#and how horror and myths HAVE been used as cautionary tales for centuries

[roskirambles]

Horror Movie of the day: Frankenstein (1931) The myth of Prometeus tells the story of hubris. One, where an act of defiance to the divine order costed a man eternal punishment, for the former god changed humanity forever by giving them a gift that arose both progress and destruction, sometimes thought as a cautionary tale against arrogance in the face of discovery. But apparently Henry Frankenstein didn't get the memo, because he's just doing that: playing with life and death by trying to create human life from dead organic matter. Indeed, the reanimated corpse in front of him is a lot of things, including an impossible break through in science.

But one thing the monster isn't.. is in his control.

Directed by James Whale, this incredibly loose take on Mary Shelley's masterpiece is arguably the most iconic out of the classic Universal Monster films. The reason? It's quite grandiose. Having equally powerful vistas but a bolder cinematography than it's predecessors helps, as well as the use of sound just being that much more refined.

The adaptation of the core narrative is quite captivating as well; in spite of some drastic changes, not only does it manage to keep the central themes of the boundaries of science going awry and self destructive obsession, but the relationship between the Doctor and the Creature is engaging by being viewed from a different, less cynical but still fundamentally tragic angle. All courtesy of the performances of Colin Clive as Henry, and Boris Karloff as the creature in what would be his apotheosis in the world of horror cinema. There's a reason that makeup by Jack Pierce is to this very day THE benchmark of how a movie monster looks.

To say it is the least faithful to the source material so far would be the understatement of the century(well over half the iconic things from this movie have no precedent in the novel), but on its own terms, it certainly blew what was already a solid horror film lineup so far out of the water.

When I said this was a loose adaptation, I feel the term "loose" is on itself. Granted, it's based on a 1927 theatre play by Peggy Webling over the actual novel, but that doesn't change the fact it has created a fairly misleading image of the entire story. The way the creature looks and moves, the electricity used to create it, Dr. Frankenstein having a hunchbacked assistant, the resolution of the conflict being a massive fire, all of these things have no root in the original novel, as the way things play out have fundamental enough differences to think of this as a different story with the same starting point. One that covers many of the same themes and ideas, mind you, but what used to be a fairly slow, moody tale of mysteryand a melancholic tone gets hit with a strong sense of spectacle leading to a fairly explosive finale.

And for once... I don't think that was a bad choice. The novel is one of those stories that are enjoyed the best in written form thanks to its epistolary format, and any worthy adaptation would have to inevitably make pragmatic shifts to adequate its contents to a different medium.

And of course, I'm almost legally obligated to talk about ·the fumble".

Remember Bela Lugosi? The guy who played Dracula in the movie that came out that very same year? (...yeah, movie production didn't take entire years on average back then, go figure)

Well, he was the original candidate to play the creature, but reportedly dropped the role when he found the monster in question would only growl or vocalize without talking was beneath his acting skills. This mistake would cost him his stardom, as Boris Karloff absolutely displaced him as Universal's go to scary guy with a performance (and makeup) that just completely stole the Hungarian's thunder, not helped by the fact Karloff wasn't restricted by his accent to play more conventional and varied roles.

The rivalry between the two seems to have been exaggerated into a legendary feud, but the reality doesn't seem to suggest there was true animosity between the two, even if Lugosi would have every reason and then some to resent Karloff for displacing him into eventual mainstream obscurity at the time.

[dathen]

I think one of the reasons why I find such a sharp divide in the approach to Magnus Archives analysis and character interpretation is that some are viewing it as a cautionary tale, while others view it as commentary on an unfair system.

On one hand, you have people who look at the events in the story, and see the unfairness and contradiction in the suffering throughout.  What saves someone in one story damns them in another; sometimes love snatches someone from the jaws of death, and sometimes love just makes the pain inflicted sweeter to the entity consuming it.  

Tim sums this up so well in the last recording he gave before his death, exhausted and furious by the impossibilities of the deck stacked against humanity:  

Tim:  I used to blame myself for not helping him.  But now… now it doesn’t matter.  I’ve read through enough of these things to know that this doesn’t matter.  The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck.  Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it!  (TMA 117)

And then on the other, you have people trying to mold it into a cautionary tale, primarily about its protagonist: Jon brought his victimization on himself because he was too curious, too stupid, too unlikable; he should have just walked away, he should have left the Institute without Martin, he should have been more like [insert character here] and everything would have been better.  

I think this view is common among fans because it’s one expressed by a fan favorite, that is generally considered a level-headed and wise outside perspective:

Georgie:  Jumping on a grenade is only heroic if you weren’t the one who actually threw it.

Martin:  That’s not what’s happening.

Georgie:  Okay.  It’s still not something I want any part of.  (TMA 149)

It’s uncomfortable to view Georgie as in the wrong here, because then it becomes simple textbook victim-blaming.  It’s easier for fans to take her words as fact in contrast to an angry and despairing Tim towards the end of his life.  

But the key difference in their perspectives is information.  Tim used to think his brother was a cautionary tale, that he was a cautionary tale, but after studying dozens of cases realized it wasn’t true--they were simply victims through and through.  If Danny didn’t lead an adventurous life that led him to abandoned theaters, he could have still met a horrible fate as a real estate agent or commuting to a boring office job.  In contrast, Georgie starts with limited information, then refuses to hear any that may threaten her worldview.

While it can function on a (very harsh) one-by-one character analysis level, the cautionary tale framework starts to fall apart as soon as you zoom out to the story and themes as a whole.  Is this really a story about how trying to learn and understand is a bad thing, like some kind of weird anti-science ‘we should just keep our heads down and stop questioning things’ enforcement of the status quo?  What worth would be in that message?  Is this a story about how you’re a bad person if you struggle to connect to others, or is it one about how cold and brutal systems break down our communities and pit us against each other?  Is it an exploration of how even if you’re trapped in a situation, you can still fight to care for each other and do the right thing, or is it “this other person was able to escape, so if you’re trapped it must be because you did something wrong”?

[aion-rsa]

11 Diverse Vampire Stories To Read Instead of Midnight Sun

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There’s a very good chance we’re going to read Midnight Sun, the companion novel to pop culture juggernaut Twilight that retells the first story in the Stephanie Meyer YA vampire series from Edward Cullen’s perspective. But we can enjoy something while also being critical of it, and the truth is: our culture deserves more, better vampire stories than what the Twilight saga has to offer. With that in mind, we’ve pooled our collective knowledge to recommend the following vampire stories that have more diverse and imaginative takes on the popular genre. From short stories to book series, hopefully there’s something here for you…

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

A good general rule of life to follow is that if Octavia Butler has written something in a particular genre, you should read it. And that’s as true in the world of vampire fiction as anywhere else. Fledging was the final book Butler published before her untimely death in 2006 and, though it’s technically a vampire story, it’s also a whole lot more than that.

Much in the same way that Butler’s Kindred is a time travel story that tackles physical and psychological horrors of slavery, Fledging is a vampire tale that explores issues of racism and sexuality. In it, a 10-year-old girl with amnesia discovers that she’s not actually a girl at all, but a fifty-something hybrid member of the Ina. Ina are basically what we understand as vampires in this universe – they’re a nocturnal, long-lived species who survive by drinking human blood. They’ve formed something of a symbiotic relationship with the humans they live alongside, using them as a food source in exchange for boosting their immune systems and helping them live (much) longer.

As Shori regains her memories of her former life, Fledging uses her unique situation as an avenue to explore timely issues of bigotry and identity. As a human-Ina hybrid, Shuri has been genetically modified to have dark skin, allowing her to go outside for brief periods during the day, but drawing the ire and distrust of others. As the novel further explores complex issues of family and connection – both the Ina and their human symbionts tend to mate in packs – Butler pokes at Shori’s uniquely uncomfortable position of being the master over one particular group, even as she herself is considered part of something like an underclass within Ina culture. And the end result is something that’s much more than a vampire tale, even as it embraces—and outright parodies—some of its most obvious tropes. 

– Lacy Baugher

Buy Fledgling by Octavia Butler on Amazon

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Twilight’s sin was not in trying to make vampires sexy all over again (it’s OK to make bloodsuckers cool), but rather in amplifying the teenage girl protagonist’s desire while blunting her agency. In doing so, Meyer maintained the dynamic of traditional vampire narratives instead of modernizing it. Five years after Breaking Dawn was released, Holly Black redeemed the YA vampire novel with her standalone tale, set in a world where it’s not just one hormonal teenager who’s dying to be a vampire, but all of society craving that sweet sweet immortality.

In Black’s world, everyone wants to be Cold: infected by a vampire bite but neither killed nor made into a fully-fledged vampire. Not until they drink human blood, at least. But in an effort to control the rising population of vampires and Cold people, the governments created Coldtowns, trapping both in a never-ending party town. The titular Coldest girl is Tana, who wakes up after a (very human, very teenage) rager to find almost everyone slaughtered and herself bitten. Fearing that she has become Cold, she voluntarily turns herself in to the nearest Coldtown along with her also-bitten ex-boyfriend Aidan and Gavriel, a vampire who seeks to take down the uber-vampire who rules the Coldtown.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a sly riff on the vampire obsession that took over pop culture in the early 2000s, yet still its own cautionary tale about chasing after a glamorous, self-destructive afterlife. The cast of characters are fully fleshed-out, from a twin with a fangirl blog to Gavriel as an actually suitable vampire love interest to Tana Bach herself, who gets to be proactive where Bella Swan was always reactive. Best of all, it knows that it doesn’t need to lure readers back to a franchise, like vampires returning again and again to feed, instead telling its entire story in one bloody, chilly gulp.

—Natalie Zutter

Buy The Coldest Girl in Coldtown on Amazon

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado

A quarter-century before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a different vampire seduced young women away from the suffocating constraints of their lives by awakening within their blood a thrilling, oft-considered perverse, desire. That it is a female vampire—the eponymous Carmilla, known also by her aliases Mircalla and Millarca—likely explains why LeFanu’s text is either incredibly well-known among niche circles, or entirely absent from pop cultural canons. Yet the moment you read it, its depiction of the heady attraction between innocent Laura and possessive Carmilla is anything but subtext.

Like Dracula, this Gothic horror novella is presented as a found text, with a frame narrative of occult detective Dr. Hesselius presenting Laura’s bizarre case… but also to some extent controlling her voice. In her new introduction, Machado posits a startling new contextualization: that Hesselius and Laura’s correspondence is not a fictional device, but a fictionalization of real-life letters between a Doctor Peter Fontenot and Veronika Hausle, about the latter’s charged relationship with the alluring Marcia Marén. That their relationship provided the basis for Laura and Carmilla, but that only the tragic parts were transmuted through the vampire metaphor, excising the queer joy of their partnership, further illustrates how these stories fail their subjects. Yet neither is Marén wholly innocent; as with In the Dream House, Machado does not flinch away from imperfect or even violent queer relationships, such as they resemble any other dynamic between two people.

It’s best to read Machado’s Russian nesting doll narrative without knowing much about her motivations. Though it might be useful to consider how she ends the introduction with something of a confession: “The act of interacting with text—that is to say, of reading—is that of inserting one’s self into what is static and unchanging so that it might pump with fresh blood.” Or try running some of these names through anagram filters.

And if that whets your appetite for other adaptations, the 2014 Carmilla web series both wrestles the frame story back into Laura’s hands, in the form of a video-diary journalism project, and makes the Laura/Carmilla romance very much text.

—Natalie Zutter

Buy Carmilla on Amazon

A Phoenix Must First Burn, edited by Patrice Caldwell

A Phoenix Must First Burn is a collection of sixteen short stories about magic, fantasy, and sci-fi that focus on Black women and gender non-conforming individuals. The book features stories about fantasy creatures of all kinds, witches, shape shifters, and vampires alike. What they have in common is that they are stories about and by Black people, and they offer unique takes on familiar lore.

Bella Swan is a great protagonist in the Twilight series because she is whatever the reader needs her to be. Just distinct enough that you can conjure her in your mind, but mostly a blank slate for the reader to step into the story with her, using her as their avatar. That’s a generality specific to White characters. In A Phoenix Must First Burn, the protagonists are Black. This gives them a very particular point of view, and one that isn’t as common in fantasy, and in the vampire tales of yore.

In Stephenie Meyer’s world vampires look like they’re lathered in Fenty body shimmer when they’re in direct sunlight. In “Letting the Right One In,” Patrice Caldwell gives us a vampire who is a Black girl, with dark brown skin, and coiled hair. Sparkling vampires are certainly a unique spin, but the Cullens are still White and don’t challenge any ideas of what it means to be an immortal blood-drinking creature of the night. A Phoenix Must First Burn shifts the lens to focus on the experience of Black folks, and allows them to be magical, enigmatic, and romantic.

– Nicole Hill

Buy A Phoenix First Must Burn on Amazon

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

In the Twilight series, we’re introduced to vampires from other cultures, but they are all very much the same, save for their individual power sets which appear to be unrelated to their ethnicity or nationality. In Certain Dark Things, vampires are a species with several different subspecies and where they come from influences how they look and what kind of powers they have.

Atl is from Mexico and is bird-winged descendent of Blood-drinking Aztecs. The Necros, European vampires, have an entirely different look and set of abilities. Certain Dark Things doesn’t just include vampires from all around the world, it incorporates vampire mythology from all of those places, filling its world with a rich array of distinct vampires with their specific quirks and gifts.

In his four-star review of the book on Goodreads, author Rick Riordan had this to say. “Throwing vampire myths from so many cultures together was right down my alley. If you like vampire books but would appreciate some . . . er, fresh blood . . . this is a fast-paced read that breathes fresh life into the genre.” Riordan, who opened up his literary world to new storytellers and has championed authors of color is certainly a person whose opinion holds weight. Vampires haven’t gone out of style, but the Draculas and Edward Cullens are.

– Nicole Hill

Buy Certain Dark Things on Amazon

Vampires Never Get Old, edited by Zoriada Córdova & Natalie C. Parker

This anthology featuring vampires who lurk on social media just as much as they lurk in the night will hit the bookstore shelves on September 22, just in time to start prepping for Halloween. Edited by Zoriada Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, the collection features eleven new stories and a really fantastic author list, populated with a diverse group of authors from a ton of backgrounds and sexualities. The contributors include V. E. Schwab, known for her “Darker Shade of Magic” series; Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Award-winner, Rebecca Roanhorse; Internment author Samira Ahmed; Dhionelle Clayton, author of The Belles and Tiny Pretty Things; “The Blood Journals” author Tessa Gratton (who also contributed to the super spooky looking Edgar Allan Poe-inspired His Hideous Heart); Heidi Heilig, author of the “Shadow Players” trilogy; Julie Murphy, whose book Dumplin’ was adapted for the Netflix film of the same name; Lammy Award winner Mark Oshiro, whose forthcoming YA fantasy Each of Us a Desert will hit stands just before this anthology; Thirteen Doorways author Laura Ruby; and essayist and short story writer Kayla Whaley.

There are a lot of YA authors on this list, many of whom crossover to adult, so there’s a good chance readers will find some of their favorite kinds of angsty vampires on these pages, as well as body-conscious vampires, and vamps coming out as well as going out into the night, seeking for their perfect victim—or just looking for love.

– Alana Joli Abbott

Buy Vampires Never Get Old on Amazon

Choice of the Vampire by Jason Stevan Hill

Back in 2010, when I was first getting to know interactive fiction, Jason Stevan Hill wrote Choice of the Vampire for the still-relatively new company, Choice of Games. A sequel came out in 2013, and this year, the third interactive novel, in which you, the reader make the choices, releases. Best played from a mobile device (although you can play in your browser as well), the interactive novels from Choice of Games are always fun (disclosure: I have written a few), and they’re dedicated to featuring inclusive options to let players express their personalities, gender identities, and sexualities within the confines of the game. Choice of the Vampire starts players as young vampires in 1815 New Orleans. In The Fall of Memphis, the story moves to 1873, and rather than facing the concerns of learning to survive their unlife adventures, players get embroiled in the politics of Memphis, where vampires are electing a new Senator, and the Klan is on the rise. 

With the release of St. Louis, Unreal City, the intention is that the two earlier games will be combined into one larger omnibus, so that players can have an uninterrupted play experience of the full story. St. Louis, Unreal City moves the story forward into 1879, in a St. Louis where the first wave of Chinese immigrants and the dismantling of Reconstruction force the city to face its systemic racism. As workers demand greater rights—and rich financiers attempt to keep control of the nation’s wealth—vampires have to continue to hide, lest they be destroyed. But when one of their own lets loose the beast, causing terror in the streets of America, players have to decide how their character will triumph in a changing world. Stevan Hill pours a ton of historical detail into the scenes he creates, making these vampire stories as much historical fiction as they are fantasy or horror. In advance of the release of the newest installment, the first two games have been updated with new material, so if you’ve played them before, they’re worth a replay before you launch into Night Road!

– Alana Joli Abbott

Moonshine by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Like the first two Choice of the Vampire stories, Moonshine, which came out in 2010, embroils its protagonist in the social struggles of its era: the 1920s of New York City. Zephyr Hollis is an activist, devoted to creating equality for both humans and Others, including vampires, despite her upbringing as the daughter of a demon-hunter. She’s immune to vampire bites, which is helpful when she discovers a newly-turned child vampire; if she turns him in, the authorities will kill him, so soft-hearted Zephyr takes the child in and feeds him her own blood. When she’s approached by a jinn, Amir, to use her cover as a charity worker to undermine a vampire mob boss in exchange for his help with the child, he doesn’t explain what he’s after—but Zephyr’s intrigued enough by the idea (and Amir) that she gets involved. If you already finished Johnson’s newest novel, The Trouble with Saints (also set in historical New York, this one during World War II), returning to this earlier novel and its sequel, Wicked City, will be a fast-paced treat.

Buy Moonshine on Amazon

“A Kiss With Teeth” by Max Gladstone

There are not a ton of stories out there about vampire parenting—and fewer that are more about what it means to be a parent, what it means to give up the person you were before (even it that person was a monster). Max Gladstone’s 2014 short story, published at Tor.com, is absolutely a vampire story in the classic sense: a hunt, a victim, a struggle. But it’s also the tale of a vampire, Vlad, who settles down with a vampire hunter, and the changes that settling down create for both of them. How can a parent be honest with his child when he’s hiding something so core to his identity? Even playing baseball in the park requires Vlad to hide his own strength. And how can he work with the teacher to help his son with struggling grades when that teacher is the ideal prey? The idea of being a vampire blends with the idea of hiding an affair, of planning to do something that shouldn’t be done, and then determining whether or not to do it. The way the story is written, it’s hard to tell where it’s going to go, or how two parents hiding so much about themselves can ever be honest with their child—but when it comes to the end, Gladstone knocks it out of the park.

– Alana Joli Abbott

Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley

The visual of Cleopatra dying with a poisonous asp clutched to her breast is an iconic, Shakespearean-tinged bit of history that we all learned in our ancient Egypt history units. However, Headley’s debut novel gives the queen a bit more credit, by reimagining that instead of going all Romeo and Juliet after the supposed death of her lover Marc Antony, she strikes a bargain with Sekhmet, goddess of death and destruction who has nonetheless begun fading away due to a dearth of worship. In Shakespearean fashion, things go awry when Sekhmet seizes control of Cleopatra, transforming her into an immortal being and transmuting her revenge into a literal bloodlust.

Unable to die, with her lover still slain and her children in danger, Cleopatra must battle the dark force within her urging her to drain others of their lifeforce and let loose Sekhmet’s seven children (plague, famine, drought, flood, earthquake, violence, and madness) upon the ancient world. What’s more, she also has to contend with the mortal threat of recently-appointed emperor Caesar Augustus and the three sorcerers he has rallied to fight the queen-turned-demigod. Drawing from Egyptian mythology to contextualize various familiar vampire tropes (the aforementioned bloodsucking, aversion to sunlight, and weakness for silver), Queen of Kings reinvigorates the vampire mythos through a historical figure who deserved to exist long beyond her mortal lifetime.

—Natalie Zutter

Buy Queen of Kings on Amazon

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

Sir Terry never met a trope he didn’t take the opportunity to parody, but his Discworld take on the vampire mythos is more love bite than going for the jugular. His Magpyrs embody the classic vampires, with all their subgenre trappings, but also are an example of how a supernatural race seeks to evolve beyond its bloody history and try something new. To be clear, these Magpyrs are still in it to drain humans dry, and they’ve developed cunning methods of doing so: a propensity for bright colors over drab blacks, the ability to stay up til noon and survive in direct sunlight, a taste for garlic and wine along with their plasma.

But the clash between the youngest immortals, who seek to overtake the mountain realm of Lancre as their new home, and dutiful servant Igor, who misses “the old wayth” (he’s a traditionalist down to the lisp), reveals a tension familiar to any long-ruling dynasty or established subculture: Change with the times, or adapt but lose what makes you unique? In struggling with this intergenerational dilemma, the Magpyrs find the perfect opponents in Lancre’s coven: Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, and Agnes—four witches who find themselves taking on different roles within the mother/maiden/crone dynamic as life changes force shifts in their identities. Between these relatable personal conflicts and a hall of vampire portraits that pays homage to Ann Rice and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carpe Jugulum gently ribs the vampire subgenre rather than put a stake through its heart.

—Natalie Zutter

Buy Carpe Jugulum on Amazon

Do you have any vampire story recommendations that challenge the traditional tropes of the genre in interesting and diverse ways? Let us know in the comments below.

The post 11 Diverse Vampire Stories To Read Instead of Midnight Sun appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[spookyspaghettisundae]

Fear the Light

Winds howled as they traveled through the crumbling ruins that lay at the edge of the desert. Carved into the stone of the earth itself, the eternal sun had scorched the ancient limestone pillars leading up to the entrance. Statues sculpted into the likeness of a god-king flanked them, eroded by the passage of time.

Gusts of dry, unforgiving wind carried sand and dust and continued to weather this once majestic monument. Faded was the glory they once held.

Bleached skulls and bones littered the grounds within the entrance, where rays of light still reached. But these remains had been left behind in a new age. An era in which the royal soul laid to rest in this tomb had transformed from esteemed ruler into a beast of unspeakable horrors and insatiable appetite.

It had been thousands of years since the moon had vanished from this world. It had been millennia since the night itself had ceased to exist. An unfathomable amount of time for mortals, and a terribly long time for those who transcended their mortality by means unnatural.

Such as the one who had been interred here. To him, bearing witness to the passage of time used to be a luxury. Now, he considered it an unbearable burden and a self-inflicted curse. He lingered in the darkness of these ruins, sprawled out inside an open sarcophagus. His bony fingers ended in long, sharp claws that idly scraped over the stone of the lid that lazily leaned against the sarcophagus’ side.

The claws scritched and scratched and then stopped.

He rose from his grave, sitting up and fiercely gripping the edge of the sarcophagus with those claws. Two hollow eye sockets stared out through the darkness. An immortal hatred burned where eyes used to be, tiny flames that sprung from the magic of this being’s twisted essence, minuscule lights from which neither heat nor soul emanated.

They peered through the decaying halls of this once magnificent tomb, knowing that someone—or something—had intruded within the dead king’s demesne. He crept over the edge of the sarcophagus and crumpled to the dusty floors where he stood back up, and stumbled forwards through the darkness, rising to full height once more.

A whole head taller than he had been in life, he had chosen this existence—this unlife—for himself. Not to be trapped within these unhallowed halls, but to transcend the limitations and boundaries of life that common mortals were naturally bound to. To defy the pull of the river of souls, to overcome the mortal coil had been his greatest achievement. It had taken so much to reach this state of being.

It had taken so many sacrifices.

Many of them were buried in this very tomb with him. He lurked, lurched through these halls, past their smaller and less ornate sarcophagi lining alcoves in the walls. Their remains lingered, though none of them shared his immortality. Most of them had willingly shed their blood and thrown away their lives for the sake of their god-king, loyal subjects who wanted to know that their fearless and infallible leader would never cease to lead their homeland to prosperity.

Oh, how that destiny had been warped. How the cruel twists of fate had disfigured those plans laid out to their once proud nation.

Now, King Sin-Zaidu stumbled through the defiled halls of his own desolate tomb. The bones of the unfortunate littered the floors, rattling and clattering as he walked through them, approaching the entrance with each step.

A growl echoed through the halls, claws of a wild beast scraped over the hewn stone grounds from there. The dead king drew closer and closer to these sounds, drawn by the spark of life that could return a false image of life to his withered vampiric body. A living creature had made its way inside the tomb, and the dead king could taste its heartbeat—he could sense its life force.

This desiccated walking corpse with a sinister void where a soul used to be now hungered. Shriveled and dried up, he longed for strength once more. He longed to feel that bounce to his step that he once possessed both in life and unlife, a faded vestige of his virility that had withered away over the millennia.

Long gone were the days when his loyal subjects would send their most valuable and vigorous young, serving them up to their king as sacrifices. The lengthy and ornate rituals leading up to eviscerating these innocent souls and feasting on their blood had become a distant memory for Sin-Zaidu.

In his glory days, even after the sun had turned eternal, he would never even have considered drinking the blood of mere beasts. His vanity would not have allowed such. Undignified acts had always been beneath him, for he had sought to keep his existence pure and his pride unfettered.

Now that the passage of time had ravaged him and the ages had rendered his existence into a dark and cautionary tale that most of his subjects’ descendants merely considered myth, he had discarded every last standard. Not even grave robbers dared venture here anymore.

The thirst of blood had turned him feral, and the deprivation of the crimson life force had turned him into a husk of his former might.

Now, he only had ears for the thrum of a living being’s pulse. The closer he crept to the entrance, the more vibrant it felt. The beast circled on the stones, sniffing and snorting as it explored the entrance and searched through the bones for carrion that it could feast upon. Sin-Zaidu paused, listening and conjuring up his awful powers to read the very essence of the creature he would now feed upon. It was confused, injured. It bled.

It drove King Sin-Zaidu wild with thirst.

Most animals avoided this place. Most natural creatures had a natural sense to avoid his desolate abode. For miles around the statues flanking its entrance, no hawks cried throughout the skies. No serpents slithered between any rocks in its vicinity. Not even vermin swarmed underneath the sands. Life itself knew better—all steered clear of this sinkhole of evil.

The vampire-king’s claw clutched the corner of an open portal leading into the antechamber. He peered at the mighty beast within.

It was a behemoth of exceptional power. Greater than ten horses put together, with rippling muscles that enabled the creature to tear cattle apart like dry parchment. Its fanged mouth measured so big that it could swallow half a man in its maw without chewing. Pitch-black horns jutted out from the mane of dark fur on its head. The chimeric monster pawed at the remains on the ground.

Blood dripped from its side, spilling from a gaping gash. What exactly had inflicted the injury, the ancient vampire could not tell. Nor did he care to. He only had eyes for the life force dripping down. The behemoth had left a trail of blood leading outside.

Sin-Zaidu watched, paralyzed with lust for the blood. He weighed his options with care, fighting back the frenzy that began clouding his mind, obscuring his judgment and making it difficult to coldly calculate how he would overpower the monstrous intruder.

He raised his bony hand and began uttering incantations he had not spoken in centuries. Raspy whispers slipped through blackened teeth and mummified lips. A spark of blood-red fire danced in his palm, casting flickering shadows from his claws as they wiggled with the precision required to summon dark powers.

The beast reared its head and growled, glaring at the desiccated walking corpse. Unlike other predators, it possessed no qualms in attacking the undead—among the dunes and mountains of this land, it was the apex predator. It lowered its head, menacing the god-king with the spear-like horns protruding from its head. It scraped against the floor with a mighty claw, much like a bull preparing to charge.

The whispers from Sin-Zaidu’s mouth gave way to an insane cackle.

Bones of the fallen began to rise from the floor, animated by faint blue glowing lights and reassembling into vaguely humanoid shapes, and standing tall even without flesh or muscle or tendon to hold them together.

The behemoth growled again, claws scratching the stone grounds as it swiveled, taking notice of the army of walking skeletons forming around it. The animated bones wasted no time and lunged at the creature, clawing at it with bare-boned fingers and broken jaws that clattered as they chomped and the skeletal remains that rattled with each step.

The swarm of walking dead jumped and grasped and climbed and ripped and bit and tore. The beast whirled around, shattering dried old bones and flinging the skeletons away like broken toys. Its giant paw smashed through them as if they had little to no substance. The injuries they inflicted resembled mere scratches on the toughened skin of a hardened warrior.

But they were many. And unlike mortal men, the walking skeletons felt no fear. They attacked the beast with reckless abandon, oblivious of their final unnatural existence being cut short as the creature smashed them to dust, destroying them in droves. A chorus of cracking and shattering bones filled the hall, underscored by ferocious growls that could curdle the blood of the bravest souls.

When most of the attacking skeletons had been destroyed, the beast reared back once more and jerked its head back, releasing a deep and rage-filled roar. These puny undead were no match for it.

They had merely bought time for Sin-Zaidu to finish conjuring even greater magic. His clawed hands clasped together, quenching another red flame between them, and he released the spell he had been weaving all the while since animating the skeletons.

Slimy tentacles—glistening and shiny in the dim light, with an absence of color rendering them even darker than black—shot out from the cracks in the floor, whipping and flailing about until they found purchase on the behemoth’s body, wrapping around it and dragging it down with unspeakable and terrible strength.

The beast roared but the force of its head slamming into the cold floor stifled it, transforming it into little more than a pained growl. The tentacles bound it, bent limbs into unnatural angles until living healthy bones cracked and even one of its deadly horns broke off. Amidst the sea of tentacles erupting from the tomb’s grounds, seemingly out of nowhere, this unstoppable behemoth was caught, being strangled and crushed to death.

Staggering and stumbling, Sin-Zaidu approached the helpless beast. More cackling escaped him. The thrum of the beast’s heartbeat raced with panic, intensifying with each step that the undead god-king took towards it. Although the creature dwarfed his own size, his presence transported a tangible menace. The behemoth’s growing fear satisfied his sadistic streak.

His cackling stopped, and lifeless breaths rasped out of the vestigial lungs of his mummified body. Breaths of greed and thirst.

The blood was so close that he could taste it. Smell it. Even though the natural senses of his withered body had long dulled to the point of non-existence, the dark force that maintained his unlife sensed the life force that he so desperately longed for.

Sin-Zaidu lunged forward with a sudden surge of otherworldly power. He sank his claws and fangs into the fur and flesh of this beast. He ripped, tore, bit, chewed, and feasted on the blood. It sprayed, flowed, trickled.

The more he drank, the more color returned to his vision. The more he could feel the pulse of the world itself. The movements of the stone deep down, the fire of the earth, the clouds drifting above, the rumble of the distant floating islands in the sky.

The more he drank, the less life the beast possessed. Its struggles to break free from the tentacles waned. Its limbs went limp. Sin-Zaidu cared not, instead drinking more and more, draining the creature of its very lifeblood. Too greedy to care about all the blood that splattered to the ground, he instead marveled at the spectacular carnage he wrought.

The tentacles retracted, wriggling and writhing while they slithered and disappeared back through the cracks between the floor plates from whence they had emerged.

Sin-Zaidu’s lips smacked, teeth gnashed, ripping the beast’s neck to shreds in his disgusting feast. His body absorbed the life force with incredibly velocity. A fullness returned to his lips. Mummified skin turned lively once again, replete with a healthy bronze color. The blackened claws retreated into his fingers and took the shape of normal fingernails once more, and his fangs shrank down till only his sharp canines might have betrayed any vampiric nature, framing a set of pristine white teeth.

He wiped at his mouth with his forearm, only smearing the blood even more into a mess upon his face and skin. Nearly bathed in blood, the fog of greedy, unstoppable hunger slowly lifted from his mind.

He took a moment to stare at his hands, both palms and backs, flexing his fingers and clasping them shut. He felt alive again, almost like he used to in his original life, in his youthful prime and long before his ascension to undeath.

When reality set in and he remembered the reality of his situation, he sneered at the remains of the dead behemoth on the ground before him, crushed amidst this sea of bones of both man and monster alike.

“What is a beast, but a creature driven by base needs?”

The question echoed throughout the hall. Not King Sin-Zaidu had spoken its words, but a figure just outside the entrance. Sitting in the sunlight. Light from the eternal sun shone down behind him, turning the man outside into an eerie silhouette.

In front of the man, a bloodied spear rested on the sandy grounds. His left hand bobbed up and down from a bent knee, as he lounged with his other leg curled underneath him.

Sin-Zaidu glowered at him. What kind of wretch had the gall to insult him thus?

“In spite of your appearance now, you are little more than beast. Incapable of emerging from your own tomb. A prisoner of the light, trapped in a prison of your own making. Pathetic,” rang more words from the stranger, delivered with an unusual accent that the god-king could not identify.

Although out of reach for Sin-Zaidu, he could have wielded magic to harm and kill him from afar. Curiosity trumped his pride and desire to slay this man on the spot, so he decided to hear him out.

He smirked and asked, “Who dares speak to King Sin-Zaidu with such impudence?”

The stranger’s hand stopped bobbing.

“I am Tezcatl,” he replied. “And I speak not out of contempt for you, but out of pity.”

Unlike the raspy cackling from earlier, new vigor filled Sin-Zaidu’s body—a hearty bellow erupted from his bowels.

“You pity us? For our terrible might? You still have a chance to flee, and imparting you with such wisdom is a testament to our generosity, you fool.”

The man named Tezcatl rose to his feet, picking up the spear in the same motion. He turned and pointed with it to the azure ocean of sky overhead, dotted with floating islands and fluffy white clouds, joining at the horizon with the ocean of sand and rocky crags below. Cracked and flaking paint of a single eye marked the stranger’s forehead. He was clad in simple, rugged garb, weathered by long travel, barefoot, and with no ornaments or jewelry to mention.

“No, I pity you because of the injustices of this world. And how they have shackled you. Liberty—a right that all men share, both kings and slaves, both hunter and beast, both living and dead—was taken from you when human arrogance stole the moon and the night from the sky,” Tezcatl said. The calm in his voice rose into more and more fervor with each beat.

His audacity and confidence mesmerized Sin-Zaidu. For millennia, the god-king had only spoken to those who feared or served him. This man named Tezcatl served none.

He almost admired his irreverence and it stunned him with an unfamiliar silence.

“I seek to liberate these lands by returning the moon to its rightful place. I seek to restore the night,” Tezcatl preached. He took in a sharp breath of air. “If I succeed, you will be free to reign over your lands once more and roam as you see right for yourself. Others may rebel against you, but it is then a matter of might who is right, in the end. However, you will need not fear the light, ever again.”

Sin-Zaidu’s mien darkened, as he knew this course of conversation. Even the most confident petitioners always had a request. Something that they wanted. After a long speech, no matter how rousing or flowery, followed the inevitable demand.

But Tezcatl remained silent. The defiance inherent in this man’s presence was palpable. Only the pulse of his heart and the blood flowing through his veins distracted Sin-Zaidu. So he asked.

“What do you seek from us?”

Tezcatl’s nostrils flared. He stared back at Sin-Zaidu with a roaring fire behind his eyes.

“I seek to learn of all the magic you wield. Forgotten sorceries, forbidden knowledge. If you teach me, I will be an instrument in returning you your right—your right to freedom.”

A howling gust of wind swept up sand, hurling it past the god-king’s visitor, ruffling his thin braids of hair. Tezcatl stood still, stoic and oozing confidence.

The king sensed the truthfulness in this man’s words, in his tone. He could hear it in his heartbeat. Nervous of the danger inherent in speaking to a vampiric monster such as himself. But believing deep down that he would succeed.

Sin-Zaidu’s lips curled into a smile. The god-king would accept this offer.

Even with all this power, he could not accomplish what this man spoke of. He never would have dared to even dream of restoring the night to these scorched lands.

Now confronted with this possibility, he discovered a new desire, even greater than his thirst for blood. Sin-Zaidu wondered if it only had to do with recently feasting on the behemoth.

He turned to look back at the broken beast, lying in the shadows where he dwelt, and the pool of blood spreading out underneath it. The wound in its side—could it have been inflicted by this Tezcatl’s spear?

He peered back at the man. Tezcatl’s steely gaze rested upon him all the while.

“Yes,” said Sin-Zaidu. “We will show you the ways. We shall teach you the sorceries of blood.”

Tezcatl closed his eyes and bowed his head in response. He sprung into motion, approaching the darkness of the tomb, each step driven by certainty and determination.

Just as fearlessly as his new pupil entered the shadows, Sin-Zaidu hoped that, one day, he would exit his tomb with the same fearlessness.

A day in the near future.

—Submitted by Wratts

[sciencespies]

Atomic Bomb Scientists Wanted To Make A Cautionary Movie About Nuclear Weaponry. An Interview With Greg Mitchell About How Hollywood Destroyed Those Hopes

https://sciencespies.com/news/atomic-bomb-scientists-wanted-to-make-a-cautionary-movie-about-nuclear-weaponry-an-interview-with-greg-mitchell-about-how-hollywood-destroyed-those-hopes/

Atomic Bomb Scientists Wanted To Make A Cautionary Movie About Nuclear Weaponry. An Interview With Greg Mitchell About How Hollywood Destroyed Those Hopes

Greg Mitchell’s “The Beginning or the End.” Published in July 2020 by The New Press

Photo credit: The New Press

Better late than never, right? In July of 2020 The New Press published Greg Mitchell’s The Beginning or the End, which was about a 1947 Hollywood docudrama that portrayed the development of the world’s first atomic bomb. A little more than a year later, this week provides a stellar opportunity to talk with Mitchell about his book. That’s because August 6 is the anniversary of the day when the United States detonated the world’s first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a Japanese city with a population of about 300,000 people. Three days later on August 9, 1945, an even more powerful bomb was detonated over the city of Nagasaki, which had a population of about 200,000. As acknowledged by the United States government, the number of civilian deaths in Hiroshima (immediate event + radiation sickness) was about 100,000. About 70,000 died in Nagasaki. Appalled nuclear scientists reached out to Hollywood for help informing Americans about the needless deaths their atomic bombs had caused. The movie that Hollywood produced merely fanned patriotic flames and elevated nuclear madness.

Welcome to Los Alamos

The Manhattan Project was the name of the effort sited in Los Alamos, New Mexico, through which atomic bomb technology was developed. Well before the bombs were dropped, seventy scientists from the Project had become aghast at creation. They signed a petition asking asked President Truman not to drop atomic bombs on Japan. Ultimately, of course, Truman disregarded their plea.

In 1945, shorty after the end of the war, some of those same scientists reached out to Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Louis B. Mayer in hopes that we would make a movie that depicted the horrors that their weaponry had produced and that warned the world about the dangers of a nuclear arms race. They offered to serve as advisors to the movie.

Mayer thrilled at the idea. He imagined a potential blockbuster. The scientists were overjoyed.

Then they weren’t.

Circa 1935: Russian-born American film mogul Louis Burt Mayer (1885 – 1957), head of production at … [+] MGM. (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Atomic Bombs Are So Conveniently Top Secret, Aren’t They?

Because the scientists who would advise the movie had top-secret information, Mayer gave Truman and General Leslie R. Groves (who led the Manhattan Project for the Army) script approval rights. Unfortunately, Groves’ and Truman’s vanity took over. They didn’t just edit sensitive information out of the script. They used the opportunity of concern about national security to put the script through meat grinders designed to make them sound good and look handsome. Meanwhile, MGM scriptwriters added romances and subplots. What eventually emerged was a hackneyed, over-hyped docudrama that glorified the president and the military and that created astonishing myths about why the use of the bombs had been the right choice for the United States of America and the world.

Author Greg Mitchell is a journalist who knows military history and United States politics well. He is the author of The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill; Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady (a New York Times Notable Book); The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and The Birth of Media Politics (winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize). He also co-authored with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America. Mitchell is the former editor of Nuclear Times magazine and the writer/director of the 2021 documentary, Atomic Coverup.

 For Forbes.com, I talked to Mitchell about his nonfiction examination of the scientists’ motivations in reaching out to Hollywood and about Hollywood’s distortion of their intentions and message. Mitchell’s book is called The Beginning or The End — and that, by the way, is also the title of the MGM movie that so sorely disappointed the scientists involved. I have edited the conversation for length and clarity

The Conversation with Greg Mitchell

Rebecca Coffey: Your book tells the story of scientists who were sickened at the deaths caused by their work at the Manhattan Project. They wanted Hollywood to help them create a movie that would be a cautionary tale. What they got instead from Hollywood was a movie designed to help Americans feel good about the appalling Hiroshima and Nagasaki news. The movie didn’t raise moral questions about scientific matters. It celebrated nuclear weaponry and its “heroes.” Am I right about that?

Journalist and author Greg Mitchell

Photo credit: Barbara Bedway

Greg Mitchell: I think that’s a fair assessment. The country had mixed feelings about how the bomb had been used. The scientists had mixed feelings about what they’d created. Truman and Groves had script approval. A movie filled with distortions and outright lies was the result.

RC: I’m surprised at how good a job the movie did in creating lasting distortions. I mentioned to a well-educated, well-read, peace-loving friend the other day that I would be interviewing you and I also said that you had spent a significant portion of your professional life examining moral questions about the use of the bomb. He said, well, what is there to talk about really? Using the bomb was necessary. If we hadn’t done it the Soviets were about to do it. I responded that, no, Russia had spies at the Manhattan Project. That’s because they had no bomb. Japan and Germany didn’t have a bomb, either. Apparently, the wool that the government and this movie pulled over the eyes of even educated, peace-loving Americans has held up over the years. It still controls the narrative.

GM: That’s why I wrote this book. It’s what has motivated me for 38 years now. Last year was the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was an opportunity for reassessment. That didn’t happen, perhaps because of COVID-19 headlines and the election. There was a best-selling book by Chris Wallace [and Mitch Weiss] defending the use of the bomb, but it included all sorts of errors. And there was Wallace’s Fox special about the bomb. But there was no impartial assessment 75 years after the fact. I’ve always wanted to promote an honest debate about what happened. I want all of the facts out there. I want Americans to have conversations and examine moral issues.

American actress Donna Reed (1921 – 1986), circa 1945. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty … [+] Images)

Getty Images

RC: If I remember correctly, one of the Manhattan Project scientists who had misgivings about the future of nuclear weaponry reached out to a former high school student. She was the actress Donna Reed. She brought her agent husband into the conversation and he sold Louis B. Mayer and MGM on the scientists’ idea about a movie that would warn audiences about the dangers and moral complexities of atomic bombs. Mayer was excited enough to call the movie the “most important story” he’d ever get the chance to tell. But the movie that MGM ended up making was not at all a cautionary tale. Do you know whether Mayer had a personal sense of loss about how the project turned out?

GM: I couldn’t find any testimony about that. I think he kind of bowed out. So many MGM movies needed his attention. This one didn’t seem to be a high priority, after all.

RC: The movie is a docudrama, though it’s hard for me to understand how any audience member accepted the supposedly nonfiction aspect of it given how predictable and corny the dialog is. Even so, they did. As a documentary-plus-drama, it was a “cross-genre” movie. And in some ways, your book is a cross-genre narrative because it’s about such serious matters but it incorporates lots of dark comedy. The photo on the book jacket’s speaks to gallows humor even more than it does to the book’s important historical information. Do you have any response to that?

The Beginning or the End (1947) Directed by Norman Taurog. MGM promotional photo. Shown: Tom Drake … [+] and his wife.

MGM/Photofrest

GM: I think there is a lot of unintentional comedy in it. There was the absurdity of trying to make a romantic, Hollywood blockbuster about the creation of a horrible, potentially world-destroying weapon. MGM went through all the usual promo processes, and they were oddly out of place. You know, “Here’s a beautiful actress getting her ID checked!” “Here are cool signs that say ‘Top Secret!’” Everything MGM said about the movie was inadvertently tone deaf. A nearly final version of the script had the Japanese receiving instructions on how to build an atomic bomb from Germans who arrived, as Germans apparently often do, by submarine. Having received the instructions, the Japanese took them to their secret atomic bomb factory … which was supposedly in Hiroshima! There was no factory in Hiroshima. No Germans were crawling out of submarines and bearing instructions for Japanese scientists. The script, the casting, the promotion, and the filmmaking process all were absurd.

Scientists and army personnel discuss nuclear science in MGM promotional shot.

Courtesy Greg Mitchell

RC: In general, Hollywood movies have clear heroes and villains. Your book doesn’t, but let’s just talk about its cast of characters. In the whole mess that was the creation and use of the bomb, is there a character who disgusted you most? Is there somebody whom you consider to be the true villain of the atomic bomb story?

 GM: I suppose I’d have to say General Groves. He had his finger in everything. He got the bomb built. He covered up radiation accidents at the Manhattan Project. He helped pick Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets. He moved up the schedule so the bomb would get used earlier. After the cities were bombed, he covered up the effects of the radiation on the civilian population and later he pushed for building more and bigger weapons. He capped it off by getting a massive amount of money from MGM to advise on the movie. By the way, no one else got paid, even though the scientists were promised money. Then, when questioned, Groves denied taking the money. He ruined the movie that had the potential to bring some truth to millions of Americans. Because he had his finger in everything, he would have to be the villain

(Original Caption) 9/11/1945-Alamogordo, NM: Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves (r), and Dr. J. R. … [+] Oppenheimer.

Bettmann Archive

RC: What about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the chief scientist at the Manhattan Project? I’ve read several books that portray him as an unreliable, weird, and perhaps overly self-involved figure. He had to give his approval to the movie for MGM to use his name, and his name was so well-known that MGM really had to use it. Why did he give his approval to the script?

GM: One of the subplots of the book is the continual engagement between MGM and the scientists including Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, and Leo Szilard. [Before the Manhattan Project, Szilard had conceived the nuclear chain reaction upon which atomic bomb technology relied. He’d also patented a nuclear fission reactor design and he’d convinced Einstein to join the Manhattan Project. In 1945 Szilard drafted the petition to Truman asking him not to use the bomb against Japan.] Some of the scientists were very famous and were hesitant about cooperating. Whenever they dragged their feet, MGM got nervous and came up with pseudonyms for them. Even Oppenheimer had a provisional pseudonym. It was “Whittier” — funny because it was WASP-y and he was anything but. I’m not sure why ultimately he gave permission and let the MGM screenwriters use his real name. He was being surveilled by the FBI, but there’s no evidence that he cooperated just to get J. Edgar Hoover off his back. He had gotten some changes made in the script. Maybe that was enough for him. Maybe he knew that he couldn’t stop the movie altogether or solve all of its problems. Maybe he liked the idea of being a character on the big screen. Even Einstein and Szilard approved the script eventually.

RC: Why do you think Einstein and Szilard approved it?

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), American theoretical physicist and winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize for … [+] Physics.

Bettmann Archive

GM: MGM brought Szilard out to the lot for a week or two. That might have been flattering and fun. And Szilard didn’t have a lot to protect. The movie just showed him in the lab early on doing some of the groundbreaking work on nuclear science. He got some changes made to the script. The movie may not have deeply upset him because it doesn’t portray or distort his attempt to stop the use of the bomb.

Einstein, on the other hand, was a little different. In the book, there’s an exchange of letters between Mayer and Einstein. Mayer tried to twist Einstein’s arm. Einstein held firm. Then, a couple of months later, Szilard seems to have told Einstein, “Look, I got some changes made. I think you should sign. No big deal.” Einstein may have thrown up his hands and signed. It seems that, in the end, when scientists believed they were being treated fairly on screen they signed. Maybe they’d just been worn down.

Leo Szilard. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Corbis via Getty Images

RC: Did the scientists get anything for all of their trouble?

GM: MGM didn’t pay the scientists even though they’d promised to. With their dithering, though, the scientists did succeed in delaying production. By the time the movie was released, the bomb had disappeared from the headlines.

RC: Poetic justice?

GM: Well, if you’re bothered at the idea that the movie that was supposed to be a cautionary tale ended up having a pro-atomic-bomb message, at least you can take some comfort. The scientists succeeded in ruining the audience for the movie. They delayed so long that America had lost interest. Mayer’s “most important story” was a box office flop.

RC: What are your favorite darkly comic moments about the development of the movie?

(Original Caption) 1949: Official portrait of Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd president of the … [+] United States.

Bettmann Archive

GM: I like Donna Reed’s involvement because it’s so unexpected and strange. Another favorite of mine is the fact that Truman got the actor playing him fired for not having a sufficiently “military bearing.” The actor then wrote a letter to Truman that appeared to be respectful but, between the lines, was deeply sarcastic. He suggested that Truman should play himself. He said something like, “No doubt you would love to be the person who takes credit for this historic use of the bomb.” Truman wrote a polite letter back, evidently not having caught onto the actor’s mockery.

By and large, I found reams of jaw-dropping stuff in the Motion Picture Academy Library. For example, Groves, who was overweight and not happy about it, ordered MGM to remove from the script a second reference to him liking chocolate. He and Truman allowed incredibly large falsehoods about science to stay in the script but disallowed details that they didn’t make them look good. 

RC: Because for thirty-eight years you have researched this part of history, let me see if I can get you to opine about certain matters. In Einstein’s interview with the New York Times Magazine, he said that he believed we didn’t have to use the bomb. Do you agree with him about that?

GM: When I started writing about this in the 1980s and went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a month, I didn’t have an opinion. I just wanted to delve deeper into the story. Over the many years in which I’ve read more, I’ve become convinced that it was not necessary to use the bomb in that time period to produce a surrender in very short order. That’s what General Eisenhower and others believed. They could see there were other ways to end the war.

RC: Do you think President Franklin D. Roosevelt would have approved of using the bomb on Japanese cities?

GM: I’ve thought about it but I don’t have a firm opinion. The evidence is not crystal clear. I’m satisfied that I’ve raised some conversation about it. Could he have been bullied the way Truman was by Groves? Maybe not. But, like Truman, he wanted to end the war as soon as possible. He’d ordered the creation of the bomb.

RC: What about impersonating scientists on film? Do you think that getting B-grade actors to fiddle with flashing gadgets while pretending to be world-class scientists does a disservice to science — especially on matters as grave as this?

GM: The scientists who were impersonated in the MGM movie were disturbed by the screenings. Szilard ran out and kind of cowered in a waiting car. It wasn’t just that the movie celebrated the bomb. It was the hokey way scientists were portrayed.

The producers tried to placate the scientists. They pointed out that one major character functioned as a representation of the qualms of some of scientists. It was the character of Tom Drake. He appeared in much of the movie. He was a sympathetic-looking guy. He gave voice to their concerns about civilian casualties and the future of nuclear weaponry. But, of course, in the movie he was a tragic figure and he died, and in the very last scene his ghost came down and talked to his wife and said that the bomb is a great thing. It’s our salvation. God gave it to us.

This gets back to my motivation for writing the book. So many Americans remain ignorant about the history of nuclear weaponry in our country and the ongoing possibility of its use. Unlike many of our allies, we have a “First Use” policy! We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first. Many Americans don’t know about the First Use policy. That fact is enough to keep me talking about the dangers of the nuclear arms race and inspiring me to write books like The Beginning or the End.

RC: Thank you so much for talking.

Greg Mitchell’s The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood — And America — Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is gripping, surprisingly well-researched and fun storytelling about a devastating topic. Mitchell’s Twitter handle is @gregmitch. His news and politics newsletter is Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

#News

[arts-dance]

6 Greek Myths You Should Know to Understand Art History

Christy Kuesel Jan 17, 2020

Raoul Dufy Léda et le Cygne , 1926  BAILLY GALLERY

Greek myths have captivated the imaginations of artists since ancient sculptors created gods and goddesses out of marble. The trials of ancient Greek heroes and monsters have served as inspiration for

Renaissance masters, Surrealists , and conceptual artists alike. Although no unified telling of Greek mythology exists, sources like Homer’s Iliad and Ovid’s Metamorphoses provide an alternate history of humanity, from the creation of the first woman to the downfall of Troy. Below, we detail six myths essential to understanding the Greek mythology that has been woven into art history.

Pandora’s Box

Pandora, the first woman on Earth, was created in an act of vengeance. Zeus, the king of the sky and the gods, was angry with the Titan Prometheus for creating man in the image of the gods and providing them with fire that he stole from heaven. Zeus ordered the god Hephaestus to create Pandora to exact revenge on Prometheus. Pandora was placed into an idyllic version of Earth, and Zeus gave her a box that he told her never to open. Pandora couldn’t resist the temptation and opened the box, releasing a score of plagues into the world, like disease, old age, and death.French painter Odilon Redon was fascinated by women from classical mythology, and he painted Pandora several times. In a painting from ca. 1914, Pandora appears nude and surrounded by scores of bright flowers, yet she is intently focused on the small box in her hands. Redon painted the work in the years leading up to World War I, potentially drawing a parallel between the horrors inflicted by the opening of her box and those of the war. Pandora’s influence reaches into contemporary art as well; Filipino artist David Medalla, for example, created Cosmic Pandora Micro-Box (2010) by collecting objects he found during a residency in Brazil, like socks, a bar of soap, and oyster shells. By linking ordinary objects and mythology, he questions how pedestrian items can be as impactful as the divine contents of Pandora’s box.

Perseus and Andromeda

Perseus is one of the foremost heroes of Greek mythology, known primarily for slaying Medusa and Cetus, the sea monster that guarded the princess Andromeda. Queen Cassiopeia, who ruled a mythical version of Ethiopia with her husband, boasted that she and her daughter Andromeda were as beautiful as the Nereids, or sea nymphs. This remark offended Poseidon, god of the sea, and in an act of vengeance against Cassiopeia, he set Cetus loose on the kingdom. After consulting an oracle, Andromeda’s father King Cepheus tied her to a rock on the shore, sacrificing her to appease Poseidon. Perseus then slayed Cetus and made Andromeda his wife. Perhaps the most famous depictions of this myth are by Peter Paul Rubens Flemish, 1577–1640

Peter Paul Rubens, one of the great Flemish artists of the 17th century, was a prominent figure in the Catholic church, the royal courts, and commercial …, who returned to the subject several times. In Perseus frees Andromeda (1620–1622), we see Perseus approaching a chained Andromeda, aided by several putti, or cherubs. The slain Cetus is visible in the lower left corner. Andromeda’s plight also inspired artists centuries later:

Frederic Leighton depicted her twisted beneath Cetus as Perseus pierces him with an arrow; while David Gascoyne appropriated the tale in a surrealist take where Andromeda’s head is perched atop a tennis racket.

The Minotaur

The Minotaur is a half-human, half-bull monster born to Queen Pasiphae of Crete. Daedalus, King Minos’s prized inventor, created a labyrinth to conceal the beast, which demanded a payment of seven young men and seven virgins (accounts vary on how frequent that payment was required, ranging from annually to every nine years). The Greek hero Theseus eventually slayed the Minotaur, but the mythical creature and its symbolism of forbidden desire, lust, and greed lives on. Pablo Picasso became particularly interested in the Minotaur during a period of personal turmoil—when his marriage to Olga Khokhlova was in trouble, and his mistress at the time, Marie-Thérèse Walter, was pregnant. However, his frequent depictions of the monster also coincided with rising political tensions in 1930s Europe. The artist connected the mythical creature with the bullfighting of his Spanish heritage, producing etchings like Minotaurmachy (1935), which depicts the Minotaur leaning toward a young girl holding a candle. The work served as source imagery for Guernica (1937), which also features a bull. Other artists embraced the Minotaur, too:

André Breton and Pierre Mabille published a magazine entitled Minotaure in the 1930s, while Jackson Pollock immortalized the beast’s mother Pasiphaë in his 1943 work by the same name. In Leonora Carrington ’s And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur! (1953), a robed bull figure sits at a table, surrounded by two children and a ghostly figure. The Minotaur has also been used to more moralizing ends:

Symbolist painter George Frederic Watts used the monster in an 1885 work in which the Minotaur gazes out at the sea, waiting for his annual feast to arrive. In his depiction of an expectant beast, Watts invokes male lust, born out of concerns over child prostitution in Britain.

Icarus

Aside from trapping the Minotaur in his labyrinth, Daedalus is also known for the tragic death of his son Icarus, who has inspired countless songs , poems , and artworks. To escape from Crete, Daedalus fashioned wings for himself and his son. Despite warnings from his father, Icarus flew too close to the sun and the wax holding his wings together melted, causing him to fall into the ocean and drown. The story is often told as a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of excessive pride and ambition. The most famous depiction of Icarus by far is Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (ca. 1555), which depicts a falling Icarus masked within a larger scene of domestic life on the seaside. The viewer can only see Icarus’s flailing legs disappearing; he is entirely ignored by all the other depicted figures. The oil painting is attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, though some experts doubt its authenticity due to eccentricities in the work itself and the lack of a precise date or provenance for the painting. 

Henri Matisse created a more lighthearted depiction of Icarus in his cut-out from the illustrated book Jazz (1947). There, Matisse embraced his new invention—paper cut-outs—and snipped away at sheets of red, black, yellow, and blue paper to create the image of a man dancing among the stars.

Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan is perhaps one of the most perplexing tales in Greek mythology to the modern reader. It is also one of the most prominent myths that echoes across centuries of art history. In the myth, Zeus takes the form of a swan to rape Leda, the queen of Sparta, resulting in the birth of Helen. The story becomes even more distressing when considering that Helen ran off with, or was abducted by, the Trojan prince Paris, inciting the Trojan War. The image of woman and bird, and the destruction it would bring, has captivated various artists over the years.

Leonardo da Vinci  painted two versions of Leda and the Swan, yet both have been lost. Other versions by Leonardo’s students survive, all depicting a demure, nude woman holding a swan; several preparatory sketches by the master himself still exist . Around 1880,Paul Cézanne created his own Leda and the Swan, depicting a blonde woman staring at a swan biting her hand, a look of ambivalence upon her face. French avant-garde artist Marie Laurencin shows a contemplative Leda dressed in pink, leaning over a black railing to pet the bird. Cy Twombly put his own Abstract Expressionist take on the tale, creating a maniacal mess of crayon, pencil, and paint, with some discernible elements, like hearts and a penis.

Achilles

Achilles arose as a hero of the Trojan War, leading the Greeks through a 10-year siege of Troy. One of his most notable feats is killing Hector to avenge the death of his supposed lover Patroclus. Achilles eventually falls victim to a prophecy foretelling his death at Troy; in most versions of the story, the god Apollo guides the arrow of the Trojan prince Paris to Achilles’s heel, his only vulnerable spot. His story was central to Homer’s Iliad, and his feats of heroism, as well as his deeply human tragedy, have kept the story alive.

Barnett Newman was particularly inspired by Greek mythology; he often used titles from the Bible or antiquity, and once wrote a letter to Clement Greenberg defending the Greek style and figure, writing , “It was the Greeks who invented the idea of beauty. Before their time a work of art was concerned with the problem of meaning and was a visible symbol of hieratic thought.” Newman’s admiration of Greek civilization is particularly evident in Achilles (1952), which depicts a red vertical stripe surrounded by brown. The red is most likely a reference to the armor Hephaestus created for Achilles to wear into battle. Twombly also created his own abstract version  of the Greek tragedy in Fifty Days at Iliam: Shades of Achilles, Patroclus and Hector (1978). A more traditional take on Achilles’s story exists in Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus (1760–1763) by Gavin Hamilton  ; in the work, Achilles is draped over a ghostly white Patroclus, pushing away the other Greek soldiers.

Andrea Mary Marshall ’s 2015 Self Portrait as Achilles pictures a woman stepping into the shell of the Greek hero; she hunches away from the camera, showing the viewer bruises up and down her back. Her right hand claps an arrow aimed at her foot, alluding to the myth of the Achilles heel. Christy Kuesel is an Editorial Intern at Artsy.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-6-greek-myths-understand-art-history