This train only goes in summertime
Nov. 21st, 2007 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexsarllOf possible interest to some of you: new Gang Of Four demos free online.
You wait ages for a Neil Gaiman film, and then two come across at once. Beowulf didn't have me blubbing sentimentally like Stardust did, but in its way it's sadder. And it doesn't have so many comedians in it, but it's just as funny, in its own bleak way. In tone, if not style, it betrays Gaiman's debt to James Branch Cabell - to Cabell's fascination with the flaws and the humanity and the lies behind any heroic myth, his fear that even when you accomplish your goals, "Nothing was as good as it should have been". But with Cabell, Gaiman recognises that mere slash-and-burn demythologisation is easy, and as false as the shiny, superficial account. "It is solely by believing himself but a little below the seraphim that man has become, on the whole, distinctly preferable to the chimpanzee", said Cabell (I may paraphrase slightly) - similarly, Gaiman knows that because a hero is a bullsh1tter, doesn't mean he's not also a hero. Granted, it is very hard to take this line without seeming by extension to justify every grubby lie and manipulation perpetrated in the name of leadership image and 'the greater good' - but intuitively, if not in a way I can quite verbalise, I know the difference, even if I can also see how people lose sight of it.
It is a very faithful adaptation, in its way - it assumes the poem to be a historical record, notes how historical records can distort the facts, and reads backwards. If you want that with more spoilers, try here; for particular clarity on Angelina Jolie's (excellent) take on Grendel's mother, there's a phrase here which I'd quote if it didn't give far too much away. Of course, I usually like Angelina, especially in femme fatale roles - the surprise was that I thought Ray Winstone perfectly cast. I've never thought that before, but never before has he played the last of the barbarian heroes, a man who knows he may have more in common with the monsters he slays than with those who come after him. It helps too that the motion-capture technology makes him considerably less offensive to the eye, yet at the same time plausible - which is odd given it makes the Queen look like she's made of putty.
(Coincidentally, my current bag book is the unfortunately-titled Black Man, which is also fascinated by the idea of the hyper-male warrior, who fights society's battles, but whom that society also regards as kin to monsters. I thought about trying to pull Grosse Point Blank in here too, because I saw that while Ill and it also concerns the melancholy of the killer's life, but for all that John Cusack is superhott in it, I don't think you could call him hyper-male)
Department Of Offended People Missing The Point: posters for the sly and satirical Shoot 'Em Up have been censured for glamorizing violence. Clearly these people haven't twigged that the poster of the prick from Sideways with a gun captioned "Just another family man making a living" is *meant* to offend - to point up the moral blindness of all those whose jobs make the world a worse place.
And when it comes to slapping down Ronan Bennett's "clumsy tirade" against Martin Amis, well, I think I shall just hand over to the ever-clearsighted Christopher Hitchens to enumerate Ronan the Accuser's muddles and slurs and sheer foolishness.
You wait ages for a Neil Gaiman film, and then two come across at once. Beowulf didn't have me blubbing sentimentally like Stardust did, but in its way it's sadder. And it doesn't have so many comedians in it, but it's just as funny, in its own bleak way. In tone, if not style, it betrays Gaiman's debt to James Branch Cabell - to Cabell's fascination with the flaws and the humanity and the lies behind any heroic myth, his fear that even when you accomplish your goals, "Nothing was as good as it should have been". But with Cabell, Gaiman recognises that mere slash-and-burn demythologisation is easy, and as false as the shiny, superficial account. "It is solely by believing himself but a little below the seraphim that man has become, on the whole, distinctly preferable to the chimpanzee", said Cabell (I may paraphrase slightly) - similarly, Gaiman knows that because a hero is a bullsh1tter, doesn't mean he's not also a hero. Granted, it is very hard to take this line without seeming by extension to justify every grubby lie and manipulation perpetrated in the name of leadership image and 'the greater good' - but intuitively, if not in a way I can quite verbalise, I know the difference, even if I can also see how people lose sight of it.
It is a very faithful adaptation, in its way - it assumes the poem to be a historical record, notes how historical records can distort the facts, and reads backwards. If you want that with more spoilers, try here; for particular clarity on Angelina Jolie's (excellent) take on Grendel's mother, there's a phrase here which I'd quote if it didn't give far too much away. Of course, I usually like Angelina, especially in femme fatale roles - the surprise was that I thought Ray Winstone perfectly cast. I've never thought that before, but never before has he played the last of the barbarian heroes, a man who knows he may have more in common with the monsters he slays than with those who come after him. It helps too that the motion-capture technology makes him considerably less offensive to the eye, yet at the same time plausible - which is odd given it makes the Queen look like she's made of putty.
(Coincidentally, my current bag book is the unfortunately-titled Black Man, which is also fascinated by the idea of the hyper-male warrior, who fights society's battles, but whom that society also regards as kin to monsters. I thought about trying to pull Grosse Point Blank in here too, because I saw that while Ill and it also concerns the melancholy of the killer's life, but for all that John Cusack is superhott in it, I don't think you could call him hyper-male)
Department Of Offended People Missing The Point: posters for the sly and satirical Shoot 'Em Up have been censured for glamorizing violence. Clearly these people haven't twigged that the poster of the prick from Sideways with a gun captioned "Just another family man making a living" is *meant* to offend - to point up the moral blindness of all those whose jobs make the world a worse place.
And when it comes to slapping down Ronan Bennett's "clumsy tirade" against Martin Amis, well, I think I shall just hand over to the ever-clearsighted Christopher Hitchens to enumerate Ronan the Accuser's muddles and slurs and sheer foolishness.
