I am drafting a Marxist critique of The Dark Knight Rises,
and I just played the most crazy game of "Do, Marry, Kill."
Friday, July 20, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
On this spot, I will fight no more forever
Hello friends.
I went and saw Moonrise Kingdom again last night. When I first saw it, circumstances were wonderful, and I thoroughly enjoyed it -- more for the moment it created than the movie itself.
So I went and saw it last night to really watch it as a movie. And I enjoyed it more than I did the first time.
[This is a post where I will extoll Wes Anderson in general, in addition to Moonrise Kingdom.]
Something that Anderson is really good at is making theme match depiction. All of his movies are rated R (with the exception of The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise) because they are movies for adults. In all cases, if I'm not mistaken, the films received the R rating solely for language. But it goes far beyond that. Anderson's films -- while full to the brim with artifice and surreality -- are about disillusionment. The people in Wes Anderson films are dysfunctional. The are depressive, narcissistic, oblivious, discontent, disturbed. And they are always trying to figure out how family and relationships can mean anything at all when they are composed of people who can't make sense of themselves. It's like Kurt Vonnegut says in Slaughterhouse 5: we fail because everything we do, everything we create, is something done or created by a pillar of salt. It has to fail. But that's why we love them; because they are so human.
Anyway. Back to theme/depiction synchronicity. Wes Anderson makes movies that deal with the failures of humanity; the things that don't work. And they're all rated R because they're dealing with things that real human adults deal with: divorce, depression, love, and miscommunication. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is so interesting because it steps outside of that. There are certainly issues being addressed, but they are children's issues from a children's book portrayed in a children's medium. A troubled marriage is hinted at [Mr. and Mrs. Fox, I mean], but it is not the focus. The focus is on being . . . "different." It's about fitting in. Or loving how you stand out. It's a kid story, and a kid portrayal. You know?
So now we come to Moonrise Kingdom. It has gotten a lot of grief for its awkwardness, for its insecurity, for making an effort to be quirky for the sake of being quirky, and for its fakeness [for lack of a better term]. And while there are some fair points [okay Edward Norton's neckerchief, okay], I think that people are failing to give Anderson credit where credit is due. Allow me a comparison: Moonrise is not an adult novel; it is a piece of YA fiction. It's a story about adolescents caught between childhood and adulthood, and that's where the film itself is, too. It's awkward because adolescents are awkward. It's insecure for the same reason. It's really quirky because A of all, that's Anderson's style, and B of all because teenagers are exaggerated and affected. And it looks fake because, like the YA novels that Suzy brings along, there are elements of the surreal in these kinds of stories. Sure, they're losing their childlike magic; you can tell that the fire in the tent is fake, or that the lightening scene is stretching. But you can't really let it go quite yet. This is still a film about disillusionment, but in a different sort of way.
I was once told that I should look into writing YA fiction. I was insulted and taken aback. YA has always felt cheap - something that was trying and not quite making it. But that is completely wrong headed. C. S. Lewis had it right: there's very rarely a bad text; more often than not it's a bad reading. And I am guilty of reading really poorly sometimes. YA is a genre that really does have a lot to offer. It has lots of really solid "coming of age" stories, and it [sometimes] allows for more questioning and exploratory narratives because the social stigmas of adulthood don't press down so hard.
So, what I'm trying to say, is that once I stopped worrying about the piece being perfect, and instead focused on what the pillar of salt writing was trying to tell the pillar of salt reading [or watching], things got a lot better. Moonrise Kingdom is a beautiful work of art because it isn't perfect. It's good because it's dealing with a really delicate [and so so imperfect] point in life. There's deep adult stuff going on in the periphery. None of the adults really know how to have a healthy relationship. But they're not stupid caricatures. They're real people who don't know how to fix their own problems, let alone the problems of their children. And the kids themselves are starting to become aware of that. It's sort of a sad revelation, in a way: to realize that things don't get easier, that you can see the falsity of fairytales even though you still want to believe.
We need more works that explain that period of transition, because it makes adult faith [in anything, be it God or love or humanity] so much more meaningful.So rather than seeing Scout Master Ward or Captain Sharp as ultimate authorities and protectors, we see them for the sad and imperfect men they are - people clinging to roles that they cannot ever really fulfill. But we love them anyway, the same way we love Sam and Suzy for their innocence and the loss thereof. We love them because they are earnest and flawed. Because they are trying. Oh how they are trying.
I sometimes have difficulty in accepting the childlike. I get wrapped up in the disillusionment - write off the "magic" as immaturity. And I've lost a lot of good things because of it - things that could have been really wonderful and transcendent. But I'm appreciating more and more that there's a difference between childlike and childish. The childlike is something worthy of emulation, of acceptance. And while I can't go back and amend my disdain for the romanticism of the past [oh that nostalgia could bear me that practical fruit!], I can certainly try harder to not miss opportunities in the future.
So, when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I am grown, I am choosing to believe what I once knew so simply.
I went and saw Moonrise Kingdom again last night. When I first saw it, circumstances were wonderful, and I thoroughly enjoyed it -- more for the moment it created than the movie itself.
So I went and saw it last night to really watch it as a movie. And I enjoyed it more than I did the first time.
[This is a post where I will extoll Wes Anderson in general, in addition to Moonrise Kingdom.]
Something that Anderson is really good at is making theme match depiction. All of his movies are rated R (with the exception of The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise) because they are movies for adults. In all cases, if I'm not mistaken, the films received the R rating solely for language. But it goes far beyond that. Anderson's films -- while full to the brim with artifice and surreality -- are about disillusionment. The people in Wes Anderson films are dysfunctional. The are depressive, narcissistic, oblivious, discontent, disturbed. And they are always trying to figure out how family and relationships can mean anything at all when they are composed of people who can't make sense of themselves. It's like Kurt Vonnegut says in Slaughterhouse 5: we fail because everything we do, everything we create, is something done or created by a pillar of salt. It has to fail. But that's why we love them; because they are so human.
Anyway. Back to theme/depiction synchronicity. Wes Anderson makes movies that deal with the failures of humanity; the things that don't work. And they're all rated R because they're dealing with things that real human adults deal with: divorce, depression, love, and miscommunication. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is so interesting because it steps outside of that. There are certainly issues being addressed, but they are children's issues from a children's book portrayed in a children's medium. A troubled marriage is hinted at [Mr. and Mrs. Fox, I mean], but it is not the focus. The focus is on being . . . "different." It's about fitting in. Or loving how you stand out. It's a kid story, and a kid portrayal. You know?
So now we come to Moonrise Kingdom. It has gotten a lot of grief for its awkwardness, for its insecurity, for making an effort to be quirky for the sake of being quirky, and for its fakeness [for lack of a better term]. And while there are some fair points [okay Edward Norton's neckerchief, okay], I think that people are failing to give Anderson credit where credit is due. Allow me a comparison: Moonrise is not an adult novel; it is a piece of YA fiction. It's a story about adolescents caught between childhood and adulthood, and that's where the film itself is, too. It's awkward because adolescents are awkward. It's insecure for the same reason. It's really quirky because A of all, that's Anderson's style, and B of all because teenagers are exaggerated and affected. And it looks fake because, like the YA novels that Suzy brings along, there are elements of the surreal in these kinds of stories. Sure, they're losing their childlike magic; you can tell that the fire in the tent is fake, or that the lightening scene is stretching. But you can't really let it go quite yet. This is still a film about disillusionment, but in a different sort of way.
I was once told that I should look into writing YA fiction. I was insulted and taken aback. YA has always felt cheap - something that was trying and not quite making it. But that is completely wrong headed. C. S. Lewis had it right: there's very rarely a bad text; more often than not it's a bad reading. And I am guilty of reading really poorly sometimes. YA is a genre that really does have a lot to offer. It has lots of really solid "coming of age" stories, and it [sometimes] allows for more questioning and exploratory narratives because the social stigmas of adulthood don't press down so hard.
So, what I'm trying to say, is that once I stopped worrying about the piece being perfect, and instead focused on what the pillar of salt writing was trying to tell the pillar of salt reading [or watching], things got a lot better. Moonrise Kingdom is a beautiful work of art because it isn't perfect. It's good because it's dealing with a really delicate [and so so imperfect] point in life. There's deep adult stuff going on in the periphery. None of the adults really know how to have a healthy relationship. But they're not stupid caricatures. They're real people who don't know how to fix their own problems, let alone the problems of their children. And the kids themselves are starting to become aware of that. It's sort of a sad revelation, in a way: to realize that things don't get easier, that you can see the falsity of fairytales even though you still want to believe.
We need more works that explain that period of transition, because it makes adult faith [in anything, be it God or love or humanity] so much more meaningful.So rather than seeing Scout Master Ward or Captain Sharp as ultimate authorities and protectors, we see them for the sad and imperfect men they are - people clinging to roles that they cannot ever really fulfill. But we love them anyway, the same way we love Sam and Suzy for their innocence and the loss thereof. We love them because they are earnest and flawed. Because they are trying. Oh how they are trying.
I sometimes have difficulty in accepting the childlike. I get wrapped up in the disillusionment - write off the "magic" as immaturity. And I've lost a lot of good things because of it - things that could have been really wonderful and transcendent. But I'm appreciating more and more that there's a difference between childlike and childish. The childlike is something worthy of emulation, of acceptance. And while I can't go back and amend my disdain for the romanticism of the past [oh that nostalgia could bear me that practical fruit!], I can certainly try harder to not miss opportunities in the future.
So, when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I am grown, I am choosing to believe what I once knew so simply.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
I am back to save the universe
I am born again.
I just finished reading Great House by Nicole Krauss. And I was largely disappointed. The fragmented narrative structure, while certainly relevant to the story, is carried out on a level not grand enough to make its point, yet not subtle enough to be excusable. Krauss, it seems [based on the two of her three novels I have read] is working - much like her husband - to write in silence as well as sound. The gaps, the things unsaid or untold, are as pertinent to her stories as the print. It feels, on the surface, like a very po-mo approach, playing with the absent presence, etc.
And yet . . .
The whole novel centers on the ideas of privacy - in art and relationships. The novel follows four [well, five if you count the epilogue] artists. Four people united tangentially by a large writing desk. Three of the plot-lines are about writers, specifically, and how regardless of how hard they try, how earnest their prose, they are ultimately incapable of communicating anything that matters. They live in isolation. The book reiterates time and again that there are secrets that not only should not, but in some cases literally cannot be shared.
I'm not averse to the core idea here. Rilke taught me years ago [forgive the affectation] that we all live in locked rooms. That, as Brian Doyle wrote, "In the end, we are utterly open with no one." But as true as those sentiments ring, they are followed by an unspoken agreement: that despite our inability to convey perfectly our innermost thoughts and desires, we will try anyway.
Therein lies the beauty of the post-modern, for me. That rather than leaving memory alone, or accepting the alienation of a structuralist approach, it takes apart the signs and symbols and then asks for a rebuilding -- a collaboration.
And that's what I think art [including the art of love] is really about. Collaboration. Understanding that there will be misunderstandings [really, that there can hardly be anything else], but trusting that both parties will put forth an effort to convey and interpret in a sacred and seeking manner. In a manner of real Charity.
I watched 8 1/2 last night - Fellini's film on the creative process. And I am enamored with it. This is a real discussion of art. It is oblique in ways that Great House refuses to be; in ways that admit the enormity of a collaboration. It refrains from didacticism not as a pretense, but as a sincere acknowledgment that the act of creation is simply too enormous to reduce to a comprehensive whole. Watch it. Pay attention to the final scene, and you'll hopefully get my point [and the shivers].
I don't mean to be too harsh to Krauss. She is trying, even if her characters are not. And to say that I took nothing away from the book is a reflection on my reading more than on the work itself. But as one who writes [I will not flatter myself with the title of "artist"], and as a human being, I can't bring myself to endorse the picture of humanity it seems to be advocating.
Please don't think I am claiming a perfect understanding of this -- of art, or of love, or of their inextricable link. I am learning. I fail sometimes. No, I fail a lot of the time.
But I am trying regardless.
I just finished reading Great House by Nicole Krauss. And I was largely disappointed. The fragmented narrative structure, while certainly relevant to the story, is carried out on a level not grand enough to make its point, yet not subtle enough to be excusable. Krauss, it seems [based on the two of her three novels I have read] is working - much like her husband - to write in silence as well as sound. The gaps, the things unsaid or untold, are as pertinent to her stories as the print. It feels, on the surface, like a very po-mo approach, playing with the absent presence, etc.
And yet . . .
The whole novel centers on the ideas of privacy - in art and relationships. The novel follows four [well, five if you count the epilogue] artists. Four people united tangentially by a large writing desk. Three of the plot-lines are about writers, specifically, and how regardless of how hard they try, how earnest their prose, they are ultimately incapable of communicating anything that matters. They live in isolation. The book reiterates time and again that there are secrets that not only should not, but in some cases literally cannot be shared.
I'm not averse to the core idea here. Rilke taught me years ago [forgive the affectation] that we all live in locked rooms. That, as Brian Doyle wrote, "In the end, we are utterly open with no one." But as true as those sentiments ring, they are followed by an unspoken agreement: that despite our inability to convey perfectly our innermost thoughts and desires, we will try anyway.
Therein lies the beauty of the post-modern, for me. That rather than leaving memory alone, or accepting the alienation of a structuralist approach, it takes apart the signs and symbols and then asks for a rebuilding -- a collaboration.
And that's what I think art [including the art of love] is really about. Collaboration. Understanding that there will be misunderstandings [really, that there can hardly be anything else], but trusting that both parties will put forth an effort to convey and interpret in a sacred and seeking manner. In a manner of real Charity.
I watched 8 1/2 last night - Fellini's film on the creative process. And I am enamored with it. This is a real discussion of art. It is oblique in ways that Great House refuses to be; in ways that admit the enormity of a collaboration. It refrains from didacticism not as a pretense, but as a sincere acknowledgment that the act of creation is simply too enormous to reduce to a comprehensive whole. Watch it. Pay attention to the final scene, and you'll hopefully get my point [and the shivers].
I don't mean to be too harsh to Krauss. She is trying, even if her characters are not. And to say that I took nothing away from the book is a reflection on my reading more than on the work itself. But as one who writes [I will not flatter myself with the title of "artist"], and as a human being, I can't bring myself to endorse the picture of humanity it seems to be advocating.
Please don't think I am claiming a perfect understanding of this -- of art, or of love, or of their inextricable link. I am learning. I fail sometimes. No, I fail a lot of the time.
But I am trying regardless.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Remembering
I am aching for England again. Yearning with every fiber of my being. I want cool and wet and green.
Waterfalls and the smell of old books.
Luckily, while I was there, I did a smart thing. I listened to 4 albums: The Suburbs, Helplessness Blues, I and Love and You, and Hadestown. Consequently, when I listen to any of those now, it soothes me a bit.
Waterfalls and the smell of old books.
Luckily, while I was there, I did a smart thing. I listened to 4 albums: The Suburbs, Helplessness Blues, I and Love and You, and Hadestown. Consequently, when I listen to any of those now, it soothes me a bit.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Let's Talk
Hey. Let's talk about our feelings, huh?
Let's talk about how I love your genuity, your capacity to care, the way you communicate. Especially the last one. I'm less good at that, but I'm working on it. I love how you talk so easily and so earnestly. I'll get there.
I'm sorry I'm not as supportive as I could be. I really do try. But, you're right, I could be better. I'm really proud of you. I tell you that the things you do are good, but I don't tell you often enough that you are good. And you truly are.
And can I tell you something? I love the simplicity we have. You know, I don't articulate myself very clearly, and I sometimes seem like I'm trying to complicate things. I'm not. I promise. Please don't be offended. If I could speak as clearly as I feel, you'd understand. Just bear with me.
You are real and gentle and human. Thank you for putting up with my humanity, too.
[This wasn't really to anyone. It's kind of to everyone. Happy Valentines Day, guys.]
Let's talk about how I love your genuity, your capacity to care, the way you communicate. Especially the last one. I'm less good at that, but I'm working on it. I love how you talk so easily and so earnestly. I'll get there.
I'm sorry I'm not as supportive as I could be. I really do try. But, you're right, I could be better. I'm really proud of you. I tell you that the things you do are good, but I don't tell you often enough that you are good. And you truly are.
And can I tell you something? I love the simplicity we have. You know, I don't articulate myself very clearly, and I sometimes seem like I'm trying to complicate things. I'm not. I promise. Please don't be offended. If I could speak as clearly as I feel, you'd understand. Just bear with me.
You are real and gentle and human. Thank you for putting up with my humanity, too.
[This wasn't really to anyone. It's kind of to everyone. Happy Valentines Day, guys.]
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
So Whoa
Hi guys.
I am officially an English and German double major with a Philosophy minor.
I am also going to Germany for the month of August (and this birthday will be a heckuva lot better than last year).
I am not going to London im Sommer, nor am I going to minor in film.
I am a little bit dismayed.
I am graduating in December.
I am easily discouraged when people do not respond to me.
I am constantly cold.
I am trying with all my might to attend the Sasquatch festival.
I am kind of really poor right now.
I am open to change.
I am listening to really good music.
I am like a Wes Anderson movie.
I am in a very liminal place right now and am trying to be okay with it.
Love, Tana Treefeathers Frechem
I am officially an English and German double major with a Philosophy minor.
I am also going to Germany for the month of August (and this birthday will be a heckuva lot better than last year).
I am not going to London im Sommer, nor am I going to minor in film.
I am a little bit dismayed.
I am graduating in December.
I am easily discouraged when people do not respond to me.
I am constantly cold.
I am trying with all my might to attend the Sasquatch festival.
I am kind of really poor right now.
I am open to change.
I am listening to really good music.
I am like a Wes Anderson movie.
I am in a very liminal place right now and am trying to be okay with it.
Love, Tana Treefeathers Frechem
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