found_drama

When you walk away from Robocop, there is a temptation to describe it as a Dickian film.

Certainly the elements seem to be there:  a man with a subsumed identity and a concealed past, struggling against forces larger than him—perhaps even controlling him—in a bleak dystopian future setting.  The looming megacorporation that wipes out his memories?  His access back to those memories from his dreams?  It all seems very Dickian.

But Robocop may more appropriately by the anti-Dickian Dickian film.

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Coming to Deadwood’s anti-climactic finale last night, I decided to append a few follow-up notes and thought questions to my earlier assertion that the show was David Milch’s attempt at a purely American creation myth:

1. Upon further reflection, Milch is attempting some important inversions on the creation myth paradigm.  We’ve already discussed how his women do not give birth; instead, their quests would have less to do with “pure creation” and more to do with resisting destruction, fending off entropy.  In particular here, focus on Alma’s trials and tribulations.
2. Thought question:  what is the significance of “Jewel”¹ in light of saloon’s name (i.e., “the Gem”)?
3. Though “Wild Bill” Hickcock dies in the first season², his presence stays with us through — even making a reprise in the final minutes of the series finale.  He’s there to humanize mortality — on account of we have quite a bit of seemingly mechanistic killing and dying.
4. Thought questions:  what’s the importance of the symmetry of the blood-stain scrubbing?

1. As in “Jewel’s name being ‘Jewel’”. [↩]
2. And relatively early on, for that matter. [↩]

Work with me here:  When David Milch hallucinated the opening scene to what would become Deadwood, when he gathered up his personal assistant(s) into a darkened room and reclined on the couch to spill forth from his amygdala exactly what he was seeing beyond his third eye, he was leaking his fever-dream vision of a purely American creation myth.

I’m convinced of this.

Listen:  Milch saw a gap.  Every culture worldwide, living or dead, has a ripe and complex history, rich with detailed mythology and folklore.  And though many of these cultures’ mythologies are suppressed under some latter-day predominant macro-culture¹, the fact of the matter is that each of these mythologies feature some kind of creation myth².  What Milch saw, was that America — melting pot or not — has emerged as a pretty interesting cultural entity, one that is likely to have a long-lasting legacy.  But where was its creation myth?  Was it to succumb to the fate of borrowing the creation myths of its patchwork constituents?  Was it to delegate its mythology to the cultures native but otherwise systematically destroyed³?  Or was it to move softly into its own future without regard for this dare-we-say necessity?

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1. Judeo-Christian traditions, I’m looking in your direction. [↩]
2. Judeo-Christian tradition:  I know you’ve got yours too, but it’s pretty weaksauce when compared to some. [↩]
3. A tip of the ironic hat there? [↩]

descend from Andes
descend to utter madness
wrestle with monkeys

Great film.  Stunning.  Epic.  Masterfully shot.  Surreal.  Insert more superlatives here.

However, when your primary film-selection criterion for the evening is “which one is shortest?” — well, this one may leave your jaw unpleasantly unhinged.  Bewildering.

Will watch again.  When I’m more serious about it.

some say “slow moving”
but instead ’tis action packed.
still, please be patient.

Seriously.  You need no additional evidence that Kubrick was a bat-shit insane genius than this film.

Anyone that says that describes it as “slow moving” is expecting entirely too many explosions for something set in the 18th century.  Or they’re not paying attention.  Every scene is dense with dialogue, imagery, narration, and plot-advancing actions.  It’s complex (no fooling there) but not so complex that it becomes difficult to follow.

That said, you do need to be paying attention.  And you do need to exhibit some patience to let all of the pieces come together.

Plus, the film is a technical masterpiece — even before you stop to consider the great pains to which Kubrick went to achieve all of those candle-lit shots without the aid of electric light.

Allegory for
spousal secrets, marriage woes
—but more explosions.

when it says “written,
produced, and directed by”
please just walk away

“What’s wrong?” “Oh, nothing.
I just need something stronger.”
Subdue the perverts.

It’s a little tough to believe that I’d gone this long without seeing George Lucas’ THX 1138. And in many ways, it’s almost harder to believe that it was made by the same guy behind Attack of the Clones.

As I’ve said of some books:  far more erudite and learned individuals have put together thoughtful, insightful essays that either include or are about this film.  I have no intention of doing a “close read” here.

The thing that was most startling to me was that I didn’t realize exactly how iconic this film had become. Watching it for the first time¹, during the first 15 minutes, I recognized three bits of audio that had been used in songs I’ve been listening to for years.  It may not be iconic in the mainstream-geek sort of way that Star Wars is, but it’s definitely become part of our cultural consciousness.  It just might be the definitive science fiction film about the alienation that follows assimilation by a Big Brother-style authority.  If you haven’t checked it out already, you should definitely do so.

UPDATE: Also, it occurs to me that the film reminded me very much of This Time of Darkness, a young adult novel I read in the fifth grade (?).  Sadly, it appears to be out of print — but the two stories share a great many details and plot elements.  I’ve yet to come up with a publication date yet, so I remain curious as to which served as inspiration for the other…

1. I could have sworn I’d seen it before but apparently not. [↩]

As Season Five of The X-Files comes to a close, Mulder and Scully are getting split up, the X-Files is getting shut down, and (in that respect) the Syndicate’s conspiracy has “won”.

Fight the Future¹ feels like a long episode with a little more weight in the climactic moments.  On many levels, this works.  Scenes and dialogue are constructed in a way that you could “get” the film without having seen the preceding 117 hours² of X-Files footage, though certain things will make more sense and will have more of an impact if you led up to them gradually and in the right order.  This helps to keep the narrative focused.  At the same time though, it almost seems as though the writers succumbed to the temptation to re-write or re-invent aspects of the narrative.  These minor discontinuities include such things as:  (1) the Black Oil goes from being an organism of its own to being a virus³; (2) the FBI that broke up Mulder and Scully when they broke up the X-Files puts them to work on anti-terrorism together; and (3) Mulder’s new-found skepticism seems to have left him all together again.

The film’s story works as part of the overall arc though it has a few bits that are over the top⁴ and others that don’t feel quite right⁵.  The ending is pretty typical for The X-Files though:  Mulder and Scully have literally traveled to the ends of the Earth as part of their Search, only to have circumstances dictate the last-minute Total Escape of any evidence or proof that they might have sought.

We’ll let that sink in before resuming with Season Six.

1. That works as the title.  Let’s go with that. [↩]
2. Give or take; there are 117 episodes in Seasons One through Five. [↩]
3. I’m a bit iffy on this though because it’s never really established within the boundaries of The Series that anyone really knows what the Black Oil is.  The fact that they’re trying to develop a “vaccine” for it should be evidence enough that they (the Syndicate, at least) consider it to be a virus or like a virus.  But I’ve never seen a virus crawl across the floor before in a motile mass, either. [↩]
4. E.g., those alien mutant things; how could such base, atavistic organisms have gotten into the galactic colonization game? [↩]
5. E.g., Mulder and Scully’s almost-kiss; e.g., when Well-Manicured Man blew himself up. [↩]

Season Five of the X-Files begins as an immediate successor to Season Four before veering off into what feel like wildly different directions.  The characters are the same, the paranormal elements are (usually) there, but something about it isn’t quite parallel.  Mulder’s new-found skepticism is a big part of it.  It’s as though, after coming so perilously close to The Truth by the end of last season, there was some need within the narrative to pull away from that.  But whereas the previous odd-numbered season did it by injecting humor and whimsy, this one uses a more serious tone and plays with other, neglected¹ tropes.

Season Five seems to rely on some role reversals:  Scully as the (reluctant) believe, Mulder as the doubter, conspiracies that are present but mundane and solvable.  In a lot of ways, it’s the spiritual successor to Season Two because it shows our protagonists at important crossroads.  Considering Season Five’s position in the Series timeline², perhaps there are sound reasons to construct this arc in the narrative.

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1. ”Less familiar” doesn’t seem to be the right phrase but might be closer. [↩]
2. Viz. the final season filmed in Vancouver; viz. the first season broadcast in the widescreen format; viz. the season just before the first feature film. [↩]