Slavoj Zizek, the Marxist philosopher and critic of, well, just about everything, is fond of pointing out the oppression of today's society, but I personally feel it's a point that is often missed. Surely today's society is less oppressive than, say, Soviet Russia? Or totalitarian European states that existed prior to the English Civil War?
A western society like the United Kingdom can be represented as much as anything by the outcome of the Hegelian dialectic, the equation put forward by the German philosopher Johan Fichte that reads thesis + antithesis = synthesis. One of the most common misunderstandings about the theory of evolution is the belief that there is a difference between transitional species and the species we see around us today, this arrogant worldview that we are in some way the finished product of a previous equation. This is simply incorrect: the process is still ongoing with no end in sight, and it is equally important to remember that the synthesis of the Hegelian dialectic is always a thesis and an antithesis in a successive equation; indeed, to do otherwise is dangerous (as it among other things leads to apathy). To write the Hegelian dialectic out in full would require a blackboard the length and width of the universe itself, so for the sake of limitation we must start with a synthesis and work backwards. This is easy with Britain, as it is so obviously a halfway house between authoritarianism and anarchism, a great example of a Western libertarian society because the vestigal organs are still alive in Buckingham Palace. We enjoy many freedoms and support sensible limitations: we can dress how we like (to a point), we can speak our minds (to a point), we can have sex with whatever we want (to a point), we can marry whom we please (to a point). But again human arrogance arises: 21st century liberal democracy is right, everything that led to it is wrong.
It is easy to look back and criticise from a position of hindsight. We see Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany as the ultimate dystopias, and criticisms of them that are too late to be relevant are held up as anti-establishment thought (see V For Vendetta). In my previous posts I have mentioned how apathy posits a political problem today, but there is a philosophical assault by the liberal democracy championed by the likes of Francis Fukyama: the oppression of tolerance. It was his criticism of tolerance that first drew me to Zizek, as tolerance has always struck me as an unpleasant word, and indeed it is also an unpleasant concept.
Since I am unashamedly ripping Slavoj off here, I will use his example: a classic, authoritarian father might say to you, "You are going to visit your grandmother today, whether you like it or not." The postmodern, liberal democratic father you might find today is far more likely to say, "You don't have to visit your grandmother, only go if you want to." The obligation to go is still there, but you have to like it, too. On a larger scale, whereas in the past homosexuality was illegal, now it is "tolerated," along with criticism of it. Yes, you can go out and say queering doesn't make the world work, but you will be frowned upon. We are no longer kept in place by armed police, but by society's expectation and the inner pain it can inflict.
Is this a good thing? Well, it means that the target has moved from the homosexual to the homophobe, which is a positive. But the enforcing of it is extremely dishonest. And it is only through conditioning that we even see this as positive. The late, great pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty noted that as a teacher he was no different from the progandists that were employed in Nazi Germany. He conditioned his students so that they were no longer bigots because he believed, as do I, that it was right to do so, just as a Nazi teacher would have conditioned his students to be bigots because he believed it was right to do so. Who has the moral advantage? It lies only in the balance of the synthesis.
I once ridiculed Ann Coulter for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. In fact, she had an excellent point, whether she knew it or not. However preferable a secular democracy seems to us compared with a fascist theocracy, the enforcement of the former at the expense of what had gone before is as ironic as it is unjustifed. It's worth noting that there was never an explicit rule in Soviet Russia about criticising the communist society, but if you did you would undoubtedly disappear. Now? There is no criticism of the liberal democracy. Why? Because we no longer pander to utopias. Why? Because the 20th century seems to have borne out Antonin Artaud's belief that, since suffering is vital to human existence, utopias must always become dystopias. The truth is that nothing has changed as much as we'd like to think it has. We are still on leashes, they're just invisible now. And we are all still very, very partial to indoctrination.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Monday, 13 October 2008
A Tale of Two Countries
I must say, with all the excitement generated by our pals across the pond I almost forgot that we had politics of our own. The US elections are fascinating to watch because of how backwards they seem to us. This is not at all to say that the British governmental system is superior (see my earlier posts), but that what is and what isn't a contentious point in the US makes the candidates seem immensely prosophobic. For instance, Barack Obama was labelled a radical by Sarah Palin for taking a stance that would allow a failed abortion to continue. Going back a bit, Dennis Kucinich has long been pinned by similar labels for, among other things, advocating a national heath service. This, I was made to believe, made him among the most socialist of candidates and therefore unelectable.
I wonder how these people would respond if they were to discover that the UK, one of their greatest foreign allies, has been a socialist country since at least 1948 (and indeed one might contend that the Liberal party that was voted in in 1906 was actually a late comer in taking advantage of Keir Hardian socialist ideas). I don't remember any serious political figure even suggesting the NHS should be privitised, let alone got rid of completely. And the right to buy handguns? You'd be laughed out of the Commons.
Abortion, of course, is a contentious issue whichever side of the Atlantic Ocean it rears its head, but at least both major parties over here support a woman's right to choose. There seems to be no consensus between Republicans on this, and indeed even individuals have trouble making their minds up. Does anyone know what Rudy Giuliani's stance was in the end? Say what you like about New Labour and the Third Way, but after following American politics for a while it seems ludicrous to imagine a Catholic-sympathising (and later convert) leader of a conservative political party, as Tony Blair was, championing pro-choice and gay rights, yet an eyebrow was hardly raised in the UK because it seemed sensible. Last year was the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act (the UK's version of Roe vs Wade in that it didn't overturn a previous ruling but rather clarified it) and the resultant protesting by pro-lifers was generally regarded to be the actions of outsiders, projecting images onto the Houses of Parliament and distributing leaflets that compared abortion to the Holocaust (if memory serves, 6 million abortions had taken place in the UK since 1967). It was rather telling when the campaigners couldn't muster a single woman to represent them in a BBC interview.
But this is simply evidence of how stagnated British politics has become. We're at a key stage of ecomonic interest, Labour having in the past few months nationalised two banks, first Northern Rock and then Bradford & Bingley, yet where is the ideological bickering? I can only imagine the uproar that would have resulted in the US, judging by how every "socialist" movement (at least by the Democrats: George W. Bush, if you remember him, has just agreed to the largest socialist suggestion in US history) is treated with extreme scrutiny and suspicion. Naturally, there was criticism by the Conservatives (in the Commons and through soundbites), but it was hardly vociferous enough to be newsworthy. In fact, I had to sit through the Tory Conference in Birmingham a few weeks ago before I heard a soapbox-worthy whisper about it.
Urgh, I sort of wish I hadn't. It was one of the most patronising experiences of my life (and I realise this blog is on the verge of being purely criticism of the Tories). Highlights included banter between Boris Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a hall full of senile upper class toffs trying to figure out why there were black people blowing into their hands on stage, and Andrew Mitchell (I think, they all sort of look the same) wheeling out Uncle Tom, MP, who had a double-barrelled surname, presumably to show they weren't racist. They also played The Killers during intervals to show how this party is so, like, with it. But it was George Osborne, and only George Osborne, who led me to believe he had read a newspaper in the past four months. Unfortunately, his contest, whilst delivered with a clear, self-righteous tenor, was too contradictory to clarify anything for me. On one hand, he asserted that ten years of Labour's irresponsible free-market policies were to blame for this economic crisis. On the other, he decried the nationalisation of banks and warned of the idiocy of the Left. So not only are Labour decadent ultracapitalists, but also fiendish Marxist dogs at the same time. The crowd applauded wildly at this concise summing up of Comrade Brown and Comrade Darling, whilst I changed the channel to Fox News.
Perhaps I just enjoy being outraged. But with all the idealism gone from British politics, it's no wonder how apathetic we are. And who would have thought that apathy, rather than war, could lead to a country's downfall? Surely, not even Orwell. In my last post of this nature, I warned that the BNP is the fastest growing party in Britain. A few months down the line and Stoke seems to be the first city in England to be within Nick Griffin's conceivable grasp. A warning to any Americans: the grass may be greener over here, but it so very, very dry.
I wonder how these people would respond if they were to discover that the UK, one of their greatest foreign allies, has been a socialist country since at least 1948 (and indeed one might contend that the Liberal party that was voted in in 1906 was actually a late comer in taking advantage of Keir Hardian socialist ideas). I don't remember any serious political figure even suggesting the NHS should be privitised, let alone got rid of completely. And the right to buy handguns? You'd be laughed out of the Commons.
Abortion, of course, is a contentious issue whichever side of the Atlantic Ocean it rears its head, but at least both major parties over here support a woman's right to choose. There seems to be no consensus between Republicans on this, and indeed even individuals have trouble making their minds up. Does anyone know what Rudy Giuliani's stance was in the end? Say what you like about New Labour and the Third Way, but after following American politics for a while it seems ludicrous to imagine a Catholic-sympathising (and later convert) leader of a conservative political party, as Tony Blair was, championing pro-choice and gay rights, yet an eyebrow was hardly raised in the UK because it seemed sensible. Last year was the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act (the UK's version of Roe vs Wade in that it didn't overturn a previous ruling but rather clarified it) and the resultant protesting by pro-lifers was generally regarded to be the actions of outsiders, projecting images onto the Houses of Parliament and distributing leaflets that compared abortion to the Holocaust (if memory serves, 6 million abortions had taken place in the UK since 1967). It was rather telling when the campaigners couldn't muster a single woman to represent them in a BBC interview.
But this is simply evidence of how stagnated British politics has become. We're at a key stage of ecomonic interest, Labour having in the past few months nationalised two banks, first Northern Rock and then Bradford & Bingley, yet where is the ideological bickering? I can only imagine the uproar that would have resulted in the US, judging by how every "socialist" movement (at least by the Democrats: George W. Bush, if you remember him, has just agreed to the largest socialist suggestion in US history) is treated with extreme scrutiny and suspicion. Naturally, there was criticism by the Conservatives (in the Commons and through soundbites), but it was hardly vociferous enough to be newsworthy. In fact, I had to sit through the Tory Conference in Birmingham a few weeks ago before I heard a soapbox-worthy whisper about it.
Urgh, I sort of wish I hadn't. It was one of the most patronising experiences of my life (and I realise this blog is on the verge of being purely criticism of the Tories). Highlights included banter between Boris Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a hall full of senile upper class toffs trying to figure out why there were black people blowing into their hands on stage, and Andrew Mitchell (I think, they all sort of look the same) wheeling out Uncle Tom, MP, who had a double-barrelled surname, presumably to show they weren't racist. They also played The Killers during intervals to show how this party is so, like, with it. But it was George Osborne, and only George Osborne, who led me to believe he had read a newspaper in the past four months. Unfortunately, his contest, whilst delivered with a clear, self-righteous tenor, was too contradictory to clarify anything for me. On one hand, he asserted that ten years of Labour's irresponsible free-market policies were to blame for this economic crisis. On the other, he decried the nationalisation of banks and warned of the idiocy of the Left. So not only are Labour decadent ultracapitalists, but also fiendish Marxist dogs at the same time. The crowd applauded wildly at this concise summing up of Comrade Brown and Comrade Darling, whilst I changed the channel to Fox News.
Perhaps I just enjoy being outraged. But with all the idealism gone from British politics, it's no wonder how apathetic we are. And who would have thought that apathy, rather than war, could lead to a country's downfall? Surely, not even Orwell. In my last post of this nature, I warned that the BNP is the fastest growing party in Britain. A few months down the line and Stoke seems to be the first city in England to be within Nick Griffin's conceivable grasp. A warning to any Americans: the grass may be greener over here, but it so very, very dry.
Sunday, 12 October 2008
Poem to Commemorate Liverpool, 2008 European Capital of Culture...
...(and The Fantastic Work Done By City Officials to Tackle Social Problems in Poor Areas and to Thus Ensure The Award Was Not Focused on Silly Fireworks Displays in the City Centre)
Around my berd deh do dere stand
Fellas from every city
From Bermingham to London town
And they do all smell quite shitty.
But itud be a crime to start,
To do them in right now
Aside from the fact the busies are here
Shes a ugly fuckin cow.
So me mate I only see
One possible course of action
I might end up in the nick
But at least I won’t be in traction:
Al wait until we get home
Where there won’t be quite so many
Al start a row, she’ll throw a plate
An al kick’er in the fanny.
Around my berd deh do dere stand
Fellas from every city
From Bermingham to London town
And they do all smell quite shitty.
But itud be a crime to start,
To do them in right now
Aside from the fact the busies are here
Shes a ugly fuckin cow.
So me mate I only see
One possible course of action
I might end up in the nick
But at least I won’t be in traction:
Al wait until we get home
Where there won’t be quite so many
Al start a row, she’ll throw a plate
An al kick’er in the fanny.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Distant Voices, Still Lives
It's wonderful when you discover a cult classic for the first time. You ache for its undeserved low-profile, yet revel in the fact it feels so much more personal and intimate for it. Withnail & I (Bruce Robinson, 1986) is one of those films I loved so much I had to show it to my friends; others, like Demoni (Lamberto Bava, 1985) or Salome's Last Dance (Ken Russell, 1988) I had to more or less keep to myself (anyone who's seen the latter particularly will probably know why).
I am unsure under which category Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davis, 1988) falls. Even compared to some other examples of cult films I've given on this blog, this is one that really fell off the face of the earth. For years I couldn't even acquire a second hand copy on VHS; really, "golddust" doesn't quite cover it. Thankfully, those lovely appreciative people at the British Film Institute have finally brought the film to DVD, complete with a booklet, interviews with the director, a theatrical trailer and so forth. The grauniad, of course, jumped on the bandwagon and now the film is finally getting some recogntion after years wandering movie wilderness, perhaps occasionally bumping into Hurlements en faveur de Sade or French Dressing.
But is it any good?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I cannot think of a better film to come from these so humble Isles.
And that's the most frightening thing about the film. This isn't simply a generation experiencing hard times, but a self-renewing purgatory to test Sisyphus. As children the women can't understand why their loving mother has married such a bullying scumbag, as adults they marry into the same breed. And they know it, too. The charcters' only release is song, which they crave like junkies seek heroin, singing to release themselves from the threat of complete mental breakdown. It is in this way that the film is the purest of musicals, using song not merely to entertain or as a stylistic choice, but to uncover truths about the world.
Of course, the stifling and claustrophobic social boundaries that families like the Davises suffered would have been broken down somewhat by the 60s and the advent of free love, social rebellion, and The Beatles, but this is still ten years away for the film's characters and seems like so much longer. And as Davis, having made the film in the 1980s, realises, it would be his hellish conservative vision of Liverpool that returned in a new form. If this makes the film sound like a depressing experience, fear not. Between the intelligent, often beautiful camerawork, urban-poetic characterisation, music and several key performances (Debi Jones as Mickie is an absolute treat), this film is wholly enjoyable. It also benefits hugely from an intellectual deep focus: the director is as conscious of the physical context of his film as he is the political and emotional, and therefore several presents in store for anyone who knows anything about the era of 40s and 50s Liverpool, including cameos from long forgotten favourite drinks from a wartime pub and The Futurist.
It's rare you get a film that makes you laugh through tears it's induced, but this is one of them, a brave, honest, intelligent, thoroughly interesting masterpiece from almost every angle.
I am unsure under which category Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davis, 1988) falls. Even compared to some other examples of cult films I've given on this blog, this is one that really fell off the face of the earth. For years I couldn't even acquire a second hand copy on VHS; really, "golddust" doesn't quite cover it. Thankfully, those lovely appreciative people at the British Film Institute have finally brought the film to DVD, complete with a booklet, interviews with the director, a theatrical trailer and so forth. The grauniad, of course, jumped on the bandwagon and now the film is finally getting some recogntion after years wandering movie wilderness, perhaps occasionally bumping into Hurlements en faveur de Sade or French Dressing.
But is it any good?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I cannot think of a better film to come from these so humble Isles.
Distant Voices, Still Lives ostensibly chronicles personal memories of Davies' own working class family through the '40s and '50s, but truly this is a universal film. From the very first shot we know our perspective is in the hands of an extremely competent director, and the content of the film does not disappoint the formalism. Though like Angela's Ashes (Alan Parker, 1999) it portrays a class defecated upon by circumstances beyond their control, it isn't interested in whining, nor shocking the upper classes into action or shaming a government through propaganda like countless other films I could mention, but instead deals in facts presented naked, with a brutal honesty that sends up the chosen microcosm as just as faulted morally as their situation.
It isn't simply a film about class, but also gender. The women in the film are truly fascinating. Note the silence of the mother, the wavering sentimentality of the daughters, the headstrong bravado of the friend: all crumbling rocks against which the domineering men crash, (The males are, with a few exceptions, bastards) from Pete Postlethwaite's chilling and abusive patriarch to Michael Starke's (Sinbad~!) slothful waster of a husband.And that's the most frightening thing about the film. This isn't simply a generation experiencing hard times, but a self-renewing purgatory to test Sisyphus. As children the women can't understand why their loving mother has married such a bullying scumbag, as adults they marry into the same breed. And they know it, too. The charcters' only release is song, which they crave like junkies seek heroin, singing to release themselves from the threat of complete mental breakdown. It is in this way that the film is the purest of musicals, using song not merely to entertain or as a stylistic choice, but to uncover truths about the world.
Of course, the stifling and claustrophobic social boundaries that families like the Davises suffered would have been broken down somewhat by the 60s and the advent of free love, social rebellion, and The Beatles, but this is still ten years away for the film's characters and seems like so much longer. And as Davis, having made the film in the 1980s, realises, it would be his hellish conservative vision of Liverpool that returned in a new form. If this makes the film sound like a depressing experience, fear not. Between the intelligent, often beautiful camerawork, urban-poetic characterisation, music and several key performances (Debi Jones as Mickie is an absolute treat), this film is wholly enjoyable. It also benefits hugely from an intellectual deep focus: the director is as conscious of the physical context of his film as he is the political and emotional, and therefore several presents in store for anyone who knows anything about the era of 40s and 50s Liverpool, including cameos from long forgotten favourite drinks from a wartime pub and The Futurist.
It's rare you get a film that makes you laugh through tears it's induced, but this is one of them, a brave, honest, intelligent, thoroughly interesting masterpiece from almost every angle.
Thursday, 25 September 2008
The best film of the 2000s is a David Lynch film
...And it isn't Mulholland Drive.
As I alluded to in my last entry, people rarely like being taken out of their comfort zones. In a rather unfortunate twist of fate, there are few things I enjoy more, but it rarely happens. I've not seen nearly enough films to be desensitised, of course, but the films that are accepted into the general zeitgeist as "great films" are hardly ever brave enough. I'm not merely talking about the general Oscar fodder, like Crash, Brokeback Mountain, There Will Be Blood, the latest Clint Eastwood film, etc., but even the also-rans that come up when the surface is scratched. The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford is currently being held up by a small but loud minority as an all-time classic Western, and even, I've heard, a deep and philosophical masterpiece that was simply too ambitious to be mentioned in the Academy Awards. Yes, a Brad Pitt film is apparently too cult-y for the status quo. It's like Fight Club all over again.
This isn't snobbery. I was, after all, a big fan of No Country For Old Men. I'm not going to pretend, however, it was particularly groundbreaking. The problem is that even the aforementioned reactionaries still pull for films that have standard (albeit wandering) narratives and beautiful cinematography. Occasionally there might be a "great" Hollywood performance to buck up its chances. The main mistake is defining a film by the Oscars it did or didn't win.
I don't think even David Lynch, the supposed king of cult, understands this. He after all campaigned two years ago for Laura Dern's Academy credentials, recalling to mind Robert Rodriguez' championing of Frank Miller and acrimonious departure from the Director's Guild. Although I have never been a huge fan of Lynch, I would be sad to see him fall into the Tarantino Club for sidelined directors who appeal to teenagers angry at an unseen, disembodied force tentatively labelled as "the Establishment." (if he hasn't already.)
Lynch's film Mulholland Drive is not quite in the Assassination of Jesse James... category, owing to the fact it is a vastly superior work, but the murmurings of discontent still bubbled to the surface when Lynch failed to win Best Director and had to settle for a round of Golden Globes. You've heard most of the acclaim, I'm sure: it's the best film of the 2000s, it's the film Lynch has been working towards his whole life, etc. Even Roger Ebert, who was a vehement critic of the director's earlier efforts, praised it for being a Lynch film that didn't "shatter the test tubes."
For me, the fact it didn't is why it isn't Lynch's crowning achievement. Like Blue Velvet, a work that seems to be unanimously accepted as Lynch's other masterwork, it is fascinating in parts and cherishable, but doesn't push the envelope as much as I have now been convinced Lynch can.
By contrast, no test tube could ever hope to contain Inland Empire. The film is in parts beautiful, thought-provoking, embracing, alienating, funny and genuinely terrifying. It never limits itself to anyone else's philosophy, never sells itself short through references. One is reminded of Felini's 8½, another film that refused to compromise or bend to what had gone before, but with respect to the Italian master, even that comparison does not do justice to how far Lynch has allowed himself to go. All conventions are shunned, all pretentions of coherent storytelling are cruelly torn down to make way for a psychological rollercoaster.
The character listed in the credits as The Phantom is perhaps the epitome of this. He haunts the film (truly I would love to draw lines between Dern's character's world, her subconsciousness and the film-within-the-film just to organise my thoughts, but this would be doing a disservice to Lynch's anarchaic blending that has rendered such concepts as metafiction irrelevant until they adapt to the film and begin to take on new meanings), silently, without introduction or narrative explanation. The theme, and the reactions of the characters, are the only elements that acknowledge him as a threat, and therefore so do we. His final appearance is the pinnacle of shocks in cinema, too unconscious and unreasonable a fright to be made sense of by a mammal reliant on his reasoning and functioning frontal lobe.
I want to tell you more, but truly this is the most Brechtian and Lynchian of films in the sense that it requires you to bring more of yourself to the table than any of its predecessors. It's one of about three films that has ever taken me outside of my comfort zone, and the first while I've been an adult. It is only the second film (after Tarkovsky's The Mirror) that I have felt deserves to share György Lukács "criticism" of Joyce's Ulysses as an ultimate example of borgeois decadence.
Unfortunately, it's seemingly been shunned in every which way. A book I own, called The 1001 Films To See Before You Die, offers Little Miss Sunshine, The Prestige, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, The Last King of Scotland, Borat, Babel, The Queen, Apocalypto and The Departed as better uses of your time from the same year. One cannot help but wonder, though, whether Vertigo would have been listed had the book been compiled in 1958. The truth is that whatever popular opinion change now, it is guaranteed to change in the future, and there is perhaps no more fickle area of criticism than film (does anyone remember when There Will Be Blood was being offered up not only as the film of the year, but a classic superior even to Citizen Kane or The Godfather?). I am confident that in 20 years Inland Empire will be accepted as the cinematic landmark it so deserves to be, rather than the brave folly it is perceived as now. Hey, maybe even Tarr's Satantango is only 10 years short of that particular club membership.
29/11/08 revision: A Freudian slip on my part, as I misattributed a criticism of Ulysses to Terry Eagleton rather than György Lukács
As I alluded to in my last entry, people rarely like being taken out of their comfort zones. In a rather unfortunate twist of fate, there are few things I enjoy more, but it rarely happens. I've not seen nearly enough films to be desensitised, of course, but the films that are accepted into the general zeitgeist as "great films" are hardly ever brave enough. I'm not merely talking about the general Oscar fodder, like Crash, Brokeback Mountain, There Will Be Blood, the latest Clint Eastwood film, etc., but even the also-rans that come up when the surface is scratched. The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford is currently being held up by a small but loud minority as an all-time classic Western, and even, I've heard, a deep and philosophical masterpiece that was simply too ambitious to be mentioned in the Academy Awards. Yes, a Brad Pitt film is apparently too cult-y for the status quo. It's like Fight Club all over again.
This isn't snobbery. I was, after all, a big fan of No Country For Old Men. I'm not going to pretend, however, it was particularly groundbreaking. The problem is that even the aforementioned reactionaries still pull for films that have standard (albeit wandering) narratives and beautiful cinematography. Occasionally there might be a "great" Hollywood performance to buck up its chances. The main mistake is defining a film by the Oscars it did or didn't win.
I don't think even David Lynch, the supposed king of cult, understands this. He after all campaigned two years ago for Laura Dern's Academy credentials, recalling to mind Robert Rodriguez' championing of Frank Miller and acrimonious departure from the Director's Guild. Although I have never been a huge fan of Lynch, I would be sad to see him fall into the Tarantino Club for sidelined directors who appeal to teenagers angry at an unseen, disembodied force tentatively labelled as "the Establishment." (if he hasn't already.)
Lynch's film Mulholland Drive is not quite in the Assassination of Jesse James... category, owing to the fact it is a vastly superior work, but the murmurings of discontent still bubbled to the surface when Lynch failed to win Best Director and had to settle for a round of Golden Globes. You've heard most of the acclaim, I'm sure: it's the best film of the 2000s, it's the film Lynch has been working towards his whole life, etc. Even Roger Ebert, who was a vehement critic of the director's earlier efforts, praised it for being a Lynch film that didn't "shatter the test tubes."
For me, the fact it didn't is why it isn't Lynch's crowning achievement. Like Blue Velvet, a work that seems to be unanimously accepted as Lynch's other masterwork, it is fascinating in parts and cherishable, but doesn't push the envelope as much as I have now been convinced Lynch can.
By contrast, no test tube could ever hope to contain Inland Empire. The film is in parts beautiful, thought-provoking, embracing, alienating, funny and genuinely terrifying. It never limits itself to anyone else's philosophy, never sells itself short through references. One is reminded of Felini's 8½, another film that refused to compromise or bend to what had gone before, but with respect to the Italian master, even that comparison does not do justice to how far Lynch has allowed himself to go. All conventions are shunned, all pretentions of coherent storytelling are cruelly torn down to make way for a psychological rollercoaster.
The character listed in the credits as The Phantom is perhaps the epitome of this. He haunts the film (truly I would love to draw lines between Dern's character's world, her subconsciousness and the film-within-the-film just to organise my thoughts, but this would be doing a disservice to Lynch's anarchaic blending that has rendered such concepts as metafiction irrelevant until they adapt to the film and begin to take on new meanings), silently, without introduction or narrative explanation. The theme, and the reactions of the characters, are the only elements that acknowledge him as a threat, and therefore so do we. His final appearance is the pinnacle of shocks in cinema, too unconscious and unreasonable a fright to be made sense of by a mammal reliant on his reasoning and functioning frontal lobe.
I want to tell you more, but truly this is the most Brechtian and Lynchian of films in the sense that it requires you to bring more of yourself to the table than any of its predecessors. It's one of about three films that has ever taken me outside of my comfort zone, and the first while I've been an adult. It is only the second film (after Tarkovsky's The Mirror) that I have felt deserves to share György Lukács "criticism" of Joyce's Ulysses as an ultimate example of borgeois decadence.
Unfortunately, it's seemingly been shunned in every which way. A book I own, called The 1001 Films To See Before You Die, offers Little Miss Sunshine, The Prestige, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, The Last King of Scotland, Borat, Babel, The Queen, Apocalypto and The Departed as better uses of your time from the same year. One cannot help but wonder, though, whether Vertigo would have been listed had the book been compiled in 1958. The truth is that whatever popular opinion change now, it is guaranteed to change in the future, and there is perhaps no more fickle area of criticism than film (does anyone remember when There Will Be Blood was being offered up not only as the film of the year, but a classic superior even to Citizen Kane or The Godfather?). I am confident that in 20 years Inland Empire will be accepted as the cinematic landmark it so deserves to be, rather than the brave folly it is perceived as now. Hey, maybe even Tarr's Satantango is only 10 years short of that particular club membership.
29/11/08 revision: A Freudian slip on my part, as I misattributed a criticism of Ulysses to Terry Eagleton rather than György Lukács
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Liverpool under attack
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/videos-pictures/videos/videos-news/2008/09/02/huge-creature-appears-in-city-centre-64375-21664141/
Wednesday 3rd September
Dawn The creature appears suspended on the side of Concourse Tower.
08.00h Press briefing – with photo and interview opportunities.
10.00h A Research Base is set up at the Echo Arena at the ACC.
16.00h Scientists arrive at Concourse Tower to set up searchlights to light the creature.
20.30h Scientists switch on searchlights, which stay lit overnight.
Thursday 4th September
11.30h The creature is craned off Concourse Tower.
12.30h The convoy carries the creature and sets off for the Research base at ACC.
13.00h The convoy arrives at the Research Base.
14.00h Press briefing with a member of the French artistic team.
Friday 5th September
11.30h The scientists perform experiments on the creature using different special effects to see how it responds to different stimuli. The creature wakes up and is prevented from running away by a wall of Chinese firecrackers and by a fire effect. Eventually the creature is sent to sleep by a snow machine.
13.00h Interview / photo / filming opps - member of the French artistic team,representative from Liverpool Culture Company, members of Artichoke production team.
18.00h The creature wakes and parades to Salthouse Dock.
19.30h The creature arrives at the Dock and takes a bath, accompanied by live music.
After her bath, she is dried and perfumed.
20.30h The creature sets off for Cunard Building.
21.00h The creature arrives at Cunard Building. It begins to snow gently and she falls asleep.
Saturday 6th September
11.30h The creature wakes up in the middle of a magical snowscape, and is serenaded with music.
12.30h The creature goes to sleep again.
13.00h Press briefing with a member of the French artistic team.
14.45h The creature leaves Cunard Building and walks up Water Street.
15.30h The creature arrives at Town Hall – smoke effect.
15.40h The creature walks towards Derby Square along Castle Street.
16.00h Water ballet at Derby Square.
16.15h The creature walks down Lord Street to Holy Corner where it is snowing.
17.00h The creature sleeps.
18.30h The creature wakes and walks down Parker Street, serenaded on the way.
20.00h A tempest rages at Ranelagh Place.
20.30h The creature arrives at Concourse Tower, climbs up the tower and goes to sleep.
Sunday 7th September
15.00h The creature wakes up and is prepared for the evening’s entertainment.
16.00h The creature goes back to sleep.
19.30h Cherry-pickers and musicians arrive.
20.00h The creature is removed from the tower with a crane.
20.30h The convoy leaves the tower and parades to Queensway Tunnel entrance.
21.15h The creature tries to escape, but is prevented from doing so by the special effect machines.
21.30h The creature escapes via the tunnel.
Escapes? Not without its wheels being taken.
Wednesday 3rd September
Dawn The creature appears suspended on the side of Concourse Tower.
08.00h Press briefing – with photo and interview opportunities.
10.00h A Research Base is set up at the Echo Arena at the ACC.
16.00h Scientists arrive at Concourse Tower to set up searchlights to light the creature.
20.30h Scientists switch on searchlights, which stay lit overnight.
Thursday 4th September
11.30h The creature is craned off Concourse Tower.
12.30h The convoy carries the creature and sets off for the Research base at ACC.
13.00h The convoy arrives at the Research Base.
14.00h Press briefing with a member of the French artistic team.
Friday 5th September
11.30h The scientists perform experiments on the creature using different special effects to see how it responds to different stimuli. The creature wakes up and is prevented from running away by a wall of Chinese firecrackers and by a fire effect. Eventually the creature is sent to sleep by a snow machine.
13.00h Interview / photo / filming opps - member of the French artistic team,representative from Liverpool Culture Company, members of Artichoke production team.
18.00h The creature wakes and parades to Salthouse Dock.
19.30h The creature arrives at the Dock and takes a bath, accompanied by live music.
After her bath, she is dried and perfumed.
20.30h The creature sets off for Cunard Building.
21.00h The creature arrives at Cunard Building. It begins to snow gently and she falls asleep.
Saturday 6th September
11.30h The creature wakes up in the middle of a magical snowscape, and is serenaded with music.
12.30h The creature goes to sleep again.
13.00h Press briefing with a member of the French artistic team.
14.45h The creature leaves Cunard Building and walks up Water Street.
15.30h The creature arrives at Town Hall – smoke effect.
15.40h The creature walks towards Derby Square along Castle Street.
16.00h Water ballet at Derby Square.
16.15h The creature walks down Lord Street to Holy Corner where it is snowing.
17.00h The creature sleeps.
18.30h The creature wakes and walks down Parker Street, serenaded on the way.
20.00h A tempest rages at Ranelagh Place.
20.30h The creature arrives at Concourse Tower, climbs up the tower and goes to sleep.
Sunday 7th September
15.00h The creature wakes up and is prepared for the evening’s entertainment.
16.00h The creature goes back to sleep.
19.30h Cherry-pickers and musicians arrive.
20.00h The creature is removed from the tower with a crane.
20.30h The convoy leaves the tower and parades to Queensway Tunnel entrance.
21.15h The creature tries to escape, but is prevented from doing so by the special effect machines.
21.30h The creature escapes via the tunnel.
Escapes? Not without its wheels being taken.
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
V For Vendetta and The Establishment
Recently I was involved in a discussion about anti-establishment films, and which films sought to subvert the order in the most admirably artistic way. Admittedly, there were some great suggestions. Punishment Park (Peter Watkins, 1971) was brought up. If... (Lindsey Anderson, 1968). Guy Debord's films, too. Perhaps the most obscure was a Turkish film called Yol (Yılmaz Güney and Şerif Gören, 1982), a cruel indictment of the post-1980 coup Turkish prison system written by Güney whilst he himself was jailed (an "assimilated Kurd," he later escaped and finished the film in Switzerland). I had never heard of the film before, but as a supporter of a united Kurdistan, it definitely appeals.
There were, too, some ridiculous suggestions. Yes, V For Vendetta was brought up. I'm treading old ground here, but bear with me. It's vaguely terrifying that a film made by a major studio can today be seen as anti-establishment, but actually terrifying that it is in this case one so pro-establishment as this, a capitalist parable in which social liberation is withheld by a tangible political force and won, not by violence, but by docile submission. I need not remind you of what the revolting proles do when they amass in London, but I will anyway: they stand quietly transfixed by fireworks. Ironic, because this is exactly what the audience do, before going away contented by what they have seen rather than outraged at the real life government.
This is typical of a society that has been Prozaced to the point where "Orwellian" is a cliche term that clatters, useless and hollow on the ground, when someone spies a speed camera coming off the motorway. It seems that the imagination of the average cinema-goer only stretches as far as to see the symbols of V For Vendetta (the raised fists in the rain, victims dragged away in the night, the shaved heads of the prisoners, the giant red-and-black icons of fascism) as genuine subversive social criticism rather than cardboard cut-out relics of an early 20th century fear that can no longer hurt us. True irony rang unknowingly in the voices of the film's defenders as they criticised us for being elitist.
Perhaps this mirrors the political apathy in Britain, which can be laid square at the door of New Labour. Some in the 1970s and 80s, outraged at how far the UK could be privatised by Thatcher's Conservatives, foresaw political revolution. Surely this strike at the membrane of the welfare state could only result in a vicious recoil?
These people were hopelessly optimistic, and the government was allowed to continue castrating the unions and placing basic human needs such as gas in the hands of cynical corporations until, quite simply, nobody cared any more. When the Tories could no longer be controversial idealogically, they slipped into sleaze and irrelevance, to be replaced in the 90s by a cleaner, rebranded version of themselves: the Labour Party. Once a bastion of the British left-wing, Labour simply kept privitised Britain ticking over the way Thatcherites had intended. Again, I recall celebration by naive old socialists eleven years ago: if the Tories had not been overthrown, at least they had been replaced by a new, sensible centralist party. But what have been their most controversial and newsworthy policies? Tony Blair's legacy is to be found far from home, all the way in the Middle East, whilst a bill to reduce freedom of speech was not just a sideline issue but actually supported by hordes of university students who campaigned outside the Old Bailey for Nick Griffin to be imprisoned for speaking his mind more or less in private.
The irony is that the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, have become so indistinguishable that the battle between them is no longer fought on ideology but on image. Just as Labour defeated Tory in 1997 due to the latter's sleazy image, David Cameron's party is poised to take over from Labour because of clever rebranding. No Conservative voter I have talked to has been able to name ten polices of theirs that differ from Labour's. After the credit crunch, the fall of the housing market, the loss of personal data and several other high-profile cock-ups by Labour, the general consensus among political commentators is that the Tories are going to win not on their own merits but simply because they aren't Labour. This is seen as the pinnacle of political stagnation. The truth is far more horrfying: the truth is that they are going to win because they are Labour, a new, shiner Labour, just as Blair's Labour was a new, shiny Conservative Party. The same fortnight tired Gordon Brown unwisely compared himself to Heathcliffe, David Cameron began his campaign against fat and poor people and a Tory front bencher used the word "nigger" in the House of Lords, and, a month or two later, one of Cameron's favourite think tanks came to the conclusion that Northern English cities such as Newcastle and Liverpool, which have successfully undergone major refurbishment in the past few years, were beyond hope and should be abandoned altogether. But which of these four stories made the front pages? Yep, the Heathcliffe comparison.
There is an opportunity for change, however. The fastest growing party in the UK resembles neither of the Big Two. It is the British National Party, once a stalwart of the National Front of the 1980s that believed Thatcher's Conservatives had the right idea but weren't nearly right-wing enough. To give you an insight into what they stand for, in Stoke, one of their high-ranking bullies has become a martyr for their cause after pushing his Muslim next door neighbour too far (reports indicate a campaign of racial abuse years long, including Mr Khan's son being beaten into unconsciousness) and being stabbed in response.
A return to Gladstonian liberalism now seems impossible. We've become so anaethetised politically and artistically that borderline fascism is now waiting in the wings to strike. This is the ultimate sad irony that escapes those that champion partisan wankery like V For Vendetta as a defender of our right to be subversive and to think and live outside the box.
There were, too, some ridiculous suggestions. Yes, V For Vendetta was brought up. I'm treading old ground here, but bear with me. It's vaguely terrifying that a film made by a major studio can today be seen as anti-establishment, but actually terrifying that it is in this case one so pro-establishment as this, a capitalist parable in which social liberation is withheld by a tangible political force and won, not by violence, but by docile submission. I need not remind you of what the revolting proles do when they amass in London, but I will anyway: they stand quietly transfixed by fireworks. Ironic, because this is exactly what the audience do, before going away contented by what they have seen rather than outraged at the real life government.
This is typical of a society that has been Prozaced to the point where "Orwellian" is a cliche term that clatters, useless and hollow on the ground, when someone spies a speed camera coming off the motorway. It seems that the imagination of the average cinema-goer only stretches as far as to see the symbols of V For Vendetta (the raised fists in the rain, victims dragged away in the night, the shaved heads of the prisoners, the giant red-and-black icons of fascism) as genuine subversive social criticism rather than cardboard cut-out relics of an early 20th century fear that can no longer hurt us. True irony rang unknowingly in the voices of the film's defenders as they criticised us for being elitist.
Perhaps this mirrors the political apathy in Britain, which can be laid square at the door of New Labour. Some in the 1970s and 80s, outraged at how far the UK could be privatised by Thatcher's Conservatives, foresaw political revolution. Surely this strike at the membrane of the welfare state could only result in a vicious recoil?
These people were hopelessly optimistic, and the government was allowed to continue castrating the unions and placing basic human needs such as gas in the hands of cynical corporations until, quite simply, nobody cared any more. When the Tories could no longer be controversial idealogically, they slipped into sleaze and irrelevance, to be replaced in the 90s by a cleaner, rebranded version of themselves: the Labour Party. Once a bastion of the British left-wing, Labour simply kept privitised Britain ticking over the way Thatcherites had intended. Again, I recall celebration by naive old socialists eleven years ago: if the Tories had not been overthrown, at least they had been replaced by a new, sensible centralist party. But what have been their most controversial and newsworthy policies? Tony Blair's legacy is to be found far from home, all the way in the Middle East, whilst a bill to reduce freedom of speech was not just a sideline issue but actually supported by hordes of university students who campaigned outside the Old Bailey for Nick Griffin to be imprisoned for speaking his mind more or less in private.
The irony is that the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, have become so indistinguishable that the battle between them is no longer fought on ideology but on image. Just as Labour defeated Tory in 1997 due to the latter's sleazy image, David Cameron's party is poised to take over from Labour because of clever rebranding. No Conservative voter I have talked to has been able to name ten polices of theirs that differ from Labour's. After the credit crunch, the fall of the housing market, the loss of personal data and several other high-profile cock-ups by Labour, the general consensus among political commentators is that the Tories are going to win not on their own merits but simply because they aren't Labour. This is seen as the pinnacle of political stagnation. The truth is far more horrfying: the truth is that they are going to win because they are Labour, a new, shiner Labour, just as Blair's Labour was a new, shiny Conservative Party. The same fortnight tired Gordon Brown unwisely compared himself to Heathcliffe, David Cameron began his campaign against fat and poor people and a Tory front bencher used the word "nigger" in the House of Lords, and, a month or two later, one of Cameron's favourite think tanks came to the conclusion that Northern English cities such as Newcastle and Liverpool, which have successfully undergone major refurbishment in the past few years, were beyond hope and should be abandoned altogether. But which of these four stories made the front pages? Yep, the Heathcliffe comparison.
There is an opportunity for change, however. The fastest growing party in the UK resembles neither of the Big Two. It is the British National Party, once a stalwart of the National Front of the 1980s that believed Thatcher's Conservatives had the right idea but weren't nearly right-wing enough. To give you an insight into what they stand for, in Stoke, one of their high-ranking bullies has become a martyr for their cause after pushing his Muslim next door neighbour too far (reports indicate a campaign of racial abuse years long, including Mr Khan's son being beaten into unconsciousness) and being stabbed in response.
A return to Gladstonian liberalism now seems impossible. We've become so anaethetised politically and artistically that borderline fascism is now waiting in the wings to strike. This is the ultimate sad irony that escapes those that champion partisan wankery like V For Vendetta as a defender of our right to be subversive and to think and live outside the box.
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