Victor LaValle, in conversation with Madeleine Monson-Rosen at Bookslut:
It has always seemed to me that realism attempts to describe what daily life looks like while the fantastic attempts to express what daily life feels like. Getting evicted from your home — I mean genuine court-ordered, City Marshal enforced eviction — can feel like an episode from a piece of Gothic fiction. The reportorial aspects of realism just aren’t going to capture the matter. I can’t fathom how only one type of writing — whether realism, the fantastic, romance, mystery, etc. — can ever summarize life on its own. Using all of it — within the same book, sometimes within the same sentence — seems like the only sensible way to try and capture the whole spectrum of human experience. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Wife and I are eagerly awaiting mildly interested in the release of the upcoming film Gone, which looks like your pretty standard yucktastic slasher fare but which was filmed here in Portland. You don’t get to see Portland in films a lot, especially not as itself (rather than Boston or Generic Grey Rainy City.) Plus, this has Amanda Seyfried in it, and she was in Jennifer’s Body, genuflect.
It also has Katherine Moennig, who is a separate point of excitement in our household, for slightly different reasons. We were excited to consider the possibility that on the two nights when aerial filming took place on our dumpy little street in St Johns, KM was possibly up in a helicopter looking down, thinking, hey, look at that neat little farmhouse with the overgrown yard and the hurricane cellar that needs major work. I’d like to know the people who live there.
We’re also excited to see what’s on her head. Because it’s always special.
That is a lot of split ends for a District Attorney. Or whatever.
We’re (re)watching the 2002 PBS/ITV/Granada production of The Forsyte Saga chez nous, and it’s almost Thanksgiving. Thus: 10 reasons to be grateful for The Forsyte Saga. (Mild spoilers.)
10. The costumes. From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, from the Victorian era to early modernism, they’re fantastic. Static, staid characters don’t update their dress much; freewheeling, open-to-the-world characters change a lot over the years. What you see on an artsy, foppish man turns into regular wear for all men within a few years. You can read temperament, station in life, and a hundred other things in how people dress. So subtle, and so great–and the actors do a wonderful job of appearing to age over the years of the story.
9. The passage of time. It’s called a saga for a reason. We see characters change over the course of their lives–some of them ossifying, some learning lessons, some treading the same ground over and over. Children bear the burden of their parents’ mistakes, or emerge from them. Meanwhile, the world continues to turn. If you like a long arc, you’ll love the Forsytes.
8. The little moments. The private investigator chuckling at the marble nude, Monty Darty standing up in his car singing opera as he drives, old Jolyon’s golden labrador nuzzling his hand as he sits on the garden patio. Soames biting the necklace. It’s a rich, rich story–and the writers, director, and actors do an incredible job of bringing it to life.
7. The focus on the family. In a good way, for once. The death of Queen Victoria, the Boer War, the internal combustion engine–they all glide by without really drawing our attention away from the family talking about itself, fighting with itself, wooing itself, being itself. Nothing takes focus from the Forsytes. Nothing, I tell you.
6. Soames. Never a more complicated, layered, real, and at the same time clearly symbolic character. Despicable, spiteful, miserable, and pitiable.
5. The Jolyons. Everyone should have a grandfather like old Jolyon. (And every grandfather should have a Turkish fez for smoking after dinner.) Almost everyone should have a husband or father like young Jolyon. Young Jolyon is the anti-Soames, the positive charge to his negative one. Young Jolyon believes in love, art, freedom, and kindness. Basically, young Jolyon has got it all figured out. (Soames has not.)
4. Irene. Gina McKee is incredible as Irene Heron/Forsyte. She has an inimitable poise, as well as depths of emotion. She can show compassion, regret, revulsion, or delight with the slightest expression. She’s absolutely amazing. And Irene herself…never a more wonderful, resilient, principled, surprising character.
3. Robin Hill. The house is practically a member of the family. It’s the catalyst for violence and disruption, the site for reunion and forgiveness, the backdrop for a hundred dramas. It’s also classic arts & crafts–and it’s great to see the Victorian establishment respond to its brave new ideas (open space! windows! pocket doors!) with fear and derision. Of course, within a generation it’s the very thing.
2. The feminism. Or at least, the sympathetically realistic portrayal of women’s lives when they were considered the property of their husbands. From callous comments to violence and abuse, we see what women have to bear–and what little recourse they have for it. Even the wealthiest women have a crappy lot, if they don’t happen to marry a noble and enlightened man.
1. The messages. They’re not hard to find: Love is more important than property. If you love someone, you must respect them. Marrying for money, title, or prestige isn’t worth it. People cannot belong to other people–unless they choose to. Considering the books were written by a man in the early twentieth century, they’re pretty good messages.
The books were published between 1906 and 1921, and are available from your local library or bookstore–as well as on Amazon for Kindle (where they’re free.) The 10 episodes filmed by PBS for Masterpiece Theater are at your local library too–or your favorite indie video store. Probably not at your nearest Red Box. But they’re worth getting, and diving into over the holidays.
With many thanks to my friend Laura, who introduced me to the story in the first place.
Last weekend Better Half and I went to see the new JT vehicle, In Time. This is a movie about a world in which people live until they’re 25, at which point they’re genetically engineered to die after exactly one additional year. They can buy more time to extend their life, or they can lose it and die sooner. The tally is kept on their forearms, in glowing green digital numbers that everyone can see. Rich people have endless amounts of time credit, and can live a hundred years in their pretty, glossy, twenty-five-year-old bodies. Poor people stay young too, but they live day to day in the ghettos, working crappy jobs to earn enough to live another day. So, not a bad idea for a movie, right? Too bad it went so wrong.
Spoilers follow.
We saw this movie for a number of reasons. First: JT. He’s a former flame of Better Half, so when he makes a movie, we go. Second: Vincent Kartheiser and his red red lips. Third: Cillian Murphy and his crazy cat face. Fourth: Stylish futuristic genre movie. Cf. Aeon Flux, Gattaca, Blade Runner, etc. They’re a niche product, and they don’t come along every day. All good reasons to drop twenty bucks (!! my Scottish heart fails!) on the experience.
However. As I watched this movie, there were lots of moments when I found myself wondering what time it was and thinking about snacks. This is never good. It’s a sign that the movie isn’t working. So no, In Time is not a working movie–but I’m interested in why movies work, or don’t work. Let’s discuss.
On the way home, Better Half and I compared In Time to Blade Runner, which may not be fair because…Blade Runner. There’s no winning against that. But it’s interesting, because I think we can agree that Blade Runner is a good movie. Objectively good, if there is such a thing. (There’s not.) It’s widely praised, acclaimed, referenced, and assimilated as part of our popular culture. If those things equal at least some value of “good,” then we can use Blade Runner as a kind of yardstick against which to measure In Time‘s not-goodness, and try to figure out what went wrong.
Also, both In Time and Blade Runner are science fiction movies with big-name stars and lots of financial backing, heavy on style and even concerned with some of the same issues. In both movies, protagonists are racing against time, pursued or in pursuit, enmeshed in a flawed and dehumanizing system in an alternate Los Angeles. So why is Blade Runner so much better?
The simple answer is, I guess: better director. Better actors, maybe. Better script. Just better. But what does that really meeeeaaan?
Both movies have a strong visual style. But Blade Runner‘s is huge, iconic, groundbreaking. When you think of Blade Runner you think of dark, rainy, impossible crowded streets billowing with steam and streaked with neon light; huge geisha faces on enormous electronic billboards; battered hovercars soaring through gargantuan office buildings. You think of strange, kinky costuming like Zhora’s snakeskin-seqined stripper outfit and her transparent stiff plastic raincoat, or Pris’s wacky black-stripe eye makeup and electrocuted hair, or even Roy Batty’s Spandex bike shorts. You think of noir, of curling cigarette smoke, dim lights, shadows, chiaroscuro. Blade Runner is a movie in love with the look of things, and its look is unlike anything that came before.
In Time makes an effort at a strong visual style, but it doesn’t adore its settings or costumes, and it doesn’t take risks. The ghetto is a ghetto, recognizable but not new. The city of the rich is clean and white and glassy, but nothing special.
In between and around the fringes are some brief forays into originality: the grinding concrete toll barriers that separate the districts, the tunnels and cracked, desolate boulevards of no-man’s-land. And one of the best visual effects in the film comes when Will (JT) and Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) swim in the ocean at night, and their glowing green time counters light them from beneath the water.
Other than that, there’s not much to say. The mansions and casinos of the ultra-rich are…fine. We recognize them. We’ve seen that same flattering golden casino light before, in every Ocean‘s movie made. The mansion is fine. It’s not that mind-blowing; someone probably lives there right now. Maybe the executive producer’s son-in-law, which is a sad comment on the Up With People message of the movie. But whatever, look at this shot as a for-instance. Look how messy, how unstructured, how Architectural Digest. Would Ridley Scott have ever flubbed his setting like this?
I think not.
The costuming is fine, too. Tuxes, shabby ghetto wear, some very cute dresses on Seyfried. (Better Half leaned over more than once and hissed, “I want that dressssss.”) But they never put Seyfried in anything remotely as avant-garde as what Sean Young wore in Blade Runner, with her huge retro-fifties shoulder pads and nipped waists, and collars up to her temples. Seyfried looked luxe, and props to her for running even a step in those heels*, but she wasn’t wearing anything Important. The costuming in Blade Runner had a point and it was part of a larger story: the worn-down detective, the femme fatale, the reclusive, urbane evildoer. The costuming in In Time is, you know. There.
The Greatest Effort Invested at Being Originally Stylish Award in In Time goes to Cillian Catface Murphy, for his look as Timekeeper Raymond Leon. It feels like the filmmakers spent a little more time sketching ideas for what Timekeepers (essentially time detective/cops) should look like, wear, drive, etc. It also doesn’t hurt that they cast Murphy, who looks about as foreign and futuristic as anyone on the market these days, and who could wear hip boots and a dickey and look fantastic. So, while the Timekeeper cars seemed sort of sad, like chop-shopped Metallicars crossed with KITT, I had the sense that there was some greater effort happening behind the scenes here.
Yes, they do.
But visual style isn’t the only important thing about movies, right? Story matters, too. Things like plot and character development and theme? I’ve heard about those things.
In Time‘s plot is pretty simple: a disillusioned rich guy donates all his time to poor-guy JT (named Will Salas, pronounced “Solace.”) JT then goes on a crusade to dismantle the system that’s keeping the people down. Along the way he meets and falls in love with a rich girl, and she becomes Bonnie to his Clyde. They ultimately confront her despotic father, destabilize the economic system, free the people, and go on to greater (unspecified) adventures.
Blade Runner‘s plot is maybe a little more involved. Four organic robots escape from indentured interstellar servitude and come to Earth, at least in part to discover how much time they have before they automatically expire. A retired Blade Runner named Deckard is strong-armed back into the profession to find and kill them. Along the way he meets and falls in love with a woman who may or may not be a robot. Over the course of the movie, Deckard questions morality, compassion, justice, and the nature of his own humanity. After all the escaped robots die, he flees with the woman he loves–possibly heading for his own expiration date.
Maybe I’m too biased to recount plots like that. Or maybe it really is that clear. The plot points in In Time are pretty basic, right? If we’re a little kinder, we could talk a bit about Will Salas’s motivation springing from the tragic death of his mother, seconds from a time transfer that would save her–or the revelation that the Timekeeper chasing him is a product of the ghettos himself. But really, those aren’t game-changing complexities. In Time just has a pretty simplistic, reductive plot. It’s a simpler story–and while simple isn’t always bad, in this case I think it calls for so much willing suspension of disbelief that the story becomes a fantasy.
The most fantastic element of the movie isn’t the glowing digital numbers on people’s arms–it’s the notion that two people can change the system. Two pretty, unprepared young people who can shoot guns (kind of–Sylvia amusingly lets a couple of rounds off without meaning to) and run very fast. That, apparently, is what it takes to change a global system of injustice. By shooting guns and running fast, two people can empty bank vaults and redistribute wealth and transform the downtrodden masses into empowered activists.
Now, I don’t want to discount the power of a few committed people, because that shit is real–for good or for bad. Charismatic individuals can start world-changing movements. But to do so they tend to be connected to other people, other groups–they mobilize the masses, and it’s usually a long, arduous process. I’m not aware of anyone who’s overthrown a government in a few days by running in heels and driving bank trucks into storefronts. Please enlighten me if I’m missing out. But what I’m saying is, the movie is making a choice here. This is not Pray the Devil Back to Hell. This is not Che. This is a movie that is short-handing the revolutionary process to a few scenes that tie up the arc and are fun to watch. Which is to say, this is a fantasy.
Compare to Blade Runner, in which the embittered, fatigued Deckard has no real impact on the system. He’s pushed around by his old supervisor, overshadowed by the Mayan wealth of the Tyrell Corporation, beaten to a pulp by Roy Batty. The only thing Deckard can do is take a beating and help Rachel escape–and he only gets to do that because Gaff lets him. Deckard’s the classic hardboiled hero, a threadbare cynic at the end of his rope, forced into an unwinnable scenario by powers beyond his control. There’s not even a question that he’ll change the bigger picture. The satisfaction in his story comes not from solving the world’s problems, but in watching someone go up against impossible odds, and making the smallest, most personal difference possible.
So, Blade Runner is a more completely integrated movie. By which I mean, its plot, themes, character arcs, visual design–everything from its costumes to its soundtrack–are all of a piece. Everything serves the whole, which is basically futuristic noir. It’s complex, and true to what we know of human nature.
Is Blade Runner better because it’s more realistic–at least in terms of what we know about human nature and political and economic systems? Maybe. I think it’s better because it’s a more complete package. Its characters are realistic and recognizable, its themes are major, and it’s hella fun to watch.
Also, it’s apparently still in the red (according to Hollywood accounting), while In Time has now made $12.1 million.** There’s some kind of moral there, about what kind of world we live in. I’m pretty sure it’s depressing.
* I recently watched some of Torchwood S4, and enjoyed Gwen Cooper’s comment after going undercover as a Chic Business-Type Lady. “Women who wear heels to work are heroic, Jack! Why do women wear these things?” Indeed.
** ETA: Info about Blade Runner’s profits pointed out to me by the fabulous Rebecca Baker, and semi-confirmed by The Numbers.
For many years I’ve loved The Thing. John Carpenter’s version, that is, made in 1982. (I’ve never seen Hawks’s original film, and I haven’t read the story they’re both based on, “Who Goes There?” Lapses, I know.) Anyway, Carpenter’s a pretty uneven director as far as I can tell, but The Thing is one of my top-ten movies of all time. Top-five, maybe. Wait, just out of curiosity, let’s see what my top-five list looks like. I think it goes something like:
1. Jaws
2. The Thing (1982 remake, John Carpenter)
3. Little Miss Sunshine
4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 5. Alien / The Host / Moonstruck / lots of other movies I can’t think of right now
All positions interchangeable except #1, always and forever.
So, putting aside whether these are indeed the most artful and accomplished films of our time (I think they are probably not, at least not all of them), my main point is: I love that movie. I’ve probably watched it twenty times or more. I know lines, sequences, and shots so intimately than when I see and hear them it’s like I’m talking to an old friend. The Thing is my comfort food.
And now they’re remaking it. Actually they’re calling it a prequel, because it’s the story of the Norwegian camp that initially finds the Thing in the ice, digs it out, and is (spoilers!) obliterated by it. But they’re still calling it…The Thing. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with Carpenter’s film, but if you are, I invite you to watch this trailer and tell me how many shots, lines, and setups you see that are faithfully reproduced from that movie.
I count…
opening helicopter pan over the ice
shot of dripping Thing remains (primed for reanimation)
hallway shot of the base, with claustrophobic boxes piled up along the walls
sled dog biting at the wire of its pen to escape a dire fate
“BURN IT!!!!”
body on the autopsy table… “What was it doing to him?” “Taking over his body!”
tense scenes of mistrustful people eyeing each other in silence
flamethrower standoff (with panicky bearded guy)
Thing-handed former human colleague, caught short mid-transformation (we hardly knew ye, Bennings!)
looks like a final showdown with the Thing in Big Bad form, fully grouped up and bigger than previously enjoyed.
And that’s not counting, obviously, that they chose to make this a prequel set just a few days before Carpenter’s film, so everyone’s in the same era of research-issue henleys and parkas in the same endless hostile blue-snow landscape. Which kind of gives the movies a similar feel.
There are some new features tossed in–a few classic-horror shots like the frightened hero(ine) realizing something is slavering right behind her, and a few extra bullshit scares that Carpenter didn’t stoop to. Mostly the new stuff looks familiar and tired, and while I think it’s interesting they’ve added a woman to the cast, and I loved Ramona Flowers, I don’t think Mary Elizabeth Winstead seems right for this role. I’d love to be proven wrong on that point.
But overall this looks like dog food.
It’s disappointing, but not surprising, to see Hollywood trotting out another marketable property to be gracelessly milked for cash until it runs dry. Or maybe I should say: it’s been over twenty years since The Thing was last made, so I guess there’s a whole new generation to be introduced to the story–and while I don’t find Carpenter’s film to be too badly dated, maybe that’s because I grew up in that era and I can forgive its foibles. Maybe it’s good that the story’s being remade for a newer, younger audience.
I just wish it didn’t look like it was going to suck so much.
And I also wish it looked like there was going to be some of the political, cultural relevance of the 1982 movie. In 1982 the United States was wallowing in pretty deep cultural self-doubt, nuclear gridlock with the USSR, and renewed paranoia over the gains that Communism seemed to be making around the world. The general national mood was tense, twitchy, and xenophobic. In that context, The Thing–which overtakes people you know in secret, turns them into unwilling hosts, and goes on to absorb whole cultures–is a perfect analogy for a hostile or feared political philosophy. (Same deal in 1951, when Howard Hawks made The Thing From Outer Space.)
Also too, in 1982, the USA was in a major recession. There was backlash against the Carter administration and the Great Society policies of LBJ. The Rust Belt was collapsing. People were looking for a strong leader who’d whip the country’s economy into shape, and stop handouts to all those welfare queens etc. etc. They got Reagan, a charismatic cowboy full of folksy wisdom and one-liners, someone they thought was ready to take the reins and do what had to be done.
Basically, the 1980s were a pretty strained time in the USA, and Carpenter’s movie knows this. The men at the camp are isolated from the rest of the world, dependent on each other to survive. In scene after scene, they wear huge, body-muffling coats, hoods, and goggles over their faces. They look like aliens to us and to each other. They’re impenetrable, unreadable. Anyone could be anyone. That works both in the context of the Thing among them, and in the larger cultural context of the time. Your neighbor could be a Communist, and you’d never know it…until it’s too late.
And the (anti-)hero of the movie, the guy who takes the reins and gets things done, wears a cowboy hat and takes no prisoners. Macready, much as I love him, is an idealized Republican, or maybe libertarian, hero. He’s the President of Antarctica, and when things get real he doesn’t hesitate to take the house right down.
There’s plenty more to say about Carpenter’s movie–about race and masculinity, about how it plays with horror and science fiction movie tropes, and probably about a bunch of things I haven’t ever considered. That’s one reason I love it so much. It’s a stylish, thoughtful movie (with a kick-ass soundtrack) that manages to talk about big things in subtle ways. It’s also a great action movie. It hits all its beats. It has great characters and it manages them well–there’s none of the miserable paper-doll shuffling of, say, Battle: Los Angeles.
I don’t see any of these, may I say, layers, in the prequel. Mostly I just see a by-the-numbers action/monster movie, dropped on top of Carpenter’s film like a shellacked poop on an Eames Lounge.
Hollywood’s hunkered down for the recession, so good luck to anyone trying to get original, non-remake, non-sequel scripts through the process. I’m resigned to the prequel, and I guess I’m a little bit curious, but mostly I’m ready to be disappointed.
