This here is not a political post, it just has political noise throughout it like smog, because it was occasioned by one politician's annual address plus a related political operative's list of favorite movies.
Dear diary,
I love modern life. I love everything about it. The only thing I don't love about modern life is that it's not like ancient life. Here's what I mean: In ancient life, one always knew what one's neighbors needed. Every barn had its own farm. (Houses were barns back then.) And each farm consisted of a square plot of dirt about the size of a playground where two crops were planted: red peppers and carrots.
So a dweller in ancient days would always know what her neighbors were in need of: thus, when I lived in ancient times, I would get up early, while everyone else in the entire land was asleep, and I'd go from barn to barn and weed each farm.
Then, each neighbor would arise at the crow of the rooster, and she'd look out her barn's bay window and exclaim "Lo! someone has weeded my farm; now I can take the day off, relax and care for my child, who would've been neglected otherwise." For, back in the days, each woman would only be mother to a single child, and the child would necessarily take the back seat to gardening.
But in modern times, I Bryan awake to the sound of cars driving up and down the street: it's not an unpleasant sound, because our street is covered with snow at the moment, so the car tires make a pleasant whooshing sound as they pass, as opposed to the haughty whine of rubber on asphalt. If the past hadn't advanced, these roads would be basically swaths of landscaping rocks. Every highway would resemble the background of Da Vinci's La Gioconda. The upshot of which would mean that instead of being awakened by the sound of automobiles outside my bedroom, the street that curves before the face of my house would be a river, and only canoes and kayaks would drift past.
Anyway, as I said, the cars in the snow are like my call-to-arms each day; but, when I awake, it's unclear what all my neighbors desire from life. I open my front door, step out into the frosty cold, and gaze across the road at the abodes of my townsfolk: I see no farms. There are dogs as large as ponies in some of the backyards, but not one rooster. So what's a Good Samaritan to do? I could cross the street with a shovel in my hand (this reminds me of the little green frog who always tries to cross the street in the video game Frogger) and clear the debris back from the communal mailboxes; for the plow has come thru & left a huge bank of snow to cover the curbside. But I'm afraid to approach the area that needs shoveling, because it's situated between the ends of my nearest neighbors' driveways; and, since I'm new to the neighborhood, they might not recognize me when the sound of my scraping shovel wakes them up. And the consequence of being caught digging outside of someone's property, in these modern times, especially when you're a stranger, is death by bullet-wound. I'm afraid that both neighbors would exit their houses in tandem, each holding a firearm, and offer me a blindfold as they tie me to the lamp post, but I would refuse it, stating that I'd rather face my preordained fate with open eyes. Then they'd aim for my heart, and that'd be the end of me. (It's called an execution.)
So last night, after I got done shoveling my own driveway, I stood for about three minutes staring longingly at the houses of my neighbors and wishing I had the courage to march over and ask them if I can be of use in any way, because it's never obvious what chores people need done in this age of modernity; but eventually I just returned to my own house, and, once inside, began to watch THE SPEECH: for, you see, on television at about 8 o'clock Bryan Time (Bryan Time is like Central Time except Farthest Left) President Trump was scheduled to speak. He was scheduled to give his State of the Union address for 2019. So I began to watch, because I'm always curious to know what this union's trip is – what's its problem? what's the hang-up? why aren't we helping our people!? – but I found it impossible to continue to watch the entire address. I executed a mid-flight ejection. The man was relying too much on platitudes, and all the cheap applause exhausted me. So I said to myself, "Why waste your night attending to the follies of the present, when you could waste your night on the follies of the PAST!" —So I watched the film Chimes at Midnight (1965) instead.
Now, I must warn you that I'm going to talk about a few movies in the remainder of this entry, BUT please stay tuned, even if you've never heard of these films. Don't give up on me like I gave up on President Trump. For I'm going to try my best to keep my words amusing even to a person who hates my guts.
[Actually, you might as well leave this entry now. I wrote the above paragraph during the 1st draft, before composing the rest, thus I was optimistic; but now I write this square-bracketed advice after finishing & proofreading the remainder – in all honestly, it stinks.]
At this point, I imagine a heckler shouting: "Why'd you choose to watch THAT film (Chimes at Midnight)?" — Well, if you'll stop badgering me, I will answer.
My answer is: Steven Kevin Bannon. This doesn't sound like a good answer, but let me elaborate. First I must give you some back story, from the chambers of my mind:
If I remember right, Donald Trump ran for president around the year 2016. It is true that Trump still currently holds the office, but before one can gain the presidency, one must perform what is known as "a presidential bid". In August 2016, the aforesaid Bannon was named the chief executive officer of Trump's presidential bid. (He left this position on August 18, 2017; so apparently his time serving in this function was roughly a year — but don't quote me on that last calculation; I've never respected math enough to treat it faithfully.) People really hate Bannon; that's what I've gathered. A fellow named Joshua Green wrote a piece for Bloomberg (published on October 8, 2015) titled "This Man is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America"; and of course "This Man" stands for Stephen K. Bannon. The reason I mention this article specifically is that it's the source of the last quote in the following excerpt from Wikipedia. And the reason I choose to copy this particular passage is that it was the one that lit up when I searched for the eff word:
In 1980, Bannon was deployed to the Persian Gulf to assist with Operation Eagle Claw during the Iran hostage crisis. The mission's failure marked a turning point in his political world-view from largely apolitical to strongly Reaganite, which was further reinforced by the September 11 attacks. Bannon has stated, "I wasn't political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy Carter fucked things up. I became a huge Reagan admirer. Still am. But what turned me against the whole establishment was coming back from running companies in Asia in 2008 and seeing that Bush had fucked up as badly as Carter. The whole country was a disaster."
Now I don't mean to focus too heavily on Bannon, but the whole reason I began writing today is to tell you of a few movies that I recently watched, and I can't answer your question about my reason for choosing these titles without giving at least a hasty sketch of "This Man" Steve Bannon; for his nasty rapscallion personality informed my viewing of the films, as the films are reportedly his absolute all-time favorites. And here's why I use that word reportedly:
My own favorite filmmaker Errol Morris has a movie that's currently playing in the theaters, and I'm dying to see it but I don't live near anyplace that's willing to show it. So all I can do is dream about the day that it comes to my town. (I basically live on a prairie, on a grassy hill with my dog, like that girl in that painting that I saw at my grandma's house. Movies never come here; and cityfolk don't visit us, cuz our small town has no brothels only churches, and we believe that dramatic playacting is wrong; so films can't make much money here, cuz nobody wants to get caught visiting the movie house; but if a company releases its feature on digital video disc, so that an individual can view it in the privacy of her own barn, without the rest of the community knowing, and thus each member of the audience may preserve her reputation among the locals while yet indulging in the most depraved sinful imaginations, THEN a film might make a hefty profit. That's the dope on Thief River Falls, Minnesota. What I'm trying to say is that I'm waiting for Morris' new movie to be released on DVD.) So in my impatience for the film to get its release here, I sought for some interviews with its director Errol Morris, and I found one where he mentions certain interesting facts about his latest creation. As I said, Morris is my favorite director, and, among his more politically themed pictures, my absolute favorite is The Fog of War (2003), which is basically a feature-length interview with the former U.S. Secretary of Defense: Robert McNamara. Years later, Morris made another movie centering upon yet another extensive interview with yet another former U.S. Secretary of Defense, my fellow midwesterner: Donald Rumsfeld. (Everyone in my village looks & acts like Mr. Rumsfeld, by the way. All of us womenfolk.) And now this latest effort from Morris, which I have yet to see, is called American Dharma (2018) and purportedly derives from interviews with the above-mentioned Bannon.
So in a post-screening interview with Morris, Morris reported that in order to find "a way in" to this latest project, he asked Steven Bannon (who's a director and film buff himself) to list his all-time favorite films. Thus, in preparation for watching the upcoming Morris documentary, & also just to kill time, I decided to spend a week screening Bannon's faves:
- Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
- Paths of Glory (1957)
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
- The Searchers (1956)
- Chimes at Midnight (1965)
These titles are arranged in no particular order. They're just how they landed as Morris recollected them, in the interview. It's not fair to Bannon to assume he would have ranked them this way; so take the arrangement with a grain of salt. Don't be unfair to our beloved bad evil wicked villain. Remember: monsters from the deep are people too. – O yes, and we also screened a documentary that I'd never heard of before, which Morris mentioned as one of his own (not Bannon's) most admired documentaries, called The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987). That film left me awestruck. But back to the birthday boy:
I'd seen all of Bannon's faves before, but it was really swell to watch them again, because I had the additional interesting perspective of constantly asking myself "What does Bannon see in this film; what are HIS favorite parts; what does HE find attractive? (etc.)" Cuz often what one person loves in a film is what another person hates, and vice versa. You could watch a performance of, say, Othello (by Shakespeare) and side EITHER with the titular character OR with Iago – NEVER with both. You could read Moby Dick and side with Ahab (as I do) OR with The Whale. I also side with the narrator Ishmael. And with Queequeg. But mostly with Melville. (I like how Melville was friends with Hawthorne, and Wordsworth was friends with Coleridge. Great minds should be friends.) And those movies in Bannon's Top Fave List are all chock-full of ambiguity and ambivalence, so it'd be easy for two enemies who have the polar opposite values to love all these FILMS; whereas it'd be less likely that two such enemies would love the same SCENES.
I wonder what Bannon would think of my own personal favorite movie Wrong Cops (2013). I wish I could get him to sit down with me and watch it. I'd like to note his expressions while he views; and I'd love to discuss the film with him afterwards. I bet, after our chat, he'd even add Wrong Cops to his list of favorites. Also I wonder if Morris would like it. (I doubt that.) (But on second thot, maybe Morris would be the one to share my enthusiasm, and we could team up on Bannon and berate him with our Officer Duke impressions.)
I had intended to give a little reaction to each film in Bannon's canon, now that I've freshly viewed them all so that their memories are swimming around in my mind and beginning to merge deform & ferment (tho never fade out); but this entry is already way too long for a postcard; so maybe I'll save that idea for another day...
Then again, maybe I'll jot down my impressions right here, right now... hmmm, maybe I'll plant a star (*) in the firmament and give myself a few minutes to think about it...
*
So like I was saying, we sat down last night to watch Prez Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address. I tried hard to care, but it ended up being too tedious. He kept referring to “country… country… country” – and, every single time, the crowd would applaud. “We have such an important country, a great country, the strongest country…” All this reminded me of a joke from a famous play:
HAMLET. Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA. I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET. That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
& my copy of the Arden publication of the play has this note at line 115:
country matters = physical love-making (with a popular pun on the first syllable)...
So, yet again, Mr. Trump got me thinking of Shakespeare. Thus I turned to my viewing companion (my sweetheart, who had just come home from laboring in the silver mine) and said, “Why do we torment ourselves with this noxious distraction when we could be pleasing ourselves with exemplary art?” So I loaded the film projector with Orson Welles’ Falstaff and we watched that instead.
Drawing mostly from the two parts of Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, because that’s where the character Falstaff hails from (by the way, Falstaff is one of the best characters ever invented – and that’s not just ME speaking; for all scientists agree), Orson Welles developed and acted the titular role in Falstaff, which is also known as Chimes at Midnight. The Criterion Collection released the movie beautifully, so that the sound is as good as it can be – for this, I am thankful, since, until recently, Welles-idolators like myself could only find the title in cheap bootleg copies with really bad audio. Orson Welles, to me, is the William Shakespeare of directors, at least for his era. His genius is better than Hitchcock or even John Ford.
I could continue forever in praise of Welles, but the purpose of this entry was only to give a quick reaction to the films that I watched from Steve Bannon’s Top Five Movie List, so I’ll move on.
One thing about Shakespeare is that our culture has rotted so thoroughly that it’s alas more beneficial to stick to the text alone than to watch a live performance. I believe Shakespeare will be performed very well someday, but, before we can do this, it’ll take time for English-speaking societies to climb out of the muck we’ve fallen into. I agree with Harold Bloom that the best performances of Shakespeare tend to be foreign; like Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985), which in Japanese means “Chaos” and which adapts the play King Lear; also Kurosawa’s 1957 film Throne of Blood, which adapts Macbeth. Not that all English-language productions of Shakespeare are thoroughly awful; and not that there aren’t many EXCELLENT actors and teachers and readers and poets who are able to voice the bard in his native tongue or perform parts of his plays to wonderful effect; it’s just very, very rare. (And Mr. Trump adds: "Sad.") Orson Welles is one of the few geniuses who can reflect the genius of Shakespeare without blunting it, both in his reading, acting, and directing (even weirdly in his editing), and I’m doubly thankful that he preserved this high ministry on film.
I wonder: if Shakespeare had had the ability to make an audiovisual preservation of his own plays, would his writing have been better or worse? Maybe it wouldn’t have changed at all. But I assume that filmmaking would’ve worsened his writing, because the excessive concern over all the visual elements of motion pictures would draw energy away from the textual composition, the script. Then again, maybe Shakespeare possessed enough energy to do ALL tasks with ease, confidence, and exuberance.
I also wish that people would make more movies about the Bible. I’d gladly make a filmed version of Genesis, myself. Marlene Dietrich would play Yahweh.
Isn’t it common to compare Prince Hal to George W. Bush? Those scenes between the King and the young Prince, when I was screening Welles’ version last night, seemed like a daydream of what George the First (Father H.W. Bush) might have said to immature W. (Yet please note, for the record, that I despise the entire Bush line.)
Yes, I like how Keith Baxter plays Hal in Chimes at Midnight – he makes me hate him just right. I’m irked by Hal the Prince as much as I’m irked by HAL 9000, from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is thus fitting that our American term for the evil afterlife, Hell, derives from the same ancient word meaning “Land of princes and computers.”
Now, speaking of Kubrick, another genius for whom my admiration is boundless, the next film that we watched from Steve Bannon’s Top Hits was Paths of Glory. I had forgotten how great this movie is. For anti-war films, I usually think of Kubrick’s other titles first (it’s nice that he has multiple anti-war titles!), especially my own favorite, Dr. Strangelove (1964); but Paths of Glory was very much worth re-watching. It makes me wonder what Bannon is up to, placing this film among his beloveds. It almost lures me to like him. But, again, I’m probably assuming that what I myself find great about the movie is what also attracts Bannon; when the opposite could be the case – & this brings to mind a scene from Kubrick’s other film A Clockwork Orange (1971), where Alex, the imprisoned murderer-rapist, begins dutifully studying the Bible to get on the good side of the prison’s Priest, in hopes of thereby gaining freedom sooner; and the Priest is pleased when he sees Alex reading his Bible, because he thinks that Alex is absorbing the moral teachings of the Good Book, but then we the audience are allowed a visualization of Alex’s thots, and they prove that he is not identifying with the virtues of the persecuted Christ but with the soldiers who are whipping him! The only thing I regret about applying this memory to the present subject is that it leaves ME in the role of the Priest who’s being duped. I don’t mind being duped, but at least give me a dignified profession.
Some souls like to paint themselves into corners. My own hobby is ship-jacking alien space-pods & then jumping out mid-joyride. So, now that I’ve hovered this one to a perfect stasis, let me try to speed-write down to the end:
Twelve O'Clock High hasn’t arrived yet, so I can skip that for now. I had to order a copy as an interlibrary loan, because we live in the age of the Internet, where not even a movie from 1949 can be screened gratis – all the places where one might view the film were charging $3.99 to do so. YouTube; Amazon; iTunes; Google Play; Vudu. The gatekeepers of culture.
(Only two more titles to go. We can do this. Hang in there.)
B.O.R.K.
The Bridge on the River Kwai always makes me more bored than a stagnant puddle of dog pee when I first start watching it, cuz I hate war & I hate P.O.W. camps & I hate labor & I hate all hierarchical military bullshit… But then, as the story proceeds, I grow more and more captivated, until, at the climax, I’m fully in awe of the makers of this film. And yet its tail end; the absolute final, critical moment leaves me puzzled: (here I’ll ruin the movie for those who haven’t seen it, so just skip ahead to the next paragraph if you’re against having a real good time with friends) for there are three main ways to go, as a screenplay writer:
- You could have the team that wired the bridge with explosives detonate the structure exactly at the moment when Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson is standing upon it. That would leave us with an Oedipal Tragedy, for the very things that Nicholson strove to achieve with all his headstrong British-officer resolve brought about his demise. OK, so that’s the first choice of three. But that choice does not happen. (Oh! yes, also I forgot to mention: Nicholson is played by Alec Guinness.)
- On the other hand, Nicholson could consciously decide to push the detonator himself, after he realizes: What a mistake I've made in bringing the enemy's project to completion! There would be something Oedipal about that, too; but absurdly pensive in a different way. — Now, to review our choices so far thru the lens of Sophocles’ famous drama, the first ending (#1, above) would be like stopping the play at the moment when Oedipus discovers that the very means that he employed to shirk the prophecy have brought the prophecy to fruition. The second path that I’m imagining (#2, right here) would be like ending the movie with the moment where Oedipus gouges out his own lyin’ eyes.
- But, as I said, the actual movie, whose screenplay is credited to Carl Foreman & Michael Wilson, decides to conclude with an occurrence of which the viewer must actively strive to suspend her disbelief: for Nicholson’s corpse is shown to collapse directly upon the detonating device, thus triggering the explosion of the bridge (& also nabbing the train as a bonus). This trick of fate leaves the act technically blamable on nobody, while yet half-implicating everybody. It makes me wonder: What is gained by rendering the outcome thusly no fault of either faction? Now it’s just the doings of mere chance, like a typhoon or blizzard. Or not exactly as “random” as those inhuman events, but the disaster certainly cannot be attributed directly to Nicholson, as neither is he conscious of the direction his dead body falls, nor to blame for his being deprived of life in the first place; and the team whose mission was to destroy the bridge gets to slink away from the aftermath with impunity, wearing an expression that means: “The viewer will recall that we were having misgivings about our roles in perpetrating this cataclysm before it simply sat up and birthed itself; therefore we are not legally accountable for the resultant mayhem.” It’s kind of a twisted instance of Hollywood’s famous “happy ending” infiltrating and having its way with traditional tragedy.
So here’s another film where ambiguity runs rampant, but I feel that, in this case, is a weasel’s version: for it would’ve been more courageous for the dramatists to have allowed their character Nicholson EITHER to be blown to smithereens by his unknowing allies while standing proudly on the bridge that he built, OR to willingly smash his own sandcastle. But the added fun, for me, this time around, was the constant thot that attended upon these thots: “What would Bannon do?”
The Searchers
Finally, The Searchers has the same initial effect on me as that last film: at the beginning, I’m so bored that I almost doubt I’ll be able to remain awake. But this is proof of my immaturity: for by the time I reach the middle of the film, events are bringing tears to my eyes, and after the end, I always end up watching the thing from the start, all over again, with keenest interest.
The Searchers is so good that it moves me to declare John Ford the Shakespeare of directors. I know that, just above, I already declared Orson Welles the Shakespeare of directors, and I even specifically called Ford and Hitchcock sore losers when I presented the trophy at the ceremony (which was televised opposite the revolution); however, once you finish screening a good Ford film, you can’t deny that he is better than everyone. Not even God could compete with Ford, as a filmmaker. I could go on & on, backing up this claim, but I’d prefer that you just trust my expertise, so that we can eject from this entry.
I only want to make one comment about a singular scene of the film, which I never noticed before. Now, as you know, I’m a yuge fan of David Lynch, & I love the pilot episode of Twin Peaks (1990), precisely the European or “international” version, which was filmed with extra footage as an ending, so that, in case the series was not picked up, this would allow it to be released as a one-off “TV movie”; & altho this extra footage was later edited into early episodes of the series when it aired, I prefer to watch just this “pilot” as an open-&-shut production. Well, one of the memorably strange characters to appear in the show Twin Peaks is nicknamed “The Log Lady” (Margaret Lanterman, played by Catherine E. Coulson). Of course I can’t know if Lynch is aware of this fact I’m about to reveal – it might just be a case of “great minds think alike”, not necessarily an homage from Lynch toward the great Mr. Ford – but, right in the middle of The Searchers, there’s a scene wherein Ethan visits some traumatized survivors of recent catastrophes who are being kept in a shelter (you’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen the picture), and behold: there on the floor before them is a proto Log Lady! And the way that they treat her to get her attention, and the way she responds, it all exudes that typical mood we now label Lynchian: so it’s as if David Lynch teleported back before 1956 and directed this one scene in the midst of Ford’s masterwork, just for us cinephiles who refuse to bow to Time.
Now I hate that I have to add this annoying note, but if you’re one of those people who believes that Ford himself is inhumane for the way that he depicts the atrocities of the different groups and individuals in this film, there’s an audio commentary by Peter Bogdanovich (an expert on Ford, not to mention on Welles, and I could add: etc....) which runs the duration of the picture, and it’s priceless for the knowledge it conveys. And, again – but in this case it goes without saying – I find it stimulating to try to consider this truly great film from the stance of a fellow like Steve Bannon. Despite Bogdanovich’s refreshing perspectives, what should we do, as artists, about the appeal of such “difficult” material to the brains of less subtle viewers? For irony is one of the most gorgeous tools of poetry; yet if irony means “saying one thing while meaning another” and one lives among clans who only take tropes at face value, who only recognize one single side of every coin—
THE END
This part that I’m typing now is just me talking to you in person, while we’re still standing in the theater after the movie has ended, and the film projector has stopped and the lights have come on, and now we’re waiting for the queues of people in the audience to make their way up the aisles, slowly, to leave. I just want to note that I ended my entry with a dash (see above), so that the final statement can have the same feeling of panic (implying that the outcome is unthinkable) as Genesis 3:22.
The LORD God said: Behold, humankind is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest they put forth their hands, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever—
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