Scanners

Do the Contrarian (Part I)

Jim Emerson

The Pale Man knows how to do The Contrarian. He sits motionless until an external stimulus prompts him into motion.

There’s a brand new dance

That’s easy to do

It’s called the Contrarian

And it’s all about you!

Strike a hipster pose

And admire your reflection

Just be sure you’re facing

In an opposite direction!

(apologies to Rufus Thomas)

Is Armond White too easy a target? Does any other movie critic have a blog devoted to “parsing the confounding film criticism” he produces? (See the hilariously titled Armond Dangerous.)

At the risk of sounding contrarian, I want to suggest that White (published on the web via the weekly New York Press) is by no means the worst movie reviewer in the United States. He just pretends to be the baddest.

The all-too-common White review is a reactionary tirade that owes a lot to the angry shtick of aging hipster comedians like Dennis Leary and Dennis Miller back in the 1990s (“hipster” being White’s favorite term of disapprobation). White can also be funny, but I wish he thought so, too — and that his humor arose from his observations about movies rather than his hysterical indignation.

In this sense, White doesn’t necessarily practice film criticism, although what he writes is almost always based on his real or imagined characterization of what other critics have already written. The movie itself sometimes gets lost in White’s internal monologue as he rages against some chimerical critical consensus.

In the Bizarro World, Armond White is Jeffrey Lyons. He’s the negative campaigner’s blurbmeister. Just substitute disses for superlatives and you’ll find a similar (anti-)promotional blurb mentality at work. This is the most elementary form of so-called “criticism” — purely heirarchical rather than analytical or exploratory. It’s not even “This is why I prefer this to that”; it’s just “This is better than that because I choose to say so.”

‘First, I’d like to thank Xenu…”

Jim Emerson

“… the evil galactic warlord who made all of this possible.”

“Trapped in the Closet” — the infamous 2005 “South Park” episode that miraculously combined elements of Scientology, the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Second Coming, L. Ron Hubbard, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, R. Kelly, Xenu and Stan — has been nominated for an Emmy Award, even though it’s been banned from showing in the UK, and from re-airing in the United States, reportedly due to pressure from Tom Cruise and/or Scientology, two of the most unpredictable litigious forces on the planet Earth.

The episode is nominated for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour). So, Comedy Central (and Viacom), are you going to allow this acclaimed episode to be seen (again), outside of Canada and Turkey?

Today, BTW, marks Day 120-Something of “South Park” Held Hostage in America, and spineless Viacom is beginning to resemble the presidency of Jimmy Carter in its final days.

Tricky Dick and Wee W.

Jim Emerson

In some Scanners comments this weekend, we’ve been discussing various comparisons between George W. Bush and Richard M. Nixon, seeing as how Oliver Stone has now made made both failed presidents the subjects of Major Motion Pictures. Matt Zoller Seitz and Kevin B. Lee, in a series of visual and print essays at Moving Image Source about Oliver Stone’s political portraits (“Born on the Fourth of July,” “JFK,” “Nixon,” “Alexander” — leading up to “W.”) have been re-examining these films as part of Stone’s cinematic autobiography-in-process. (I think all these films, for better or worse, say more about their maker than they do about their subjects — though there’s nothing exceptional about that.)

Nixon is a key figure in my life — the center of many of my political disputes with my late father, who would not find it unflattering to be described a “redneck” from Catawissa, MO, which I think is a pretty accurate description. When I was 10 and studied the 1968 presidential candidates in elementary school, I decided I was for Hubert Humphrey. My dad voted Nixon (though sometimes I suspected him of actually going for Wallace — a racist gargoyle who could not have terrified this young Seattle white boy more if he had actually worn a gown and pointed hood). To me, Nixon’s resignation in disgrace represented the triumph of my morality over my father’s. To him, the only difference between Nixon and any other politician was that “he got caught.”

Now that I’m older than he was then, I think we both have our points. At any rate, the president the country chooses unquestionably reflects and defines that period in its history.

Which leads me to something Matt writes about “Nixon” (the movie):

Ebert Strikes Back

Jim Emerson

View image Ingmar Bergman directs “Saraband.”

So much for the alleged lack of intensity in discussing the work of the late Ingmar Bergman. Roger Ebert responds to Jonathan Rosenbaum’s critical take on Bergman:

I have long known and admired the Chicago Reader’s film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, but his New York Times op-ed attack on Ingmar Bergman (“Scenes from an Overrated Career,” 8/4/07) is a bizarre departure from his usual sanity. It says more about Rosenbaum’s love of stylistic extremes than it does about Bergman and audiences. Who else but Rosenbaum could actually base an attack on the complaint that Bergman had what his favorites Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson lacked, “the power to entertain — which often meant a reluctance to challenge conventional film-going habits?” In what parallel universe is the power to entertain defined in that way? […]

Rosenbaum writes, “Riddled with wounds inflicted by Mr. Bergman’s strict Lutheran upbringing and diverse spiritual doubts, these films are at times too self-absorbed to say much about the larger world, limiting the relevance that his champions often claim for them.” This statement is perfectly accurate about Dreyer if you substitute his name for Bergman’s, and perfectly accurate about Bresson, if you substitute the names and change “Lutheran” to “Catholic.” Indeed, Bresson has been called the most Catholic of filmmakers. […]

Finally, Rosenbaum laments how Bergman’s “mainly blond, blue-eyed cast members became a brand to be adopted and emulated.” Hello? Bergman worked in Sweden! Does he forgive Ousmane Sembene’s African exteriors and mainly black-haired, brown-eyed cast members? Or the way Ozu used all those Japanese?

FYI: In a series of posts in a thread (“Rosenbaum disses Bergman in the NYT”) at a_film_by, Rosenbaum elaborates:

“The article is meant to stir the pot, not close the lid.”

* * *

“… I’m perfectly happy to listen to counter-arguments defending the beauty, seriousness, authenticity, and/or importance of Bergman’s thoughts and emotions and what they contributed to our own thoughts and feelings. Maybe Bergman DID have something to teach us all about the Death of God. But will somebody please explain to me what this is? I’m waiting for someone to engage seriously with such issues–not assume that they’re already settled and therefore unworthy of discussion.”

* * *

“Not that this excuses anything, but my article went through many drafts, and some of the things I wanted to say necessarily got squeezed out–including more material about his theater work. (A dramaturge friend of mine is scandalized that there’s been nothing written in the Times about Bergman’s death by any of their drama critics.) For whatever it’s worth, I’m something of a fan of one of Bergman’s most unpopular and even scorned films, “All These Women” (but, then again, “Rhapsody in August” also happens to be one of my favorite Kurosawa films), and next weekend I’ll be introducing and discussing “Sawdust and Tinsel” at a Bergman marathon organized by afb member Gabe Klinger.

* * *

“There are some very important Bergman films that I still haven’t seen; I’m looking forward to seeing ‘Fanny and Alexander’ for the first time next weekend…”

* * *

He also wrote (though I can no longer find the post) that the piece was written at the request of a NYT editor (with whom Rosenbaum happened to agree that the obits were overpraising Bergman), and that he did not choose the headline or the insert quote himself.

Prof. Cozzalio’s take-home pop quiz is due!

Jim Emerson

The professor is about to supply his answers. Not the answers, his answers, and the prof is Dennis Cozzalio, Senior Quizmaster of Professor Kingsfield’s Hair-Raising, Bar-Raising Holiday Movie Quiz at the always enlightening and delightful Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

It’s been up since Christmas Eve, but first I was sick and then I got snowed in and then my dog ate my homework. So, I just got around to posting my answers yesterday. Get over there before the bell rings. Not that Prof. Cozzalio wouldn’t let you turn yours in late, even if he fills out the questionnaire himself first.

UPDATE: The professor’s answers are in!

Here are a few of my responses, which you’ll find way down in the comments. I didn’t read over anybody else’s shoulder, though!

8) Are most movies too long?

Yes, and 20 years ago they seemed too long because they were too short. Perfect example: Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America.” Anybody who had to sit through the 139-minute US release will tell you it was way, WAY longer than the 229-minute version.

9) Favorite performance by an actor portraying a real-life politician.

Phillip Baker Hall as Richard M. Nixon in Altman’s “Secret Honor.”

4) Favorite actor/character from “Twin Peaks.”

Agent Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer). My hero. (Incidentally, there would be no “House” without this character.)

I never got tired of Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and I loved any scene with Sarah and/or Leland Palmer (Grace Zabriskie, Ray Wise).

12) Why would you ever want or need to see a movie more than once?

Whither Comments?

Jim Emerson

Comments have been disappearing into the ether. I’m not getting the notifications to approve them, although I know they exist (because I’ve tried making some myself). The Sun-Times tech people have been notified and I hope this is straightened out soon…

Real Genius

Jim Emerson

We’ve all worked with her — the clueless exec who feels compelled to point out the trivially, irrelevantly obvious, or who loves to exercise her talent by changing things unnecessarily (usually by introducing mistakes) just to put her fingerprints on them. We encounter him at the movies all the time — the guy who asks (out loud) “Why is she doing that?” or wants everyone to acknowledge that he noticed the color of the sky just changed from one shot to another (as if none of us had ever seen a movie before, or knew how they’re filmed and assembled). And, of course, they’re all over the Internet and the media and politics — staying focused on the inconsequential, the mundane, the superficial at all cost.

Here’s a tribute to the geniuses behind the dumbing down of practically everything.

(tip: Ken Levine)

My Ebertfest 2007 photo blog #1

Jim Emerson

Director and longtime Ebert favorite Werner Herzog (“Stroszek”) visits with Roger before the noon Sunday screening of “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.”

An experience like Ebertfest 2007 is beyond my capacity to convey in words — and I’m not just talking about the movies. At one point I asked Roger if he was having as much fun as I was. He wrote on his pad: “The time of my life!” Sitting in his recliner in the back row of the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, IL, (his customary spot — but this time with cushier accommodations and more legroom) he sure looked like he was having a blast. The rest of us had a fine time, too, as I hope you will see from these photos I took…

View image Roger Ebert listens to Chaz’s introduction at the opening night reception.

View image Chaz Ebert introduces her husband to the opening night crowd from the stage of the Virginia Theatre.

View image Roger with “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” star Marcia McBroom-Small (Petronella, aka “Pet”).

View image The crowd is in the house and all is quiet outside, just before “La Dolce Vita” hit the screen Friday night.

View image Werner und Ich. (photo by Eric Byler — with my camera)

The Conspiracy Code Conspiracy

Jim Emerson

Sir Ian McKellen Explains It All For You in “The Da Vinci Code.”

As a species, we humans are designed to connect the dots. But so many of our problems and mistakes arise from: 1) not knowing (due to misunderstanding or lack of information) where, exactly, the dots are; 2) not knowing what they signify; and 3) misattributing conscious intention to some hidden force behind the nature and placement of those dots.

I’m alternately amused and bothered by responses I’ve seen to “United 93” and “The Da Vinci Code” that claim to know, one way or another, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the events of 9/11, the history of the bible, the historical validity of Christianity and the existence of a monotheistic deity. (I have to pause here, just to laugh at that last sentence.)

The biggest conspiracy theory yet invented by mankind is “Intelligent Design,” the idea that everything that currently exists was destined to “turn out” the way it is right now because a supernatural intelligence (conspiring, apparently, with itself) made it happen deliberately. No room for chance or coincidence or (shudder) evolution in that fixed, closed-world view. But the only reason a concept as preposterous as Intelligent Design can continue to exist is because there are still so many things we don’t know about the development of life on this planet (or any other). That’s why Intelligent Design is also known as “God in the Gaps.” Anything that’s unclear or can’t yet be explained? Just plug “God” into the equation and voila! — it’s complete! Conspiracies about 9/11 or Christianity are, in principle, exactly the same: Just fill in the gaps in what is known with a top-secret cabal guiding everything behind the scenes, and suddenly it all makes sense. I guess that’s why they say a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

No comment

Jim Emerson

“Saturday Night Live” piece from 1978 by Walter Williams (“The Mr. Bill Show”).

UPDATE 7/09/09: From Time Online:

Michael Jackson would have turned 51 on Aug. 29, and the promoters of his planned This Is It tour are hoping to celebrate with a concert. It would take place in London and feature Jackson’s rehearsal footage and appearances by members of his family. In other words, it would be a Michael Jackson concert — with all the ingredients except the King of Pop himself.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (or mud puddle)

Jim Emerson

View image “Nobody wants to jump in the mud puddle with her.” (Enlarge to see the Creature’s mysterious adam’s apple.)

Elizabeth Edwards says this in a Salon interview:

Ignoring the fact that she exists doesn’t make her go away. If it did, you wouldn’t hear me utter her name. So I think maybe the better thing to do is simply confront people like her. Are you going to stop them? Under no circumstances will you stop them. But maybe you empower other people to stand up, and maybe that has an effect. When I travel, so many older people thank me for what I did. Because the vile kind of way [she] thinks and talks, that was not ever part of the public discourse until recently. […]

And later on, I talked to somebody, not an advisor — I really don’t have anybody advising me — and not someone in the campaign. She’d been in a previous campaign, and she said, “Oh, I wouldn’t have done that. I think that you put yourself at risk, subject to criticism unnecessarily.” I understand the advice — if you were advising somebody you might say that — but that exact attitude is what protects somebody like [her]. Nobody wants to jump in the mud puddle with her.

Gosh, I wonder what Edwards could be talking about…?

Batman vs. the zeitgeist

Jim Emerson

Has “The Dark Knight” signaled a change in the way superhero movies are perceived by the mainstream? Will it “legitimize” a so-called “disreputable genre” (if comic-book superhero movies can be said to comprise a genre)? Has it become to signify a desire for larger acceptance by comic fans, or a crossover hit that aficionados feel can only be fully understood by those well-versed in Batman mythology?

In his indispensable new essay, “Superheroes for sale,” David Bordwell takes on the new (tidal) wave of comic-book and superhero movies, examines their historical reputation, their development, reasons for their popularity, critical attitudes and misconceptions, comic-book acting styles…

First — well, first go read it. DB says he came away from both “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight” “bored and depressed. I’m also asking questions”:

Weeny Todd

Jim Emerson

View image Attend the pale and Teeny Todd. He doesn’t exactly cut an imposing figure. Jack Skellington with a thicker head of hair.

“Tim Burton has made a miniaturist ‘Sweeney Todd.’ Wispy, anemic, paper-thin, sanitized. Petit Guignol. Teeny Todd…”

Those were among the first notes to myself that I typed after returning from a December screening of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Before that, it had seemed to me that Tim Burton (the Tim Burton of “Batman” and “Batman Returns,” not “Mars Attacks!” or “Nightmare Before Christmas”) might be, hypothetically, an ideal choice to make a film of Stephen Sondheim’s musical-thriller masterpiece about a vengeful barber who conspires with a randy pie-shop proprietress to bake his victims into meat pies. Surely Burton would make it his own, a movie that wouldn’t have to compete with the stage version because it would be a Tim Burton Film, existing in parallel to, but apart from, Sondheim and Harold Prince’s achievement.¹

Not quite. It’s one thing to Devoid of passion, grandeur, ghastly humor and operatic lunacy, Burton’s “Sweeney Todd” is a plastic wind-up toy, a fast-food tie-in trinket. It belongs on a little gingerbread tchotchke shelf, next to your collectible “Macbeth” action-figurines. The best that can be said for it is that nobody’s yet adapted the title property for film, so maybe that’s something we can still look forward to.²

Sondheim himself has done a fine job of explaining why the filmmakers made the choices they did in bringing this “Sweeney” to the screen (New York Times: “Sondheim Dismembers ‘Sweeney’ .”) And they’re all perfectly good reasons. I understand the difficult choices that had to be made. How do you squeeze the show into less two hours? Slash some numbers, condense others, speed up the tempos. Do the performances (and the voices) have to be as strong and idiosyncratic for film as they do on stage? Not necessarily….

Easter Sunday thoughts

Jim Emerson

Looking out my window at the plants and trees, I wonder: Why would so many ancient religions associate archetypes of resurrection and renewal with springtime?

Indomitable Spirit and Internet logic

Jim Emerson

The color of blood: A study in scarlet

Jim Emerson

The color of blood: a study in scarlet

View image Bright, thick, almost waxy blood: Brian DePalma’s “Sisters” (1973).

View image Thinner, but still alarmingly bright: Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” (1994).

“Yellow… is the color of caution.”

— Opal from the BBC (Geraldine Chaplin) in Robert Altman’s “Nashville”

Red is the color of alarm. Perhaps because it is the color of blood. Over the years, that color has changed, along with our taste in blood. In movies, I mean. What was once alarmingly “realistic” now looks either stylized (if it’s a good movie) or fakey (if it’s not so good). When Neil Sedaka and Elton John sang about “Bad Blood” in 1975, maybe that’s what they really had in mind (because, after all, who knows what “Doo-ron, doo-ron, dit-dit-dit-di ron-ron” was supposed to mean? Apart from the reference to the Crystals).

Near-black: The Coens’ “No Country for Old Men” (2007).

Before the late ’70s, blood was generally (and, remember, these are generalizations — there are certainly exceptions) bright red and opaque, like nail polish or latex paint. It was often compared to ketchup, which in many cases it was. Since then, our taste for blood runs darker, anywhere from ruby red to almost black. It’s a bit more transparent than it used to be, and appears somewhat shinier and stickier — perhaps because, as we now know, the effects folks have supposedly hit upon the magic formula for photogenic blood made from Karo corn syrup (in some cases the high fructose variety, the same ingredient used in… almost everything that doesn’t use a low-cal sweetener). The shade changes with the lighting, the thickness (a smear or a puddle?), and the surface on which it is splashed. The blood splashed on Samuel L. Jackson’s Jheri Curled hair naturally appears darker than the blood all over the upholstery of the back seat, or the blood splooshed on the back window as daylight streams through it.

(Red Alert: Possible bloody spoiler text and images ahead for “Heroes” [Season One], “There Will Be Blood,” “Deep Red,” “The Conversation”…)

Blog-a-Thon Post Mortem: Lessons Learned?

Jim Emerson

Waldo Lydecker: “I don’t use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom…. Hand me my towel, would you?”

First, let me again express my gratitude to all those who got into the spirit of the Contrarianism Blog-a-Thon (see new category at right) — with submissions, comments, and other observations on their own sites. My hope was that this would spin off conversations on other blogs as well, and I’ve participated in some of them myself (and in e-mail, too). I was especially pleased that some of the contributions were from people with new blogs, or who hadn’t participated in blog-a-thons before. This was the first time I’ve hosted one, and I was thrilled and relieved that I hadn’t thrown a party to which no one came.

It was just a little over a year ago, in January of 2006, that some movie bloggers over at girish’s were discussing the whole idea of writing about film when the subject of Paul Verhoeven’s eminently disreputable “Showgirls” came up and this idea evolved: What if they chose a date and everybody who wanted to participate would post something about “Showgirls” on that date and link to the other postings? (You can witness the idea taking shape here.)That, as legend has it, is how the “blog-a-thon” was born. (Andy Horbal at No More Marriages! has been keeping track of recent ones, and offers an overview with his reservations about them, here.)

The Contrarianism Blog-a-Thon grew spontaneously out of a couple posts I did in January (Do the Contrarian (Part I) and (Part II), which I impulsively turned into what I called “Contrarian Week.” None of this was planned when I wrote the first post — not even Part II. (I went back and added [Part I] to the original title after I’d thought of the second part.) And the whole effort was an attempt to distinguish between genuine contrarian arguments, and what I considered to be the equivalent of “shock jock” statements by some mainstream/print critics, just striking a pose to call attention to themselves without anything of substance to say. You used to actually have to subscribe to their publications in order to read what critics were writing; now you access so many print critics online, and with a blog you can link to them and respond immediately to what they’ve written.

Anyway, with so much contrarian joy and ambivalence still fresh in my mind, and at the risk of gazing so intently into my own navel (and/or the collective belly button of the blogosphere) that I fall in and am sucked through a black hole from which only lint has been previously known to emerge, I’d like to share with you some of my feelings about the experience….