#he tried so so hard to recreate the real world from his limited perspective

[ruinationz]

have you ever really thought about the fact that caine obviously knows what the area around his computer looks like (office maze) but he doesn't know what's outside of that ....

THAT IS SOMETHANG I THINK ABOUT . THAT IS SOMETHANG I THINK ABOUT SOMETIMES .

[thexfridax]

Translated interview

Love and let love

Pamela Jahn, in: ray Filmmagazin, October 2019

// Additions or clarifications for translating purposes are denoted as [T: …]. //

Céline Sciamma’s brilliant ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ opens the Viennale 2019. A talk with the French director about her ambitions, love and why you can do without men in her film.

She likes to think of herself as film activist [T: also see here], and looking at her work confirms this. Céline Sciamma is a force in French cinema, but this hasn’t yet created a ripple effect internationally. After her coming-of-age trilogy (Water Lilies, Tomboy, Girlhood), the French director and screenwriter Céline Sciamma now created an elegant but also radical period film with Portrait of a Lady on Fire. [T: Partly omitted short description of film] The two women slowly get closer to each other, determination turns into restraint, curiosity into desire, and Sciamma’s great skill is in making the intimacy between the characters tangible in a very sensual manner. Her brilliance and experience in utilising the cinematic art of seduction of all kinds make this film special, and it opens up a new perspective on the art of looking and thinking.

Interviewer: Part of the fascination for this film is in the process of discovery, the way that we, the audience, slowly get to know the face, the body, and the gestures of Héloïse. How did you develop this process from your perspective as screenwriter and director?

Céline Sciamma: First of all, it took a long time to write this. I don’t actually mean the writing itself but rather dreaming about it. The idea for the film came right after Girlhood, about five years ago. But then I allowed myself to just daydream about it for two, three years, without writing anything down, apart from a couple of notes, a page here and there, where I tried to find the right balance between the different approaches that I had in mind for the film. On the one hand, there was the idea that you implied, developing a choreography of discovery to show how someone falls in love with another person, and at the same time accurately convey this process through cinema with all its possibilities, step by step. In other words, I was interested in the joy of discovery, but also in the delay and frustrations that might occur with this. On the other hand, I also wanted to show the progression of a love story, its past, its future, this epic period of time where everything seems possible. I wanted to make a film about the dialogue of love, about its philosophy and poetry. And this takes time, to find the necessary balance, but also to steer the film in a direction that seems radical enough to me. It was important for me to find the right structure, in order to both integrate the dialogue of love and dialogue of art. That was my task, my personal mission. I had the ambition to convey all these ideas without becoming too theoretical. The film should seem playful instead, be exciting and fun – fun while filming and watching.

I: Were you inspired by certain paintings for the aesthetics of the film?

CS: My cinematographer and I, we discussed the lighting and the framing for a long time, and at one point [T: she] said: ‘Okay, let’s do this, we won’t consciously set it up like a painting, but secretly we both know it’s exactly like that.’ This means we didn’t tell ourselves that the whole thing should look exactly like a painting by Georges de La Tour or whoever [T: also see here, a pipe and a candle, hmm]. Quite the opposite. Our references came primarily from cinema, especially when it was about lighting a film with candles. But we were of course aware that everyone would say afterwards that it looks like it was painted. Cinema is about similar things after all: It is about lighting, composition, faces and silhouettes. There were no real references to paintings apart from one, but it was rather anachronistic, because it wasn’t from the same period as the film was set in. However, we always had to think about [Jean-Baptiste-Camille] Corot, a French painter from the 19th century, who mostly painted landscapes. But he also did a few paintings of women, women in landscapes. And we were quite thrilled about the way that the light seems to radiate from the figures in his pictures [T: also see here]. The figures somehow illuminate the painting, and we worked hard to create a similar effect with the colours and the clothes of the characters. [T: Also see here for an in-depth article on the cinematography of the film]

I: What were your film references?

CS: Barry Lyndon had certainly the biggest influence, not only on me, but on cinema in general, when it comes to lighting a period film. It doesn’t mean that we should do exactly the same as Kubrick did. Barry Lyndon is a film with an incredible amount of ideas, which make you think, and it’s a film that gives you more courage in what you do. That means, instead of duplicating something it’s rather about developing a standard, which you don’t have to necessarily adopt, but you can work towards it. And for that we developed our own methods to create a certain mood and aesthetics. Just like Kubrick who invented a lot for his film. He even came up with his own lens, so that he can produce the atmosphere he wanted. We made things and thought about finding a way to manage without candles in the picture, which was decided very early on. [T: also see here, here or here for Barry Lyndon]

I: The setting plays an important role in both films, Kubrick’s and yours. It develops its own character, in a way.

CS: That’s true. The building where we filmed had an unbeatable advantage: It hadn’t really been touched for years. It’s an old suburban city hall in the municipality of La Chapelle-Gauthier, about 70 km from Paris [T: also see here, h/t @podcastofaladyonfire]. When we found it, [T: we] weren’t quite sure. It seemed like a place from another time. But as soon as we stepped into it, we knew how it was. We also knew that everything should remain as it was. That’s not very common, because it’s usually about reconstructing the period in a period film, in which the story is set, so that you achieve the highest possible degree of authenticity and truthfulness. Apart from that, I mostly made all of my films in the studio. The apartments, where my protagonists lived, were all recreated. And now I suddenly had to struggle with a fourth wall. It would have made more sense not to film on an original location. It’s a paradox, but I really like it.

I: You made another conscious decision, which was mostly excluding men from your film.

CS: Yes, that was already clear from the outset. It wasn’t like I only killed the men in the cutting room. The main reason for this was that I wanted to tell a love story that is lived. And I wanted to talk about the possibility of their love, not about the impossibility. If I had included men, then it wouldn’t have worked, because the limits of what is possible would have been all too visible. We are very familiar with these limitations and I think, we don’t have to constantly talk about them. I wanted to give these women the necessary space to express themselves and fully live out their love. In other words: I wanted to give them time to imagine what their lives could look like in a world where they don’t have to constantly assert themselves against men.

I: Especially against men that try to interfere with their love.

CS: Exactly. I consciously avoided this conflict. I also didn’t want the two of them to question whether their love story is really possible or not. But that is a question of dramaturgy, not of gender. For me, it was about telling the story in a way that gives them the greatest possible liberty, but which they don’t have in reality. This is not only an imagined liberty but a very tangible one. Fundamentally, it is just another way to point out the limitations that clearly exist for both women. It’s just that we don’t show [T: these limitations], because they are quite obvious. I had the feeling that both women couldn’t imagine another life. Why should I put them in a situation where they fight a battle they cannot win anyway?

I: It seems that going back to the 18th century gave you more liberty to tell the story.

CS: Yes, it really was a liberating process for me, too. A process that made me more courageous as director. Even though, my films were always strongly anchored in the presence, and were in that sense bold, because they were politically motivated. This time I wanted to go a step further, not least because it’s about a female artist at work. The film was meant to playfully deal with the theme, so that you also see my own love for cinema. This is why it seems so intimate at times. Not because I tell my personal story, but because I keep my work less under wraps, treat it less like a secret but reveal it more as a gift.

I: It’s interesting that you not only excluded men but also didn’t include music so much.

CS: That was also a choice that I made in the beginning, or rather had to, because it meant that I had to write the script with this [T: exclusion] in mind. It doesn’t mean that a film without music cannot be musical as well. But you write differently. And it means that you have to show a strong sense of rhythm on set. That wasn’t a problem for me, because I’m anyway obsessed with rhythm. Deciding against music wasn’t meant to be for the challenge, but I wanted to put the audience into a state, where art is also inaccessible to them. So that listening to music will also become precious. The film is about the relationship between art and love, and how important art is for our lives. Listening is therefore meant to become an organic experience. For me, it was about showing that you can reclaim cinema with the power of music [T: also listen to this or this… I have no regrets 😁]. If you really think about it: The piece by Vivaldi, which is in the film, is a hymn, but it’s also typical music when you’re put on hold. It was really exciting to create an atmosphere where you rediscover this piece, which you heard so many times, and in a completely different context and with a new image in mind [T: the most heartbreaking scene ever, here goes Vivaldi, also see here].

I: The last scene of the film is breathtaking. But I can also imagine that it was a huge effort for you as well as for Adèle Haenel to hold this shot for such a long time.

CS: To be honest, that was the most important and most difficult shot that I ever filmed. And with difficult I also mean technically, because you have to ensure that the focus is retained. The poor guy, who had to take care of that, was in a cold sweat during the entire take. It’s not Hollywood after all. This means, he had to sit on a small chair, which was attached to a self-made vehicle that a couple of other men had to slowly move across the room towards Adèle. Everything was extremely improvised. But that’s what cinema is also about: technique. You create something with whatever you have at your disposal, so that there is this brief magical moment on screen, which moves people.

I: Did you also know from the beginning that you wanted to conclude the film with this shot?

CS: Yes, it was the first image that I had in mind, when I started writing. It is one of those images that push you forward, when the doubts overwhelm you. And believe me, I gave up on this film more than once [T: 😱 😌]. But I always knew that if [T: the film came to life], then it should end like this. For me, this image represents a mix of joie de vivre and ancient dream [T: the text says ‘pures Leben’ or pure life, which has more of a positive connotation in German]. I can’t describe it any better. Perhaps it is the last secret that still remains for me.

—

Picture source: [1 / Julien Lienard/Contour by Getty Images]

[brn1029]

Get those tin foil hats ready to go!

The 10 greatest conspiracy theories in rock

By Emma Johnston

In a world where fake news runs rampant, rock'n'roll is not immune to the lure of the conspiracy theory. These are 10 of the most ludicrous

Conspiracy theories, myths and legends have existed in rock’n’roll for as long as the music has existed, stretching all the way back to bluesman Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for superhuman guitar skills, fame and fortune.

There are those who believe Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison live on, others who think the Illuminati control the world through symbolism in popular culture, and plenty of evangelical types with their own agendas trawling rock and metal songs for secret messages luring the innocent to the dark side.

Let us take a look, then, at rock’n’roll conspiracy theories ranging from the intriguing to the ludicrous, as we try to separate the truth from the codswallop.

Lemmy was in league with the Illuminati

Few men have ever been earthier than Lemmy, but one conspiracy theorist claims that the Motorhead legend didn’t really die in December 2015, instead “ascending into the heavenly realm” after making a “blood sacrifice pact” with the Illuminati.

A “watcher” of the mythical secret society some believe are running the world – despite evidence that is at best flimsy, at worst straight from The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown’s discarded notebooks – told the Daily Star: “Lemmy signed up for the ultimate pact – he signed his soul to the devil in order to achieve fame and fortune.”

While we can only imagine what the great man would have to say on the matter, there’s one word, in husky, JD-soaked tones, that we can just about make out coming across from the other side: “Bollocks.”

Paul McCartney died in 1966

As you might expect from the most famous band that has ever existed, there are enough crackpot theories about The Beatles to fill the Albert Hall. From John Lennon’s murder being ordered by the US government, who, led by Richard Nixon, suspected him of communism (the FBI actually did have a file on Lennon, but the story is spiced up by the man behind murderlennontruth.com, who apparently believes author Steven King was involved due to, uh, looking a bit like Mark Chapman) to Canadian prog outfit Klaatu being the Fab Four in disguise, there are plenty of tall tales more colourful than a Ringo B-side.

The most enduring, though, is the notion dreamt up by some US radio DJs that Paul McCartney died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike. They came to this conclusion having studied the cover of Abbey Road – McCartney’s bare feet on the zebra crossing apparently symbolising death, while others found “evidence” in the album’s opaque lyrics. There were a lot of drugs in the 60s.

Gene Simmons has a cow’s tongue

It’s easy to see why all kinds of far-fetched stories sprung up when Kiss first took off in the 1970s. The fake-blood-spitting, the fire, the demon-superhero personas – middle America clutched its pearls and word spread that these otherworldly weirdos’ moniker stood for Knights In Satan’s Service. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

It was Gene Simmons’ preposterous mouth that got the nation’s less voluminous tongues wagging though. So long and pointy is his appendage, and so often waggled at his audiences (whether they asked for it or not), that eventually the rumour spread around the world’s playgrounds was that he’d had a cow’s tongue grafted onto his own. The bovine baloney is, of course, bullshit, but Simmons has admitted it's one of his favourite Kiss urban myths.

Supertramp predicted 9/11

The Logical Song may be Supertramp’s calling card, but one man in the US stretches common sense to the limit having come to the conclusion that the artwork for their 1979 album Breakfast In America gave prior warning of the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11, 2001.

Look at the album cover – painted from the perspective of a window on a flight into the city – in a mirror, and the ‘u’ and ‘p’ band’s name appears to become a 911 floating above the twin towers, while a logo on the back features a plane flying towards the World Trade Center.

So far, so coincidental, but when our intrepid investigator falls down a rabbit hole of Masonic interference, strained Old Testament connections (“The Great Whore of Babylon – Super Tramp”), and the title Breakfast In America reflecting the fact that the planes crashed early in the morning, things get really tenuous.

It’s fair to say it’s unlikely a British prog-pop band had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks 22 years before they happened. But maybe Al Qaida were really big fans.

Stevie Wonder can see

Stevie Wonder is a genius. That fact is not up for dispute. The soul/jazz/funk/rock/pop legend was born six weeks prematurely in 1950, and the oxygen used in the hospital incubator to stabilise him caused him to go blind shortly afterwards. But his love of front-row seats at basketball games, the evocative imagery in his songs, and the fact that he once effortlessly caught a falling mic stand knocked over by Paul McCartney (who, let us reiterate, did not die in 1966) has caused basement Jessica Fletchers to muse that he’s faking his blindness as part of the act.

Wonder himself, a known prankster, has great fun with his status as one of the world’s most famous vision-impaired musicians. In 1973, he told Rolling Stone: “I’ve flown a plane before. A Cessna or something, from Chicago to New York. Scared the hell out of everybody.”

Dave Grohl invented Andrew W.K.

When Andrew W.K. first broke through in the early 2000s, dressed in white and covered in blood, his mission was serious in its simplicity: the party is everything. He took his message of having a good time, all the time, to levels of political fervour. But rumours of his authenticity have been doing the rounds from the start.

Reviewing WK’s first UK show at The Garage in London, The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis wrote: “One music-biz conspiracy theory currently circulating suggests that Andrew W.K. is an elaborate hoax devised by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl.”

As time went on, the theory gained traction – Grohl was believed to be the mysterious Steev Mike credited on the debut album I Get Wet. And as W.K.’s style changed over subsequent records, and his own admission that there were legal arguments over who owns his name, whispers began that he wasn’t even a real person – he was a character, played by several different actors, an attempt to create the ultimate Frankenstein’s frontman.

"I'm not the same guy that you may have seen from the I Get Wet album," W.K. said in 2008. “I don't just mean that in a philosophical or conceptual way, it's not the same person at all. Do I look the same as that person?" The jury is out, but if this is a great white elephant concocted just for the sheer hell of it, we kind of want this one to be true.

Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager

An early victim of the 27 club, the death of Jimi Hendrix was depressingly cliched for a man so wildly creative: a bellyful of barbiturates led to him asphyxiating on his own vomit, according to the post-mortem. But in the years following the grim discovery at the Samarkand Hotel in London on 19 September 1970, a different theory was offered by the guitarist’s former roadie, James “Tappy” Wright.

In his book Rock Roadie, Wright claims Hendrix was murdered by his manager, Michael Jeffery, who he says force-fed his charge red wine and pills. The motive? He feared he was about to be fired and was keen to cash in on the star’s life insurance. One thing we do know for certain is Jeffery won’t be able to give his version of events, as he was killed in a plane crash over France in 1973.

The 50th anniversary of Hendrix's tragic passing was "celebrated" with the release of Hendrix and the Spook, a documentary that "explored" his death further and was described by The Guardian as "a cheaply made mix of interviews and dumbshow dramatic recreations by actors scuttling about flimsy sets in gloomy lighting." Sounds good.

Courtney killed Kurt

Courtney Love is no stranger to demonisation from Nirvana fans. When Hole’s second album, the searing, catchy, feminist, witty, aggressive, vulnerable and unflinchingly honest Live Through This was released, days after Kurt Cobain’s death, rumours almost immediately started up that Love’s late husband wrote the songs. That was insulting and sexist enough, but nowhere near as damaging as the conspiracy theory that Love hired a hitman to kill Cobain amid rumours they were about to divorce.

After Cobain’s first attempt to take his own life in Rome, the Nirvana frontman was eventually convinced to go to rehab following an intervention by his wife and friends. He ran away from the facility, and the private investigator hired by Love to find him, Tom Grant, eventually became the source of the idea that Love and the couple’s live-in nanny Michael Dewitt were responsible for Cobain’s death shortly afterwards.

His claims, made in the Soaked In Bleach documentary, include the notion that Cobain had too much heroin in his system to pull the trigger of the shotgun, and that he believed the suicide note was forged.

People close to Cobain (and the Seattle Police Department) have refuted the theory, including Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg: “It’s ridiculous. He killed himself. I saw him the week beforehand, he was depressed. He tried to kill himself six weeks earlier, he’d talked and written about suicide a lot, he was on drugs, he got a gun. Why do people speculate about it? The tragedy of the loss is so great people look for other explanations. I don’t think there’s any truth at all to it."

The CIA wrote The Scorpions’ biggest hit

Previously synonymous with leather, hard rock anthems and some very questionable album artwork, West Germany’s Scorpions scored big with Wind Of Change, a power ballad heralding the oncoming fall of the USSR, the end of the Cold War, and a new sense of hope in the Eastern Bloc.

In a podcast named after the 1990 song, though, Orwell Prize-winning US journalist Patrick Radden Keefe follows rumours from within the intelligence community that the song was actually written by the CIA, as propaganda to hasten the fall of the ailing Soviet Union via popular culture.

“Soviet officials had long been nervous over the free expression that rock stood for, and how it might affect the Soviet youth,” Keefe is quoted as saying. “The CIA saw rock music as a cultural weapon in the cold war. Wind of Change was released a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and became this anthem for the end of communism and reunification of Germany. It had this soft-power message that the intelligence service wanted to promote.”

It's a convincing theory, but one that is disputed by Scorpions frontman Klaus Meine: “I thought it was very amusing and I just cracked up laughing. It’s a very entertaining and really crazy story but like I said, it’s not true at all. Like you American guys would say, it’s fake news."

There are satanic messages in Stairway To Heaven

The great comedian Bill Hicks had something to say about people searching for evidence of devilry in rock’n’roll: “Remember this shit, if you play certain rock albums backwards there'd be satanic messages? Let me tell you something, if you're sitting round your house playing your albums backwards, you are Satan. You needn't look any further. And don't go ruining my stereo to prove a point either.”

The memo didn’t get through to televangelist and stylus ruiner Paul Crouch, who in 1982 attempted to scare the Christian right into believing Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven was stuffed with demonic meaning, and that played backwards it revealed the following message: “Here’s to my sweet Satan/The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan/He will give those with him 666/There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.”

Guitarist Jimmy Page, of course, is no stranger to the esoteric, making no secret of his interest in occultist Aleister Crowley and the attendant magick, and there were even rumours the band made a Faustian pact to achieve fame and fortune. But hiding messa

[valdomarx]

[Inception fic] A Pale Imitation

Fandom: Inception (2010) Relationship: Arthur/Eames Link: Also on AO3.

People think that forging is copying. They think that you look at a target, take in the lines of their nose, the slope of their shoulders, the shape of their eyes, and then you reproduce it. As if a forger were a photocopier: image in, image out.

But that's not it at all. You need to get the visual details right, sure, but they are not what sells the effect. Especially in a dream. What sells it is the way that someone stands, the way that they move, the inflection in their voice when they get passionate. It's how they brace themselves under pressure, how their face ripples when they try to repress an emotion.

To be a forger is to be a psychologist.

Eames can do a passable forgery of anyone he's ever met. He can do an expert forgery of anyone he's observed for more than a few days. His forgeries have been accurate enough to fool spouses, parents, best friends, even twins. He is a very, very good forger.

He can't forge Arthur.

He'd first noticed it on a job with Cobb. Arthur had been playing a minor role in the dream on the second level, but he'd been hit by a stray bullet and had been kicked up to the first level. They needed someone to stand in for Arthur, so Cobb tapped in Eames.

Eames had slid into Arthur's skin easily enough: the neat, precise movements, the fastidious arrangement of clothing, the face that settled naturally into a slight sneer.

But when he slipped into the room with Cobb and the mark, he knew instantly that something was wrong. The mark didn't notice anything – he'd barely spoken to Arthur – but Cobb shot him an odd look, brows furrowed. Every time Eames opened his mouth, Cobb's face darkened.

Once they extracted the information they needed and kicked the mark back up to the higher dream level, Cobb grabbed his wrist.

“What the hell, Eames?” he hissed. “That's a rookie forgery if I ever saw one. It wouldn't fool me for a second.”

An angry defensiveness had twisted in Eames' gut, mostly because he knew that Cobb was right. His forged Arthur was fundamentally wrong in some unknown way.

Other people think that forging is about memorising, as if you stand in front of a wardrobe and pick an outfit by remembering if you've seen the target more often wearing a red shirt or a blue shirt. But that's not how it works either. You need to understand the target, to see the world through their eyes, to inhabit their perspective so fully that you don't need to remember – you instinctively know that they would choose the blue. Forging is, more than anything, an exercise of empathy.

People tend to underestimate Eames. His tacky clothes and carefully insolent demeanour are a highly effective distraction: people are so busy laughing at his lack of class that they let their defences down and show him their true selves. And Eames notices everything.

He understands subtext, the power of the unspoken. He understands repression and the turning away from that which is most crucial. He understand the multitudes within every person: kindness and hatred; care and indifference; fortitude and weakness.

He doesn't understand Arthur.

The next time this becomes a problem, they're on another job and Arthur needs Eames to fill in for him.

They've been refining the Mister Charles play, and they've discovered that it's more likely to succeed when the mark has a sense of familiarity towards whomever is impersonating their head of security. For this particular job, Arthur has been trailing the mark in the real world, sitting right on the edge of his field of view in bars and cafes, passing him on the street a couple of times. Just enough to establish a vague feeling of recognition.

Now they've pulled the mark into a dream, only the one level, but his mental state is twitchier than they anticipated. It's a three man job: one person to play Mr. Charles, one person to locate the safe, and one person to run interference. Cobb takes the interference role, Arthur works on the safe, and that leaves Eames to play Arthur as Mr. Charles.

The moment that he slips into Arthur's form he can tell that something is wrong. He feels too stiff, stands too straight, his face has none of Arthur's sardonic humour. He focuses on getting the job done, and thank god the mark isn't the shiniest penny in the box. He's suspicious, sure, and the projections close in on them fast. But he's obvious too, dropping a bank vault full of secrets right into the middle of a restaurant. They grab the information and high tail it out of there, furious restaurant patrons clamouring after them.

In the moments before the kick Arthur turns to Eames, his face impassive.

“Not your best work, Eames,” he says, lip curled.

It's the last thing Eames remembers before the dream collapses.

Eames can't understand what the problem is. He's spent god know how many hours in Arthur's company. He's seen him stressed, seen him excited, seen him poised for action and anticipating every moment. He recognises the way Arthur holds himself, the things that Arthur thinks are funny, the way Arthur hums to himself when he thinks no one is watching.

Adopting Arthur's physical form isn't the problem. He can do a damn fine forgery of Arthur's arse, of which he is particularly proud.

There's something that's missing, though. Something deeper. Something more personal.

And it's driving Eames crazy, because he can't work out what it is.

He's mouthing off about his frustration in the old warehouse that the team has taken over for their latest job. Yusuf thinks that the problem is neurochemical, some kind of response to using the PASIV together so many times, But Eames can forge Cobb and the others, and they've gone under together just as often. Ariadne thinks that the problem is architectural, that Eames has to build his representation of Arthur with more detail and balance.

“Maybe you need to observe Arthur more closely,” Yusuf suggests with a shrug. “Like any other target.”

Ariadne fixes Eames with a penetrating gaze. “Pretty sure that's not the problem,” she says quietly.

Arthur himself doesn't comment on Eames' difficulties in recreating him. He simply smiles that sharp, superior smile whenever the subject is brought up.

Eames imagines him writing it down in his silly little notebook: November 21st. Eames still underperforming. Replace him for next job?

In Eames' mind, the word replace is written in red ink and underlined several times.

It's a puzzle, a nagging thought at the back of Eames' mind that he turns over on occasions when he wants to torture himself. He spends hours trying to capture Arthur’s essence, and failing.

He tries modelling Arthur's behavioural quirks: how he fiddles with his cufflinks when he needs a moment to collect himself, the sharp nod he gives on the rare occasions when he is genuinely impressed, the way he bounces on the balls of his feet when he doesn't feel in control. Eames can recreate each of them flawlessly.

And yet his facsimiles of Arthur are still wrong. They are too flat or too expressive, too uptight or too languid, too snarky or too earnest.

There is something very distinctly Arthur that is missing.

His limitation regarding Arthur is a subject of merely abstract curiosity until he’s needed again in the field. The team is doing a complex extraction job against a mark with militarised subconscious and the projections are raining hell down on them.

Arthur's been hit, and he's bleeding out from a chest wound. It's a nasty one and he won't last long.

Eames finds it hard to look at: the crimson blood spilling out across the dirty concrete floor, in sharp contrast with Arthur's pale and increasingly sallow skin. He has yanked off his tie and he's holding it to the wound, trying to staunch the flow. It's not right to see Arthur like this, crumpled and dishevelled, blood seeping between his fingers.

Eames will snap his neck with his bare hands if he has to. He will have nightmares about it for months, but he will do it to spare Arthur the pain.

He goes to put him out of his agony, but Cobb stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Wait. We can't do this job without Arthur. If he pulls out, we have to leave too.”

“No,” Arthur coughs weakly. Blood oozes between his fingers. “This is our only chance. You can do this. Eames can take my place.”

“We both know that won't work,” Eames says, forcing himself not to look away from Arthur's mangled body. “I can't forge you.”

“That's because you don't understand me,” Arthur says, and there's an actual smile breaking through the pain.

“Insightful as ever, darling. It’s because you’re inexplicable.” Eames keeps his tone light but he holds Arthur’s gaze steadily.

“It's because -” Arthur hacks, an ugly, rattling sound deep in his throat. “It's because I'm in love with you, Eames. I have been since the Fischer job. Maybe before, I don't know.”

Eames stares. That's ridiculous, one part of his mind thinks. Arthur doesn't even like him. He barely tolerates his messiness and his ignorance and his childish whims. Eames thinks back over every disapproving frown, every curled lip, every time that Arthur has made his displeasure with Eames abundantly clear.

And yet, another part of his mind thinks. Something in his memory shifts and recontextualises, and then he's thinking of narrowed eyes that track his movements unfalteringly, not because of suspicion but because of interest, of explosions of temper when Eames puts himself in danger, not because of anger but because of worry, of a smug smirk that radiates affection, not superiority.

Eames feels as if he's standing on the brink of the Penrose stairs and that the ground has shifted beneath his feet.

“You don't have to say anything,” Arthur says weakly. “Go finish the job. We'll talk once it's done.”

Once Eames has that key piece of information, forging Arthur is simple. Eames inhabits Arthur's form, feels his fondness for precision and order, his meticulous mind with every piece of information sorted and categorised. But beyond that, underneath that, there is an ocean of love and warmth and affection. It bubbles up to the surface in unexpected ways, and Arthur pushes it back down every time. But still, it is there if you know how to look.

It's there in the way Arthur works so hard to keep the team safe, and his lashing anger when anyone gets hurt and he blames himself. It's there in the way Arthur looks up when he feels Eames watching him, sarcasm pouring out of him like a castle defence of boiling oil. It's there in the way Arthur stands a little closer to Eames than he means to, unaware of it himself, as if his body knows his feelings better than his mind does.

It's there in that infuriating smirk that has been turned on Eames so many times, that telegraphs Arthur's attention and his uncertainty and his soft heart all at once.

He and Cobb finish the job. His forgery of Arthur works like a charm.

As the two of them are on a roof, ready to kick themselves back to reality, Cobb turns to him.

“Be gentle with Arthur,” he says, stony-faced. “He's more sensitive than people realise.”

Then Cobb pushes him off the roof.

Eames goes to Arthur, once the job is tied up and everyone has gone their separate ways. He tries very hard not to think about thick red blood oozing from an ugly hole in Arthur’s chest.

Arthur brings Eames to a seedy hotel.

Bloody hell. Okay then, Eames thinks, surprised that Arthur is so forward but more than willing to go with it.

But when they arrive in their room, Arthur pulls out a chunky briefcase and unpacks a PASIV device.

“Another job?” Eames keeps his voice light, teasing. “Did you bring me to a love nest to work me to death? Is that your ultimate kink? I can’t say that I’m altogether surprised.”

Arthur gives him a look that clearly conveys you’re an idiot and subtly conveys and I love you for it, and hands him an IV.

Curious as to where this is going, Eames pushes the IV into the soft skin of his elbow and they both go under together.

Eames opens his eyes in an aviary. Sunlight streams through the glass windows two stories high, and the jungle plants surrounding them make the air hot and humid. Everywhere he looks, birds of every size and colour and species flit past him, twirling around each other in an impossibly complex dance.

“It’s a training room,” Arthur explains as he walks up next to Eames. “I’ve been working on an environment for new recruits.”

A blue tit with feathers glowing bright cyan settles on Eames’ hand. It bobs and turns to look at him with dark, intense eyes. It is unnerving to be so keenly observed by a bird.

“Forge me,” Arthur says. “I want to see what you can do.”

Eames feels an uncharacteristic nervousness, like this is some sort of test and failing it could cost him dearly. But Arthur is smiling at him, or at least the corner of his mouth is turned up a tiny bit, and for Arthur that’s huge.

Eames closes his eyes, thinks of Arthur, and steps into his forgery.

This time, when he opens his eyes he sees the same view as before but from several inches higher. He feels the expensive cotton of his shirt tight around his wrists and neck, constraining but comforting. He feels an urge to assess the environment for flaws, to deconstruct it, to quantify it and list it and to put everything it in its right place. He feels like Arthur.

Arthur is leaning in close and examining him minutely. “Much better,” he says.

And then Eames turns his own gaze inward and looks deep, beyond the desire for optimisation and order, beyond the fancy suits and the walls of professionalism. He searches for Arthur’s true motivations and finds them, lets himself feel the depth of Arthur’s care, his affection, his protectiveness. For the team, and for Cobb in particular, but most of all for Eames.

Observing Arthur’s love for him from within his own mind is like being inside a kaleidoscope, every feeling reflected and refracted in an ever changing symmetry.

It’s beautiful. It’s overwhelming. It’s more than Eames deserves.

He wraps a hand around the back of Arthur’s neck, pulls him close, and kisses him deeply.

The kiss is perfect, passionate and intense and soft, for about two seconds. Then they break apart because Arthur bursts out laughing.

“You’re going to have to take that off,” he sniggers, and Eames assumes he means his clothes until he realises that he’s still wearing his forgery of Arthur.

“What, you never wanted to snog yourself? You’re missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime, I can assure you. And I’m speaking from experience.”

Arthur cuffs him round the back of the head. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you love it,” Eames says, slipping back into his own form.

Arthur smiles at him so softly. “I like the real you better,” he says, and it’s the most earnest that Eames has ever heard him.

Eames thinks about all he’s learned about Arthur, about how wrong he had been about so many things. “I like the real you too,” he says, and pulls him in for another kiss.

[thomaschattertonwilliams]

By Thomas Chatterton Williams July 20, 2018 LONDON — When the world first learned of Michael Jackson’s death, from an accidental overdose in 2009, the news had a whiff of unreality about it. This was in no small part because, for so long, it had been hard to remember that he was actually a person. A child prodigy who in adulthood became a genuine Peter Pan — fantastically refusing to grow old — Jackson was always more an idea than a human being in the flesh. Nearly a decade later, the shape-shifting body frozen in memory, his extraordinary image endures as if he never left. Now, an ambitious and thought-provoking new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, running through Oct. 21, seeks to measure the impact and reach of Jackson as muse and cultural artifact. “Michael Jackson: On the Wall,” curated by Nicholas Cullinan, sprawls without feeling bloated, occupying 14 rooms and bringing together the work of 48 artists across numerous media, from Andy Warhol’s instantly recognizable silk-screen prints and grainy black-and-white snapshots, to a vast oil painting by Kehinde Wiley. (Jeff Koons’s famous porcelain sculpture “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” is notably absent, though it is reinterpreted in several other pieces.) First the obvious: No artwork, however clever or pretty, that has been inspired by a talent the size of Jackson’s can compete with its source material. To get the most out of what this show has to offer it is best to acknowledge this at the entrance and move on, as the most successful pieces do, eschewing strictly aesthetic concerns and exploring instead Jackson’s conceptual possibilities. Consider for example one of the simplest works in the show, David Hammons’s 2001 installation, “Which Mike Do You Want to Be Like…?” The piece — full of wondrous pride even as it conjures a sense of depressing limitation — consists of three abnormally tall microphones and its title recalls the Holy Trinity of late-20th-century black American entertainment icons as set out by the rapper The Notorious B.I.G.: “I excel like Mike, anyone: Tyson, Jordan, Jackson.” (B.I.G.’s own guest feature on Jackson’s 1995 “History” album marked a crowning achievement in his career.) More than 20 years later, rappers still clamor for a Jackson co-sign. On “Scorpion,” his latest chart-topping release, Drake flexed the ultimate status symbol, having purchased the rights to unreleased vocals and scoring a posthumous feature with the King of Pop. Jackson, more than Tyson or even Jordan, so epitomized black excellence that Ebony magazine could unselfconsciously run an airbrushed image of him on the cover in 2007, his creamy skin and silky cascading hair framing a razor-sharp jawline, beside a headline reading “Inside: The Africa You Don’t Know.” A year after the singer’s death, Lyle Ashton Harris recreated that image on Ghanaian funerary fabric. It’s jarring to compare the real late-life M.J. with another imaginary iteration that Hank Willis Thomas appropriates in one of the show’s more shocking offerings, “Time Can Be a Villain or a Friend (1984/2009).” In this, we see an uncannily convincing, and wholesomely handsome rendition of Jackson with his natural skin tone, a pencil-thin mustache on his lip and an ever-so-lightly relaxed puff of hair on his head. Mr. Thomas explains in the catalog that it is simply an artist’s rendering from a 1984 issue of Ebony, a glimpse of what the magazine imagined Jackson would look like in the year 2000. Without any alteration, it is by far “On the Wall’s” most critical work — the image originally so full of pride and hope is now an indictment, and haunts the show like a scathing rebuke. In this post-post-racial, post-Obama era of resurgent populism and Balkanized identity politics, it really does feel as though it matters — and matters more than anything else — whether you’re black or white. It does make for a particularly fascinating moment to re-evaluate Jackson’s image as a fundamentally “black” but simultaneously racially transcendent figure, or a monstrous desecration, depending on your perspective. Indeed, there is a push and pull between these running through the exhibition and the catalog that accompanies it. In the catalog, the critic Margo Jefferson calls Jackson “a postmodern trickster god,” noting “what visceral emotion he stirred (and continues to stir) in us!” She anticipates, in the next pages, the novelist and essayist Zadie Smith’s castigating contribution. Ms. Smith writes of her mother’s initial preoccupation with the singer: “I think the Jacksons represented the possibility that black might be beautiful, that you might be adored in your blackness — worshiped, even.” But, she adds, “By the time I became aware of Michael — around 1980 or so — my mother was finished with him, for reasons she never articulated, but which became clear soon enough. For me, he very soon became a traumatic figure, shrouded in shame.” “It was as if the schizophrenic, self-hating, hypocritical and violent history of race in America had incarnated itself in a single man,” Ms. Smith concludes. This critique is at odds with the warmth with which many black people still hold the singer, particularly in the United States, where he remains enormously beloved. But it calls to mind the furious assault on Jackson’s racial credentials with which Ta-Nehisi Coates began a recent essay on Kanye West. “Michael Jackson was God, but not just God in scope and power, though there was certainly that, but God in his great mystery,” Mr. Coates writes. “And he had always been dying — dying to be white.” He continues: We knew that we were tied to him, that his physical destruction was our physical destruction, because if the black God, who made the zombies dance, who brokered great wars, who transformed stone to light, if he could not be beautiful in his own eyes, then what hope did we have — mortals, children — of ever escaping what they had taught us, of ever escaping what they said about our mouths, about our hair and our skin, what hope did we ever have of escaping the muck? And he was destroyed. Such criticism, however heartfelt and comprehensible, makes the mistake of reducing Jackson to the role of tribal ambassador in a society built on oversimplified and regressive notions of racial and gender identity that his own art and self-presentation never stopped pushing against. It occludes the far subtler and more interesting insights that a genius can provoke, and too confidently pigeonholes an individual who knowingly rejected the stifling limitations of his country’s artificial racial binary for a dupe. The man who wrote “We Are the World” and “Liberian Girl,” and proudly recreated Egyptian splendor in “Remember the Time,” had an idealistic and expansive view of our common humanity. His androgyny, too, helped shatter restrictive notions of black masculinity. One of the most counterintuitive and compelling contributions to “On the Wall” is Lorraine O’Grady’s series of four diptychs, “The First and Last of the Modernists (Charles and Michael).” Comprising blown-up found photographs of the 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire and Jackson striking similar poses and tinted in a variety of pastel hues, like many of the works here, these pieces deal inventively with the theme of mirroring. “When Michael died, I tried to understand why was I crying like he was a member of my family,” Ms. O’Grady explained in an interview at the show’s opening in June. “I realized the only person I could compare him to was Baudelaire,” she said, listing ambiguous sexuality and a proclivity for wearing makeup as commonalities. “But more importantly, they both had this exalted idea of the role of the artist,” Ms. O’Grady added. “If Baudelaire thought he tried to explain the new world he was living in to the people around him, Michael had an even more exalted vision: He felt that he was capable of uniting the entire world through his music.” In Ms. O’Grady’s view, Jackson didn’t simply try to become “white,” as his detractors would have it — rather he “crafted himself physically to appeal to every demographic possible,” she said. By the time of his death, Jackson had long been one of the most famous people on the planet, if not the most famous. The footage of his “Dangerous” tour in newly post-Ceausescu Romania, on display in an eerie loop, provides hallucinatory testament to his outrageous global reach. It is estimated that his memorial service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles reached at least a billion people worldwide. “The first of the new is always the last of something else,” Ms. O’Grady notes in the catalog. Baudelaire, she writes, “was both the first of the modernists and the last of the romantics.” And Jackson “may have been the last of the modernists (no one can ever aspire to greatness that unironically again) but he was the first of the postmodernists.” He was, perhaps, the first of the post-racialists, too. Yet in our hyper-connected age of heightened political consciousness and reactionary fervor, in which identity is both a weapon and a defense, that view of race can feel naïve. But this is a failure of our own imaginations and dreams, not his. As “On the Wall” makes clear, Jackson’s own face — through a combination of fame and relentless surgery — became a mask, reflecting our own biases and ideals while concealing a deeper truth. His art and lasting appeal, on the other hand, function as a reminder to consider our own disguises, and what we might gain by letting them go. Michael Jackson: On the Wall Through Oct. 21 at the National Portrait Gallery, London; npg.org.uk.

[jillian255-blog1]

Blog #5: Volver Analysis

Sole, Paula, and Raimunda

The 2006 drama, Volver, takes place near Madrid, Spain and captures the lives of Raimunda, her daughter Paula, and her sister Sole, as they deal with the recent passing of their Aunt Paula. Shortly before their Aunt Paula’s death, she confesses to the women that their late mother, Irene, (who had died in a fire years before with their father) had been taking care of her. The women dismiss this as a symptom of her dementia until their Aunt’s neighbor, Agustina, also claims to have heard Irene speaking which the sisters try to disregard. Sole then begins seeing Irene herself but tries to keep it a secret from Raimunda who is busy dealing with her vile husband’s murder.

Despite never having heard of this movie previously, I really enjoyed it. It was visually stunning in many scenes, offered interesting angles and perspectives, and had a very compelling plot. Honestly, I enjoyed the close relationship that Raimunda shared with her daughter, Paula, as it reminds me a lot of the relationship I have with my mother. The closeness and familiarity of the characters, in general, felt very safe and comforting; I almost feel as though I am part of the community when watching it.

The film’s budget was estimated to be around €7,450,000 while its total worldwide gross was about $85,585,000 (Volver). The director, Pedro Almodóvar, is famed for his movies whose topics have surrounded death, the complexities of sexual desire, violence, and sexual abuse. He has also won awards for his past works including an Academy Award for “Best Foreign-Language Film”, “Best Director” from the Cannes Film Festival, and “Best Original Screenplay” at the Oscars (Britannica). It is said that the prominent female characters and quirky small town in the film are meant to mimic the women and rural area Almodóvar was raised in during the 1950s and 60s (Holland, 2014). Almodóvar grew up during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco who’s reign over Spain involved the placement of civil codes that struck patriarchal tones and gave women limited rights. It was not until 1975 (close to Francisco Franco’s death) that restrictions were lifted and women could be recognized as the “head” of a family, procure assets, and receive passports without showing proof of marriage among other things (Miguel, Martínez, González, Vadell, Pérez, Diz, 2014). As the country has since grown to reflect an attitude that leans more closely towards gender equality, there is still an imbalance between men and women which is clearly evident in the media. This imbalance pertains to much of Spanish media in which men are represented more often than women and women are typically much younger (Miguel, et al, 2014). Almodóvar’s response to this involved creating a mostly female cast with characters of different ages to produce a film that is mainly female-centered. In this way, Volver both celebrates women and effectively blasts the notion that men need to be chiefly present in all Spanish media.

Raimunda Singing “Volver”

The film was released in 2006 and is about two hours in length. It was shot using a 35 mm Panavision Panaflex Millennium camera in Madrid, Spain (Volver). Almodóvar’s expressive use of color and interesting perspectives are used to dramatize scenes, draw viewers attention to certain aspects within a frame, or create a particular mood. This can be observed in the scene where Raimunda sings a song that her supposedly deceased mother taught her as a child during a party she is catering. The scene is powerful and full of emotion as Raimunda sings the song with passion and a noticeable sadness. Viewers can observe that this is a crucial scene based on the perspective of the shot that shows Raimunda in the center of the musicians and partygoers, as well as the vibrant colors that bring attention to her. Another part that utilizes perspective and color is the scene when Raimunda discovers her murdered husband. The camera is perched above her and she is seen standing over his bloodied body. With this angle, viewers have a similar view to the one that she has in that they can survey the entire situation from her viewpoint. Furthermore, Almodóvar’s use of color is important to note as the red pool of blood around the body expresses severity and presses for the viewers attention but Raimunda still manages to stand out thanks to her glaringly red sweater.

From an ethical perspective, the film should entertain the viewer in a way that does not disrespect or harm anyone in any way. The movie does not seem to perpetuate any commonly known stereotypes of the Latino culture. Some common stereotypes and generalizations include that Latinos are associated with crime, poverty, illegal immigration, and gangs which are ideas that are typically maintained through the media (Lester, 2013). Almodóvar clearly does not try to perpetuate any of these harsh and false Latino stereotypes through Volver. Instead, the film is a celebration of the Latino culture and people as he recreated a reality that closely resembles his childhood. However, Almodóvar does employ the Utilitarianism ethical principle to show the character’s real way of life while also maintaining their dignity. For instance, the main characters are not extremely well off, in that, there are a few scenes where Raimunda has to ask her neighbors to lend her food to cook with until she can pay them back for it. There is also a scene where Raimunda frets about her husband being laid off from his job. These subtle hints allude to the fact that Raimunda’s family has to work hard to make a living and are probably not wealthy. Almodóvar implemented Utilitarianism through his creative choice to build a family that has to work hard to stay afloat but also does not see money as a giant problem. Essentially, he chose to depict Raimunda’s family in a way that showed the character’s successes while also giving viewers a serious glimpse of their hardships (Lester, 2013).

In terms of semiotics, color is again an important aspect to pay attention to in the film. Not only is it implemented to create a particulate mood and draw the viewer’s attention to things, but it is also used to send messages. For instance, in the scene where Raimunda discovers her husband’s bloody body, she makes the risky decision to clean up the crime so her daughter does not go to jail. Raimunda cleans the murder by removing the knife from her husband’s stomach and wiping up his blood with paper towels and a mop. The extensive amount of blood in this scene is important as it is used to show the horrifying extent of the crime and to further deepen the severity of Raimunda's actions. Above all, the visual cue of color is used to counteract the film’s darker themes of murder, regret, sorrow, and death. The name of the movie, Volver, also carries a significant meaning as its literal translation means “to return”. This can be applied to any one of the scenarios played out within the film including, the women’s mother coming back into their lives after she was believed to be dead, their Aunt’s neighbor, Agustina’s, sad realization that her mother would never come back home, the eerie wind that reappears and brings with it uncertainty, and of course, Raimunda’s return to her mother in the end. In this way, “Volver” can have many meanings associated with it including one that reminds viewers that things will eventually return.

Irene and Raimunda

The film combines melodrama and realism to create a movie that would appeal not just to Latinos, but people all over the world. Volver depicts strong tones of family, solidarity, and warmth that pays homage to Latinos and their culturally rich heritage and customs. Death is a particularly important notion to the film that is played out in the beginning when the camera pans across a graveyard to show women who are busy cleaning gravestones. It is understood from this scene that tombstones are meant to be looked after by members of the departed’s family. Agustina even prepares for death by looking after her own gravestone which is a conventional practice in the town. Traditions and family values are carried on throughout the film taking precedence over all other aspects. Neighbors look after each other, lovers reunite, and families stay together. These instances are examples of the close familial bonds and relationships that Latino’s cherish and that Pedro Almodóvar cherished while growing up. Therefore, Volver is a reflection of this message that brings him back to his Spanish roots and connects the world with them too.

References:

Google Images

Gutiérrez San Miguel, B., Ibáñez Martínez, M. L., Carcedo González, R., Bujosa Vadell, L. M., del Pozo Pérez, M., & Martín Diz, F. (2014). Gender roles and the Spanish media, a three-decade-long comparative study. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 69, 213–228.

Holland, J. (2014, October 15). Volver. Retrieved from https://variety.com/2006/film/awards/volver-2-1200517470/

Lester, P. M. (2013). Visual communication: images with messages. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, September 21). Pedro Almodóvar. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pedro-Almodovar

Volver. (2006, March 17). Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441909/

[onlinefriednoodles]

Pursuit in Mobility - Reviews and Comparisons of selected Architectural Exhibition

*This is a course assignment (´・ω・`)

*This is a course assignment (´・ω・`)

*This is a course assignment (´・ω・`) 

3. Prospect: Changes in the Character of Design

After the House Vision 3, Tsuchiya Sadao wrote a summary documenting the overall process and their activities in China. At the end of the summary, he was very optimistic about the results and its impact: “House Vision want to show the public the on-going social trends, at the same time depict a vibrant and energetic blueprint. …To us, exhibitions are no more than one link in the chain.”[1] It reveals the biggest difference between House Vision and Weissenhof Estate: architecture, or the architectural design in terms of family houses, is stepping off the altar, and becoming a field that public can share in-depth participation.

 Most of the pioneer architects took part in Weissenhof Estate had a strong desire to set standards for architecture of next generation. As mentioned previously, the Five Points of Architecture did not completely transform into the sole evaluation criteria of a good architecture, but truly has become the cornerstone of today's building standards, with a profound impact all over the world. Perhaps because of the increasingly detailed division of labor in industry, architects participated in the House Vision, on the other hand, have no such ambition, and are more like advisors to suggest adaption of new technologies and products. One should remember that real permanent houses were not goals in the exhibitions, which means the entries, in comparison with the 21 houses in Stuttgart, had more freedom to explore forms that sometimes considered inappropriate in real life housing. In terms of Mobility, the House of Mobility was certainly too open for general users, and the needs of using a machine to support indoor movement is still being widely questioned: many are worried about the excessive dependence on machinery will destroy the healthiness of human. On the website of Honda, they rendered the possible usage cases of UNI-CUB, one of the key products in the entry, as “moving around in airports, aquariums, shopping malls, libraries, museums and other indoor facilities.”[2] And they tried to introduce the system into housing, which is kind of funny because most of the contemporary housing, no matter in Tokyo or Beijing, are relatively small due to the high population and extreme shortage of land. One may argue that the products were meant to serve elderly or people with inconvenience, but it is hard to determine whether the design was suitable for these kind of people. As for the MARS Case, it is even more doubtful that under most circumstances, wall-embedded appliances are not very convenient to use or make individual changes, not to speak of the desired mobility of the house itself. The house actually could not be folded; the bubble part could not change its shape at all, limited by the existing material. The structure was set carefully in the middle of a stage box, mimicking the environment on Mars. [Fig.11]

Fig.11:   Nacasa & Partners Inc. : Photo of MARS Case

The overall spatial quality as mentioned above, in the House of Mobility and Energy and the MARS Case, is of course, yet, not suitable for a “home”. It seems easy to make a criticism, of the limitation of House Vision: these exhibitions are ultimately more like a product revel in the industry, rather than an architectural exhibition that affect the course of history. However, whether academic or public, the House Vision has got a pretty good response and gained its reputation. Such results and the changing concept of Mobility, has brought a trend to light, the Productize of Architecture. Architects are getting more and more like product designers: the Mobility in Stuttgart, in the time of Le Corbusier, was achieved by the recreation of the layout of space. It was architects who take the initiative. While the Mobility in House Vision, does not matter much with the layout, but mainly reflected by the products used. It is not necessary a bad thing, as these exhibitions did succeed in showing the possible collaboration of architecture and products. Nevertheless, one needs to be vigilant of the over-productization. In a letter wrote in 1926, during the curation of the Weissenhofsiedlung, Mies expressed his question about standardization:

“…We need not and cannot fall into the usual error of standardization-mania. We have to handle the housing problem in its entire scope… I believe that particularly in the single-family house, only parts should be standardized, never the whole, which would exclude desirable possibilities.”[3]

 Just like Le Corbusier’s inadvertently mistakes on the corridors in the paired house, although Mies himself fell in to the “doctrine of standardization albeit conditionally and partially, Weissenhof was left open to the charge of formalism he had earlier so strongly condemned”[4], the question in his letter was still an inspiring argument that can constantly remind architects to avoid the trap of productization-mania. Architecture, ultimately, is something about space, and one shall always keep that in mind.

The selected projects were only part of the House Vision, and with no doubt the House Vision has broke a new ground. As for Mobility, however, it seems that there is still lack of discussion of the spiritual part. In the Weissenhof Estate, the early slogan was recorded as “the spiritualization of German production”, and some German writers argued that “Technology was an indispensable agent of modern freedom and spiritual growth but that it had to be ‘spiritualized’.”[5] The discussion and exploration on topics from moving freely inside, to making the house itself movable and making nomadic spaces are critical to realize “modern freedom”, but it is hard to define how the Mobility in spiritual aspect has developed. It is not depreciating the effort of the two selected projects on discovering the new mobility, but their touch was just kind of shallow and on surface, in some perspectives. It still remained on the physical phases, that current available interviews and articles about the two projects were mainly talking about the physical movement of houses. Architects have achieved free floor plans by adapting mimicry of vehicles; then taking vehicle into houses; finally we’ve come to the stage of a moving suitcase, but what is next? The definition of the word “Mobility” is “to move or be moved freely and easily”, thus how can architecture help human to think freely? This could be the next key issue to work on, and probably it is exactly the most important Mobility for the future.

 (Word Count: 4004)

[1] Kenya HARA, Executive committee of HOUSE VISION (2018). HOUSE VISION 2018 BEIJING EXHIBITION, China: CITIC Press Corporation,181

[2] Honda, UNI-CUB, retrieved from: https://global.honda/innovation/robotics/UNI-CUB.html

[3] Pommer, R., & Otto, C. F., Weissenhof 1927 and the modern movement in architecture. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 69

[4] Pommer, R., & Otto, C. F., Weissenhof 1927 and the modern movement in architecture. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 70

[5] Pommer, R., & Otto, C. F., Weissenhof 1927 and the modern movement in architecture. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 70

[redantsunderneath]

An explanation of the end of Twin Peaks that provides closure

Short version, unpacked below:  The story in the World of Twin Peaks has its end mid part 17 when the lights go out in the sheriff's station (with a farewell coda at the boiler room door).  Coop’s face superimposed on the screen indicates a dissociative episode, one foot on the denouement of the TP story and one in the temptation of solving the only unresolved issue: Laura.  The remainder of the show is a “last temptation of Cooper” fantasy/nightmare where the lesson metaphorically learned through his 25 years in the lodge is played out in the real world and demonstrates the horrific consequences of wasting your life in an obsession with solving other’s problems without facing your own.  After Coop’s nightmare climax winks out, leaving us in the real world as pre-season Coop returns to the lodge.  As farewell, we get the lingering lesson of the whisper, “you can never save me,” which brings us around to the fact that this has been learned before Coop leaves the Lodge – we end at the beginning, and this 1.5 episodes really belong before the first (holla, Infinite Jest fans) and is placed here as a remembered lesson, a real world version of 25 years in the lodge.

So, biases on the table – I needed an explanation that accomplished 3 things:

1. Provides closure – it has to work as a series finale without all the “there has to be a fourth season now”

2. Allows for Coop to not have to have, after the last 25 years, not learned his lesson – no cycle of “never learn” purgatory allowed

3. Saving Laura is bad because it robs her of agency and redemption and Coop’s desire to do it is damaging and reflects his deepest flaw

I bring a couple of preconceptions to the table that are, for certain, not universal.

1 Coop lost his confrontation with his shadow self (s2e22) because of his tainted savior complex.  This is due to the nature of white knight-ism itself (reducing women to grail objects), his repeating pattern of his relationships being structured this way (he tried to break this pattern with Annie, but Windom Earle placed her back in this context, setting him up for a fall), and a general fascination with the dark/morbid aspects of humanity/sexuality (grinning inappropriately at Fleshworld, desiring to see dead bodies at a young age, job enabled obsession with victims of sexual violence after it is too late). But also, the problem to be solved is that of a system that he has internalized, a kind of “bad” pattern of the way males and females relate, and he has not really taken a look at himself (or the FBI for that matter).  Going back to save Laura is the direct but wrong way to deal with his deepest desires and the problem with the world and not only would rob her of her own salvation but has the same cosmic wrongness that is demonstrated by the zombie Kahl Drogo sequence in GoT (has anyone compared that yet?). This is bad Coop – ends justify the means, playing with dark forces, trucking in life and death.  Mr C, another words.

2 In the World of Twin Peaks, things work like TV (the OS like nighttime soaps the Return like prestige drama) but with the symbolic aspects manifested as a psychological space of archetypes spilling in to the ground reality.  Thus, conflicts are played out metaphorically, but one can imagine the real world analogue to any of these.  Coop’s confrontation in the (s2 last episode) Lodge becomes him losing himself to his darker impulses given the situation (Annie possibly being killed like Caroline), killing Earle in rage, and this changing him, his demons taking over.  The current season does a lot to define the TP world against our world, both in implicating a dreamer (not just Lynch and Frost, but the audience which includes “real world” Coop/Richard, see below), placing Audrey/Sherlyn Fenn there (this only makes sense but is too much to broach here), including a real world city limits sign to contrast with the TP sign, and casting the owner of the house as the owner of the house.  

3 The ring represents responsibility for your actions.  Choosing to put the ring on is an act of radical self-determination, taking responsibility who you are and what you have done, enabling a choice whether to succumb to your demons, and dangerously stepping into the unknown world where the will meets the real (as opposed to the self-imagined or the civilized-symbolic).  Having the ring put on you is forcing responsibility and exposing someone to judgement.  I’d love to see a Green Lantern that took this view of the “ring of will,” the unworthy burning themselves out.  Cooper telling Laura “don’t take the ring” is a mistake of someone who has yet to learn the lesson (see savior complex above).  She and maybe some element of the world is saved by her sacrifice which is enacted by owning her actions.

4 I haven’t seen mentioned that, with everybody noting the Wizard of Oz nature of the “last scene in the world of TP,” the superimposed face is an element of going from Kansas to Oz.  Dorothy’s face doubles and the double hangs superimposed over the cyclone.  This is that in reverse, going from the “dream” to the real world.

5 Remember when Laura not only screamed at Cooper in FWWM (in black and white, Oz dudes) but then every line she says after that works as if addressed to him?  “Your Laura is gone, there’s only me now” “you want to take me home now.” That was awesome

6 Naido is only revealed to be Diane in the dissociative space while Coop’s real analogue views the dream, starting (seeing Naido is the first “split off” moment). Until then she is the injured, unaware, incoherent feminine who makes monkey noises, firmly in the symbolic space, rescue bait for old Cooper, the agency-less victim.  Coop maps her to Diane but also to the red room (face, Diane’s nail and hair choices).  The red room is a feminine space – vaginal red curtains, Venuses (note the replacement of the Venus DeMilo with no arms with the Venus of Arles with the arms ripped off, a change of nature, Naido to Judy), and the fact that the trial of the masculine entails facing the feminine.  Naido is a figment of the male imagination and being turned into the 3d Diane is the moment Coop shows he has learned.

7 Judy is tough to talk about, but we are gonna. The FBI men have clearly been on a search for something wrong with women (OK, the feminine) they can fix. Being less charitable, the function of the FBI in Twin Peaks the Return is to investigate what went wrong with women since WWII… what with the acting like men, gaining subjectivity, being less nurturing, and all. Charitably, something is wrong in every generation with the masculine and the feminine and the wish to try to find a solution.  Judy as the goddess of negative feminine energy makes sense, but Coop seems to be looking for something more like “the daughter” (Naido identifies Judy as mother just as Sarah is Laura’s mother), the woman in trouble to be saved from her Judy-bred impulses. This is kind of hard to articulate but this goes to my “TP is about Boomers” theory where there is a post war problem with the feminine associated with inattentiveness (Judy and Naido have no eyes), a replacement of the maternal succor with aggression, and a putting a part of its nature asleep.  Naido is the vulnerable, underdeveloped, defanged product of this.  

8 Coop’s 25 year period is a metaphor for the problems of America but, more importantly, is a metaphorical story of a man at war with himself.  Cooper’s fireman nature (strong, silent, problem solving, scrupulous, doing what needs to be done, productive of joy – in the lodge) has been suppressed in favor of his Bob nature (a taker, end justifies the means, all goal - doing what he wants, leaving destruction – Mr C) but it is Dougie (the original) that is the “real” Cooper in that this is the identity that has been manufactured to cover the deeper faces, the one he shows the world.  When the “mid-life crisis” hits, the good starts to reassert, there is a fight, the return of the good fixed the world, and the identity is recreated as a better person.  Note this is the metaphor I’m not claiming this is what “actually happened,” whatever the hell that means.

9 I think Mr C was on a mission to do what the Blue Rose task force set out to do - find Judy – he just didn’t care who died in the process and was an adversary of anything that would get in the way.  He had the same goal as OG Coop did. He needed the coordinates because he wanted Naido who, as above, is a sort of contrapositive of Judy.  The giant flips between the location of the TP embodiment of Judy (Sarah) and that of Naido.  The white lodge was another trap.

10 Diane has, this season, lined up to represent the relationship Coop really needs.  He realizes Mr C has raped her, and the seeing her in Naido is a demonstration in mastery, by making her her in his mind, not a victim.  All the stuff at the end is the failure of this mastery previously in the lodge which maybe “flits through" Coop's mind while the face is up (though the face disappears during the true healing/win moment of the kiss, real recognition, and affirmation of memory).

So away we go. It works like this:  In the “world of TP” Coop has gotten right with his identity (Mr C and Bob gone) and relation to the world (Dougie) has been restored.  Mr C has been brought down by an avatar of weaponized innocence (Lucy) and Coop has faced Bob who has been brought down by an avatar of, well, gumption (determination, enthusiasm, taking a leap of faith).  Then he sees Naido, an avatar of the helpless traumatized woman, the thing his trial is based on.

This brings about the superimposed face – this is a diffracted reality: “Coop” as a real world manifestation as part of the audience (see below) witnessing the end of the show he and all of us are dreaming.  From a TP plot perspective, they have rescued Diane from Mr C’s victimization (rape) and contact with the good Coop brings her back to herself.  He demonstrates that he has learned his lesson by making her a human in his mind.  He sees in her the red room - in Naido/Diane is the nature of his trial, the ugly thing in the room that has a distorted, covered Diane and Judy as part of it emblematic of the taint he has to banish.   He has triumphed, they are both whole.

The dreamer turns away just long enough to miss the real reconciliation and affirmation that they remember what happened.  Everyting is finalized, everyone has arrived, Coop says hope to see you again, and the lights of the world of the show go out – the end.

Lynch and his two lead actors of his career go to the Great Northern boiler room door, Kyle says he must go alone, and goes through.  This is Lynch, finished with his film career, saying goodbye as Lynch’s representative in the world of the show must go it alone.  The face is gone, the dream is over, see you at the curtain call. One could stop here as the show world is over.  Note that the idea of going to get Laura or going to get Judy has never even been broached (it seems like it, but it hasn’t - there is no indication that that's why he is going through the door).

We go back to the past (and I mean Dale in the lodge past), to the fantasy that will haunt everything retroactively.  Dale is allowed to experience his rescue Laura but loses her to the ratcheting sound of the compulsive attempt (the B&W slipping into color, the white lodge being lost).  He should not be doing this and he needs to become the guy who doesn’t.  This is happening again and again while Dale is in the lodge – he is tested, and fails. This failure causes the loss of Laura (to a similar “woosh”) in the red room.  Dale has to ignore Leland (the clear eyed one that killed his daughter, not the dopple white eyed one that never killed anybody) and leave Laura’s redemptive act intact. We witness one such failure in the fantasy space followed by the same in the room itself (shown extended in episode 1, again Dark Tower and IJ).  But there is a version we haven’t seen, the “real world” one that the others have been analogies of.  

OK, we’ve reached a part that has multiple layers going on at once.  The rest of the episode shows a “real” version of Coop living the fact that he will never be the savior, a demonstration of how his obsession drove away the real love of his life, a representation of the time in the lodge as really just 25 years wasted on a tainted dream, a presentation of what the complete un-metaphorically split Coop would have been like those 25 years, and a symbolic depiction of (and middle finger to) fandom.  You could read it as a coda which goes back to dramatize the lodge or a moment of Cooper in Twin Peaks (when the face is up) having the “lesson” flashed through his mind.

It begins. After a third repeat of the red room stuff with Leland, etc., the room appears to let him out into the world, our world.  He gets to live the life he would have lived, beginning with a symbolic marriage to Diane - they say are you sure you want to do this, kiss, and cross the threshold, risk be damned.  The “honeymoon” sex really represents their entire marriage/relationship… he commands, she obeys, their closeness slips into alienation, she loses who he is, as the Mr C part of him is dominant.  There is no rape per se, he violates her spirit.  There is no tulpa, just a person she becomes as a result of the general trauma of being with him.  This is what being married to old Dougie was like for Diane’s “sister,” except she was the fantasy version that could tough it out with resilience, spunk, and good spirit.  After 25 years, she leaves (the hotel is the same one 25 years later, but that’s just shorthand for he’s stuck, never "home" the whole time).  They are literally different people, now.  

Coop is going to finish this.  He shows off how he’s Coop, Mr C, and Dougie at once in the Judy’s diner scene. Finding Laura is the one thing that gives his life meaning (fandom alert).  He finds her, still trapped in the life/cycle her resolve and death freed her from, takes her “home” where the RR is closed (or is it the real diner -Norma's place never closes) and the Laura’s house is owned by the real house owner.  He lets out a wail of wasted time “what year is it?”  as she suddenly wakes up to the vast degree of her (and everyone like her)’s pain.  He has done nothing but create more suffering.  The lights go out, simulation over, and he returns to the red room.

The cycle starts again.  Laura whispers “Jackass, you cannot save me/women in trouble because the problem is in you” and he makes the face of horrifying recognition.  Start the season over, this is just the setup.

Hope this helps.

[recentanimenews]

4 Reasons Why I'm Excited for Food Wars!: Third Plate

Food Wars! is an anime that took the world by storm. Or at least, it took me by storm. For the uninitiated, it follows the quest of Soma to become the top chef in his new cooking school. After growing up battling with his father to create the best-tasting food in their diner, he goes to school to level up and gain cooking skills to help him in his quest to beat his father. One day. Along the way, he sets the school aflame by declaring that he'll beat any person who stands in his way in a food battle and proves it by challenging people to battles almost too much.

  The premise isn't exactly unique, but what the show does with all of the elements is truly something special. It takes several facets of anime that I deeply love, and at least one big element of anime that I'm DEEPLY conflicted by, combining them together in a way that's not only palatable, but also funny, relatable, and drool-worthy. Add on a fast-paced plot, well-researched recipes, and a great character, and you're in business. Are you INTRIGUED yet? Let me explain further why I am so excited for this new season...

  #1- RAMPANT FANSERVICE

Ok, so here's the thing. I'm not a huge fan of fan service. I know, I KNOW. This is a very debatable topic. I get it. I understand. Let me explain before you decide to lambast me in the comments below. First, let me say that almost everyone, to some extent, likes fan service. You probably like some kind of fan service. Heck, that might be why you watch anime at all. I'm not saying that I don't like any fanservice at all, I just don't like all kinds of fan service.

  So, you might be asking, what's so great about the rampant fanservice in Food Wars!, especially if you don't like fanservice in the first place? Well, as I said, I do like some fan service- I like fan service that serves a purpose in furthering the plot or giving insight to characterization. At first, it doesn't seem like the fanservice in Food Wars! would do this. The artist portrays the characters in some incredibly suggestive ways. Seriously, clothes explode off. At some point or another, you'll see almost every character naked. And WHY???!?! Why does this show sexualize just about every walking, talking human being at some point or another? Purely to accentuate how MIND-BLOWINGLY, CLOTHES-EXPLODINGLY delicious (or horrible....peanut butter squid, I'm looking at you...) is. 

    This show is brilliant because it carefully uses fan service, something that is hugely popular with many people, and something that motivates a lot of people to watch anime, to further the overall aim of the show: displaying just how amazing the food is. By doing this, it makes the food the star of each fan service instance. Why are people getting hot and bothered? The food. What does that tell the viewer? That this food is EFFING GOOD. It contributes to characterization by showing the viewer how each student, judge, or random passerby reacts to each person's cooking. It furthers the plot by making the food the main star and letting the character's reactions to the food guide the choices they make in how they want to grow and diversify their cooking skills. Honestly, it's such a clever use of fan service, that I can't get mad at it. With this new season, I look forward to seeing more naked people lavishing their love and attention towards some gorgeously hand-crafted meals. Speaking of the hand-crafted meals...

  #2- OTHERWORLDLY FOOD PORN

The food in this show looks so good. Do you know something amazing? The phrase "fan service" isn't technically limited to showing off some skin. Fanservice can apply to anything placed in an anime of manga meant to appeal to the fans- sports anime, for example, is a form of sports fan service. Your Lie In April is a great example of an anime geared towards classical music fan service. So, does that mean that appearances of food in anime can also be considered fanservice??? YES, 100%, and Food Wars! more than delivers. 

  First, the art is absolutely gorgeous, depicting food in a way that is honestly impossible in real life. Seriously, I've tried to get food to look exactly the way it does in anime. Heck, I've made a profession of it, and I can tell you first hand that it is not an easy feat at all. Artists have the luxury of choosing the exact colors they want to use, of selecting the perfect lighting in which they want to showcase their food. They can draw on perfect grill marks, and render the most delectable crunchy panko coating.

  Second, the treatment of the food by the characters absolutely glorifies it. I've already discussed how the characters literally lose clothing over their appreciation of the food, but they way they verbalize those thoughts heightens the viewer's own understanding of what makes the food so delicious. Not only does it look good, but the running commentary from the character adds dimension- it tells the viewer what is good about it, what flavor elements are working together, what sensations and flavors they are getting hit with. This makes the appreciation of the food porn immersive. Not only do the viewers have something to look at, they have some context with which to appreciate it. As a result, the startling depictions of the food, coupled with the commentary makes the experience of watching and appreciating the anime more than two dimensional.

    Amazingly, the food porn doesn't distract from the plot, in fact, it sort of is the plot...

#3- CAPTIVATING PLOT

Ok, I know I love food maybe more than the average person, so if food isn't your thing, I promise there's more to enjoy about this show. The plot is fast-paced and always moving, which I think is a must-have for most anime episodes. To me, the sign of a good first episode is one that quickly establishes the plot, moves forward into introducing a conflict or challenge, and leaves the viewer wanting more. 

  Even just by looking at the first episode of the new season, The Third Plate, all the marks were hit. They quickly moved through exposition, skipping over introductions of new characters to focus on the important introductions- that of the main opponents of the season. It quickly set up the main conflict of this season, within the first five minutes, in fact. The episode built on that conflict and left us with a hype-train cliffhanger. Soma comes up with a daring and bold solution to the challenge his new rival has set before him.... and the episode ends there, leaving us longing for more- more information, more insight, and importantly, more food. 

    The best part is that the hype train keeps rolling throughout each of the episodes. At least, in the previous two seasons, this is definitely the case. Soma moves from one challenge to the next at a breakneck pace, with support from his friends along the way adding comedic relief and help to facilitate his character growth. There's never a wasted moment, no filler episodes- each episode has a purpose, but is at the same time enjoyable and fulfilling. We, as the viewers, never groan over a recap episode or sigh over a wasted moment. We know that Soma is on a mission- to beat everyone else and be the best chef in the school- and it feels as though every moment is somehow dedicated to supporting that dream- whether it's as a comedic interlude or through a friendship affirming helping hand, or as a straight-up food war. And, you know, those food wars...

#4- SMART FOOD RESEARCH

  From a food blogger perspective, and someone who has recreated multiple recipes from this show... I can say with absolute certainty that the people who work on this series did some serious research into food. Funnily enough, I didn't think about this too much until I was talking to someone who came to my last panel at Crunchyroll Expo. I had been talking about how clearly the food from this show had been well researched, and tested, and put to trial before even putting it into the manga, and the fan stayed behind to express his thanks to me for complimenting the cooking in the show. Apparently, all the food that shows up in Food Wars! is actually tested by an actual Japanese chef (Yuki Morisaki), and the recipes that appear in certain recipes are tested in real life before they get put into the manga. You know, that makes complete sense to me. 

    It's hard to draw and animate gorgeous looking food without having a reference photo to rely on. Surely they had to get that from somewhere. More than that, though, the way the ingredients and cooking are described in the anime are so specific and pertinent to each recipe, it's clear that a lot of effort was put into knowing what should actually go in the recipe. It's really nice, and refreshing, to see care and dedication go into the star of the show -the food- and to see that the creators actually care about being as realistic as possible, considering it's an anime... 

  From personal experience, I wish the recipes were provided with each dish, but what's really fun about recreating the food is being able to experiment, do your own research as to what should be in the food and what possible techniques were used in the cooking. I've tried multiple times to debunk the recipes and prove that they couldn't possibly have been made in the time frame of the show, but actually I'm surprised to say that most foods that appear in the food wars, despite how complex they look, can actually be recreated in the appropriate amount of time as long as you have your prep work completed. Except for Takumi's semi-freddo from season two. Seriously, that dish...

  In any case, from a food lover's point of view, this anime is a dream come true. The food looks good. The characters are dedicated to making the best of the best when it comes to eating. The hype is there. Best of all, it's obtainable in real life, if you want to put the effort into making your own versions of the food. 

  And so, all these things combined- great fan service, good food porn, fast-paced plot, and realistic food- make for a food lover's dream of an anime. And, to be honest, who doesn't love food? So check out Food Wars! The Third Plate, simulcasting every Tuesday at 9:30 am, PDT. I promise you won't be disappointed. 

    I hope you enjoyed this post! Check-in for the next anime recipe, coming soon. To check out more anime food recipes, visit my blog. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below! I recently got a Twitter, so you can follow me at @yumpenguinsnack if you would like, and DEFINITELY feel free to send me food requests! My Tumblr is yumpenguinsnacks.tumblr.com. Find me on Youtube for more video tutorials! Enjoy the food, and if you decide to recreate this dish, show me pics! :D

  In case you missed it, check out our last dish: Curry Buns from "Restaurant to Another World". What other famous anime dishes would you like to see Emily make on COOKING WITH ANIME?

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[mudcosmetics-blog]

MY favorite teacher; MUD LA

Ray Shaffer

When you ask anyone about Ray Shaffer, industry profession or student will tell you is the kindest, most genuine, and hard working man they know. He is the gentleman of this profession. His road to makeup wasn't a direct course, but that's what has made him an excellent artist and a phenomenal teacher.

"I was born at the Submarine Base in Groton, CT. My Dad was in the Navy at the time and worked on nuclear submarines. Part of my childhood was very residential, and part of it was moving around a lot because I was part of a navy and a coast guard family.

I first got interested in makeup when I was very very young. My Mom still is a nurse. She's been a trauma nurse for about 54 years, and she's finally going to retire this spring. She used to work the 3-11 shift at St. Vincent's Hospital. She would get off work around midnight or so, and come home to get me out of bed to watch Mission Impossible reruns together. There were lots of disguises in the show and my head just smoked at the idea that people could be different people. My Dad, who really wasn't into monster movies, but when I was 5 or 6 he would stay up with me to watch the Creature Feature at night. That was really cool because he's a very down to earth guy and monsters really weren't his thing."

Your first introduction to practical makeup came in the friendly familiar form.

"I remember when I was 12 or so, Dick Smith had a Monster Makeup Kit that you could buy at toy stores. I was saving up from my paper route to buy it, and I would go into KB toy store and look at it longingly. My birthday is in October and I was hoping to have it in time for Halloween, but I knew I was going to be a few bucks short. Well on my birthday my grandparents came over. My Grandpa drove a big green Chrysler, and I was feeling bummed when he called me over to it. He pulled out a box and he had bought me the Dick Smith Makeup Kit!

Basically it was vaccuform molds that you could make your own appliances on out of gelatin, although Dick called it flesh flags. He was looking for something easy to use and relatively non toxic, which it was. The whole heating it up thing was a little weird. You probably couldn't get away with that now. But the first makeups or appliances I did were out of the Dick Smith Kit. Later on I found Stage Makeup by Richard Corson in the library and that put me up on a different level.

I remember the first appliance makeup I ever tried to do on my own was a Rocky makeup. I was 14 or 15 trying to recreate the boxer damage makeup. I remember being very happy with it at the time. Then I lost the pictures, but I'm very glad because it was probably awful. It was a lot of fun. Later I remember what a thrill it was to meet Mike Westmore when he came out to MUD to talk. He had been the makeup artist on the first few Rocky movies, and on First Blood and Raging Bull, and all these cool films, plus Star Trek. It was really cool!

So how did you turn your interest in makeup into a career?

"I started out wanting to act. I'd always loved makeup, but being from the east coast, I may as well have being talking about being a rocket scientist or being a ping pong player in China. I didn't understand enough about the field to figure out how to make that happen. I wanted to be an actor, so I used makeup to augment my range as an actor. I'm a pretty unique looking guy. So unless I just wanted to wave a steak knife, or be the guy yelling "die grandma die", I needed a little help to make me believable as other characters.

In the course of working in theater in college, I was working on a play called a reconstruction. It's where you take a classic text and rearrange it. It's usually experimental theater. My college did Hamlet, and my roommate was playing Hamlet's Father. Our director had the idea in his rebelling of it to make him a Viking Chieftain. And what do they do when a they die, but put them in a funeral pyre. So we needed to have this crispy critter corpse kind of guy. A role like that is an awful lot for a 20 year old actor to wrap his head around. He tried different things, but wasn't happy with what he was doing. So I built the mask for him.

I remember him putting it on and staring in the mirror and being very very quiet about it. When you see your face burnt down to the skull the whole idea of how much you've been violated hits you. That night at rehearsal he was a whole different cat! I remember him walking off the stage and hugged me. I was so emotionally overwhelmed by that, that it was probably at the point I jumped ship. I felt I was doing better work influencing other performers than I was enjoying acting myself."

"I sort of dividde my career into East Coast and West Coast. My first prosthetic makeup job ever was in a theater in Massachusetts. I remember they thought I could age a whole cast for $50. I did it! I ended up having to augment it with cotton and latex.

My first job on the west coast was for Rob Burman. It's funny because it just got released! Andrew Gettty who was the grandson of John Paul Getty was a sort of auteur. He wanted to be a film director. He had some very nightmarish visions and he tried to write a narrative around it. Basically he picked away at this film for a long time. He would shoot it a little bit, then he would get upset and stop, then he'd start again with a different crew...and so on and so forth. He passed about 2 years ago or so and his estate had the work completed since he was in post production, and just released it on dvd and video on demand. It's called The Evil Within. There was some creepy stuff in there. There was a spider that was stitched together from human body parts. Lots of practical gags and lots of in camera tricks, things with perspective. I'm not sure if there was any cg at all. But that was my first film. That was also my first job for Rob Berman."

Eventually you made a transition from practical or teaching.

"I came out to the west coast in the summer of 2000, and I worked intermittently then continually was a makeup artist and primarily as a lab technician. Which means I made molds, I did hair work, I did castings, sometimes when the sun shone in the right direction I even sculpted. I did that for 10 years. In the late 2000's, a lot of things really depressed the film industry. SAG went on strike, and the the WGA went on strike. And then the banks crashed, and I navigated that as best I could but nobody was working.

I had to look for another opportunity. Also around this time my mother started getting sick. Mom is a tank so I knew if something was wrong with Mom then I wanted to be there. So I went back to the east coast to try to be of use to my family. In the course of wanting to stay busy I was going through Craig's List, and there was an ad the MUD NY was looking for instructors. At the time I didn't even know MUD had a campus in NY. So I contacted them.

I know that I'm a patient guy, and I hoped that I'd be descent at teaching. I was surprised by how much I loved it! There was an adjustment. It's challenging to take 20 people who are all at different motivation levels, ability levels, artistic levels and to guide them as a unit through things they sometimes don't believe they can do. So there is a learning curve. What started out as something I wanted to try, turned out to be something I love very very much. I think of friends back home who are knocking rust off of boats and making t shirts and working in fast food stores, and I've got the best job on planet earth.

With having a career sculpting, molding, applying, and painting, what part of the process is your favorite?

"What do I love doing? I love sculpture and molding. What is it that I love about makeup? I just love the whole idea that we can make things that never existed before. That you can sit down with a motivated actor and a little artistic vision and hard work, you can take a bag of cement and a block of wax clay and turn that into people, and species and creatures that the world has never seen before. It's so creative and only limited by your skill set and your imagination. And there's not a lot of that left in the world anymore. Everything is prepackaged. For us to be able to make something that is so unique individual in this world is something else."

What has changed about the industry from your perspective?

"I think computers have become a bigger part of it but even that is cyclic. Now there's a big push back. I think makeup and computers are both awesome tools, provided they are used appropriately for their strengths. If I use a hammer to hammer a nail it's a wonderful tool. If I use a hammer to saw a table in half, it's sort of a mess.

When all of the changes started happening was when Avatar came out. That scared the begezus out of all of us. There had been fun cg characters for some time, but Avaatar was the first instance where a director could look through the viewfinder on the camera and in front of him was people in motion capture suits. In real time he was seeing blue kitty people in the jungle. Basically when everyone saw that it was a huge hit, it freaked everyone out. Everyone making films at the time stopped and went into turn around. They wanted to evaluate this new option, and there was only one studio in the world that was doing work that good, WETA. Other studios caught up, but it took a while and meantime nobody was working.

There was a time when every action or adventure film you saw was just filled with lots of cartoons. Then there was almost a backlash against it. People were tired of watching confused looking actors standing around monsters that clearly aren't there. The Star Wars Prequels are a great example. People standing around in a green room looking confused. I think people missed what makeup brought to performances. I think the physical space that they fill on screen. There's a real tangible quality to them. If you look at the cast of Phantom Menace, they are clearly great actors but you look at how they struggled in that movie. Then you look at a movie like Alien, you have Sigourney Weaver in a real space with a guy in costume in a smokey alley with smile dribbling on her, that affects your performance.

Great makeups in your presence effect your performance. All the sudden you feel like you're in the presence of an alien, or a senator from another planet in a way that someone standing talking to a mark on the wall does not. They're effecting in a way that cg often does not. It's nice to see it come back. I think everything runs in cycles. In some ways opportunities have declined, and in other ways they have not. There are far more people making movies now a days, whether it's a YouTube movie, netflicks, a feature, a low budget thing. In some ways there seems to be more work."

And what does the future hold?

"I would be happy teaching as long as MUD is happy having me. I would be happy sculpting and making makeups. I'm getting better and look forward to continuing getting better all the time. There are things I think that are good or bad, but there's always improvement that can be made."

What advice do you want to share for makeup artists?

"Work hard and don't quit. I know that sounds like such a stereotype. A lot of these pieces of advice you hear so often that they lose their meaning but I've seen wonderfully talented people not succeed when they only need to try a little built harder and not quit. A lot of time common sense and a work ethic are super powers. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it.

If I have no other gift, I hope a teacher I have a gift to help someone who's straight out of high school, or wherever they are in life believe that they can get through a sculpture. And then they can get through fiberglass. And if you keep on trying doors will open. All luck is is your preparation meeting the right opportunity. So don't quit and believe you can do it. The whole idea of being able to make something from nothing is very empowering. Rob Burman used to say, "once you learn you can make stuff, you're never the same again"."  

[recentanimenews]

The Manga Critic’s Guide to Jiro Taniguchi

Word of Jiro Taniguchi’s death spread quickly this afternoon via Twitter and Facebook. It was a sobering moment for American fans; most of us imagined that he was only one great series away from mainstream recognition in the U.S., and eagerly hoped that his next release — whatever it might be — would wow new readers and make bank. Alas, the only appreciation we may see is in the value of his older, rarer titles like Icaro (a collaboration with French artist Moebius) and Samurai Legend (a collaboration with Kan Furuyama). The good news is that manga lovers who don’t know Taniguchi’s work have plenty of works to choose from, as Taniguchi was prolific in many genres: historical dramas, hard-boiled crime thrillers, alpine adventures, food manga, coming-of-age stories.

To help you navigate Taniguchi’s English-language output, I’ve compiled a list of my nine favorite titles. I’ve also provided a complete list of Taniguchi’s work in English for readers looking to track down copies of Taniguchi’s work on Amazon or at the library. Feel free to weigh in with your own suggestions below!

9. GUARDIANS OF THE LOUVRE (NBM/COMICS LIT • 1 VOLUME)

Guardians of the Louvre has a simple premise: a Japanese artist dreams about the world’s famous museum. In each chapter, our unnamed protagonist is temporarily transported to a particular place and time in the Louvre’s history, rubbing shoulders with famous artists, witnessing famous events, and chatting with the Nike of Samothrace, who chaperones him from exhibit to exhibit. The set-up provides Taniguchi with a nifty excuse to draw rural landscapes, gracious country manors, war-ravaged cities, and busy galleries. More impressively, Taniguchi convincingly recreates iconic paintings by Van Gogh and Corot, effortlessly slipping into each artist’s style without slavishly reproducing every detail of the originals. If the story lacks the full emotional impact of A Zoo in Winter or A Distant Neighborhood, the gorgeous, full-color illustrations and deluxe presentation make Guardians a natural gateway for exploring Taniguchi’s work. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 1/6/17

8. KODOKU NO GOURMET (WITH MASAYUKI QUSUMI • JMANGA • 1 VOLUME)

If you’re a fan of Kingyo Used Books, you may remember the chapter in which Japanese backpackers shared a dog-eared copy of Kodoku no Gourmet (a.k.a. The Lonely Gourmet) in order to feel more connected to home. Small wonder they adored Gourmet: its hero, Goro Inoshigara, is a traveler who devotes considerable time and energy to seeking out his favorite foods wherever he goes. While the manga is episodic  — Goro visits a new restaurant in every chapter — Jiro Taniguchi does a wonderful job of conveying the social aspect of eating, creating brief but vivid portraits of each establishment: its clientele, its proprietors, and, of course, its signature dishes. Best of all, Taniguchi and writer Masayuki Qusumi have the good sense to limit the story to a single volume, allowing the reader to savor Goro’s culinary adventures, rather than ponder its very slight premise. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/24/12

7. THE TIMES OF BOTCHAN (WITH NATSUO SEKIKAWA • FANFARE/PONENT MON  5 VOLUMES)

In The Times of Botchan, Natsuo Sekikawa and Jiro Taniguchi immerse readers in the tumult of the Meiji Restoration. Novelist Soseki Natsume (1867-1916) functions as our de facto guide, introducing us to the suffragettes, anarchists, novelists, poets, and politicians whose struggle helped create modern Japan. Small details speak volumes about the characters’ ambivalent relationship with the West; some embrace European dress, others flatly reject it, and most, like Natsume, strike a compromise, combining a yukata with a button-down shirt and bowler hat. Though Sekikawa’s script is not as nimble as Taniguchi’s artwork, the series leaves a vivid impression nonetheless, offering modern readers a window into Natsume’s world. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/19/2010

6. THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS (WITH YUMEMAKURA BAKU • FANFARE/PONET MON • 5 VOLUMES)

On June 8, 1924, British explorer George Mallory started up the summit of Mt. Everest, never to be seen again. His disappearance forms the core of The Summit of the Gods, a pulse-pounding adventure in which two modern-day climbers retrace Mallory’s steps up the Northeast Ridge, searching for clues to his fate. Although the drama ostensibly focuses on Fukumachi, a hard-charging photographer, and Habu, a tough-as-nails mountaineer, the real star of Summit is Everest. Taniguchi captures the mountain’s danger with his meticulous renderings of rock formations, glaciers, and quick-changing weather patterns, reminding us that Everest is one of the remotest places on Earth; at the top of the world, no one can hear you scream. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 10/12/2009

5. A DISTANT NEIGHBORHOOD (FANFARE/PONENT MON • 2 VOLUMES)

A Distant Neighborhood is a wry, wistful take on a tried-and-true premise: a salaryman is transported back in time to his high school days, and must decide whether to act on his knowledge of the past or let events unfold as they did before. We’ve seen this story many times at the multiplex — Back to the Future, Peggy Sue Got Married — but Taniguchi doesn’t play the set-up for laughs; rather, he uses Hiroshi’s predicament to underscore the challenges of family life and the awkwardness of adolescence. (Hiroshi is the same chronological age as his parents, giving him special insight into the vicissitudes of marriage, as well as the confidence to cope with teenage tribulations.) Easily one of the most emotional, most intimate stories Taniguchi’s ever told. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 2/23/11

4. A ZOO IN WINTER (FANFARE/PONENT MON • 1 VOLUME)

Drawing on his own experiences, Jiro Taniguchi spins an engaging tale about a young man who abandons a promising career in textile design for the opportunity to become a manga artist. Though the basic plot invites comparison with Bakuman, Taniguchi does more than just document important milestones in Hamaguchi’s career: he shows us how Hamaguchi’s emotional maturation informs every aspect of his artistry — something that’s missing from many other portrait-of-an-artist-as-a-young-man sagas, which place much greater emphasis on the pleasure of professional recognition than on the satisfaction of mastering one’s craft. Lovely, moody artwork and an appealing cast of supporting characters complete this very satisfying package.  —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/28/11

3. HOTEL HARBOUR VIEW (WITH NATSUO SEKIKAWA • VIZ MEDIA • 1 VOLUME)

Hotel Harbour View offers readers two short, beautifully crafted stories. In the first, a man waits in a seedy Hong Kong bar for the person who’s supposed to kill him, while in the second, an assassin returns to Paris, where his former associates have set a trap for him. You can certainly read both stories as simple exercises in hard-boiled crime, but then you’d be missing Taniguchi and Sekikawa’s sly nods to film noir, yakuza flicks, and the French New Wave. The characters in both stories self-consciously behave like gangsters and molls, trading quips and telling well-rehearsed stories about their pasts; they even wear fedoras, a sure sign that they’re reliving their favorite moments from the silver screen. A shoot-out involving a mirror is the highlight of the volume, demonstrating Taniguchi’s crisp draftsmanship and mastery of perspective. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 1/14/11

2. BENKEI IN NEW YORK (WITH JINPACHI MORI • VIZ MEDIA • 1 VOLUME)

Originally serialized in Big Comic Original, these seven short stories focus on a Japanese ex-pat living in New York. Like many New Yorkers, Benkei’s career is best characterized by slashes and hyphens: he’s a bartender-art forger-hitman who can paint a Millet from memory or make a killer martini. Benkei’s primary job, however, is seeking justice for murder victims’ families. Part of the series’ fun is watching him set elaborate traps for his prey, whether he’s borrowing a page from the Titus Andronicus playbook or using a grappling hook to take down a crooked longshoreman. Though we never doubt Benkei will prevail, the crackling script, imaginatively staged fight scenes, and tight plotting make Benkei in New York Taniguchi’s most satisfying crime thriller. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 3/20/12

1. THE WALKING MAN (FANFARE/PONENT MON • 1 VOLUME)

This nearly wordless manga follows an ordinary man through his daily routines. He walks his dog; he swims laps at the pool; he retrieves a model airplane from a tree. In less capable hands, the sheer lack of conflict would result in a dull comic, but Taniguchi invests these activities with meaning by interrupting them with moments of simple beauty: a rare bird alighting on a branch, a rooftop view of a neighborhood in spring bloom. Though we learn very little about the protagonist — not even his name — his capacity for noticing and savoring these details becomes a heroic act, a conscious effort to resist the indifference, complacency, and impatience that come with doing everyday things.

* * * * * *

A COMPLETE LIST OF JIRO TANIGUCHI TITLES IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Below is a complete list of Jiro Taniguchi’s manga in English. Note that I’ve provided the publication information for the English translations, not the original Japanese editions. Notice any omissions or errors? Please let me know in the comments so that I can update this list!

Benkei in New York. VIZ Media, 1 vol. With Jiro Sanpachi. 2001.

A Distant Neighborhood. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 2 vols. 2009.

Furari. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 1 vol. 2017.*

Guardians of the Louvre. NBM/Comics Lit, 1 vol. 2016.

Hotel Harbour View. VIZ Media, 1 vol. With Natsuo Sekikawa. 2001.

Icaro. IBooks, 2 vols. With Moebius. 2003-04.

The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 1 vol. 2010.

Kodoku Gourmet. With Masayuki Qusumi. JManga, 1 vol. 2012.**

The Quest for the Missing Girl. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 1 vol. 2010.

Samurai Legend. Central Park Media, 1 vol. With Kan Furuyama. 2003.

The Summit of the Gods. With Baku Yumemakura. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 5 vols. 2009-15.

The Times of Botchan. With Natsuo Sekikawa. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 5 vols. 2007 – 2010.***

Tokyo Is My Garden.With Frederic Boilet. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 1 vol. 2010.

The Walking Man. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 1 vol. 2007.

A Zoo in Winter. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 1 vol. 2011.

*This title was originally scheduled for release in 2015; Barnes & Noble and several other retail outlets are indicating a May 4, 2017 release date from Fanfare/Ponent Mon.

**This title was only released digitally through the JManga platform.

***This series is incomplete; the complete Japanese edition spans 10 volumes.

By: Katherine Dacey