-InekCC5XYulYalbJ9gJREvyoS4jNn0al52e42ID0aryUiS7XycSCi7A/s1871/stephen-king-richard-bachman-facts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1871" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOoL92DwnY5uluiBME5H4XTxxZXwDG8rOZZFKOlsjfwmKWUx9jYvbM5w1QSXYrJprV8CYqeZxAWd_j50hWLddiWsULAkQl2kOpSE8Obl740QzHHjAKEZagOf-oRQNhIMYTP-InekCC5XYulYalbJ9gJREvyoS4jNn0al52e42ID0aryUiS7XycSCi7A/w640-h336/stephen-king-richard-bachman-facts.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />What Banks's film seems to have in common with the novels King published under the Bachman pseudonym is this same shared skewed outlook, or narrative tone, which determines the look and feel of their secondary worlds. I think King is the one who was able to describe this literary atmospheric vibe, and the mindset that it was an expression of, way back in 1996. That's when the author felt compelled to explain what "Richard Bachman Frame of Mind" amounts to in terms of artistic expression. He did this in an essay entitled <i>The Importance of Being Bachman</i>. It's there he describes the contents of this mind set as "low rage and simmering despair". Those are simple enough concepts to grasp, I suppose. The trouble is that (aside from creating the kind of artistic vibe that's sure to alienate and turn away most of the audience) it doesn't really get to the heart of things. Besides, if rage was the only element to the Bachman novels, then they still wouldn't have a shelf life after all these years. Perhaps King does a better job of describing the "Bachman" mind frame when he talks about how he came to write one of his first fully completed novels. It had the simple title of <i>Rage</i> and can be read as a kind of non-supernatural precursor to later books such as <i>Carrie</i> and <i>Christine</i>. At the same time, it also reads like an eerily uncanny blue print for the kind of gun violence incidents we're living through today.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOtcQi0NCpBkGgs3ezSFyKWcQPoN3Bb4zz8nq6TKf7ViSpAaLdw8SSKNt22Lc-Ul3AQWLLq65_yykDsM_vE2N8Mg_Hh3CUDXEjUuYT3QX9QPOMKSHSc_CUPyIByafVA5lkil9S_Mmw13GSQthNzD4Mobd6DbGuGGD5DYEEcML7K_bjPl5FZsb6QYAFqA/s500/0008565634-L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="295" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOtcQi0NCpBkGgs3ezSFyKWcQPoN3Bb4zz8nq6TKf7ViSpAaLdw8SSKNt22Lc-Ul3AQWLLq65_yykDsM_vE2N8Mg_Hh3CUDXEjUuYT3QX9QPOMKSHSc_CUPyIByafVA5lkil9S_Mmw13GSQthNzD4Mobd6DbGuGGD5DYEEcML7K_bjPl5FZsb6QYAFqA/s320/0008565634-L.jpg" width="189" /></a></div>It was the first time "Richard Bachman" spoke up as a pseudonym in the author's mind, and the circumstances couldn't have been more ironic in hindsight. King admits he's not at all proud of the book these days, and is more than happy to let it go out of print. However, it was the origin of what might be called the "Bachman Outlook", and the way the old New England scribbler describes its genesis does a great deal more in getting us to understand the kind of shared aesthetic atmosphere which makes up at least a part of a movie like <i>Cocaine Bear</i>. This is how King describes the creation of Richie Bachman and his pseudonym novel. "What gives me more comfort is the sure knowledge that the book was
written with no bad intent, although it was written by a troubled
eighteen year old boy-man who seems a stranger to me now; that boy-man
was really neither King nor Bachman but a weird (and perhaps dangerous)
hybrid of both. Like most people, I suspect, I have trouble remembering my teenage
years - it's like trying to recall conversations you might have had
while running a high fever - but one thing I do remember is that the
fury and terror and jagged humor (not wit, the funny stuff in Rage is
the furthest thing on earth from wit) found in that story had only one
real purpose, and that was the purpose of all my early fiction: to save
my life and sanity. What made me feel so crazy so much of the time back
then? I don't know, Constant Reader, and that's the truth. My head felt
like it was always on the verge of exploding, but I have forgotten why (<a href="http://sfstephenking.blogspot.com/2011/07/importance-of-being-bachman.html">web</a>)". Here's the heart of the matter, however.<p></p><p>"The good folks mostly win, courage usually triumphs over fear, the
family dog hardly ever contracts rabies; these are things I knew at
twenty - five, and things I still know now, at the age (almost) of 25 x
2. But I know something else as well: there's a place in most of us
where rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the
woods are full of monsters. It is good to have a voice in which the
terrors of such a place can be articulated and its geography partially
described, without denying the sunshine and clarity that fill so much of
our ordinary lives. For me, Bachman is that voice...Bachman had become a kind of id for me; he said the things I
couldn't, and the thought of him out there on his New Hampshire dairy
farm - not a best-selling writer who gets his name in some stupid Forbes
list of entertainers too rich for their own good, of his face on the
Today show or doing cameos in movies - quietly writing his books, gave
him leave to think in ways I could not think and speak in ways I could
not speak (ibid)". Finally, King helps us out by providing as neat a summation of all of this as we are ever likely to get. He does this by citing the inspiration he got from a fellow ink stained wretch.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTFNCa5Pvx9i696smZvdPIm0R4g5krhwXUsbq4P3cZpTZKW6DhsiRUHA1uq6sT_qCWFKhjI-HTH1laHvpKjlZyDLjsljFqo8p-yKVtORtmC2bBSp0EfqEMeDSPxFsKnwnGSupnY7EuoS8PKURGAUsRBErIckE4nzxJRBBk9KgAiqMUje5JOpac43X1UA/s976/p0f4x8kl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTFNCa5Pvx9i696smZvdPIm0R4g5krhwXUsbq4P3cZpTZKW6DhsiRUHA1uq6sT_qCWFKhjI-HTH1laHvpKjlZyDLjsljFqo8p-yKVtORtmC2bBSp0EfqEMeDSPxFsKnwnGSupnY7EuoS8PKURGAUsRBErIckE4nzxJRBBk9KgAiqMUje5JOpac43X1UA/w640-h360/p0f4x8kl.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"In the first draft of The Dark Half, I had Thad Beaumont quote Donald
E. Westlake, a very funny writer who has penned a series of very grim
crime novels under the name Richard Stark. Once asked to explain the
dichotomy between Westlake and Stark, Westlake said "I write Westlake
stories on sunny days. When it rains. I'm Stark." I don't think that
made it into the final version of The Dark Half, but I have always loved
it (and related to it, as it has become fashionable to say). Bachman - a
fictional creation who became more real to me with each published book
which bore his byline - was a rainy - day sort of guy if ever there was
one (ibid)". The only reason for bringing all of this seemingly unrelated background material into play here is because it marks the only other way I've found to describe the crazy Jekyll and Hyde tone of Bank's film. Earlier on, I referred to the movie as big-hearted. That's a descriptive label I'm more than willing to stand by. I've also called the picture schizoid, and everything King says about the nature of his "Bachman" writings is the best match or way of describing this film's darker aspects. In that sense, Banks can be said to have made a legitimate Horror Comedy on her hands, one that is equal parts brutal, hilarious, and heart warming by turns.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbvR7ClVi8pZfY0c3vHfpaqoL4roUBozp6FSagSnFJZ93__QtVO3DhB68HRBCSn4ccEI5eDtLYctYYqIpPhcr9wjoOE_Kojh0BNg0GrrlFneZUIXcnQVQWi3MfnIDs6Gt1olURSuo4nOHSQKUcfcvb3IWLGOofVX5BkbJjBviMcMjr6LQQOgXEgHgw-g/s1500/cocaine-bear-alternate-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbvR7ClVi8pZfY0c3vHfpaqoL4roUBozp6FSagSnFJZ93__QtVO3DhB68HRBCSn4ccEI5eDtLYctYYqIpPhcr9wjoOE_Kojh0BNg0GrrlFneZUIXcnQVQWi3MfnIDs6Gt1olURSuo4nOHSQKUcfcvb3IWLGOofVX5BkbJjBviMcMjr6LQQOgXEgHgw-g/s320/cocaine-bear-alternate-poster.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>In that sense, I guess a good way to sum up the film is that it could be described as a Richard Bachman story where the pseudonym has learned how to find a silver lining, or at least look on the bright side of things, if that makes any sense. It's true there are plenty moments of <i>When Animals Attack</i> style gore to go around. Although even here, the heightened sense of reality that the film displays always stays at just enough of a remove to keep things from ever getting too dire. We're dealing with a caricature of real life here, in other words. Yes bad things happen to several cast members in this film, yet whenever it happens, Banks is given a chance to show off her skills with a form of black comedy that always manages to keep the tongue firmly in cheek. There's almost this <i>Mad Magazine</i> style sensibility to the wildest moments of the picture. It always manages to find this crazy sense of levity even in the direst of situations. A good example (without spoilers) is the way one of the main cast is able to stand up to a local gang in the area. There's plenty of brutality to go around in a particular scene involving an altercation in a men's room. And yet the way Banks frames the scene, or how the main actor portrays it all is what manages to lift a dire situation into the realm of a <i>Tom and Jerry</i> comedy routine.<p></p><p>What's funny about all that is how Warden's script is able to neatly segue from what all intents and purposes is a Martin Scorsese style <i>Mean Streets</i> scenario, and then transition right back into that same, familiar sense of big-heartedness. This makes the film rely on a complex number of tonal shifts that can be tricky to pull off if the writer doesn't know what he's doing, or how to handle characters in situations like this. That Warden and Banks are able to pull this off not once but every time when the script calls for it to happen is one of the most understated demonstrations of talent that I think I've managed to catch in a modern film. All of which is enough to allow me to say this film is easy to recommend. I came into this not totally blind, yet I did know there was going to be enough of a deviation from the facts so that I could never quite guess where the film was going, and that turns out to be a good thing in this case. It's true the film is loosely based on a real event. Andrew Thornton really did fuck up royal during what turned out to be his last drug run, and a forested area of Knoxville did get coated with the magic powder from the skies. More to the point, a bear did in fact <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_Bear_(bear)">really freaking ingest I think like a whole entire bar of the fucking stuff</a>.</i> Let that stand as a level of ridiculousness that real life has supplied the filmmakers with on this one. It's a case of reality being less real than fiction.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY5THK0WPet5zdGszrKUOlE8xNyBhGoOchyP2VmK8tOpnqZWQsJUU-NzxZh_A3ZbSVS0S_b09x-gi4-QBEq0KHVOas_jrhSD9ofgC8QttczjWIHmzOn1KfSv-S18Bowgid8XMjjtg_BDgsFTKlYhAWswSqvzyktxpMO2yUAGIXH8hVNLPwt8irEjWQNg/s691/original.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="691" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY5THK0WPet5zdGszrKUOlE8xNyBhGoOchyP2VmK8tOpnqZWQsJUU-NzxZh_A3ZbSVS0S_b09x-gi4-QBEq0KHVOas_jrhSD9ofgC8QttczjWIHmzOn1KfSv-S18Bowgid8XMjjtg_BDgsFTKlYhAWswSqvzyktxpMO2yUAGIXH8hVNLPwt8irEjWQNg/w640-h288/original.JPEG" width="640" /></a></div><br />Don't ask me why that should be the case, because I'll swear I'm still scratching my head over it. There's not much more to tell as far as real life is concerned. I have no idea if there was ever as crazy and convoluted a search for the missing kilos of Dominican White as portrayed in the film. I do know that the famous ursine in question has gone on to earn itself the nickname of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_Bear_(bear)">Pablo Eskobear</a>. It's the kind of moniker and situation that sounds like something out of an old 90s rerun of <i>Married with Children</i>, and yet Banks and Warden are able to take everything and give this strange kind of dignity. It's not the kind of film you expect, and yet it manages to win you over with a great deal of success. <br /><p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-56600215286624248402023-05-21T08:01:00.000-05:002023-05-21T08:01:09.817-05:00Incident at Loch Ness (2004).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic3tRRGqRAL4jmZggIsIjusG9eYtfhVDFSbNCnIAQEMklgCf-aBKmWxjwqUie8ETH6iBL2u_ZnEm_t7tWI12S6M1MhQFWJoGu2IymdFLCd9IPBFiKn7Z4WQp4SAZ-h193syGCxvDnQ6ILxvwYlSJNvSwwtuUiIF0a_f6ODBM3YQ32vcnvMjUgiXrzkFQ/s1000/512BAVRX5KL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="710" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic3tRRGqRAL4jmZggIsIjusG9eYtfhVDFSbNCnIAQEMklgCf-aBKmWxjwqUie8ETH6iBL2u_ZnEm_t7tWI12S6M1MhQFWJoGu2IymdFLCd9IPBFiKn7Z4WQp4SAZ-h193syGCxvDnQ6ILxvwYlSJNvSwwtuUiIF0a_f6ODBM3YQ32vcnvMjUgiXrzkFQ/s320/512BAVRX5KL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>It's difficult to tell just what the reputation of Found Footage, or the Mockumentary style film is like these days. The best guess I can offer is that by and large, audiences range somewhere between a general indifference to disdain about the whole sub-genre. If Horror fiction remains the black sheep of all the major popular modes of storytelling (the others being Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Comedy; all of whom share greater levels of public acceptance than the one where zombies routinely crawl out of the grave to sample a gourmet meal of human grey matter), then it seems as if the Found Footage tale is the outcast among the runts of the litter. While there may be some who are able to find a genuine level of enjoyment from these types narratives, it looks as this is the one type of Horror story that is always going to remain an acquired taste. It's fortunes are never really going to allow it to rise above its designated station. Not even the help of a critically acclaimed filmmaker, someone like German New Wave wunderkind, Werner Herzog, will be able to allow these stories the same legitimacy as films <i>Psycho</i> (1960), or <i>Halloween</i> (1978). It also helps to bear in mind, even these classics are regarded with a jaundiced eye. The inescapable truth is that Horror lives the shadows of its fellow genre siblings, and Found Footage seems doomed to forever live within the shadow of those shadows.<p></p><p>Not that this is any major complaint, lots of movies out there are able to survive as products of the niche market, and in an age where the niche demographic is slowly starting to become the norm in show business, it seems like even the blackest of sheep might one day have their own place in the Sun. That in turn brings us to today's film. It turns out I wasn't at all lying when I said a filmmaker of Herzog's stature once lent his efforts to the making of a Found Footage Mockumentary. In retrospect, I'm no longer quite sure how I found out about a movie like <i>Incident at Loch Ness</i>. I suppose I could have been looking up something to do with the legend of the famous Scottish lake when it happened, and I stumbled upon it that way. Or else I might have been trying to study up on Herzog himself. I'm a movie fan with an occasional taste for the more obscure and avant-garde types of cinema. I'm also the kind of guy who gets a surprising amount of enjoyment from studying urban legends, and the types of ancient folklore that has managed to survive even up to the present day, and Nessie is one of them. All I know for certain is that it was at a meeting point of one of these subjects that allowed me to stumble upon a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=756qS4keqig">trailer </a>for the last kind of film project I could have expected.</p><a name='more'></a><b>The Story</b>. <br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-AR-8H5gJSqVjbw7XpWNr_Ej_t7FTEisbU5l9K8bzwFnNfG29x5eqyyXxzuB5XPr2DJJo68GHWwKRHwBxNfrSE8nzSB8oEXfEPbC37b59zyuc13ENxb1iCtmnE0sYRa7bIcXF26ovJ36IYRn600UhviF3GcH7qrge8V3ltYWo6lD1KaYVmMGEGFVtg/s274/loch_ness.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="184" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-AR-8H5gJSqVjbw7XpWNr_Ej_t7FTEisbU5l9K8bzwFnNfG29x5eqyyXxzuB5XPr2DJJo68GHWwKRHwBxNfrSE8nzSB8oEXfEPbC37b59zyuc13ENxb1iCtmnE0sYRa7bIcXF26ovJ36IYRn600UhviF3GcH7qrge8V3ltYWo6lD1KaYVmMGEGFVtg/s1600/loch_ness.webp" width="184" /></a></div>When I first saw the link for the <i>Loch Ness</i> trailer, I'm not sure I could either believe, or quite trust what I was seeing. The further I looked into things, the more this initial reaction proved vital to the story that unfolded. To begin at the beginning, however. My first taste of this movie came from its trailer. There was Herzog, himself, the director who helped place 1970s Germain cinema on the map. Now, all of a sudden, here he was, acting as part of a group of explorers. He was described as the director and leader of a team of filmmakers who had set out to make a documentary about Loch Ness, and its famous legend. However strange it might have been, I guess the trailer must have done its job, as I decided almost then and there to track down a copy, and find out the whole story for myself. The story I found would almost sound unbelievable if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. At the heart of the story is Herzog himself. As the film opens, we see him getting ready to gear up for the making of a new documentary. At first sight, the title might sound almost like a joke, <i>The Enigma of Loch Ness</i>.<p></p><p>It calls to mind all those cheesy, phoned-in <i>Discovery</i> specials that now dot the landscape of late night TV. The ones where its pretty clear everyone is telling a story, rather than relating anything like actual, real life information. Herzog insists, however, that his goal for this feature is going to be different. The director admits right up front that he has no real interest in the titular lake monster as something that could really exist. "This whole thing about Loch Ness", he tells the camera, "is more or less a figment of our fantasy". Instead, he's more fascinated by it as a piece of folklore that humans have first dreamed of, and then have managed to keep alive through the span of literal centuries. Even if Nessie is a myth, that still leaves the question of its staying power. The inherent ability of even the simplest of stories (which in this case involves little more than a series of anecdotes strung together to create less of a cohesive narrative, and more like this grand tapestry of old world legend) seems to be Herzog's real interest in all of of this. And it appears that he views the legend of Loch Ness as the perfect vehicle to help him investigate, uncover, and explore the potential, and power of stories and storytelling. For Herzog, all good stories contain, or represent what he calls "An Ecstatic Truth", and it is this, more than any one, local legend, which appears to be the main focus of his new, upcoming documentary.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAy5DEqCzTEXG3GLpH5bbL1Pl7hqN66BXvwmmcaj0MjmFYp0hVtpvIdP9UBw6hnCHUi04uN-ghfNd-Yyca-tIzu5fQ3pdsrODYQN5ROiyS4ky6fj73INVbJwsWJUzMrCMLJM7DP-G6XEjdFmaNJ9KRRubfYi0fqigr5poUOtbUJcUVo-2GzLol0X7BKQ/s675/29mag-talk-03-master675.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="675" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAy5DEqCzTEXG3GLpH5bbL1Pl7hqN66BXvwmmcaj0MjmFYp0hVtpvIdP9UBw6hnCHUi04uN-ghfNd-Yyca-tIzu5fQ3pdsrODYQN5ROiyS4ky6fj73INVbJwsWJUzMrCMLJM7DP-G6XEjdFmaNJ9KRRubfYi0fqigr5poUOtbUJcUVo-2GzLol0X7BKQ/w640-h426/29mag-talk-03-master675.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />As the film opens, Herzog is packing up for a trip to Scotland, in order to commence filming. These opening moments do give us a bit of interesting tidbits of both Herzog's personal and professional life. We're treated to a warm, and inviting look into the director's Wonderland residence, in Hollywood, California. The wall is littered with mementos of past glories, such as props and photos from films such as <i>Aguirre, the Wrath of God</i> (1972), and <i>Fitzcarraldo</i> (1982), both of which starred the now infamous Klaus Kinski (whom Herzog telling refers to as <i>My Best Fiend</i>). Plus, the viewer is treated to a brief, yet clearly loving tribute to his mentor, Lotte Eisner. The picture that the director projects to the viewer in these opening moments is that of a sophisticated, yet consummate professional. Someone who isn't just a fan, but is very passionate about cinema. However, what makes Herzog come off a likable in these moments is that his dedication also gives him a sense of humility about his enthusiasms. There's the sense that Herzog still views himself as a pupil willing to learn all that the medium can teach him. A good example of this is when he greets the arrival of Gabriel "Gabby" Beristain (himself), who will be his cinematographer for the Loch Ness shoot. Beristain tells how the director has been one of his biggest influence, and Herzog sheepishly replies, "Oh come on, now, let's talk real movies".<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit-h4qFDonBsT3l1fNKeIpTJM5zY_j58G8P5oR1abyyYP2Pf16F0roWaCUEpVcFYyYU63xC6R7tgnrTkstED4Ae_tUglNjY5jt1lTWINHI1by3etPn57QHmk9dEjPn8K0A_uoTcniflvmTXlesF07uaXYJIizkjWYgjWZc9fHGCMEQhcGQkt98K6b94w/s1000/fitzcarraldo-by-werner-herzog.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit-h4qFDonBsT3l1fNKeIpTJM5zY_j58G8P5oR1abyyYP2Pf16F0roWaCUEpVcFYyYU63xC6R7tgnrTkstED4Ae_tUglNjY5jt1lTWINHI1by3etPn57QHmk9dEjPn8K0A_uoTcniflvmTXlesF07uaXYJIizkjWYgjWZc9fHGCMEQhcGQkt98K6b94w/s320/fitzcarraldo-by-werner-herzog.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>In addition, we get the arrival of other guests such as stage magician Ricky Jay, Crispin Glover, and Jeff Goldblum. The send off party seems to be going pretty well, with Goldblum and Jay even giving the audience some commentary on the nature of storytelling. The first off note comes with the arrival of Zak Penn, the documentary's producer. It soon develops there's a bit of friction over just what kind of film is being made at Loch Ness. Herzog envisions a straightforward slice-of-life rumination in the same vein as later works such as <i>Grizzly Man</i> (2005), or <i>Cave of Forgotten Dreams</i> (2010). Zak, meanwhile, sees it as one of the aforementioned <i>Discovery Channel</i> rip-offs, at best, or a mindless blockbuster entertainment, at worst. To say that things get off to a rocky start is a bit like saying the Donner Party might have been a tad unprepared for a trek through the wilderness. Everybody seems to be on the same page, except for Penn. That's the kind of friction point that could cause troubles somewhere down the line, and it doesn't take long for Zak to start proving the rule.<p></p><p>First, he tries to hijack the scheduling sessions for each days shoot, bringing in story boards and models that he thinks will help the film out. Werner politely "reminds" Zak that he's making a documentary, not a film. Which means he can't rely on special effects if trying to capture reality as it is on celluloid. It starts out as a minor behind the scenes skirmish, yet it soon escalates from there. Next Zak tries to shoe horn in the type of fake documentary co-host (Michael Karnow) who has since become a dietary staple of faux documentary series on channels like <i>Animal Planet</i>. Needless to say, this throws Herzog off, and tensions begin to escalate between the director and his producer. Penn doesn't help things when he brings aboard a sonar operator (played by real life model, Kitana Baker, complete with Stars and Stripes bikini) to perform as an "actor" in this <i>documentary</i>. Zak appears to have been trying to cater to the sex appeal demographic in this case. It comes close to being the straw that breaks the camel's back, and it seems as if news of the troubled production is leaking beyond the set, as the townsfolk of Loch Ness are beginning to treat them all as a laughing stock, damaging the project's reputation.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEita-yRRjRcv1_GUksd2ni0Zu6uvfNQ2axB9o1W0uc8HwKiUOZHNwXHGCaHqvoDBpVfdF_K29OGYLtJ2EE0IJZbu0fSfJokEpZghd2kezUTt_TUM9FhgpGZdXvn6eQKrfE3PuiTACrIEEGqnmoYl5trwrtJ8j6OGSIHEdgXMKOy3t6gi-gNoKHb0udyIA/s550/EB20041021REVIEWS41004007AR.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="550" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEita-yRRjRcv1_GUksd2ni0Zu6uvfNQ2axB9o1W0uc8HwKiUOZHNwXHGCaHqvoDBpVfdF_K29OGYLtJ2EE0IJZbu0fSfJokEpZghd2kezUTt_TUM9FhgpGZdXvn6eQKrfE3PuiTACrIEEGqnmoYl5trwrtJ8j6OGSIHEdgXMKOy3t6gi-gNoKHb0udyIA/w640-h236/EB20041021REVIEWS41004007AR.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />For quite a while there, it looks as if things are going to arrive at some kind of loggerheads moment. That's when Gabby the cameraman's attention is grabbed by the sight of something swimming by in the waters of the Loch, and then...<p></p><p><b>Conclusion: An Unjustly Overlooked Bit of Neat Showbiz Satire.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlJr4nc_c8AUWnHHKkANMb4jaPfHJvLTfosBtdY-kJcrlnm0teT5WUvAs7Mn5x5MjSL5a4jfTEvBjbpklTsXFoL2BMYAfzG3yKZ82Gp1qjYUSBnHrG45BE_WnOItgim1to_OZHSp-018FEJS-FHH7aGyUz1uk4gOLfCjLL8LDxGsrZ5dGkvZSY0Kixig/s900/1200x675mf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlJr4nc_c8AUWnHHKkANMb4jaPfHJvLTfosBtdY-kJcrlnm0teT5WUvAs7Mn5x5MjSL5a4jfTEvBjbpklTsXFoL2BMYAfzG3yKZ82Gp1qjYUSBnHrG45BE_WnOItgim1to_OZHSp-018FEJS-FHH7aGyUz1uk4gOLfCjLL8LDxGsrZ5dGkvZSY0Kixig/s320/1200x675mf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>My reactions to this film kept following an interesting sort of pattern. I would always start out as potentially intrigued by the setup I was being given, and then as it developed I would be left wondering where all this was going. After which, the payoff would arrive, and everything would start falling into place. This was the basic schematic that the whole film seems predicated upon. It reels you in, and then plays its plot beats out in such a way that it keeps you guessing, trying to figure out not just what's going to happen, but also sometimes even what kind of story it is you're watching. That's not a criticism, by the way. Rather, I tend to see it as a sign of the script's overall intelligence. The film's real director, Zak Penn, has managed to construct a riddle of surprising intricacy for his viewers. He starts out by treating us to a literal sleight of hand, as Ricky Jay performs a complete magic card trick on camera, with nothing but his skills as a stage performer to guide him, and he pulls it off in a single flourish. This is an important sequence in retrospect, as it represents Penn signaling to the audience at least part of the nature of the film we're about to watch, the director is going to attempt a kind of magic trick on his audience, and part of that process involves being able to spot the nature of the deceit.<p></p><p>The key to the whole trick is one that begins to emerge as the film goes on. At first it may look as if all the pieces are taking their time falling into place. However the major conflict of the plot arrives on the scene in pretty quick fashion, and when it does, the rest of the story begins to make all kinds of ironic sense, and the satire at the heart of the narrative begins to come clear. In fact, this might just be the best part of the entire film. The reason for that is because it shows how Penn as a director seems to grasp the often tricky nature of narrative subtlety. It's always possible for a director to show and tell through careful, and indirect implication, though I'm not sure how much of a common skill it is, as it requires a great deal of craftsmanship to pull off in a good way. Besides this, Zak Penn's own reputation in show business pegs him as an unlikely candidate for that kind of a role. The guy worked on the <i>X Men</i> films, and <i>Ready Player One</i>. So it's not like we're going in expecting him to gives anything more sophisticated than that. In that sense, Penn does manage to surprise us with the sure, even, and careful handling of his material. The crux of his success stems from the way he draws the plot's two main leads. Every performer is playing a fictionalized version of themselves, including Werner Herzog.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMq6sc_AuEdg76F-ihEkbQsrrXFCeZD0xmfaFpUsILTVbyEk_ilnv3J9B1bxE48gJ6oR5An3KFxv5pcpcl0-SvAYxxqXZVYnomPIMUAIqX6hEcXKWzIPMr-E9GhjJg1WjaVd2dAOnthHEpgK8Dy8mW3UuH7_ettdrAAzVxGGkMT-9Axhh3WzBNlntFAA/s979/MV5BMTQ2MTIzMzg5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTc5NDI1MDE@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="979" data-original-width="653" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMq6sc_AuEdg76F-ihEkbQsrrXFCeZD0xmfaFpUsILTVbyEk_ilnv3J9B1bxE48gJ6oR5An3KFxv5pcpcl0-SvAYxxqXZVYnomPIMUAIqX6hEcXKWzIPMr-E9GhjJg1WjaVd2dAOnthHEpgK8Dy8mW3UuH7_ettdrAAzVxGGkMT-9Axhh3WzBNlntFAA/s320/MV5BMTQ2MTIzMzg5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTc5NDI1MDE@._V1_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>This is a crucial piece of the film's logic. Rather than going the usual Mockumentary route of crafting a series of fictional characters, Penn's script makes it clear that all of the main cast are people who exist in actual life (whatever that is). The key difference is that each of them has had their real, day-to-day quirks or personal traits taken and amplified up to pretty much satirical levels of caricature. Even here, however, Penn is demonstrates that he's smart to play his cards with slow, deliberate care. The story doesn't emerge out of the starting gate with everything already full tilt, and actors hamming it up on screen. Instead, he makes the wise choice of making the plot begin in what appears to be a reasonable facsimile of how things are like in the world outside of the film. It would have been so easy with a director of Herzog's stature to go all in and play up a sense of larger than life bombast, portraying him as this kind of old school auteur egoist who's still full of himself, even when it's clear he's long past his prime. It's the kind of creative choice a rookie might be willing to go for. Penn, however, decides on a subtler strategy than that. This stands the film in more or less good stead, as it allows the play to have an identity of its own, while it clearly borrowing more than liberally from <i>This is Spinal Tap</i>.<p></p><p>Much like Rob Reiner's 1984 breakout project, <i>Incident</i> is very much the story of clashing egos that comes to a head while trying to create an artistic project. In Reiner's film, it's the golden ticket Rock concert to the big time. In Penn's version, it's a hoped for film that is ultimately at the mercy of two divergent creative visions. The Herzog of <i>Loch Ness</i> sees it as a straightforward documentary about the human ability to create its own folklore, and how this in turn gives life meaning. The imaginary version of Penn, however, keeps nudging the director in the direction of a big budget spectacle that is at 180 degree odds with the type of director that Werner is. And it's the way in which Penn frames this drama that the careful intelligence of his approach to the material begins to make itself known. Rather than being portrayed as a clown, or a buffoon, Herzog always comes off as the most grounded, and level headed of the entire cast. Even when the script calls for him to fire a flare gun at the approaching humpback of an giant, on-coming water lizard, the former New Wave filmmaker is still a class act.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP65Ob19Aq2j39KGgMa4O_vqJJZr7y91tX-SHvSCnGddc01R3JU3BmhGZY0nuuScbc_vYQnf-SVpZDWY3roj_KqPxlHiocypm7uTHIXufxNE0c2AxBrkEtyZ4sYdQA6A2qe3FyQ9i6RtFauiHVCd17REWjDekaU-MVxRPBBfUUi4odZ5F5kBio7DYv-g/s612/gettyimages-51261385-612x612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="408" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP65Ob19Aq2j39KGgMa4O_vqJJZr7y91tX-SHvSCnGddc01R3JU3BmhGZY0nuuScbc_vYQnf-SVpZDWY3roj_KqPxlHiocypm7uTHIXufxNE0c2AxBrkEtyZ4sYdQA6A2qe3FyQ9i6RtFauiHVCd17REWjDekaU-MVxRPBBfUUi4odZ5F5kBio7DYv-g/s320/gettyimages-51261385-612x612.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The real goal of all the film's satire is where things get interesting, as Penn allows himself to be the one with the target on his head. If the film paints Herzog as a consummate professional who is dedicated to the craft of his art, then Pen basically gives himself the role of the garden snake. His fictional version of himself is the one who winds up going around making the most mischief for everyone, and causing a lot of less than necessary trouble while out on location, filming. If Herzog is always presented as someone who is always comfortable and responsible enough in front of the camera, then the moment Penn's caricature first appears on-stage, you can tell something's up with him, and it doesn't look like anything good. He's skittish and skeevy where Werner is open and forthcoming. And he even goes out of his way to ask that the cameras be either turned off while he and Herzog are in production meetings, or else that they go somewhere else so they can't be overheard. All of this suspicious activity keeps sounding an off note that resonates throughout the rest of the film.<p></p><p>What's remarkable is that even in a situation which offers the novice so many easy routes to take, Penn still manages to find a way to keep a sense of mystery about his character's motivations going for a just a bit longer than you might expect. What's even more interesting is that when the motivation for his character's actions does come, it's not handled in the way it usually is in this kind of movie. A normal Found Footage film would have a big reveal about the reasons for the protagonist getting the rest of the main cast caught up in a deadly situation, and it would be treated as this big moment of shock that serves to drive a wedge between the group of filmmakers, splintering their ability to either trust or ally with one another to possibly fight or find their way out of their predicament. Here, Penn takes the typical conceit and flips it by having the reveal be nothing more than a minor throwaway bit of dialogue mentioned in passing. It's all to do with him needing to take a phone call from some unseen "backers" located in L.A. We never here anymore about them, except that Penn makes a promise to them that he will have the results they want of him in the can and ready to go when he gets back. What's neat about this is that we in the audience have been given the blink and miss it info that solves the whole puzzle. <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLZez_Nw8afpRLbHQF8Kacc5pYKxBCriJT44ywzagi2ZNZAny8kt098tYsDUr0eD5F4VXiwvZ6GqaTNxHtuw-eZuUhcrb_5Hmn601okIt8i6UF4whcQNPheBuzralprZ0bXmgj95DK4ReiMWhVC2yNVegD6ARgCtly2JwlKFH9se8LMBjDStVLEuuZmw/s2048/spinaltap.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLZez_Nw8afpRLbHQF8Kacc5pYKxBCriJT44ywzagi2ZNZAny8kt098tYsDUr0eD5F4VXiwvZ6GqaTNxHtuw-eZuUhcrb_5Hmn601okIt8i6UF4whcQNPheBuzralprZ0bXmgj95DK4ReiMWhVC2yNVegD6ARgCtly2JwlKFH9se8LMBjDStVLEuuZmw/w640-h360/spinaltap.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />What Penn has done in just one scene is reveal the subtext of the whole film, and the nature of its satire becomes crystal clear. It paint's Penn's character as really just this mindless Hollywood hack who was so desperate to break into the big leagues, that he pretty much lied to and roped in Herzog in order to make what he hopes will be a big budget monster movie spectacle, using the German director's name as a mere bit of necessary clout, in order to sell tickets. There are bits and pieces of dialogue sprinkled throughout the film that hint at Penn being at the mercy of a bunch of rich Hollywood investors. The implication being that he was dumb and desperate enough to pitch a promise to them that he could get Herzog (one of the most dedicated independent filmmakers on the planet) to lend his talents to a mere blockbuster. This is all the subtext that is driving Penn the character's actions, and as the film goes on, it becomes clear just how far out of his depth and resources he is in terms of being able to achieve his own selfish goals. And its here that the Mockumentary's genetic relationship to film's like <i>Spinal Tap</i> begins to make better sense. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLItcBg-gYUhPiko23q9cZZX5nr4vIv-Vgm6R_meWbL3U2mGg53wAEeqsZyHfnBNjwQuvvUrwqgjsJogPyr8-vzWiwKp8RpE8X_oYpoFyXNvau4rnWwkU_Dw9a-wj6hhUPrmER9Ulqj1jzDSWq4mAQRVoIAV1Df2Ysrn2byGaAspHG8r2Xkt0aeUQNpQ/s600/K2644D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLItcBg-gYUhPiko23q9cZZX5nr4vIv-Vgm6R_meWbL3U2mGg53wAEeqsZyHfnBNjwQuvvUrwqgjsJogPyr8-vzWiwKp8RpE8X_oYpoFyXNvau4rnWwkU_Dw9a-wj6hhUPrmER9Ulqj1jzDSWq4mAQRVoIAV1Df2Ysrn2byGaAspHG8r2Xkt0aeUQNpQ/s320/K2644D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Both films serve as satires of the downside of show business, and the pitfalls of trying to achieve fame. Where each differs from the other comes from their respective vantage points. <i>Spinal Tap</i> is about the downward slope of a mediocre, wannabe Rock band trying to have a make or break moment of fame, and that big break never arriving, with the main cast on a continuous downward slope. <i>Incident at Loch Ness</i>, can be said to at least mirror this conceit, and yet the way it approaches the idea is from a more or less polar opposite perspective. Here, we have a justly famous artist, one with a great deal of skill, experience, and natural talent, having his name slowly dragged through the mud by a producer who could almost by this film's version of David St. Hubbins. It's almost as if the main lead of Reiner's film decided to cut his losses, try to make a career for himself in the film industry, and still can't figure out a way to solve the problem of his own, inherent mediocrity. Herzog, meanwhile, performs admirably in what could be considered the near thankless role of a put upon, main lead-straight man for the antics.<p></p><p>Much like <i>Spinal Tap</i>, the fictionalized version of the real life artist finds himself getting slowly dragged into the quicksand of untalented hubris that breaks out all around him. At one point, his character even tries to confront Penn about all of this, pointing to how he was flat-out lied to about the kind of film he was supposed to be making. Herzog almost goes through with making the right decision of cutting his losses and leaving the production behind, until he realizes that this would play right into his popular reputation as a difficult, slightly unhinged filmmaker, and that Zak now has him over a barrel, with a rap sheet that he has been eager to avoid for some time now. It's one of the most comedic moments in the film, as you can see the gears turning in Herzog's head as he realizes the nature of the mess he's stepped into, thus forcing him to swallow his pride, and go along with the filming. It's another one of those moments that the film handles with subtle intelligence, and it firmly places the audience on Herzog's side as the final act begins, and the story takes a turn for the weird, and folkloric.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gLFg-Oyl-Knd0wScd5Fc3euz2uX26ENws17v48K54efzH9o8ztlqS-WahZR77a1UtQJw9W23_ih3821VcUQQsGhVi5-Oxv657S6aSfLGfr2gFcxY8ViigAOEiat0dO_ANeKN7ZBT4qERlm4devIl26ZxX3oIr8myEJcXMhlRDyZnWjNVfXUzQyog2g/s636/loc2.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="636" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gLFg-Oyl-Knd0wScd5Fc3euz2uX26ENws17v48K54efzH9o8ztlqS-WahZR77a1UtQJw9W23_ih3821VcUQQsGhVi5-Oxv657S6aSfLGfr2gFcxY8ViigAOEiat0dO_ANeKN7ZBT4qERlm4devIl26ZxX3oIr8myEJcXMhlRDyZnWjNVfXUzQyog2g/w640-h352/loc2.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />I suppose the one element of the film that gives me the most pause is the final act. In a way, it's the kind of denouement you'd expect for a Found Footage film, such as this. At the same time, I guess what leaves me scratching my head isn't so much the logic of the final, major plot development, so much as its meaning. The last half of the film kicks off in the expected fashion, when the famous Legend of Loch Ness makes her grand stage entrance at last. The special effects remain pretty good, even with the passage of time taken into account. The camera keeps Nessie framed from the top up, leaving the rest of the creature forever submerged underneath the murky waters of the Loch. This is a creative choice that once more serves the filmmakers in just the right way. Penn and Herzog seem to have learned their lessons from Steven Spielberg's <i>Jaws</i> well. Like in the 1975 classic, the monster is only ever caught in flash glimpses, and no more, allowing the audience's imagination to misbehave, wondering if there's anything lurking in the depths right under their feet. In distinction from her Great White counterpart, Nessie seems both more methodical, patient, and even merciful. It's implied that there are at least two deaths that occur in the film, yet it's left up in the air if they are monster food.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiphrtjcqcJ4D9c9FhVYnG9E3LTdMGFaJEvq1nNPEURPKyZj71dHbQ6FNdYajn6Jjn9x5xzJiueo4RlW2DX1cEinK9fUB1WBx-Dcaa_-GzhS5kbwn1f0tv4y9l6h8rfXM6SA21HvFy2BoB8aTxpf98riP35R0oV973ib2EGANe8o6dhswYC9hMGWKZ8Gw/s1535/MV5BMmVmODY1MzEtYTMwZC00MzNhLWFkNDMtZjAwM2EwODUxZTA5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTAyODkwOQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1535" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiphrtjcqcJ4D9c9FhVYnG9E3LTdMGFaJEvq1nNPEURPKyZj71dHbQ6FNdYajn6Jjn9x5xzJiueo4RlW2DX1cEinK9fUB1WBx-Dcaa_-GzhS5kbwn1f0tv4y9l6h8rfXM6SA21HvFy2BoB8aTxpf98riP35R0oV973ib2EGANe8o6dhswYC9hMGWKZ8Gw/s320/MV5BMmVmODY1MzEtYTMwZC00MzNhLWFkNDMtZjAwM2EwODUxZTA5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTAyODkwOQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>Beyond this, the third act is concerned first with the film crew's initial encounter with the Loch Ness Monster, and then with a mad dash for what everyone hopes is the relative safety of the nearby shoreline, with the ship's radar signaling that the underwater beast is fast closing in. It's true enough to say that this is where Penn's film turns its final poker hand up, revealing not just the face of the monster at the heart of either the film or its title, but also the very nature of the kind of movie we're watching. It's a classic Creature Feature, in other words, something that in olden days might have enjoyed a decent run of late night screenings at a lot of local area drive-ins. The one other thing I'm convinced that Penn is doing here is trying to telegraph to the audience the final message of his story. I'm just having trouble figuring out what that is. Whenever I try to figure out what Penn and Herzog are up to with Nessie and her place in the story, then the best solution I'm able to arrive at is that while they may be reverting back to what might be called the main themes of the Found Footage, Mockumentary genre, the good news is they never half-ass it, and instead are able to inject a bit of class into the proceedings.<p></p><p>I think in order to understand Nessie's place in the film, you have to go back a bi<a href="https://www.scriblerusinkspot.com/2020/10/suspense-ghost-hunt-1949.html">t of the ways to one of my earlier forays into this sub-genre</a>. That's where I pointed out that one of the key aims of this type of story is that of the confrontation of the digital cinematic age with almost a more classical, folkloric past. If you stop and think about it, it's kind of the ultimate reasondetre of the Mockumentary. At its core, what you always get is a group of individuals trying to tackle a subject which is far too great for them. The inciting incident is always some act of hubris, a rebellion of a microcosm against a greater, macrocosmic order, to borrow the words of Stephen King. The overall goal of such stories, therefore, is precisely to help expose all of the flaws of the main cast, by having them confront the very thing they perhaps never believed in. As I've said elsewhere, the crux of such encounters can (in the best examples of this genre) amount to a kind of test of character. The usual fate of the Found Footage protagonist is that of the Tragic End. However, I think what needs to be pointed out here is that's not always the case. Believe it or not, there are some examples where the lead players are able to get off, if not quite Scot free, then at least with their lives as intact as possible, and that's the case with this movie.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwJrTHSCTjLuCtBsoeCxGJXILC1rFCfLva2XYk59r79f3z0SSZpALhUW1nKZhVaY-PDG-0bwF_8n0nQaiOk-ddCs7TXrYuSUTH7GTcZqhTdKdAwHhjQQEh29HupZ9xvyV7iXtYALJ6TRXLPINmpP97Jwn01hWizkz-KqadgjXj6CmNjX_FG34kLfdIw/s1600/Photograph-image-Loch-Ness-monster-surgeon-hoax-1934.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="1600" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwJrTHSCTjLuCtBsoeCxGJXILC1rFCfLva2XYk59r79f3z0SSZpALhUW1nKZhVaY-PDG-0bwF_8n0nQaiOk-ddCs7TXrYuSUTH7GTcZqhTdKdAwHhjQQEh29HupZ9xvyV7iXtYALJ6TRXLPINmpP97Jwn01hWizkz-KqadgjXj6CmNjX_FG34kLfdIw/w640-h436/Photograph-image-Loch-Ness-monster-surgeon-hoax-1934.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The thing to keep in mind is that just because a protagonist has survived a Found Footage movie doesn't mean they haven't been changed by the experience. The one who comes away the most deeply affected by the whole ordeal is Herzog, as he's seen what should be a mere piece of fantasy turn into a striking reality. In that sense, the great director has had a private illusion of control shattered by his direct encounter with Nessie. His whole character arc, in other words (along with that of Penn, whose character sees all his hopes and dreams of personal glory go up in smoke) fulfill all the requirements of the classic Modern Gothic. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Mnd5YlxwdEgBI991FfKnbEA_-X_cbK58XpHtPPWA4OoTyalgIxtkehCxaiHDtc0x99HIgounnETcu4vKgs1UkmLL4saK9_brnYY9zwuHRoq4DxybMLBhZHI8Vf7emoa87CtyGIxMwCzpewu_G_lSj25U6Zy36mry6-ADDT2IzUpHjZrr81EugdGbnQ/s1500/MV5BOWNjNTU3NGItZGFkYy00YTU3LWJhNmUtZWNiMjI2NTI5YjlmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzg0MzE2Njg@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Mnd5YlxwdEgBI991FfKnbEA_-X_cbK58XpHtPPWA4OoTyalgIxtkehCxaiHDtc0x99HIgounnETcu4vKgs1UkmLL4saK9_brnYY9zwuHRoq4DxybMLBhZHI8Vf7emoa87CtyGIxMwCzpewu_G_lSj25U6Zy36mry6-ADDT2IzUpHjZrr81EugdGbnQ/s320/MV5BOWNjNTU3NGItZGFkYy00YTU3LWJhNmUtZWNiMjI2NTI5YjlmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzg0MzE2Njg@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>It's with all of this information in mind, and sorted together, that I think I'm able to figure out what the Loch Ness Monster is doing there now. In the simplest terms, I'm starting to think it makes sense to view <i>Incident at Loch Ness</i> as a good example of a Folk Horror film, with Nessie herself serving as perhaps one of the most natural (if underutilized) figures to be of service to this very particular type of Horror story. She's as much a creature of Folk Horror as that of the more familiar Green Man. All of the monsters and ghosts of this brand of the English Gothic are meant to represent the once common, yet now forbidden and arcane knowledge that us mere mortals used to know a long time ago, but have now allowed ourselves to forget. In doing so, we've become proud, arrogant, and disrespectful of the land, its secret commonwealth of mythic-spectral inhabitants, and most of all, it's creepy powers.<p></p><p>In that sense, a lot of the horror of the Folk Gothic can be said to fall into the Revenge of Nature category. The major difference between this English Horror trope and an American film like <i>Jaws</i> (at least I think, I could be wrong on this) is that nature now has a whole army and arsenal of supernatural helpers at its disposal when it comes to dealing with pesky humans who would try to spoil the Earth. There's been a bit of a rival of this type of story within recent years, and I don't think it's that difficult to see why. With all this in mind, it becomes kind of easy to see why a creature like Nessie would be a perfect fit for a monster in a Folk Horror story. Like the figure of Jack in the Green or maybe even Tom Bombadil , she embodies a power, or belief in an idea or value that can inhabit, dwell within, or in some sense <i>is</i> the very land on which we stand. In her case, she has a double resonance with this artistic notion, as she is able to encompass both the land and the sea in one single, almost perfect setting.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfykQnGGvMX7pdMK5bt5yUMD3aIydvNqP7otcDxi9q1gjwWlfTuo-AmJaXPLBF7YVMBXXRb84-3_mMtw7insZdeujs_vcBv_j_Vb9rlRvHOTr1ptw7T9WQOYIT8negz2Fb8T5lxQPSh2Dlf4xYosh4eSHWYCLLEruM1v061XWrU-beTRi7xq_8M0iP-Q/s3000/il_fullxfull.2909839904_6vew.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2247" data-original-width="3000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfykQnGGvMX7pdMK5bt5yUMD3aIydvNqP7otcDxi9q1gjwWlfTuo-AmJaXPLBF7YVMBXXRb84-3_mMtw7insZdeujs_vcBv_j_Vb9rlRvHOTr1ptw7T9WQOYIT8negz2Fb8T5lxQPSh2Dlf4xYosh4eSHWYCLLEruM1v061XWrU-beTRi7xq_8M0iP-Q/w640-h480/il_fullxfull.2909839904_6vew.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />So the more I turn this film over in my mind, the cleverer it becomes. It really does seem as if Herzog and Penn have managed to cook up a fine, modern folktale couched in the trappings of what might seem like a shallow exercise of Mockumentary footage, yet is really very much something else. This has got to be one of the few times I can say it feels as if I'm watching a Found Footage story that work as a deliberate satire of some kind. And the curious thing is that the filmmakers are playing their cards in a way that works well with the already baked in themes of the sub-genre. The major difference between this and other examples of the idea, like <i>Blair Witch</i>, all seems to rest on what might be termed a matter, or question of <i>emphasis</i>. A film like the <i>Project</i> is concerned with the old fairy tale morality of "Don't Do Into the Woods". It's system of values can be considered as folkloric, pure and simple. Everything about that movie paints an ethical trajectory that is as stark black and white as the cinematography. A lot of that value system appears to carry over into <i>Loch Ness</i> without missing a beat, yet the nature of the <i>moral emphasis</i> has shifted here a bit. I don't just mean that the tone of the Herzog film is less severe than what you can expect to find in <i>Blair Witch</i>. It's something more.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeHC9kYZrEZbWg8VO-iaQHVxL-Fwb2Vm5h7M8n8rHXmmancMNBcYdlXwGxwu-SDqc_gRoUd3C9wVBg6P7HeivF2HYIELObWUWXLc9ZnIjz2EOina3fEpl_X2ls-5ht8tZGordNQbCR9Q6UozmWUOCP6p8hQ4xYVd_3oHfgdhTMH0MQpadYIRUINnaNw/s300/p85347_i_h9_ab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeHC9kYZrEZbWg8VO-iaQHVxL-Fwb2Vm5h7M8n8rHXmmancMNBcYdlXwGxwu-SDqc_gRoUd3C9wVBg6P7HeivF2HYIELObWUWXLc9ZnIjz2EOina3fEpl_X2ls-5ht8tZGordNQbCR9Q6UozmWUOCP6p8hQ4xYVd_3oHfgdhTMH0MQpadYIRUINnaNw/s1600/p85347_i_h9_ab.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>In both films, the horrors at the center of each narrative might be described as "teaching" the main cast "a lesson in humility". For whatever reason, though, Nessie seems to treat her victim's with, if not a gentle hand, than definitely one that is a lot less severe as the famous Burkittsville Legend. I think a lot of that has to do with the type of offenses that the fictional versions of Herzog and Penn commit on screen. If every Found Footage protagonist is a Dionysian agent out of order with the rest of Apollonian society, then the Found Footage terror fulfills the role of a kind of Gothic re-ordering function. It's the macrocosm's way of making sure that the microcosm doesn't drag everything else too over the edge. Looked at from this lens, it seems that Herzog and Penn are guilty of letting their respective egos get in the way of the proper job of art itself. It suggests that their final confrontation with Nessie is one that was almost a guarantee even before they first set foot out in the water. The film seems to hint at this by someone noting that something as simple as renaming a boat can be bad luck.<p></p><p>It's the film's way of signaling the lack of awareness and self-absorption that the film's two leads suffer from, and their encounter with the living folklore of Loch Ness is a way of shaking the both of them out of their cages. In doing so, the film appears to be making a point about the respect for the craft and heart that goes into the creation of stories. It's not an uncommon theme, yet it is rare to find it being tackled within the Found Footage format. A lot of it has to do with the usual criticisms that get lobbed at this type of narrative. And to be fair, there is a case to be made that the worst examples of this kind of film is little more than a cheap cash grab. What's interesting is that this really doesn't seem to be the case for Penn's movie. Instead, what happens is that it's almost as if the director has created a satire of the recovered movie genre, if that makes any sense. I guess the fact that I'm having to look for the right words to describe it says a lot about how uncommon that kind of approach is in a setup like this. It's gotten to the point where all we expect is a paint-by-the-numbers product, not something that amounts to an actual, legitimate, full-length, cinematic critique of this particular type of narrative approach.</p><p>Yet this appears to be what Zak Penn is up to with <i>Incident at Loch Ness</i>. The overall impression it leaves me with is that it's the work of a director who is quite willing to call himself a fan of the sub-genre. However, he's also willing to call out its usual faults. This willingness to poke fun of the Found Footage story is further developed into a scathing barb at the kind of Hollywood mindset that allows the value of Art to be compromised for the sake of whatever selfish goals that the business end of things is willing to pursue at the expense of a good story. Like I say, this is not the kind of experience you expect to get out a film like this. The fact that Zak Penn and Werner Herzog were able to go, or else try and find the extra mile that would elevate their material out of the realm of the knock-off, and onto the level of legitimate satire seems to indicate that this is a story with a greater deal of thought put into it than most of us are going to expect. I think I should leave off, however, by pointing out that if I've made this film sound like a boring thematic slog, then let me apologize, and assure you that's not the case. In fact, this might just be the funniest Found Footage Horror movie out there.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMmYzzFvopEtaO5CYDJ4TFAILE1lKrwQ8_bYnuumsO79EAP--slROWzKyteul3rB9iOyF2H4pNCK8ySW3gnwLH8K1F1guhfME_stbEYUnXPaxX6QruRW7mNtcF8IL8E6tisHQ5QfMrGjk1RqMRXzX7GAVXNQwSETxlLpYF4fRken_V74Krt9cGidFtDw/s735/a5e57d122841db833d9218a75d949d68.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="735" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMmYzzFvopEtaO5CYDJ4TFAILE1lKrwQ8_bYnuumsO79EAP--slROWzKyteul3rB9iOyF2H4pNCK8ySW3gnwLH8K1F1guhfME_stbEYUnXPaxX6QruRW7mNtcF8IL8E6tisHQ5QfMrGjk1RqMRXzX7GAVXNQwSETxlLpYF4fRken_V74Krt9cGidFtDw/w640-h458/a5e57d122841db833d9218a75d949d68.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Penn's directorial style is lively and quick, keeping the viewer's attention from start to finish. What's more, he's able to handle the way the story shifts gears between Farce and Horror with a skill that gives the proceedings all the sense of natural development that's necessary to draw the audience in, and leave them wanting more. The result is a movie that serves as both a great change of pace from the normal Found Footage narrative, as well as being a funny and engrossing piece of entertainment. The only sad thing to report is how it looks as if this movie has fallen way off the radar with the passing of years. That's kind of a shame, really, as it's got a lot to recommend it. In fact, during an age which has forced the audience to grapple with question of what is real and what is fabrication, it could be possible that this film's moment to shine and educate, as well as entertain might just be either around the corner, or else the time is now, and with any luck this review will cause viewers to help it seize it's moment in the spotlight. I think <i>Incident at Loch Ness</i> is well worth hunting down, and given a chance to shine. <br /><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-79307276831870369702023-05-07T02:14:00.001-05:002023-05-08T02:33:19.124-05:00Alan Moore's Cold Reading (2010).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcRihQ1bnVR7zcCib8BXCsLJ2GMqKZAROacNMEYHDkLJzvP_lB_-uT5Ba-JLOz9aMKXKB8NpiA2Hlyu4MjLhGc7V0ITt09xlx57PYKvN2zPbITioIKU2gFpVEfPpW7XflUM8a8trMzWySI9-L9gBEi3m8VXjiCWmXrn32L1IeokL_8DBt9lrH6hVyMHA/s2560/81F9ObbsSjL.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1679" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcRihQ1bnVR7zcCib8BXCsLJ2GMqKZAROacNMEYHDkLJzvP_lB_-uT5Ba-JLOz9aMKXKB8NpiA2Hlyu4MjLhGc7V0ITt09xlx57PYKvN2zPbITioIKU2gFpVEfPpW7XflUM8a8trMzWySI9-L9gBEi3m8VXjiCWmXrn32L1IeokL_8DBt9lrH6hVyMHA/s320/81F9ObbsSjL.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>A while back, I did a review of book by Ramsey Campbell. It was called <i>Ancient Images</i>, and it was one of those books with a winning concept that is hampered by the shortcomings of the novelist. There are few fates worse than a good idea falling into the hands of the wrong artist. That seems to have been what happened to the notion of an imaginary Horror film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and the terrible events that befall the main protagonist as she tries to hunt down a copy. If I've made that idea sound exciting, then I'm both proud to be of service, and also have to apologize in the same breath. There may have been something worth sinking your teeth into with a story concept like that. <p></p><p>The trouble is the power of any artistic idea is at the mercy of the artist's capabilities in realizing it on the page. It's a skill set that is as necessary as it is often overlooked. This is the part of creative writing that's perhaps impossible to teach in any school. What it all comes down to is the writer's ability to <i>realize</i> the story in words (for lack of any better term). It is a matter of being able to set the narrative down on paper, yet it's also a bit more than that. At the start of his 1985 masterpiece <i>It</i>, Stephen King notes what sets one of his characters apart as a good storyteller. He's not just good a telling, but also <i>seeing</i> and making others catch a glimpse of whatever imaginative vision that's floating around inside the artist's mind.</p><p>I think King gets very close to an accurate description of what good writing is in that moment. Another way to say it is that good writing is what happens when an author is able to <i>inhabit the story</i> in such a way as to help <i>bring it to life</i> for the reader. At least that's one alternate way of putting it. However, I think I'm being more accurate when I say that all good stories, the really gripping works of narrative art, are able to contain, or come with their own artistic power and draw more or less intact. The draw and allure of good stories, to me, are best seen as part of what might be called the "natural" ingredients of any imaginative idea, or archetype, that the artist is able to dig up from the depths of the unconscious mind. The real task of the true writer is seeing just how capable they are of matching the power of their imaginative vision when or if they ever decide to record it down for the sake of an audience.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYA69kyYiHr7T0PmlV3cL5gYotPUAFNJ7NEFNsxcBsJp2BNaXvUSQBJKDCj9eKBmMKQovlNwhU-GNII6s-xDkqkeNELVqrfwawzZNT-yngovs3hWlGDp1r79uSvC1RFQeTbRUddc_30IGqYfMqTIjZZZqy3qLwysfwz-bqvt3CmuOBMT4T_7C8bC57A/s1200/758573.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYA69kyYiHr7T0PmlV3cL5gYotPUAFNJ7NEFNsxcBsJp2BNaXvUSQBJKDCj9eKBmMKQovlNwhU-GNII6s-xDkqkeNELVqrfwawzZNT-yngovs3hWlGDp1r79uSvC1RFQeTbRUddc_30IGqYfMqTIjZZZqy3qLwysfwz-bqvt3CmuOBMT4T_7C8bC57A/w640-h336/758573.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />The is probably where any serious talk of artistic talent comes in, and perhaps the truth is that the level of success that each writer has with this skill is what sets the good and the great apart from the merely competent and mediocre. Guys like J.R.R. Tolkien and Mark Twain have this ability in spades, which is why secondary worlds such as Middle Earth are able to seem so real to the tons of people who encounter it for the first time, over the years. Or why a simple river in the Eastern half of the United States, such as the Mississippi, is able to take on this almost talismanic quality for anyone who has ever decided to give a book like <i>Huck Finn</i> a chance. All of that is just a demonstration of Twain and Tolkien's narrative skills. Both are capable of <i>inhabiting their stories</i> with skill. They are each able to <i>get into the zone</i>, or whatever is necessary to not so much bring their respective archetypes to life, so much as allow them all the room they need to breath. I think a lot of that also has to do with how each imaginative setting is able to play to the authors' strengths, and its another component in telling any good tale. The trouble with Ramsey Campbell, at least in the case of a book like <i>Ancient Images</i>, is that he can't or won't seem to take the time to get inside of the story in order to help it fly off the page.<p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtsBNfXbIbfiE7NnErnq_cmgx_qVbq3eZD5L3tfGOSH-xSx123Q1G9lta2wGKUS9lhCkjUj2RpTplZyfPESlSBzT3pMJqoy9WybonrGZmDHh26xrt8dwxyhoqjq3GHofE9YZtaS-jaWjsYsCaFJDAvlrMyukRiqi_42b_OVX-vRwWP174nJXAKpq0tQ/s2163/ancient-images-9781787587625_hr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2163" data-original-width="1399" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtsBNfXbIbfiE7NnErnq_cmgx_qVbq3eZD5L3tfGOSH-xSx123Q1G9lta2wGKUS9lhCkjUj2RpTplZyfPESlSBzT3pMJqoy9WybonrGZmDHh26xrt8dwxyhoqjq3GHofE9YZtaS-jaWjsYsCaFJDAvlrMyukRiqi_42b_OVX-vRwWP174nJXAKpq0tQ/s320/ancient-images-9781787587625_hr.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>This is something that Campbell seems to have difficulty with. His prose style and sense of pacing are well written enough. There's not much in the way of any glaring errors of spelling, phrasing, or diction to be had, and the narrative itself keeps moving at a brisk pace that would be a welcome value in a better book. The trouble is that the novel always reads as if its story is stuck inside a goldfish bowl, or one of those glass formaldehyde cases, with the author either unable or unwilling to do anything to improve it. This is something that a writer like Stephen King is aware of in his critical review study, <i>Danse Macabre</i>. There, he writes: "Campbell is good, if rather unsympathetic, with character (his lack of emotion has the effect of chilling his prose even further, and some readers will be put off by the tone of this novel; they may feel that Campbell has not so much written a novel as grown one in Petrie dish (381-2)". This sort of disconnected, almost hands-off approach has been Campbell's great weakness.<p></p><p></p><p>You sometimes hear or read novelists talking about how the best thing they can do is to get out of the way and let the story tell itself. That's not just a sentiment I agree with, I applaud it. It's just the right frame of humility that any writer worthy of the title should practice. The thing is that letting the story tell itself isn't the same as not giving it a ballpark to play in. One of the key facets of good writing is the ability of the artist to record the inherent drama of the creative idea with as much accuracy as possible. This is where the artist's ability to tap into the emotional content of the story comes into play. It's a necessary and tricksy skill to pull off, and in terms of a book like <i>Ancient Images</i>, it seems to be one that Campbell has had some difficulty with. That was a book I never set out to bad mouth. What happened is the more I went along, the more the glaring errors in the composition stood out to me.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4plCyr2J0rtN4k_ePNq_gmCnU0pKL4q9ZQr2OtKaBT8U-MGoGSZtozNXu6NUnpEwyc5woOSwDbIHBc0PGhIJYsFjHyz7iZodlz7ak-XXe8bCqpbY06Ju5pei32QZnn0jq9yVa9W1wKaD/s1600/alan-moore-watchmen-header.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4plCyr2J0rtN4k_ePNq_gmCnU0pKL4q9ZQr2OtKaBT8U-MGoGSZtozNXu6NUnpEwyc5woOSwDbIHBc0PGhIJYsFjHyz7iZodlz7ak-XXe8bCqpbY06Ju5pei32QZnn0jq9yVa9W1wKaD/w640-h320/alan-moore-watchmen-header.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The result has been one of the most unsatisfactory reading experiences that I've had in recent times. It's also kind of the explanation for this article. What I wanted to do was to see if it was possible to find a story in the same genre as Campbell's, and that could act as a positive counterpart to the mistakes made in the last book I've reviewed on this site. It didn't take long to dig up a likely specimen. It's a short story entitled "Cold Reading". The author also wrote stuff like <i>Watchmen</i> and <i>V for Vendetta</i> if it matters.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><p> <b>The Story</b>. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7fY1Mqot5rKtqzh9emWSKNvlDgd_i7t0woC37pFECxhkkch7RrxmX4PVu00QYE7FKRMDIgwWVVjzooVHxQp-x569_h1g7K-4X6pirm08U5WiNSL6vSKDJsnyDBABax5oeZ4mRUcgPnyBwAlPtuGI8kdRGmIohtlWLcFiU9VjljUAjGt7BplZ0kecdw/s637/7733542A.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="452" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7fY1Mqot5rKtqzh9emWSKNvlDgd_i7t0woC37pFECxhkkch7RrxmX4PVu00QYE7FKRMDIgwWVVjzooVHxQp-x569_h1g7K-4X6pirm08U5WiNSL6vSKDJsnyDBABax5oeZ4mRUcgPnyBwAlPtuGI8kdRGmIohtlWLcFiU9VjljUAjGt7BplZ0kecdw/s320/7733542A.JPG" width="227" /></a></div>At the heart of this story is a character known as Ricky Sullivan. His answering machine bills him as "the angel's answering service (102)". Or least that's the kind of publicity he likes to write for himself. In actual fact, Ricky's what you might call a "professional faker". He's a phony psychic by trade, and he specializes in "giving the crowd what it wants". He's a bit of a parasite, in that sense. Though that's not the way Rick chooses to describe himself. He thinks he's some kind of glorified public servant. to hear him tell it. At least part of how he got his start in the faker business is owed to dear old dad. As he grew up, Rick learned that he sometimes had a pretty good gift for mimicking voices, and one of them was his father telling his mum how much he loved her. That's was apparently how it all got started.<p></p><p>"Knowing Dad, it was a safe bet that he’d never told her that in life,
and when I saw the comfort that I’d brought that woman, my own mum,
that’s when I knew I had a gift. That’s when I knew what Ricky Sullivan
had been put on this earth for. Oh, there’ll always be the unbelievers
and debunkers in the papers, on the telly or what have you and it does,
it makes me angry when they say people like me are cold, unfeeling, just
taking advantage and all that. I’m sorry, but if they could see the
happiness in people’s faces, if they really thought about the service me
and others like me are providing, giving people strength to get on with
their lives when they’ve just lost a loved one, well, they couldn’t say
the things they say. I’m sorry, they just couldn’t. I don’t have to
justify myself.</p><p>"I mean, do I believe all of the things that I tell people? In my heart, I
can’t say that I do. But then, what about priests? You can’t tell me
that all of them believe every last word of what they preach, but do
they get called ‘ghouls in cardigans’ or ‘Vincent Price, but camp’? No.
No, they don’t. That’s because people recognize all of the reassurance
and the comfort that religion brings to people, and it doesn’t really
matter if it’s true or not. Or doctors, it’s like doctors when they say
that a placebo, that’s like, what, a sugar pill? That a placebo can work
wonders without any side effects, but that they can’t prescribe them
’cause of all the medical red tape and ethics, health and safety, all
that business. That’s me. I’m a spiritual sugar pill, but I do people
good. I’m sorry, but I touch their lives</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Vsxh5oJzuSgkfSXQDH4yvROy_rlp-UijNW0ArO9OmpebAHtOwFhHFT0x37PDKEYGWCZ6LfpQ_6ehGRr0kgDJnFOzN0PKxRvE5IW6gCAkLGcnmdsU48cNbfq3Uo8dvPJob1vQ-ERlhumlL5C-QoRJhLzZfaURyIUgCA_DGEfEHMx_JytJcmU01EQ25Q/s3507/img_0370.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2741" data-original-width="3507" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Vsxh5oJzuSgkfSXQDH4yvROy_rlp-UijNW0ArO9OmpebAHtOwFhHFT0x37PDKEYGWCZ6LfpQ_6ehGRr0kgDJnFOzN0PKxRvE5IW6gCAkLGcnmdsU48cNbfq3Uo8dvPJob1vQ-ERlhumlL5C-QoRJhLzZfaURyIUgCA_DGEfEHMx_JytJcmU01EQ25Q/w640-h500/img_0370.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />"And yes, I suppose you could say that I’ve done very well out of it, got
the mortgage on this house paid off last year, but that’s not what I do
it for. It’s not the money. How can I explain? It’s more the gratitude,
the look on some poor widow’s face and knowing that you’ve helped them.
That, to me, what can I say? That look’s worth more than gold. That’s
my reward, right there (100-101)". Still, he does perhaps make a tacit confession when recalling what it is he likes best about the "job". "(When) I was little, what I liked best were the rainy, windy nights when I
could lay tucked up in bed and think about all of the people out there
in the cold, so that I could feel even snugger by comparison. I’m lucky
in that that’s what my whole life’s like these days, very snug. Snug by
comparison, you might say (101)".<p></p><p>So basically we're talking your friendly, local neighborhood con artist, doing his scams, makings his deals, and otherwise tucking himself away in a quiet corner where no one can hassle him for anything except the chance of letting him rob them blind. Then one day, Ricky gets a phone call from a Mr. David Berridge about possibly holding a seance at what used to be his brother's house. And from there, things slowly get interesting.</p><p><b>Conclusion: A Neat Little Exercise in the Horror Short Story</b>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyTEadOGLKSUyuyIH-QxPPjYKiVEAscRbo1HXXv__lwXeyY1QUlVDM3ZOkuJIvMlkoQolNywI0bKFLhW-Hc008ELiBIpT6YG-ySIdCmPoI6s-RFk_OoC-2rjKaVcPEVa_tZMDmikUgtBAIoKMNwTnXft1sfxHCOcXJweyCvShiE59szZ2yHxGZd2xkEA/s389/Illuminations_(short_story_collection).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyTEadOGLKSUyuyIH-QxPPjYKiVEAscRbo1HXXv__lwXeyY1QUlVDM3ZOkuJIvMlkoQolNywI0bKFLhW-Hc008ELiBIpT6YG-ySIdCmPoI6s-RFk_OoC-2rjKaVcPEVa_tZMDmikUgtBAIoKMNwTnXft1sfxHCOcXJweyCvShiE59szZ2yHxGZd2xkEA/s320/Illuminations_(short_story_collection).jpg" width="211" /></a></div>I don't think Alan Moore needs much in the way of an introduction, even at this late date. To claim that he's one of the Big Names in the world of comic books is to say little more than a truism as of this writing. It's almost like talking in cliches. I suppose the only real difficulty in discussing a writer like him is knowing where to start. That's sort of the problem when it comes to discussing the real titans. The trouble is they give you so much to work with that you're kind of swamped right out of the starting gate. In a way, that's kind of the other explanation for this being the first Moore related post to appear here. Tackling any of his minor works is probably the easiest way for me to begin, at any rate. All of his major texts are going to be the kind of material I will really have to comb through in fine detail if I'm ever going to do something like <i>From Hell</i> justice. I think I'd have to do the same for writers like Tolkien, Philip k. Dick, or Shakespeare. With that in mind, a story like "Cold Reading" offers the beginner the perfect and easy starting place from which to get something like a workable bearing.<p></p><p>The first thing worth paying attention to about this short story is that the writer is able to start things off on a pretty good note. For instance, here's just the second paragraph of Moore's composition. "I can remember, I was only six or seven when I saw my first and only
ghost. I was with Mum and Dad in the lounge of a seaside pub at night,
standing there glued to the glass doors and gawping out into the dark,
not thinking of anything in particular. Just then I saw this man walking
across the car park of the pub away from me. He wasn’t any colour. He
was all washed out and grey, and then I realized there were parts of him
that I could see through. I could see the scrubby strips of grass, the
bollards and the drooping lengths of chain that closed the car park in,
through the black folds and shadows of his jacket. I thought, ‘It’s a
ghost! I’m really seeing one!’ And then, and this was the most
frightening bit, it turned its head and looked straight at me. It had
got two blurry faces, one of them just slightly offset from the other,
and it smiled in at me through the glass from out there in the night,
and then it spoke my name. It’s like, I saw its lips move but I heard
its voice as if it was right next to me, rather than outside in the car
park. It said ‘Ricky? Would you like a Fanta (99-100)".</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08YEoD-tuzZwz78U--9QUDmuiRFcxfMxqBQsu6uqNqs199hhuzB3LR06v17clNG84IBejDMsYZTM47RN8CVBrsMj6LgXpQeA3zdzEH2TAQdr2dJCsTk-DvBFsj7h_0_vy_8_1ogx1r-JKl-Ts_exrLB446A9XA7y5X0LdXTDNjvYY7yDjeF234ftRrw/s620/ghost-466x620.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="466" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08YEoD-tuzZwz78U--9QUDmuiRFcxfMxqBQsu6uqNqs199hhuzB3LR06v17clNG84IBejDMsYZTM47RN8CVBrsMj6LgXpQeA3zdzEH2TAQdr2dJCsTk-DvBFsj7h_0_vy_8_1ogx1r-JKl-Ts_exrLB446A9XA7y5X0LdXTDNjvYY7yDjeF234ftRrw/s320/ghost-466x620.webp" width="241" /></a></div>Right away, there's this cozy sense of familiar territory, and the best part about it is that it is being delivered by one of the best practitioners in the business. The real surprise comes from learning that an expert in the field of the graphic novel is also capable of writing a pretty decent prose line. This is somewhat all the more remarkable when you consider just how little the author has published in terms of straightforward literary fiction, without the assistance of the comics panel to help convey his meaning, or carry across whatever artistic effect he has in mind. A brief look as his bibliography reveals that Moore has published no more than four legitimate works of prose fiction in his lifetime, including the nine short stories that make up the collection known as <i>Illuminations</i>, which is his most recent non-comic book to date, and in which "Cold Readings" can be found. In that sense, perhaps Moore is best thought of as someone who has always been a dabbler in the medium of the un-illistrated novel, at least up till now, it seems. This makes the self-assurance on display, even in what could be considered a minor work such as this, all the more remarkable.<p></p><p>Right from the opening paragraph, Moore's craftsmanship gives one the impression that we're dealing with the material of a seasoned veteran, someone whose been doing this far longer than the relative originality of the work might suggest. The paragraph quoted above, for instance, displays a lively sense of timing, combined with the suggestion of a folksy immediacy that serves to draw the reader into the narrative right from the start. It's the kind of strong beginning you want to have when telling a Gothic story. Moore's familiarity with this type of story is not too surprising, given that we're dealing with the same guy who wrote <i>From Hell</i>. His ambitions with this piece are a lot less ambitious, yet there is a certain amount of gratitude in knowing that he still saw fit to bring the same level of professionalism to what amounts to little more than a pleasant fireside tale. This top shelf craftsmanship is something that Moore is able to keep going from the story's start all the way to the finish line. It's something that would have been so easy to phone in, and yet it's clear the author is dedicated to giving us his best.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2GOXIb4VWiLql8gutgJddwLIXLDZq0Zgrhj71wrUYkIXcQgMp8m5fRI3nVB6klSGeGMBbw6XP_QUgvhtsIKHBPJ-GFGgUy4ERvwbmWSW3McWdj7SCUgvwQ9wwohxTp9I25PidEsLklGT-P0NIxfLNAN7UlZVW7dzvq2CRjLDqDq12lQOOgC73FNYtw/s600/creepy_mansion_1050x700-600x400.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2GOXIb4VWiLql8gutgJddwLIXLDZq0Zgrhj71wrUYkIXcQgMp8m5fRI3nVB6klSGeGMBbw6XP_QUgvhtsIKHBPJ-GFGgUy4ERvwbmWSW3McWdj7SCUgvwQ9wwohxTp9I25PidEsLklGT-P0NIxfLNAN7UlZVW7dzvq2CRjLDqDq12lQOOgC73FNYtw/w640-h426/creepy_mansion_1050x700-600x400.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The story he has to tell is nothing spectacular. We're not dealing with the vast mental landscapes of something like <i>Promethea</i> or <i>Jerusalem</i> here. Instead, it's just a nice, fine, Gothic tale in the style of M.R. James. All we're dealing with is the tale of a local, neighborhood charlatan who takes up an invitation for a "seance", and winds up discovering, in the words of Stephen King, that "the column of reality has a hole in it (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nightmares-Dreamscapes-Stephen-King/dp/1501192035/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=nightmares+and+dreamscapes+stephen+king&qid=1682529910&s=books&sprefix=nightmares+and+drea%2Cstripbooks%2C139&sr=1-1">948</a>)". The interesting thing to note is that even in the space of such a small offering, Moore finds both the time and a way to work in a lot of his usual concerns. At the heart of this story, like in a lot of his work, lies the author's trademark outraged idealism. Throughout his entire career, Moore seems to have been nothing if not a moralist, of some sort. There's also always been this constant Romantic streak to his creations that I think often tends to get lost in the fawning admiration that readers and critics have had for the more easily graspable, outlandish pyrotechnics that the graphic novelist has kept using in his bag of tricks. What all of it masks, though, is an ongoing desire for people to find at least some clearer, saner vision of reality, one with a lot more room for hoary old concepts like creativity, empathy, and compassion. As such, Moore, often seems to reserve his wrath in his works for any of those characters who represent of a restrictive narrowing of this same vision.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi17WbC6hiLbgaprv43WMmWgk9MFXjsKU_13NqBuXCwow0b9U1SLazbCDApOsooLCoZ7L6-LGQxsjs-c_Q9DtTR93JSYSz1KPZjyk7_uRW1EIoK_g8QQegaE8mU4Io6Vwm5MqherixJIqNH_xh-LM_9j2FZQZPZxUkHB4OEX4YcagG9YfOJ1uo6XjtmeA/s1325/image-asset.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi17WbC6hiLbgaprv43WMmWgk9MFXjsKU_13NqBuXCwow0b9U1SLazbCDApOsooLCoZ7L6-LGQxsjs-c_Q9DtTR93JSYSz1KPZjyk7_uRW1EIoK_g8QQegaE8mU4Io6Vwm5MqherixJIqNH_xh-LM_9j2FZQZPZxUkHB4OEX4YcagG9YfOJ1uo6XjtmeA/s320/image-asset.jpeg" width="242" /></a></div>It's a role that guys like Ricky Sullivan wind up playing all too easily. He's very much a user of others, at his core. Another good way to describe him is to claim that he is a disenchanted person looking to take advantage of others looking for any possible sign of enchantment in the universe. The interesting thing about this character is that he believes his welching off the grief of others is just rendering a kind of service, while at the same time never grasping why its possible for so many people to believe in ghosts. There's a fundamental blind spot in Sullivan's outlook, and Moore implies that a lot of it was beat out of him as child by his father. This happened so much to the point that when it comes to the possibility that he might have had his own fleeting glimpse of a spectral other world, he now automatically dismisses it as an adult. What Moore seems to be hinting at with just a few simple brush strokes is that our ability to see what is truly happening around us is often conditioned by, and ultimately at the mercy of, how we are treated by those around us. This in itself is a very Romantic notion inasmuch as it is concerned with the opening and shutting of the doors of perception.<p></p><p>It's a topic Moore keeps picking at in his work, like a scab that won't heal. His own ways of explaining this can often come off as trippy, and yet it's clear enough he's working from at least some kind of vision about the world which helps generate his work. The closest I've ever seen the author come to explaining this outlook comes from an interview he gave for a magazine called <i>Big Issue North</i>. There, he described what calls "this stupendous block universe”. It’s a theory that recurs in various
forms throughout his work, from Dr Manhattan in <i>Watchmen</i>, temporally
dislocated and able to see past, present and future at the same time, to
the dizzying tapestry of <i>Jerusalem</i>, which collapses centuries of
Northampton family history into a cosmic singularity.
</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eaa7UdISmJwXiSnfoSKdKu--6-NhE9pLUiZYpUz4EFNMwS4Gp3ldYhvwSqs5XF5PM28cqIdTlmzQAbecilLt-fsurNcCwloQWS9Nyo9UL2ipRRECjfEPqicxctdbFq2iUFhD2ew1KAaJVfwTbu-WXBI3ef-cHDLqz3i1U92TugX4W-rsu2Ob8EKkRA/s976/_104732613_p04f43xn.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eaa7UdISmJwXiSnfoSKdKu--6-NhE9pLUiZYpUz4EFNMwS4Gp3ldYhvwSqs5XF5PM28cqIdTlmzQAbecilLt-fsurNcCwloQWS9Nyo9UL2ipRRECjfEPqicxctdbFq2iUFhD2ew1KAaJVfwTbu-WXBI3ef-cHDLqz3i1U92TugX4W-rsu2Ob8EKkRA/w640-h360/_104732613_p04f43xn.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />“I believe that if we consider our lifetime as a physical structure
in space-time, it would have our birth at one end of it and our cremated
ashes at the other end of it,” he says, effortlessly segueing from
Yarmouth’s tacky waxworks to quantum philosophy. “It would be like that
forever, including that bit in the middle where we are living and
conscious and having our lives – that would be there forever as well.<p></p>
<p>“The universe is a solid through which only our consciousness is
moving, almost like a projector on a strip of film. Each of those frames
is frozen and static forever, and nothing will change that. But when we
run the light of a projector across them, or in this analogy the light
of our consciousness, then you get the illusion of – well, it’s not even
an illusion – you get movement, you get morality and motivation and
good and evil (<a href="https://www.bigissuenorth.com/features/2022/10/moore-the-merrier/">web</a>)". </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg_CZ2Tt_YAeuemxAdGMxgY1LaNSKuJfwWvUFudcaZmdN2mlS-UlQCQaP9kWr7YijhaQGNrBV-UpzL_IbFQ_wh65mBtnQs6y8Uf3E_ST4kfEElGAiMd3Apq6b8a1l_e71kGISiItPrU2kF4Kj4f8KDFIbJuEh3NfdVudYvknjJd-lQNm2AcW9enjjbUA/s540/33009910._SY540_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="345" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg_CZ2Tt_YAeuemxAdGMxgY1LaNSKuJfwWvUFudcaZmdN2mlS-UlQCQaP9kWr7YijhaQGNrBV-UpzL_IbFQ_wh65mBtnQs6y8Uf3E_ST4kfEElGAiMd3Apq6b8a1l_e71kGISiItPrU2kF4Kj4f8KDFIbJuEh3NfdVudYvknjJd-lQNm2AcW9enjjbUA/s320/33009910._SY540_.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>It's this <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5nU8CgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=tobias+churton+blake&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikgZO-oM3-AhWcl2oFHXA1BWEQ6AF6BAgDEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false">quasi-Blake style</a> outlook which exists in back of stories like "Cold Reading". It's main character refuses to see the hole in reality, and so one day he winds up paying for it. In this sense, the author can be said to be working with a familiar trope. It's the old idea of the arrogant everyman humbled. The concept itself has had a remarkably resilient shelf life, from the urban legend of The Girl Who Stood on the Grave, all the way up the ladder to Nathaniel Hawthorne's <i>Young Goodman Brown</i>, and <i>My Kinsmen, Major Molyneux</i>, along with later offerings such as Stephen King's <i>The Night Flier</i>. What each of these tales have in common is the idea of an arrogant young type or trope that thinks they know all there is to understand about reality. In all stories of this kind, what tends to wind up happening is that sooner or later the main character finds himself having to confront a situation or set of circumstances that acts as a direct challenge to not just their own notions of what the world is like, but also on a more fundamental level. The leads of such stories often wind up having the self-assurance of who they are taken and scattered to fragments. Often, they pay with both their wits and even their own lives. It's a trope that a writer like H.P. Lovecraft was able to take and create an entire career out of.<p></p><p>Moore himself remains a lifelong fan of the scribbler from Providence, yet his own outlook is a bit rosier than anything the creator of the Necronomicon could conceive of. That doesn't mean that Moore is capable of taking a very skewed and trippy outlook on the world around, nor that he is incapable of writing in the classic Gothic mode. Anyone whose read <i>Watchmen</i> could point to <i>Tales From the Black Freighter</i>, or the graphic novel in its entirety as something to read if you needed to figure that one out. Here, however, Moore has found a way to speak in a quieter, though far from subdued voice. On the contrary, his command of the proper atmosphere of the English Ghost story is consummate, and professional, while at the same adding the extra qualities of being gripping and personable. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTrWVKH1V4QF49erTOpT9PJV9N-RBp7ZpTPtxVeMRsKa0Yd-JOvfkogKMmJ26SQBbu6pPL4u-z4JfUbxWcpNlPGbZs3EAgVHfz06jghh66cW4J9swfhOeTBbmI9arRw5r2KTVAMRI7E_k_etU5_DtzJ83q399FbxnASbFZfoSZr04GskKATBOUFPCeQ/s300/gaslight-in-alleyway-225x300.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="225" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTrWVKH1V4QF49erTOpT9PJV9N-RBp7ZpTPtxVeMRsKa0Yd-JOvfkogKMmJ26SQBbu6pPL4u-z4JfUbxWcpNlPGbZs3EAgVHfz06jghh66cW4J9swfhOeTBbmI9arRw5r2KTVAMRI7E_k_etU5_DtzJ83q399FbxnASbFZfoSZr04GskKATBOUFPCeQ/s1600/gaslight-in-alleyway-225x300.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>It's those last two traits that separate Moore's efforts from either the mediocre or the merely competent, and elevate it into the realm of being a fine bogey tale. Compare it to the cold, dispassionate prose line of Ramsey Campbell's <i>Ancient Images</i>, and its like comparing night and day. Moore is lively, where Campbell is distant, lively while the other is flat, and Moore is able to top it all off with a winning sense of almost folksy, good-natured charm. A lot of this comes from the level of life he's able to find in the main protagonist. The whole story is told from Ricky's point of view, and I think it points to Moore's unrecognized strengths as a writer of character. While it's clear the story is told from the villain's viewpoint, the writing does such a good job of making Ricky Sullivan so approachable that even if you can see the cruel, O'Henry style twist coming a mile away, you're almost sad to have to see him go.<p></p><p>The ending is something might see coming from a mile away. What it puts me in mind of more than anything, is the aforementioned Stephen King short, <i>The Night Flier</i>. Both works share a trope in common, that of a skeptic and disbeliever encountering the supernatural, and being changed by the encounter. In some ways, at least, King's protagonist fares a hell of a lot better than Moore's. The first guys was lucky enough to be left alive by the time the final paragraph rolled around. The latter example leaves us just as Sully finds out the situation he's in has always been different from what he assumed at the start, and then we read the following. "Up above me on the landing there's a creek. Somebody's coming down the stairs. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry (115)". Moore, however, is able to add one final interesting twist to the proceedings by having his main character having a last minute realization when the main lead figures out that his "client" for the evening has asked him a question that dates back all the way to his childhood. "Ricky? Would you like a Fanta (ibid)"? It's the kind of detail that so subtle as to slip past the radar. For those who pay attention, however, it sounds almost as if Moore meant the ending to be an example of a guilty past catching up with the protagonist.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfVjYIwQDCsWXrEg-psbNS7D942RGmQ4KTtB8QZRy0cxmYBQsqXmRRRbKZv1O8cDnUlrZWdR4a8CQ2a0EyAqm8z0F0V7atVj5k8ly5wFX7lbbsOyhAu07TTJDVt7BVbMtGBIsU02qNhvwleuq-lOwkAiJPxyB2JO7LMUvXUm_bFJo0O7B8Ey_-A0PmA/s460/A-ghostly-19th-century-il-012.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="460" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfVjYIwQDCsWXrEg-psbNS7D942RGmQ4KTtB8QZRy0cxmYBQsqXmRRRbKZv1O8cDnUlrZWdR4a8CQ2a0EyAqm8z0F0V7atVj5k8ly5wFX7lbbsOyhAu07TTJDVt7BVbMtGBIsU02qNhvwleuq-lOwkAiJPxyB2JO7LMUvXUm_bFJo0O7B8Ey_-A0PmA/w640-h384/A-ghostly-19th-century-il-012.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />In all of this, as I've said, Moore handles his material with a level of professionalism that puts one in mind of the classic English chillers of M.R. James. To go back to where it all started, this simple short story is everything that I think Ramsey Campbell wanted <i>Ancient Images</i> to be, and yet could just never manage. I'm still trying to puzzle out what mindset allowed him to drop the ball on that one. To be fair, there's minor bit of novelty involved in all of that for me. It's not the first time I've seen a case where the artist has a potentially good story idea on their hands, coupled with a lack of ability to realize the fullness of that potential. However, Campbell's novel might be the first time I've ever seen it "accomplished" in a complete, novel-length format. I guess it's just that it's an experience that has been so fundamentally alien to me as a life-long reader that when it finally happens, I'm still left having to scratch my head in awe and puzzlement about it. It is the perfect mixture of literary professionalism combined with a mind-boggling inability to bring at least that one other story to life. I don't think I should go too hard on Campbell in all this. Odds are still even enough that he's had other successes in his later works that deserve to be rediscovered. In the meantime, though, here's where it all stands.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSUaI1O6ULlp6Xmg9B-6gSq3U0LBtCVWF9KWm6Ec48aNOhLq-eLEUrn0cNYaECIVrjDT4IZFt_ZyOXid6_p9Gh_0JeUBkqd9Gtaxk91FDimzOaoOlbHFyVTvBylEpvsJY_HxDBq0IOi6G1o-aBxrxS1RZzrwCX2RrPQ3KBj7nX22mHdN9g0PLBBfda3Q/s878/Screen+Shot+2022-09-19+at+8.49.12+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="878" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSUaI1O6ULlp6Xmg9B-6gSq3U0LBtCVWF9KWm6Ec48aNOhLq-eLEUrn0cNYaECIVrjDT4IZFt_ZyOXid6_p9Gh_0JeUBkqd9Gtaxk91FDimzOaoOlbHFyVTvBylEpvsJY_HxDBq0IOi6G1o-aBxrxS1RZzrwCX2RrPQ3KBj7nX22mHdN9g0PLBBfda3Q/w640-h418/Screen+Shot+2022-09-19+at+8.49.12+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />If you want a good, quick introduction on how to compose a fine, short, and enjoyable English ghost story, then right now I'd say Alan Moore's "Cold Reading" is a good primer text to start off with. Am I saying that Moore is the best practitioner of this type of story. I think that's a bit of a rush to judgment, there, if I'm being honest. I'm willing to agree that Moore is perhaps one of a handful of writers in this genre that contemporary readers are most familiar with, the others being limited mostly to Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. That's about as far as most of he audience can get in terms of a overall awareness of the ghostly tale in this age. What this lack of knowledge can't do, however, is erase the artistic past that Moore has clearly drawn on in the composition of his short story. In constructing the narrative at the heart of "Cold Reading", Moore can be seen reaching back to examples set by the older grand masters of the shilling shockers, such as Arthur Machen and M.R. James. Both of them were authors who excelled at pioneering the look and feel of the modern Horror story, and Moore has been happy enough to acknowledge his debt to these ancient scribblers. In that sense, "Cold Reading" has all the marka of being a thank you letter from a fan to his teachers. There's a shared sense of enthusiasm at the heart of this story that will prove infectious for anyone who is willing to give it a chance.<br /><p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-22977770547399851562023-04-23T00:12:00.000-05:002023-04-23T00:12:09.179-05:00The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023).<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhITR8U3fBrhFTY7UDwinP2-HLKq0ku-vaAhmBsb2IiyMYKQ9fKnN3rA2Yx_AcnN61lXyywZi8j8t2Rq7k7fK-DFtO7LwlaBa36e8Oa2cYmrxIRuo1-Uc8E4RzvbE1yldNMBFpSlrHj_dAJREg5iJzMBN7GEf1u5cRh3qxpUC0ZJRbGruIB7jcxuJUoyg/s1477/MV5BOTJhNzlmNzctNTU5Yy00N2YwLThhMjQtZDM0YjEzN2Y0ZjNhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTEwMTQ4MzU5._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1477" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhITR8U3fBrhFTY7UDwinP2-HLKq0ku-vaAhmBsb2IiyMYKQ9fKnN3rA2Yx_AcnN61lXyywZi8j8t2Rq7k7fK-DFtO7LwlaBa36e8Oa2cYmrxIRuo1-Uc8E4RzvbE1yldNMBFpSlrHj_dAJREg5iJzMBN7GEf1u5cRh3qxpUC0ZJRbGruIB7jcxuJUoyg/s320/MV5BOTJhNzlmNzctNTU5Yy00N2YwLThhMjQtZDM0YjEzN2Y0ZjNhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTEwMTQ4MzU5._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>It's been a while, yet I can still recall the first time I saw the old boy. During the Christmas holidays way back in 1991, I remember my parents were very eager for my sister an me to take an interest in one gift in particular. It was the first time I'd ever seen a Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and I think it says a lot about my credibility as a non-gamer that I didn't even know what to make of it. I'm not lying about not being much of a gamer, by the way. I was a child of the 80s, yet since I was born the year George Orwell made famous, a lot of my time was spent in watching the decade unfold from the sidelines. That means while I occasionally came within reach of video game arcades, I think I was just too young to even know what to do with or about any of them. Besides, the few memories of have of trips to <i>Chuck E. Cheese's</i> can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and there are only two or three that I recall with any great clarity. <p></p><p>The clearest part of all those memories is the same thing. Those stage animatronics belting out Bruce Springsteen's cover version of <i>Santa Claus is Coming to Town</i>. Like I said, it was a long time ago, and I was just a kid back then. One of those 80s brats whose attention is more concerned with questions of greater importance, such as whether <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Tail">an animated talking mouse can relocate his family on the streets of New York</a>. Or whether <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee%27s_Big_Adventure">a manchild by the name of Paul Reubens will ever get his favorite bike back</a>.</p><p>So by the time I first set eyes on a familiar plumbing expert from Brooklyn, it was kind of an unexpected arrival. In addition to the Super Nintendo, my parents had also bought me and my sister a copy of a cartridge game to go along with it. I can still recall the the box art imprinted on it. A little man in blue work overalls, a red shirt and cap, riding on a slightly clever looking cartoon lizard. The game was called <i>Super Mario World</i>, and the punchline here will forever be at my expense. You see, the joke is that rather than being ecstatic at the prospect of being perhaps one of the few kids on the block to own what was turning out to be a real paradigm shift in the history of video games, I at first thought I just couldn't be bothered. Now that I've painted a target on my head, let me go on assure everyone here that I soon fell victim to the game's charms. My parents kept insisting I play it, probably more out of a concern for not throwing away hard earned income, more than anything, and it wasn't long before I was soon joining my sister in the antics of the most famous gaming mascot of all time. That was really my big breakthrough with the character, though it wasn't my first ever encounter with him.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAf7daVQZhLVn965_2yCnkjl4KEzK0DfkthMkFicnIPaGF0SqxqFVuf9k6QCSW8SiFu5-UuO_k-lcrraNhz6NnFyS4vzUtSZ5dElNgFbaIXfdtNLDv9oTaDrPqLGHfQIXNPlDJgnXCsQ74D0QOXQh6eQt-Y0T9jD6wu8AXtCbZQRf3YxFHjYU8E9NoKw/s550/super-mario-world.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="550" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAf7daVQZhLVn965_2yCnkjl4KEzK0DfkthMkFicnIPaGF0SqxqFVuf9k6QCSW8SiFu5-UuO_k-lcrraNhz6NnFyS4vzUtSZ5dElNgFbaIXfdtNLDv9oTaDrPqLGHfQIXNPlDJgnXCsQ74D0QOXQh6eQt-Y0T9jD6wu8AXtCbZQRf3YxFHjYU8E9NoKw/w640-h334/super-mario-world.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />I'd known at least something of the <i>Mario Bros.</i> series of games long before this. Mostly, however, it was limited to the occasional commercial I might have caught during the golden age of 80s and 90s TV. In fact, the first time I ever saw the old intrepid savior of damsel's in distress was on an episode of <i>Mr. Roger's Neighborhood</i> if you can believe it. If you can't, then <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEKNWfuTitw&t=33s">here's a clip to prove I'm not lying</a>. That was literally the first time I'd ever heard of a game called <i>Donkey Kong</i>, and the cast and crew of the console that would all go on to become legends in their own right. It's also in retrospect that it was the first time I ever saw the cinema legend now known simply as Keith David, yet that's another story. The point is there goes my initial contact with the world of Nintendo's flagship franchise. The next time I caught up with plumber from down under, he was now joined by his younger brother Luigi. It was as part of <i>The Super Mario Bros. Super Show</i>. And right about now, most of you have the Plumber Rap stuck in your heads. Wallow in it 80s kids! We never knew just how good we had it. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1ZmV4e5uhNskQBvqG945GLy9uLaqdhZQV5D9Y-ClD443uKaz2P2aey8mP8elhLPK0i201JTS-JVFnSSkvju2HdLNSmg7aLpvHs0l9jAsq9_HLyWRn7LRZxUPtFIgRmkcJFuXa2znNr3p_hyqIBDKtxevS7StU5meN7Q3KjMy6FuDq0sPyzN5nDr8_A/s342/Super_Mario_Bros._box.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1ZmV4e5uhNskQBvqG945GLy9uLaqdhZQV5D9Y-ClD443uKaz2P2aey8mP8elhLPK0i201JTS-JVFnSSkvju2HdLNSmg7aLpvHs0l9jAsq9_HLyWRn7LRZxUPtFIgRmkcJFuXa2znNr3p_hyqIBDKtxevS7StU5meN7Q3KjMy6FuDq0sPyzN5nDr8_A/s320/Super_Mario_Bros._box.png" width="234" /></a></div>So, yeah, like a lot of the rest of us, I got to witness a few episodes, here and there. Not much. In fact, I think I've only ever caught one or two in my lifetime. However what I did manage to see impressed me enough to the point where I was frustrated by my inability to catch the show again. That's the real reason I never got into the whole deal more than anything else. I could just never really locate the show's schedule times. I think I must have had the bad luck to catch each TV incarnation of the character during the tail ends of the run on the airwaves. Once those offerings ceased to make appearances, all of us had to wait until the coming of DVD and digital media if we ever wanted to catch a rerun. And so it goes. As a result, while it piqued my curiosity, I never really had the chance in my household to ever sort "get into it" like everyone else. Which at least helps explain my initial lukewarm reception to <i>Super Mario World</i> turning up on my doorstep. I mean when you're a kid, life goes by pretty fast, even if it seems like aeons, and there was a lot more back then to distract yourself with.<p></p><p>Still, playing that game was enough to rekindle my initial enthusiasm, for a time, at least. After I finally beat the game, I followed it up with <i>Mario Kart</i>, and then I think it was <i>Super Mario All-Stars</i>, which is where I got re-acquainted with all the others games in the series up to that point. The last entry in the SNES series that I ever bothered with was <i>Super Mario RPG</i>: <i>The Legend of the Seven Stars</i>, back in 1996. It was a time that is remarkably distant, yet seems just like yesterday, looking back on it now. Oh yeah, and then there was the Bob Hoskins adaptation with Dennis Hopper as Bowser in 93. It's one of those films I can recall not minding all that much as a kid. In my memory, it seems to share a lot of similarities with shows like <i>The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers</i>, if that's anything. Apparently, however, it wasn't as far as most of the fans are concerned to this day. And I've got to admit, looking at the film now, it all just falls apart if you give the setup so much as a moments thought. The whole thing is a classic case of a property suffering from an identity crisis. At no point can the film ever quite make up its mind on what it wants to be. Based on what I've heard on the behind the scenes drama, it's an opinion shared by both the stars and directors of the movie.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjoMVzsbDmHEgvYpGtsq8d7Hgu54-q867zs9gbw6w10ZfF-ChzAxQnkmB51hobmXc_fWely-q2Oh329gt6CVSc3S2ms9-zUKlIpFUZWgH2JPIsWJSqIzQKoFokDRRtaODUYlEjBZOK8K_GjawzEFJfO6Sz2jP1zM0urqxqGIoK4VqvXnj7GRKcJ2sw_g/s1080/02-smb-dm-mobile-banner-1080x745-pl-f01-022723-63fe3cbc4df54-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="745" data-original-width="1080" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjoMVzsbDmHEgvYpGtsq8d7Hgu54-q867zs9gbw6w10ZfF-ChzAxQnkmB51hobmXc_fWely-q2Oh329gt6CVSc3S2ms9-zUKlIpFUZWgH2JPIsWJSqIzQKoFokDRRtaODUYlEjBZOK8K_GjawzEFJfO6Sz2jP1zM0urqxqGIoK4VqvXnj7GRKcJ2sw_g/w640-h442/02-smb-dm-mobile-banner-1080x745-pl-f01-022723-63fe3cbc4df54-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />What I'm also able to say with a fair degree of certainty is that it was the box-office performance of the 93 adaptation which more or less put the kibosh on any ideas of translating the video game franchise to the big screen for the next three decades. Then, low and behold, Nintendo decides to take a chance, and hires Illumination studios to try and make a feature-length, computer animated cartoon about everyone's favorite public works brothers, and their amusing exploits. The result is now still in theaters as of this writing, and all of it begs the question. Is this the <i>Mario</i> franchise adaption fans have been waiting for?<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><p><b>Conclusion: Perhaps the Definitive Version.</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZGii1y21i8-RigQJb7EE671I6QeBgXaczvEbgknnSP308cK4ILWR5ohDO1lomoi_sNFEKtI--eRUHCC3doIore9uxiyilQB6_PTY7dhthOyPWRvm9L6ZrIn2vAM8kR-mRkDKkhiH97_991TrdbwebUnEW9cxrlU7P5LBulfqcnQoBDHOFUmqQPVz2w/s1800/81VxuVBN1cL.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1185" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZGii1y21i8-RigQJb7EE671I6QeBgXaczvEbgknnSP308cK4ILWR5ohDO1lomoi_sNFEKtI--eRUHCC3doIore9uxiyilQB6_PTY7dhthOyPWRvm9L6ZrIn2vAM8kR-mRkDKkhiH97_991TrdbwebUnEW9cxrlU7P5LBulfqcnQoBDHOFUmqQPVz2w/s320/81VxuVBN1cL.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>This is a film that got a lot of flack from the critics upon its release. It's current Rotten Tomatoes score rests as 56% for the critical consensus, while it's audience score of 96% and its box-office returns tell another narrative. Basically, what we're looking at here is an age old story of dissociation between professional reviewers and general movie-goers. It's a trend that's been happening a lot lately, and it's probably not going to be the last time this occurs. The arts seem to be undergoing some kind of internal struggle of some kind. It's like a sort of identity crisis, and I don't think the smoke has quite settled yet. However one of its effects is that there's a split over just what a movie is supposed to be. Which means anyone heading into a film like this is going to wind up taking a side, for whatever reason that I can't see the use of. So I guess that means the question is what did I think of it? Was there anything I was able to get out of this video game adaptation? Well, if you want my answer, then its that this might have to go down as the most faithful big screen game adaptation in history, for the time being, anyway.<p></p><p>In other words, you're going to have to classify me as falling into the more or less favorable camp with this flick. The basic story is pretty much what you'd expect from something that's based off a game. That's the main reason why it felt safe to skip the regular synopsis part of the program for this one. I mean how many people out there don't know the routine by now? The whole thing revolves around a pair of Italian-American brothers living in Brooklyn, New York. Their names are Mario (Chris Pratt), and Luigi (Charlie Day), respectively. Neither of them needs much in the way of an introduction at this late date. However, the makers of the film were kind enough to provide the famous sibs with a few trace shards of backstory. This time they come complete with a Mother and Father (played in an admittedly clever cameo by Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario in the video games), along with a few Uncles. Now this is one of the plot elements that I found interesting in terms of the family dynamic it sets up for the two pipe cleaners. An Easter Egg introduces us to the fact that Lou and Mario have quit a lousy day job to go into business as owner-operators of a small-time indie plumbing company.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihVoU2s2J2r52v16GDrxjj40hoIRvsM1fL4sy-J5Tui5WXrlw3cf5nbKQZAp4CS2klDxsuI5Cd8KQwnSFbZzx37ACyH6UiXdIyQcVk25p_e5X8CstFDLb_cexR2t2IC-jSahYJv0cN36T8V5tke879yzRuMOPqnB8Bod8EVSzIyxqTTeu-Rtqpx09gKA/s1202/Super-Mario-Bros-Movie-leaked-posters-images.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="1202" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihVoU2s2J2r52v16GDrxjj40hoIRvsM1fL4sy-J5Tui5WXrlw3cf5nbKQZAp4CS2klDxsuI5Cd8KQwnSFbZzx37ACyH6UiXdIyQcVk25p_e5X8CstFDLb_cexR2t2IC-jSahYJv0cN36T8V5tke879yzRuMOPqnB8Bod8EVSzIyxqTTeu-Rtqpx09gKA/w640-h366/Super-Mario-Bros-Movie-leaked-posters-images.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />There are a few moments here where the film allows us to get a good sense of the dynamic between the two brothers, and both Pratt and Day offer the kind of performances that not only help to delineate their two personalities, but also the way they both bounce off one another in a way that seems natural, and demonstrates just how close they really are in a few simple brush strokes. The rapport between the two actors is spot on, as they are both able to sell the idea that these paisanos don't just regard each other as direct relatives, but also that a lot of the reason Mario sticks with Luigi is because he's spent his entire life defending him from one bully after another. In fact, part of the subtext of the opening act seems to be that it was Lou's too timid nature that made Mario decide to go into business for themselves, after years of badgering that Weedge took from their ex-boss, Forman Spike (Sebastian Maniscalco).<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAUYFHT6DirQv8pAtnc-zigCodxGDHz1CuyoPpfub0JXWzuGPKiigJpRMHhYOAD83NckFODxLSN0j-FKkzi7d8N7qF32sOcx89av35xp_VsmA7FWPfxbFKojHpeXRq44Lsp89akJV2zsI8umo_adstypmspENGzBLBK6k4kvqT1YWokFpV_wfzG0Y7gQ/s2150/image9.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2150" data-original-width="1358" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAUYFHT6DirQv8pAtnc-zigCodxGDHz1CuyoPpfub0JXWzuGPKiigJpRMHhYOAD83NckFODxLSN0j-FKkzi7d8N7qF32sOcx89av35xp_VsmA7FWPfxbFKojHpeXRq44Lsp89akJV2zsI8umo_adstypmspENGzBLBK6k4kvqT1YWokFpV_wfzG0Y7gQ/s320/image9.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>What's further interesting about their dynamic is how it kind of gets flipped on its head whenever the Bros. are back at home, and out of the public eye. Out on the street, it's clear Mario is always the one in charge, and who is willing to take risks and stand up to anyone who tries to mess with them, while Lou is more willing to lag behind without ever descending to the level of "The Load". At the family dinner table, however, things get turned on their head, as it becomes clear that it's Luigi, and not Mario who is the favorite son of the family. Nintendo's flagship mascot, meanwhile, seems willing enough to fall into the role of the runt of the household. While Luigi always has to stick up for him at home. It's clear their dad views his oldest son (in an interesting riff on a usual family dynamic) as still a kid who hasn't figured out the way of the world yet, and so he keeps chastising Mario for what he sees as risky behavior, such as trying to go into business as an independent public works contractor. This in turn furthers the characterization of the main leads, as it becomes Mario's desire to win his father's approval that more or less kicks off their whole adventure when he decides to fix New York's sewer system.<p></p><p>Turns out a faulty water pressure station is causing some pipe trouble, so the two handy men set out underneath the bowels of the Big Apple to address the problem. It's while doing this that they wind up discovering a hidden chamber withing the sewers, and stumble upon a pipe that automatically transports them into another realm. It's the kind of place that seems to have emerged straight from a fever dream. You've got a kingdom where mushrooms can talk (though some remain just your basic, garden variety plant life), and so can the neighboring tribe of Gorillas known as Kongs. The real customers to watch out for are known as Koopas, a bunch of militaristic turtles of the non-Ninja type, who are ruled over and commanded by a despotic king named Bowser (Jack Black). As the brothers are transported into this hallucinogenic realm, they wind up getting separated. With Mario falling, literally, into the environs of the Mushroom Kingdom, whose people are lead by the valiant and beautiful Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy). While Luigi has the bad luck to land in the shadow kingdom, which has the worse fortune to be ruled over by Bower, who promptly kidnaps him.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLPJ2DRqr1rncZ7hN0USpu-Oiba-gT7T4mzngPZWfazx1YzoEO42ZuA3iJ7zxo7D72eHhUHZkq6DyTujLEvagVuzJT--Sll9i2VsobGrZIUhT7T-nKA2FrFs7CzEMGVonIrxorpw6CvFUL9Kv5pE24eLtpSFKsOU24iVocbZAcbelaQdXwAKFQ2ciwAg/s920/super_mario_bros_movie.0.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="920" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLPJ2DRqr1rncZ7hN0USpu-Oiba-gT7T4mzngPZWfazx1YzoEO42ZuA3iJ7zxo7D72eHhUHZkq6DyTujLEvagVuzJT--Sll9i2VsobGrZIUhT7T-nKA2FrFs7CzEMGVonIrxorpw6CvFUL9Kv5pE24eLtpSFKsOU24iVocbZAcbelaQdXwAKFQ2ciwAg/w640-h426/super_mario_bros_movie.0.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now, with the knowledge that his brother is in trouble, Mario has to get in training, and good enough shape to be ready to take on Bowser, save his brother, and rescue the Mushroom Kingdom. As you can guess, the entire basic setup more or less adheres to the establish plot beats of your typical <i>Mario</i> game. All that's been changed up is just a few minor details, and the good news is that most of them make perfect narrative sense for the story the film is trying to tell. It's more than acceptable enough, for instance, that a newcomer to a strange land, like Mario is here, would have a greater incentive to go on a quest to rescue his own family, rather than a complete stranger like Peach, who he's just met. Likewise, the filmmakers were able to take the idea of making the Princess Mario's mentor in this film, as well as his budding love interest, and do it in such a way that doesn't break with, or cheapen the lore of the characters. That in itself comes off as a minor miracle feat when others are struggling with it.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheBNCo-f5BKVuG_7vKB-rTNTq4mVfX46ncHnZ9G8meew7fi24yXrcVfZvWqkKiyz31uyUrS2wvHere9n-ZzPTbCWrmJUWIKl2hA-rKMjnBZuWutHXVSrrjURcA6P6h9EJhakUmUPvBZ9QGoCzdl4i9nV35U3L0tXzltCk1a5lw1dEdfq__-EgRnVqsuQ/s1350/FixZuYkVsAUsX-A.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheBNCo-f5BKVuG_7vKB-rTNTq4mVfX46ncHnZ9G8meew7fi24yXrcVfZvWqkKiyz31uyUrS2wvHere9n-ZzPTbCWrmJUWIKl2hA-rKMjnBZuWutHXVSrrjURcA6P6h9EJhakUmUPvBZ9QGoCzdl4i9nV35U3L0tXzltCk1a5lw1dEdfq__-EgRnVqsuQ/s320/FixZuYkVsAUsX-A.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>I can see how it's easy to describe all the major plot beats of this movie as predictable. However, I'm not real sure that this story could have worked half as well as it does in any other way. There might be a lot more you can do in terms of narrative with a franchise like this. Yet it makes sense enough in terms of a "starting gate approach". The filmmakers seems to have done the best they possibly could in terms of locating the happy median that would allow the characters accessibility to whatever few newcomers might be out there in the audience, while at the same time structuring and framing everything in a way that can actually please the long time fans. This makes the whole experience a pretty decent win-win situation, on the whole. Is there any room left for improvement? Yes, possibly. <p></p><p>There's been one, single complaint I keep running into, and this comes even from people who say they enjoyed the film. The basic gist of their arguments is that it could have been perhaps a bit longer, and I think I know what they mean. There are several points in the film where I'll swear there were chances for developing the characters, their motivations, and relationships further. The first big example I can think of would be to allow Mario and Luigi to have just a little bit more interaction with the members of their family. Let the audience get a better sense of what their dynamic is with their own household. In particular, there's an element of those scenes which offers a chance to setup Mario's character a bit more. The movie does a good job of showing us that, once he's out in the streets, Mario never takes any shit from anyone, especially where Lou is concerned. However, there are Uncles at the dinner table who heap all kinds of scorn on our hero for the life choices he's made, and Mario doesn't do a thing about it. He just sits there and let's them gang up on him. Part of the reason for this because "family is family", yes. However, another is that they also coddle Luigi, so he let's them get away with it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhHp1qSAOJl729JkjmzzrREmNqKWzaIFmz-tSirx8mf0h-8rIfvBthMoX3sPdP9PBasB50ph8ArowbqmpwQFEip8r5NH4KLq8W_LHRle0Bp0Oi9cV-2Wx8_-BsEMWOlNZOBfBsSgaYxtXsLPEp8RqGzeT3fZsvxK0rEXRghz8Re0pOHYmdVnqpAjh6Q/s1200/1200px-Mario's_family_TSMBM.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="1200" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhHp1qSAOJl729JkjmzzrREmNqKWzaIFmz-tSirx8mf0h-8rIfvBthMoX3sPdP9PBasB50ph8ArowbqmpwQFEip8r5NH4KLq8W_LHRle0Bp0Oi9cV-2Wx8_-BsEMWOlNZOBfBsSgaYxtXsLPEp8RqGzeT3fZsvxK0rEXRghz8Re0pOHYmdVnqpAjh6Q/w640-h322/1200px-Mario's_family_TSMBM.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Perhaps there could have been a scene or two more of this dynamic that might have helped flesh out Mario's own motivations for himself. Why not, for instance, have one of these same Uncles come up to him later on, and then turn the tables on things by flat out asking his erstwhile nephew when is he ever going to learn to stand up for himself, as there's no way on any possible Earth that he'll be able to make something of himself if he doesn't learn to finally stand up for himself. The entire gist of this hypothetical scene, in other words, is that the Uncle is self-aware enough to to know he's giving one of his own relatives a lot of grief, and yet he's doing it so that the main character can shore up a lingering weak spot in his own capabilities. Mario of course would be all like, "Oh lay off, will ya". And just dismisses his Uncle. If done right, this kind of scene could help delineate the protagonists character in several ways. It shows those points of vulnerability that he can't or won't address, and add an extra layer of depth to his development as the film goes on. It would further establish a thematic thread later on, when Mario confronts Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen). The Uncle could serve as a precursor to the way DK hazes and treats the "new kid in town", and add weight our hero's triumph over him. <br /><p></p><p>It would then represent not just the "player character" leveling up a notch. It would also become a case of Mario finally answering his Uncle's challenge, and going on to prove it by beating one of the Kong Kingdom's greatest fighters in what can only be described as the cinematic equivalent of a <i>Smash Bros.</i> brawl. In addition, you can go on from there to further the uneasy teamwork friendship that Mario and DK wind up having in the latter half of the film. This is another example of where the film should probably have taken its time, in order to give us a bit of further character exploration. It would come right after DK and the "New Guy from Brooklyn" get swallowed by the Maw-Ray creature under water.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgclRldJKgBhWieXzxwOZc4Lf4NXURplgG6KwkjlEioyOBvcIYsgt8fsJ_ajKMEHoB8Qne3sgSsSajLf2mw6v0yTnO1nL8eGZKvM8ByPTH_Mqk-pgBJrlxPEVQ8w2P5rOhULtGlyXd-NCE1WPiymUmobOf21JUSZk-upcLZ0BnvkgGhaOKDY-a1435Yg/s1500/Donkey-Kong-012923-01-42ea0c4ead3543829bec780dae0cb23f.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="1500" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgclRldJKgBhWieXzxwOZc4Lf4NXURplgG6KwkjlEioyOBvcIYsgt8fsJ_ajKMEHoB8Qne3sgSsSajLf2mw6v0yTnO1nL8eGZKvM8ByPTH_Mqk-pgBJrlxPEVQ8w2P5rOhULtGlyXd-NCE1WPiymUmobOf21JUSZk-upcLZ0BnvkgGhaOKDY-a1435Yg/w640-h428/Donkey-Kong-012923-01-42ea0c4ead3543829bec780dae0cb23f.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In the film, this is the point where Donkey let's slip just how much he and Mario have in common. Just like the two-legged biped in a cat suit, Kong also doesn't have the best relationship with his own father. It's a bit of information that does come as kind of a revelation, and to their credit, the filmmakers do make sure that each of the character's interactions between one another later on are made with this insight in mind. When the final act kicks into gear, we see that Mario and DK are now treating each other as friendly rivals or competitors who might at least be able to have a grudging kind of respect for one another. To be fair, this does seem like the right note for each mascot to wind up on with respect to each other. However, this is the one moment of the film that jumped out at me the most, because I just know there had to be a longer scene between these two where they begin to hammer (or punch out) the differences between them. In other words, DK and Mario should have had a longer scene in Maw's stomach where first they each kind of, maybe not so much snap, as let all their failings get to them, and they start going on what each of them wants to be a berserker tear, yet instead its more of a whine-fest disguised as doing some damage, without really making much in the way of a dent in anything.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDYOZ5Ak2KPvB9aM8bGzZGOMsf7TlTpV7cEN4COHV3bkU6nbuQXs9QZB-gD4VkJj9LUfPtaOj7audPbuyY0CNfHu1rQbdmcepH3Kfby2_2D1D6ixFAvjQDcOj8QpsLY7_gRo2oR1v1suw-OLM1yb4MpX5wMB7DvGsO0MVOknqZHO_URFxPqoACO-SYg/s1000/91cZ6zgavuL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="793" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDYOZ5Ak2KPvB9aM8bGzZGOMsf7TlTpV7cEN4COHV3bkU6nbuQXs9QZB-gD4VkJj9LUfPtaOj7audPbuyY0CNfHu1rQbdmcepH3Kfby2_2D1D6ixFAvjQDcOj8QpsLY7_gRo2oR1v1suw-OLM1yb4MpX5wMB7DvGsO0MVOknqZHO_URFxPqoACO-SYg/s320/91cZ6zgavuL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>There would be a bit of business in which the ape and the plumber bicker and snipe at one another, until DK blurts out the surprise revelation that he feels he's not just lost his dad, but he's also probably let him down for good. That should have been the moment that sent a light bulb off in Mario's head, and instead of fighting, he begins to try and reason with Kong, who is still currently in "just wanting to punch and smash things" mode. Eventually, however, the "New Guy" should talk Kong down out of his anger and resentment in the hopes of discovering a way out of their predicament. It doesn't take long before they discover a rocket that can help launch them out of the Maw, and it's all of this accumulated experience that helps begin to have a cautious, uneasy, yet genuine enough respect for one another. Such an execution would just create a more natural flow to the narrative and its characterization.<p></p><p>The last bit of editing I would have recommended for the film might also have been the most drastic, as it has the possibility of reshaping both the ending, and the overall story, as well. It would be to allow Luigi to have his own action-oriented subplot. Now I have defended the idea of Luigi being the one who needs rescuing from Bowser. And while I'm willing to go along with the idea, I'll also admit there was room here where you could have made things a bit more interesting by giving Mario's brother a side story wherein he is able, first, to rescue himself from Koopa's clutches. And then you'd have these moments where the film would break away from the main action in order to follow Weedge as he's going on his own odyssey through these same fantastical worlds, and having adventures in them. The key difference would be that where Mario's is light and adventurous, Lou's could be more dark and ominous. It wouldn't make the mistake of being grim and gritty. Instead, it's just that he's traveling through Bowser's kingdom, and so those levels are always going to be a lot tougher than the others.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIHkA2IXZ9iC5SNqcXcVo5G0-tzrf9SGP818326XeNGwLDwo7Wwhgpz6qechaFUgyMqTQ9zUatXIWIRy3d1eCHotnMtVlhBMxmCctWgZxDbEt5044ZtwMxCBga2nl1XW5b7OzPTztdIAtpESo5rEdSxlL9_wvMWkV_zEhHdngJK_uFtO8ZCiXZJJslJA/s400/1x1_LM3Tips_v01.7bf2a8f2.aead314d58b63e27.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIHkA2IXZ9iC5SNqcXcVo5G0-tzrf9SGP818326XeNGwLDwo7Wwhgpz6qechaFUgyMqTQ9zUatXIWIRy3d1eCHotnMtVlhBMxmCctWgZxDbEt5044ZtwMxCBga2nl1XW5b7OzPTztdIAtpESo5rEdSxlL9_wvMWkV_zEhHdngJK_uFtO8ZCiXZJJslJA/w640-h640/1x1_LM3Tips_v01.7bf2a8f2.aead314d58b63e27.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The good news is such an idea can be the perfect vehicle for Luigi, as its clear that his main character arc throughout the entire movie is him learning how to stand up for himself. There's a crucial scene where Lou has a flashback to when he and Mario are just little kids, and he's been pushed into the dirt and sniveling, meaning that his older brother in red has to step in an defend him. That was a nice bit of backstory, and it really should have been used as a motivating factor for Luigi to first free himself, and then try and go find help while running through the video game equivalent of Mordor. The best possible way to make a side quest like this work would be for the filmmakers to go ahead and basically make Luigi the Ash Williams of the film. In other words, while Mario gets to take on the regular arsenal that Bowser throws at him, you could give his younger brother the same type of development that he's had in the official video game line, where his specialty becomes being able to handle a lot of the darker, more Gothic influenced villains in the series, like Boos and other creatures. I mean just imagine how easily this kind of scenario writes itself, and how much Weedge fits into it all.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxA3YD01649uTEKDHUMH4Wsn0CixxnJwEfKugIhmdkGm0Rn2UbKIE134ISRaACj8oNbwjAYom9twbIZqMSs30O18vX2UFdfEI_41MTdY94m-oOj53Y2_oPokWKAqBmHxGjHXCnClAqWO-Ud1AQkNFlcsgdalGq2IovwQyKHngebIUUSJqVneEwNbfeAg/s1296/2530_T2_00070-H-2023.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1296" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxA3YD01649uTEKDHUMH4Wsn0CixxnJwEfKugIhmdkGm0Rn2UbKIE134ISRaACj8oNbwjAYom9twbIZqMSs30O18vX2UFdfEI_41MTdY94m-oOj53Y2_oPokWKAqBmHxGjHXCnClAqWO-Ud1AQkNFlcsgdalGq2IovwQyKHngebIUUSJqVneEwNbfeAg/w640-h360/2530_T2_00070-H-2023.webp" width="640" /></a></div><br />Let's take a scene from <i>Army of Darkness</i> as a for instance. Let's superimpose Luigi over Ash's character, and in place of the Deadites, we have the <a href="https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Dry_Bones">Dry Bones</a>, except all the action is (mostly) the same. You've got Lou running through a dark forest while all around him skeleton hands are clawing out of the ground, reaching for him, and trying to trip him up. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP3H6lZ_mt8">Then they'd all get into a hilarious Three Stooges style punching match</a>. The whole idea seems to just write itself. Also like Ash, these experiences could be made to toughen Luigi up to the point where becomes a hero in his own right. The kind of guy, in other words, who can stand shoulder to with his brother, head held high. Of course it also makes sense that Lou might go on to develop his own version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFriRcIwqNU">the same snarky attitude as Bruce Campbell's character</a>. Now, it's possible to claim this is little more than just a cut and paste idea. However, I'd argue that it still has a validity if applied in the right, in a way that is proper to Luigi's character. Heck, if the cards are dealt in the proper order. This means he could take a more active role in the final showdown between the Bros. and King Koopa. It's fun to imagine how this alternate version of Lou would be there always throwing a wrench into every move Bowser makes.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCyRsDk2OAUJBJtmc9XF4CPGdMF2zD3hz7WTc4fMX_8HzHfH34w-EDlBisqfmFx0d-MDXagpvlsyrQjdq0IleNb_GgDZ6BdT459vIMnkUB_lrxdIzLoktK-K8NYfoCRuhMR3tfWzEFhkineFVtBh0wuSxuAzRl-6rm6CAhyr2fKP8LdDuQ_Ou5g1R0jA/s2000/Mario_Luigi_Super-Mario_Bros.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1270" data-original-width="2000" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCyRsDk2OAUJBJtmc9XF4CPGdMF2zD3hz7WTc4fMX_8HzHfH34w-EDlBisqfmFx0d-MDXagpvlsyrQjdq0IleNb_GgDZ6BdT459vIMnkUB_lrxdIzLoktK-K8NYfoCRuhMR3tfWzEFhkineFVtBh0wuSxuAzRl-6rm6CAhyr2fKP8LdDuQ_Ou5g1R0jA/w640-h406/Mario_Luigi_Super-Mario_Bros.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In a way, though, I suppose all of these thoughts can pass as minor nitpicks. The movie as it stands is perfectly fine for what it is trying to be. Films like this have pretty much one job to accomplish. Can they deliver a fairly decent enough demonstration of the type of story that can be told with a franchise like this? In the case of the Brothers Mario, the answer has to be more or less a resounding yes. The goals for this film are easy to meet with the right amount of effort, and the filmmakers were able to rise to the challenge on this one. The result is a decent and entertaining little video game adaptation that is sure to please both first and long time fans, as well as drawing in the kids. In fact, the more I think about it, this might just have to go down, for the time being, as the closest anyone has ever gotten to producing a definitive video game movie. While I'm willing to maintain that there was plenty of room for the sort of character expansions mentioned above, the good news is that none of this detracts from the movie. Maybe at some future date the makers of this picture can go back and make something like a Netflix special edition where all of these ideas can find their own expansion into the story. For now, however, the fact remains that <i>The Super Mario Bros. Movie</i> is able to stand out as its own achievement. It is not just the first successful video game film, it also qualifies as the best out there.<br /><p></p><p></p>PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.com0