#i did start reading film and art criticism again more recently

[astreetcarnamedkendall]

it's so wild how a five star book can put me in a reading slump. admittedly, this year has been rough reading wise, but i started to read much more consistently earlier this month/late last month. however once i read and obsessed over henry henry, nothing stuck. so odd because usually it's the opposite. hoping intermezzo helps once it's released tuesday!

[blackmoonlightexpress]

Shui Long Yin 《水龙吟》 - What we know so far about this massive project

By now many of you have heard about Shui Long Yin 《水龙吟》, Luo Yunxi's upcoming and third project with the studio behind Till the End of the Moon. Here's my read on the announcement earlier.

1. Good news - It's going to be largely the same creative team behind TTEOTM. 

You have Wang Yirong as Lead Producer & Artistic Director, Huang Wei as Costume Designer, Wang Haiqi as Action Director, Tsang Mingfai as Makeup Director, Huatian for World Concept (also known for Ashes of Love and the Untamed). Basically, we'll see the return of the brilliant minds behind the Dunhuang-inspired costumes and hour-long epic fight sequences.

It's a good sign they're holding most of the team together. A lot of great directors, like Christopher Nolan, Tim Burton, David Cronenberg, work with the same creative talent over and over again. There's certainly an argument that you produce better work when you collaborate with people you trust and know well.

2. Up and coming Director Chen Zhoufei will make up some of the deficiencies of TTEOTM in the cinematography and lighting departments.

Chen Zhoufei started out as a cinematographer in films with the likes of Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. More recently he directed The Forbidden Flower (2023) and Double Tap (2021), which, if nothing else, is beautifully and stylistically shot.

It's interesting they've moved away from the old school Hong Kong directors they used in Immortality and TTEOTM. Directors from the TVB system are known to be more experienced, scrappy, and reliable when it comes to working within budget (which is why they're favored for big xianxia productions), but they've also been criticized for falling behind on technical execution and artistry.

It is as the industry article I shared predicted - Otters Studio is a relatively inexperienced player, but they can quickly close their gaps by bringing new blood to the team.

3. They're bringing a new Art Director, Zheng Chen from Lost You Forever.

This isn't all that surprising given that Luan Hexin, TTEOTM's Art Director, is with Huanyu, Bai Lu's management company. (In fact there was a bit of real life drama when Yu Zheng, Bai Lu's boss, publicly called out TTEOTM's producer for not refuting false rumors that Bai Lu was only cast because the production wanted Luan Hexin, arguably Huanyu's biggest asset, as part of her "dowry".) Now it's sad to see award-winning Luan go, but he is best for authentic period sets and IMO not the most suited for xianxias.

Instead, they've tapped Zheng Chen, who most recently worked on Lost You Forever, which I have yet to watch. With that said, some of the sets look great to me, with bold use of colors, and I can already see this pairing well with Chen Zhoufei's aesthetics.

4. This time they're not working with screenwriter He Fang, instead going with Lin Conghe (unofficial)

He Fang is the lead screenwriter behind TTEOTM and Immortality (everyone who's read Immortality's screenplay will know it's all but a guaranteed hit) and in my opinion one of Otter's greatest assets. She's brilliant at staying loyal to the spiritual core of source novels, while weaving convoluted plot points through a more robust background story and logic.

It's a slight disappointment that she won't be back, but it's also not entirely surprising. TTEOTM and Immortality are both big, female-oriented fantasy romance IPs. Meanwhile Shui Long Yin's IP is quite dated, lesser known, and incomplete, so I'd expect that the drama will only be loosely based on the original. While we don't know much about Lin Conghe, he did recently work on the Blood of Youth sequel, where he was the lead screenwriter alongside author Zhou Munan, so he might actually be a better choice for this genre (xuanhuan wuxia).

5. The way HunanTV & Mango announced the drama is unusually high profile, indicating that this is one of the platform's biggest projects.

It's rare to have one of China's biggest hosts announce a new drama that hasn't even started shooting or released any details yet live on prime time TV. (Usually a drama's official announcement comes out on the day of its booting ceremony, if not during its production or at its wrap ceremony.) It's even rarer for a costume drama to announce a TV platform at this stage. These days it's quite difficult for costume fantasies to get a coveted TV airing slot given genre restrictions and additional censorship requirements. Typically you do not find out officially whether it will air on TV until literally right before it airs.

Before the official announcement, rumors have already been circulating that there's a bidding war behind the scenes for this project, with Mango and its parent HunanTV outbidding Youku in the end. Mango/HunanTV is already the market leader in variety shows, but is behind the other three platforms in scripted content. Apparently, they've recently received an injection of funding to shore up their drama department and now investing in tentpole projects that can help them gain share. Clearly they saw what TTEOTM did for Youku.

6. There's another interesting player in the mix: China Mobile and its subsidiary Migu. 

It appears that China Mobile (one of the most valuable companies in China and a state-owned enterprise) has invested in the drama, which will be made available on its online video platforms. Apparently, the last time China Mobile invested in a drama, they sent text messages to every user to publicize it when it aired. Now not sure if this will happen (it's not patriotic drama after all), but they've already been promoting the drama through their gazillion affiliate social media accounts. Either way, it should be a good thing for the drama's distribution to have such an influential backer given Mango's lower daily active user.

7. They're making it super clear that Luo Yunxi is going to be the dominant male lead in this drama

In the first Weibo post, they only announced the title, Luo Yunxi, and the airing platforms. In the second Weibo post, where they announced the rest of the creative team, they still did not announce the other actors! Of course, this is likely because Luo Yunxi's company (which is really just him) bought the source novel's IP and is credited as a co-producer. (They don’t have any production capabilities at all, so Otter will likely be quarterbacking this.)

This suggests, like many who have read the novel already know, that Luo Yunxi will have by far the biggest part. The other roles, including the female lead role, will likely be smaller and revolve around the main character.

8. Shui Long Yin is already generating a lot of hype.

To date its Weibo announcement racked up >1M likes (more than double that of TTEOTM). There's already a very active Douban group debating all the rumors, most importantly whether Luo Yunxi will use a wig or his real hair (a highly divisive topic). The new drama has even been reported by China Daily, China's state media facing the international community, which is again exceedingly rare. China Daily doesn't usually report on entertainment news, and most hit shows don't get mentioned even after airing.

There's always a big risk with productions with this much anticipation so early in the process, from fan wars and disruptive stalking on set to accusations propagated by competitors that can invite more state scrutiny. Fingers crossed that the team knows what they're doing and can weather all the storms that will undoubtedly come its way.

9. Finally, I remain cautiously excited.

Production quality will likely be great, with such a strong creative team and financial backers with deep wallets. My main worry is that it'll be beautiful, but boring. For this genre (xuanhuan wuxia or basically wuxia with high fantasy elements), it's really important that the story moves fast and the underdog hero keeps outsmarting or outfighting everyone else in a way that gives viewers a sense of exhilaration. It'd be all too easy for the story to get bogged down by a large cast of unmemorable characters and a meandering plot. Otters Studio is usually great at delivering fast-paced high drama (just based on TTEOTM and the screenplay of Immortality), but they're working with a different screenwriter this time and it's not easy to be a consistent hit maker. Let's hope they stick to their intuition and continue to present stories and characters that excite viewers.

[shiny-jr]

Hi Shiny! I’m not new to your blog but I have been reading up on the works I’ve missed since I haven’t been the most active on tumblr for like, a solid year, (possibly more?) and I forgot just how amazing your writing is; you are definitely one of my favorite writers, and I greatly enjoy every one of your works.

That’s why- as a reader who really wants to get into writing- I would love to hear what stands to be your biggest inspirations, and especially what media (whether it books, songs, films, etc.) has influenced your writing. I’ve been looking to develop my writing style by taking in the works of others, so any recommendations are appreciated!

Welcome back, anon! Let me see what I can think of off the top of my head.

As I sit here, the first thing I thought of is vocabulary. I think having a good VOCABULARY is key to making a good story, especially when it comes to the flow. I grew up reading a lot, and recently, I began reading more again just books and articles. Through that process, it's easy to learn words, see a new one, and look it up. You might remember said words and use them later.

I've actually been told that I speak kinda eloquently at certain times, like in a professional-business like way, which I totally don't mean to. But yeah, I digress, vocabulary is very important. I'll give you an example.

I started writing this chapter for a new series, and it was late at night, and my heart wasn't really in it. When I reviewed it, I immediately hated it. Why? Because of the vocabulary. It was all simple words, repetitive, and without any variety. I'm not saying your vocabulary has to be great or anything, but when I write, I always have a site called wordhippo open. Just for when I can't remember a specific word or I'm looking for a synonym to change things up and prevent that annoying repetitiveness.

CHARACTERIZATION is also a huge deal. Writing for characters that are not yours is not easy. It's difficult. One thing I do is if I'm not sure about a character's decisions, actions, dialogue, is I look for reference points from what they're from. Voicelines, art, anything helps. If its lacking, I try to think of another character they're similar to and ask myself what would this other character do? Would it be the same as the first character? That usually helps.

Of course, this includes character development and conflicts and relationships and such. I think some of the best characters I've ever seen in media, are from the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender. That series has such solid personalities, variety within the cast, good interesting conflicts, and one of the best character development arcs in modern day animated media.

As for songs, I usually just listen to instrumental songs when writing. I found that lyrics tended to distract me, which is why I try to avoid it when writing. No series or novels come to mind immediately, although I do write personal reviews for those I read. Most of which is either praise or criticizing (mostly criticizing) the writing style of the author, the characters, or the plot. I'm glad to share some of those, but I've written a good number of them and they're lengthy, just me yapping.

Anyways, that's a lot. I'm not sure if I answered your question as you wanted? I hope I did. Let me know if there's anything else.

[aerithisms]

If you feel like it, I’d love to hear about your dissertation on Studio Ghibli. I’m so curious how you approached it. What did you focus on? Was there a lot of academic writing to situate your work or were you pretty much on your own?

sure, thank you so much for asking! this got a bit long so putting it under a read more

my degree was in english literature but the course had a strong film element, so i was looking at it from a literary/film studies perspective. the topic was on the way miyazaki's oeuvre rejects gender essentialist associations between gender and the "nature/culture dualism", i.e. the perceived dichotomy between the natural and human worlds. i arrived at that topic because a lot of the existing scholarship on miyazaki's work looks at it through a feminist lens or an environmentalist lens, and i wanted to try to combine the two. i focused on nausicaä of the valley of the wind and princess mononoke because they're big lynchpins of his filmography and they're very similar - mononoke is arguably a retread of the same narrative and thematic building blocks as nausicaä with miyazaki having 14 added years of experience.

to address the topic i ended up looking into ecofeminist theory and literary criticism as the theoretical background and reading a lot of donna haraway, who's a hugely influential figure in the scholarship on cultural dualisms (and whose work is also notoriously difficult to parse lmao). i also looked a bit at what had been written on women in anime and manga, which involved some reading about shoujo, and generally looked into the english language scholarship on anime. i also wanted to learn more about miyazaki as a person and a filmmaker and my main references for that were the documentary 10 years with hayao miyazaki and the books starting point and turning point, which compile interviews he's given and things he's written about his own work from 1979 to 2008.

with regards to scholarship on miyazaki's work, i was limited to english language scholarship as i can't read japanese. there is certainly some english scholarship on him - he's by far the most written about japanese anime director in english scholarship - but there's not nearly as much as you might expect for such an accomplished and influential filmmaker, especially when you start narrowing it down to the scholarship on individual films. i'd say this is due to a historical lack of respect for anime in general from academics (even my supervisor was quite skeptical of it throughout the project lol). a lot of my most important references were quite recently published - the book princess mononoke: understanding studio ghibli's monster princess is the first collection of essays on princess mononoke to be published in english and it only came out in 2018 (i did the dissertation in 2021). a really prominent figure in my bibliography was susan napier, who was one of the first western scholars to give anime a legitimate place at the table back in the late 90s, and who published miyazakiworld: a life in art in 2018, which i think is a really accessible academic perspective on his work. (she also did this ted talk about being looked down upon for taking anime seriously which is an interesting watch if you have 15 minutes)

a lot of the journal articles i referenced can be found on this site, which is compiled by someone who's not a film or literary scholar but is just a genuine enthusiast for anime and manga studies (they also have a degree in library and information science - my current area of study! - so no wonder the site is well organised and well researched lol). their bibliography for articles about miyazaki's work can be found here - obvs you'd need institutional access to read most of that and i can't guarantee this list is exhaustive especially since it's been 3 years since i was researching this but i think it gives a good idea of how much is out there. again it's far from nothing but it's also not a huge amount, which to be honest i think made my project a lot easier and more manageable than a dissertation on someone who's received a lot of scholarly attention would've been. i could get a really good grasp of the entire scholarly field, which would've been impossible if i'd been writing on, say, jane austen.

it was a really fun topic to write about for my dissertation! i bought copies of the books i've linked because i loved the research process so much (another book i bought and recommend is the anime art of hayao miyazaki, which focuses on the more technical aspects of his filmmaking). i do think i was limited by my inability to read japanese and i'd love to find out what's going on in the japanese scholarship but i'm still pretty happy with what i was able to do. again thanks for asking about it and giving me an excuse to talk about it lol

[world-cinema-research]

Gladiator (2002)

Gunner Drake

April 14th, 2024

The film I chose this week for our assignments was Gladiator (2000). I remember the first time I watched Gladiator when I was young and after rewatching it again this week, it is just as good as the first time I saw it. The way the movie shows the main character Maximus fight through all of this adversary while still maintaining a strong, smart mind and being an all around good selfless person is close to perfect. This film also depicts the main antagonist extremely well and does a great job of getting you invested into their characters. 

While doing research on the film Gladiator I was surprised to find out that Gladiator made over 465.4 million dollars while only costing 103 million dollars to make, making this a huge commercial success. But it didn't stop there for Gladiator, The film was also a huge critical success being nominated for twelve academy awards or oscars and winning 5, being nominated for 5 golden globes and winning two of them and also winning the BAFTA award for best film. Reviews were a little bit of a different story. For the most part they were pretty mixed even though the general public ate it up. Here is one of many positive reviews from metacritic https://www.metacritic.com/movie/gladiator/ “Gladiator is one of the best films Ridley Scott ever made. Maybe is not historically accurate, but the story, the soundtrack, the fighting are perfect, and shows probably the most beautiful performance of Russell Crowe.” on the other hand this review by Roger Ebert (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gladiator-2000) is extremely critical of the film calling it,"A foolish choice in art direction casts a pall over Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" that no swordplay can cut through" and also gave it 2 stars. So this movie wasn’t everyone's favorite thing ever but for the most part the public thought it was pretty good. Although if you look at the recent reviews they are a lot more positive than negative. Now the big question is what did the filmmakers do to make gladiator so attractive to such a big audience? They started with the setting in Rome, the filmmakers knew Rome would be a perfect setting for their narrative. They were able to take historically accurate figures such as Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, and Lucilla to give the movie a genuine roman feel and then they add the main character Maximus which is not a real person but give the filmmakers freedom to choose whatever they want for him. At the time in 2000 this gave the historical roman setting almost a new fresh look for the viewers and very much popularized it bigger than anything before. 

The gladiator had an extremely dramatic story and many action packed fight scenes which was a huge part of the movie that the producers relied on for a strong return on investment. In one fight scene After the main character Maximus defeats many enemies in spectacular fashion, he stands in the middle of the colosseum and yells, “Are you not entertained!”(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPNOdkLcL_g) This scene alone has etched its way into pop culture and 9 out of 10 people will know exactly what you're talking about if you say, “ are you not entertained”. But Gladiator does have some limiting factors for the audience. The movie is rated R for bloody battle and fight scenes plus some language. 

Gladiator was definitely a conventional movie. This movie cost over 100 million dollars to make so the investors and producers wanted to maximize profit as much as they could without trying anything too crazy or too new. Growing up this was one of my favorite movies and I definitely would blow off any criticism about the film in the past. But doing my research for this project and reading all of the reviews I was able to appreciate parts or aspects of the movie in ways I didn't consider before. I especially liked reading the criticism reviews of the movie because I was able to go back and forth with These ideas and in some cases even changed my mind on parts of the movie. This film came out 24 years ago and still looks amazing. Newer movies obviously have better special effects and more money to make them better but after not seeing Gladiator in years I can confidently say it is still an amazing quality film. Not that there isn't anything I could pick out but for being 24 years old I would still choose this movie over most newer ones in recent years. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEM5nJ-AUiMLinks to an external site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD0XIowNAG8Links to an external site.https://www.youtube.com/embed/yD0XIowNAG8?autoplay=1&rel=0&hl=en_US&fs=1

In 2000 the Sony released the PS2

laketahoecc.instructure.com

In 2000 the Olympics were held in Sydney Australia.

laketahoecc.instructure.com

[sregan]

Thoughts on Denis Villeneuve's "Dune: Part Two" (2024)

Following on from my recent viewing of the first part when it returned to cinemas, I've now been able to apply myself to view the second part also. Once again, in lieu of a proper essay I have merely recorded my impressions in roughly chronological order.

As a reminder I previously wrote about how I might adapt Dune, years before Villeneuve's latest effort, as well as creating some concept art (I am working on my take on Shaddam Corrino IV). I did not re-read the book ahead of my most recent viewing and therefore some of my critique might be inadvertently comparing it to my own ideas on adaptation rather than the source material.

I was amazed and a little aghast that after all the talk of not doing introspection and critiquing the 1984 version's clunky opening narration by Princess Irulan, Villeneuve's Part Two opens with ... a clunky opening narration by Irulan. Perhaps there was a desire to have the 'other woman' do the narration as the first film opened with Chani as our viewpoint character; here we start with the view from the Imperium, introducing the Emperor.

Irulan implies the Emperor loved Leto like a son and is torn up about ordering his death. Was this in the books? When she says 'And the Emperor says' - we are on the edge of our seats, waiting for Walken's dialogue - 'nothing'. I am unsure if this was a clever trick or not. Shaddam here is portrayed as an older man, perhaps infirm, manipulated by those around him and particularly women. This is part of the sexual politics Villeneuve presents to us specifically in Part Two which stood out to me as either peculiarly heterodox for a mainstream modern Hollywood production, or perhaps was intended to be progressive but poorly assembled and unable to overcome Herbert's own (but noticeably different) views - some might say hang-ups - on the sexes.

My sense is very little time has passed on Arrakis since the end of the first film, despite Irulan's narration creating the impression it is old news. The column is still carrying Jamis's body and on its way to the sietch.

This sits oddly with Stilgar's blithe dismissal that the Harkonnen are there for the two Atreides. Are you sure? In-universe that was no more than 72 hours ago (the first night in the desert and the second in Kynes' weather station, with the sun coming up during the Jamis fight). He doesn't know the Baron ordered Rabban to commit genocide against the Fremen, so the logical conclusion is they are still looking for Paul and Jessica.

The opening fight scene seemed interesting, even if I wasn't sure why Paul and Jessica were where they were or why they didn't seem to be armed. Villeneuve seems to have forgotten that at the very least Paul has his crysknife and the gun he used to threaten Stilgar just hours earlier in-universe. I didn't mind the pregnant Jessica clubbing the Harkonnen over the head to protect her son, even though I feel like if this film had been earmarked differently by the usual suspects on YouTube and Twitter it would have been viewed as ridiculous and 'woke' given criticism of the same in games like Wolfenstein II.

As a note: The Harkonnen in the opening scene are now using Sardaukar antigrav tech; I feel this works poorly because we've been conditioned from the first film to associate this with the Emperor's forces, even though they weren't involved. I wondered if they had just randomly changed up the Sardaukar uniforms (which they have, but more on that later).

Sietch Tabr felt interesting but not quite as I imagined; did I miss something or were we really not properly introduced to the terraforming effort? We see some bird nests and the precious underground water and Stilgar says when Lisan al-Gaib comes he will use the water to transform Arrakis, but we seem to have dropped any mention of the idea they were already working towards it. And indeed, Kynes won't appear in this film at all - my preference to kick off a two-parter would have been Kynes wandering in the desert, dying of dehydration while having his revelation about how the sandworm life-cycle works, re-introducing us to the setting and the worms.

I feel the need to mention Villeneuve's racial politics here, which, like his sexual politics, seem awkward in ways commentators don't seem to have entirely picked up on.

When the sietch receives Paul and Jessica with hostility, there is a noticeable shift in who the camera lingers on, to the extent that the Fremen seem abruptly almost entirely black or very dark-skinned, with the lighter Stilgar and Chani the only ones speaking up for the outsiders. I hope I shouldn't need to explain this; if it's calculated, it is calculated to induce a kind of gut-reaction fear in white audiences. I noticed this in the first film where Jamis was cast as black and presented as noticeably wilder and crazier than the other Fremen. One might be tempted to suggest this is establishing ethnic groups within the Fremen - after all, later we learn that Stilgar comes from the south, so perhaps the north is darker-skinned (which would sync with some of the black city-dwellers we see in Arrakeen). It would even make sense as the south is said to be covered with dust storms and thus not exposed to direct sun. Except, as soon as the sietch turns and becomes more welcoming, the camera begins favouring the lighter-skinned north Africa and Middle Eastern Fremen actors.

This leads quite neatly into the Fremen culture and language. David Peterson, the linguist who worked on Game of Thrones, was tapped to create languages for Dune based on the phrases in the book, and others have picked up on the strange decision to avoid using actual Arabic words wherever possible - explained in inverviews as Peterson feeling that thousands of years into the future languages would have evolved so far that any similarities are mere coincidence. This means that words that are too important to the franchise to change, such as 'Lisan al-Gaib' (which they use a *lot*, seemingly to avoid relying on real-world messianic titles like Mahdi), stay as-is but others are radically changed. "Ya Hya Chouhada", a real-world battlecry meaning 'long live the martyrs', is changed in Part Two to a fictional phrase (I didn't remember it and seemingly others I haven't either) in the Peterson conlang. This is disappointing and actually not true to life given how Latin survived for thousands of years as a holy language.

UPDATE: The new phrase based on Peterson's conlang is something like 'A t'la abisi a santar!'. I can vaguely see something like 'life' in 'santar', but it's from a Latinate root. 'Toward the fighters, life'? Maybe 'At'la savaşçı uzun ', incorporating the Turkish word for 'fighter' and '?

It also means that Villeneuve's Dune is oddly sanitised and stripped of the book's Islamic and Central Asian cultural touchpoints. Very little mention is made of God; characters pray but I think at one point Paul says that they prey to their dead relatives (?). 'Jihad' and any mention of the book's main religions (Zensunni and Orange Catholicism) are excised.

All this begs the question - where is the line between inclusion and Orientalism? Where is the line between diversity and caricature? Or between cultural sensitivity and the kind of flattening that insists on Western neoliberal values everywhere at all times, even in our fiction? In 1984, the Fremen were mostly cast as white (likely due to actor availability) - not necessarily an incorrect reading of the book, given Herbert's inspiration 'The Sabres of Paradise' was not about Arab but Caucasian mountain tribes. Change them to a mix of interchangeable 'non-white' actors and have them led by Timothee Chalamet and the accusations of 'white savior complex' gain weight. Selectively show darker extras when you want the audience to be afraid and lighter when you want them to feel sympathetic and, to be honest, you probably deserve a few thinkpieces which I haven't seen in the press.

Stilgar threatens Jessica that he'll have her killed unless she agrees to become the new Reverend Mother. I felt this went back on his development in the first film, or even a couple of scenes ago where he fought their corner against the unsympathetic female elder. Jessica's flippant, almost Marvel-esque dialogue in the next scene where she references this annoyed me. Villeneuve has Jessica's experience with the water of life happen early in the movie and long before Paul's. This is somewhat true to the book and better than the 1984 version where Paul only takes the Water when his prophetic dreams randomly stop working, but my favoured method of compressing this for film has Jessica take the Water, fall into a coma, and Paul rescue her by taking the Water himself, entering into the same vision. This is when Jessica begins to suspect they are not merely using prophecies created by the Bene Gesserit, but Paul may in fact be the Kwisatz Haderach.

In Villeneuve's version, Chani is initially skeptical of the prophecy, saying only the southerners are superstitious (an invented distinction not found in the book). This is set up fairly competently as a romantic conflict; Paul wins Chani when he only wants to be one of the Fremen, but doing so means giving up on his revenge - however, the way it's resolved is frankly offensive and one of the things that I found most disrespectful about Villeneuve's Dune as an adaptation.

The first we see of wormriding in this film (Stilgar on a small worm) didn't entirely impress me; I feel it should have been much farther off to give a greater sense of the scale of the worms. However, Paul's own wormriding trial eliminated my doubts; again, no-one is doing cinematic scale like Villeneuve right now, where the audience is absorbed completely in *witnessing* a monumental event, without the need for quick cuts or snappy quips.

The 'naming' scene was also great and felt plausible as Paul being welcomed as one of the Fedaykin (interestingly Peterson didn't rename that one, despite being almost identical to 'Fedayeen').

The Harkonnen 'evil spice harvesters' bothered me - the harvesters we saw in the first film *WERE* Harkonnen harvesters! The Atreides literally just assumed control of the operation days earlier. The ornithopter mini-guns were pretty great but also felt un-Duney. The use of lasguns also felt good even if perhaps not book-accurate.

I actually really liked Rabban's failed reprisals, with the Harkonenn getting lost in the dust of their own carpet bombings and and the big guy losing his nerve when he sees Muad'dib's shadow. Bautista is surprisingly (?) one of the stand-out performances in the two movies.

We get some much-needed off-world politics, with Irulan talking to the Reverend Mother and deducing (I feel this wasn't in the book) that Muad'dib is Paul Atreides. There's clearly an effort made to present Irulan as a more hard-nosed politician in the making, with Shaddam even saying she will be a 'formidable Empress'. Mohiam introduces us to the idea of Feyd-Rautha being an alternative 'candidate' to Paul (did they actually say 'to be the Kwisatz Haderach'?? I don't think they did).

My feelings on Giedi Prime being an insane hellplanet are a matter of public record; it goes against a central theme of Dune, which is that a harsh environment breeds both discipline in the sense of espirit de corps and discipline in moral life. Whether you agree or disagree with the 'Fremen Mirage', this is Herbert's central idea. In the book, Giedi Prime is a neo-feudal world, with a cheerfully painted blue keep where 'fearful perfection' under military jackboot is the order of the day, but just off the main street you can see dilapidation and decay. It's a Potemkin village, feeding into the idea that Baron Harkonnen and his house are fundamentally about falsity and fakeness. He wears suspensors to convey the idea he is more physically able than he is. Feyd fights in a gladiatorial arena, but the combatants are drugged to make him look more competent. When a combatant isn't drugged, it's a plot to win over the crowd and he's not really in danger. Everywhere gets a fresh coat of paint and smiles at gunpoint when visitors arrive, but under the surface they don't genuinely care for the people.

In Villeneuve's Dune, Giedi Prime is an infrared nightmare under a 'black sun' (yes, the pasty skinhead Harkonnen live under a black sun, a seemingly deliberate allusion to fascist occultism trivia that made me raise an eyebrow). No diversity among the Harkonnen; it's just an anonymous tide of bobbing bald white heads. Again, I was unsure how to read this obvious Villeneuve innovation (in the original books the Harkonnen are mentioned as having dark hair). For what it's worth, Lynch did something very similar when he decided the Harkonnen were universally ginger. I also feel we've seen this archetype quite recently in 'Mad Max' with the white-painted radiation-sick Warboys.

This decision to make the Harkonnen interchangeable mooks does somewhat detract from Austin Butler's Feyd Rautha, who is just another chalky bald guy among many. Butler tries his best to infuse the role with random acts of violence against his own minions that put the 1984 version's heartplugs to shame. Couple it with Rabban's temper tantrum smashing the overseer against his monitor and you have to ask - why does anyone follow these psychopaths? At some point the bad guys end up killing more of their own than the enemy and it makes them feel incompetent and stupid.

In this version, the undrugged slave was a 'birthday present' from the Baron, who wanted to see who Feyd really was under pressure. In the book, Feyd contrives the assassination attempt with Thufir Hawat to increase his own standing with the people. There's no poison on Feyd's blades (he even licks one) but I think (the moment was super-fast) the Bene Gesserit watching mention that he uses an implanted word to stagger the slave momentarily. Odd to see that in this version the Harkonnen seem to worship their leaders ('the holy birthday of our beloved na-Baron'?).

It's an interesting reversal as in the book, Feyd tries to poison the Baron by having one of his sex slaves implanted with a needle (foreshadowing his own use of a similar hidden device in the final fight).

Margot Fenring appears here unaccompanied as a Bene Gesserit femme fatale, and her seduction of Feyd Rautha and their subsequent discussion of his levers was well done.

Around this time Villeneuve starts deciding that the Bene Gesserit are psychic, which is jarring and I don't believe foreshadowed (Jessica communicates using sign-language with her son but not in glances). I almost wondered if this scene - and the later one where the Bene Gesserit have an impromptu psychic discussion - were rewritten after filming.

Returning to Arrakis after the harsh black and white Giedi Prime seemed like a breath of fresh air and I think that was the intent. Villeneuve uncharacteristically doesn't linger long enough on the dunes for my tastes.

I should note here that in this version, Jessica emerges from the water of life trial changed, and while her motives are to protect Paul, she is subsequently framed in a very antagonistic role, always pushing for Paul to cynically embrace the prophecies and so, in this version, drive a wedge between him and Chani. This syncs up with my observations in Part One that Villeneuve almost presents her as a romantic interest for Paul; if so, here she is almost the 'other girl', and Paul has to choose between mother/prophecy and Chani/a simple life among the Fremen (this latter choice is highlighted by him removing the signet ring when he feels welcomed by the Fremen but keeping it in his stillsuit).

Gurney Halleck in this version is not leading a ragged band of Atreides guerillas like 1984's Patrick Stewart version. Rather he is now keeping a low profile and working as a spice miner, seemingly having given up hope that any remnants of House Atreides remain. The Fremen attack the harvester but Paul recognises him and tells them to stay their hand and presumably save the rest of the crew, though I don't think we see anyone else after this and he's more or less framed as the last remnant of Paul's old retinue in the final scenes. This *really* bothered me. Gurney says he managed to get offworld after the attack. OK; we know he has knowledge of the location of the Atreides atomics and hates the Harkonnen with every bone in his body; first for killing his family prior to the events of the first movie (as he reveals for I think the first time here); and then the loss of his new family with the death of Duke Leto. And so, Villeneuve imagines, he...

...goes back to Arrakis to work for the Harkonnen (the movie really seems to have forgotten who owns the original harvesters) and forgets about the atomics. What the absolute fuck? They do establish that the door is gene-coded so only a direct descendent of the Duke can open it (the line 'your genetic heritage only, m'lord' made me visibly cringe in the theatre), but in-universe, is there *any* reason he wouldn't go to, say, House Richese and say 'The Emperor was involved in the attack on Arrakis. I saw Sardaukar among the Harkonnen. I know where there are untraceable nukes on Arrakis; send in a covert mining team and you can tunnel down to get them. All I ask is you use some of them on Giedi Prime and the rest on Kaitan.'

For all that 1984 stretched plausibility that Gurney and his men could have survived in the desert without Fremen skills, it still feels more plausible than him getting off world then just coming back to work on a harvester.

(Note: in the book he joins a smuggler crew. Did they mention in an off-hand remark in the film that the crew he was with were not Harkonnen?)

The worm-drowning scene was well-done, even if I thought they should probably have set up the sandtrouts here if they have any hope of filming 'God-Emperor'.

Feyd Rautha's anti-grav ships bombard Sietch Tabr, causing heavy casualties. I almost feel like more attention should have been placed on this and how *this* is what changes Paul's mind; seeing his own new family injured and dead, rather than continuing for several scenes with will-he won't-he back and forth. Leave me here and go south - the people will only go if you go - there's an important meeting, they call the Lisan al-Gaib to appear, etc. The reunion between Paul and Chani *should* have been the conclusion of their romance arc here. I noticed the 'I will love you as long as you stay true to yourself' and anticipated the subsequent tension, but it felt clumsy.

Paul apparently just shows up and abruptly decides to drink the Stuff on a whim. This felt really bad and rushed. There was a jarring cut between him arriving and the guardian offering him the drink that I *think* was meant to represent Jessica's Voice command taking effect; she warns him 'leave or die' and then finds herself administering the Stuff.

(as a note: just how powerful is Villeneuve's Voice? It can apparently implant suggestions that take effect days or weeks later)

The female voice in Paul's visions has apparently (I think) been Alia? I am not sure about this as my assumption after the last movie was that it was future!Jessica. I didn't think the 'mind opening' was that well done in terms of mind-warping visuals, other than seeing an ocean in the desert. We caught of a glimpse of what I think were meant to be the face of his female ancestors, but a big point in the book is that the Kwisatz Haderach can access the memories of both his female and male ancestors (for all that this makes very little sense). This was crying out for a cameo from Duke Leto, instead of all people he sees Jamis (this may have been book-accurate, I can't remember at point of writing).

In the vision, he learns that Baron Harkonnen is his grandfather and 'we are Harkonnens'. So the pasty skin, black teeth and hairlessness of the Harkonnen is just environmental? Or even just fashion? This is interesting to see given the Harkonnen have been very deliberately racially 'Othered'.

In a reverse Sleeping Beauty scenario, Chani administers some more Water of Life, mingled with her tears, which wakes Paul up, because it vaguely fits the (fake, fabricated by the Bene Gesserit) prophecy? I am struggling to see how this works in-universe, for all that they clearly wanted some more action for her as female co-lead. Was it just a 'hair of the dog'?

The Fremen war council was spectacular, in a vast cavern (?) with lit podia (or was it just one with reflections on the walls?). Chani is again regrettably throughly modern, breaching her own society's rules by barging onto the podium to lecture to her leader. Her having to be restrained in accordance with Fremen decorum by Gurney Halleck *might* have been intended to be character development for him, but I think was just clumsy writing.

In general, Chalamet's acting was up to par, but something different was needed from him after his transformation into the Kwisatz Haderach and we didn't get it (for those saying he wasn't really changed; nonsense - he now has psychic powers that would make Kyle MacLachlan's version blush, actively reading minds when this is supposed to be impossible in-universe). What was called for here was a very elevated style of talking when he is consciously assuming the messianic role, reminiscent of holy text - not necessarily thees and thous but 'shall's and 'unto you's.

I cringed a little when, for example, he threatened the Emperor later in very unelevated, thuggish language. I can somewhat forgive the sections he is speaking Peterson's conlang-Fremen language it sounds quite rough; part of this is probably the difficulty getting the actors to sound fluent but it also had some echoes of rough and tumble military braggadochio in languages like Turkish.

The Emperor's reflective sphere-ship was certainly imposing; possibly too much so as it dwarfs Arakeen, something not immediately obvious from the ground shots so later when we see it just hovering over what just looks like a landing strip I wondered why it was suddenly out in the middle of nowhere before realising the shapes on the ground were the quarters of the entire planet's capital city!

I am always annoyed at the possibly royalties-motivated redesign of uniforms in sequels, and the Sardaukar here are a particularly offensive example. It's literally been less than nine months since the Battle of Arakeen; probably less given Jessica is not (I think) massively pregnant at the end. I did wonder if the redesign was to emphasise that 'the hunter has become the hunted'; now the Sardaukar are, like the Atreides, mostly bare-faced and their opponent is now the masked Fremen. On some level I feel this was deliberate, as when later the Sardaukar assume an Atreides-like sword line. I was also annoyed that we didn't hear any throat-singing as the Sardaukar form up outside the palace-ship. This would have immediately worked to remind us 'Oh yes, those guys', and differentiate them from the Harkonnen mooks who the Fremen have been killing all movie.

The attack on Arakeen was generally great - I would have liked to have seen the nuke scene handled differently and linger more on Paul silhouetted against the mushroom cloud.

The worm attack was also good; I did notice that suddenly the Harkonnen ornithopters become significantly less powerful than in the first movie, both rockets and miniguns seeming ineffective against worms and infantry Fremen alike. There wasn't really any sense that Shaddam's hubris led to him remaining on-planet (even the Dune 2000 game did this better, with the Truthsayer whispering 'Retreat, with victory in sight? Release the Sardaukar!"). I also felt like they sneakily tried to resolve a discrepancy between the visions of the first movie and this one by putting Chani in the role of infantry leader; she ends a shot in the exact same pose as Paul in the first movie when he has a vision of killing Sardaukar in a power suit (these don't appear in the second movie). In the second movie, he arrives on a worm instead. I guess this is a slight retcon and he is seeing himself in the place of whoever the vision is about. It seems a real waste though as presumably this sequence was shot - or was this implied to be during the galactic jihad?

One thing that stood out to me was the (redesigned) Sardaukar trying to regain formation after the blast takes down the mountain and the following storm. The first thing we see is one trooper trying to lift the Corrino banner and, as the wind overcomes him, another one helping to get it upright again. This felt *immensely* true to the book's universe.

Walken wasn't as bad as I feared; he mostly resisted the mugging I feared and wasn't given any lines containing 'walk without rhythm' or 'weapon of choice'. He plays Shaddam, again, as elderly, weary and manipulated, with the suggestion of fire re-emerging when he tells Paul 'your father was a weak man' ringing true. His throne room was appropriately Villeneuve-brutalist while still feeling Dune-y, and he thankfully replaces the Palpatine robe he wears at the beginning with an understated but still decently ornate tunic when holding court. No Burseg helmet as per the books, sadly. Should we read anything into the Emperor's throneroom being lit in a very obvious cross?

I understand why the plot was changed to give Paul a chance to meet the Baron and enact his revenge personally. Feyd wasn't in the first film and despite much more screen time compared to 1984 and even the mini-series doesn't feel satisfying as a final target for Paul's vendetta.

(As a note, the Baron throughout this movie now has a floating respirator with him that I am certain he didn't have in the first film. Is this supposed to be a lingering consequence of the gas attack?)

In this version, the duel between Paul and Feyd Rautha is explicitly a challenge to Shaddam for the throne, with Feyd serving as the Emperor's champion. This felt odd; has it been established that in this version the Padishah Emperor is a role you can have a knife-fight for, like the Klingons in Star Trek? I believe in both the book and 1984 version the coup was presented as a fait accompli with the duel a simple matter of honour and arguably an unnecessary risk by Paul; Shaddam's forces are shattered with only those immediately around him still loyal.

This is further reduced in the 2024 version as Paul has his Fremen kill the remaining Sardaukar and bring the Emperor to the visitor accommodation. This was a really missed opportunity as it deprives us of a huge and obvious shot; the victorious Paul sitting on the throne.

Feyd has no secret poison spikes in this version and, annoyingly, there's no tension in Paul choosing whether or not to use the Voice (Feyd Rautha reacts to Paul commanding the Reverend Mother to be 'Silent!' as if noting and remembering the ability, but we've already established he's vulnerable to it). This continues a trend of Villeneuve forgetting about the Voice in combat, where in the first film Jessica doesn't use it against Stilgar and Paul doesn't use it against Jamis, without even a one-off line like 'and no Bene Gesserit tricks'. Rather, he wins the first two clashes, even leaving a knife embedded in Paul's shoulder, before Paul kills him in a grapple that recalls his first on-screen spar with Gurney Halleck; Feyd is focused on the knife he is pushing further and further through Paul's seemingly exhausted grip, but he - and the viewer - can't see Paul's knife further down.

I *think* we were supposed to understand that as a possible Kwisatz Haderach Feyd is outside Paul's newly acquired precognition (this was sort of foreshadowed when he says he didn't foresee the attack on the sietch), together with the mention by Feyd that he dreamed about Lady Fenring, but wasn't spelled out.

A moment somewhat mocked on social media, but which I felt rang very true, was Bardem's frantic "Lisan al-Gaib!" when it is clear Paul has just barely survived the duel. This is *not* Stilgar the believer once again extolling his messiah's supernatural powers. This is Stilgar the politician and tribal leader realising that Paul looks very vulnerable and *un-supernatural* right now, and if he doesn't quickly get the watching Fremen on board with a chant of 'Lisan al-Gaib' the spell may be broken.

I liked how the Emperor was forced to plead for his life via the medium of his daughter, and the ambiguity of Paul's gesture; I initially thought he was commanding Irulan to step away from her father and take his hand in marriage (and this might be intentional), but instead, Shaddam is forced to go down to his knees and kiss Paul's ducal ring; a good use for the ring finding its way to Paul, which I complained about in the first movie (he also uses it in this movie to seal the ultimatum to the Emperor earlier).

The other Houses refuse Paul's ultimatum to accept him as Emperor (did he say this? I thought they only asked the other Houses to hear him out), leaving Paul to command his Fremen 'Lead them to heaven', ushering in the jihad. But we see their ships leaving seemingly without ill effect. This was crying out for first a few then intensifying rockets from the ground; perhaps even one of the ships burning and falling to emphasise that, yes, Paul just declared war on the entire universe and the ships are *fleeing*.

The final shot, incomprehensibly, is a grumpy Chani on her own, preparing to ride a worm. Perhaps Villeneuve has a plan for how Dune: Messiah will play out with her, maybe even taking some of the role of Alia, who obviously doesn't have the same interaction with the original cast here, being a psychic fetus the entire film-

(At this point I should violently interject; Villeneuve's politics, by God. What are we to make of the fetal personhood on show multiple times in this movie, at this time in American politics? She isn't even called an 'abomination'; that line is transferred to refer to Paul (who irritatingly doesn't even get to declare 'Look into that place you dare not look; you'll find me there' to justify it, just use the Voice, which the Bene Gesserit already know he can do!

Is the fact that it is most clearly championed by Jessica, who in this version has an antagonistic or at least 'bad influence' bent, intended to make it ambiguous? I feel this choice was probably intended to avoid the time-jump implied by a child actor; or perhaps to avoid the controversy of Alia of the Knife being a murderous toddler. But, as with his sexual and racial politics, what emerges is something that feels very odd, like he accidentally ended up throwing in a pro-life message.)

-All this should make us wonder. Villeneuve clearly likes the idea that Chani is the viewpoint character of Dune, beginning the first film with a voiceover from her and concluding with changing the story (no "history will call us wives" here) to leave her on her own but also seemingly abandoned in favour of the swanky princess; again, I feel like this last one wasn't intentional. There was probably an intent that 'Chani is her own woman and in this version she wouldn't want to marry Paul after he gives in and embraces the messianic role', but does it read as that? Or does it read as 'Chani missed her chance and Paul has married someone more suitable' (again, there's a racial reading here that can't be ignored; something not present in the 1984 version where Chani is played by Sean Young). Is this simply neo-Puritanism over the idea of the protagonist having multiple wives (I don't think any adaptation has thrown in the fact that Paul is honour-bound to marry Jamis's wife also)? Did someone say 'this feels a bit harem anime'?

The Guild are almost completely missing, and instead of using his knowledge of the worm lifecycle to threaten to use the stored water to create a chain reaction that will poison the worms, Paul just threatens to nuke the spice fields with his family atomics. When he does that, the Emperor says something like 'You've gone insane!', but no-one chips in to explain that, in fact, if he destroys the spice, the Guild can no longer navigate space, the Imperium will fall, and most of humanity dies due to the end of interstellar trade. This is the dilemma! The jihad claiming billions of lives vs. terraforming Dune claiming *literally all the lives*.

What was needed for the final shots of Dune was something like - of all things - the denouement of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. We should see the Fremen rampaging across the universe; ships burning; the shot from the vision of Paul looking out over Caladan, his again; Giedi Prime getting bombed into ashes - just to provoke us to think 'well, they liked violent gladiatorial games, but did they *really* deserve to die en masse because of what the Baron did?'. And then we cut to Paul on the Emperor's throne, looking shocked and hollow. He, like Dr Horrible, gets 'Everything (He) Ever Wanted', and it will haunt him forever. We grasp the cyclical nature of power - Paul Atreides, the exile turned revolutionary and mystic, is back on top - the very, very top, replacing the Sardaukar with his *own* brutal shock troops from a wasteland world. We needed to see that, and other than a few visions, we don't. Instead, we finish with what might, optimistically, be the message 'the traditional Fremen life will go on'? 'Sisters are doing it for themselves'? 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a desert'? 'You can't please everyone all of the time'? In-pardon my language, fucking-scusable.

All of this means I think there's definitely room for a different Dune at an appropriate distance in time once Villeneuve's series - however long it runs, and God-Emperor is looking like a possibility - concludes. I have suggested an animated film or series as something very different from the existing adaptations, possibly leaning into precognition as the conceit, and after viewing Villeneuve's Part Two I think I've worked out how to do it.

The first scene in the book is someone - we don't see faces - being administered the Water of Life. We then cut to the dunes and the muad'dib mouse, and then it becomes clear we are watching it from the perspective of Paul and Chani.

They discuss the mouse on the moon and Paul decides that his name 'will be Muad'Dib'. Paul then awakens years earlier on Caladan. At about the two-thirds mark, Jessica takes the Water of Life but begins seizing. She sees herself drowning deep under an endless blue ocean. Paul says 'I can't reach where you are' and impulsively drinks the Water of Life himself; as Chani holds onto him he reaches out and holds his mother's hand and we see in the now shared vision that he swims down into the ocean, grabs her hand, and pulls her up. When they surface he experiences the rest of the vision, and then, awakening, says "I saw it all - I was back on Caladan; I saw us travel to Arrakis for the first time - but I also saw Baron Harkonnen; I saw him plotting with the Emperor - Shaddam! The Emperor is behind the downfall of our family". The entire first two-thirds of the movie *is* the Water of Life experience. Paul has watched the entire movie so far and for the rest of the film knows everything we, the audience, have seen, and more.

In general, Villeneuve's Dune is still probably one of the most striking and solid sci-fi films in recent decades. It is not as clearly stand-alone as I think reviewers have been prone to claim - much like the Lynch version which infamously issued a physical guide for cinema-goers to consult to understand the universe, Villeneuve's Dune does not clearly establish some of the book's most distinctive elements.

You might reasonably assume that the shields are why this universe relies so heavily on hand-to-hand combat - but why so few lasguns? (because in the book, hitting a shield with a lasgun obliterates both parties).

Why do the Harkonnen and Sardaukar feel so much weaker in the desert? Because shields act like a thumper and call worms.

(Note: This was in fact mentioned in the first film.)

Why do some people roll their eyes and do mental maths? They're mentats, human calculators. Why do they exist, and why are there no robots in this oddly run-down, primitive-feeling future? Because a thousand years ago a war called the Butlerian Jihad resulted in the absolute prohibition of thinking machines everywhere in the Imperium (it's bizarre this wasn't mentioned given AI is such a hot topic).

By the end of the second film you've also forgotten that the spice is vital for space travel (why? because it makes Navigators able to see the future, something Villeneuve has decided to emphasise only applies to Paul, and thus able to predict where a hyperspace jump will lead).

The Harkonnen were I think handled the worst of the characters, which isn't new. Skarsgard's Baron is overall acceptable and Rabban has decent menace, but he and Feyd Rautha suffer from the Lynchian 'kill your underlings' brain bug which no longer makes villains feel scary, and the random lurid elements Villeneuve has invented (gimp spiders, child slaves, cannibal prostitutes) feel just as over-the-top as the disfigured 1984 Baron pulling his servants' heart plugs for fun. The decision to make them all pasty bald troglodytes speaks to a fear to present villains as anything more than interchangeable cannon fodder lest, perhaps, the audience find them too compelling? The Fremen suffer from weird racial politics (a need to cast for diversity applied, we notice, most diligently to the desert-dwelling tribesmen, but coupled with the apparent desire to make them darker when you're meant to find them scary, which feels distinctly un-progressive) and the Corrinos from limited screen time. The Atreides in the first film felt most like a believable future society, while the glimpses we got at the Spacing Guild seemed intriguing, with their Daft Punk helmets, but were never followed through.

[junithys]

Passing Thoughts 1

This blog is pretty much an op-ed piece where I talk about random things that I have thought and/or written about in my diary — may make a PART 2 in the future if I decide to talk about miscellaneous topics again. Mostly involving anime, because as most of you know — I'm a really big nerd. Though I am less into review-writing as I used to be, partially due to the fact that I have dabbled in art and animation, so it is harder for me to be impartially critical when I know how difficult the work is.

I heard an episode of the Anime World Order podcast a long time ago, where Mr. Surat said that if you love anime enough, you'll eventually want to contribute creatively in some way or make your own. I fought against this idea for many years, I kept telling myself that I would just be satisfied with just writing a novel and that would be the extent of my narrative-making skills, that I would dedicate the rest of my time to music.

But then, I picked up the pen (stylus) again and started drawing again, and then I starting imagining my stories in visual novel format, as I once did when I first discovered them as a teenager (as a choose-your-own-adventure game). I then realized that I could not escape the impulse to want to create something with an anime art style. It was like the figurative Mephistopheles clawing cloyingly at my back.

Detective Conan

It is hard to get other people into Detective Conan, there's a common misconception in my native country — if there is a main character that looks like a kid, then the show is for children. In the case of Detective Conan, this simply isn't true; there are elements of it that seem written in to appeal to younger people, like the word game (shiratori) riddles in the films, but the series is actually very cerebral and something that I would mostly suggest to teens and adults.

The murder mysteries are so well thought-out that they are hard for me to predict at times, and they are often very elaborate… there are some episodes that will leave you thinking, how would you even think to kill someone in that way? The characters are very lovable and wholesome, like you would expect in a family film, but the narrative devices are employed in a very complex way.

Thoughts on Fanservice in Anime

I was thinking about this after listening to the recent Otaku Spirit podcast episode called "Is Anime Problematic?" where the hosts vent their worries about the growing concern of censorship in anime, and they discuss the moral dilemma of "if an anime is problematic, should it be erased?" Obviously, I don't think so — I think aspects of media that are troublesome can often reinforce a sense of right and wrong in people.

I know that there are, of course, mentally ill people out there but the complication with writing to avoid stimulating a psychopath is that if someone is sick, I think censorship will only make the person feel more oppressed and radicalize them even further? I. am sure that someone so unhinged would see secret messages in a show about a baby wallaby, the course of action for creators is often hard to take when there are so many expectations and culpability on how it will affect the public. 

I used to wonder why more fictional series didn't push the envelope to explore untapped subjects more openly, but as I've grown older — it makes more sense, although I can't say that I like it. Media-enforced morality is a difficult subject to broach, but I have never been a strong proponent of any kind of censorship, particularly in literature and comics. 

I do not think it should be up to the government or people in power to decide what us common-folk read — I know there are dangerous ideas, certainly, but if you spoon-feed the population then critical thinking will become raw and premature as a result. If the public blindly follows whatever is told through the news and publications without thinking things through, history has shown that that kind of mindless thinking can lead to many tragedies and terrors.

Note: I do believe in trigger warnings and content filters though, people should be allowed to put up boundaries with what they intake. Particularly those with traumatic pasts.

This circles back around to my view on fanservice (ecchi) in anime. There has always been arguments about whether fanservice with younger-looking characters should be allowed, and I personally do not see a problem with it as long as it is tasteful and does not become pornographic. In school shows, there's an innocence and element of comic mischief to it, it feels like reliving your youth in a sense because it encapsulates the feeling of hanging out with old friends or falling in love for the first time. There's a feeling of purity with most ecchi and moe series, though I do admit that some can be excessively dirty, too.

A lot of people from my generation originally fell in love with anime as a medium because the animation and art is not only top-notch, but the ideas are fresh and for the most part, it is unrestrained. Anime felt like an expression of freedom that sees its viewship as competent and not infantile, there was a lot of experimentation and intellectualism in the writing. I think that anime creators should try their hardest to retain that sense of artistic integrity.

Vtubing VS Blogging

Sometimes I don't write blogs as often because I talk about a lot of my opinions on stream or the blurbs about anime become verbal, and then I am too tired to repeat them via text… it feels like blogging is kind archiving my opinions or setting them in stone, and sometimes the thought of that can be daunting. Especially when I have changed a lot over the years, I guess it is still good to have a record of who I used to be — like a journal entry.

Unconditional Love

It's a given that pets, for the most part, express their unconditional love to you. Of course they do, you feed them — clean their litter — give them a warm place to sleep during the winter, but I realized recently how grateful I was for that. With our cats, while they love both of us, Kenma is closer to me and Karna is the closest to SakihataLily. I realized how grateful I was for that innocent intimacy recently, I have been waking up with Kenma curled up to me every morning! I am so happy that we decided to adopt cats!

Saber Route

So — Saber is my favorite heroine in the original Fate/stay night story, ufotable has announced that they will adapt Artoria's route. Though the date remains unannounced, I am still eagerly awaiting that version of the narrative!

Note: I was reminded of this because yesterday, ufotable uploaded all of the Réalta Nua OPs to their YouTube account and Twitter, and there were a lot of Saber fans asking for the adaptation. I can't blame them, Saber is wildly popular for a reason!

Tumblr: Then VS Now

The last time that I used Tumblr before now was in 2015. I eventually switched to Twitter because back then, Tumblr seemed pointless — there was a sub-sect of active artists, but most of the blogs that I saw were a collection of reposted fan art from Pixiv and quirky GIFs. I am okay with people posting official art, but when people repost fan art, I do not like it — the dignified part of myself thinks that it should be up to the artist themselves to share their art on whichever sites they want to. 

It feels pointless because the reason why I share pretty fan works to begin with is to directly support the artist in some way, but if I am reblogging reposted art, it does not feel like I'm directly showing support to the artist and thus, feels like a waste of time. Tumblr seems to be much better with that now, but since I am older, if I don't want to see an art-reposting blog, I just block them. 

That may sound rude, but it saves me the confusion of having to figure out whether they are the actual artist or not, and since I am working on my own projects — I do not have time for that. I like some of the newer features of Tumblr, like the option of hiding followers, it makes it feel more cozy and less competitive. Overall, I am glad that I made Tumblr a secondary blog, I have never used blogging sights like Blog Spot, other than to lurk on pages of musicians that I used to like back in the day, but if I need to… I feel more comfortable with the idea of branching out now.

As an aside — if you are an artist in any medium (illustration, prose, game dev, musician, animation, etc.) or Vtuber, please hit me up — I like to support other artists and network whenever I am able to!

[notmuchofarolemodel]

music- sia’s movie

originally written on jan 24 2021

I can’t believe i’m writing about this. again.

So, if you didn’t already know, Sia directed a movie about an autistic girl, starring Maddie Ziegler. This is problematic for so many reasons, including the fact that Maddie is allistic (not autistic), Sia did next to no research on autism before directing the movie, and after announcing the movie, she took to twitter and attacked autistic people voicing their opinions. But she’s done so many more awful things since. So yay, article by me, the sequel. /s

Sia has done a few interviews over the last while about her movie and has responded to criticism about it. (very badly.)

Despite her claims, Sia was never going to cast an autistic actor in the first place. She said:

“I realized it wasn’t ableism [Casting Maddie]. I mean, it is ableism I guess as well, but it’s actually nepotism because I can’t do a project without her. I don’t want to. I wouldn’t make art if it didn’t include her.”

It was also found that Sia said had written a film for Maddie a long time ago- in 2015- which almost certainly means she never had any intentions of casting an autistic person.

The plot of the movie, and a clip have both been leaked since the release of the trailer in November.

‘Music’ falls back on harmful Hollywood sterotypes again, and again- but yet, after it was no longer fresh news, almost nobody but the autistic community was talking about it. It’s still set to be released soon this year, but stereotypes such as ‘autism = special/savant abilities’ as seen in Rain man, and ‘Autistic people don’t have feelings’ - are ones that lead to underdiagnosis, and biases in the professional world.

“We are particularly alarmed that Sia has said it would be ‘cruel’ to cast a nonspeaking autistic person as an actor. It suggests that she thinks that autistic people don’t understand our own lives and aren’t the people who should be telling our own stories. When people tell stories about autism that cut out an autistic point of view, when storytellers view us as objects to tell inspirational stories about, or when autism is treated as a narrative device rather than as a disability community full of real people, the stories that are told fall flat, don’t speak to our reality, and are often harmful to us.” -Zoe Gross, ASAN

Sia refused to refer to her main character as disabled, and only used the term ‘special abilities’ which just further proves how these sterotypes affect people’s view of autistic people. In today’s society, autism is a disability, and that’s not a bad thing. She also described the film as “Rainman, the musical- but with girls”

There are several meltdown scenes in the movie, and one of them has been leaked in a clip. In this, Music is having a meltdown in a park, and she is then held in prone restraint. Meaning she was jumped on top of and pinned to the ground. This was not only unnecessary, but potentially deadly. This film is going to be big, if it gets released, and it was very much made for a neurotypical audience’s enjoyment. People will likely see this movie, and think that restraining an autistic person is ok. It’s not. This is how people get killed. Recently a story came up about Eric Parsa, a 16 year old autistic boy who was killed at the hands of the police last year, after they used this ‘technique’ on him.

Regarding this scene Sia said, “If they [cinema-goers] watch the movie, it will allow them to touch into their compassion. That scene was so important to me, because of all the people staring. I felt compelled to put it in.”

This is why people need to listen and learn from actual autistic people. There’s so much dangerous misinformation out there, and it’s unacceptable. There is nothing ‘compassionate’ about harming people, and autistic people are people. i.e people who deserve the same rights and dignity as everyone else.

Sia continues to further dehumanize autistic people by constantly talking about ‘levels of functioning’. humans are impossibly complex, and there’s no one way to function. In an interview with Sia, nonspeaking autistic people are compared to ‘inanimate objects, like wigs’.

Sia also said “People functioning at Music’s level can’t get on Twitter and tell me I did a good job either.” This is untrue, firstly because, again- there’s no one way to function, and just because a person can’t speak, doen’t mean they don’t have a right to opinions, and feelings (and it definitely doesn’t mean they should be compared to ‘inanimate objects’), and secondly because many nonspeaking autistic people have taken to twitter and social media to tell her she’s done a bad job, she’s just chosen to ignore and insult them.

This whole thing is so infuriating, and it’s very obvious that Sia does not care about autistic people.

“Sia being ableist AF while claiming she meant well is some serious abled savior bullshit. I can’t believe so many people green-lit this project & the press team approved the ‘special abilities’ language. Disabled people clearly weren’t part of this production team.” -Kristen Parisi via twitter

She also claimed she decided to make the movie because she was inspired by a 16-year-old named Stevie that she met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. “Stevie used to sit next to me in the front row at my AA meetings. He was low-functioning and on the spectrum with echolalia; he’s the reason I wanted to make this movie,” she said. Autistic people don’t exist simply to be inspiring or make you feel good about yourself. We’re people, who just want to go about our lives, the same as anyone else- we don’t need a cure and we don’t need to fit people’s idea of what autism is, just let us be, please.

Finally, I’m just going to touch on the question ‘Why isn’t any criticism being directed at Maddie?’ This is because she likely didn’t have much say in the film at all. Keep in mind that she was only 13/14 at the start of this project. Sia also said Maddie was worried that people would think she was mocking autistic people. The film is a mockery of autistic people, but Sia is at fault.

“She had researched her role for two years, we watched movies together, and I taught her the nuances and ticks I had observed from [a] friend [with autism],” Sia said. “We did this in the most sensitive and respectful way.”

I can confirm that that is very much not sensitive and respectful- not to mention that Maddie also watched autism meltdowns as a part of her reseach too (filming a meltdown is incredibly dehumanizing) , but the fact that she learned how to ‘act autistic’ from sterotypes, taught to her by a person who just, doesn’t know anything about autism is awful, but also quite absurd. It makes no sense.

No, I do not wish to watch an abled-bodied actor wear my stims like itchy clothes. A caricature of my being.

No, I do not want to see her dance around in skin not her own, profiting from a life not her own.

No, I do not wish to support yet another film that will profit off the lives of disabled bodies without one disabled body involved. -tiffany hammond

I recieved quite a bit of backlash when I posted the first time about why casting a nondisabled actor for a disabled role is bad- from allistic people, so if any of you are reading this as nondisabled people- I literally do not care if you disagree, you don’t get to dictate how autistic people feel. Try a little harder to get out of your own head and see things from another person’s perspective xx

Now, for the love of God, please don’t watch this movie if it comes out in February, and listen to Autistic voices. : Here is a thread of positive autistic representation instead :)

click here for thread!

Sign the Petition

Filming & posting videos of children's autism meltdowns on YouTube is a clear violation of YouTube's community…www.change.org

link

Sign the Petition

Sia has announced she is directing a movie about an autistic woman, and claims she wants to represent the…www.change.org

all other relevant links are linked within the underlined text.

my original article - link

[laney-swan]

Hello reader and welcome,

I recently decided to start up a blog about my day to day life, much like a diary. I want to improve my writing skills and I know the best way to do that is practice. I’m by no means a great writer, but I think I am a good storyteller. I have been writing and telling stories since I was little and my dad was the one to always encourage me to be a writer, while my mom encouraged me to go into the arts. Well surprisingly I did both in college. I went to Keene State College in New Hampshire right out of high school to study Performing arts and costuming. Then a few years later I went to Southern New Hampshire University online and received my second BA in Creative Writing for Screen Writing. Before I get into a life story, which will probably bore you and you will never read anything I write again, I wanted to talk about the five things you will see on this blog.

1. Theme Parks

I live in Orlando Florida and work at Universal Studios Orlando Resort as a costumer, and I am a Walt Disney World annual pass holder. I have been going to theme parks since I was a few months old, my first trip to Disney I was around 6 months old I think. So I love coasters, all the new rides, trying different theme park foods, and going to the parks with my friends. You will see a lot of Disney World and Universal stuff on here, but my fiancé and I want to start going to other parks in Florida as well.

2. DIY, Crafts, and Costumes

Now although I work with costumes daily, I don’t make or design them…yet. However I like doing that stuff in my own home. So when I’m not out at a theme park you can find me doodling, painting, or planning my next creative project. Right now I am working on my biggest project yet…my wedding. So I hope to post how -to’s, fun’s DIY’s and of course costuming stuff.

3. Writing and Reading

Like I said before, this blog is really so I can practice writing, so I hope I can put short stories on here, or even publish chapters of a story. This way everyone can critic my work and help me make my stories more grammatically correct. I also want to put some of the books I am reading on here, or re-blog books I think I would like/know I love. AKA all the Harry Potter books 😂

4. All Things Film

I love movies, I mean I did get a degree for screen writing, so I hope I like movies. I want to be able to put movie reviews on here and reboot movie posts. Maybe I’ll put some snippets of screen writing on here, but honestly I like to keep those to myself. However, I wouldn’t mind putting short film scripts up, I’m sure this could also help film students who don’t particularly like writing but love directing. We will see though, I just worry about people stealing my work and taking the credit.

5. Life Style

I’m no beauty guru, and not great with fashion trends, but I know what I like. So I would talk about the life style that I am inspired by and try to live by. There willl be lots of vintage, cozy, cottage, academia vibes here. However there will also be a lot of Disney and nerdy stuff too. As well as wedding planning, house hunting, and eventually planning for a family. I want to talk about things that really matter to me and maybe to many of you.

Hopefully I haven’t completely bored you into never reading anything I post again, and if you have made it this far into the post thank you for reading. I look forward to lots of writing and hopefully sticking with this blog, because I really need to get my writing voice down. I hope to hear from you all in the future.

Have an amazing day,

Laney Swan

[long-after-love]

ON GEORGE – The youngest Beatle

(Originally written my Vietnamese for the local community, but I modified it a bit to post it here, since I love this essay so much... sorry for the self-indulgence)

First and foremost, I love the Beatles for their music. But there are also many other groups that I like because of their music, yet none ever had a permanent place in my heart like The Beatles does. I suppose I'm not really a music lover at heart, I don't care much about tastes, accolades, criticisms, records, and I'm not the type of person trying to express my personality through my taste in films, books or bands. If my love for Beatles could be divided into ten parts, three would be for the music, and seven would be for their history and anecdotes.

Ages ago, well, perhaps months ago, I received an anon ask about George that I couldn’t even recall at the moment. Must be something about George being unintellectual and a bit unaware of things. But I don’t think I was being overly critical of George – this is a John and Paul blog, but George was my first crush and when you think about your first crush, how you grew out of it and slowly learned how to fall in love again – you feel a bit embarrassing, but it is still something you hold dear, you just put it in a realistic light.

Now I think of George as the youngest, the cutes Beatle, though normally the moniker Cute Beatle belongs to Paul, I guess people were overly impressed with his doe eyes and rat bunny teeth. I couldn’t disagree with George’s _“Quiet One” _image more, George is anything but a supposedly spiritual, enlightened  person. Recently, with the celebration of All Things Must Pass’s 50th anniversary, people have even more reasons to buy that image. But is that really the case?

My perception of George started to change when I came across an interview with John and Yoko in 1971 with Peter McCabe. I think most of you are familiar with this:

 MCCABE: Let’s talk a bit about George. He’s perhaps the most enigmatic Beatle. Are you saying George is more conventional than he makes himself out to be?

JOHN: There’s no telling George. He always has a point of view about that wide, you know. [John places his hands a few inches apart.] You can’t tell him anything.

YOKO: George is sophisticated, fashionwise…

JOHN: He’s very trendy, and he has the right clothes, and all of that…

YOKO: But he’s not sophisticated, intellectually.

JOHN: No. He’s very narrow-minded and he doesn’t really have a broader view. Paul is far more aware than George. One time in the Apple office in Wigmore Street, I said something to George, and he said, “I’m as intelligent as you, you know.” This must have been resentment, but he could have left anytime if I was giving him a hard time.

MCCABE: What did you say?

JOHN: I didn’t answer. Of course, he’s got an inferiority complex working with Paul and me.

YOKO: In the case of Paul, it’s not that he’s not sophisticated. I’m sure that he’s intellectually sophisticated as well. It’s just that he’s aware, and yet he doesn’t want to know.

JOHN: Whereas George doesn’t really know what’s happening, you know.

— John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview w/ Peter McCabe & Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

 For those who firmly believed in George's “Quiet One” image (where quietness is meant to show enlightened reticence), the above interview can make their blood boil, but in fact, if you read the Beatles biographies carefully, you have to realize that John and Yoko’s observance, albeit being absurdly blunt and mean-spirited, was true. George was a spiritual person from his late twenties to his death, but he was never enlightened type, the sage-like type. I always appreciate the innocent part of his nature more, even though he, at times, acted unseemly. There are many funny and endearing anecdotes surrounding George that prove it, told by family and close friends of the Beatles since the band was unknown. Here I only pointed out three of them.

The first story is the look on George's face. On the stage, George stood silently a bit behind John and Paul, rarely smiled. Since the Cavern days, girls had asked Louise Harrison, George's mother, why George wouldn't laugh. What Mrs. Louise revealed turned out to be nothing complicated: George was afraid of making mistakes (Davies, 2009). When people are concentrating, their facial expressions will naturally become serious. And thus, just as naturally, the unknowing seriousness gave George some mysterious air that subtly differed him from the fierce John and the bouncy Paul.

Second, I would like to quote from John and Cyn, as seen on some earlier post:

“When George was a kid, he used to follow me and my first girlfriend Cynthia. We would come out of the art school together and he’d be hovering around.Cyn and I would be going to a coffee shop or a movie and George would follow us down the street two hundred yards behind. Cyn would say, ‘Who is that guy? What does he want?’ And I’d say, 'He just wants to hang out. Should we take him with us?’ She’d say, 'Oh, OK, let’s take him to the bloody movies.’ So we’d allow him to come to the movies with us. That’s the sort of relationship it was.” 

- John Lennon

“Hi John, Hi Cyn.’ He would hurriedly catch us up and then it would be, 'Where are you two off to? Can I come?’ Neither of us would have the heart to tell this thin gangly kid in school uniform to push off. Poor George! He hand’t really got to the stage of serious girlfriends yet and was totally unaware of what it was all about, Alfie! So we would spend the lost afternoon as a jolly threesome, wondering what on earth we were going to do with ourselves.” 

- Cynthia Powell

In addition, Cynthia also told this story in her book, John (2005): 

“It was appendicitis and I was stuck in hospital for two weeks. After a couple of days John came to visit me, dragging George with him. I had been so desperate to see him, and was so frustrated when I saw George, that I burst into tears. Shocked, John told George to hop it and held my hand for an hour to mollify me. After a while my mum arrived, and later took John and George back to our house for tea.”

Please note this little detail: John went to the hospital to see his sick girlfriend, but apparently George insisted to tag along. When John saw Cyn crying, he asked George to leave, George seemed to hang outside, waiting for John to finish his visit. This is very telling: how desperate George wanted to hang out with John then! With the part where Cynthia's mother invited both John and George home for tea, Mrs. Powell probably had been familiar with this little boy who followed John and Cyn all the time.

I would like to give another example with Astrid Kirchherr’s memory of George. It was 1960 – Astrid and Stuart Sutcliffe were in love, but this still didn't stop the naive little George just seventeen years old then, and Astrid was certainly moved by his sweetness, quoted from The Beatles (2009) by Hunter Davies: 

“I got on like a house on fire with George. He'd never met anyone like me before and he showed it, so openly and sweetly. After all, he was only 17. There was me, the sort of intelligent girl he'd never come across before, with my own car, working as a photographer, and wearing leather jackets. It was natural he would be very interested in me. I never fancied him or anything like that. It wasn't that sort of thing. I was five years older, so it didn't matter being open. We got on great.”

You may argue: but it was just baby George! Oh, I couldn’t agree with that, my good friend. I think George’s attitude was always like that – he was the youngest child of his parents and the youngest boy of Beatles – he was immature, not very worldly and made questionable choices, especially in his effort to butter up John by recording HDYS: it wasn’t fruitful as it was self-defeating: John, all in all, just saw him as the kid that tagged along.

After the Beatles’ break up, George always seemed most annoyed with the Beatles, most frustrated about the past. But it seems that George only overreacted because he was tired and powerless against the morbid curiosity of the press and fans for decades. I think if George hated the Beatles or hated Paul as he made himself to be, then George would not have held Paul’s hand reminiscing about the past, nor chosen to die at Paul's house (I know Paul lent him the house, but George wasn’t too broke to rent a house near the treatment facility). Thus, with such an attitude, I couldn’t take him seriously as a spiritual person, but hell, wasn’t he a lovely man with all the flaws?

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Hi! So, why BTS? And why now? I want to follow your blog, but may I speak openly?

Writing about BTS through the lens of various critical theory is amazing. You are so smart. I am going to be honest about my own biases here, so feel free to trash me for it. I am anonymous after all so trash away as is your right. I understand.

There is often a supposition from critics, both professional and amateur, that the fandom- frequently presented as an immature, undifferentiated mob of cultists- is unable to think critically and must have basic things explained to us so that we don't throw stones at the free speech warriors of truth and standards (not saying that this is your attitude). I find that a little alienating. This fandom has existed for eight years. We have seen blogs and empires rise and fall.

I also don't think that it is an accident that the desire to project these more critical ideas into the public sphere usually comes after a year of being a full on ARMY (judging from my friends experiences). I have read peices about BTS's work referencing Lacan, neo-marxism, post-structuralism and other such stuffs. (My friend used to have an analytic blog that she chose to shut down a few years ago). I am going to be a bit blunt again, so trash if you must, but I think what was being exposed in those pieces was not only "critical thinking" but an excess of emotional investment in BTS, and the desire to intellectualize or justify it.

BTS got a lot of people through 2020. Those long content dives kept people sane. But now, based on a lot of the dissapointed PTD criticism, it feels like some people are waking up hung over and kind of bitter. Emphasizing the three English singles and ignoring BE, an album they worked on for months, seems like a symptom of this. Removing BE from the narrative seems to advance theories of BTS's 'Americanization', lack of creative agency and homogenization into some inferior or less Korean form of pop. BE should not be dismissed as irrelevant to this discourse. Many western artists take an average of 2 years between albums. BTS put out a lot of work. Maybe some of the distrust of criticism that we plebes have comes from the suspicion that critics may use art and events to construct a story. As a person of Asian heritage, LGO going #1 on Billboard meant a lot, emotionally.

I hope none of this caused offense. If it did please just ignore. Thanks for your great thoughts. Wishing you success in your goals.

Hi! Your ask did not cause offense, I'm more than fine to talk about this.

There's a lot to unpack here, so I'm taking it one by one.

Why BTS and why now? I chose to write about BTS because it's been an interest of mine for quite long. I mean, I didn't expect more than a year later to be here. My past obsessions usually lasted between 2 to 3 months, max, and everything felt so intense, but then it faded for a few years. (The last band I really focused on was Pearl Jam back in my first year of college while I was going through a bit of a difficult period in my life).

Yes, I have become a fan during the pandemic. It was sort of inevitable for it to become such a huge focus (escapism from the world outside and from writing a thesis). If I had started this blog a year ago, then you're right in one way: it would have been emotional investment and my desire to intellectualize and justify it. Basically that's what I did in the first few months (when I was on my own, in no community whatsoever). In order to explain myself and others why I'm spending time on this, I used to read research articles. But that's not the full truth and that's because to me such practice comes naturally, just as when I was 16 I couldn't just watch and enjoy movies, I had to read about them every day, or how I'm surrounded by pop culture just as everyone else, but I want to read books about it so I'm willing to do that for months. It's how I'm wired, so in a way, of course it had to happen with BTS as well.

The reason why I decided to make a blog now it's not necessarily because I ''woke up'' or that suddenly I see ''the truth''. Perhaps you may have had that impression because of my first post where I talked about PTD and the recent talks about ''Americanization''. I touched on that subject because I was closely following it, but that is not to say it was my only purpose on making a blog. I feel that, a year later, I'm more secure with my general knowledge and that of BTS. I couldn't have done it before that. I also plan to talk about other topics as well, not just what's ''hot'' at the moment. If I didn't have any other ideas, I wouldn't have made a blog.

And I'm certainly not here to teach anyone or ''plebes'' as you said, anything. And I also know that I'm not going to be the last to have a blog, write a think piece or publish something about BTS. People are allowed to engage in all types of discourse, depending on what they like and what they feel comfortable with. There are countless blogs with countless topics and perspectives. Some last, some don't, that's just how it is. I don't have huge important plans to teach the fandom, my ego is not that big and this is just a hobby for me. It's also not the first time I'm publishing something, but it is the first time on my own blog, despite being on tumblr for 10 years now.

But you are right when you talk about people forgetting about BE and I may add, Film Out which is more recent. I too thought that LGO going #1 on Billboard was incredible. It was a song in Korean that really reflected how people felt during the pandemic. Not just LGO, but the entire album is a true reflection of current times on top of being just simply good music. The album was promoted as well, different versions of the MV, the logs that preceded it focusing on production, it really made me look forward to it and it did not disappoint. The last few months of 2020 have been really good for what BTS has delivered. To go back to your argument, I don't think it's about constructing a story. Yes, in a way people could be accused of ignoring BE, but what's the problem with focusing on what's been going on at present? We shouldn't be surprised about that, PTD was released not too long after Butter. It was full of promotional material ever since May.

I stated in my blog introduction that I'm in film studies, so I will end up making a lot of references because I can naturally make my point across. Let's say I'm a fan of Xavier Dolan. I've watched his first films, fell in love with his aesthetics and his stories. Then he releases something that I don't really like, doesn't work for me. Then another. And then another. I'm thinking, ok, this is the direction he's going with, it's not as daring as what he used to do before, but so what? He gets the awards at Cannes, but I'm still writing a negative review of his film Mommy. Doesn't mean I'm wrong, doesn't mean the Jury at Cannes is wrong, it certainly doesn't mean that I don't like Xavier Dolan anymore. We're just looking for different things.

We write about things that are happening at the moment and how see them now. We make judgments of value based on our current knowledge. Who's to say that in 10 years people won't look back and think: those critics had no idea what they were saying about BTS (Antonioni's L'Avventura was booed at Cannes when it was released in 1960 and now it's considered a masterpiece and even taught in schools). But that's just a possibility right now and if in 10 years I'll remember that I used to write about this, perhaps my opinions could/would change. Maybe less than10 years :)

[astrovian]

Richard Armitage interview for The Guardian (08/10/2020)

Full transcript under the cut

You were playing the doctor, Astrov, in Ian Rickson’s triumphant West End production of Uncle Vanya when the pandemic closed theatres. How did the last night feel?

We were lucky in that we’d completed the majority of the run – there was about six weeks left. We were quite surprised that our houses were full every night. Then Broadway went dark and you could feel the change in the atmosphere within our company that it was inevitable. The following week we came into work and were told it was all off. We sat on stage for a while, not knowing what to do, we all had a little drink with the crew and that was it – we were in lockdown.

As time progressed it became clear that we weren’t going back. Like most other commercial theatres, opening to a socially distanced audience is financially not possible but also logistically it’s really difficult for those old London theatres.

What was interesting for me in that last week was that so much of the play, from the doctor’s perspective, is talking about living with epidemics and the stress of life. It started to resonate in a different way. When Chekhov was writing the play he was dying of tuberculosis and they had just been through two epidemics. As a doctor, Chekhov had been on the front line. For Russians watching the play at the time, the idea of a disease that would definitely kill you was much more immediate. Suddenly within the last weeks of performance, the play felt so much more relevant. It was quite extraordinary.

The play’s environmental concerns also resonate with this pandemic year and our renewed appreciation of the natural world.

People thought the environmental elements of the play had been added on because it felt so contemporary – the conversations about deforestation and this one man’s efforts to replant the woodland. But it’s there in the original, probably in a slightly more detailed form as Conor McPherson was more economical with the language in this version.

After closing to the public, the actors returned to an empty theatre to film Uncle Vanya. Had a cinema version always been planned?

There was going to be an NT Live – they’d been in to do a scratch recording. So it was a huge disappointment but the fact we were finally able to make a film – and much more of a hybrid production than anything you’ve seen before – was really exciting. Hats off to [producer] Sonia Friedman who just took a leap of faith.

How is it different to other filmed plays, like the recording of The Crucible that you made at the Old Vic?

Usually when you’re capturing live performance, one of the benefits is that you include the audience on the night you shoot. We shot over a week and did an act a day using six cameras in various places in the auditorium with different lenses; the cameraman would also come on to the stage with a handheld and move around with us for some innovative, detailed shots that you’d never be able to capture without staging the play specifically to film it. Even audiences who came to see the play will get something more than the day they saw. There were certain moments in the play which in the rehearsal room we really wanted to be intimate but when you are performing to 800 people you have to open up the play. So we were able to bring it down into a much more intimate, claustrophobic place.

What was it like to perform in an empty theatre?

We were so enthused to get back on stage. Initially the camera team and crew felt like a sparse audience. Every day I’d stand there and remember watching the audience gathering. It was a real sense of nostalgia, sadness actually, wondering how long it will be until we can get a full audience again. It’s not a luxury but a natural instinct to want to gather in a room and watch something live – whether it’s standup in a pub or jazz in a basement bar. There’s just this human instinct to want to come together.

What do you think of the government’s response to the crisis in the arts?

The government is trying to spin many, many plates. Our industry is vulnerable – we can’t really go back to work without audiences. I do feel like the response has been late and there probably hasn’t been enough initiative in terms of how do we make it work. We could have done something for theatres like the “eat out to help out” scheme – if theatres could operate at 30% capacity, maybe the government could have subsidised to get them towards breaking even. That hasn’t happened. I suspect it’s because there’s too many industries in trouble. For some reason the arts is never seen as a critical industry. Everybody in the arts felt incredibly insulted by the idea that the arts aren’t viable. It does make money. If theatres die in small cities then the hub of the community is gone. You need a more long-term view in investing and keeping these places alive.

The Haymarket in your home town of Leicester was one of the first theatres to go out of business because of the pandemic.

I’d been there recently. My little nephew wants to be an actor and I’d seen him perform in an amateur production there. It was a great theatre space. Leicester is fortunate because it does have other venues. But there are some smaller towns that don’t have many arts hubs and when they’re gone, they’re gone. We’re kind of hanging on by a thread. The news of cinemas suffering is another nail in the coffin.

You’ve done a lot of voice work and recorded audio books – what’s the appeal in lending your voice to a project rather than your appearance?

I love reading. I think that’s what brought me into this profession. It wasn’t watching films and wishing I could be in them but reading books and, in my imagination, creating a mini movie out of them. An audio book is very similar to that. I get real satisfaction out of it. Very rarely have I found a book that I didn’t connect with. I read as if I’m reading to one person. It gets to the root of why I do what I do. I just love storytelling.

[architectuul]

Sail Hejduk, Sail!

The Unfolding Pavilion is an expanding curatorial project that pops-up in the occasion of major architecture events, with an exhibition featuring each time a different theme inspired by the space it occupies, made of commissioned original works that react to it as well as to its cultural and historic background.

Unfolding Pavilion: Rituals of Solitude, 17th Venice Architecture Biennale. | Photo © Marialuisa Montanari / Unfolding Pavilion

In its first edition, the Unfolding Pavilion entered Ignazio Gardella’s Casa alle Zattere on the occasion of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia, transforming one of its apartments in a temporary gallery of installations made by some of the most unique authors of architecture-related curated archives. In its second edition, it entered Gino Valle’s Giudecca Social Housing on the occasion of the vernissage of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia. In order to do so, it refurbished one of its empty dwellings to convert it into a temporary gallery of works, and use the common spaces of the complex as the poetic backdrop for a three days-long program of public events. 

The Unfolding Pavilion 2021 was this year housed inside of the belly of “Il Nuovo Trionfo” - the last authentic Venetian trabaccolo, moored at Punta della Dogana. | Photo © Travelscapes

In this year's third edition, the Unfolding Pavilion popped-up on the occasion of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia, inside of the belly of an old mercantile sailboat - a trabaccolo - moored at Punta della Dogana. The trabaccolo once belonged to Countess Luisa Albertina di Tesserata: an eccentric art collector who in the 1970s commissioned the construction, on a small island of the Venetian archipelago she owned, of an almost exact replica of an unrealised project by John Hejduk: the House for the Inhabitant who Refused to Participate. Unfortunately, the house was demolished in December 2020.

Artist impression of the House of Contessa Luisa Albertina di Tesserata. | Digital drawing © Giovanni Benedetti / Unfolding Pavilion

The curators Daniel Tudor Munteanu and Davide Tommaso Ferrando came to know about the house by pure chance, and decided to organise an exhibition inside of its spaces. An agreement was made with the current owners of the island, who were about to demolish the house in order to build a luxury glamping facility in its stead: the house could be temporarily occupied for artistic purposes, but no images of the event were to be published before the demolition took place. It is so that, in the summer of 2020, twelve architects and scholars were invited to spend one week of residency locked inside the replica of John Hejduk’s house. One per room. Each room was equipped with only one piece of furniture, which they couldn't choose. The outcome of the one-week residency were twelve site-specific works dealing with issues of privacy, domesticity and isolation. Rituals of Solitude, the 2021 edition of the Unfolding Pavilion, is the first documentation of the installations made by the twelve contributors during their one-week residency.

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What is the Unfolding Pavilion presenting?

Daniel Tudor Munteanu: The Unfolding Pavilion is always experimenting. We ask ourselves every time what is an (architecture) exhibition and how we can transcend the simplistic format of displaying representations of architecture in neutral white cube galleries. We tried every time to create special experiences for the visitors: such as the experience of being the first people to enter a famous work of architecture, like we did in Ignazio Gardella’s Casa alle Zattere, or the experience of being part of a project that leaves a legacy like we did in Gino Valle’s social housing. While looking for a venue for this year’s edition of Unfolding Pavilion we wanted to explore more into the sensorial aspect of such experiences. Arranging an exhibition inside the belly of an old boat was quite a fascinating idea. A dark, extremely narrow space that smells heavily of petrol and is shaking from the waves of the Grand Canal.

The Unfolding Pavilion at Punta della Dogana. | Photo © Stefano Di Corato, atelier XYZ / Unfolding Pavilion

Davide Tommaso Ferrando: Daniel talked about the sensorial part, but there is also an intellectual dimension to it, where we are constantly trying to put in question what an architectural exhibition is. The fact that we don’t choose white boxes is not simply because of the kind of atmosphere of the white box but is really to test the configuration of what an exhibition space can be and what it produces. So we never know what the final outcome will be. Several things that are discovered during the process can become the most important points of the project, so we really engage with reality that is experimental every single time. And then regarding the mediatic side of it, from the moment that we discovered the story of this boat by having an informal conversation with Hesperia Iliadou, we immediately understood that this was the perfect location for an exhibition. Full of problems but a memorable event for the visitors.

What is the motivation behind the whole project?

DTM: It is a way to organize an independent project in the context of big institutions. The Unfolding Pavilion is not related to any institution, so we have complete freedom, which is extremely important for us. We engage into a dialogue about what the institution of the Biennale is and how it functions, and we establish a love-hate relationship with it. We acknowledge the importance of this event in gathering visitors from all over the world, this is the ‘love’ aspect, but there is also the ‘hate’ aspect of the big, often menacing, economic apparatus of the Biennale.  

DTF: Each year there are very specific conditions under which we operate and we engage critically with. The first year the condition was the budget as we didn’t have any sponsors we created everything with a total budget of 2000 EUR from our pockets, 1000 each. By choosing not to enter the specific trajectory of investing 30.000 or more money we needed to find another way to solve the problem. The second year we agreed with the city council that we would refurbish one apartment of the housing complex in Giudecca, which we did with a sponsorship from Innsbruck University plus our free engagement. The way me and Daniel are operating is quite consistent, we both started to work independently on our critical projects online on our platforms of communications. We transferred the way of working to the production of architectural exhibitions and we still work in the same way as we both started separately.

Sketches of the Exhibition Design for the Unfolding Pavilion 2021 | Drawing © ErranteArchitetture / Unfolding Pavilion

DTM: Regarding the institutional critique, as Davide said, in the first edition we reacted to the budget that is associated with making a pavilion in Venice and we defined the rule that we would deal with only one percent of the regular budget (which is about 200.000 EUR), so we made an exhibition with a budget of 2.000 EUR. In the second edition, we consumed almost the entire budget for refurbishing our temporary exhibition space - the apartment in Giudecca - and hence making it again available as a social housing unit for a new family. The ‘Architectural Review’ recently critiqued the fact that an extreme amount of resources go into building these temporary exhibitions for the Biennale, which have a carbon footprint quite disproportionate to their lifespan. For the third edition we asked ourselves - do we consider it a good way of practice to build up an exhibition that lives only for a few days or weeks and is then stored somewhere or even trashed? We decided right from the beginning to design everything as a travelling exhibition and so Venice is only the first stop of this project, which will travel and expand in the near future.      

The exhibition inside of the belly of Il Nuovo Trionfo. | Photo © Stefano Di Corato; atelier XYZ / Unfolding Pavilion

How did you guys meet?

DTF: The very first contact was when Daniel was doing OfHouses and he invited me to curate an edition for it. At the same period I was doing research at OII+ on how people were using Tumblr to produce architectural knowledge so I published an interview with Daniel. The real moment with Unfolding Pavillion started in January 2016, when Daniel proposed to me to organize an exhibition during that year’s Venice Biennale. And I said: “why not?”.

DTM: The idea to organize the independent exhibition came out when I was working on the competition for the Romanian Pavilion. I had some very critical ideas and, while finishing the proposal, I realized that this project will never be selected, because it will never get the approvals from the official bodies, institutions and politicians who want to control the country's image. When you want to communicate a critical message, creative freedom is of the utmost importance. So, instead of self censoring your message in order to win a competition, maybe it is just simpler to organize and finance a ‘pavilion’ by yourself...  

The Vernissage | Photo © Stefano Di Corato, atelier XYZ / Unfolding Pavilion

Tell me more about the Rituals of Solitude; why did you invent this story?

DTM: The story that accompanies our exhibition is not necessarily an invention and it’s not necessarily a reportage. It is something in between. We acted less like journal editors and more like film editors, mixing and montaging different bits and pieces that are real. The story has several layers, and you may disregard some at the first reading - for example the very real part documenting the accelerated privatization of islands in the Venetian lagoon. In the end, if the story is true or false doesn’t really matter. Did this Contessa actually exist? Some say it did, some say it didn’t. It’s totally up to the reader, because the ‘action’ in the story is more of a pretext for unfolding different themes we were interested in: the enforced isolation, the obsessive-compulsive daily rituals, the propagation of fake news… The story is very much fitted to our current context; for the first time in history the entire planet was faced with this crisis, that meant curfews, isolation, lockdowns, elimination of social life... When we studied the design of a John Hejduk project titled “The House for the Inhabitant who Refused to Participate” we immediately recognized in its facade the typical Zoom interface, where people show their private spaces to others, designing their own backgrounds to communicate their personalities. Our concept was to invite 12 teams to work on the interior space of a similarly “public” kind of room, where to imagine a daily ritual. Each of these 12 rooms was to be furnished by a single item of furniture related to only one domestic function, and this idea was taken from the script that John Hejduk imagined for the House. One room had a toiled, one an armchair, one a bed, and so on. We imagined how it is to live in a room that is specifically designed for one purpose. The new rituals - working in bed, the compulsive washing of hands, the consumption of digital junk food - are some of the responses of the 12 invited contributors.     

From the book “10 immagini per Venezia” edited by Francesco Dal Co, Officina Edizioni, Rome (1980).

DTF: The whole narrative and protocol behind the exhibition was a very specific and intentional take on how to conceive an architecture exhibition which deals with the concept of How will we live together? after and during the pandemic without adopting the two easiest strategies, which for us are both inappropriate. The first would be not to deal with the pandemic issue, as the vast majority of the projects shown at this Biennale do - which makes them already a bit outdated in this sense. The second would be to directly deal with the pandemic, having the pretension that architectural speculation can solve the problem, which is ridiculous. What we did was to incorporate ideas and reflections on the contemporary conditions in a diagonal, indirect way. We made reference to a project that has nothing to do with the current situation but still was capable of activating many analogies and correspondences with it. This looked like the only way in which we could deal with this topic. How to not mention the pandemic but still talk about the new inhabiting conditions was a main question for us and this was for us the best possible answer.    

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All the exhibited works have been exclusively produced for the Unfolding Pavilion by: (ab)Normal, Aristide Antonas, Bart Lootsma, Cruz Garcia & Nathalie Frankowski (WAI Architecture Think Tank), ErranteArchitetture, Fosbury Architecture, Giovanni Benedetti, James Taylor-Foster & Anton Valek, Fala Atelier, Mariabruna Fabrizi & Fosco Lucarelli (Microcities / Socks-studio), MAIO, Matteo Ghidoni, Shumi Bose & Space Popular and Traumnovelle.

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More movies (and a tv series) on youtube to keep you busy

List 1 / List 2

Here’s a third update of movies that you can watch in full on youtube since you’re stuck inside

Documentaries about movies:

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992): Featuring interviews with more than two dozen major cinematographers and a ton of clips, this is a useful and enjoyable primer for anyone interested in learning what a DoP does

Vittorio Storaro: Writing With Light (1992): This is a shorter (40 minute) television doc focusing on one specific cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro, famed for his collaborations with Bertolucci and for shooting Hollywood movies like Apocalypse Now and Reds

The Epic That Never Was (1965): In 1937, Josef Von Sternberg started shooting an adaptation of I, Claudius starring Charles Laughton as Claudius. Dirk Boagarde hosts this lively documentary examining why the film was never completed, featuring the surviving footage from the 1937 shoot. 

Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980): Kevin Brownlow and David Gill’s 13-episode miniseries about the silent film era is considered the gold standard for documentaries about film history, but the impossibility of negotiating the rights to all the clips used at a reasonable price has kept it off of dvd or blu-ray. Luckily, that didn’t stop someone from putting it on youtube, although episode 12 has in fact been blocked due to a copyright claim.

Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow (1987) Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3: Another Kevin Brownlow and David Gill miniseries, this one, as you’ve probably guessed, covers the life and films of Buster Keaton over three episodes.

More movies:

Powell/Pressburger: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, aka the Archers, were one of the greatest writer/director teams in film history (and a favorite of Scorsese, who seemingly made it his life’s mission to ensure that their films were restored and available), and three of their incredibly charming, magical movies are on youtube. Of the available ones, I Know Where I’m Going! is probably the best to start with.

I Know Where I’m Going! (1945): Dave Kehr on the film:  “Michael Powell's 1945 film resists easy classification: it opens as a screwball comedy, grows into a mystical, Flaherty-like study of man against the elements, and concludes as a warm romance. Wendy Hiller, in one of the best roles the movies gave her, is a toughened, materialistic young woman on her way to meet her millionaire fiance in the Hebrides; Roger Livesey is the young man she meets when a storm blows up and prevents her crossing to the islands. Funny and stirring, in quite unpredictable ways, with the usual Powellian flair for drawing the universal out of the screamingly eccentric.”

A Canterbury Tale (1944):  The Criterion jacket copy: “Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s beloved classic A Canterbury Tale is a profoundly personal journey to Powell’s bucolic birthplace of Kent, England. Set amid the tumult of the Second World War, yet with a rhythm as delicate as a lullaby, the film follows three modern-day incarnations of Chaucer’s pilgrims—a melancholy “landgirl,” a plainspoken American GI, and a resourceful British sergeant—who are waylaid in the English countryside en route to the mythical town and forced to solve a bizarre village crime. Building to a majestic climax that ranks as one of the filmmaking duo’s finest achievements, the dazzling A Canterbury Tale has acquired a following of devotees passionate enough to qualify as pilgrims themselves.”

Gone To Earth (1950): Made under unhappy circumstances (David O. Selznick producing), this is a gorgeous technicolor romance starring Jennifer Jones as a nature loving young woman forced into a choice between two “civilized” men, with tragic results.

Straub/Huillet: If you’re looking for something easy and relaxing to watch during the quarantine, I’d recommend literally anything else other than the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. J. Hoberman on the couple: “Straub-Huillet, as they preferred to be called, are cinema’s conscience — an antidote to all the junk movies you’ve ever seen. Drawing on Kafka, Cézanne, Brecht, Schoenberg and Malraux, to name only some of their best-known sources, Straub-Huillet films are meant to raise ethical questions on subjects as varied as proper camera placement and the appropriate political approach to the subject.“We make our films so that audiences can walk out of them,” Mr. Straub once said, perhaps not altogether in jest.” Of the available ones, Class Relations, their adaptation of Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika, seems to be agreed upon as the easiest place to start as it’s the closest to a straightforward narrative, although History Lessons has also been recommended as a relatively easy starting place by some people. Not Reconciled, which compresses an epic Heinrich Boll novel following three generations throughout multiple timelines into 52-minutes, is not recommended to start with. MUBI did a retrospective of their works and had essays commissioned for each one to help viewers out so I’ll link those with each film. Hit Closed Captions for subtitles.

Not Reconciled (1965): Here’s a 10-minute video essay by critic Richard Brody that will help you have a slightly easier time with Not Reconciled if you decide to give it a try. Here’s the MUBI essay

Othon (1970): In the 17th century Pierre Corneille wrote Othon, set in ancient Rome. Straub-Huillet’s adaptation is shot in the actual ruins of Roman palaces with modern buildings and cars visible in the background. The MUBI essay

History Lessons (1972): An adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Business Affairs of Julius Caesar. From the MUBI essay: “In the film, an unnamed young man tours Rome and conducts interviews with toga-clad members of ancient Roman society on the subject of “C,” meaning of course Julius Caesar. It plays like Citizen Kane shorn of any of the flashbacks that bulk out that film: here, it is all exposition, reminisces, impressions. Interspersed through these sedentary discussions are a series of randomly protracted car rides through the city, all recorded in unbroken takes from the backseat of the young man’s Fiat 500.From this brief description alone, I’m sure you can see why structuralist-minded academics in the seventies had a field day.“

Fortini/Canti (1976): From the MUBI essay: “In Fortini/Canti, the Italian Communist writer Franco Fortini reads aloud from his Dogs of the Sinai (only recently translated into English for the first time), a memoir of his life as an Italian Jew and an extended reflection on the aftermath of the Third Arab–Israeli War of 1967 and its representation in the Italian media and by the political class. [...]  Like all of Straub-Huillet’s movies, this astonishingly combative film follows an internal rhythm born out of the particulars of landscape, of speech, and of the physiognomies of its actors. It begins with an extended recording of a television newscast about Israel/Palestine (thus distancing the audience from the warped words and images on screen), a quotation from Fortini that connects like a punch in the jaw (“People don’t like having to change their minds. When they have to, they do so in secret. The certainty of having been tricked turns into cynicism. Gain for the cause of conservatism”), and then alternates between short jabs like these and more sustained verbal and visual attacks.”  

Too Early/Too Late (1982): Serge Daney on the film: “No actors, not even characters. If there is an actor in TOO EARLY, TOO LATE, it’s the landscape. This actor has a text to recite: History, of which it is the living witness. The actor performs with a certain amount of talent: the cloud that passes, a breaking loose of birds, a break in the clouds; this is what the landscape’s performance consists of. This kind of performing is meteorological. One hasn’t seen anything like it for quite some time. Since the silent period, to be precise.” The MUBI essay

Class Relations (1984): The aforementioned adaptation of Kafka’s Amerika, often recommended as a place to start with Straub/Huillet. The MUBI essay

Hitchcock: Back to fun stuff, three Hitchcock classics.

The 39 Steps (1935): Dave Kehr: “As an artist, Alfred Hitchcock surpassed this early achievement many times in his career, but for sheer entertainment value it still stands in the forefront of his work.“

Shadow of a Doubt (1943): Kehr again: “Alfred Hitchcock’s first indisputable masterpiece. . . . Hitchcock’s discovery of darkness within the heart of small-town America remains one of his most harrowing films, a peek behind the facade of security that reveals loneliness, despair, and death. Thornton Wilder collaborated on the script; it’s Our Town turned inside out.“

Spellbound (1945): No one would argue it’s Hitchcock’s best and the psychoanalysis is very dated but with Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, and Dali-designed dream sequences there’s still enjoyment to be had.

Ozu: One of Japan’s most beloved and revered filmmakers, he’s primarily known for his post-WWII family dramas, but his career stretched back to the silent era (although most of his silent films are lost). I Was Born But... is a good place to start but it’s not representative of the style he’s known for. Late Spring is where his later style fully emerges, and it’s a good place to start, so you might want to go in chronological order with these (Tokyo Story, widely considered one of the greatest films of all time, is also not a bad place to start).

I Was Born But... (1932): Jonathan Rosenbaum on the film: “One of Yasujiro Ozu's most sublime films, this late Japanese silent describes the tragicomic disillusionment of two middle-class boys who see their father demean himself by groveling in front of his employer; it starts off as a hilarious comedy and gradually becomes darker. Ozu's understanding of his characters and their social milieu is so profound and his visual style—which was much less austere and more obviously expressive during his silent period—so compelling that the film carries one along more dynamically than many of the director's sound classics. Though regarded in Japan mainly as a conservative director, Ozu was a trenchant social critic throughout his career, and the devastating understanding of social context that he shows here is full of radical implications.“

The Only Son (1936): Criterion’s jacket copy:  “Yasujiro Ozu’s first talkie, the uncommonly poignant The Only Son is among the Japanese director’s greatest works. In its simple story about a good-natured mother who gives up everything to ensure her son’s education and future, Ozu touches on universal themes of sacrifice, family, love, and disappointment. Spanning many years, The Only Son is a family portrait in miniature, shot and edited with its maker’s customary exquisite control.”

Late Spring (1949): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky: “Each shot in Late Spring is striking on its own; the mature Ozu belongs to that rare category of filmmakers whose work can be recognized from a single frame. But together—with all their abrupt shifts in visual perspective and time—they become a mosaic, deeply poignant and ultimately mysterious in the way it envisions a relationship between two people trapped by how much they care for one another. There are domestic dramas, and then there’s this.“

Tokyo Story (1953): Dave Kehr: “The film that introduced Yasujiro Ozu, one of Japan's greatest filmmakers, to American audiences (1953). The camera remains stationary throughout this delicate study of conflicting generations in a modern Japanese family, save for one heartbreaking moment when Ozu tracks around a corner to discover the grandparents, alone and forgotten. A masterpiece, minimalist cinema at its finest and most complex.“

Early Spring (1956): Ozu on the film: “I wanted to portray the life of a white-collar man — his happiness over graduating and becoming a member of society. His hopes for the future when he got his job have gradually dissolved and he realizes that, even though he has worked for years, he has accomplished nothing worth talking about. By delineating his life over a period of time, I wanted to portray what you might call the pathos of the white-collar life...I tried to avoid anything that would be dramatic and to accumulate only casual scenes of everyday life in hopes that the audience would feel the sadness of that kind of life” 

Equinox Flower (1958): Vincent Canby: “One of Ozu's least dark comedies, which is not to say that it's carefree, but, rather, that it's gentle and amused in the way that it acknowledges time's passage, the changing of values and the adjustments that must be made between generations.“

Late Autumn (1960): Peter Bradshaw: “Another gem from the Ozu canon, a masterpiece of tendernesss and serio-comic charm, as tonally ambiguous and morally complex as anything he ever made.“

And the tv series:

The Armando Iannucci Shows: You may know Armando Iannucci from his films, In The Loop and The Death of Stalin, or from some of his other television shows like The Thick of It or Veep, or from his involvement in all the Alan Partridge series with Steve Coogan. You probably missed The Armando Iannucci shows, his stream of consciousness sketch comedy that ran for one season back in 2001 (it didn’t help that it debuted in September of 2001), but it’s probably the most purely funny thing he’s ever done. 

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© Claire Mathon

Translated interview with Director Sciamma

‘We started a culture war‘

Andreas Busche and Nadine Lange, in: Der Tagesspiegel, 29th of October 2019

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

Manifest on the female gaze: Céline Sciamma speaks about her period film ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’, MeToo in France and queer visibility.

In France, Céline Sciamma, born in 1978, is already revered as the new feminist and notably queer voice of French cinema, in the tradition of Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat. The director (‘Tomboy’, ‘Girlhood’), who writes her own screenplays, is largely unknown in [T: Germany]. This is most likely about to change with her fourth and most beautiful feature film so far. At the Cannes Film Festival, the period love story between the young painter Marianne and her model Héloïse, daughter of French aristocrats, won the Best Screenplay. Between the rugged landscape of the coast of Brittany and the candlelit interiors of an old villa, the film creates a utopia of solidarity and female desire, in which the characters of Marianne, Héloïse and Sophie the maid overcome class barriers.

Interviewers: Ms Sciamma, ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ is your first period film, it takes place a few years before the French Revolution. Why is this era important for your story?

Céline Sciamma: My interest in those years came from art history. At the time, there was an unusual number of female painters, hundreds in France and across Europe. It really moved me to discover the biographies of these women, who had successful careers. They supported each other and were very political. There was for example feminist art criticism at the time.

I: Noémie Merlant plays the painter Marianne, who is commissioned to do a portrait of Héloïse, a daughter of aristocrats. There are two main themes: the representation of female painters in bourgeois society and the female gaze – and how this [T: gaze] is reflected in the art world at the time. How are these themes connected?

CS: When I went into more detail about the work of female painters in the late 18th century, I realised how much the female perspective is missing from art history. For me this is the most painful loss, which results from the elimination of the female gaze: this relates to the artwork themselves, but also to what art brings to our lives, the memory of a kind of intimacy.

I: Marianne is not based on a specific female painter. But is she representative of women at the time?

CS: I collaborated with an art sociologist, who did extensive research on this era. All biographical details for Marianne correspond to the time in which she lived. The dynamics of a biopic – a successful woman who defies societal norms – never really interested me. My film is a manifest on the female gaze. But there’s also melancholy in this process, because we have to restore something that has been ignored for a long time.

I: Why melancholy?

CS: It makes me sad, because this perspective was withheld from me all my life. That is why the scene, where Marianne, Héloïse and Sophie the maid re-enact an abortion, is so important for the film. By painting an abortion, the act becomes art and is therefore represented. Art gives women the opportunity to tell their own stories. But it’s not only about the past. The topic of abortion is still virtually invisible in cinema.

I: How do you deal with this lack of female perspectives as a screenwriter and director?

CS: I was aware about the lack of queer and lesbian representation in cinema early on. But it becomes dangerous, when we don’t realise anymore that something is withheld from us. I noticed this again, when I watched ‘Wonder Woman’ by Patty Jenkins. It is hard to express how you feel when you know you’re not represented, and at the same time are oblivious to the power it can give you to recognise yourself in cinema. That was a new experience for me.

I: You were one of the initiators of the 50/50 by 2020 movement, which is committed to gender parity at festivals and in film. What do you expect from Cannes next year?

CS: I’m glad that this topic is finally taken seriously. We set out our target for Cannes and want more transparency in the selection committee. However, to achieve these, you have to introduce quota. The board will be replaced [T: next] year, let’s see how it works. We started a culture war. One of the most important things for me is the work on inclusion. The 50/50 [T: movement] and the film production/promotion agency CNC created a fund for cultural diversity in [T: film] productions last year. There’s usually less budget for films made by female directors, this inequality will be slightly mitigated. More than 20 films have already benefitted from this fund.

I: There is progress on one hand, but on the other hand some things are deteriorating again. Do you see it in a similar way?

CS: We had no MeToo-debate in France, unlike the one in the US. The [T: debate] was quickly hijacked and reinterpreted as discussion about free speech: that feminist film criticism would lead to a new form of censorship. You could feel the backlash in France. A good example: Sandra Muller, who created the French MeToo movement ‘Balance ton Porc’ [T: ‘Denounce your pig’, see here for the evolution of the term ‘pig’ in this context] just lost a libel lawsuit. Action was filed by the man, whose harassing statements she made public. The level of societal discourse is not where it’s supposed to be.

I: You lead by example: There are mainly women working on your sets.

CS: It creates a different atmosphere, that is for sure. But I’ll tell you something: Women only make up 50% of the crew, my crew is probably one of the most diverse in France. Claire Mathon is my cinematographer, but a lot of men work with her. My cutter is a man though. It’s about the right balance. The film world is very much dominated by men, but I don’t want to exclude anyone.

I: In Cannes, you said something similar about your colleague Abdellatif Kechiche, who was criticised for his voyeuristic gaze on women, for example in the Palm d’Or winner ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’. Do you want a cinema, in which your and his gaze can exist side by side?

CS: We have to be conscious about our perspective. In France, I’m always asked about my female gaze, but no one is ever asking a [T: male] filmmaker about his male gaze. Which is still considered as gender neutral. Of course, you can love ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’ as much as you love ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ [T: 😈], otherwise cinema will become a battlefield of ideologies. We just have to learn to read the images correctly. I would like to invite Abdellatif Kechiche to this relatively new discourse. But he should be asked the same questions as me.

I: You call ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ a manifest on the female gaze. What does that mean?

CS: It starts with the screenplay. I wanted to tell a love story on equal terms. There is no gender-specific power imbalance in the film. That was important for me, especially in a time, in which gender inequality was the social norm. There is also no intellectual dominance between Marianne and Héloïse, they both come from the upper class, are sophisticated and self-determined. Between them, they did not have to negotiate a status.

I: What role did your actresses play in this?

CS: I wrote the film for Adèle Haenel. But it only works if she has a partner who is equal to her. Noémie Merlant is about the same age as Adèle, they are even the same height, which cannot be underestimated in cinema. That’s why shorter actors often have to stand on a pedestal. All these considerations are political, but they are also an offer to the audience: for new emotions, for surprises. Equality creates freedom, because social rules are overturned.

I: As Marianne, Héloïse and Sophie keep to themselves, they are not exposed to the male gaze. They can move freely.

CS: That’s why I don’t think of my film as social utopia. Every utopia is based on our experiences and ideas. You cannot easily find this kind of solidarity among women, you have to create this freedom. That’s why I decided to exclude male characters. What I exclude from the shot also defines what is shown in the picture. That’s the power of cinema.

I: Your film is about the visibility of women. They tell each other, how they see one another – and thus create an image of themselves. At the same time, desire arises from their gazes. How do you create this feeling of intimacy?

CS: We offer a philosophy and politics of love. Even the depiction of queer sexuality in cinema is based on heterosexual paradigms. We first had to learn how to deconstruct this gaze on us. Similarly, it’s also about abolishing the outdated ideal of the muse. There is of course a hierarchy on set, but we tried to transfer the working relationships in the film to our shooting.

I: All your films have queer aspects. Do you ever had any problems to fund your films?

CS: No, but that’s because I don’t need so much money. ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ did cost 4 Million Euros. If I had asked for 12 Million Euros, it might have been different. I can’t complain. I live in a country, in which I can make these kinds of films and be radical. 23 percent of French films are made by female directors.

I: It seems like there were more [T: female directors] recently?

CS: No, the figure has been constant for 20 years. We are just forgotten and then ‘rediscovered’. Think about Alice Guy-Blanché, who made films at the time of Méliès [T: around the turn of last century]. She did everything by herself, used the first closeup. She literally co-invented the cinema. But like all the women, who were active at the beginning of film history, they were driven out, when it was suddenly about money.

Still from ‘Be natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché’ (Pamela B. Green, 2018)

[aion-rsa]

The He-Man Movie You Never Saw Would Have Been Like a Buddy Comedy

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While Masters of the Universe: Revelation reignites Mattel’s toy-spawning fantasy franchise, the Kevin Smith-conceived Netflix animated series arrives in the recent wake of an ill-fated film project. Indeed, Sony/Columbia settled on up-and-coming directors Aaron Nee and Adam Nee to conjure new live-action exploits of He-Man in the land of Eternia, which progressed to pre-production and cast Noah Centineo in the starring role before the pandemic put an end to the endeavor. Interestingly, David S. Goyer, who wrote an early draft of the Masters of the Universe screenplay, reveals what would have been a rather unique dynamic at its center.

Contrasting with the potentially-controversial protagonist direction hinted in early reviews for Revelation, the driving concept for the long-planned Masters of the Universe live-action movie was to focus on the friendship between He-Man and his loyal giant green, orange-striped tiger steed, Battle Cat, as Goyer reveals to THR. Of course, most of the franchise’s various iterations present the narrative notion that Eternia’s sleepy slacker royal prince, Adam, secretly transforms into “the most powerful man in the universe” when he imbues himself with mystical energy from the Sword of Power, after which he directs said energy toward his cowardly talking pet tiger, Cringer, transforming him into the hero’s ferocious loyal steed, Battle Cat. However, Goyer reveals that—during his tenure with the script—the film would have broken precedence by putting a comically dysfunctional twist on the traditional hero/steed relationship.

“I legitimately liked the script that we did,” says Goyer. “We were going to do it as a feature at Sony. What I liked the most about it was that it was mostly about a friendship between He-Man and Battle Cat. The idea was there had always been He-Men and different recipients of the Sword of Power and that Battle Cat had always served at their side. And this was a new He-Man that Battle Cat and many people didn’t think was worthy of the sword.”

Contextually, while mainstream representations like 1983-1985 animated series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and the 1987 Dolph Lundgren-starring Masters of the Universe movie mostly stuck to superficial backstories, the franchise’s deeper mythos—once canonically-inconsistent across the decades in its multimedia forms—has started to uniformly embrace the idea that Adam himself is merely the latest recipient of the mystical Sword of Power, which several generations earlier, was wielded by his ancestor and ancient castle namesake, King Grayskull, after which the sword—and the sublime power it yields—was passed down to various other “He-Men.” Indeed, even Revelation’s trailer showcases King Grayskull, implying continued adherence to the hand-me-down dynamic, and the possibility for time-travel-facilitated team-ups with previous versions of Eternia’s hero. Likewise, the concept was integral to Goyer’s screenplay, since Adam’s newfound role as He-Man would have come attached with an intimidating, seemingly-unattainable legacy, of which this wryer, more-critical version of Battle Cat seems acutely aware. Thus, Adam’s arc as an upstart hero would have hinged on earning the ornery Battle Cat’s stamp of approval, yielding buddy comedy style interactions.

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“So, it was a story of the character earning the sword, but, more importantly, earning the friendship of Battle Cat, who just thought this guy [Prince Adam] was a lightweight,” explains Goyer. “I really liked it. I thought it was a fun story. There was a lot of humor in it and it creeps up on you because Battle Cat sort of grudgingly accepts him, and it’s Battle Cat’s acceptance of He-Man that gave this version of the story heart.” Goyer’s comments seem to shed light on the reasoning behind the eventual casting of Noah Centineo (pictured just below), who—hardly the WWE-level jacked giant one would envision for the role—seemed set to convey Adam’s getting-by-on-good-looks slacker personality, having come from the realm of teen comedies, notably from his role as Peter in 2018 Netflix rom-com To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and its two sequels. Thus, it not only would have been interesting to see how a fully-transformed He-Man himself would have manifested in this live-action attempt, but how Battle Cat could have served as his shade-throwing foil.

Alex Israel

Unfortunately, fate would not favor this particular Masters of the Universe live-action reboot project, which saw several attempts—notably the Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones-influenced version under director Jeff Wadlow. Those years saw several hints about the movie in the form of early versions of its logo and various social media-teased concept art designs, which revealed a motif that—perhaps in response to Marvel’s 2014 success with Guardians of the Galaxy—leaned into the space-esque sci-fi technology side of the franchise’s traditional amalgam with savagery and sorcery. Moreover, back in 2015, one of the project’s more enthusiastic early proponents, producer DeVon Franklin, tweeted a concept image of what the Battle Cat in question might have looked like—albeit as a CGI creation—in this particular live-action milieu. Yet, despite years of hype and even a projected, never-realized March 2021 release date, the project came to an ignominiously anti-climactic coda, notably affirmed this past April after Centineo reportedly exited the role from the COVID-stopped production.

@danmillerNY @TheOneHansen @Guardians I totally agree!!! pic.twitter.com/6g6W18D9J7

— DeVon Franklin (@DeVonFranklin) March 3, 2015

Regardless, Goyer, having made a monumental mark on the industry with The Dark Knight Trilogy amongst other heavy hitters, isn’t thinking about He-Man and Battle Cat these days, since his hands are currently tied with two lofty tasks as the credited creator of Netflix’s developing television adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and, more imminently, the Apple TV+ television adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s sprawling novel franchise, Foundation. However, Masters of the Universe, while still generally associated with ‘80s pop culture, has managed to exist in the periphery across the ensuing decades. Oddly enough, we’re living in a time in which the franchise permeates (not even counting Netflix’s recent animated series centered on He-Man’s estranged twin sister, She-Ra,) with two major animated series (one of which is a developing CGI series,) and several current toy lines, two of which are sold at retail stores worldwide. Thusly, Revelation could prove to be the iteration that truly brings it back to the forefront, perhaps leading to another live-action attempt—maybe by Goyer again.

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In the meantime, Masters of the Universe: Revelation will release the first part of its inaugural season on Netflix on Friday, July 23.

The post The He-Man Movie You Never Saw Would Have Been Like a Buddy Comedy appeared first on Den of Geek.

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