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January 31, 2008
THE FEDERALIST
My teacher said the best process for working on my upcoming thesis is just to sit down and start writing, so I figured what better place to do that than my little corner of the internet (last YO LA TENGO reference, I swear). My teacher, I hope, is also not reading this, so he won’t learn about the remarkable degree of procrastination in which I’m current engaging – instead of reading secondary information about THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, I’ve been engaging in message board goofery on the AV Club (I’m “The Three Guys”).
But in the midst of all this Obama/Clinton muckfest, the need for the Federalist and a project like it, and its sublime seemingly disinterested passion for a working government, has been a godsend. Instead of hearing Obama and Clinton throwing kairotic muck at each other, I can see two guys who may not have necessarily loved each other, come together to make a case for prudence, security, and a degree of prosperity in which we could all share. As Political Theory, The Federalist Papers is many things, and most probably a mess of 18th Century Historical Inaccuracies, Early 18th Century Philosophy, and then-“hip” thinkers like Montesquieu. When we read it today, it seems like staunch conservatism or, as Robert Ferguson notes, “conventional wisdom.” But we forget what a radical project the constitution was for the people reading these every day in the newspaper, and how much it reeked of the type of despotism they’d rid themselves of only eleven years before.
The Anti-Federalists sure seemed to think so. In their first response to Alexander Hamilton and John Jay’s opening letters (which argued, specifically, that their loose confederation would be doomed in the face of foreign attack or civil strife), “Brutus” cried out “Their menacing cry is for a RIGID government, it matters little to them of what kind, provided it answers THAT description.” The A.F.s grouped federalism and the proposed, ratifying constitution as “a dangerous plan of benefit only to the ‘Aristocratick Combination.’” In other words, to quote the Deuteronomist, the foot will fall in due time. If you lose one shoe, you might as well lose the other.
If the zealous, vehemently rhetorical Anti-Federalist Papers are an idea of the opposition they faced, it makes the document Hamilton, Jay, and Madison produced that much more of an achievement. The opposition is scarcely referred to . . . it’s replaced by the concern for a less-than-stable future that destroys the glory of the revolution and the vision for which it contended. Jay just wants the Anti-Federalists to explain how a bunch of independent sovereigns are going to come together when Europe comes around again, and Madison wants to show everybody he thinks liberty is a super concept too, and is all the more reason for inviting he and his Federalist buddies to the party.
In re-reading the Papers, I’m always glad when I come upon a Madison paper, because Jay’s style is flowery and ornate while Hamilton can be tedious and repetitive. Madison, on the other hand, is the best stylist of any political theorist I’ve ever read – he’s almost poetic, but never in a way that’s cloying, sentimental, or manipulative. But occasionally, Hamilton surprises me, like in #23 when he tells us,
“This is one of those truths which, to a correct and unprejudiced mind, carries its own evidence along with it; and may be obscured, but cannot be made plainer by argument or reasoning. It rests upon axioms as simple as they are universal; the means ought to be proportioned to the end; the persons, from whose agency the attainment of any end is expected, ought to possess the means by which it is to be attained.”
Bringing things back to my opening point, regarding this Clinton/Obama shit-slinging contest, something about a passage like this makes me teary-eyed. Here was Hamilton, involved in the most important political moment of our history, and he’s pointing out the problem of democratic rhetoric – it obscures what it ought to make plain; it complicates its glorious axioms with sophistry.
The people ought to “possess the means,” Hamilton tells us, and right now we’re so bloody focused on the end that we have no idea what the hell anyone is saying, why they’re saying it, other than somebody wants to get elected and special interests need to be served (which, by the by, is another topic H & M anticipated, contemplated, and offers solutions for, because the Anti-Feds thought this was the central problem of federalism, and they were right).
I am blessed that I chose this project in the middle of an election year. Every day I open up my Yahoo! Page to read about the latest shifting loyalty and meaningless sound-bite . . . it reminds me of games of RISK I started and didn’t finish (in other words, all of them). And in the midst of that, the angel on my shoulder is James Madison, telling me liberty is to faction what air is to fire, and that there is a golden mean of government between anarchy and despotism, and that at one point somebody had it right.
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January 25, 2008
UH, I'LL SKIP THE MILKSHAKE THIS TIME, THANKS
THERE WILL BE BLOOD is the most astoundingly visual film of the decade and, in terms of its visceral intensity, it hearkens back to silent movies that were never made because, at the time, it was impossible. The central metaphor is not necessarily the titular one – blood – but it might as well be; I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to believe, midway through the film, that Daniel Plainview has replaced his red stuff with black stuff. In the eyes of P.T. Anderson, I don’t believe this is just a clever critical metaphor, or an allegory for understanding the forces of greed and capitalization in the 20th Century. Yes, I believe that P.T. Anderson seriously believes his protagonist has oil coarsing through his veins – this is the kind of simplistically grim yet horribly and brilliantly vivid conceit that he would force upon us, much as his protagonist forces himself on, first, the earth, and later humanity.
In a performance that evokes no one you’ve ever seen, Daniel Day-Lewis snarls, grins, digs, and schmoozes his way into the psyche of a character who would like to believe he has no psyche. A lesser director would tell us Lewis’ Plainview is a monster (I’m betting this was Upton Sinclair’s vision), a Frankenstein of capitalist envy, corporate greed, and barbarism.
And yet Plainview is also capable of compassion, sympathy, and even (whether he fakes it or not – this is one of film’s most elaborate, unsung mysteries) a desire for a community that will never struggle. I firmly believe that Plainview firmly believes he is laboring so he can erect some oil-fertile Utopia, and yet he is also demonically selfish. He needs the very people he casts away and kills. Or maybe he is a monster, but sweet lord what a monster! This is not only the best performance of the year; it may be the best performance of my lifetime. And I say this having always been somewhat lukewarm to Lewis’ quirky, often gregarious talents.
I’m sure Freudians and other wackos would make much out of sticking things into the soil to pull things out of it, but it’s to Anderson’s credit that the film presents the hard labor with the detached fascination of a documentary. They see the process and result the same way Plainview does: it’s hard, brutal work but then it explodes and it is, by God, worth it. At no point does “digging for oil” become “some latent substitute for the director’s vision of the American dream.” This is because he grounds the film in tertiary characters who take the focus of (and from) our protagonist’s frighteningly singular vision.
Paul Dano did not get an Oscar nomination, but I feel he would if he gave in to a lot of actorly tricks and stock caricaturisms that the role might have offered. As a repentance-preaching preacher, his Eli Sunday is just good enough to appeal to the type of people that Plainview can easily dupe. And the intense binaries of strength and weakness, turpitude and corruption, conviction and malleability, are too tricky for us as an audience to figure out. Without spoiling anything, this is why the ending works, though others are criticizing it. At times, watching him is like seeing a 1927 daguerreotype come alive; and this is all the more effective because Lewis’ Plainview can seem so terrifyingly modern in his take-the-prisoners-and-then-search-their-pockets mentality. In this, we have the oft-commented-on struggle between spirituality and sensuality, seemingly existing in some Manichean form, but, on closer viewing, not. Plainview and Eli Sunday are fat, bleeding humans, and if you disagree, have another look at the scene where Sunday forces a conversion out of him. Hannibal Lecter would have slathered and snickered his way through the theatrics, but Plainview is not a psychopath and he doesn’t want to be.
I don’t know about you. Maybe you are really excited about 27 DRESSES or the new RAMBO; but movies like this remind me why I both love movies and am haunted by them. I did not enjoy TWBB; at times Anderson seemed so tedious and distracted in his storytelling that I began to lose interest. But there’s always been something about Anderson that, outside of Speilberg, he’s the manipulative of directors. And, without competition at least in American cinema, he’s easily the most audacious – anyone who has watched the last thirty minutes of MAGNOLIA has to agree with that.
The film’s closing moment begins to climax a on perversely weird and satisfying line, “I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!” Some have argued that this is where BLOOD turns into a comic commentary on itself, or it’s where Anderson loses control of his masterpiece and gives in to some wildly subjective vision. I not only wholeheartedly disagree; I think such criticisms are pointless. This line is spoken by a man, after all, who has no blood. Oil has sutured itself into his being in such a way that he can only understand life’s puzzles through the metaphors he has concocted to understand it. And, oh yeah, this also makes him f***ing insane.
So it’s the best movie of the year. The new CITIZEN KANE – only without Welles’ populism and whiz-bang storytelling. The latest, most intense, and perhaps most successful and unsatisfying variation on that mystifying Mark 8:36 conundrum: “What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his own soul?” I think Anderson believes in the soul, but he also believes in a lot of other pretty powerful shit, and the motivations necessary to do it, and the nature of the world that contain it.
Oh yes. There will be blood.
Posted by Andytown at 01:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 22, 2008
OSCARS 2008 (Already?)
Blogging the Oscar nominations:
Honestly, I had no idea they were out. I didn’t think they came out until February. But here they are, followed by my thoughts, mostly for movies I haven’t seen:
Best Picture:
ATONEMENT
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
JUNO
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
MICHAEL CLAYTON
No real surprises here, I suppose. JUNO gets the token “independent spirit nomination” (previous winners: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, SIDEWAYS, BILLY ELLIOT, LOST IN TRANSLATION) while Atonement is the prestige pic and MICHAEL CLAYTON the picture that doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. The race will come down to ATONEMENT, BLOOD, and COUNTRY – all of which I have seen, and all of which I will blog about soon. If I had to bet, Oscar will award the Coens because they are critical darlings.
Best Director
All the directors were nominated except for the ATONEMENT guy, which is both ridiculous and, on a subjective level, perversely satisfying. I think ATONEMENT largely fails because the director’s cinematic vision is too strong for a story that is all about subtlety and misunderstanding. And yet the reason the film gets all its praise is because of its stylistics and vision. Yet the Academy always does this and it’s always dumb.
Best Actor
Johnny Depp, SWEENY TODD
Tommy Lee Jones, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
Daniel Day-Lewis, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
George Clooney, MICHAEL CLAYTON
Viggo Mortensen, EASTERN PROMISES
Mortensen is the real surprise here. I saw EASTERN PROMISES and pretty much loathed it (it’s an ugly film about ugliness), and find Mortensen to be a maddeningly understated actor – he internalizes way too much but it never comes through his performance and he talks like he’s either about to use or has just used as suppository. The rest is the big star crowd, and I think Lewis is the safest bet to win. Jones got the nod for ELAH as opposed to NO COUNTRY probably because his role was more prominent in the former. Depp has a shot because he’s a two-time nominee.
Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, JESSE JAMES
Javier Bardem, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
Hal Holbrook, INTO THE WILD
Tom Wilkinson, MICHAEL CLAYTON
My first thought is to say, no contest, because Bardem gave one of the most talked-about performances in recent years, but this is a strong group. Only Hoffman has no chance because he’s already won the big dog. Wilkinson could win as a way of awarding a movie that’s going to get shut out in the other categories; Affleck gave strong performances in TWO highly respected movies; and the academy LOVES rewarding unstatued lifers like Holbrook – case in point: Alan Arkin last year. But I still think Bardem will win. Hoffman should have been left off this list and Paul Dano, who is getting very little credit for his pitch-perfect performance in BLOOD, should replace him. And Marcus Carl Franklin from I’M NOT THERE, Jeremy Davies and Steve Zahn from RESCUE DAWN, Mark Ruffalo from ZODIAC, and Josh Brolin from NO COUNTRY (but he have been for a Best Actor nod). . . but this is always a strong category.
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, ELIZABETH 2: ELIZABETH’S REVENGE
Julie Christie, AWAY FROM HER
Marion Cotillard, LA VIE EN ROSE
Laura Linney, THE SAVAGES
Ellen Page, JUNO
The race will probably be between the oldest nominee and the youngest. And while we’re at it: Blanchett? Really? I heard that movie sucked. And she got nominated for Best S.Actress. Why? Not that I can think of a better lead female performance off-hand. Christie has won before, but could win again (I hear she’s really good, and she’s a Dame, which always help.) But the performance everyone is talking about is Page, in a movie I haven’t seen because, apparently, I am a joyless dolt who is only happy when other people suffer. Since I am 0 for 5 on watching these movies, I’m rooting for Linney.
Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I’M NOT THERE
Ruby Dee, AMERICAN GANGSTER
Saoirse Ronan, ATONEMENT
Amy Ryan, GONE BABY GONE
Tilda Swinton, MICHAEL CLAYTON
Again, a close race. Everybody loves Swinton, who has never won anything before, but Ryan got a lot of love. I kind of hope she wins just b/c she was on THE WIRE. Blanchett was remarkable in the year’s most showy performance not given by DD Lewis. But dimes to dollars says Ruby Dee could win in a blaze of sentiment. It’s between Cate and Tilda (who may be the same person), and Ms. Dee.
Other thoughts:
Get ready for Michael Moore on-stage again! SICKO will probably win best doc. The Cinematography nominees are all really really strong. RATATOUILLE – how can it lose the animation award? I’m not sure how DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (which I really wanted to see) did not get a foreign film nod – probably because of a technicality. NORBIT got a nomination . . . JUNO is a lock for Best Screenplay.
Oversights:
Obviously my favorite movies of the year are I’M NOT THERE, SUNSHINE, and RESCUE DAWN (and BLOOD and NO COUNTRY), so I wanted to see them up there but knew they wouldn’t be. DAWN got nothing when it deserved to be in every category – I think Bale and Lewis gave the two best performances of the year. Of course I would have loved to have seen DARJEELING grab something (screenplay?), and INTO THE WILD deserved more love.
I wrote this in ten minutes, sorry if its rough.
By the way, will there even be a show this year? If so, expect a lot of acceptance speeches filled with writerly vitriol.
Posted by Andytown at 10:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 03, 2008
DAVID CROSS IS MAD AT THE WORLD
I love MR. SHOW. Particularly this one.
I also love ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT - I'm watching it for about the sixth time now as I suffer from my very mild insomnia (meaning, I have to have the TV on while I nod off).
Which is why I'm reticent to say anything about David Cross, one of the most unique and brilliant comic voices of my lifetime. But there is this developing story . . .
It starts here . . .
And then David Cross responds to a bunch of stuff here . . .
And finally Patton Oswalt responds here . . .
And I'm sure there will be more to come . . .
I don't know what's stranger - this wild trend of comedians cameo-ingg in bad movies and then bashing them because "I only did it for the money/food at the press junket" . . . or the fact that Cross makes such a world wide bitch-slap at Jason Lee.
What these guys don't mention is that this is all interesting to us because the world they live in is so unfamiliar. Despite their "familiar guy" persona they put on live, these dudes get to star in movies and have beers in posh NY night clubs with Matthew McConaughey and then use money from that to buy a cottage in Upstate New York if they want to. Meanwhile, I live in Memphis, and Matthew McC doesn't hang out here very much, thank God.
The issue at stake seems to be this: Lenny Bruce never starred in HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI, or played a cartoon rat in a prestigious animated movie. And that's why he has all that wacked-out integrity, and these guys don't. They are still very very funny people.
Posted by Andytown at 06:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack