Antigone

In order to attain any heights in what one does, one must stand on the shoulders of giants. Considering many of the great writers became great by studying their predecessors, I figure it's about time to delve into some of the ol' Greek classics to see what all the hubbub is about.

I started with Antigone by Sophocles, equipped with masks, gods, and a chorus. The plot embodied simplicity itself. The heroine, Antigone, wanted to perform burial rites for her brother, while the villain, Creon, wanted his body left out to be eaten by dogs. Of course, simple plots have a tendency to resolve quickly, so the majority of the play consisted of individual characters, chiefly nameless messengers, interacting episodically with the chorus while reflecting on the ways of gods and men, well, mostly the gods. In terms of stage time, Creon has the most visibility while the gods get the most lip service. Antigone, and pretty much every other character who appears in the duration, are basically foils for Creon's downfall. The messengers, Haemon, Eurydice, and Tiresias all have a little reminder for Creon that he's offended the gods with his actions and he will be punished. In modern culture, it would be the equivalent of a street protest where the participants yell at passersby for their godlessness.

On reading, I felt compelled for about half the duration and came to appreciate its merciful shortness. While I appreciate writing in verse and admire the numerous flowery tangents into myth and glory, in terms of storytelling, my modern tastes were simply not satisfied. However, it wasn't until after I read it that I realized Antigone was the last of Sophocles' Theban plays. Perhaps if I read Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, I may come to appreciate this classic much more.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

About a year and a half ago, I adopted two zebra finches named George and Martha. I did not really understand why they were so named other than a vague recollection of a play by Edward Albee with characters sharing nomenclature. It wasn't until I brought them home that first, Martha went after George, flying at him, pushing him out of their gourd home, pecking him, and generally being a harridan. They fought like cockerels and screwed like field mice, yet they never did produce an egg. One day, the tables turned, and George took ownership of the bird house. George began to rip out Martha's feathers. George banished Martha to the floor to pick her sustenance from among the shit-encrusted scraps on the cage floor. Then, one day, while I was away, Martha died of mysterious circumstances. I buried her under a cactus; within two days, something had dug her up and eaten her.

My only exposure to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? came from mentions and a high school performance of Martha's opening monologue: I thought it was a pure comedy. What I got were two hours of pure, inhuman nastiness, goaded on by razor-sharp tongues dripping with venom. True, there were laughs to be had, but as in the life of finches, the story of a crumbled and fruitless marriage is rife with tragedy and delusion that permeates every character. There is little room for sympathy with these characters, who fluctuate so readily from fondness to loathing and back again. Nonetheless, their exchanges, much wittier and allowing more time than most modern films (owing to the theatrical source material), keep the viewer engrossed and cringing.

The late, great Elizabeth Taylor very much deserved her Oscar for her role as Martha, a performance unlike any I'd expected from the queen of class, so elegant in her horridness, yet overflowing with emotional layers that may or may not have been real to the character. Martha is a truly sick woman who has built up an entire world of illusion that George has somehow tolerated for years. Yet, they feed off each other, enable each other, and are clearly meant for each other, as dysfunctional as their alcohol- and revenge-driven relationship is. Their example offers a warning to anyone on the brink of marriage: choose wisely, not for money or out of panic, or else become the monster or the monster's bitch.

I give Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? four stars for sheer cringe factor. Whether I would watch it again on screen or choose to see it on stage instead remains to be determined. In any case, it is an excellent film for any (would-be) actor looking to see how the pros can make the most of long conversations in few, select settings, as well as how to effectively make the audience squirm at every turn.

Avatar (The Screenplay)

For someone constantly striving to hone world building skills, there are certain resources that tower above the others in terms of usefulness. Up near the top, with a respectful nod to Tolkien of course, is Avatar, the highest grossing film in cinematic history and the stimulus of a 3D renaissance. It has been praised for its visual genius and mocked as a cheesy version of "Dances with Smurfs," but its success and the fact that it has spawned so much dialogue is extraordinary, especially as a science fiction film taking place in a world that is not our own, a genre that traditionally caters to a niche market. The true magic of Avatar rises from its visual elements, but in order to spawn such breathtaking cinematography, the foundation had to first be laid in print. Examining this foundation has been very enlightening, and even inspiring, on the following levels.

The world of Pandora shares much in common with Earth in that there are plants and animals, which interact with each other in a systematic and occasionally predatory way. However, on a cinematic level, these worlds differ fundamentally, starting with lighting. Unlike the planet, Earth, Pandora is a moon, orbiting around a gas giant, which provides most of the planet's lighting through reflection. Pandora's ecosystem then compensates for the lack of light through ubiquitous bioluminescence, the element which contributes most successfully to the dreamlike nature of the world. Additionally, the lower gravity of this moon and the presence of "unobtanium" in the soil, have permitted massive growth among the fauna and flora, further diminishing the importance of puny humanity and thus turning the dream world into a nightmare.

A note on unobtanium: the film doesn't really clarify what "unobtanium" really does or why it's worth so much to humanity. The name "unobtanium" sounds ridiculous, and so it seems a haphazardly planted element in an otherwise elegant world. The screenplay describes it as a magnetic material producing a maglev (magnetic levitation) effect, designating it as an important raw material for anti-gravity technology, something understandably useful to space-age humanity. However, there is one brilliant aspect to this omission in the film, which is all but impossible to see on screen. On page 30, Grace picks up a copy of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax from a school desk, an act of little to no significance in a quick camera shot. However, the central conflict of The Lorax, which was initially banned from television, comes from the destruction of the Truffula trees to produce Thneeds, which have no function at all but are in high demand. Thus, by omitting the use of unobtanium, the filmmakers have created a useless MacGuffin, for which the greedy are willing to destroy anything, making their actions even more barbaric to the viewer.

Conversely, there were quite a few thematic elements to the screenplay that enriched the reading experience but felt sadly lost in the viewing. The first instance comes from the distinction between the human connection to machines, one of distance and utility (e.g. Quaritch's controlled Wushu kata while hooked up to an ampsuit), and the Na'vi connection to the creatures they ride, one of intimacy and brotherhood (e.g. linking up to the banshees, which then bond to their riders for life). The contrast between these two relationship styles serves to highlight a rapid social retreat from personal intimacy in favor of the mechanical, which is easier to discard. We can see this in the futuristic Earth, all but destroyed and littered with what has been discarded (like Jake), a way of life that the colonists of Pandora believe will serve them well on all worlds. Therefore, we have the cultural conflicts of destruction/disdain and life/respect, a theme addressed in the film but more succinctly described in the script.

The allure of the Na'vi culture and the negative effects of the conquering human worldview on Jake's psyche come across much more clearly in the screenplay than in the film. Jake comes from this cold, hostile world of machines and people, but it is on Pandora, among an alien culture of respect and intimacy, that he is able to find his humanity. It is literally drawn out of him and absorbed into a new body to the point that he is more human as an alien than he ever was among other humans. His transformation thus invites the viewer to question the limits of his or her own humanity, though it's doubtful how many viewers left the theater questioning their human natures.

Thematic elements can be dreadfully difficult to visualize without inserting bad lines of exposition, so I make no judgment there. However, the creation of this world with its vast zoological population required a lot of exposition, the technique of which I badly want to learn. James Cameron (who, for some reason, just can't fit into one name like "Spielberg") introduces his menagerie of alien creatures in a dual manner: in the scene descriptions, they are known by Mendelian Greek names (e.g. leonopteryx), while the characters in the film refer to them exclusively by their Na'vi nomenclature (e.g. toruk). This makes it easier for the reader to keep track of creatures without spending unnecessary time trying to pronounce the names, while on screen, the viewer has a visual guide to the creature and thus does not care what it's called anyway. The writing sets up this visual guide simply, focusing on one or two specific traits: teeth, leg count, colors, crests, horns, what Earth animal it might represent, and what Earth animal it could rip apart. The characters then add details of the creatures' ecological importance (human) or cultural importance (Na'vi). In the end, it only takes us a few lines to understand each creature's role in the world and to let it be absorbed into the backdrop without forgetting what it is when it returns later.

The combined script and film are rich in detail, though the latter unfortunately takes a turn toward the cliché through ad libbing. Nonetheless, the details of this world drive the whopping 152-page screenplay and three-hour film in the form of smaller adventures and simple moments of awe at the bioluminescence, the floating mountains, or the wonders of flight. The world provides conflicts and lessons aplenty, leaving us no chance to be bored and only a little opportunity to be confused. The Avatar screenplay is a great reference for creating a world that is not only spectacular and innovative but also relatable.

In the Loop (The Screenplay)

I'm going to forget my reference here. I can't remember who it was exactly who told me they were tired of pretentious, cinema-nut screenplays with rapid-fire dialogue, bad attitudes, and a heap of swearing and pop culture references to cover up their confusing plotlines being nominated for Academy Awards. In any case, those are the criteria that I would use to classify In the Loop.

That is not to say, of course, that I did not enjoy the read for the most part. Of course, without character introductions of any kind or really any lay-person/British-novice explanations, it took a while to figure out what exactly was going on, who these people were, and that this was actually meant to be a comedy. Right? For the most part, I enjoyed a some of the lines and trivial conversations - I really appreciated the fact that Karen Clark had dental problems, and I got a kick out of Toby and Simon resorting to shark documentaries in order to get off without having to hold a press conference - but good lord, apart from these few moments, the repetition of humor styles became unbearable! By the end, there were two to four movie titles or character puns thrown at us per page! I got tuckered out after about forty pages of Malcolm's viciously caustic put-downs of everyone within hearing range, and I became annoyed with Simon and Toby's utter spinelessness. In fact, most everyone in this script except for Malcolm and Jamie had no backbone at all, which leaves us with a really uncomfortable message: that our governments are run by bullies.

I suppose the film could provide a useful lesson for standing up to bullies, no matter how old or how powerful they may be. The bad guys get their way in this one, and the good guys bend over and take it, but perhaps the viewer's frustration at their utter uselessness could serve as a motivator to do more to resist this kind of system. Then again, they'd actually have to be able to pick out the message amid the barrage of government titles and threats of a war against an unknown enemy that's been brewing for who knows how long and is somehow threatened by a lower-ranking politician who really seems to have no real clout to begin with. Considering the Oscar nominees I've read thus far, I can't quite understand why this was nominated, except for its portrayal of our world as a screwed up place, but it's serving as a very useful learning tool for tailoring a script to the high-testosterone crowd.

Man Bites Dog

I had a bit of trouble watching this film, and unfortunately, my only reason was technical. My internet sputtered and died about twenty minutes from the end of it, following the film's main motif of sputtering death. I have a problem with the Netflix classification of all genres of film made outside the country as "Foreign." When I think "Foreign," I think artsy, cultural, and tragic. In many ways, Man Bites Dog (or more appropriately, C'est Arrivé a Chez Vous) has elements of art, culture, and tragedy, considering it's shot documentary-style long before that became the hip thing to do for action movies. The premise is that a documentary film crew, having decided to film the life of a serial killer, gradually gets pulled into the murders themselves, but I would argue, they were more than willing participants from the beginning.

After watching this film, I'm reminded of a story my television instructor told the class during Sophomore year of high school, how when she worked at a local news station, there was an incident of a child drowning in the river. She recounted that the cameras arrived on scene and began thrusting their microphones into the face of the mother who was weeping over the body of her child. It was too much for her, and she recalled her crew. The crew featured in Man Bites Dog takes this kind of inhumanity a whole step further. They smile and congratulate the killer, Benoit, for his kills, and when one of their own goes down, they pick up his gear and keep filming. There is no love here. There is no humanity. That which is seen on the camera, even if it's happening inches away, is unreal and therefore entertaining.

I came into this film with a bias toward a very different serial killer, Dexter, who has a code of punishing much worse offenders who have slipped through the clutches of the law. I could attempt to understand a film crew being sympathetic toward someone with a code like that, but Benoit Patard is no Dexter Morgan. He kills for the pleasure of it and for the money. He is creative in his killings, rewatching them like a football coach reviews plays to see how he could improve it. What's especially shocking is how careless he is, murdering in public places in broad daylight, yelling, shooting, and making a scene. Yet, because he has a television crew following him everywhere, all the people he meets and murders trust him completely, letting him into their homes, letting him lead them away. He kills lots of people, elderly and children included, but the crew just keeps on following him, no matter how much he insults or berates them, doing everything he asks with big, goofy grins on their faces. It is the effect of stardom, of losing oneself in one's craft.

While I did wonder about the pervasive lack of suspicion or police presence, even the idea that a serial killer would want the kind of liability a film crew would present, my greater wonder came from what Man Bites Dog had to say about the rest of us. Do the horrible murders we witness affect us? Maybe, maybe not. Would they affect us more if we were there filming? Is life slowly becoming indistinguishable from the lens, or is there hope that if we should find ourselves witnessing real atrocity, that we would feel, question, resist? At what point do we go from being apathetic to condoning the actions we see on the tube, if not externally, then internally? Do we need violence to hold our attention anymore?

In terms of watchability, this was not as gruesome as I half expected, considering the last French crime film I started to watch (and did not get past five minutes) was Irreversible. Benoit started as a charming, humorous person, then decayed very quickly, really bringing the viewer's awareness to the ugliness that is now so ubiquitously entertaining. I have to give it four stars for innovation, entertainment, and the provocation of thought. It's worth a look.

Dr. Strangelove

As a huge Peter Sellers fan, I came into this movie with high expectations. I grew up on the Pink Panther movies, and even to this day, they continue to prompt uproarious laughter. The man was a genius, and combined with the genius of Stanley Kubrick, I figured the genius would be overflowing, the laughs unstoppable. In short, there was a lot of genius, and plenty of tongue-in-cheek content, but almost no laughs at all.

Make no mistake, the acting was brilliant. I had to do a triple take to realize that Sellers was playing all three main characters, a set of performances pulled off so well as to rightfully deserve the nods of the Academy, especially as the president, whose straightforward approach contrasted heavily with Sellers' more flamboyant roles (see A Shot in the Dark or Murder by Death), yet was actually one of the funniest in the film. Nonetheless, considering his mad, titular character only showed up in two scenes, I felt a lot like I did watching the original Pink Panther, the first in the Clouseau series, a bit bored and let down.

Humor aside, the brilliance of the film resides in its critique of the military chain of command, especially the question of what happens when a link in that chain gets rusty. The theme also appears in another of Kubrick's more famous works, Paths of Glory, which deals with the need for a scapegoat and the inability of the lower echelons to prevent their superiors from executing innocent men. These themes serve as reminders that joining the military is not a foolproof path to glory, as the scenes of Americans following orders to shoot other Americans demonstrate.

All in all, in terms of whether I would watch Dr. Strangelove again, I have to give it three stars. It dragged at times, and I was underwhelmed by the brand of humor, which may have been too consistently subtle for my taste or perhaps, dated.