Random Stuff

This was one of those days when I had real doubts about the reported high and heat index.  It was supposedly only 87 with a heat index of 90, but it felt worse.  The air was dead.  My grass was cut at about 11:00 am and when I got back from the office at nearly 6 pm the smell of gas fumes was still thick enough to choke on.  It was a day when it felt like my skin was burning each time I went out and the normally frosty AC in my car couldn’t keep pace.  In other words, it was icky.

I’ve been re-experiencing some old favorites even though I don’t have enough time to read all of the new books I have.  I’m not sure if that is just my version of American consumerism or if there is some profound insight about the human condition there.

I’ve gone from an almost instinctive rejection of the movie “Fight Club” when it first came out to thinking it is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.  Again, here I am finding insight into the human condition.  Or not.

I saw “The Dark Knight” this weekend.  I was again impressed by Nolan’s take on this “franchise”.  He isn’t afraid to leave behind the standard palette of the superhero film.  Ledger’s Joker is more outrageous than Nicholson’s without being anywhere near as self-indulgent or immature.  He is a trickster.  He is Iago.  A friend who was with me felt the film was too long, and I’m struggling with that.  I felt like I’d seen two very good movies with the same basic themes – transformation and moral ambiguity.  The success of this movie gives me some hope that audiences might be ready for a faithful adaptation of “Watchmen.”

My friend Steve at “Semeotikos” has started a multi-part blog post on a mutual obsession of ours – “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  No, this isn’t about my being pervy or nerdy – not that I’m not both at times.  Check it out here.

I Saw Sicko

Rather than my usual Wednesday evening at home, I joined some good friends for dinner and a movie.  The film was Sicko.  I liked the movie.  Being one of the godless, America-hating, treasonous liberal hordes I’ve enjoyed Michael Moore’s films, although I do feel that at times he lets himself get in the way of the message.  I didn’t see so much of that here.  The themes have been well-explored elsewhere – this is an examination of the problems with the American health care system.  Like Moore’s other efforts, though, there is also an examination of what America is.

Two themes really emerged.  The first, and the one that is really still echoing inside me, is disillusionment.  The people he looked at in this film were folks that worked hard, played by the rules, payed for insurance because they were told that was how you protect yourself and your family, and were well and truly screwed by HMOs and the medical industry.  It is easy to criticize these people for being naive when they talk about how they thought “insurance companies were there to help people.”  Then again, that is exactly what the companies say, and that is the only option any of us are given to deal with health crises.  The disillusionment grows as Moore compares our system with those in Canada, Britain, France, and – ultimately – Cuba.  It is true that Moore tend to gloss over some of the difficulties associated with those systems, but still one cannot but feel disappointed in our country by comparison.

The other theme is the glory and the poison of this society – individualism.  Moore keeps asking how we can have a system where people are denied life-saving treatments, where inadequate effort is given to preventing people from getting sick to begin with, and where hospitals send indigent patients in cabs to “skid row” medical clinics because they cannot pay.  The answers point at corporations and government, but ultimately they point at us.  We have swallowed the American Delusion of individual success.  We have rejected the idea that we have any duties to other people just because they are in our community.  We ask “why should I have to pay for her problems.”  The Conservatives have sold most of this country on the idea that no one should have to do anything for anyone else as a matter of duty – only of choice.  They did so by playing on the core values of Americans – individual rights, freedom, and success (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.)

Moore’s final conclusion isn’t original but it is no less true for that – we won’t solve the health care problem, or any other of our problems, until we start thinking of “us” rather than “me.”

It is Sunday and I’ve Seen Children of Men

It is Sunday morning and we are headed for a high of 96 today.

I’ve been posting and commenting a lot this weekend.  All of my friends have plans or are out of town and I have no one to go play with

As a result, I was home last night and I watched a dvd of Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuarón.  This is a story set in 2027, eighteen years after the last child has been born.  It is set in Britain, which has realized Tom Tancredo’s wildest dreams for this country by closing itself off from the rest of the world and aggressively hunting down and deporting the “fugies” (illegal immigrants) who have tried to escape the horrors that characterize much of the rest of the world.

The plot centers around Theo (Clive Owen), a former activist who is now holding down a bureaucratic job and going through the motions of his life.  His state is clearly meant to echo that of the whole world.  We discover that he had been married and had lost a child during a flu pandemic (in 2008).  Theo is contacted by his ex-wife (or maybe just estranged, it is hard to tell) Julian (Julianne Moore) who is part of a radical group working to help the illegal immigrants.  She wants his help getting papers for a girl named Kee, who we discover is an illegal immigrant and who is pregnant.  What follows is an odyssey through this dystopian world as Theo tries to help Kee and her midwife Miriam get to the coast to meet a boat from a semi-mythical group called the “Human Project” which is working to solve the problem of human infertility.

The real core of this movie isn’t the story.  Cuarón provides a vivid picture of a world without any hope.  The film is at its strongest when it shows small moments against the backdrop of the end of humanity.  Theo’s cousin Syd, who helps him get the papers for Kee, is part of an art preservation project for the government.  What they are trying to do is preserve art from vandals and terrorists who are destroying it in this miasma of despair.  When Theo asks Syd how he keeps doing this when he knows no one will be around to these work anymore one hundred years on, Syd says he just doesn’t think about it.  Sitting in a long abandoned school, Miriam tells Theo about the escalation of miscarriages she had seen 18 years before and the day she realized she had no appointments scheduled more than seven months in the future – and after calling other midwives that none of them did either.

“As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in.  Very odd, what happens in a world without children’s voices.”

Dystopian films can often get buried in their own world background (Soylent Green) but that doesn’t really happen here.  I think this film is ultimately about fatherhood – and hence the title.  This could have been a film about motherhood – in fact that would almost be the natural way for this story to unfold.  In this case we have a story about fathers, both good and bad, and their roles.

Theo was a father who was destroyed by the loss of his child and who comes alive again as he becomes a sort of father to Kee’s baby.  Michael Caine is fantastic as Jasper, who may or may not be Theo’s actual father but is everything a father should be for him.  The negative aspects of fatherhood are embodied in Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who wants control of the baby for his own ends and who intends to remake the child into his own image.

It would have been easy to make this into a blatantly Christ-like story – the miracle child who will save humanity – and the writer even nods to this:

Theo: “Who is the father?”
Kee: “Whiffet!  I’m a virgin.” pause “Nah! Be great though, wouldn’it?”

Kee doesn’t know who the father is among all the possible candidates.  The facelessness of the baby’s father creates a space for both of the would-be fathers in the film to step into that role.  It may also suggest the title – that men are the fathers of children and have a responsibility to them.  That there is always a struggle between Theo – the father who wants to guide and protect – and Luke – the father who wants to control and exploit.

This is an excellent piece of science fiction.  It takes a scientific premise – the collapse of fertility in humans – and uses that to tell a very human story.  This isn’t about latex and special effects, it is about using speculation to explore who we are.  I wish we could see more movies like this and I highly recommend it to everyone.

An Apocalypto Question

Just in case there is someone reading this who is real up on their Classical Mayans, I’ve got a question:

There is a scene in the city where our protagonist and his buddies, who have been captured in a brutal raid, are placed on sale in a slave market.  Folks are bidding, etc…  It strongly reminded me of all those accounts I read about the American slave markets during the Atlantic trade.  Was the Mayan slave trade that commercial?  Do we even know?  From what little I’ve read about the Maya, I had always just assumed that the slaves were simply in the hands of the political and religious elites rather than being a commercial commodity.

Anyone know?

I Saw Apocalypto

In celebration of July 4, the day that nothing happened, I saw some friends, did some blogging, started reading a (relatively) new history of the Late Roman Period while listening to British folk music, and then spent the evening watching the DVD of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto.

The film has an incredibly simple story, about half of which seems to be either an homage to, or a blatant rip-off of, The Naked Prey.  It has lots of gory violence and some beautiful visuals of a Mayan city.  It also has the seemingly required gratuitous historical inaccuracies, like the appearance of Spanish ships in the last few minutes (Spaniards didn’t show up until about three centuries after the last Mayan city was deserted.)

I found an interesting review entitled ”Is ’Apocalypto’ Pornography” by a professor of archaeology and an expert on the Maya named Traci Arden.  You can read it here.

I found her review of the film quite worthwhile, but I saw something different.  She saw an essentially colonial message with the Maya depicted as decadent and in need of saving and the arrival of the Spanish as providing the saviors.  Certainly the Maya are depicted as decadent.  There are numerous depictions of bloody violence, especially in grisly sacrificial rites in the city.

I do not disagree with Prof. Arden about the colonial message here, but I think there was another message on top of it – a cautionary tale.  The first frame of the movie shows a quote from good ol’ Will Durant about how no great civilization was ever conquered from without until it had destroyed itself from within.  This is a transfer of the standard old Gibbon, etc… narrative about the “Fall” of the Roman Empire transferred to the Maya.  I do not think Gibson was trying to tell a colonial story (although I think he did) and I don’t think he was trying to tell a Roman story (although I think he borrowed one).  I think he was trying to tell a modern story about the “decline of the west.”  The moral is that we can’t be destroyed from without unless we destroy ourselves from within.  This is right in line with his general political and religious conservatism.

Where I got my personal dose of irony here was from my reading earlier in the day.  I have started Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians.  Heather is trying to take the startling work in the study of Late Antiquity and pull it together into a new narrative to replace the older “Rome and the Barbarians in endless struggle as Rome rots from within due to a) Christianity (old school) or b) economic decline (newer school) or c) fill in your favorite Roman rotting agent here; until such time as the barbarians bring down the empire.”  The more recent scholarship seems to point to a more nuanced and surprising story that I am just starting to read.  It was just funny to me to turn on this movie about Mayans and suddenly see Gibbon all over again.

As an action film, this is pretty good.  As a historical depiction of the Classical Maya it su… isn’t so good.  For some very cool visuals of life in a Maya city, it has stuff I’m going to steal for my World Civ course – but I’ll turn it off before we get to the temple.  However, if you are going to watch it, be sure to bring you Edward Said glasses with you.

I Saw Oceans Thirteen

Some friends and I went to see Oceans Thirteen yesterday afternoon.  I really enjoyed it.  It wasn’t quite as good as the first film, but it was a definite improvement on the second.  Like the first film, this one has a single caper at the core of it, it has the same “crooks-with-a-code” get payback against a worse crook at the center of the story.  Al Pacino quickly establishes himself as a guy you really want to see lose.  The film is full of the moments of humor that made the first one a treat (the scene where Danny (George Clooney) and Rusty (Brad Pitt) are watching “Oprah” was a thing of beauty.)  I didn’t think the big caper was quite up to the one in Oceans Eleven, but it was still engaging and fun.

As I was driving home, I was thinking about why this film worked where Oceans Twelve didn’t.  There were many well-founded criticisms leveled at that film, particularly it seeming lazy and self-indulgent.  I agree, but I also think there was something else missing that was back in this film.

Las Vegas.

Outside of being the natural environment for these guys, Las Vegas was another character in these movies; and one that was missed in the second film.  Las Vegas provides a proper place and a community for these stories to exist in.  It also provides a history for them to be part of – the story of the crooks, con-men, gamblers, and larger-than-life figures that come with the city.  These films fit with that, and they also evoke the original film and the original “Rat Pack” that was, and is, such a part of both the city and of American pop culture.

One of the things that attracts me to certain movies, TV shows, books, music, and even food is juxtaposition that creates contrast.  I like some comedy with my drama, some drama with my comedy, some dissonance with my melody, and some sweet with my sour.  In both Oceans Eleven and Oceans Thirteen there are healthy doses of the hip, the pretty, the funny, and the witty.  But I also felt in Eleven, and even more in Thirteen, a bittersweet nostalgia for the “Old Vegas”.  In each film, there is one scene that summed this up for me.

In Oceans Eleven there is a scene after the caper has been pulled when the guys are standing watching the dancing fountains as Claire de Lune (I think) plays.  Then, one-by-one, they walk away.  There is a lot happening there.  This is the moment of really feeling the success of the evening. There is also a strong sense of the remaining bond between these men even as they go their separate ways.  It is a quiet and an emotional scene.  At the end, we are left with Carl Reiner standing alone with a look on his face that has moved me every time I’ve watched the film.  Here is someone who knew the original “Rat Pack”, who was part of that “Old Vegas”, and who was a link between that tradition and this new film.  Watching that scene, I’ve always felt this sense of bittersweet nostalgia for that time and place – and for that whole part of American culture that has really passed away.

In Oceans Thirteen there is another quiet and emotional scene that is more on point.  Danny and Rusty are standing on the Strip talking about their past with Reuben (Elliot Gould), which then leads to them remembering and pointing to where the old casinos were.  Danny says something to the effect of “They build them bigger, these days” to which Rusty replies “They seemed plenty big at the time.”  Again, it is a little scene, but we can feel here the same sense of nostalgia for the Las Vegas that used to be, for the stars that used to be, maybe even for the country that used to be.

I think it is those moments and that sense of loss and memory that gave an excellent counterpoint to the fun of these two films.  All of that is so well established in Las Vegas, where the history of so much of American popular culture meets the ongoing American drive to develop and grow and advance, while plowing under what went before; where our memories meet the impermanence of our culture. 

Idi Amin and Steve Biko

I just finished watching The Last King of Scotland.  Like many other people, and even film critics, I was very impressed by Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin and I thought it was a good film.  One thing bothered me, though.

I generally do not care for criticism of a film for not being a different film.  For example, criticizing the Pirates of the Caribbean films for not being very dramatic or historically accurate.  They were never meant to be.  I do have a problem like this with The Last King of Scotland and it reminded me of a similar problem I had with another biographical file set in Africa – Cry Freedom.

In both films we have a story concerning a significant figure in Africa, in The Last King of Scotland it is the dictator Idi Amin of Uganda and in Cry Freedom it is the anti-apartheid activist and founder of the Black Consciousness movement Steve Biko.  In both cases we see fantastic performances, in the first case Forest Whitaker’s and in Cry Freedom the brilliant performance of Denzel Washington.  In each case, it is the African-American actor and the African character that dominates the screen.

My complaint about both films is that neither of them is actually about the African character.

The Last King of Scotland is actually the story of Nicholas Garrigan (ably portrayed by James McAvoy), a Scottish doctor who winds up as Amin’s personal physician.  He begins by being charmed then winds up horrified as he discovers who Amin really is and then winds up escaping Uganda, to go tell the world the truth about Amin (note this), aboard the airplane that evacuated the non-Israeli hotages aboard Air France Flight 139 before the Israeli commando raid at Entebbe airport.  Garrigan is a fictional character loosely based on a man named Bob Astles.

Cry Freedom is actually the story of a white journalist named Donald Woods (ably portrayed by Kevin Kline), who meets Steve Biko, becomes more radical through his acquaintance.  He finally earns the official displeasure of the South African government, especially due to his reporting after Biko’s death while in police custody.  The last part of the film chronicle’s how Woods and his family escaped from South Africa so he could write a book to tell the world the truth about Biko (coincidence?).

While both films are fine, both seem to assume that a story about Africa has to be told through the eyes of a white guy.  In each case a brilliant performance by an African-American actor is given second place to a capable performance by a white actor.  This is a common Hollywood trope, to give the film a “familiar” character through who the audience explores an “foreign” or “exotic” situation (see Dances With Wolves).  This makes some rather racist assumptions about what constitutes a “familiar” viewpoint, though.  It also isn’t necessary for a film to be successful (see The Last Emperor or Gandhi.)  Both films are laudable enough, but both would have been better if they had told the African’s story from the African’s viewpoint.

Which gets me to my last problem with The Last King of Scotland.  It contained a fascinating portrait of Amin, but there isn’t much of a portrait of Uganda.  There are images of poverty and of violence, but there is no real examination of why there is poverty or why there was violence.  The last part bothers me more here.  The rise of Amin, like that of any brutal dictator, is the result of specific circumstances.  It is the tragedy of Africa that this story isn’t completely unique, but it is still a disservice to Uganda to treat it and it’s history as an interchangeable backdrop.

Of course, this could be just because I teach African history and I’m overly sensitive, but I don’t think so.

Lost Day

This has been a very lazy Sunday for me.  Outside of scanning some news and blogs, and posting a couple of comments, the biggest accomplishment of the day so far has been watching The Prestige on DVD.  This is a film made by Christopher Nolan, who did Batman Begins and stars two actors from that film, Christian Bale and Michael Caine.  It also stars Hugh Jackman and a good supporting cast headed by Scarlett Johansson and Piper Perabo.  It is a cool story concerning the rivalry between two stage magicians at the end of the 19th century.  Their rivalry grows to include Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie).  It is really more of a movie about lies and truth.  I’m afraid that more discerning viewer will predict the big reveals before they happen, but it is still a worthwhile film if you haven’t seen it yet.

Tonight I’ll be watching the finales of two series I’ve really enjoyed.  First, of course, is The Sopranos.  I’m not going to make any sort of predictions about this.  David Chase has said repeatedly he is not interested in telling a morality tale.  Also, the thing that has always made this show superior is that the writers take turns that are true to the characters rather than what is expected in television.  I’m satisfied to just wait to see what they’ve got.  My only concern is that this has been so hyped that for many people no possible ending could equal the expectations.

The other show on tap for tonight is The Tudors.  Here, I have no doubts about how the story comes out, or if I did I would really need to stop being a history instructor for a living.  I’ve enjoyed the show overall, but I do have some quibbles.  I think that the heart of the human drama of the story of Henry VIII and the divorce is the conflict of needs that drove everyone involved.  The show has done a good job of showing some of this, but not all.  In particular I do not think it has really conveyed the urgency of Henry’s need for a son.  This isn’t just the desire for male offspring, this was a political necessity.  Not just Henry, but everyone concerned with the political settlement created with the Tudor ascension to the throne wanted that boy.  Now the show shouldn’t be a documentary, but it has already devoted a fair amount of time to diplomatic matters.  I think that having spent some time on the domestic political scene (beyond one-upmanship at court) would have ADDED to the human drama involved.

Still, I am looking forward to seeing how they portray what is bound to happen during tonight’s finale and I hope we get to see another season of it.

Well, back to listening to Fairport Convention and reading the next Jim Butcher novel.