A casual glance at my previous blog entries reveals a disdain for the capitalist machine, the "liberal democracy," we find ourselves cogs in, so if I'm treading old ground forgive me. It has occurred to me again and again that perhaps the most distasteful operation of this mechanism is the system's pretence of arguing with itself. The difference between this and "totalitarian" states, it seems, is that in totalitarian states, the lack of democratic choice was blatantly transparent (and perhaps the fact our leaders have moved from the Kremlin to Wall Street). They never thought to set up something as insultingly partisan as Prime Minister's Questions to convince the public there were other options, for instance, but instead preferred childish scapegoatism of figures like Trotsky (famously parodied in George Orwell's Animal Farm) or Jews that were both bankers and communists. We have managed to convince ourselves that totalitarianism died and the liberal democracy triumphed at the end of the Cold War rather than seeing we are, as ever, living in the result of a non-impartial dialectic, the product of a patriarchal marriage. This reverse-nostalgia is potentially more damaging than it first appears.
Pier Paolo Pasolini's last film before his brutal murder, Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been the subject of much discussion, debate, criticism, controversy and denouncement since its release in 1975. However, it has also long been hailed as a must-see film, and it absolutely is for any fan of film or philosophy (Roland Barthes, incidentally, collaborated on the screenplay, I believe). It is ostensibly an attack on fascism, specifically Mussolini's Republic of Salo, but we are led to believe it was banned (it was only compartively recently made available in the UK) for its obscenity rather than the fact it hits too close to home.
You may think that, by praising this film as I am about to do, I am being hypocritical. I did of course acrimoniously throw V For Vendetta's credentials as anti-establishment cinema out of the window because of how dated the establishment it was critiquing was. It is not a brave knight who thrusts his lance through the heart of a dead dragon. However, what sets Salo apart is that it's attack on Mussolini's dictatorship is actually a thinly veiled attack on what came afterwards in Italy: an embrace of capitalism. This is evidenced clearly by the shit-eating scenes, which Pasolini maintained was a metaphor for the consumer society's insatiable hunger for junk food. If the success of McDonald's has taught us anything, it's that if an authority tells you eating shit is a special treat, you will willingly buy and ingest massive amounts of it. The storytelling each evening by the three women, meant to titilate the captors and catives, seems obviously reminiscent of television (a medium which, unlike film, has never lived up to its potential and has utterly failed to retain artistic integrity, but that's a rant for another time). Also extremely relevant is the marriage scene, in which a boy and a girl are chosen for each other, wed and forced to copulate in front of the eyes of their libertine captors. When it is decided they are doing it wrong, the leaders forcibly insert themselves into the marriage bed. A more graphic summation of the recent Proposition 8 controversy in California could not be imagined.
The film then moves from clear fascism at the start (uniforms, marches, expulsion of religion) into the capitalist liberal democracy. The guards, who at the start were necessary to keep order, are seen in fewer and fewer number. Religion worms its way back in. The prisoners are praised, rewarded, allocated quantums of power. Just as we in the real world are encouraged to inform the government of benefit cheats, the captives save themselves from the wrath of the captors by snitching on each other's rulebreaking. The critic Geoff Andrew denigrated Salo and claimed it offered no insight into power or fascism because the captives willingly went along with whatever the libertines tried to force them to do; to me there could not be a more contradictory statement. What exactly do we do when reductions of our freedoms are proposed? We go out and vote for them. As Pasolini himself put it: "Fascism . . . had not been capable of even scratching the soul of the Italian people; this new fascism, armed with new means of communication and information . . . has not only scratched the soul of the Italian people but has lacerated, raped, and besmirched it forever.”
Life in Salo becomes easier and easier for the victims. By the time they're brutalised in the torture yard at the film's completion, there has not been a physical resistance to the system since a young girl desperately tried to break through a window at the film's start. Towards the end, the captives are willingly sleeping with the captors. They eat their own shit and joke about it. Any rebellion is quashed not because of the overwhelming physical presence of their captors, but because they turn against each other to cowardly re-establish the status quo. Physically, the libertines are weak, almost impotent and in smaller and smaller number. But now the guards are psychological ones and cannot be overcome, nor do the captives seem to wish to. If I believed in a fascist term like "human spirit," I would say that at this point it has been quashed as the human beings slip into servitude, little more than machines themselves. One is reminded of Baudrillard and Fukyama's passive embrace of "The End of History," (though I will say Baudrillard never seemed as fetishistic about this phenomena as Fukyama does) final stop to rebellions, idelogical clashes and revolutionary propositions of new world orders. If pigs could talk, like in Animal Farm, they'd be singing the praises of the farmer on the way to the slaughterhouse. We, it seems, are no different.
Saturday 29 November 2008
Thursday 27 November 2008
Beatrix Kiddo vs the Female Ubermensch
When Kill Bill was released in 2004, it was denigrated for lot of reasons. Some claimed it was too violent, others that it was a case of style of substance, yet more disliked the genre-splicing. Of course, it had its fans (I suppose I am one of them). The stylistic action and dialogue notwithstanding, many seem to agree with Tarantino himself when he described the project as a “feminist statement” and claimed it was all about “girl power.”
We’ve heard this shit before, of course. The Charlie’s Angels films too claimed to be about female empowerment regardless of the transparent appeal to adolescent boys. But unlike these degrading exercises in titillation dressed up as “feminist” films, the Kill Bill experience contains few if any instances of scantily-dressed females.
However, Kill Bill is still a deeply sexist film that reveals a lot about Tarantino’s mindset, beyond the usual blatantly obvious cult film geekery and foot fetish. The theme of male dominance in this film is absolutely overwhelming to the point where it’s almost impossible to believe any claim he made to the contrary. Yes, perhaps, on the surface, The Bride is physically dominant, able to dispatch hordes of male combatants with relative ease and is only in trouble in the first volume when she comes across another woman. However, she is only tough and empowered so long as she conforms to the male action hero archetype: a revenge-seeking, one-liner-dropping, martially-skilled, decisive, composed, pain-tolerant assassin. She first wears a yellow jump suit in order to be reminiscent of male action star Bruce Lee, and later adopts jeans, cowboy boots and a t-shirt.
Her other overwhelming character trait is an obsession with a man. It quite simply could not have been an accident that the centre of the film, the sun around which all the violent female planets revolve, is the eponymous Bill. Bill is the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, the Bride’s targets and former peers, and it was he who selected their dangerous missions and presumably portioned out payment for. That he is perfectly analogous to a pimp is difficult to get around: women are (forcibly in the case of O’Ren Ishi, another supposedly “empowered” woman) indebted to him whilst he retains an air of cool, again archetypal with cultural depictions of pimps. Not, might I add, the first time Tarantino has stuck his oar into stereotypic black culture.
Tellingly, Bill's father figure, Esteban, actually is a pimp. Even more tellingly is that if the Bride is Uma Thurman's screen persona (that Thurman and Tarantino came up with the character together is suggested as much in interviews) then the supercool, comic-book referencing director-of-all-events Bill is so obviously Tarantino's. Where the power lies is never in doubt.
The film does not even continue its idea of only women being a threat to the Bride into the second volume. She is outsmarted and defeated in a humiliating manner by Bud, Bill’s slow-witted hick brother, before reminiscing about her defeat, humiliation and tutelage by her male mentor, Pai Mei (described indifferently as her “master,” ostensibly a reference to classic samurai/martial art revenge movies but functionally degrading). If the Deadly Vipers are the assassination equivalent of a brothel, Pai Mei is the captain of the ship the prostitutes are smuggled into the country on, and it is under him they learn how to please their predominantly male world. Pai Mei is utterly unbeatable in fair combat, and can only be overcome by the female treachery of Elle Driver, who poisons him. By the time we come to the climax, a thinly-veiled lament for father’s rights, the Bride is just about permitted to defeat a drunken, elderly and washed up Bill, and all pretences of feminism are in tatters. Her life, having up to now been defined entirely by Bill's actions, is now dedicated to raising Bill's child whilst Bill fades with Pai Mei into martial arts legend.
Kill Bill is not, though, an uncommon phenomenon in today’s society. At feminism’s start, it was required to define itself by male dominance in order to oppose it. But as we move closer and closer to a world of equal gender rights within the liberal democracy, the feminist movement has still not yet begun to define women by anything else than their male oppressors. There has, plainly speaking, never been a female Nietzsche. Nietzsche, you may remember, became famous for the statement “God is dead,” which was an avatar for the ubermensch, the next stage in man’s spiritual evolution. The ubermensch, as Nietzsche describes him in the seminal Thus Spoke Zarathustra (my first and still favourite work of philosophy), has overcome nihilism and is able to put together his own moral code completely undefined by any that had gone before or exists around him, specifically religion within the context. General cultural feminism cannot get to that stage of independent introversion and still clings to these male-defined female heroines such as the Bride. Most damning is the fact I hear a lot of women saying they came out of Kill Bill feeling strong and empowered and wanting to take up karate.
This may just be another case of Tarantino being a snake-oil salesman. But it may also be an intrinsic fault in the diamond that is feminist theory, a fault already noted by Third-Wave feminists or post-feminists who have been powerless to do anything about it. Even the attempted reclaiming of words like “bitch” and “whore” suggested by the likes of Inga Muscio has its origins in a male-defined worldview. Like in Kill Bill, women are still victims desperately trying to reassert control over their world, rather than true adventurers for whom the world is their birthright. Perhaps the first novel to concentrate on the plight of women was Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, the eponymous heroine of which is born not under a male thumb but in Newgate prison, the closest thing 18th century England had to limbo. Whilst her career is then based around the exploitation of men through sexual pragmatism and ethical survivalism, it’s worth remembering her voidesque starting point is somewhere she desperately doesn’t want to visit again, and thus being back at the beginning is the most she has to lose. There’s an attitude there that should be considered. Women should not consider themselves to be born from the head of Zeus but anywhere they damn please.
We’ve heard this shit before, of course. The Charlie’s Angels films too claimed to be about female empowerment regardless of the transparent appeal to adolescent boys. But unlike these degrading exercises in titillation dressed up as “feminist” films, the Kill Bill experience contains few if any instances of scantily-dressed females.
However, Kill Bill is still a deeply sexist film that reveals a lot about Tarantino’s mindset, beyond the usual blatantly obvious cult film geekery and foot fetish. The theme of male dominance in this film is absolutely overwhelming to the point where it’s almost impossible to believe any claim he made to the contrary. Yes, perhaps, on the surface, The Bride is physically dominant, able to dispatch hordes of male combatants with relative ease and is only in trouble in the first volume when she comes across another woman. However, she is only tough and empowered so long as she conforms to the male action hero archetype: a revenge-seeking, one-liner-dropping, martially-skilled, decisive, composed, pain-tolerant assassin. She first wears a yellow jump suit in order to be reminiscent of male action star Bruce Lee, and later adopts jeans, cowboy boots and a t-shirt.
Her other overwhelming character trait is an obsession with a man. It quite simply could not have been an accident that the centre of the film, the sun around which all the violent female planets revolve, is the eponymous Bill. Bill is the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, the Bride’s targets and former peers, and it was he who selected their dangerous missions and presumably portioned out payment for. That he is perfectly analogous to a pimp is difficult to get around: women are (forcibly in the case of O’Ren Ishi, another supposedly “empowered” woman) indebted to him whilst he retains an air of cool, again archetypal with cultural depictions of pimps. Not, might I add, the first time Tarantino has stuck his oar into stereotypic black culture.
Tellingly, Bill's father figure, Esteban, actually is a pimp. Even more tellingly is that if the Bride is Uma Thurman's screen persona (that Thurman and Tarantino came up with the character together is suggested as much in interviews) then the supercool, comic-book referencing director-of-all-events Bill is so obviously Tarantino's. Where the power lies is never in doubt.
The film does not even continue its idea of only women being a threat to the Bride into the second volume. She is outsmarted and defeated in a humiliating manner by Bud, Bill’s slow-witted hick brother, before reminiscing about her defeat, humiliation and tutelage by her male mentor, Pai Mei (described indifferently as her “master,” ostensibly a reference to classic samurai/martial art revenge movies but functionally degrading). If the Deadly Vipers are the assassination equivalent of a brothel, Pai Mei is the captain of the ship the prostitutes are smuggled into the country on, and it is under him they learn how to please their predominantly male world. Pai Mei is utterly unbeatable in fair combat, and can only be overcome by the female treachery of Elle Driver, who poisons him. By the time we come to the climax, a thinly-veiled lament for father’s rights, the Bride is just about permitted to defeat a drunken, elderly and washed up Bill, and all pretences of feminism are in tatters. Her life, having up to now been defined entirely by Bill's actions, is now dedicated to raising Bill's child whilst Bill fades with Pai Mei into martial arts legend.
Kill Bill is not, though, an uncommon phenomenon in today’s society. At feminism’s start, it was required to define itself by male dominance in order to oppose it. But as we move closer and closer to a world of equal gender rights within the liberal democracy, the feminist movement has still not yet begun to define women by anything else than their male oppressors. There has, plainly speaking, never been a female Nietzsche. Nietzsche, you may remember, became famous for the statement “God is dead,” which was an avatar for the ubermensch, the next stage in man’s spiritual evolution. The ubermensch, as Nietzsche describes him in the seminal Thus Spoke Zarathustra (my first and still favourite work of philosophy), has overcome nihilism and is able to put together his own moral code completely undefined by any that had gone before or exists around him, specifically religion within the context. General cultural feminism cannot get to that stage of independent introversion and still clings to these male-defined female heroines such as the Bride. Most damning is the fact I hear a lot of women saying they came out of Kill Bill feeling strong and empowered and wanting to take up karate.
This may just be another case of Tarantino being a snake-oil salesman. But it may also be an intrinsic fault in the diamond that is feminist theory, a fault already noted by Third-Wave feminists or post-feminists who have been powerless to do anything about it. Even the attempted reclaiming of words like “bitch” and “whore” suggested by the likes of Inga Muscio has its origins in a male-defined worldview. Like in Kill Bill, women are still victims desperately trying to reassert control over their world, rather than true adventurers for whom the world is their birthright. Perhaps the first novel to concentrate on the plight of women was Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, the eponymous heroine of which is born not under a male thumb but in Newgate prison, the closest thing 18th century England had to limbo. Whilst her career is then based around the exploitation of men through sexual pragmatism and ethical survivalism, it’s worth remembering her voidesque starting point is somewhere she desperately doesn’t want to visit again, and thus being back at the beginning is the most she has to lose. There’s an attitude there that should be considered. Women should not consider themselves to be born from the head of Zeus but anywhere they damn please.
Saturday 22 November 2008
The rise and fall and rise and fall of Liverpool
British cinema has never been known for paying due respect to its home grown talent in the manner of, say, its French counterpart, but the extent to which Terence Davies has been maligned and forgotten about is more than just a little bit shocking. After testing the waters with his fondly thought of Robert Tucker trilogy in the seventies and early eighties, Davies exploded onto a nearly non-existent independent British scene with Distant Voices, Still Lives, a film that would be all but consigned to the dustbin of history were it not for the recently revived British Film Institute. Critical acclaim followed, the cheques didn’t, and soon the former dried up, too: The House of Mirth and The Neon Bible, Davies’ attempted comebacks, were met with derision and indifference.
Now Davies returns once more, to cinema and to his early themes of regional identity and homosexuality, with Of Time And The City. Functionally, Of Time and the City is a collection of documentary and news footage about Liverpool through the ages book-ended by a few cityscopes Davies has recently shot himself, a obvious departure from his narrative films. It’s fascinating that Davies, who has covered Liverpool so often in his works, would choose this as a format to pay tribute to his home town, and a cynic might read it as an admission that Davies no longer believes he possesses the deep filmic understanding and masterful cinematic hand required to live up to his previous opera. However, this is no easy way out (or easy way back in) Davies has attempted, no cobbling together of old newsreels set to self-congratulatory narration and snobbish music. Somehow, he has managed to assemble the clips into a portrait of his vision of an evolving and self-renewing place, in the documentary style of Humphrey Jennings’ Listen to Britain. We follow the development of Davies and Liverpool through the desperation of the 40s and 50s, the hopeful innocence of the 60s, the working class nightmare of the 70s and 80s to the revitalised city of today, and you feel nothing has been left unsaid. This is a work that speaks for generations, and yet seems deeply personal.
If it is a visual poem, it is Larkinesque, and an angry one at times. Davies unsurprisingly turns his witty vitriol (witriol? One to remember) on the Catholic Church ("Pope Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and Clitoris the Umpteenth"), the monarchy ("the Betty Windsor Show") and the Thatcherite boot delivered to the working classes, but also attacks more unconventional targets. He speaks disparagingly about the rise of The Beatles, which to him represented the death of subtle songwriting (here I agree with him), and even admits he feels nostalgic for the Liverpool prior to its renovation. The illogic of this pining for times gone by is rendered impotent by a director so adept at capturing and reviving ephemera as Davies is, and we feel his opinions as though they are our own. His non-partisan integrity on these issues in the midst of the self-congratulatory Capital of Culture celebrations is nothing short of admirable. We have Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler and The Hollies in place of John, Paul, George and Ringo, and instead of Patten, Henri and McGough, Davies quotes Marlowe, Houseman, Raleigh, Joyce, Shelley and Eliot. In a city that has long been so insular, defining itself by itself, this knitting of Scouse values and memories with universal writers and artists is deliciously refreshing.
At the tail end of a year where Liverpool has looked towards the future whilst Britain teeters on the precipice, this film was sorely needed, not just to document times that would have been more forgotten than Davies himself had become (perhaps this is why he feels such an affinity with pasttimes like going to New Brighton for a fun afternoon), but to reiterate the warning whispered by Distant Voices: the good times don’t last. But at least in the 80s, Liverpool was in no danger of forgetting itself. Can we still say that today? Hopefully, if this is Davies’ foot in the door rather than his career eulogy, yes. Technically brilliant, emotionally moving, Of Time and the City is required viewing for Liverpudlians, historians, political theorists, poets, philosophers and film fans alike.
Now Davies returns once more, to cinema and to his early themes of regional identity and homosexuality, with Of Time And The City. Functionally, Of Time and the City is a collection of documentary and news footage about Liverpool through the ages book-ended by a few cityscopes Davies has recently shot himself, a obvious departure from his narrative films. It’s fascinating that Davies, who has covered Liverpool so often in his works, would choose this as a format to pay tribute to his home town, and a cynic might read it as an admission that Davies no longer believes he possesses the deep filmic understanding and masterful cinematic hand required to live up to his previous opera. However, this is no easy way out (or easy way back in) Davies has attempted, no cobbling together of old newsreels set to self-congratulatory narration and snobbish music. Somehow, he has managed to assemble the clips into a portrait of his vision of an evolving and self-renewing place, in the documentary style of Humphrey Jennings’ Listen to Britain. We follow the development of Davies and Liverpool through the desperation of the 40s and 50s, the hopeful innocence of the 60s, the working class nightmare of the 70s and 80s to the revitalised city of today, and you feel nothing has been left unsaid. This is a work that speaks for generations, and yet seems deeply personal.
If it is a visual poem, it is Larkinesque, and an angry one at times. Davies unsurprisingly turns his witty vitriol (witriol? One to remember) on the Catholic Church ("Pope Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and Clitoris the Umpteenth"), the monarchy ("the Betty Windsor Show") and the Thatcherite boot delivered to the working classes, but also attacks more unconventional targets. He speaks disparagingly about the rise of The Beatles, which to him represented the death of subtle songwriting (here I agree with him), and even admits he feels nostalgic for the Liverpool prior to its renovation. The illogic of this pining for times gone by is rendered impotent by a director so adept at capturing and reviving ephemera as Davies is, and we feel his opinions as though they are our own. His non-partisan integrity on these issues in the midst of the self-congratulatory Capital of Culture celebrations is nothing short of admirable. We have Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler and The Hollies in place of John, Paul, George and Ringo, and instead of Patten, Henri and McGough, Davies quotes Marlowe, Houseman, Raleigh, Joyce, Shelley and Eliot. In a city that has long been so insular, defining itself by itself, this knitting of Scouse values and memories with universal writers and artists is deliciously refreshing.
At the tail end of a year where Liverpool has looked towards the future whilst Britain teeters on the precipice, this film was sorely needed, not just to document times that would have been more forgotten than Davies himself had become (perhaps this is why he feels such an affinity with pasttimes like going to New Brighton for a fun afternoon), but to reiterate the warning whispered by Distant Voices: the good times don’t last. But at least in the 80s, Liverpool was in no danger of forgetting itself. Can we still say that today? Hopefully, if this is Davies’ foot in the door rather than his career eulogy, yes. Technically brilliant, emotionally moving, Of Time and the City is required viewing for Liverpudlians, historians, political theorists, poets, philosophers and film fans alike.
Monday 17 November 2008
Every Stone Left Unturned
I have been able to take time out of my lazy schedule to go to the cinema recently, which is just as well considering the amount of films that have been vying for my attention. Alexandra, Burn After Reading, Quantum of Solace... all three of these heavyweights were barely pushed aside by W., but were all massacred by Of Time And The City, the two I elected to see.
W. is empty, lazy entertainment. It has its strengths, most notably the performances of almost every actor in the film, most notably Toby Jones (Karl Rove), Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell) and Brolin himself, but Oliver Stone permits nobody to rise above the level of caricature. Thandie Newton is certainly ugly enough to be Condoleeza Rice, but instead plays Bush’s PA, curiously going by the same name, and she might as well not be there. Ellen Burstyn is completely wasted on Barbara Bush. Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney) and Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld) are devious pantomime villains. And Ioan Gruffudd’s 20 second cameo as Tony Blair is borderline insulting. Whereas in real life, Blair was publically calling for “a long-overdue appointment” with Saddam Hussein as early as 1998 following the Nato-assisted fall of Slobodan Milosevic, in Stone’s world he is a weak English stereotype swiftly bullied into going along with the 2003 invasion (contrasted with the heroic refusals of Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin, the latter being made reference to in a scatological joke by the childish, tantrum throwing Bush) presumably after a brief stint playing quarterback for the London Silly Nannies. Truly, the only characters that escape with any dignity intact are Laura Welch (an uninspired Elizabeth banks) and Powell, although since both are defecated upon by their peers this may seem a contentious statement.
And what of Dubya himself? As noted by several other reviewers, here Stone has taken the easy way out. Instead of portraying him as a complex, intelligent individual who made the wrong choices for good or for bad, Stone has him pencilled in as the redneck buffoon he played in public. As hard as Brolin has worked to overcome his lack of immediate similarity with the President, all Stone’s graft has already been done by the real life Bush. This biopic is fun, but it is neither insightful nor realistic. Some vague idea that it was Bush’s Congressional District defeat to Kent Hance that inflamed his desire to not be “out-Christianed and out-Texaned” again may seem like a revelation to some, but this was a paraphrasing of the real-life Bush anyway. And that’s really where the film finds itself: educating to people who don’t follow politics, unimportant to those that do, and uninspiring for film aficionados. There are genuinely funny moments (“Wait, guys, I think we’ve missed the side road,” says Bush to his cabinet as they walk around the grounds to the Robin Hood theme, preparing for war) but this is a subject that needs to be tackled by a serious director, not the lazy, confused one Stone is.
A review of Of Time And The City is pending.
W. is empty, lazy entertainment. It has its strengths, most notably the performances of almost every actor in the film, most notably Toby Jones (Karl Rove), Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell) and Brolin himself, but Oliver Stone permits nobody to rise above the level of caricature. Thandie Newton is certainly ugly enough to be Condoleeza Rice, but instead plays Bush’s PA, curiously going by the same name, and she might as well not be there. Ellen Burstyn is completely wasted on Barbara Bush. Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney) and Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld) are devious pantomime villains. And Ioan Gruffudd’s 20 second cameo as Tony Blair is borderline insulting. Whereas in real life, Blair was publically calling for “a long-overdue appointment” with Saddam Hussein as early as 1998 following the Nato-assisted fall of Slobodan Milosevic, in Stone’s world he is a weak English stereotype swiftly bullied into going along with the 2003 invasion (contrasted with the heroic refusals of Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin, the latter being made reference to in a scatological joke by the childish, tantrum throwing Bush) presumably after a brief stint playing quarterback for the London Silly Nannies. Truly, the only characters that escape with any dignity intact are Laura Welch (an uninspired Elizabeth banks) and Powell, although since both are defecated upon by their peers this may seem a contentious statement.
And what of Dubya himself? As noted by several other reviewers, here Stone has taken the easy way out. Instead of portraying him as a complex, intelligent individual who made the wrong choices for good or for bad, Stone has him pencilled in as the redneck buffoon he played in public. As hard as Brolin has worked to overcome his lack of immediate similarity with the President, all Stone’s graft has already been done by the real life Bush. This biopic is fun, but it is neither insightful nor realistic. Some vague idea that it was Bush’s Congressional District defeat to Kent Hance that inflamed his desire to not be “out-Christianed and out-Texaned” again may seem like a revelation to some, but this was a paraphrasing of the real-life Bush anyway. And that’s really where the film finds itself: educating to people who don’t follow politics, unimportant to those that do, and uninspiring for film aficionados. There are genuinely funny moments (“Wait, guys, I think we’ve missed the side road,” says Bush to his cabinet as they walk around the grounds to the Robin Hood theme, preparing for war) but this is a subject that needs to be tackled by a serious director, not the lazy, confused one Stone is.
A review of Of Time And The City is pending.
Thursday 6 November 2008
My cynicism takes a brief interlude
“Everybody knows the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.”
- Leonard Cohen
I have in recent months criticised the simply abominable focus on race that both the American and British media are responsible for as per the US elections. However, even I have to admit, in the early hours of the day we Brits celebrate as Guy Fawkes Night, it was difficult not to be overawed with the American historical significance as for the first time in their history, the most powerful country in the world elected a black man as their leader.
The USA has always struck me as something of a missed opportunity. I am an admirer of the values it was founded upon, the contributions it has made to literature and the arts, and that it has always ostensibly stood for “something better.” But slavery and civil rights disputes always hung over what should have been the standard bearer for fairness and liberalism. It is one of the cruellest paradoxes in history that Thomas Jefferson, to whom so many of us owe our freedoms directly or indirectly, was a slave owner. And what of Lincoln? Anyone with a more concise view of history than “Lincoln freed the slaves” would be all the more cynical about America if these are arguably its two greatest presidents.
Then we had FDR. And the 60s, of course. And Dr King. But by the time of the Bush regime, through which the US has stumbled and its reputation cheyne-stoked painfully, the best we had to hope for was their promise of a post-Reagan compassionate conservatism (a promise that was never delivered on). It is ridiculous to mention the next president in the same revered or reviled tones as these men and I do not announce Mr Obama as a great president-elect. However, the significance of his victory cannot be undermined. The next day when the BBC chose to splice violent clips from the Civil Rights disputes with Jesse Jackson’s tears of joy at the announcement of Barack Obama’s win, it was impossible not to feel a certain euphoria.
This is not to say John McCain is a bad guy. His campaign has been criticised on one hand for not doing enough, and on another for being too negative (Christopher Hitchens, whom to my delight the BBC hired for their panel on Tuesday night, described it as something like disgusting). This is one of the reasons I predict that in 10 years if not before we will be talking about Rovian or post-Rovian politics, so it was refreshing to see that McCain and his allies, whilst not running the best or most gracious campaign, seemed to ignore almost every filthy tactic Karl Rove employed on behalf of George W. Bush. The fact McCain lost and Bush won, however, might serve as further endorsement of the ethics of the evil piggy-eyed shithead who has dictated US politics over the past decade. It is terrifying to combine this fear with the thought Sarah Palin is expected to run in 2012.
But, and this is the only time I will endorse this behaviour, let’s not allow cynicism about the future to cloud politics. My friend Pvt. Steven Hildreth supported John McCain and has vehemently opposed Obama (even denouncing him as a Communist), and on his blog can be read “R.I.P. the United States of America: 1776-2008.” In a way I agree with that epitaph. The racial debate may be far from over, but the United States have finally come full circle symbolically by doing something none of the white-dominated so-called European intelligencia countries have done: put their fate into the hands of a man from a minority. There is an oneiric quality to the fact that this has taken place so soon after 9/11, which some foresaw as the beginning of the end of multiculturalism.
Perhaps Barack Obama will not be able to deliver on his Achitophelian rhetoric. Perhaps he won because he is black, and we have traded one form of racism for another. Perhaps he has won on the strength of a catchphrase, namely “Change.” But an ideological shift has often benefitted the nation before. And after over 200 years of bigotry, unspent potential and broken promises, this finally felt like the good guys had won.
Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.”
- Leonard Cohen
I have in recent months criticised the simply abominable focus on race that both the American and British media are responsible for as per the US elections. However, even I have to admit, in the early hours of the day we Brits celebrate as Guy Fawkes Night, it was difficult not to be overawed with the American historical significance as for the first time in their history, the most powerful country in the world elected a black man as their leader.
The USA has always struck me as something of a missed opportunity. I am an admirer of the values it was founded upon, the contributions it has made to literature and the arts, and that it has always ostensibly stood for “something better.” But slavery and civil rights disputes always hung over what should have been the standard bearer for fairness and liberalism. It is one of the cruellest paradoxes in history that Thomas Jefferson, to whom so many of us owe our freedoms directly or indirectly, was a slave owner. And what of Lincoln? Anyone with a more concise view of history than “Lincoln freed the slaves” would be all the more cynical about America if these are arguably its two greatest presidents.
Then we had FDR. And the 60s, of course. And Dr King. But by the time of the Bush regime, through which the US has stumbled and its reputation cheyne-stoked painfully, the best we had to hope for was their promise of a post-Reagan compassionate conservatism (a promise that was never delivered on). It is ridiculous to mention the next president in the same revered or reviled tones as these men and I do not announce Mr Obama as a great president-elect. However, the significance of his victory cannot be undermined. The next day when the BBC chose to splice violent clips from the Civil Rights disputes with Jesse Jackson’s tears of joy at the announcement of Barack Obama’s win, it was impossible not to feel a certain euphoria.
This is not to say John McCain is a bad guy. His campaign has been criticised on one hand for not doing enough, and on another for being too negative (Christopher Hitchens, whom to my delight the BBC hired for their panel on Tuesday night, described it as something like disgusting). This is one of the reasons I predict that in 10 years if not before we will be talking about Rovian or post-Rovian politics, so it was refreshing to see that McCain and his allies, whilst not running the best or most gracious campaign, seemed to ignore almost every filthy tactic Karl Rove employed on behalf of George W. Bush. The fact McCain lost and Bush won, however, might serve as further endorsement of the ethics of the evil piggy-eyed shithead who has dictated US politics over the past decade. It is terrifying to combine this fear with the thought Sarah Palin is expected to run in 2012.
But, and this is the only time I will endorse this behaviour, let’s not allow cynicism about the future to cloud politics. My friend Pvt. Steven Hildreth supported John McCain and has vehemently opposed Obama (even denouncing him as a Communist), and on his blog can be read “R.I.P. the United States of America: 1776-2008.” In a way I agree with that epitaph. The racial debate may be far from over, but the United States have finally come full circle symbolically by doing something none of the white-dominated so-called European intelligencia countries have done: put their fate into the hands of a man from a minority. There is an oneiric quality to the fact that this has taken place so soon after 9/11, which some foresaw as the beginning of the end of multiculturalism.
Perhaps Barack Obama will not be able to deliver on his Achitophelian rhetoric. Perhaps he won because he is black, and we have traded one form of racism for another. Perhaps he has won on the strength of a catchphrase, namely “Change.” But an ideological shift has often benefitted the nation before. And after over 200 years of bigotry, unspent potential and broken promises, this finally felt like the good guys had won.
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