20080923.NamesInGattaca

Let's talk about Gattaca. Long time readers may be aware that this is among my favourite films. I'm going to be showing it soon to a discussion group and in thinking about it, I was struck by the author's choice of names for its characters.

[note: the following will mean little to those who've not seen the film. and will contain spoilers. so yeah.]

Let's start with the brothers, Vincent and Anton :

Vincent Freeman:
In the scope of the story, Vincent is set against a society that cannot accept him. He is the irresistible force struggling the immovable juggernaut of societal prejudice. Vincent means "conquering" and true to name Vincent spends the movie conquering both the prejudices of his society (embodied most boldly in the person of his brother, Anton) and the inadequacies of his own physical state.

Anton Freeman:
Anton, the product of genetic engineering (as are most in society), is praiseworthy by his very nature as his name implies. Anton means, most readily, "praiseworthy." Anton and Vincent's father (also Anton) acknowledge this when he declares Anton a son worthy of inheriting his name. His family praises Anton for the circumstance of his birth and Anton soaks in the praise, believing himself worthy.

The Brothers Freeman:
Both Vincent and Anton share the surname, Freeman. Where Anton has, in the overt sense, always been the free man (A. Freeman), Vincent spends the movie shackled by the expectations of society. In reality though, it is Anton through society's praise and prejudice who lives to meet expectations, while Vincent conquers all opposition in order to be the first truly free man of his generation.

Irene Cassini:
Irene means "peace" and Cassini is the name of an Italian astronomer. In securing the love and trust of Irene, we see foreshadowed Vincent's success and the fact that he will find peace himself. Further, his success in obtaining Irene Cassini prefigures his success in attaining his ultimate goal, finding peace in space. Vincent conquers societal expectations in order to gain Irene, for after war must come peace.

Jerome Eugene Morrow:
Jerome means "sacred name" and it is through taking on the holy name that Vincent is given the opportunity to succeed, and in succeeding, become something of a representational messiah for his society. Jerome's is the sacred name of the future, of the morrow, and as Vincent takes it, he begins his conquer of the future. Once Jerome's name is taken, he chooses to rely upon his middle name, Eugene. "Of noble birth." His legs crushed and his hope destroyed, he clings to the fact of his birth and the glorious DNA stack that defines him. In the end, with Vincent's success, he recognizes that even a good birth means nothing without the determination to make use of it. While proud of Vincent, he cannot live in Vincent's new world. His death is emblematic of the death knell that Vincent has called out against the society by his success.

One final name, Dr. Lamar:
While Anton, Irene, and Jerome each present threats to Vincent's ultimate victory, it is Dr. Lamar who truly holds power over Vincent. Lamar, depending on origin, may mean either "famous land" or "the water." In this case, Dr. Lamar is he who tends the waters allowing or declining passage into the promised land. He is the God of Judgment in the Gattacan mythology and it is only for his mercy that Vincent is allowed victory and passage to inherit his peace.

20080226

While reading Noble Alan's response to a recent embroglio involving himself (a writer for Christ and Pop-Culture) and the staff of Movieguide.com* (the object of one of his recent critiques), I was struck with consideration for the goal of the critic versus that of the reviewer. Noble's most recent article speaks to the fact that quote-unquote secular critics may have valuable things to say about secular movies.

The thing is, this should be obvious on the face of it when one considers the goal of the critic and his realm of expertise.

We should start off by describing the difference between critics and reviews. And this is not something I've made up. Many so-called film critics are really just movie reviewers. Some movie reviewers are both critics and reviewers, devoting time to each pursuit either on separate occasions or occasionally simultaneously. Roger Ebert is a notable example of this.

So let's explore the difference.

A critic is not so-much concerned with whether a product is worthwhile or not but devotes attention to identifying themes and character notes. The critic is looking for cinematographic tells, editing techniques, and audio cues. The critic is concerned with the film's communication and ability to communicate, not to evaulate that which is communicated but simply to identify the communication and discuss the tools available for further interpretation.

A reviewer is less concerned with the discovery of themes than with the evaluation of the themes perceived—and more, with the evaluation with the film as a whole. The end goal of the reviewer is discussion of the film's value as a worthwhile expenditure of one's time. The reviewer's whole task is the commodification of a film into a purchasable quantity. Almost anytime we speak of rating movies, whether with points or stars, we're speaking of reviewers rather than critics.

The reviewer asks will you like what the film said (or more often, "Did I?") while the critic asks what the film said.

As I mentioned, some who talk about film are both critic and reviewer, while others lean wholly to one camp or another. Personally, I generally lean toward review. My capsule reviews are wholly evaluations of how much I appreciated each work. My lists of bests are the same. Very occasionally, I'll write critical pieces, but not often. I prefer to read critics than reviewers myself, but its much easier to review than critique.

Noble quotes Tom Snyder of Movieguide:

Just because the secular movie critics and secular elites in Hollywood don’t like some of the movies we pick does not mean that they are really bad movies within the categories in which we pick them.

Snyder is responding to a point Noble had made earlier when he said that the average rating collected by Metacritic (an aggregator of film review ratings) for Movieguide's top picks was far lower than what critics generally thought of as being the year's best films.**

Part of the difficulty here is terminology. Properly speaking, criticism doesn't involve anything unique either to Christians or non-Christians any more than does garbage collection. Just as we wouldn't speak of Christian or secular garbage collection, neither would we speak of Christian of secular criticism. Identification of a film's meaning and discussion of the technical aspects of its presentation are a learned set of tools available liberally for those who pursue them, whether saved or damned. A Christian isn't better prepared to understand Transformers, its codification and its influences, than a non-Christian.

A Christian may, however, be better prepared to discuss his feelings about a film from his own particular Christian perspective than a non-Christian reviewer can. Because really, Person A should always be better equipped to discuss his feelings about a film from his own perspective than any person who does not sit in his same subcultural niche. In this sense, all who discuss whether they liked a film or not are reviewers and the only way one reviewer achieves merit over another is that he is better able to express the opinion he holds than is another.

At the end of the day, a reviewer is only valuable to the niche he serves—a niche comprised of those who hold opinions like his own. There is only one movie reviewer I ever pay any attention to. This is wholly because through reading his reviews, I have come to find that our tastes intersect enough so that if he likes a movie and explains why, I can usually judge with great success whether I will also like a movie. Sites like Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes are of no real value to most people because there is little consistency between the perspectives of most critics and any single individual.*** Likewise, the reviews Movieguide provides will never be a useful tool to me because their reviewers come from so wholly a different perspective than me that any intersection of tastes will be almost wholly coincidental.

However, while the value of a good film reviewer is scarce (only presenting itself to its niche) the value of a good critic is far more universal. Whether one agrees with a critic's opinions or not, their presentations are thoughtful and work toward unraveling purpose and meaning—the things that can contribute to the value perceived by a reviewer.

It should be noted that I realize that both Alan Noble and Tom Snyder are largely referring to reviewers when they make use of the critic terminology, which is fair as such use has found its way into popular parlance. Still, there are moments when the terminology is confused. There is the assumption in Noble's article that reviewers may be a better source of information as to a film's quality as they are trained professionals**** (hence his comparison between Movieguide's opinions and the collected opinions of the average reviewer—a comparison that shouldn't otherwise matter). This presumes, I think, some sort of cross-breed between reviewer and critic, a creature who offers an opinion on a film's value based not just upon the perspective of one's circumstances but upon a universal set of standard tools as well.

---

*note: Movieguide is one of those institutionally Christian services that falls under the banner of "discernment ministy," reviewing movies and noting whatever moral problems might prohibit pure viewing from susceptible Christian audiences.

**note: Movieguide's Top 10 films for a mature audience apparently averaged a rating of 60.4 out of 100. Here is Movieguide's Top 10 (with Metacritic's score in parentheses):

1. Amazing Grace (65)
2. August Rush (38)
3. Spider-Man 3 (59)
4. I Am Legend (65)
5. Strike (72)
6. The Great Debaters (65)
7. The Astronaut Farmer (55)
8. Pride (55)
9. Transformers (61)
10. Live Free or Die Hard (69)

And here is Metacritic's:

1. Ratatouille (96)
2. Killer of Sheep (94)
3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (92)
4. There Will Be Blood (92)
5. No Country for Old Men (91)
6. Persepolis (90)
7. No End in Sight (89)
8. Once (88)
9. Away from Her (88)
10. This Is England (86)

***note: yes, I know single individual is redundant. I wrote it anyway. Because I'm like that.

****note: This is never stated overtly but is something I inferred from my reading of the text. If my reading is mistaken, I am happy to be corrected.

Cinematic License & the Movie 300

Baffled and over-heated historians should be happy to know that not only does the weekend's Spartan slaughter of the box office rape whatever actual historical facts we might divine from the crumbling pages of history, but the film takes some pretty broad liberties with its source text as well. And with the heavy hand and lack of skill with which it approached these new devices, I hesitate to use the term artistic license to describe the film's freewheeling approach to its sources - because "artistic" often implies a noble end. Perhaps it would be better to describe it as cinematic license.

Now to be certain I don't bear the original comic so much love that I think straying from it in bold, new directions would necessarily be any bad thing. It fact, some of Miller's original work bears a little too much of his clunky, over-cooked dialogue and narrative, and I honestly wouldn't have minded seeing it fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, the changes are neither bold nor particularly effective.

In the book, Leonidas's queen is a non-character. A cameo with a smart mouth. She appears on a single page, early in the book, and then is gone forever. Obviously then, none of the film that dealt with her and her plight back in Sparta to raise an army to confront the Persian hoards was based on source material. I suppose it could have been interesting, but it really wasn't. It didn't add to the film.

Well, save for in length. By my watch, 300 was about thirty minutes too long.

I imagine the part of the queen was presented to offer women their token figure of power. But she didn't really work. For all her words, she is as powerless as her husband to turn the heads of the council she attempts to sway. Her great speech - the one I imagine was meant to be stirring - fell flat. There was no strength to her voice or her words. No conviction. When her betrayer offers her a flaccid round of courtesy applause, he's giving her more than she deserves. In the end, it is not by her strength or craft that her side is taken. It is not through cunning and shrewd maneuvering that she wins the days. It is by accident. There is no glory or freedom or honour in her victory. There is even little victory. She had lost and in her agonied throes of defeat, she is saved, ex machina, by the foolishness of her enemy.

Yet, beyond this, even worse, she is boring.

Beyond the sad addition of the queen's story, there were all manner of curiosity to pull one out of the story. The monstrous cast of Lord of the Rings evidently collided with the film crew and the director, after groaning, thought to himself, Two great tastes that taste great together, and left the monsters in. And as cool as they might be in LOTR, cave trolls and gollums have little place in a re-telling of the Battle of Thermopylae. And how 'bout that guy with bone-swords for arms? And... uhm... was that a donkey playing guitar? Nevermind. I take it all back. A donkey playing guitar makes this: the greatest film of all time.*

And some of the dialogue - whoo boy. The narrator proclaims that Leonidas and his speedo-boy with their cute red capes have, in their sacrifice, made the world "free from mysticism and tyranny." It's a good thing that poor, lonely Spartan only had one eye. If he had two, he would have certainly seen that his own culture and every one that followed in its footsteps was a culture of mysticism and tyranny. Remember that wraithlike dancing girl on top of the mountain and the call for Karneia? Remember the fact that the council hated and despised the queen for daring to address them? It's also good that his one eye couldn't see the future either. I mean Rome? Emperor worship, Vestal virgins, et cetera. Really, Rome, Greece, and early Christian Europe are nothing without their mysticism.

Well, maybe ol' one-eye did know all this but was just propagandizing. I mean, he's the one telling the story. Maybe that's why the cave troll was there. Maybe that's why Xerxes was eleven feet tall. Maybe that's why he's yelling about the defeat of all evil for all time. He just wanted to get the poor, dumb Spartans fired up and ready to kill.

*sigh* What a stupid movie.

Hm, I just realized that I never really said whether or not I liked the movie. In short, it was dumb, poorly written, and way too long. It was fraught with standard clichés, dull formula, and ham-fisted acting. It was gruesome, violent, and lovely. It was the most beautiful mess I'd seen in a long time. As a story, it's crap. As a visual experience, it's incredible. It was worth my $9.5o. I doubt, however, it would be worth anything on rental. This is not a dvd movie. This is theater or nothing. If you miss it in the theater, don't bother queuing it on NetFlix. Don't Pay-per-View it. Don't watch it on your iPod. Theater or nothing. Theater or nothing. Drill that into your thick, Neanderthal skulls.

*note: Only we're the only ones who know it.

Elitism & Critique

In considering the reason why those who enjoy the mainstream and the popular may feel (and often rightly so) that those who prefer the obscure and the indie, I came up with the following thoughts:

It should be no surprise that those who seek out the stuff beyond what's easily available have a tendency to feel as if they are elite, as if they are better lovers of whichever medium they profess to love. This is evidenced, from their perspective, by the fact that they seek out that which is beyond the easily accessible. I'd imagine that if you visited a Techno Music Appreciation Club and, when asked who your favourite artist was, responded that you really loved Moby's Play - I'd imagine that your credibility in that crowd would be ho-hummed.

And I think that in some respect, they would be right to diminish your credibility. If all you had ever heard was Moby, some Apollo 440, and that Fat Boy Someone or Other. Though Moby is great and you might have FANTASTIC reasons for adoring his work, it will be hard for you not to seem ignorant if you are, in fact, ignorant of what else is out there. I think this is probably why a lot of indie-lovers may poo-poo the opinion of those who do not stray outside the boundaries of of the mainsteam, of the easily accessible.

As a simple test case, let's consider my own trajectory as a reader of comic books and graphic novels. I began, as do most, with superheroes (Power Pack, X-Men, Micronauts, and GI Joe) and gradually filtered in more and more diverse reading experiences (European books, independent fare, and finally Asian books). Now, while I still enjoy a well-crafted superhero tale(Walt Simonson's Thor is still amazing to me and I loved Brian Michael Bendis's run on Daredevil more than is probably reasonable), I have this whole other bucket full of comic experience with which to inform my superhero comic experience.

And that bucket helps me to better see that some of the stuff I may have otherwise enjoyed is really some pretty trite crap. And that's some of the stuff that is ridiculously popular and sells ridiculously well.

We could chart the same tragectory in film. In the mid '80s, Gremlins may have been the Greatest Film Ever Made.* By the early '90s, I found more mature and intelligent works such as Last of the Mohicans, Jurrasic Park, and Terminator 2 to be much more enjoyable, and dare I say, "better" films. Gradually, I introduced myself to the world of independent film-making and the foreign market. And wow. I really felt the world of cinema open up to me. I began to understand film as I had not understood it before. I could no longer conceive of Terminator 2 being "a great film." Fun, yes. Great, no.

And the person who claimed that Terminator 2 was the greatest film they had ever seen? Their opinion is of no use to me. Unless, perhaps I know that they have watch film nearly as widely as I. Then, I might be willing to concede that they may have caught something in the movie that I had not. It's possible.

So does that make me an indie-snob? An elitist? I don't think so. It just means that I know more about a subject and so-armed with the breadth of knowledge I possess in certain areas, I believe that I am better qualified to understand what is good and what is not. Not ultimately qualified, but merely better qualified.

And this is, I think, where the question of elitism ought to come down. It's a matter of street cred. Appreciators of indie stuff, more than likely, have engaged piles of mainstream stuff as well as the indie stuff they've grown to prefer. Most people who prefer superheroes may not really have that much experience with what all's out there. Most people who adored Pursuit of Happyness probably haven't absorbed the works of Krzysztof Kieslowski. Therefore, it may not be so much a matter of the indie-snob vs. the mainstream non-snob (as lovers of the mainstream are less likely to look down upon the opinions of the art-house-lover but simply see them as having esoteric tastes), but simply the well-read vs. the not-so-well-read. Just a guess. And of course, a huge generalization.

Personally, I like it all. Superheroes and blockbusters. Indie drama and foreign masterworks. So long as it does a good job keeping me interested, I'll enjoy it. If it's well-crafted, chances are, I'll enjoy it. Whether it's breezy, romantic comedy or maudlin German exploration of generational ennui. Of course, I might find the German film more rewarding in terms of mental stimulation, but each has its place. Turn, turn, turn.

*note: Incidentally, working with juniour high students gives me a flashback glimpse of this mindset. Quoting a fairly bright member of this community: "Van Helsing is probably the greatest film ever made. And you know what? We're the only ones who know it! The adults just don't get it." I've got to say that I admire the pluck in that sentiment - even if Van Helsing is cinematic detritus.

other note: mast image stolen from blankets and made entirely crass by stripping it of Craig Thompson's words. Sorry, man.