DISPUTES with men, pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The same blind adherence to their own arguments is to be expected in both; the same contempt of their antagonists; and the same passionate vehemence, in inforcing sophistry and falsehood. And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.
David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1777), p1
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Marisha Pessl - Night Film (2013)
Perhaps aestheticians have a name for this issue: I consider the book not very good but yet read all of it. If I didn't force myself then maybe it's not so bad after all? Aren't good, simple stories their own reward? Most likely it's more that the book is mostly a subject that interests me and admittedly has a narrative question that feels worth seeing how it plays out. (It's not worth it.) And yes good, simple stories have a definite value but they're not so easy to find. (Instead of Night Film if you're looking for a book about obsession and subterranean cinema then try Tim Lucas' Throat Sprockets and if you prefer the conspiracy/maybe supernatural approach then Ben Wheatley's genuinely bizarre film Kill List.)
Stanislas Cordova is an admired director whose films are considered unusually intense and deeply disturbing proves into the human mind but who lives in seclusion. The narrator is a journalist whose career bottomed out when he threatened the director in an interview. (Exactly, or even roughly, why he did this is never adequately explained though it's a flaw so obvious that even the narration offers a weak attempt.) When Cordova's daughter apparently commits suicide the journalist decides to investigate, dragging along a part-time drug dealer and a homeless naif who moved to the big city to be an actress. Along the way are conspiracies (or are they?), hints of the supernatural (or are they?) and possibilities of criminal depravity (or are they?).
The book starts basically like a mystery with our fearless investigators tracking down leads and collecting information. Or at least that appears to have been the intention since it really feels more like a videogame - the trio goes to one person, hears their story, goes to the next, hears their story, goes to the next and so on. It's a stream of stories with no real attempt at sifting the evidence, at deduction, at thinking. Basically they just go for a ride. It does get more complex as it becomes apparent that the journalist's two helpers have hidden agendas and as the stories start to form an odd picture.
For such a narrative the book is far too long. I read the ebook and wondered why it seemed like I wasn't making much progress until finding out that the physical book is listed at 624 pages. Yes, maybe Pynchon could have done something with that but Pessl seems to have no real idea where this is going. When I say a book is too long usually I mean about 10-20% could have easily been cut but in this case I think almost half the book could have been trimmed and vastly improved it. Where indeed is Max Perkins when we need him?
The supernatural element builds slowly and not very effectively. Pessl clearly was aiming for a story that could be interpreted either as supernatural or as mundane but she should have read Turn of the Screw more closely, or perhaps more to the point John Dickson Carr's The Burning Court. The supernatural parts are mostly second and third-hand stories until we get to one extended section where the journalist has his own encounter. (In the ebook it's between two completely black pages but I don't know if that's a quirk of the ebook or if the finished book will have that. In any case it's separated from the other, number chapters.) Maybe we're supposed to be in doubt about how to resolve this section but even within the story it's so clearly an hallucination that the supernatural part comes across half-hearted.
One odd element of the book is the director Cordova. He's considered one of the greats and so famous that non-film buffs recognize his name. In a clever move Pessl gives him half a career in Hollywood complete with Oscars for readers who think that means anything then a second half as a barely distributed independent for readers who think that means anything. The odd part is that none of the descriptions live up to this - they sound like rather routine efforts. The discrepancy is so blatant that I almost think Pessl is doing this deliberately except that after going through the whole book it's hard to see that she has the ability to pull that off. Cordova's films nearly all sound like gialli and I don't mean that in a vague way - if I heard the plot descriptions with no other information I would have assumed the film was a giallo. (Though one sounds like a loose remake of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt.) But it's not just the plots since nothing about the films' atmosphere or style or mood or anything really sound at all substantial. I think mostly Pessl just lacks a critic's ability and consequently can't describe imaginary works except in the blandest press-agent way. This isn't helped that the novel has a film professor who is basically satirical (and this time I do think it's deliberate). He spouts superlatives, obsesses over "symbols" in a way that has nothing to do with actual art (metaphysical poets notwithstanding) and gathers fawning students literally at his feet.
The book does have recreations of websites, newspaper clippings, photographs and other such things that perhaps are intended to make the story more "real". To me they're more a distraction - hey the designer really did peg the look of Time's website. And of course rather than think that's a photograph of the actual daughter in the story I can't help but wonder who the model is? A friend of the author? Or just somebody the photographer hired? It doesn't help that the tone is just a bit off. There's a mention of a film being "condemned" by the MPAA which is something that doesn't happen. (Unless you want to argue that the ratings system does that.) At another point is a DVD that can't be copied which of course has never existed. This whole attempt to make Cordova as a shadowy director of barely seen films doesn't ring true. Such films would have been torrented in an instant. There are in fact films that are very difficult to see but mostly it's because these have very limited audiences unlike Cordova's aggressive fan base.
By the time Night Film starts to wrap up the story it goes through several endings - not conflicting ones but just like it won't stop. Imagine a romance where after two hours you watch the couple walk hand-in-hand off into the sunset....and then see them wake up the next morning to figure out something about their mutual friends before a fade out....and then they head off to lunch.... You get the idea. It's annoying, though, that when the book gets to the final final end Pessl pulls a trick. Most of the book is overly detailed about movements and talks but now the narrator gets coy and stops before revealing anything else. The end. It's not mysterious or ambiguous or artistic - it's just a flat-out cheat because it's so unlike the rest of the book. (Though to be fair much of this last sequence reads like another hallucination and I wouldn't be surprised that it was all written well after the book was completed as an afterthought.)
Stanislas Cordova is an admired director whose films are considered unusually intense and deeply disturbing proves into the human mind but who lives in seclusion. The narrator is a journalist whose career bottomed out when he threatened the director in an interview. (Exactly, or even roughly, why he did this is never adequately explained though it's a flaw so obvious that even the narration offers a weak attempt.) When Cordova's daughter apparently commits suicide the journalist decides to investigate, dragging along a part-time drug dealer and a homeless naif who moved to the big city to be an actress. Along the way are conspiracies (or are they?), hints of the supernatural (or are they?) and possibilities of criminal depravity (or are they?).
The book starts basically like a mystery with our fearless investigators tracking down leads and collecting information. Or at least that appears to have been the intention since it really feels more like a videogame - the trio goes to one person, hears their story, goes to the next, hears their story, goes to the next and so on. It's a stream of stories with no real attempt at sifting the evidence, at deduction, at thinking. Basically they just go for a ride. It does get more complex as it becomes apparent that the journalist's two helpers have hidden agendas and as the stories start to form an odd picture.
For such a narrative the book is far too long. I read the ebook and wondered why it seemed like I wasn't making much progress until finding out that the physical book is listed at 624 pages. Yes, maybe Pynchon could have done something with that but Pessl seems to have no real idea where this is going. When I say a book is too long usually I mean about 10-20% could have easily been cut but in this case I think almost half the book could have been trimmed and vastly improved it. Where indeed is Max Perkins when we need him?
The supernatural element builds slowly and not very effectively. Pessl clearly was aiming for a story that could be interpreted either as supernatural or as mundane but she should have read Turn of the Screw more closely, or perhaps more to the point John Dickson Carr's The Burning Court. The supernatural parts are mostly second and third-hand stories until we get to one extended section where the journalist has his own encounter. (In the ebook it's between two completely black pages but I don't know if that's a quirk of the ebook or if the finished book will have that. In any case it's separated from the other, number chapters.) Maybe we're supposed to be in doubt about how to resolve this section but even within the story it's so clearly an hallucination that the supernatural part comes across half-hearted.
One odd element of the book is the director Cordova. He's considered one of the greats and so famous that non-film buffs recognize his name. In a clever move Pessl gives him half a career in Hollywood complete with Oscars for readers who think that means anything then a second half as a barely distributed independent for readers who think that means anything. The odd part is that none of the descriptions live up to this - they sound like rather routine efforts. The discrepancy is so blatant that I almost think Pessl is doing this deliberately except that after going through the whole book it's hard to see that she has the ability to pull that off. Cordova's films nearly all sound like gialli and I don't mean that in a vague way - if I heard the plot descriptions with no other information I would have assumed the film was a giallo. (Though one sounds like a loose remake of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt.) But it's not just the plots since nothing about the films' atmosphere or style or mood or anything really sound at all substantial. I think mostly Pessl just lacks a critic's ability and consequently can't describe imaginary works except in the blandest press-agent way. This isn't helped that the novel has a film professor who is basically satirical (and this time I do think it's deliberate). He spouts superlatives, obsesses over "symbols" in a way that has nothing to do with actual art (metaphysical poets notwithstanding) and gathers fawning students literally at his feet.
The book does have recreations of websites, newspaper clippings, photographs and other such things that perhaps are intended to make the story more "real". To me they're more a distraction - hey the designer really did peg the look of Time's website. And of course rather than think that's a photograph of the actual daughter in the story I can't help but wonder who the model is? A friend of the author? Or just somebody the photographer hired? It doesn't help that the tone is just a bit off. There's a mention of a film being "condemned" by the MPAA which is something that doesn't happen. (Unless you want to argue that the ratings system does that.) At another point is a DVD that can't be copied which of course has never existed. This whole attempt to make Cordova as a shadowy director of barely seen films doesn't ring true. Such films would have been torrented in an instant. There are in fact films that are very difficult to see but mostly it's because these have very limited audiences unlike Cordova's aggressive fan base.
By the time Night Film starts to wrap up the story it goes through several endings - not conflicting ones but just like it won't stop. Imagine a romance where after two hours you watch the couple walk hand-in-hand off into the sunset....and then see them wake up the next morning to figure out something about their mutual friends before a fade out....and then they head off to lunch.... You get the idea. It's annoying, though, that when the book gets to the final final end Pessl pulls a trick. Most of the book is overly detailed about movements and talks but now the narrator gets coy and stops before revealing anything else. The end. It's not mysterious or ambiguous or artistic - it's just a flat-out cheat because it's so unlike the rest of the book. (Though to be fair much of this last sequence reads like another hallucination and I wouldn't be surprised that it was all written well after the book was completed as an afterthought.)
Monday, June 24, 2013
Where's the literary fiction?
There was some controversy recently about a piece in Salon claiming that "most contemporary literary fiction is terrible." There was a side claiming "Right on!", a side claiming "How dare you?" and the majority side of "Huh?" But the odd thing about the piece is that nowhere is any writer or any title named. Literary fiction terrible? All of it? Or just certain tendencies? Maybe it's just the experimentalists, maybe just the realists, maybe just the prize-winners - it's just not stated.
So where to start looking? Conveniently critic Ted Gioia has given us a list of The New Canon: The Best in Fiction Since 1985. (You can see another list that's also called The New Canon and includes mostly the same books.) First thing to note is that "fiction" doesn't mean fiction - he means literary fiction which is just another genre but one that's marketed itself as somehow superior, just like Subway has created the idea that its junk food (seriously, look it up) is somehow healthful. Even within that category it seems somewhat thin and mostly American. So don't bother looking for William Gibson, Alan Moore, Cathleen Schine, Patrick O'Brian, George R.R. Martin, Tana French, Neal Stephenson or whoever. But does The New Canon have any bearing on the State of Literary Fiction? I've read 17 of the books and many of the rest have read others by the author for informed guesses. The two Denis Johnson books I've read mean I'd expect Tree of Smoke to be substantial - the three Bolano books I've read mean I'd expect 2666 to be insignificant.
But the thing is that if this is the best modern literary fiction then it is indeed in sorry shape. House of Leaves is ridiculous - the sort of thing you'd get from somebody who's read descriptions of avant-garde fiction but none of the actual work. It's like comparing a child's play with Tinkertoys to an actual building. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is simply bullshit, an 80s teen sex comedy dressed up for the lit fict ball but commercial trash is still commercial trash. A Visit from the Goon Squad mixes badly conceived writing exercises with weakly researched settings (the punk doesn't ring true) and utterly misunderstood science fiction.
Those are just the bottom of the barrel - some of the rest is decent enough though hardly worth going out of your way to read. Cloud Atlas has some fantastic sections but never comes together while The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay suffers from a similar lack of clarity (and some misconceived structural elements). And why the first Harry Potter book? To show Gioia is open-minded? Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books are vastly better than Rowling's in every conceivable way (except sales I suppose) - in fact they're better than almost anything on the New Canon list.
But there's something more important about the Salon piece that's overlooked and that's his claim that writers shouldn't pay so much attention to current fiction. I've heard that literature classes up until the war (WW2 if that's unclear) didn't teach recent books because the feeling was that students would acquire that on their own. Something like that is hard to prove but from reading lists and accounts I've seen it does seem to be more or less true. The situation has shifted so that the recent is dominant. I once worked with a poet studying for a masters in comparative literature and the number of authors she had never heard of was astounding. I don't mean hadn't read, I mean didn't even know the names, just an endless list. Certainly she was an extreme example but I think the Salon piece is right that writers would be far better served by not reading anything under, say, 50-60 years old.
I do realize that here I'm mixing up what a writer should be reading - which is basically everything - and what an educated person (in whatever sense you want to take that) should be reading. Back when Harper's had its Annotations column Christopher Hitchens wrote on the margins of a college reading list something like "Read widely, read deeply". Easier said than done of course but that is Salon's point. Restricted to just current literary fiction means a writer lacks the tools and perspective to do more than echo other current writers. And of course the same is true for SFF writers who tend to read only that or mystery writers who read only that and so on. This goes for non-writers who have a serious interest in the form - if you're seriously interested in music you'll listen to all of it, in film see all of it, you get the idea. The worthwhile work can be anywhere.
So where to start looking? Conveniently critic Ted Gioia has given us a list of The New Canon: The Best in Fiction Since 1985. (You can see another list that's also called The New Canon and includes mostly the same books.) First thing to note is that "fiction" doesn't mean fiction - he means literary fiction which is just another genre but one that's marketed itself as somehow superior, just like Subway has created the idea that its junk food (seriously, look it up) is somehow healthful. Even within that category it seems somewhat thin and mostly American. So don't bother looking for William Gibson, Alan Moore, Cathleen Schine, Patrick O'Brian, George R.R. Martin, Tana French, Neal Stephenson or whoever. But does The New Canon have any bearing on the State of Literary Fiction? I've read 17 of the books and many of the rest have read others by the author for informed guesses. The two Denis Johnson books I've read mean I'd expect Tree of Smoke to be substantial - the three Bolano books I've read mean I'd expect 2666 to be insignificant.
But the thing is that if this is the best modern literary fiction then it is indeed in sorry shape. House of Leaves is ridiculous - the sort of thing you'd get from somebody who's read descriptions of avant-garde fiction but none of the actual work. It's like comparing a child's play with Tinkertoys to an actual building. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is simply bullshit, an 80s teen sex comedy dressed up for the lit fict ball but commercial trash is still commercial trash. A Visit from the Goon Squad mixes badly conceived writing exercises with weakly researched settings (the punk doesn't ring true) and utterly misunderstood science fiction.
Those are just the bottom of the barrel - some of the rest is decent enough though hardly worth going out of your way to read. Cloud Atlas has some fantastic sections but never comes together while The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay suffers from a similar lack of clarity (and some misconceived structural elements). And why the first Harry Potter book? To show Gioia is open-minded? Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books are vastly better than Rowling's in every conceivable way (except sales I suppose) - in fact they're better than almost anything on the New Canon list.
But there's something more important about the Salon piece that's overlooked and that's his claim that writers shouldn't pay so much attention to current fiction. I've heard that literature classes up until the war (WW2 if that's unclear) didn't teach recent books because the feeling was that students would acquire that on their own. Something like that is hard to prove but from reading lists and accounts I've seen it does seem to be more or less true. The situation has shifted so that the recent is dominant. I once worked with a poet studying for a masters in comparative literature and the number of authors she had never heard of was astounding. I don't mean hadn't read, I mean didn't even know the names, just an endless list. Certainly she was an extreme example but I think the Salon piece is right that writers would be far better served by not reading anything under, say, 50-60 years old.
I do realize that here I'm mixing up what a writer should be reading - which is basically everything - and what an educated person (in whatever sense you want to take that) should be reading. Back when Harper's had its Annotations column Christopher Hitchens wrote on the margins of a college reading list something like "Read widely, read deeply". Easier said than done of course but that is Salon's point. Restricted to just current literary fiction means a writer lacks the tools and perspective to do more than echo other current writers. And of course the same is true for SFF writers who tend to read only that or mystery writers who read only that and so on. This goes for non-writers who have a serious interest in the form - if you're seriously interested in music you'll listen to all of it, in film see all of it, you get the idea. The worthwhile work can be anywhere.
Monday, June 17, 2013
The mainstream & comics again
Sure, so-called think pieces in newspapers are always easy targets but a new one in The Telegraph is particularly unthinking about an unimportant subject and weakly argued about an important one. I was going to start with the second but since the first shows many of the problems then might as well go in order.
The headline and opener put forward the idea "Are superheroes the new gods?" The headline even claims the writer "argues that comic books are the new Bible" though of course she does no such thing. Even the god/religion idea has been kicking around for decades, explored both within the stories and by criticism. In no sense is this an actual religion so the writer Anne Billson resorts to the argument that fans oppose changes to the "canon". First thing to note is that comics fans rarely use the word "canon" instead predominantly saying "continuity" which is a different concept. Though you could argue that it takes a canon (texts) to make up continuity (diegesis) that's not how comics fans approach this. One good example that relates directly to Man of Steel is that he does something at the end that can be supported in one book that's considered a classic (in other words more or less canon) but is actually out of continuity. The enormous arguments among fans about this isn't whether it's canonical or in continuity but whether it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the character and the purpose of the stories. (I haven't seen the film but if the reports are accurate--and you've noticed I'm being vague about this--then fundamental misunderstanding seems correct.)
Billson then resorts to religious terms that don't in any way relate to the actuality. Who is being "excommunicated" because of X-Men: The Last Stand and from what? The debates about Spider-Man's webbing according to her are "theological" (based on what?) and The Mandarin's revision in the new Iron Man movie might be "heresy" (or it's just so radically different it share nothing but the name with the books). I'd like to think this is tongue-in-cheek but the tone doesn't really support that and if she was then the transition to the next topic would be even more clumsy than it already is.
Then Billson gets to the important point and one that really should have been the headline - "the world of superhero movies is a boys' club." Not exactly news or even very observant but unlike the religion claims this is something that needs to be addressed and changed. At least she focuses on the movies and not the books which may be because she hasn't read the books (it's unclear but considering the lack of references probably not) or because while this is a major problem in the comics business it's nowhere near as bad. And of course this is not specific to movies or comics since there have been numerous reports about the problem in journalism and literary writing (see for instance here or here or here). It's just worse in the film business because the amount of money and inherent risk (plus let's be fair the lack of imagination) makes studios very resistant to change. The solution isn't that somebody should decide the movies need more women characters but that the business needs more women executives, directors and writers (unfortunately in that order). Who knows, maybe they will make the exact same decisions but that's at least a start.
The headline and opener put forward the idea "Are superheroes the new gods?" The headline even claims the writer "argues that comic books are the new Bible" though of course she does no such thing. Even the god/religion idea has been kicking around for decades, explored both within the stories and by criticism. In no sense is this an actual religion so the writer Anne Billson resorts to the argument that fans oppose changes to the "canon". First thing to note is that comics fans rarely use the word "canon" instead predominantly saying "continuity" which is a different concept. Though you could argue that it takes a canon (texts) to make up continuity (diegesis) that's not how comics fans approach this. One good example that relates directly to Man of Steel is that he does something at the end that can be supported in one book that's considered a classic (in other words more or less canon) but is actually out of continuity. The enormous arguments among fans about this isn't whether it's canonical or in continuity but whether it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the character and the purpose of the stories. (I haven't seen the film but if the reports are accurate--and you've noticed I'm being vague about this--then fundamental misunderstanding seems correct.)
Billson then resorts to religious terms that don't in any way relate to the actuality. Who is being "excommunicated" because of X-Men: The Last Stand and from what? The debates about Spider-Man's webbing according to her are "theological" (based on what?) and The Mandarin's revision in the new Iron Man movie might be "heresy" (or it's just so radically different it share nothing but the name with the books). I'd like to think this is tongue-in-cheek but the tone doesn't really support that and if she was then the transition to the next topic would be even more clumsy than it already is.
Then Billson gets to the important point and one that really should have been the headline - "the world of superhero movies is a boys' club." Not exactly news or even very observant but unlike the religion claims this is something that needs to be addressed and changed. At least she focuses on the movies and not the books which may be because she hasn't read the books (it's unclear but considering the lack of references probably not) or because while this is a major problem in the comics business it's nowhere near as bad. And of course this is not specific to movies or comics since there have been numerous reports about the problem in journalism and literary writing (see for instance here or here or here). It's just worse in the film business because the amount of money and inherent risk (plus let's be fair the lack of imagination) makes studios very resistant to change. The solution isn't that somebody should decide the movies need more women characters but that the business needs more women executives, directors and writers (unfortunately in that order). Who knows, maybe they will make the exact same decisions but that's at least a start.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Haul from the library sale
Today picked up:
Schoenbaum - William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life
Harington - Some Other Place, The Right Time
Brooks - The Times of Melville and Whitman
Eicher - Dixie Betrayed
Armstrong - A History of God
Adams - Brave New Worlds (dystopian anthology)
Moorcock - The Jewel in the Skull (Tor edition)
Thompson - Mystery & Lore of Monsters
There was also a nice copy of Pound's Cantos but when I flipped through somebody made a bunch of annotations along the lines of "loosely translated from Homer" so they weren't even useful. I went back and forth anyway because it was only $2 but figured I was just getting it as a spare or potential gift so maybe somebody else would appreciate it. There was also a thick history of WW1 naval war that I also nearly got. Decided against it since that's probably the one period of naval history that I'm least interested in but more importantly it really was very thick so I was pretty sure I'd never read it. And a Bill Malone-edited collection of country musician profiles that I really did intend to get except I didn't put it with my stack the first time through and completely forgot to go back.
Schoenbaum - William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life
Harington - Some Other Place, The Right Time
Brooks - The Times of Melville and Whitman
Eicher - Dixie Betrayed
Armstrong - A History of God
Adams - Brave New Worlds (dystopian anthology)
Moorcock - The Jewel in the Skull (Tor edition)
Thompson - Mystery & Lore of Monsters
There was also a nice copy of Pound's Cantos but when I flipped through somebody made a bunch of annotations along the lines of "loosely translated from Homer" so they weren't even useful. I went back and forth anyway because it was only $2 but figured I was just getting it as a spare or potential gift so maybe somebody else would appreciate it. There was also a thick history of WW1 naval war that I also nearly got. Decided against it since that's probably the one period of naval history that I'm least interested in but more importantly it really was very thick so I was pretty sure I'd never read it. And a Bill Malone-edited collection of country musician profiles that I really did intend to get except I didn't put it with my stack the first time through and completely forgot to go back.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Jack Reacher(s)
I don't usually post spoiler warnings but since this will be about a book whose primary purpose is plot twists and a similar movie then I thought this might be a nice touch.
Lee Child started the Jack Reacher series with his first novel, 1997's Killing Floor. It's a reasonably effective crime thriller laced with the grotesque violence that so many writers feel is necessary to show how hardboiled they are. The premise of Reacher as a former military cop who's now a drifter obviously draws from Westerns and solves a lot of problems in writing a series since there's no need to explain how he got anywhere, tie up any loose ends or even explain why he knows anything.
Killing Floor has Reacher in a small Georgia town chosen for an arbitrary reason but he soon gets involved in a murder investigation. It has the usual small town scheming, hired thugs, local bad boys, surprise events and sexual encounters that are driven purely by genre needs. As you might expect Reacher is something of a super-detective, always one step ahead of the cops and rarely wrong. The most interesting part might be when he's in prison and I halfway expected (or at least hoped) him to be there for the entire novel. He's of course not concerned about The Law but about Justice and in at least one situation basically murders a couple of men - they do turn about to be guys planning to kill him but when he did that he only had a suspicion nothing concrete.
The oddest thing about the book is some outrageous coincidences. The biggest is that Reacher gets off at that particular town because it was the home to a blues musician that his brother told him about years ago. And then the murder victim turns out to be Reacher's brother but he was in town for reasons completely unconnected to Reacher's. That two brothers would be in the same small town at the same time unknown to each other and for completely different reasons (and then one is arrested for the murder of the other) is so outlandish that Child even has Reacher muse on it before deciding that life is full of coincidences. True but art shouldn't be unless there's a particular point (or it's a structuring principle as with Lost). In this case it's clear that first-time novelist Child created a situation that he couldn't (or didn't want to spend the time) resolve. It's this inexperience that's also why the novel has so little flavor. It's set in rural Georgia but could just as well have been anywhere in the country. There's not much in the way of anything unique to that region and sure Child is British but if he didn't want to do the research then he could have just made it up. On the other hand that's what he apparently did with a description of the Atlanta airport that's completely wrong.
The film Jack Reacher (Christopher McQuarrie 2012) is based on a later novel in the series and is in most ways more effective though it too ends with implausible plot devices. (It's not well served by a trailer that makes this look like more of an ubermensch action film.) Tom Cruise was a good choice to play Reacher since as an actor he's mostly a blank and Reacher borders on the anonymous. Rosamund Pike, though, seems to have not been told she's in a genre film since at times she's performing as if for something altogether more naturalist. The film is taut and if not really unpredictable then at least twisty enough. The dialogue is definitely sharper than usual and at least some of Reacher's investigation follows a logical path (though he still is rarely wrong).
It's main flaw is some of the plotting and motivation which apparently come from the novel (which I haven't read). At one point Reacher tracks down somebody because she said "THE auto parts store" instead of "AN auto parts store" so he has the lawyer take him to the city's THE store. This is ridiculously slender to be charitable - actually it's basically impossible and was papering over a plot point. (I call the place where I work THE store even though it's not remotely THE store for my city.)
But when we get to the reason why all of this is happening everything becomes more and more outlandish. Apparently a criminal-backed real estate company pressures people to sell for cheap, develops property then sells at a profit. The pressure seems to consist of assorted nefarious activity and in this case they orchestrated a mass murder to hide a single murder. Sure we wouldn't have this story if they had done otherwise but when any kind of garden-variety killing would have worked it's hard not to tug at that thread. I'm sure the filmmakers realize this since they zip through this part very quickly. They also zip over why a civilian would come help Reacher in what is also clearly illegal. (I also always wonder how lunatic criminal "masterminds" who kill their underlings ever manage to get more - though in this case the "mastermind" is so lethargic that I half expected another reveal towards the end of somebody else behind the whole affair.)
Lee Child started the Jack Reacher series with his first novel, 1997's Killing Floor. It's a reasonably effective crime thriller laced with the grotesque violence that so many writers feel is necessary to show how hardboiled they are. The premise of Reacher as a former military cop who's now a drifter obviously draws from Westerns and solves a lot of problems in writing a series since there's no need to explain how he got anywhere, tie up any loose ends or even explain why he knows anything.
Killing Floor has Reacher in a small Georgia town chosen for an arbitrary reason but he soon gets involved in a murder investigation. It has the usual small town scheming, hired thugs, local bad boys, surprise events and sexual encounters that are driven purely by genre needs. As you might expect Reacher is something of a super-detective, always one step ahead of the cops and rarely wrong. The most interesting part might be when he's in prison and I halfway expected (or at least hoped) him to be there for the entire novel. He's of course not concerned about The Law but about Justice and in at least one situation basically murders a couple of men - they do turn about to be guys planning to kill him but when he did that he only had a suspicion nothing concrete.
The oddest thing about the book is some outrageous coincidences. The biggest is that Reacher gets off at that particular town because it was the home to a blues musician that his brother told him about years ago. And then the murder victim turns out to be Reacher's brother but he was in town for reasons completely unconnected to Reacher's. That two brothers would be in the same small town at the same time unknown to each other and for completely different reasons (and then one is arrested for the murder of the other) is so outlandish that Child even has Reacher muse on it before deciding that life is full of coincidences. True but art shouldn't be unless there's a particular point (or it's a structuring principle as with Lost). In this case it's clear that first-time novelist Child created a situation that he couldn't (or didn't want to spend the time) resolve. It's this inexperience that's also why the novel has so little flavor. It's set in rural Georgia but could just as well have been anywhere in the country. There's not much in the way of anything unique to that region and sure Child is British but if he didn't want to do the research then he could have just made it up. On the other hand that's what he apparently did with a description of the Atlanta airport that's completely wrong.
The film Jack Reacher (Christopher McQuarrie 2012) is based on a later novel in the series and is in most ways more effective though it too ends with implausible plot devices. (It's not well served by a trailer that makes this look like more of an ubermensch action film.) Tom Cruise was a good choice to play Reacher since as an actor he's mostly a blank and Reacher borders on the anonymous. Rosamund Pike, though, seems to have not been told she's in a genre film since at times she's performing as if for something altogether more naturalist. The film is taut and if not really unpredictable then at least twisty enough. The dialogue is definitely sharper than usual and at least some of Reacher's investigation follows a logical path (though he still is rarely wrong).
It's main flaw is some of the plotting and motivation which apparently come from the novel (which I haven't read). At one point Reacher tracks down somebody because she said "THE auto parts store" instead of "AN auto parts store" so he has the lawyer take him to the city's THE store. This is ridiculously slender to be charitable - actually it's basically impossible and was papering over a plot point. (I call the place where I work THE store even though it's not remotely THE store for my city.)
But when we get to the reason why all of this is happening everything becomes more and more outlandish. Apparently a criminal-backed real estate company pressures people to sell for cheap, develops property then sells at a profit. The pressure seems to consist of assorted nefarious activity and in this case they orchestrated a mass murder to hide a single murder. Sure we wouldn't have this story if they had done otherwise but when any kind of garden-variety killing would have worked it's hard not to tug at that thread. I'm sure the filmmakers realize this since they zip through this part very quickly. They also zip over why a civilian would come help Reacher in what is also clearly illegal. (I also always wonder how lunatic criminal "masterminds" who kill their underlings ever manage to get more - though in this case the "mastermind" is so lethargic that I half expected another reveal towards the end of somebody else behind the whole affair.)
Monday, May 27, 2013
One more about screenwriting
My last two posts were about Django Unchained and the state of screenwriting so perhaps it's inevitable that I'd get to the fact that Django won the Oscar for best original screenplay. And the year before that Midnight in Paris. Both seem somewhat odd choices. Nobody expects the Academy to actually choose the best anything but Django is unusually disorganized and quite unfocused while Midnight is basically a bland Twilight Zone reject.
But those are judgments of taste, at least to some degree, and clearly many people would disagree. Moving to more factual ground it's worth noting that both films very deliberately remove politics from their historical subjects. Midnight is set in Paris during a time of great artistic creativity but there are no French characters in it except for a brief Cocteau cameo. All of that activity becomes a mere backdrop to the Americans. The war becomes just a bit for Hemingway. And the surrealists are portrayed as mere clowns with not the slightest mention of their constant political activities ranging from Communist provocations to (verbally) attacking priests in the streets. Django portrays slavery as just the whims of sadists or lazy landowners and not a long-lived and vast institution that had governmental, religious and social support.
But really what's most interesting about these writing Oscars is that while they're for writing a screenplay voters apparently don't have to read the screenplay to vote. I checked the rules and didn't find any mention or other restrictions (though it's possible there's something not in the rules on the website). Django for instance was filmed from a larger screenplay and was adjusted during filming and editing. According to many reports at least one fairly large sub-plot was eliminated while others were reduced, expanded or had emphasis changed. None of this is particularly unusual though there does appear to have been a bit more for Django. Another Year was nominated in 2010 and Happy-Go-Lucky in 2008 but Leigh's films often use much improvisation. Several Pixar films had writing nominations but Pixar's famous highly collaborative filmmaking method almost can't be described as writing, certainly not in the traditional sense of a first script that's then produced.
The point is how can the finished film be used to judge a screenplay when at least in this case you only have a rough sense of what the screenplay was like? Sure Academy members are film professionals and would have a much better idea of the screenplay from the finished product than, say, me. But in cases where there are extensive changes, improvisation and what have you it's just impossible to know. (It's doesn't help that the Academy is invitation-only with no public membership list - the Oscars are proof that they've never had any idea about genuine film art but even on a more trivial level we just don't really know who's voting.) I don't know anything about the production of Midnight in Paris but from what I've heard about Allen's previous work it was probably a tight shoot that followed the script closely. But the point is that I don't know - maybe Allen did have all the French life in it but took that out during filming and editing. Maybe the lead character was a woman in the script (which at least might have removed the whiff of misogyny that the film has).
I also noticed that the adapted screenplay category has a few odd choices. Toy Story 3 goes into "adapted" just because it uses characters from previous films. It's not really adapted in any meaningful sense. Similarly the fantastic In the Loop is tagged adapted because one character comes from a TV show (and though some of the actors do they're playing different characters in the movie).
But those are judgments of taste, at least to some degree, and clearly many people would disagree. Moving to more factual ground it's worth noting that both films very deliberately remove politics from their historical subjects. Midnight is set in Paris during a time of great artistic creativity but there are no French characters in it except for a brief Cocteau cameo. All of that activity becomes a mere backdrop to the Americans. The war becomes just a bit for Hemingway. And the surrealists are portrayed as mere clowns with not the slightest mention of their constant political activities ranging from Communist provocations to (verbally) attacking priests in the streets. Django portrays slavery as just the whims of sadists or lazy landowners and not a long-lived and vast institution that had governmental, religious and social support.
But really what's most interesting about these writing Oscars is that while they're for writing a screenplay voters apparently don't have to read the screenplay to vote. I checked the rules and didn't find any mention or other restrictions (though it's possible there's something not in the rules on the website). Django for instance was filmed from a larger screenplay and was adjusted during filming and editing. According to many reports at least one fairly large sub-plot was eliminated while others were reduced, expanded or had emphasis changed. None of this is particularly unusual though there does appear to have been a bit more for Django. Another Year was nominated in 2010 and Happy-Go-Lucky in 2008 but Leigh's films often use much improvisation. Several Pixar films had writing nominations but Pixar's famous highly collaborative filmmaking method almost can't be described as writing, certainly not in the traditional sense of a first script that's then produced.
The point is how can the finished film be used to judge a screenplay when at least in this case you only have a rough sense of what the screenplay was like? Sure Academy members are film professionals and would have a much better idea of the screenplay from the finished product than, say, me. But in cases where there are extensive changes, improvisation and what have you it's just impossible to know. (It's doesn't help that the Academy is invitation-only with no public membership list - the Oscars are proof that they've never had any idea about genuine film art but even on a more trivial level we just don't really know who's voting.) I don't know anything about the production of Midnight in Paris but from what I've heard about Allen's previous work it was probably a tight shoot that followed the script closely. But the point is that I don't know - maybe Allen did have all the French life in it but took that out during filming and editing. Maybe the lead character was a woman in the script (which at least might have removed the whiff of misogyny that the film has).
I also noticed that the adapted screenplay category has a few odd choices. Toy Story 3 goes into "adapted" just because it uses characters from previous films. It's not really adapted in any meaningful sense. Similarly the fantastic In the Loop is tagged adapted because one character comes from a TV show (and though some of the actors do they're playing different characters in the movie).
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