Magic and Myth

Happy Christmas? Got an Oscar Wilde action figure. You? Plans for New Years? 80s-themed night at the local with my bro and sis. You?

Awkward small talk regarding the holidays sorted. Good.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (or my last blog post), I wrote a scene about a crazy girl in a bar and didn't really know what to do with it. Well.

I've been thinking about a story for a while that's sort of a martial arts/samurai version of this story from ancient Greek myth. Well, I've had the idea since I watched Kill Bill and wanted to imitate Tarantino probably (keep you posted on my superhero idea clearly only inspired by Scott Pilgrim Vs The World). Wasn't it Oscar Wilde who said 'good writers borrow, great writers steal?' Or was it Pablo Picasso who said 'good artists borrow, great artists steal?' Or was it T.S. Eliot who said 'immature poets borrow, mature poets steal?' No matter. They were awesome and condoned creative theft. Hmmm. Seems wrong somehow.

I digress. So the myth goes something like this; Daedalus, master craftsman and constructor of the labyrinth, is pretty sure he's the business at crafting shit. Until his sister's kid comes along. His name is Perdix and Perdix is super good at building stuff and this makes Daedalus well jealous. So one day while they're walking along some cliffs, hanging and chilling, Daedalus decides to push Perdix off one. A cliff, that is. In the myth I read the kid just plain died and Daedalus was banished, which is how he wound up building the labyrinth. But in the one I just looked up (cough, on Wikipedia, cough), the goddess Athena turned the kid into a bird before he hit the ground. This is supposedly the origin of the Partridge. The bird, not the family of musicians from the 70s.

How are these things related, you might ask? Well. I think the girl has the makings of being a Perdix character, looking for her Daedalus. I wanted to do a story about an assassin who kills one of his students because she's clearly going to be better than him. She survives and begins picking off the members of his organisation before killing him. The cliff stuff is genius, because the scene I've written already has that. In the myth, Daedalus is branded with the image of Perdix as punishment and I thought maybe this could be her mark? He pushes her off a cliff, she somehow survives, and exacts her revenge. There's a definite fight/flight motif running through this story (thank you, friend who talked about the fight or flight urge and how you can have one more than the other), and it can be seen in the original scene I wrote. And it's explicit in the one I'm about to share with you.

So this story is shaping up first of all to be about art, how we validate ourselves through our work and what it means when someone does better what we thought was ours alone, but also about our instincts; that constant tension between fight and flight that we live through every day and how others force us to enact those struggles every day. Please to enjoy the next scene I haves written!

An explanatory note (well, another one): I haven't written it as a scene in a film. I've written it as a monologue, then added directions. It's more notes on how to write the scene more than anything. Please to enjoy! Again!

It's the flight or fight complex. That survival instinct that kicks in when you know that if you walk into this territory you'll end up with a gun to your head or a knife to your throat.

What I've figured out is that no one has both. Oh, they'll try to tell you it's a constant struggle between the two, but that's bullshit. BULLSHIT.

See, to me, the real struggle comes from the realisation that in the moment flight or fight comes upon you, you're not who you thought you were.

When I was a kid, I had the drunken arsehole of a father who would start shit when he got home from the pub. I would stand up to him while my brother went and hid in his closet. That's how I learned that while my brother's instinct was flight, mine was to fight.

And that's why I'm so good at what we do. I know who is flight, and who is fight. And I know when someone realises that when they thought they'd be fight, they're actually flight. And you my dear, I'm afraid I know exactly what you are. You're flight.

This is dialogue, delivered direct address-style to the camera. It's our opening scene, our opening shot. In CU we see a middle-aged man. He looks tough. Battle-weary. Street-smart.

We pull back to an MCU and we see the landscape for the first time. It has large rocky mountaintops and cliffs filled with sharp points like raised daggers covering its surface. It is beautiful but treacherous. We CUT TO the person he has been talking to.

It's the girl from the bar with the wild red hair. Blue eyes like a cold flame. Now, though, she looks as though every inch of her is vibrating with fear.

He pushes her off the cliff.

And now I need to know where to go from here. Yay!

Adoxography: Skilled writing on an unimportant subject

In keeping with the theme of last week, I feel that sometimes, the title of this particular post could easily apply to me. I often wonder what the term is for skilled speaking on an unimportant subject.

I've been pulled into the world of buzzwords, procedures, processes, customer service, etc, and I find myself dabbling in adoxography less and less. And it pains me. Because my writing on those subjects isn't that skilled.

After reading interviews with Eli Roth and thinking he was going to reinvent the horror film because he's a filmmaker who really knows his generic conventions and therefore his films will be awesome, and being subsequently disappointed (you know I love you, Roth. Right?) I realised that perhaps it's true: critics talk better than they film. The exception to that rule is of course the critics of Cahiers du Cinema who would go on to create the Nouvelle Vague. But apart from them, who else? Scorsese is a film historian - does that count, I wonder?

My directorial debut (student of course) required me to go into detail about my infleunces and what I wanted the film to communicate and I think that what I wrote about the film promised something I ultimately couldn't deliver. And I remembered that my last project for my degree in Australia was much the same - my exegesis (document of creative practice and creative process in regard to a particular work) was about genre and genre transformation and if you hadn't seen the film you'd probably think it was some amazing work. The term 'new Simon Pegg' might be thrown around (a gal can dream, can't she?). But it wasn't. We saved it from being a complete disaster but in the end I was still embarrassed to show it to my peers in Manchester. Which brings me back to the subject: is my own analysis of my work simply a form of adoxography?

I've started reading yet another book and hopefully I'll finish this one (and then finish Brideshead Revisited, Nausea, The Age of Reason, The Brothers Karazmazov, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Mrs Dalloway). It's called Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh. As a lover of fiction and hence buying it in its most accessible and economic form (cheapskate) - it's a Popular Penguin edition (you know, the orange and white one you can pick up for a tenner while lamenting the fact the prettier edition next to it in Borders is almost three times the price?) and it had a little bio of Waugh. The thing that caught my attention was a quote from Mr Waugh himself, which is the following:

"I regard writing not as an investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with this I am obsessed. I have no technical psychological interest. It is drama, speech and events that interest me."

What I think he was saying here is not that character is of no consequence to him in his writing, but more that he writes as someone with an interest in the structure of how we communicate - that is, it is the structure of the novel that primarily moves him; language, words, sentences, chapters. Psychology and motivation are secondary, but nonetheless important.

Which made me happier about the way in which I approach my own work. I'm often inspired by the language of film before characters. I like to place my characters in a particular film world and the filmmakers I admire all use their films primarily as an invetigation of the structure of film just as much as the stories and the characters who inhabit that world; Hitchcock, Tarantino, Scorsese, and Wright in particular.

And it is rather nice to be able to say to people, 'well, my approach to my work is in much the same vein as the likes of Evelyn Waugh.' Because I'm white.

Waugh has given some delicious delicacies for thought, but the advice I think I always come back to came not from a famous novellist or groundbreaking filmmaker (yet!) but from a friend of mine in Manchester,a fellow writer who helped make me realise that writing is my passion. Whenever I told her I was stuck on a scene she would say what do you want it to say?

Anyone who knows me will say I have too much to say - maybe that's my problem and I always wonder if what I'm saying is actually of any value in this world, but I'll say it anyway. And I figure that if I'm speaking the language of film, which is primarily visual, at least I'll be saying it without opening my great big trap of a mouth.

Post-Script, Post-Haste!

So I was intending on explaining how I separated the films I believed were the best and the films I love the most. But...erm, I forgot. But I like, and I'ma gonna let you finish, but first I gotta tell you why these films are so good.

So, the basic idea were films that moved me emotionally, or used the medium of film in a particular way.

So - Here's the list again, including explanations:

Citizen Kane - This film is proof of the almost indefinable perfection of the Classical Hollywood Cinema, because it looks like it's breaking all of the rules. Yet if you're watching very closely, you will see that it glides effortlessly from convention, to experimentation with convention. Not only that, but this is Welles' first film - there are so many techniques he carried over from his experience in radio and theatre that seem so wonderfully suited to cinema that forever after people would be saying to themselves 'why didn't we think of this before?' Oh, and the score by Bernard Herrmann? EXQUISITE.

Vertigo - I'm not even sure where to start on this one. Is it that breathtaking opening by Saul Bass? Is it those 20 minutes in which our protagonist's character and his relationship to Madeleine is slowly revealed in perfect silence? Maybe it's the subtle subversion of Jimmy Stewart's persona? Or is it the romantic treatment of a man's obsession with an image that makes for some wonderfully creepy viewing? It could even be the amazing costumes by Edith Head or the haunting score by Bernard Herrmann. But I believe it just might be one scene after all. It's the scene in which Scottie's makeover of Judy into Madeleine is complete. She walks out of the hotel room, the glow of the green hotel light giving her the appearance of a ghost becoming corporeal as she moves from the bathroom to Scottie. They embrace, and we, like Scottie, no longer care that this is sick and twisted, and that he is crushing a young girl's personality and spirit for his own ends. Because we want the image too. We want Madeleine just as much as he does. And that is why Hitchcock is a fucking genius.

Wild Strawberries - I actually haven't seen this is in a while, and I think it's a testament to Bergman that even though I haven't watched it for ages, I still feel its power as a film. What is so amazing about this film is its story, and the way Bergman portrays the unfolding of a man's character through experimentation with genre, and particular film movements. What I also like is that it's a story about a man and his daughter-in-law - not a relationship you see explored in film very often.

Pulp Fiction - One thing I love about Tarantino is that he's a film geek to the core. Every single film he makes is merely an excuse to admire his favourite filmmakers. The man is also about homage, self-reflexivity, and genre. People may see that as irritating, that he's just assembling his films by taking other more talented filmmakers' work and pretending he thought of it first. Not true at all. What they fail to see is that Tarantino's films are partly a game - it's the cinematic equivalent of putting obscure song lyrics as your Facebook status and waiting to see who recognises them and comments with another line from the song - the effect is twofold; people know you're clever, and you find out which of their friends are awesome like you. So why is Pulp Fiction in particular so good? Well, it's the game. But more than that, it's to Non-Linear Narrative what Citizen Kane and the Classical Hollywood Cinema. What looks like a very celebrated example of a non-linear narrative is actually a perfect example of the three-act structure, and a classical structuring of temporal relations. If you want proof, read 'Breaking, Making, and Killing Time in Pulp Fiction', by Kevin Howley. He translated my thoughts into this article just in time for me to cite him in an essay about Citizen Kane and Pulp Fiction and the Classical Hollywood Cinema.

Breathless - Perhaps translated a little roughly, A Bout de Souffle (out of breath, more than Breathless) was one of the first films that changed French cinema in the late 1950s and changed the way critics thought about film as art. Not only were Godard and Co. filmmakers - they were film critics first. Their understanding of film as art allowed them to explore the medium fully. Fascinated by Hollywood cinema, and the work of Hitchcock in particular, Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, and Rohmer sought to make the kinds of films they wanted to see, and elevate Hollywood cinema to the status of art. Breathless is Godard's exploration of the Film Noir genre. Where Welles' exploration was one that stayed within the conventions of the classical Hollywood cinema, Godard's seems to stay firmly outside it, taking a conventional plot and story and subverting it - while the classical Hollywood cinema privileges character motivation in service of the narrative, Godard removes it almost entirely. But the brilliance is that he doesn't entirely removes it but merely makes the cinema itself the character motivation. His anti-hero, Poiccard, acts like a character in a Film Noir. Patricia acts as the femme fatale, because she is the femme fatale and this is how they act. The other reason I love this film is because Patricia and Poiccard escape to a cinema and watch a film - the film is merely two actors reciting lines from a Voltaire poem, another clear statement from Godard that the cinema is pure art.

Taxi Driver - some have suggested that Scorsese hasn't made any films recently that have surpassed his former glory, and while that's probably true, I find many of his films seem to be a sort of history of masculinity and violence in America. And on that level you can't dismiss the power of films like Gangs of New York and The Departed, films that are most definitely a part of this cycle, even if you don't like them. I hate the former and like the latter, by the way. What I love about Taxi Driver is that it is an exercise in unease. Nothing much happens until the end, but the film is all about the climax. And that's true of every film, or should be, but the beauty of Taxi Driver is following a young man as he slowly unravels. In his mind, he is becoming a hero. The audience can only see a man becoming incredibly dangerous. And at the end, you're not sure if he's going to kill the girl he is trying to save, or rescue her. And if that storyline sounds familiar, then you've seen John Ford's The Searchers. Scorsese takes this idea of a flawed hero and turns the entire film into a character study. Not only that, but it also belongs to a series of films exploring the Vietnam War's effect on the men who returned home. Mean Streets is also an interesting take on this idea of the Vietam Vet and his capacity for violence. So is First Blood...yes, I'm referring to Rambo.

Crimes and Misdemeanors - I've devoted an entire blog to why this film is legen - wait for it - dary in the past, but if you can't be bothered reading that post, then I shall sum it up here. Essentially, the film is a study in morality and faith. What if everything we believed about acting in a moral way was wrong? If we are never punished for our misdeeds, either by the law or by what we refer to as our conscience or soul, how then do we derive meaning from the world? Is it proof that God cannot exist if a man can commit a terrible crime and never feel the effects of what he has done? Yes, a Woody Allen films explores all of these questions. And I was so tempted to put Manhattan in this list but thought it would be strange to have two Allen films in this list. I'll talk about it in the other section.

Rashomon - I've heard it said that Kurosawa's Rashomon has no English title because the word Rashomon is actually a kind of Japanese onomatopoeia - a word describing the sound a moving train makes. I've been too scared to Google it, because I really hope that's true. The film uses the perspective of multiple witnesses to portray one event, which was pretty pioneer type stuff when the film was made. The story is this: a nobleman is murdered, his wife raped, and a local bandit has been put on trial for the crime. A witness to some of the events relays the court proceedings to a monk while seeking refuge in a monastery during a rainstorm. The bandit gives his account, the noblewoman, and even the nobleman, through the use of a...erm, like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost. Only no one gets to make out with the noblewoman. Anyway. Their accounts of the event are all different - the bandit portrays himself as the victim, as does the noblewoman. The nobleman portrays himself as a fallen hero. However, the witness has seen more than they realise, and reveals them all to be selfish cowards. But the film's true message, and this is why it kicks serious arse, is that the concept of objective reality may be nonexistent at worst and problematic at best. Memory is subjective, and our perspective will always be coloured by our personal investment in situations. And you thought Kurosawa was awesome because he inspired Lucas in writing Star Wars. Oh, and Toshiro Mifune is a one-man masterclass in acting as the Bandit.

No Country For Old Men - The Coen Brother have made some seriously awesome films - Fargo and Blood Simple spring immediately to mind, but this may be their masterpiece. It's almost flawless. The acting is incredible, particularly Brolin and Bardem. The editing perfectly elicits tension at all moments. The cinematography is breathtaking. And the much talked-about ending is absolutely spot on. I've also been told that it is almost completely faithful to Cormac McCarthy's novel. I'll just bet it is. Never stop making films, Ethan and Joel. Please.

Mystic River - Clint Eastwood is the king of making films that in anyone else's hands could be cliche-laden. Gran Torino is the story of an old racist learning a valuable life lesson from an Asian teen and his family. That just sounds ready for sentimentality and heavy-handed moralising. But it's Eastwood so it's an touching examination of the ways in which violence separates people. Mystic River's spot in my list is earned in its end: When Sean Penn's character seeks vengeance for his daughter's murder and enacts it, we the audience see that he has the wrong man. And it's utterly devastating.

Und now, for my most loved films and why.

Singin' In The Rain - I could list all of its cinematic virtues, but that's not why it's top of my list of most-loved films of all time. The reason is simple. My mum loved it. My mum died when I was 15, and I don't think I will ever quite move on, some 12 years later. It's so horrible to lose a parent, especially when they're the parent you get along with best. The first time I watched Singin' In the Rain was with Mum, on the ABC one Friday night. I think she was making me comb her hair at the time. But we stopped and just sat and enjoyed the film, and honestly, I think it was the most fun film I'd ever seen - and Gene Kelly, what a fox! People often ask; what's your favourite film of all time? And knowing study film, they're expecting something pretentious and/or foreign and/or obscure. So they're always surprised when I say Singin' In The Rain. But the only criteria for favourite film is: does it remind you of someone? Does it make you happy? Is it fun to watch? Three definite yay's to those.

The Philadelphia Story - The ABC really did change my life. Daria and I Love Lucy after school, Rage and Recovery Saturday and Sunday mornings, The Late Show on Saturday nights. And all Aunty's done for me since then. It bought this little gem to me. I had always admired Katharine Hepburn, but this movie made me love her. It's clever and funny and the cast is champagne cinema: Ms. Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. It's about a very stubborn socialite, Tracey. She's kicked her ex-husband out, and is remarrying. Meanwhile, she and the rest of her family have shut her father out of the house for the impending nuptials for his infidelity. Add to this two tabloid journalists sent in to get as much dirt on Tracey as they can, under the guise of wanting to cover the wedding for a lifestyle magazine. I haven't seen a lot of Cukor films, but if they're all as expertly handled as this one, then the man was a genius. And hey, he did make The Women and It's a Wonderful Life. There are some pretty choice lines, such as Cary Grant's observation that all writers are alcoholics, and proceeding to wish that he was a writer. But I think the best part is when Hepburn and Stewart get drunk and flirt with one another - some of the best drunk acting I've ever seen in my life. The message of the film is a little ambivalent (there's a hint of the need to put a strong woman in her place),but in the end, as intellectual equals, we all know Hepburn and Grant belong together. And it's all the sweeter when they realise this too.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - So many things to love, I think my brain will explode if I think about them too much. For some reason, I love films set over a short period of time - like The Breakfast Club, which takes place entirely during a Saturday detention, or Dazed and Confused, which takes place on the last day of school before summer break. And the idea that you can live a lifetime in one day of wagging school is an appealing one. Oh, and young Matthew Broderick - BABE.

Pulp Fiction - I love the way the story unfolds, I love the colour of it, and I love the dialogue and the music. And deep down, the reasons I think it's amazing are the same reasons why I love it. I am a film critic, after all.

Vertigo - It's the romantic cinematography that allows for that feeling of unease to spread through your bones throughout the film, it's the score, but mostly...it's Kim Novak as Madeleine Elster and Edith Head's costume design.

Manhattan - It was so close between this and Annie Hall, but this won out. I love that the lighting is so dark that you can often only make out one character at a time. I love that Allen uses the frame to suggest Isaac's almost subconscious attempts to sabotage all of his relationships - there's a scene in which Isaac, his teenage girlfriend Tracy, his friend Yale and his mistress Mary are walking down the street talking. Mary's control of the conversation and Isaac's unconscious attraction to her is executed perfectly as Isaac is literally pushing Tracy out of the frame and allowing Mary to move into his onscreen space. But what made it pip Annie Hall to the post? The line, 'the winner of the Zelda Fitzgerald Emotional Maturity award.'

The Royal Tenenbaums - what I love about all of Wes Anderson's film is that they're about family. And how awkward they can make you feel. And I love that his films really are dramas about incredibly serious people who have no idea they're hilarious. Not only that, but I love the almost cartoonish treatment of the characters. But they don't feel one or two-dimensional at all, which is why I love Anderson so much as a director. His films at times are almost tableaux - the most powerful moments are nearly always these static shots. Oh, and Pagoda. I love Pagoda.

The 40 Year Old Virgin - Underneath this story of a guy who has perhaps gone way too long without getting some of the good stuff, and all the crass jokes, is a story about a man who seems to know more about women without physical contact with them than the men who've been physically intimate them. I think Judd Apatow has realised as long as you write at least one joke about porn, you can sneak a message into a film. Sort of the way mum would sneak tomatoes into our rissoles when we were kids. But I still hate most tomatoes. Similarly, I didn't think Knocked Up was that successful at this.

Hot Fuzz - I have loved Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg for a long, long, long time. It's their love of film and their examination of genre that make me love them. That, and their babe status. Why is this on the list rather than Shaun of the Dead? That's like asking why The Empire Strikes Back is better than A New Hope. Or why Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a more superior film. You still love the fun of the original, but the second is more layered, emotionally complex and darker. And has the line, 'you want to be a big copper in a small town? Fuck off up the model village!'

Amelie - When I first watched this film, I couldn't help but be infuriated by Amelie's whimsy - I thought that if she smiled that special needs child smile one more time, I would scream. But then I was introduced to all of the other wonderful characters in the film, and I appreciated Amelie's strength and independence, I learned to love it. And that scene where she rides the Ghost Train looking for the boy of her dreams? Dear me. Best scene committed to film.

And there you have it. I am a pretentious wanker who would appear to favour almost any cinema over her national one. And loves American film more than any other. Damn.