Category: Culture

Canon Lawyer Or Movie Critic?

As so often with the case, that question is a false dichotomy. It isn’t an either/or situation, in the case of canonist Dr. Edward Peters, it’s both/and. Though primarily known as a canon lawyer, Peters has for years been an afficionado of film, though he hasn’t published many reviews in recent times–a fact he needs to fix. In that regard, he’s made a setp in the right direction by beefing up the film section of his website (canonlaw.info).

At the beginning of the section, he explains his philosophy of film:

The key criterion by which to judge a film is simple: does it tell a good story,
and does it tell it well. Thus, writing is the most important factor in a film
(just as it is, though more obviously so, in literature and drama). Direction
and acting are great arts, but they should be, and are in most cases, at the
service of the story. Not every story need be profound, of course; there is a
place for healthy diversion, and some films might serve primarily as settings
for, say, great acting, the way some passages of Waugh are primarily occasions
for exquisite prose. But in the end, most films should be assessed as outlined
above, that is, the way stories have been judged ever since little groups of
frightened foragers, long since banished from Eden, first sat around camp fires
under the stars, waiting for Sunrise.

CHECK OUT HIS RECOMMENDATIONS.

The Searchers

Mittenbuttes_1There’s a scene in a Deep Space 9 episode where Nog is hiding out in Vic Fontane’s 1963 apartment watching TV. He sees the end of the Western movie Shane and then declares:

NOG: I liked The Searchers better.

VIC: (shrugging) Who doesn’t?

This intrigued me because, at the time, I had seen Shane but not The Searchers. Recently, I got the chance to. In fact, Steve Greydanus and I watched it together. It was the first time to see the film for both of us, and afterward we had a great time debating the film–particularly its moral significance.

YOU CAN READ STEVE’S REVIEW HERE.

I’m particularly tickled by one line in Steve’s review, where he cites as an example of pointless carping the criticism that John Ford’s Monument Valley, Utah filming location doesn’t look like the West Texas setting of the film. I’m tickled by that because as we watched the film, I made this very criticism! (Sure, Monument Valley is gorgeous, but seeing the East and West Mitten Buttes [above] in film after film by Ford harms my suspension of disbelief.)

My thought largely converges with Steve’s, but I thought I’d add a few thoughts of my own.

First, about Shane. There is a reason one can compare this film with The Searchers, because both are part of the same general subgenre of Western, which one might call "the thoughtful Western." This contrasts with the commedic Western (Support Your Local Sheriff, Support Your Local Gunfighter, Maverick), the hard-bitten Western (Clint Eastwood’s "Man With No Name" trilogy), the Indian-centric Western (The Little Big Man, Dances With Wolves), the Spaghetti Western (Sergio Leone’s stuff), the historical recreation (Tombstone, Wyatt Earp) and a bunch of other subgenres, including the Sci-Fi Western (Timerider, Back to the Future III, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.).

The thoughtful Western involves showing something other than a feel-good shoot-’em-up or a hostile critique of Western expansion. It combines elements of the two, attempting to show the moral complexity of the Old West. It allows elements of the feel-good Western but mixes it with disturbing elements that serve as a moral counterpoint. It doesn’t slide into being "hate America," politically correct history, but it doesn’t present the Old West with "white hats vs. black hats" simplicity.

In other words, it tries in some measure to capture the human condition. This is what elevates The Searchers into being a work of art rather than simply being a work of entertainment.

Shane does this to a certain extent, most memorably in a scene in which its hero is having a brutal fight with a villain and the proceedings are being observed by a young boy who–his eyes wide with wonder at the spectacle–is also eagerly munching on a candy cane as he watches. This disturbing image of a child being exposed to and fascinated by such violence invites the audience to contemplate its own enjoyment of Western action and the motives that might be behind the pleasure they get at watching it. It’s an implicit questioning of the simplistic vision of the Western hero.

Shane does not break too much from the mold and does not examine the moral complexity of the Old West to the extent of other films, but John Ford’s The Searchers does. This film carries the respectful questioning of Western mythology to a whole new level.

It would be a little hard for me to say, with Nog and Vic, that I would "like" or "enjoy" The Searchers more than Shane.  I recognize that it is a film that better expresses the human condition and that from this perspective it is a better film, and one that is to be watched. But for pure enjoyment value, a Western with more feel-good factor is more likely what I’d plop into my DVD tray on any given occasion.

The Searchers represents a continuation of themes found in previous John Ford’s works. His earlier film She Wore A Yellow Ribbon was set just after the Battle of the Little Bighorn (i.e., Custer’s Last Stand) and features John Wayne as an aging calvalryman who is trying to avert a full-scale Indian war and the devastation it would bring to both sides if, buoyed by their success against Custer, various tribes decided to begin a massacre.

At one point in the film, Wayne tries to avoid the coming war by meeting with an aging Indian chief who is a personal friend of his. The chief, who is a Christian, tells Wayne that the young men of the tribes are too empassioned to be calmed down by words, that he has lost his influence with them, and that he fears that a war that will be devastating for both sides is now unstoppable. This "voice of wisdom and experience" vs. "youth and passion" dynamic represents a factor of the human condition affecting all groups (Indians and Anglos alike) and goes beyond the "circle the wagons, start the shoot-’em-up" mentality of many Westerns.

In The Searchers, Wayne is again working with Ford, but this time the director expresses the human condition in a different way, by turning Wayne not into the aging voice of wisdom but into the aging voice of bitterness.

Now Wayne is an embittered former Confederate soldier who refused to surrender at the end of the war and who has been wandering ever since. Like the majority of people at this time, he harbors racist attitudes, but they are not so extreme that he is unable to recognize and respect the humanity of others. It would seem that Wayne’s character would be happy if different groups simply left each other alone and minded their own affairs.

He doesn’t get what he wants, because an aggrieved Indian leader murders most of his family and kidnaps two of its youngest female members. In an attempt to get them back, Wayne and a companion become the searchers that give the movie it’s title.

Wayne’s character is far more complex than what one expects from the traditional John Wayne hero. At different moments he can be heroic, wise, foolish, and morally repugnant. And the film means him to be shown in these lights. While Ford  means us to respect and appreciate much of what Wayne does, he are means us to be dismayed and abhorred by some of it.  He is thus trying to show the human condition, for all humans barring Our Lord and Our Lady are in some measure praiseworthy and in some measure abhorrent.

Ford does not push the character so far in the direction of the latter that he becomes an anti-hero. In this way, The Searchers may represent a transitional film in the history of Westerns, pushing the hero firmly toward the dark side, but not pushing him full into it the way later filmmakers did. There are several points in the latter half of the movie where Ford could have simply stopped filming, leaving us with a bleak, existential statement, but in the end he allows the characters involved, Wayne’s included, to find redemption.

After all, no matter what our flaws, redemption is what each of us is searching for.

The Searchers

Mittenbuttes_1There’s a scene in a Deep Space 9 episode where Nog is hiding out in Vic Fontane’s 1963 apartment watching TV. He sees the end of the Western movie Shane and then declares:

NOG: I liked The Searchers better.

VIC: (shrugging) Who doesn’t?

This intrigued me because, at the time, I had seen Shane but not The Searchers. Recently, I got the chance to. In fact, Steve Greydanus and I watched it together. It was the first time to see the film for both of us, and afterward we had a great time debating the film–particularly its moral significance.

YOU CAN READ STEVE’S REVIEW HERE.

I’m particularly tickled by one line in Steve’s review, where he cites as an example of pointless carping the criticism that John Ford’s Monument Valley, Utah filming location doesn’t look like the West Texas setting of the film. I’m tickled by that because as we watched the film, I made this very criticism! (Sure, Monument Valley is gorgeous, but seeing the East and West Mitten Buttes [above] in film after film by Ford harms my suspension of disbelief.)

My thought largely converges with Steve’s, but I thought I’d add a few thoughts of my own.

First, about Shane. There is a reason one can compare this film with The Searchers, because both are part of the same general subgenre of Western, which one might call "the thoughtful Western." This contrasts with the commedic Western (Support Your Local Sheriff, Support Your Local Gunfighter, Maverick), the hard-bitten Western (Clint Eastwood’s "Man With No Name" trilogy), the Indian-centric Western (The Little Big Man, Dances With Wolves), the Spaghetti Western (Sergio Leone’s stuff), the historical recreation (Tombstone, Wyatt Earp) and a bunch of other subgenres, including the Sci-Fi Western (Timerider, Back to the Future III, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.).

The thoughtful Western involves showing something other than a feel-good shoot-’em-up or a hostile critique of Western expansion. It combines elements of the two, attempting to show the moral complexity of the Old West. It allows elements of the feel-good Western but mixes it with disturbing elements that serve as a moral counterpoint. It doesn’t slide into being "hate America," politically correct history, but it doesn’t present the Old West with "white hats vs. black hats" simplicity.

In other words, it tries in some measure to capture the human condition. This is what elevates The Searchers into being a work of art rather than simply being a work of entertainment.

Shane does this to a certain extent, most memorably in a scene in which its hero is having a brutal fight with a villain and the proceedings are being observed by a young boy who–his eyes wide with wonder at the spectacle–is also eagerly munching on a candy cane as he watches. This disturbing image of a child being exposed to and fascinated by such violence invites the audience to contemplate its own enjoyment of Western action and the motives that might be behind the pleasure they get at watching it. It’s an implicit questioning of the simplistic vision of the Western hero.

Shane does not break too much from the mold and does not examine the moral complexity of the Old West to the extent of other films, but John Ford’s The Searchers does. This film carries the respectful questioning of Western mythology to a whole new level.

It would be a little hard for me to say, with Nog and Vic, that I would "like" or "enjoy" The Searchers more than Shane.  I recognize that it is a film that better expresses the human condition and that from this perspective it is a better film, and one that is to be watched. But for pure enjoyment value, a Western with more feel-good factor is more likely what I’d plop into my DVD tray on any given occasion.

The Searchers represents a continuation of themes found in previous John Ford’s works. His earlier film She Wore A Yellow Ribbon was set just after the Battle of the Little Bighorn (i.e., Custer’s Last Stand) and features John Wayne as an aging calvalryman who is trying to avert a full-scale Indian war and the devastation it would bring to both sides if, buoyed by their success against Custer, various tribes decided to begin a massacre.

At one point in the film, Wayne tries to avoid the coming war by meeting with an aging Indian chief who is a personal friend of his. The chief, who is a Christian, tells Wayne that the young men of the tribes are too empassioned to be calmed down by words, that he has lost his influence with them, and that he fears that a war that will be devastating for both sides is now unstoppable. This "voice of wisdom and experience" vs. "youth and passion" dynamic represents a factor of the human condition affecting all groups (Indians and Anglos alike) and goes beyond the "circle the wagons, start the shoot-’em-up" mentality of many Westerns.

In The Searchers, Wayne is again working with Ford, but this time the director expresses the human condition in a different way, by turning Wayne not into the aging voice of wisdom but into the aging voice of bitterness.

Now Wayne is an embittered former Confederate soldier who refused to surrender at the end of the war and who has been wandering ever since. Like the majority of people at this time, he harbors racist attitudes, but they are not so extreme that he is unable to recognize and respect the humanity of others. It would seem that Wayne’s character would be happy if different groups simply left each other alone and minded their own affairs.

He doesn’t get what he wants, because an aggrieved Indian leader murders most of his family and kidnaps two of its youngest female members. In an attempt to get them back, Wayne and a companion become the searchers that give the movie it’s title.

Wayne’s character is far more complex than what one expects from the traditional John Wayne hero. At different moments he can be heroic, wise, foolish, and morally repugnant. And the film means him to be shown in these lights. While Ford  means us to respect and appreciate much of what Wayne does, he are means us to be dismayed and abhorred by some of it.  He is thus trying to show the human condition, for all humans barring Our Lord and Our Lady are in some measure praiseworthy and in some measure abhorrent.

Ford does not push the character so far in the direction of the latter that he becomes an anti-hero. In this way, The Searchers may represent a transitional film in the history of Westerns, pushing the hero firmly toward the dark side, but not pushing him full into it the way later filmmakers did. There are several points in the latter half of the movie where Ford could have simply stopped filming, leaving us with a bleak, existential statement, but in the end he allows the characters involved, Wayne’s included, to find redemption.

After all, no matter what our flaws, redemption is what each of us is searching for.

And The Coldest Man In Hollywood Is . . .

. . . Michael Moore.

ACCORDING TO FILMTHREAT.COM’S FRIGID 50 LIST.

Michael Eisner is #3 on the list.

Incidentally, I’m told that FilmThreat is definitely from the bluestate end of the spectrum but still had the perceptiveness and honesty to dishonor Mr. Moore with the most frigid slot.

Interesting analysis about Moore on the FilmThreat list.

Toy Story 3 – Pixar = ???

Now that Disney drove off Pixar with their heavy-handed negotiating tactics, they have decided to exercise their right to make additional sequels in the Toy Story series. Pixar will not be involved.

TOY STORY 3, COMING UP.

My money is that it won’t live up to its two precedessors. Steve Greydanus and I have discussed the intrinsic difficulties in making a third film that would live up to the first two, and it’s not clear that the characters have within them another story as powerful as the two they’ve already given us (though I have an idea for one that might come close). Without Pixar in the picture, I don’t have confidence in Disney’s ability to come remotely close.

AUTHOR: “My Characters Made Me Do It!”

Down yonder a reader writes concerning the absence of a much-needed equivalent to Han Solo in the current Star Wars films:

A lot of authors would say that there isn’t one of "those figures"
in the new films because there wasn’t one of "those figures" around
where they were being filmed. They might say their characters are not
placed there by the author like ingredients in a soup, they simply
portray the story as it exists in their head. Luke n’ em’ ran into Han
at the point in time that they did, cause they did. Obi wan and Anakin
didn’t run into one of those, so we didn’t see them do it.

They aren’t made-to-order circumstances, and companies. So, perhaps
they might be reasons that you don’t enjoy them as much, but they would
agrue that you can’t really call them flaws in the story. I am sure
there are some people who were annoyed by Han, and would even argue to
Lucas that he was a distraction. To them he would also reply…" He
annoyed the characters too, but I can’t remove him. How could I? He was
there!"

I appreciate the thought, and writers do sometimes talk about their characters controlling the story.

But . . .

I iz onenna them thar writer fellers.

An’ I don’ buy it.

Whether I’m doing fiction or non-fiction, I am fully in control of what I’m writing. Sure, sometimes one gets to a point in the writing where it just seems to "flow," without deliberate effort, but this happens (when it happens) after one starts the writing, not when one is pre-planning and deciding what elements need to go into the mix.

It isn’t the case that a writer sees the whole story in his head and has to write it down. Stories almost invariably come into one’s mind a piece at a time (in fact, agonizingly slowly), and one can and must control the mix of elements needed to make the story effective for the audience.

In fact, the ability to do this is an essential part of making the transition from an amateur writer to a professional writer. Amateurs are too wrapped up in their ideas to be willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the overall work, and their work suffers as a result. They also often feel so passionate about their material that they can’t see what’s working and what’s not from a reader’s point of view.

To get to the point of writing on a professional level (I don’t mean publishing a few stories or articles here and there; I mean being able to place pieces consisently and frequently such that you can make a living at this) you have to get a feel for the reader’s point of view (which is not the same as your own) and you have to be willing to control and shape the piece to what will work for the reader rather than simply wallowing in your own "artistic expression." Too many writers have gotten stuck at the "I am an artiste!" level and never gotten to the point of doing work that is actually . . . well . . . good.

It is true that writers sometimes talk about things "writing themselves," which just means that they had a very easy time writing a piece. They also sometimes speak of characters demanding to do or say things in a story, but what this means is that they have lived with a character for so long in their head that they have a very clear idea about what the character would do or say in a particular situation–or what would be really good for the character to do or say.

For example, in the fourth season of Babylon 5, Joe Straczynski had an episode ("The Long Night") in which the mad emperor Cartagia needed to be offed for the good of Centauri Prime. He originally planned to have Londo Mollari do it, which was the expected, predictable thing. Then when he came to write the scene he realized that it would be much better for Londo’s timid, bumbling assistant Vir to accidentally kill Cartagia.

So that’s what he wrote.

He later said that the character Vir stepped up and demanded to do this, but that is just a metaphor for having a sudden flash of inspiration about what would be the best use of character based on his long familiarity with the characters of Londo and Vir (who he had been writing for at least four to six years by this point).

This is a wholly different subject than should there be a Londo or a Vir in the story. How would dropping characters like these into the mix affect the show? How would it add to or take away from the mood and the dramatic possibilities of the story? Those are very different questions than what the characters do once you add them to the mix and write them for so long that you have an instinctive feel for what they would do.

So writers do–particularly with things like television shows and motion pictures–focus consciously on the mix of characters and how they combine to create an overall emotional experience for the audience.

The "My characters made me do it!" defense may work on the level of particular scenes written with long-established characters (including scenes that have plot points in them), but it doesn’t go to the question of whether a writer lets a particular character into the story.

This would seem to be the case particularly for George Lucas, who makes movies like children working with PlayDough. He starts shaping a movie in a kind of loose way, then tweaks and pokes and prods it, adding material, snipping material, even coming up with new material in the editing process. An examination of the prehistory of his shooting scripts reveals that he dramatically changed both the characters and the story as he went along. He did not have the overall story worked out in his head from the beginning, and he is quite capable of making major changes if he thinks they are needed.

The difficulty is that he seemingly hasn’t realized the mood problem created by the absence of a Han Solo equivalent.

AUTHOR: "My Characters Made Me Do It!"

Down yonder a reader writes concerning the absence of a much-needed equivalent to Han Solo in the current Star Wars films:

A lot of authors would say that there isn’t one of "those figures"

in the new films because there wasn’t one of "those figures" around

where they were being filmed. They might say their characters are not

placed there by the author like ingredients in a soup, they simply

portray the story as it exists in their head. Luke n’ em’ ran into Han

at the point in time that they did, cause they did. Obi wan and Anakin

didn’t run into one of those, so we didn’t see them do it.

They aren’t made-to-order circumstances, and companies. So, perhaps

they might be reasons that you don’t enjoy them as much, but they would

agrue that you can’t really call them flaws in the story. I am sure

there are some people who were annoyed by Han, and would even argue to

Lucas that he was a distraction. To them he would also reply…" He

annoyed the characters too, but I can’t remove him. How could I? He was

there!"

I appreciate the thought, and writers do sometimes talk about their characters controlling the story.

But . . .

I iz onenna them thar writer fellers.

An’ I don’ buy it.

Whether I’m doing fiction or non-fiction, I am fully in control of what I’m writing. Sure, sometimes one gets to a point in the writing where it just seems to "flow," without deliberate effort, but this happens (when it happens) after one starts the writing, not when one is pre-planning and deciding what elements need to go into the mix.

It isn’t the case that a writer sees the whole story in his head and has to write it down. Stories almost invariably come into one’s mind a piece at a time (in fact, agonizingly slowly), and one can and must control the mix of elements needed to make the story effective for the audience.

In fact, the ability to do this is an essential part of making the transition from an amateur writer to a professional writer. Amateurs are too wrapped up in their ideas to be willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the overall work, and their work suffers as a result. They also often feel so passionate about their material that they can’t see what’s working and what’s not from a reader’s point of view.

To get to the point of writing on a professional level (I don’t mean publishing a few stories or articles here and there; I mean being able to place pieces consisently and frequently such that you can make a living at this) you have to get a feel for the reader’s point of view (which is not the same as your own) and you have to be willing to control and shape the piece to what will work for the reader rather than simply wallowing in your own "artistic expression." Too many writers have gotten stuck at the "I am an artiste!" level and never gotten to the point of doing work that is actually . . . well . . . good.

It is true that writers sometimes talk about things "writing themselves," which just means that they had a very easy time writing a piece. They also sometimes speak of characters demanding to do or say things in a story, but what this means is that they have lived with a character for so long in their head that they have a very clear idea about what the character would do or say in a particular situation–or what would be really good for the character to do or say.

For example, in the fourth season of Babylon 5, Joe Straczynski had an episode ("The Long Night") in which the mad emperor Cartagia needed to be offed for the good of Centauri Prime. He originally planned to have Londo Mollari do it, which was the expected, predictable thing. Then when he came to write the scene he realized that it would be much better for Londo’s timid, bumbling assistant Vir to accidentally kill Cartagia.

So that’s what he wrote.

He later said that the character Vir stepped up and demanded to do this, but that is just a metaphor for having a sudden flash of inspiration about what would be the best use of character based on his long familiarity with the characters of Londo and Vir (who he had been writing for at least four to six years by this point).

This is a wholly different subject than should there be a Londo or a Vir in the story. How would dropping characters like these into the mix affect the show? How would it add to or take away from the mood and the dramatic possibilities of the story? Those are very different questions than what the characters do once you add them to the mix and write them for so long that you have an instinctive feel for what they would do.

So writers do–particularly with things like television shows and motion pictures–focus consciously on the mix of characters and how they combine to create an overall emotional experience for the audience.

The "My characters made me do it!" defense may work on the level of particular scenes written with long-established characters (including scenes that have plot points in them), but it doesn’t go to the question of whether a writer lets a particular character into the story.

This would seem to be the case particularly for George Lucas, who makes movies like children working with PlayDough. He starts shaping a movie in a kind of loose way, then tweaks and pokes and prods it, adding material, snipping material, even coming up with new material in the editing process. An examination of the prehistory of his shooting scripts reveals that he dramatically changed both the characters and the story as he went along. He did not have the overall story worked out in his head from the beginning, and he is quite capable of making major changes if he thinks they are needed.

The difficulty is that he seemingly hasn’t realized the mood problem created by the absence of a Han Solo equivalent.

EARTH TO LUCAS: “Less Is More”

I really want to like the new Star Wars films. And I do, but not near as much as I’d like to like them. The second of the new films was, in fact, much better than the first, but the flaws in the films are all too obvious to me. (The flaws in the original trilogy are also obvious.)

One major flaw in the current trilogy is that there is no equivalent to Han Solo. Han was an irreverent, skeptical, selfish smart-aleck whose presence helped keep the first trilogy from bogging down with everybody on screen taking the Jedi so seriously and going around acting so grave and noble. Subtract a Han figure from the first trilogy and everybody ends up taking themselves waaay too seriously.

Lucas has said that the new trilogy is much more like what he envisioned the first trilogy, but he didn’t have the tech (or the money) to make it the way he saw it.

Not everything Lucas says in this regard is true. He makes it sound as if the story of all six movies was clear in his mind when he made the first, and that patently isn’t true–at least if you read the original scripts (also available in an easier-to-use book form). Lucas had all kinds of stuff in the originals that indicate his vision of the story changed in midstream–repeatedly. Yet the original series ended up clicking in a way no previous movie trilogy had.

Despite the alterations to the plot, I think that Lucas is telling the truth when he says he originally imagined a much more lush, detail-rich universe for the original trilogy, yet for budgetary (and non-budgetary) reasons, he ended up cutting it way back.

As the years have passed, he has now begun adding back the missing detail, in the "Special Edition" of the original films that was released in theaters, in the Extra-Special Super Chocolate Fudgy Edition that has now been released on DVD, and most notably in the films of the current trilogy.

As he’s added more detail, fans of the original series have been complaining, and loudly.

There are some circumstances in which adding detail hurts a work of art, situations in which less is more.

That’s the message fans of the original Star Wars movies have been sending to Lucas, but he doesn’t seem to have gotten the message.

HERE’S ONE OF THE MOST INSIGHTFUL ANALYSES OF THE PROBLEM THAT I’VE READ.