TERRY GILLIAM AND THE TOTAL FAIL

I'm only a modest fan of Terry Gilliam's cinematic writing and directing, and the only Gilliam film I sometimes want to rewatch is THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN. But despite my merely middling regard for Gilliam's creative work, I found his December screed against the movies of the MCU worth analyzing.

Gilliam's comments for the online magazine Indiewire had some resemblances to earlier complaints by both Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola, in that all three rants attacked superhero films for devouring the lion's share of the box office dinner. By itself, this is sophistry. Gilliam says:

“I don’t like the fact they’re dominating the place so much,” he said. “They’re taking all the money that should be available for a greater variety of films. Technically, they’re brilliant. I can’t fault them because the technical skills involved in making them are incredible.”

There are two major problems with this attitude. First, for anyone else to concur with Gilliam, that person would have to believe that the cinematic marketplace can support whatever ideal of "variety" that Gilliam advocates, if there were no MCU or any similar cinematic trend to dominate the market. But let us suppose that "fellow travelers" might come to some accord about an overall range of "good variety" while differing on particulars. Gilliam's statement still represents a leap in logic in that it assumes that Result B will take place from Cause A, even though it's arguable that Cause A has never actually been observed to take place in the arena specified, cf. the American film market.

Second, it's demonstrable that the "superhero trend" is far from unique in the American film industry, which has been for the most part driven by genre films that had wide appeal to audiences, and so encouraged producers to keep pumping out more films in those genres. Gilliam does not accuse the MCU of being a unique phenomenon, but the long history of genre films in Hollywood renders his complaint problematic.

Only on one point does Gilliam attack the superhero genre in a specific manner:

“What I don’t like is that we all have to be superheroes do anything worthwhile. That’s what makes me crazy. That’s what these movies are saying to young people. And to me it’s not confronting the reality of, you know, the quote-unquote human condition. You know what it is like to be a normal human being in difficult situations and resolving them surviving,” he said. “I can’t fault them for the sheer spectacle, except it’s repetitive. You still have to blow up another city.”

Now, Gilliam does not cite any specific instance from either MCU or from other superhero films to bolster his interpretation, aside from one offhand comment that makes it sound like it's too easy for Iron Man to replace his armor when it burns up. I've had my problems with some of the films in this series, but I certainly would not concur with Gilliam. At the very least, the three Iron Man films continually call attention to the difficulties that the genius in the armor has with interacting with the ordinary world.

Gilliam supplies even less support for the statement that "we" (meaning the audience) "have ot be superheroes to do anything worthwhile." Perhaps the former PYTHON performer overvalues the idea of deconstructing genre icons, as he and the Python troup did in their HOLY GRAIL film. It's only in a comic/ironic context that one can make, say, a film about knights in which the activity of the knights is not the center of the narrative, but exists to point the way toward something else in society. So it really makes no sense to critique superhero narratives for making superheroes the most important figures in the stories, just as cowboy-heroes are the most important figures in the majority of westerns.

I have a lot of personal reservations about MCU films, though I don't really think Gilliam's comments are MCU-centric; as he phrases them  I think that they could be applied just as easily to the Sony company's series of SPIDER-MAN and X-MEN films.

Ironically, the part of Gilliam's screed that I most agree with on aesthetic grounds is one with which I disagree on logical grounds. Of the 2018 BLACK PANTHER film, which I reviewed here, Gilliam said:

“I hated ‘Black Panther.’ It makes me crazy. It gives young black kids the idea that this is something to believe in. Bullshit. It’s utter bullshit. I think the people who made it have never been to Africa,” he said. “They went and got some stylist for some African pattern fabrics and things. But I just I hated that movie, partly because the media were going on about the importance of bullshit.”

While I didn't hate BLACK PANTHER, I too thought that much of its hype was bullshit, and that the film's characterization of Africa was politically correct nonsense. However, I don't entirely fault the film for not being realistic, which Gilliam does. I critiqued the film for not finding a middle ground, weaving real-world politics into an evocative fantasy, and as a result, the film is weak both in terms of its reality-elements and its fantasy-elements. Given that Gilliam has become best known for fantasy-films, I would think that the lack of a balance between these respective sets of perceived elements would be more important than the film's failings to mirror reality precisely.

It's strange that these admonitions from Scorcese, Coppola and Gilliam have come at this late date. While perhaps an old-time Hollywood director might've looked back at the 1990s and viewed the BATMAN and TEENAGE TURTLES films as a transitory phenomenon, by the early 2000s it should've been obvious that big-budget films in this genre were making big, big money, and that they weren't going away, even before the 2008 success of IRON MAN. Perhaps some of the hostility stems not just from the superheroes ruling the box office, but also because they're getting critical approbation, which has usually been directed at films of perceived "variety" as opposed to more generic forms of cinema. I didn't think BLACK PANTHER deserved an Oscar nomination, though ironically it was much better than two other more "mainstream" nominees. But I believe Gilliam, even though he certainly has greater knowledge of fantasy than the other two directors, simply doesn't engage with the particular nature of the superhero fantasy, and for that reason makes a superficial judgment about this particular genre.

MYTHCOMICS: "DESIGN FOR DEATH" (CAPT AMERICA #67, 1948)

In the late forties, the crime and horror genres rose as the superhero books fell out of favor. As a reaction to this trend, the last dozen or so issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS largely eschewed stories of hard-hitting pulp action in favor of moralistic stories of youths gone wrong or peculiar terror-tales. (One of the last Golden Age "Captain America" stories featured the Red Skull, who's died and gone to hell, trying to suck his star-spangled enemy down into perdition with him.) Most of these stories are not memorable. Yet "Design for Death," nominally a Human Torch story. shows some anonymous scripter (and an artist whose GCD provisionally identifies as Bob Oskner) playing out a "funny crime" story owing something to Thorne Smith.

The Torch and his flaming partner Toro get to play a part akin to Eisner's "The Spirit," in that the two heroes play a rather minimal role in someone else's story. For some reason, the crusaders pay crime-writer Ted Sparks a visit, and find that he's left a weird note on his door about blood being all over the floors. Apparently the note was just the writer's way of getting the heroes in the door with a modicum of suspense, for Sparks is present in his apartment, using a fishing-pole to haul in his mail and rambling about "a beautiful woman's blood." Then this bookish, bespectacled fellow starts talking about how he thinks he's been thrown over by Peggy, "the woman who captured my gentle heart," because he committed the sin of asking her to darn his socks. Somehow, Sparks turns his rage against Peggy onto himself in a classic statement of negative compensation: "What she needs is a brute! A powerful, ruthless and clever brute is the only kind of man a woman should have!"

Though on page two Sparks said that he "can't write" because of his mental turmoil, his rant inspires him to try putting his "masterful brute of crime fiction on paper." The heroes leave, remarking on his "negative inspiration" and considering the possibility of seeking out Peggy, since they've nothing better to do but play Miss Lonelyhearts. An hour passes, and the irate writer falls asleep, apparently conjuring "civilization's most ruthless male," a handsome, semi-clad figure who takes the devilish name of "Mephisto." This Mephisto proceeds to act on Sparks' submerged desires by conquering the heart of a society beauty attending some sort of charity benefit. The Torch and Toro happen to be there, but Mephisto douses both of them with water. However, the handsome "brute" meets defeat anyway, for the society-woman, though initially thrilled by Mephisto's caveman approach, spurns him for not being in the social register.

Nothing daunted, the would-be seducer dashes off to the opera, where he comes on two separate hotties. One repulses him because he sings like a  foghorn, and another one refuses him because he admits to being penniless. Then the Torch and Toro show up and encircle Mephisto with flames-- at which point it's revealed that Mephisto never existed except in Ted Sparks' dream-- which ends when he realizes that his sleeve has caught fire from a nearby candle.

To cap things off, the Torch and Toro return with Peggy in tow. Peggy reveals that the only reason she didn't have time for Sparks was because she realized that his old socks weren't worth darning, and that she proceeded to knit him some new ones. Sparks is deeply impressed with her feminine devotion and contrasts this with his own male aggression: "She knits while I kill and kidnap!" The tale ends on a comfy reconciliation, though it's rather different from dozens of other comic-book tales in which men who doubt their manhood get to prove themselves. Instead, "Design" shows a neurotic crime-story writer becomes tortured by his lack of masculinity, and by story's end he never really proves anything. Indeed, given that even in his imagination fantasy-women won't yield to him, it seems possible that Peggy's submissive nature may just be a matter of her "stooping to conquer." So, even if Sparks does keep his devilish imagination under control, he may find that she has her own "designs" about who'll wear the pants in the family.

STAR WARS, NOTHING BUT STAR WARS

For my last ARCHIVE essay of the year, I thought I might put together something a little more accessible to the casual reader (if any) than the previous "Concrescence and the Kinetic Potentiality." And since this year I devoted several essays on my movie-blog to reviewing most of the as-yet-unreviewed-by-me live-action films in the STAR WARS series-- concluding with an analysis of the current RISE OF SKYWALKER-- I'll make the Lucasverse my last ARCHIVE subject for 2019.

In 1978, when Bill Murray sang the lyric in my title for an episode of SNL, he was playing the part of a lounge-singer making up lame lyrics to please an audience of barflies. The main focus of the schtick was to make fun of the way commercial performers tended to latch onto items of popular culture in order to sell themselves. In a different era, Murray might've constructed the same idea around, say, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.

And yet, though the comedian couldn't have known that the original 1977 film would be anything more than a flash in the pan, he could well have been aware that STAR WARS had garnered an adult audience far beyond anything seen in past SF-successes. I find it unlikely that the same schtick, done in 1968, could've sold the idea that a lounge-singer would've tried to appeal to a bunch of adult drinkers with insider references to any other fantasy-film, even a popular one like PLANET OF THE APES.

There had been a handful of fantasy-works in various media that somewhat escaped the "fantasy is for kids" cultural judgment. DUNE and THE LORD OF THE RINGS attracted an audience outside the world of hardcore SF-readers. The James Bond book-series and its attendant movie-adaptations trafficked in sci-fi gimmickery and villains that resembled the freakish fiends of the DICK TRACY comic strip. The fifties generated a handful of SF-films that enjoyed some qualified support from adult audiences, such as Howard Hawks' THE THING, and the late sixties mirrored that development with the first of the APES films (though later ones became more kiddified) and Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Comic books remained a marginal medium despite adults' brief flirtation with the irony-drenched world of the 1966 BATMAN teleseries. Yet Marvel Comics changed up the game by introducing the formula of "heroes with problems," and while Marvel's penetration of "the real world" was minimal during its strongest creative era, its long-term influence on American culture would make possible the current hegemony of "superhero movies for all ages."

Yet, for all of these influences, the eventual validation of metaphenomenal entertainment for adults all comes down to "nothing but STAR WARS." In my review of the original film, I wrote:

...the religion of the Force works well in the first film because it's become the underdog in the galactic empire. Whenever the materialistic minions of the Empire mention the Jedi, it's only to sneer at the absurdities of their beliefs. To them Darth Vader's continued existence is little more than an indicator of the foolishness of having faith in anything but machines-- and the fact that Vader himself had taken on the semblance of a machine is merely a further confirmation of their world-view.

Luke Skywalker's existence defies the Empire's passion for "technological terrors," and whether or not Lucas meant him to be Vader's son at the time hardly matters. By inheriting Obi-Wan's mantle as the new embodiment of Jedi spirituality, he supplants Vader in the cosmos as Jacob supplanted Esau. This is the unlikely turnabout that Lucas teaches his audience to hunger for, and it plays as much a role in the franchise's success as the aforementioned love of pulpish extravagance. Indeed, without Lucas having crossbred the magic of fairy tales with the machines of SF, the furor over STAR WARS might have petered out over time like many other fannish enthusiasms, no matter how hard big corporations labored to keep them stoked.

George Lucas's scattershot research into fairy tales, archaic shamanism, and mythology clearly touched a cord in the American psyche, not mention the psyches of a great many other world cultures. And its popularity with adults was reflected in one of America's earliest instances of "political correctness," on which I reflected in my essay TRIBAL IN PARADISE:

STAR WARS was the test-case for racial representation. Not long after the film came out, I recall hearing a black comedian say something like, "Tell the truth, white people; you like STAR WARS because it means ya'll gonna leave alla us behind!" There may be more truth than humor in that statement, and Lucasfilms was quick to remedy the lack of POC in the SW universe by introducing Lando Calrissian in the second movie.

This wasn't pure tokenism, though. The Lucasverse as we now know it recapitulated a number of political attitudes, not least Lucas's favored trope of "lots of little good guys can beat a big bad guy." This is best illustrated in the first film in the Rebels' triumph over the Death Star. In addition, an early draft for STAR WARS would've also included a primitive tribe of Wookies beating a contingent of Storm Troopers, even though the story-idea didn't show up on celluloid until Lucas reworked the Wookies into RETURN OF THE JEDI's Ewoks. Reportedly Lucas was not entirely pleased that the only well-known black actor in the cast was "off-camera" in the form of Darth Vader's voice, but the appeal of James Earl Jones' baritone overcame those reservations. Thus I would surmise that Lucas probably didn't engineer the role of Lando Calrissian merely to profit from tokenism. He probably sincerely believed in a judicious forms of racial representation, much like that similarly-liberal toiler-in-fantasy-fields Gene Roddenberry. However, Lucas he didn't virtue-signal quite enough to head off his critics in 1999, when the buffoonish Jar Jar Binks was assailed for being a modern reincarnation of Stepin Fetchit.

The prequel series displeased a lot of viewers for a lot of reasons, but on the whole the series proved a success-- not just in terms of box office, but also in showing how thoroughly the viewing public had become enthralled with the Lucasverse cosmology. That said, even in the sixteen years between RETURN OF THE JEDI and THE PHANTOM MENACE, countless film producers sought to pursue the grail of the "Big Lucas Pay-Off," seeking to subject the once marginal genres of science fiction, magical fantasy and superheroes to the big-budget treatment. Television showed a similar transformation, though obviously Hollywood's Veblen-esque investment in conspicuous consumption didn't play so well on the small screen. Still, serials like XENA, HERCULES and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER demonstrated methods of bringing in big ratings on a small budget. For all anyone knows, the increasing profitability of sci-fi and superheroes may have played a role in encouraging George Lucas to return to his long-neglected franchise.

There's not much doubt that the "Rise of the Box-Office Profits" motivated Disney to purchase the Lucasverse, but here too, it's hard to say if pure profiteering explained the whole megilla. In my essay FREEDOM VS. FREEDOM PART 4, I called attention to the way Disney strategists re-wrote Lucas's "Clonetroopers" scenario from the prequels in order to start off the new series with an appeal to racial priorities. Thus the first promo for FORCE AWAKENS opens with the sight of a Storm Ttrooper unmasking and revealing the face of a black man (or at least, a face whose ethnicity is less ambiguous than that of actor Temeura Morrison, who played the mercenary from whose cells all Storm Troopers were supposedly derived).

Now, with the Disney trilogy is complete, it's possible to state categorically that the company's vaunted commitment to diversity did not extend to making Finn a halfway interesting character. In my review of FORCE AWAKENS, I pointed out that this revelation could be seen as a war to replay what I called "the African Diaspora," insofar as Disney's white-clad troopers were abducted from their worlds and forced to serve the Empire/First Order. However, even if the persons responsible for crafting the Finn character had some such intention-- and the idea is re-emphasized anew in RISE OF SKYWALKER-- the producers failed utterly at making Finn even as compelling as a Lucas toss-off like Boba Fett. That said, other new characters in the Disneyverse-- Poe, Rose Tiko, Holdo-- were no better characterized, so Finn certainly wasn't singled out for half-assed treatment. The one decent new character, Rey, got most of her mojo from being tied to one of Lucas's legacy characters in a literal sense, and with others in a more symbolic sense.

It may be a measure of Disney's perceptions about the adult audience's investment in the Lucasverse that the company chose to virtue-signal the company's commitment to diversity. However, it should be noted that, even if Lucas and his collaborators might have been influenced by tokenism in crafting Lando Calrissian, they still managed to make Lando an interesting character despite the creators' possibly-monetary motivations.

Even before SKYWALKER appeared in theaters, the first two films in the Disney trilogy were excoriated for their virtue signaling, though this criticism tended to focus less on people-of-color than on a perceived overemphasis of female characters. I feel that this criticism is partly justified in the cases of Holdo and Rose Tiko, who were such ciphers that I find them unlikely vessels of female empowerment. However, I will defend Rey against that charge. I don't think that Lucas's STAR WARS cosmos was ever directed exclusively to the male gender, and I think that Princess Leia stands as a major femme formidable, even if it's true that Carrie Fisher was less than entranced with her role. Rey has been accused by some critics of being a "Mary Sue" in terms of how easily she attains power and formidability. But while I might share some critics' concerns about the depiction of her path to power, I felt all three Disneyverse films succeeded in making her a vital character, one not defined by the gender wars. Thus, when Rey takes the name "Skywalker" at the end of SKYWALKER, I for one embraced that conceit. For me, the gesture demonstrated that, even when the new-verse was compromised by venal virtue-signaling, and dull diversity-concerns, it still was possible for people who weren't George Lucas to create at least one character that escaped such banal politicization.

CONCRESCENCE AND THE KINETIC POTENTIALITY PT. 2

In Part 1, I concluded the essay with these words:

In the case of the kinetic phenomenality, the operation of concrescence depends on bringing together disparate elements into what appears a seamless whole, just as it does with respect to symbolic discourses.

In that essay, I viewed the physical dynamicities expressed by two artists-- Jack Kirby and Mike Zeck-- and gave my reasons for viewing a Kirby panel as "good kinetic discourse," while Zeck's panel was"bad kinetic discourse." Nevertheless, in previous essays, I've gone on record as stating that even badly done kinetic discourses may fall within the combative mode. One such essay on that subject was INTENT VS. EXECUTION. In that 2015 essay, I compared two mediocre movies, 1956's WORLD WITHOUT END and 1984's AMAZONS, both of which conclude with less than impressive fight-scenes. Yet, since I rated AMAZONS as combative and WORLD as subcombative, for me this begs a question regarding the function of concrescence in this conceptual model.

Oddly, though INTENT links with an earlier essay that discusses the narrative-significant schism. I didn't bring that concept into play in any direct manner. However, I gave Paul-Michael Glaser's AMAZONS credit for having a combative "intent" that I did not find in Edward Bernds's WORLD:

So, even though both Paul Glaser and Ed Bernds fall short in terms of execution, I give Glaser the nod because his work shows some "intent" to provide a combat that resolved the differences of the opponents, while Bernds seemed unaware that his main hero had to do something at least semi-impressive. 

It belatedly occurs to me that what I called "execution" in the essay parallels with the concept of a work's narrative value with relation to the combative mode: that if the work doesn't display the contending of impressive energies, then it cannot be combative. Yet, though Glaser's film isn't much better in terms of showing those contending energies, it does show "intent," which in my system would line up with a "significant value"-- ergo, the concluding fight is important TO THE READER for such-and-such a reason.

Thus, I find that while the kinetic discourse of both works may be inferior in terms of narrative values-- and thus, not fully concrescent-- AMAZONS is concrescent with regard to the significant values possible for both works, while WORLD is not, and so registers as subcombative.

 

COMBATIVE CHRISTMAS COMICS #8-9

"Look what's coming down the chimney! It's an imitation of ALIEN (though technically it's a supernatural demon-thingie...)"

And let's not forget how Marvel put the "Sweet Christmas" in the Xmas season, when HERO FOR HIRE #7 pitted Luke Cage against a villain called "Marley" in a story titled "Jingle Bombs."

COMBATIVE CHRISTMAS COMICS #5-7

"You see this cat Claus is a bad mother--"
(Shut your mouth!)
"But I'm talkin' 'bout Santa!"

_________

Here's a team-up between Santa Claus and Superman, where the jolly old elf helps the superhero fight Toyman. Claus himself doesn't participate in the action, but his elves make a bunch of toys that out-fight the villain's killer devices.

________

One of the better comics-versions of a "bad Santa" appeared in BADGER #70. The hero meets a fat greasy biker-type in a bar, and it turns out he's "Klaus," who's sworn off delivering toys on Xmas.  Badger goes with him to the North Pole, watches as Klaus beats up a rebel elf, and talks the foul-mouthed fellow into making his Xmas journey. Badger does end up having to discipline Santa when he's naughty, though. Lots of good jabs against political correctness.

______

Not nearly as good is this LOBO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. Some Lobo-stories combine a certain amount of wit along with the skull-busting ultraviolence. Not this one, though.

THE READING RHEUM: THE RETURN OF DR. FU MANCHU (1916)

Apparently it took Sax Rohmer about four years to bring his villain back into play, though he took pains at the end of the first book to set up the probability of the devil-doctor's return.

From first to last, all of the Fu-books are episodic, though the early ones are explicitly cobbled together from stand-alone short stories that had appeared in serial magazines. RETURN therefore keeps the exact same structure as INSIDIOUS. Nayland Smith, accompanied by stalwart buddy Doctor Petrie, is either trying to find the doctor's current hideout in England or to prevent the fiend from assassinating someone, be it an influential voice in world politics or a simple traitor to the "Yellow Power" movement. Not until the third novel would the author dedicate the name "Si-Fan" to Fu's group. Still, in the second book Rohmer backs off on any associations between the Oriental evildoer and what was called "New China" in the first novel.

RETURN is not nearly as compelling as that first book, for Rohmer isn't really building on his villain's mythos to any great extent. Fu again puts the hit on several citizens, using various dacoit servants, exotic plants and animals, and even a "curse of the mummy" situation that conjures with the idea of a risen creature in wrappings (though it turns out to be just another dacoit). Some of these death-devices are reasonably clever, though there's nothing as wild as the fungus-room seen in INSIDIOUS.

Rohmer does follow up on the first novel's assertion that Fu is not the master of the Chinese movement. The real leader even shows up, "off-camera" as it were, though future novels will establish that over time the devil-doctor takes over the whole shooting-match. Rohmer continually spotlights Fu's immense genius and his sense of personal honor, though the author can't resist tossing in a barb at the "childishness" of the Chinese people. This putdown appears during the novel's most interesting sequence. Petrie, while looking for a missing Nayland Smith, stumbles across a literal rara avis: a white peacock loose in the city. Providentially, the doctor captures the bird and leaves it with an aide. He's then captured by Fu's fiends and imprisoned with Smith, but when he learns that the peacock is part of a Chinese ritual to honor the doctor, he's able to use the bird to buy freedom for himself and Smith.

The novel's biggest contribution to the Fu-mythos is the explicit statement that the doctor can brainwash people so thoroughly that they forget their old lives and become his servants, not always totally enslaved servants. Karameneh, Fu's Arab servant from the first book, illustrates the doctor's new propensity, for though she and Petrie have exchanged love-glances, the doctor expunges her memory, so that she does not remember Petrie, Smith, or even her own brother Aziz. Nevertheless, she senses her connection to Petrie, and even before that, she impulsively reveals to him that Fu hasn't exactly been a kind master, since she has lash-marks on her shoulder. Eventually, she does recover at least part of her memory toward the conclusion, though she disappears from Petrie's life once more, setting up her inevitable return in HAND OF FU MANCHU-- though Fu's own return seems more dubious, as he's last seen getting shot in the head by Karameneh, who chooses fidelity to her English lover over loyalty to her cruel master.

ADDENDUM: I should note how this novel stands in terms of phenomenality and mythicity. Though there's nothing as way out as killer fungi, Fu's ability to mind-wipe victims with his drugs-- sans any major side-effects-- would seem to fall into the "marvelous" category. However, unlike the first book, this one doesn't make the grade as "high-mythicity fiction."