Back again?
Inspired by a friend, I am thinking of re-entering the blogging fray (well, not much of a fray when fewer than five people read your posts). The plan now is to spend more time on film topics, but who knows.. that may change. I'll see how it goes.
Reflections on "Munich"
We finally saw
Munich last week. I think of all Steven Spielberg’s films, I like this one the best because its conclusion is relatively muted, uncertain, and unstaged (unlike for example the procession of survivors laying stones at the gravesite of Oskar Schindler at the end of
Schindler’s List). It is also a partial and interested film, one that could only truly belong on one side of the political divide in the Middle East; while the Palestinians are not monsters, they are not fully developed characters either. But then this is an Israeli story, a Jewish story, and it should be understood as such. It speaks its own particular language, and asks its viewers to reflect on moral questions that involve, but also supersede the events that make up its frame. Since seeing the film, I have wondered a great deal about the influence – conscious or unconscious – of the story of
Samson in its construction; if Munich is drawn as much from that example as from the “real events” it portrays, then this seems to me to strengthen the case of its partiality, as well as its power, in inviting a deeper moral examination of violence and revenge.
I don’t write on this subject as any kind of expert; it just seems to me to be an interesting thread to follow, to see if it is part of the broader fabric. Let me suggest some starting points…
The Samson parallels didn’t occur to me until the last thirty minutes of the film, when I noticed that the protagonist, Avner, had allowed his hair to grow longer as his years as part of a death squad – in essence – had passed. And then I thought of the nature of his assignment: separation from normal life, dedication to a single-minded purpose; a
Nazirite vow, in a sense, of the kind to which Samson was committed for life. Add to that his mother's account to Avner that his birth was a special one, a blessing from God that she prayed for on arrival in the then Palestine. Okay, so she wasn't approached by an angel in a field, as Samson's mother was, but the parallels are suggestive. Like Samson, he drinks alcohol, and kills people, in seeming violation of the Nazirite vow to foreswear strong drink and the contamination of the dead. Like Samson, also, he is a judge, although of a different sort. Delilah is there, of course, only this time as a contract killer in a London hotel bar. And this time, Samson turns her down, only to see his fellow team member fall victim to her deadly charms.
Avner's story deviates from Samson's story in other respects, most significantly in that neither is he blinded, nor does he die. Still, even the deviations are interesting fugues on the Samson theme. Samson leaves the exile of Gaza to bring a final destruction upon all his enemies, as well as himself; Avner remains in exile in America, burdened by an uncertainty that never seems to afflict Samson, at odds with the nature of his assignment, and with violence that, unlike, Samson's, has no final curtain. At this point, I could ramble on about the metaphorical meanings of death and blindness in such a reading, but I won't.... this post is long enough as it is.
Acknowledging this frame means accepting that the film cannot speak in, or with, a Palestinian voice. Consider that Samson's enemies are the Philistines, long associated with the Palestinians, for good or ill (and with what credence, I simply don't know). We know no more about the Philistines who inhabit Samson's world than we do the Palestinians in Samson's. That is a structural element of the story, and while we might want to know more about them, there is nothing in the text that gives it to us.
I believe strongly that there should be films that redress this imbalance; arguably we need them more than we need Munich, which comes up understandably short to opponents of Israel and Israeli policy. But to get as much as one can from this one film -- and I think that is a great deal -- thinking of it as a Samson story is as good a place to start as any. Was Samson righteous? Was he a misguided fool? Did he live up to his promise as a special man, chosen by God? Samson, like many other Bible characters, isn't much given to introspection; but we, as readers, can do it for him. This, after all, is the true point of criticism.
Rules for academic reviewers
Academics are a sensitive lot. Actors typically ignore the bad reviews they get, or stop reading reviews altogether. Academics, though, have to read the reviews their fellow academics write about their work, particularly before publication, in order to do their jobs. Peer-review really is a wonderful thing; at its best it ensures the quality and credibility of the work that researchers do. Unfortunately, there are some academics who don't seem to be clear about the responsibilities of a peer-reviewer. We are told how to format our responses, how to avoid using our names, how to separate comments for editors from comments for authors. But just as there is little systematic training for college teaching, so there is little advice offered for how to be a fair and useful reviewer.
Maybe someone has already written on this, but if they have, it's not popping out at me in any google search. So, for what it's worth, here's my list. Add, delete, modify if you wish, or point me in the direction of a better list if there's one out there.
Rules for academic reviewers.
1. Stick to the deadline.
2. You are a reviewer, not a censor. Some criticism legitimately comes after publication, not before it.
3. Be concrete.
4. Be unobtrusive. This is not an opportunity for publishing-by-proxy; it's another person's paper, not yours.
5. Be succinct. Don’t let major critical points get buried in a welter of nitpicking.
6. Write clearly, but not “cleverly.” Is your goal to get the writer to take your criticisms seriously, or to concede that you are a wonderful prose stylist -- who also happens to be an asshole?
Rule for a writer who’s reading a peer-review.
1. Although the reviewer is probably an asshole, they may also be right.
America in film
I hate the word “meme,” but it seems unavoidable in the blogosphere these days. More on the term “meme” another time; for now, I want to write about a
film “meme” that’s been going around, asking for suggestions of films that would best explain America to non-Americans (via
Majikthise).
There is now a gargantuan pile of lists dotted throughout virtual space. I have read a few, perhaps some of the first ones hot from the keyboard. What struck me was how “American” the lists were: enthusiastic, hopeful, fixated on the “best.”
When I think of films that explain America, I don’t necessarily think of the best America has to offer, socially, culturally or cinematically. I don’t think of explaining America’s history either. Instead, I think of film as caricature, as the extended and exaggerated portrayal that captures the essential truth of the portrayed. By this measure, many of my choices may seem cruel; others, not so. I now leave the list to speak for itself:
Deathwish
Animal House
Goodfellas
Hairspray
Independence Day
Showgirls
Blue Hawaii
American Graffiti
Do the Right Thing
Tender Mercies
Kong's people
One of my favorite blogs is Pharyngula, where there was recently a perceptive, and to my mind, spot-on
critique of the film King Kong. Most people I know who've seen the film -- the under 13 year olds aside -- agree that while it was moving and extremely well-acted, the island scenes were tedious and silly. The odd humans who inhabit the island do conform to all the usual, offensive stereotypes of "the natives" although they are shoved out the way pretty quickly to make way for the numerous examples of animal gigantism the place has to show for itself (I refer here, obviously, to Kong, and to the big bug pit into which the crew fell -- for no other reason that I could tell than to gross the more delicate members of the audience out (not me; I laughed heartily), and to finish off those annoying mariners who hadn't managed to get killed yet.)
It was hard to get a fix on the exact model for the dark-skinned charmers who waylaid the gallant, pasty-skinned crew of the doomed ship (first mate excepted). The nouveau-primitives from Mad Max II came to mind. Then the real-life Ilongot and Yanomamo, on grounds of physical appearance and their reputation (subject to serious and important debate) for violence. Who were these actors, I wondered? Light-skinned people made-up to be dark? (I'd recently seen something like this from the files of a make-up artist in the Hindi film industry, wherein an entire supporting cast was rendered several shades darker with body paint to become "tropical primitives" for a song sequence).
None of this speculation would mean a whole lot if it were not for the briefest moment, towards the film's end, in the midst of the performance that Carl Denham (Jack Black) has composed to showcase the giant ape. Miraculously, the bedraggled, fearful, and belligerent island natives have turned into athletic, handsome, well-dressed, consumately choreographed ... Africans? This visual shift suggests to me that Jackson has a lot more insight into the stereotypic representations of "natives" than the islander scenes, by themselves, suggest. After all, Denham wasn't just restaging Kong's abduction of Ann; he was staging Skull Island, and absent Tyrannosaurus Rex and a posse of raptors, the only other resource to hand to create the spectacle was "primitives." The challenge for Carl, one assumes, was coming up with the kind of primitives that would be convincing, decorative, and above all, harmless (unlike the memorably harmful Kong).
The anthropologist part of me would have loved to explore this part of the film more; the ordinary film viewer rolls her eyes and complains that the thing was long enough already, you'd want it to go on for another hour? Not that I didn't enjoy seeing the film, on Christmas Day, in a Bombay multiplex, seated in leather reclining seats for the princely sum of five bucks. It's amazing how comfortable chairs can make a long film pass quite tolerably. A few days later, I read that some provincial theater operators -- unblessed with upholstered seats and laz-y-boys for the butts of the hoi polloi and deeply frustrated at the running time of King Kong (even most Bollywood productions clock in under three hours these days), decided to take matters into their own hands. Chopping off the credits saved fifteen minutes; allegedly they trimmed some other parts too, although I've no idea what, or even how they did it. One owner boasted he got the film down to "two hours and twenty minutes, and it's just as good."
No doubt it was. I can't help thinking what a great study it would have made to see the different edited versions these enterprising theater owners created; imagine if we could have, as well as the self-indulgent "director's cut," the pragmatic "theater owner's cut." One thing you could be sure of: it wouldn't take over three hours.
It's been a while
I should have blogged and blogged and blogged from India, but didn't. Hard to say why, exactly... I suppose in part it's the problem of internet access, but my excuse isn't that great. The last two times I've been in Bombay, staying out in the suburbs where most of my film interviewees live, I've used the Guru Nanak Cybercafe across the road from the hostel for my emailing and surfing. To be sure, the place has its drawbacks: it's little more than a shed with a really, really fast internet connection, and it's way too close to a garbage-clogged creek for olfactory comfort. But it's advantages are many: convenient; nice, helpful proprietors; reliable connection and not too many pop-ups. There are flashier places with bracing A/C that you can go to, but the "help" is hostile, the connection gets lost all the time, pop-ups drive you mad, you can't download files without paying an extra fee, and so on and so on.
But even with the redoubtable Guru Nanak Cybercafe close by, I didn't blog. Why not? Exams to grade for one thing; work for another. In three weeks, my assistant -- more co-researcher -- Mona and I did over ten interviews. Pretty good for such a short time in India, given the inertia of getting any research project going, particularly here.
Perhaps the world is made up of good and bad bloggers, by which I mean the ones who can sustain a habit as formidable as daily bowel regularity, and those who are, by comparison, constipated. I can't be the only person whose blogs are so intermittent.
The other thought that occurs to me is that solitary blogging is just harder for some people. I enjoy the repartee of long email threads, the sort you can now see on gmail. My daughter is a prolific contributor to my space and live journal; nothing seems to hold her back there, where she knows she is immediately part of an active reading (and writing) community. If one person in three months reads my stuff, it's a miracle. My friends know the link, but who can really be bothered to read what I have to say when there are other, more important things to do? So, the virtual "community" is really like any other "traditional" human community: there are always wallflowers.
The Sound of Car Horns
Back in India again after three years, this time though with 14 year old daughter in tow. We've been here less than 24 hours; so much is different (ATMs everywhere) so much is the same (the dusty-haired children crowding at the car window, their calls as shrill and various as those of the many birds that populate the quieter Delhi monuments...) Although so many more things must be unfamiliar to my daughter, here in India for the first time, she is remarkably relaxed about all that she sees, and all that sees her: in my Indian role as middle-aged "ma" I am learning to glide between her and the roving bands of young men with nothing better to do than the troll the parks looking for people to annoy. Back where we're staying, she is settling down happily to watch Sponge Bob in Hindi (an experience I've only heard about, but not seen for myself), or to comment in passing (as the channels zip by) how much the soaps here look like the Spanish language station dramas at home. We are feeling alternately energetic and utterly exhausted. The latter sets in now, at nearly 9 pm.....
The academic in me...
I heard a rather irritating story on NPR last week when driving home. It was all about academics that support ID (intelligent design) who feel "threatened" at their universities and are afraid to "speak out." The reporter did throw in a few lines here and there about how the vast majority of scientists support evolution, and how ID isn't science by scientific standards, but the overall impression the story created was of these poor, benighted people struggling to speak freely on evil, coercive campuses. It irritated me for many reasons, not least that people get denied tenure, or don't get their contracts renewed for any number of reasons -- there isn't any special vendetta against ID proponents -- although why any university should give tenure to people who spit in the face of biological science is beyond me. Most of all, though, I resented once again the presentation of ID as though it's a reasonable idea, and that the principles of free speech are violated when universities don't support and promote individuals who advocate it. For one thing, this isn't a matter merely of being able to sound off about ID in the odd faculty forum, but of inserting it into the curriculum, or having ID material published in peer-reviewed journals. There are standards to be upheld, whether one likes it or not. Would the same story be told about people who wanted to introduce alchemy into chemistry classes? Or who wanted to talk about the theory of humors as an alternative to contemporary biomedical thought because of the "holes" in our modern view of medicine? Far from it! But sadly, the media appears to have been convinced by the ID public relations machine that there are real flaws in evolutionary theory that ID purports to repair.
Most of all, I'm depressed by the fact that so few reporters or commentators understand the dire significance of transforming our definition of science to include the action of supernatural beings. This wouldn't just take us back to before the scientific revolution; it takes us back beyond the ancient Greeks!
Where the time goes
It's been nearly a month since the last post. What have I done?
Well, there was working on a major grant proposal which even now I don’t hold high hopes for, but how much of that is sober realism, and how much hypercriticism, I don’t know anymore. You see, I can’t even write properly after too many hours of text tinkering, fleshing out, defleshing … a veritable word murderer.
And there’s the kid stuff, the horsehair and down of the parental mattress: homework, sports, friends, no friends, teeth, haircuts – that you tell yourself you ought to treasure, just the fact of being with them, but you can’t help but wish it were over, the time it takes, the energy it saps.
And what else? Thinking, plenty of that. That part, at least, has been fun.
