Elephant Talk

I’m very sleep deprived. So this post might not make any sense. The flight was uneventful, except for some significant turbulence. I like turbulence. There’s that briefest instant of freefall and then the “thud.” I was half asleep when one hit — I never did become fully asleep — and I imagined what might happen if the wings ripped apart. Would the plane start spiraling, or would it nosedive? I envisioned a kind of nosedive and then I thought that if I survived the impact, the cabin would probably be shred to shit and I’d have to think fast to grab my life vest. I like to think that I’d look around to see if there were any children who had forgotten to put a vest on and maybe I’d try to save one. Then we’d float in the icy water and he/she would scream and I’d have to say kin-chan-ay-yo, kin-chan-ay-yo, or however you say that. Then the sun would rise a little and I’d die from the cold but the child would survive and get rescued. Anyway, that was my story. In truth I’d probably panic and swallow a bunch of water before I could take off my seatbelt.

I watched an episode of Friends. It’s been a year since I’ve seen American situation comedies. I’d forgotten about the laugh-track. What a silly, stupid thing. Every two seconds the crowd did this loud, canned laughter. I kept wishing they would shut the hell up.

I read the International Herald Tribune and there was something about US customs officials seizing people’s laptops and copying their hard drives. I thought that if they did that to me when I landed I’d tell them to fuck off. Then I’d wind up in jail and that would be fine with me.

I’m reading an amazingly brilliant, brilliantly amazing book called Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which is probably why I’m writing like this. Or maybe it’s the no sleep thing.

America is weird. Everyone is so polite to complete strangers. Things are so clean and average. Everyone looks different from everyone else. And I can hear conversations again. Most of the time I wish I didn’t. But it’s nice to be back.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Wilco lately. Four months ago or so I didn’t have a single album. But so many of my friends praised them up and down that I had to give them another shot.

I tried once before, somewhere around 2002. That’s when everyone was talking about them. Their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album was the cause de celebré for the independent minded youth of the digital age. It was a triumph of art over commerce. They were the band that stuck it to The MAN. Of course, that was all I heard about. Nobody seemed to mention the music. I hate that kind of media-generated buzz, so I had no interest in getting to know them.

But one day I was driving around Palo Alto with my girlfriend at the time. She was more curious than I was so she bought the album. OK, sure, let’s give it a shot. So she put the CD in the car stereo. Thirty seconds into it, I knew I hated it. Once I heard that sad-sack voice I thought “God no, not another self-emasculaed, indie whiner please.” Two minutes into it I couldn’t take it anymore. I begged her to turn it the hell off. My preconceptions were confirmed: Of course the critics loved them, I thought. These guys hate themselves. They fit perfectly into that drab, post-punk attitude where you have to sound like you don’t care. Critics love that shit. I can’t fucking stand it.

Fast-forward some five or six years into the future, to March 2008. I went with a group of friends to the Korean countryside for some fresh air and to climb a mountain. It had been raining the whole drive up and that night. When we woke up the next morning I opened the curtains and looked outside. The trees were dripping with last night’s rain, the hotel pavement was soaked. But it looked like the weather was going to break and we could climb that mountain.

And then someone put on some music. I heard this really nice, mellow guitar, and then the singer sang the first lines: “Maybe the sun will shine today. The clouds will blow away. Maybe I won’t feel so afraid…” Wait a minute, who’s this? Wilco. First song off their most recent album, Sky Blue Sky. I loved it. It was pretty, it was mellow, the singer was really singing, the mix was beautiful, and it was a great song. In short, it was everything my first experience was not.

And that’s Wilco. There’s a reason every website’s favorite adjective for them is “interesting.” As evidence of this, everyone I know who is a fan has a different preferred phase, a different favorite album. My friend in Pittsburgh thought nothing was ever quite the same after A.M. The bass player in my band prefers Being There. One of the guitarists in my band likes Summerteeth best. The other guitarist swears by A Ghost Is Born. His girlfriend digs Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I, to this day, still prefer Sky Blue Sky by a mile.

Before I dig into my praise of them, and of that album in particular, I gotta get something off my chest.
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There’s a new book out about the life of Jean-Luc Godard called Everything Is Cinema. Richard Schickel wrote a review of it, but it’s as much a criticism of Godard’s style of filmmaking as it is a critique of the book.

Godard shook up the bland, traditional film industry as part of the French new wave movement starting in the late 1950s. He gave us the jump cut and tore up the idea of continuity. He helped to change the idea of what we can accept aesthetically when we watch a movie, and that enabled the art to take chances with how a story can be constructed.

I’ll get back to that in a minute, but first — I especially liked this part of Schickel’s article:

I‘m not arguing that traditional melodrama is the only worthwhile model for moviemaking. Rather the opposite. The current bankruptcy of the medium — the American craze for special effects, the rest of the world’s reversion to, yes, “the tradition of quality” — is a direct result of caution and uninteresting calculation. But good movies, movies that leave a permanent mark on our imaginations, are not made in the Godard mode. They are made by obsessives, by directors who shut out the distractions of the outside world and fret endlessly over every aspect of their films. The best of these directors eventually achieve thematic and stylistic coherence — whether they are Hitchcock or Bergman, Hawks or Kubrick — and, for better or worse, auteur status. They are aesthetic conservatives, people who find their ground and work it until it is overgrazed: Then, they sit back to watch others imitating them. Unlike Godard, they show almost no interest in advancing the cause of cinema in general, of finding new topics for it to take up, new methods of expressing themselves on the screen. Implicit in their work is the notion that everything is not cinema, that there are matters better suited to other forms — essays, painting, music, even pulp fiction.

This hits squarely on something I think about a lot when it comes to art, but I would extend the idea to all art forms. The “obsessives” are the ones I most appreciate in any art. When I think of my favorite writers, filmmakers and musicians, they’re usually those who have crafted something that I find exquisite. This isn’t a very popular perspective to have these days because we’re flooded with the idea that lo-fi rendering is somehow more real. If I remember back to my grad school readings, I think it has something to do with economics and issues of power. It’s seen as more valuable to break from lofty pursuits of aesthetic “quality” because those notions have been defined by those who supply the paychecks.

I can accept this to a certain degree. We do need to occasionally shake off the cobwebs. We need to find new perspectives and new ways of stretching things. Creativity should be available to everyone. I understand this intellectually. But I also find that such efforts are too often more clever than they are compelling, and rarely if ever move me emotionally. As Martin Scorsese once said about Godard: “He’s too hip for me.” And with some of these movements in post-WWII modernism/postmodernism, there is a hipster code at work that pulls things into their own kind of exclusive cliques. When music and film becomes like fashion something’s gone wrong. You have to ask yourself which is worse, aloof conservativism or snooty antiestablishmentarianism?

I’ll take neither, thank you. I appreciate what Schickel seems to be advocating — those who exist outside of all of that. This unnamable place is where you find those who find their own voice, who have the courage to try and to care, and who aren’t afraid to chase something beautiful.

Don’t trust western foreigners teaching in Japan.

We only get the major blockbuster US movies here in Busan, which means we get a lot of crap. But it also means we get all the big animated films, which are most definitely not crap. Kung-fu Panda, for example, was not only a laugh-out-loud riot, it was also beautifully made.

The new Pixar movie, Wall-E, sounds really interesting. In particular, I was intrigued by this little bit about the approach to dialogue:

Throughout the film, the lead characters, and most of the robots they encounter, utter not a single word of traditional dialogue. (There is ooooing, eeeping and beeping.) It’s yet another variation from previous Pixar films in which toys, rats, fish and bugs all have talked - and talked smart.

Still, Stanton says, “there’s dialogue from Frame One. It’s just unconventional dialogue.

“I knew this was a big bite to chew, and it had been a long, long time since someone tried to do a film with this unconventional dialogue in it. I kept saying, ‘It’s like I’m trying to do R2-D2 the Movie.’ I kept using that phrase so many times that one of my producers said, ‘Why don’t you just call Ben Burtt,’ ” the legendary audio and sound man who was the “voice” of R2-D2.

“So I called him and asked him if he could sign on early and help me with dialogue for these characters and grammar for each of the characters,” Stanton says.

“Now that I’m on the back end of working with him for two years, I realize that was the smartest move I ever made. I got 25 years of knowledge of how to do this stuff. He’s just the master of it, and I don’t think I could solved [sic] it without him.”

I’ve been waiting for something like this. Movies tend to “talk” very fast and too much, but I’m always fascinated by those that strip away the need to explain everything. A film like The New World, for example, is a great love story even though the main characters barely speak to each other. Another is Triplets of Belleville. What little language it has is unnecessary. This requires a filmmaker to be more creative in storytelling.

And of course, the other reason I like films without little or no dialogue is that I have more examples I can show in class.

Edit (June 24): Here’s the trailer… looks and sounds great!

I want to marry this woman. But me in Korea… her in Iraq… It probably wouldn’t work out.

OK, I’m going to dip into the geek pool — familiar waters for me, I should add — and give my opinion on the Star Trek versus Battlestar Galactica debate. Sam J. Miller wrote a very good analysis comparing the two shows, highlighting the optimism of the former and the bleakness of the latter, also pointing out how they reflect their respective cultural zeitgeists. As he writes:

“These days, Battlestar Galactica’s warning that technology and progress will bring us to the brink of total annihilation is far more resonant than Star Trek’s hope that technology and progress will solve all of our problems.”

I was never that into the original Star Trek series, but I am a huge fan of The Next Generation. That show was quintessential science fiction, with some brilliantly inventive stories. We got some real mind-benders that dealt with the nature of reality, death, time travel, dreams, free will, and other aspects of human nature. But we also got some intriguing cultural and political parallels of the time — gay rights, abuses of power, the individual versus the collective, war treaties, colonialism, terrorism, etc. Each episode seemed to be a sort of life lesson and a means toward inspiring our better nature. American culture was more positive then, not to mention more innocent.

Ronald D. Moore was one of the principle creative forces on the latter (better) half of the show’s seven-year run. He is also the lead creative force behind his more recent project, Battlestar Galactica. This show displays humanity in a different way. As Miller points out, unlike in TNG, humanity in the BSG future is still very, very flawed. The “heroes” of the show rig elections, assassinate enemies, make bad decisions, destroy themselves, and behave like depressed drunkards. Why shouldn’t they? Most of their species has been eradicated and hope is fading. They’re confused and afraid.

This is the fear that underlies modern society. The fear of today isn’t simply that the Soviets or the Americans will hit the red button at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons; it’s the feeling that this time, perhaps we deserve our own annihilation (again, paraphrasing Miller, but also reiterating my own opinion, which I expressed here a couple months back). It is our own mistakes, our own lack of foresight, our misunderstanding of our enemies, and an inability to change that gives us this feeling that we are unworthy of continuing. This is an oft-echoed theme of BSG, and it’s the reason the show works so well. It’s also the reason that the constructed world of BSG is far more compelling and complex than TNG.

But does that make it a better show? This is where I’m going to disagree with Miller, Moore, and perhaps every media critic out there who adores Battlestar Galactica.

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If you look at it bleakly, all the recent protests signal — at least in part — a new wave of anti-Americanism, and the Marmot’s Hole has been posting about this reality. At the same time, there’s a certain charm to the whole thing. This article made me laugh about a half dozen times. I could see a lot of the “good Korea” in it, because I see smaller versions of this in daily life all the time.

I particularly liked this middle section:

Besides the lack of violence, what is surprising - even to South Koreans - is that there is no organizer for the already weeks-long demonstration. People took to the streets and formed ad hoc protest groups, usually around 6pm or 7pm each day. This has been bewildering to South Korean civil society, labor unions and opposition politicians - the usual players in such public protests. Tuesday’s rally was the first officially organized protest and had the biggest turnout - police estimate 105,000 demonstrators, while the organizers said the number was closer to 500,000.

Still, one might think it was some kind of mass picnic, until you spot the riot police standing stiff, waiting for a crackdown order. Some people are holding impromptu concerts complete with guitars and violins, singing and dancing. In some cases, entire families have arrived to literally “camp out” in the middle of traffic. Of course they brought tents with them.

Other “protesters” have brought hot coffee to serve anyone who needs it. And high school students have given out roses to riot police, a move that definitely brings down the tension level. Some are distributing water bottles to the aggressive “frontliners” who usually shout more and work up a justified thirst. There are even volunteer medics walking around, shouting “Does anybody need help?”

Young couples use the protest for a romantic outing. They march with hands held tight, and the other hand holding a candle. Local TV footage has shown a man celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday with a protest-candle cake. Other “demonstrators” have brought an outdoor movie projector and are showing the US documentary Sicko.

With the party atmosphere in full swing, the street vendors are enjoying a heyday of extra money and unusual business hours. It’s 2am, and here they are selling kimbob (Korean sushi) or bundaegi (roasted silkworm larvae) right in the middle of roads that have been declared “no-traffic zones” by protesters who’re occupying them.

This is South Korea’s street protests 2.0. Or, perhaps, South Korea’s “postmodern” demonstrations. With some Koreans mistrustful of mainstream media reports on the demonstration, they’ve taken matters into their own hands by broadcasting and reporting themselves. Using high-speed wireless Internet, some “embedded” citizens are using their own laptops and camcorders to broadcast real-time events. There are “citizen reporters” conducting interviews and taking pictures and posting them on their personal blogs and Internet forums. In fact, these news hounds have been so effective that some established newspapers have begun quoting them.

I just got back from seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Good lord, what a load of crap that was. It was so bad in fact that I’ll have to really think hard to find something good to say about it. Let’s see…

…

…still thinking, give me a minute…

Ah! It was very expensive.

That’s all I’ve got. Five minutes into it, I turned to my friend and said “Are they serious?” There were so many things bad about this movie. The first that comes to mind is Spielberg’s consistent failure as a director: dialogue. He can’t get actors to speak with any conviction or emotion. He can’t do it. He can’t make them funny, he can’t make them serious, he can’t decide if they’re funny or serious… Take away the beginning and end scenes of Saving Private Ryan and you’ve got a dumb war movie with bad dialogue.

The script… oh, god the script… and the plot… (muffled puke)… I can’t even begin. And the characters had no connection to each other. There was no reason to care what any of these people were doing. Harrison Ford was invisible, an old man wearing a costume.

Perhaps most shocking is how aesthetically bad it was. The set designs were atrocious. I kept waiting to see some scaffolding or a boom pole in the shot. Making matters worse was that everything was flooded with what must have been a hundred different lighting rigs. The whole thing looked artificial, constructed, cold and then they blasted everything in white light. And everything was LOUD. At one point Ford stops Shia LeBeouf from taking a step forward and you hear WWHOOOSSSCHUNK! as his forearm hits his chest. I can’t forget to mention the skull itself — a silly piece of plastic stuffed with Saran Wrap.

Okay, the Amazon car chase was kinda fun, but that’s because everyone finally shut up and stopped talking.

If it was meant to be campy, okay, I could give myself over to that. But I think they were actually trying to make a good movie. At least, I think?

I want to see this…