A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies, 2016)

The premature burial 

Attempt something often enough and sooner or later you get it right. Attempt the biopic often enough and someone was bound to hit the bullseye sometime, not so much telling a subject's story with reasonable accuracy as using said subject's life as grist to express the filmmaker's obsessions on his own stylistic terms--thinking Wong Kar Wai's lush narratively wayward The Grandmaster or Jane Campion's austere Bright Star with its focus on the female protagonist (John Keat's great love Fanny Brawne). Terence Davies' A Quiet Passion does something as interesting if not more so: cast Emily Dickinson--one of America's greatest poets--in what essentially reads as a horror film.

Ender's Game (Gavin Hood); The Counselor (Ridley Scott)

(Warning: plot twists and story of both films discussed in close and explicit detail)

Game over
 
Gavin Hood's Ender's Game is a surprisingly supple, fairly faithful adaptation of the Orson Scott Card novel; if it fails as a film, I'd say the fault lies as much with the source novel as with the filmmakers. 

It begins well enough--the battle school scenes of both novel and movie are easily their best parts, with strategies and mind games clearly outlined, with the fighting given coherence and variety. The novel allows the training more time to develop: we see and feel the growing intensity, we appreciate the increasingly bewildering impossibilities thrown at Ender (Asa Butterfield). You miss that gradual progression in the movie. 

Frederik Pohl: Nov. 26, 1919—Sept. 2, 2013

Frederik Pohl: Nov. 26, 1919 - Sept. 2, 2013

I grew up reading him.

No, that doesn't quite describe how it went. I grew into what I am reading him. What science can do, what its consequences; how man can use--and misuse--science, how this affects him; how one can write about science, in ways both creative and psychologically incisive. Pohl showed many of the possibilities, and showed an effortless mastery of them in the process. 

Kingsley Amis called him "the most consistently able writer science fiction, in its modern form, has yet produced." Not perhaps high praise--he doesn't call him a genius, a producer of great work--but when you see the breadth, variety and depth of that work, perhaps it's accurate: he's consistent, he's prolific, and across that range he's incredibly able.

The Locus article I linked to above will give an idea of the size of that career--not just writer but editor and blogger and all-around man of letters. All I knew when I first read his classic short story "The Midas Plague" was that I'd found a writer capable of evoking a near-unimaginable world, of unlimited wealth and almost ceaseless consuming to the point of nausea, where cheap and tasty products rolled down conveyor belts at an unimaginable rate and you're constantly pressured to use, watch, enjoy, eat, eat, eat.

Then again, maybe that world isn't so unimaginable anymore.

"The Midas Plague" is a broad cartoon, if an unsettlingly convincing one; "The Day After the Day the Martians Came" showed a subtler Pohl, demonstrating how even as momentous an event as an alien encounter will inevitably be reduced (consumed?) by human culture into a series of racist (specist?) jokes, into banal contempt and condescension. 

Try as much as I can, I can't remember much of The Space Merchants, Pohl and longtime collaborator C.M. Kornbluth's classic satire where corporate advertisers and not governments run the world. Advertising is deceitful (imagine that!) and omnipresent, corporate espionage a game as dangerous as any cold war. I know it's an important novel, but it failed to make an emotional connection; I suppose I need to read it again.

I do remember the lesser-known Gladiator-at-Law--not just an eerily prescient treatise on Law and Big Business but a frighteningly vivid depiction of poverty. As when he describes an old woman working a makeshift restaurant in the devastated area of Belly Rave (nee Belle Reve):

Outside, Norvell asked shyly what in the world the old woman thought she was doing for a living.
 
"It's simple," said Shep. "She gets her rations and trades them for
firewood. She uses the wood to heat water—for coffee, or bouillon, or tea, or whatever. She trades the water for rations. She keeps hoping that some day she'll come out ahead on the deal. She never has."

"But why?"

Shep didn't speak for a long minute as they sauntered along in the
afternoon sun. At last he said, "No offense. But it's easy to see you're a come-lately, Bligh- Why does she do it? Because it makes her feel like a human being."
 
"But——"
 
"But hell. It makes her feel as though she were master of her fate,
captain of her soul. It's hard to starve to death in Belly Rave, but in a bad week she comes close to it. She thinks she's a Rockefeller or a Weeks in miniature. Risking her capital in the hope, of gain. Well, she is! What if she always loses? She's doing something—not just sitting and waiting for the ration day to roll around again. You've heard of hell?"

Norvell nodded. Like practically everybody else he was a member of the Reformed Rationalist Church of the Inchoate Principle, but hell had been mentioned in sermons now and then.
 
"Well, if a man who said that hell is a perpetual holiday was right, then this is it. Belly Rave, mister. Belly Rave."

Hope in the face of despair, and a kind of urban poetry. That was pretty much it; I was hooked on Pohl.

Most people who've heard of Pohl (if they have heard of Pohl; nowadays people read Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and any number of Star Wars novels) would have heard of Gateway, his Nebula and Hugo Award-winning novel about enterprising prospectors who climb aboard unknown alien ships and risk life and limb and more, taking these ships to unknown destinations for possible profit, or death, or worse. 

Even more fascinating than the premise was the way the novel was written, as a series of short episodes, bulletins, announcements, price lists--

Direct from the Lost Tunnels of Venus!

Rare Religious Objects

Priceless Gems Once Worn by the Secret Race

Astounding Scientific Discoveries

EVERY ITEM GUARANTEED AUTHENTIC!

Special Discount for

Scientific Parties and Students

THESE FANTASTIC OBJECTS

ARE OLDER THAN HUMANITY!

Now for the first time at popular prices

Adults, $2.50

Children, $1.00

Delbert Guyne, Ph.D., D.D., Proprietor

--letters, even computer source code, giving us a fragmentary view of the world that eventually comes together into a fascinatingly complex whole. The first line of the book: "My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male" not just introduces the protagonist but puts front and center his sexual ambivalence; the often funny bouts with his computer analyst Sigfried explore not just aspects of his persona but also the plot, which revolves around a traumatic event in Robin's past.

A sample:

Sigfrid is a pretty smart machine, but sometimes I can't figure out what's wrong with him. He's always asking me to tell him my dreams. Then sometimes I come in all aglow with some dream I'm positive he's going to love, a big-red-apple-for-the-teacher kind of dream, full of penis symbols and fetishism and guilt hang-ups, and he disappoints me. He takes off on some crazy track that has nothing at all to do with it. I tell him the whole thing, and then he sits and clicks and whirs and buzzes for a while -- he doesn't really, but I fantasize that while I'm waiting -- and then he says:

"Let's go back to something different, Rob. I'm interested in some of the things you've said about the woman, Gelle-Klara Moynlin."
 
I say, "Sigfrid, you're off on a wild-goose chase again."
 
"I don't think so, Rob."
 
"But that dream! My God, don't you see how important it is? What about the mother figure in it?"
 
"What about letting me do my job, Rob?"
 
"Do I have a choice?" I say, feeling sulky.
 
"You always have a choice, Rob, but I would like very much to quote to you something you said a while ago." And he stops, and I hear my own voice coming out of somewhere in his tapes. I am saying:
 
"Sigfrid, there's an intensity of pain and guilt and misery there that I just can't handle."
 
He waits for me to say something.
 
After a moment I do. "That's a nice recording," I acknowledge, "but I'd rather talk about the way my mother fixation comes out in my dream."
 
"I think it would be more productive to explore this other matter, Rob. It is possible they're related."
 
"Really?" I am all warmed up to discuss this theoretical possibility in a detached and philosophical way, but he beats me to the punch:
 
"The last conversation you had with Klara, Rob. Please tell me what you feel about it."
 
"I've told you." I am not enjoying this at all, it is such a waste of time, and I make sure he knows it by the tone of my voice and the tenseness of my body against the restraining straps. "It was even worse than with my mother."
 
"I know you'd rather switch to talking about your mother, Rob, but please don't, right now. Tell me about that time with Klara. What are you feeling about it at this minute?"

I try to think it out honestly. After all, I can do that much. I don't actually have to say it. But all I can find to say is, "Not much."
 
After a little wait he says, "Is that all, 'not much'?"
 
"That's it. Not much." Not much on the surface, anyway. I do remember how I was feeling at the time. I open up that memory, very cautiously, to see what it was like. Going down into that blue mist. Seeing the dim ghost star for the first time. Talking to Klara on the radio, while Dane is whispering in my ear. . . . I close it up again.
 
"It all hurts, a lot, Sigfrid," I say conversationally. Sometimes I try to fool him by saying emotionally loaded things in the tone you might use to order a cup of coffee, but I don't think it works. Sigfrid listens to volume and overtones, but he also listens to breathing and pauses, as well as the sense of the words. He is extremely smart, considering how stupid he is.

A cat and mouse game they're playing; Pohl points up the chase-and-be-chased element with a repetitive, even circular motif, Robin's contemptuous assessment of Sigfrid's intelligence. He teases us with vague hints of the nature of the trauma (going down; blue mist; dim ghost star) but mostly we're dealing with Robin's feelings of hostility at having his insides probed, like an exposed nerve in a decayed tooth or (more pertinently I think) a rectum shivering in the chill clinic air. Sigfrid is blandly soothing in the best HAL 9000 manner but unlike Kubrick's computer (arguably the best, wittiest character the filmmaker ever put onscreen) he is not to be deterred; he parries and fences with Robin relentlessly until he has coaxed the patient into giving up yet another painfully won nugget of detail (of course Sigfried already knows what happened; the trick is getting Robin to talk about it). You get the sense that when Sigfrid finally uncovers the trauma is when the novel arrives at its (possibly harrowing) climax. 

Of all cyborg films, TV shows and stories, arguably the most convincing I know is Pohl's Man Plus, not just for the sheer wealth of scientific detail about the chemical, biological and technological elements that go into the making of a cyborg fit for survival on Mars, but the at times horrific physiological and psychological changes wrought on Roger Torroway, the man being transformed, possibly the most chilling of which is reflected in this excerpt:

“I was worried about sex," he went on. "But you know what, Sulie? It's like being told I can't have any caviar for the next couple years. I don't even like caviar. And when you come right down to it, I don't want sex right now. I supposed you punched that into the computer? 'Cut down sex drive, increase euphoria'? Anyway, it finally penetrated my little brain that I was just making trouble for myself, worrying about whether I could get along without something I really didn't want. It's a reflection of what I think other people think I should want.”

A perfectly reasoned-out, totally mature rationale for chastity? God forbid! And yet Pohl manages to make it a natural development, even a happy one for Roger...

Arguably the most fascinating aspect of the whole operation are the mediation circuits being developed for Roger. His previous incarnation died of a stroke; the stress of TMI (too much information) burst a blood vessel in his brain. Roger has computer circuits simplifying the flow of images and data to him, and this creates bias in his view of the world; Pohl ultimately pulls back to demonstrate that this--the introduction of bias--is a meta thing, not just a problem specific to Roger, and we're left shuddering, wondering: who might be interpreting our data for us? And why?

Gateway is generally considered Pohl's masterpiece and it's an intense, moving work, but in Man Plus--as in all of the very best science fiction--Pohl seems to have asked the most interesting questions: what makes us human? More than human? More, is the need for bias in the information flow inevitable, even desirable? Who creates bias for us, and who creates bias for them in turn? Pohl probes into the nature of not just art (of an individual's creative introduction of bias) but communication itself, which apparently is every bit as slippery and relativistic as the rest of space and time. 

As for that most fascinating element in science fiction, the human response in the face of technological change--what does Roger Torroway do when he finds control of his senses suddenly and catastrophically taken away from him? He struggles to regain control; that, and he yells for help. It's the best he can do, feeble as it may sound, the best anyone can do when you come to think about it.

 9.3.13

Get real, Get Real Philippines

First of the year and already I'm compelled to write a less-than-friendly post.

Before anything, a caveat: as of today, have not yet seen any of the films at the 2011 Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF)--would like to, but am having a time trying to arrange a viewing. So, yes, I'm putting that out for the record, up front.

Reason for this cobbled-together post, though, is a budding website called Get Real Philippines, a series of articles written mostly by the webmaster, with a handful of fellow writers (well, one other, apparently). For the most part the articles seem well-written, lively, reasonably well informed, generally progressive--until this article by someone named 'Ilda,' on the recent MMFF.

Not a big fan of the MMFF; for the longest time they've enjoyed the privilege of being the only game in town in Metro Manila theaters during the Christmas season, ostensibly the biggest market in the busiest time in the Philippines, arguably one of the biggest and busiest in Southeast Asia, if not the world. There was a time when this was a good thing: the festival showed the likes of Ishmael Bernal's Himala (Miracle, 1982), and Mike de Leon's Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye, 1981). The festival has reportedly degenerated into a showcase of mostly slapdash commercial products, including the Mano Po series (I'd seen the first one--not a big fan of that either--and heard harsh words about the sequels). 

Like I said: not a big fan. But I don't think it and the entire Filipino film industry, independent and mainstream alike--deserve the general hosing-down found in that article. Statements like "Unfortunately, our films tell us and everyone else that we are shallow and superficial" seem to slam Philippine cinema in general--so are we shallow and superficial, as portrayed by Bernal, De Leon, Lino Brocka, Mario O'Hara, Lav Diaz, Brillante Mendoza? Are our films "a total waste of the people’s time and money?"

Getting down to specific titles, the article mentions three: Enteng ng Ina Mo (Enteng of your mother--but that's a rough translation, it's really a play of words on a classic Filipino profanity) I can't really comment about. It sounds like it's a wholly commercial production and sequels are usually not the greatest films in the world as a rule but I haven't seen the picture and the writer, apparently, has; she pronounces judgment on the script and dialogue, and casts aspersions on the actors and producers' motives (I know it's impossible for her to actually read their minds, but I'll call that a rhetorical tactic; been guilty of doing the same for movies I didn't like). But when it came to her takedown of Panday 2 she writes "the new Panday movie is being criticized for being a blatant rip-off of the 2010 Hollywood blockbuster remake of Clash of the Titans."

"Being criticized?" Is she repeating what she's heard from others? Is she suggesting that she hasn't seen the movie? True, she does add "There was nothing special about the “special” effects either," but is it possible she's basing her judgment on online trailers?

More damning is her take on Shake, Rattle, and Roll 13: "What else can people expect to get out of it? Not much, obviously. People are probably watching it for the eye candy." Then she goes on to disparage the starlets on the festival parade (I understand where she's coming from, but I personally can't find it in me to disparage starlets; they're often fresh young things from the provinces who've been struck blind by all the money and attention, and often lead harsh lives off-camera). Three sentences that don't really talk about the picture, but rather how people might react to the picture. When called on this in the article's comment section, the writer replies with unusual evasiveness: "It doesn’t really matter if I saw SRR13 or not."

Um--yes it does, actually. Basic rule in journalism in general, criticism in particular: know of what you write.

I can't say I can judge this installment myself but I did see the original series back in 1984; Bernal's sequence (Prigyider) in particular was a witty original. I've dipped into the series once in a while and found a few good segments (Kapitbahay, in Shake, Rattle, and Roll IV, 1992). Critic Dodo Dayao does praise this thirteenth variation in his blog--and I do trust Dayao's judgment; he's an astute writer on local and international films, and writes about the movie in close detail with considerable eloquence. Ms. Ilda has every right to disparage the picture, and she makes a good point about the laziness of film producers in general, but she must see the movies first. Anything less smacks of lazy journalism. 

Webmaster 'Benigno' defends his fellow writer in a follow-up article, helpfully titled "Filipino indie film makers need to stop whining and step up." * He succinctly summarizes the events that led up to his writing of the article; then he introduces his opinion with: "Based on the sort of comments I’ve seen so far posted in that article..."

Wow, don't people do actual research anymore?

He writes "it seems the people who lament the marginalised place “indie” films hold in the Philippines are better at whining than stepping up to said challenges" (chip on the shoulder much, hm?)" and adds "It is “impossible” only because the Philippine indie film sector lacks the sort of innovation that makes billionaires out of nerds and outcasts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs."

Um--blanket judgment on an entire industry (this time independent) based on comments made on blogpost article. Useful information here: if one has to make a handful of sweeping generalizations on an industry, it helps to actually read up on and talk to both industry insiders and outsiders in close detail. The more research  put into the article, the more authoritative and persuasive  article can be.

Benigno then goes on in detail about the Weinstein Brothers and Miramax Films, holding them up as an example of an independent outfit that was actually profitable; actually, Miramax was not the blockbuster moneymaker it claimed to be; that aura of profitability came more out of the Weinsteins' ruthlessness and ability to manipulate contractual conditions than out of the creation of actual independent hits.**

Independent filmmakers (and you'll have to take my word for it that I'm talking from experience about people I know well) are some of the hardest-working and most innovative people I know. They do miracles; they create art out of impossible budgets, and in impossible circumstances. Asking them to market their films brilliantly and well is one more impossible task to add to their basket, and I agree this much with Benigno: this just might be what the filmmakers need to do. This isn't the first time it's been said, nor is he the first one to say it; he just needs to do the research, and it wouldn't hurt to dial down the obnoxious, know-it-all tone (him apparently not knowing it all, at least about this industry).

The question of making Filipino independent or art films pay has been around for a long, long time, and no one has come up with any definite answers. Lino Brocka's Insiang (1974) was a box-office flop, despite being screened in the prestigious Director's Fortnight in Cannes, despite being made for a low budget; Mike de Leon's Sister Stella L. was welcomed with glowing praise, and standing-room only previews; when it was released it flopped, despite the name of Philippine star Vilma Santos in the marquee. 

Independent filmmakers today actually have a somewhat better record at the boxoffice; unlike Brocka, they can leverage digital technology to make their films cheaper, faster, easier to make, and in the case of a few titles, they have made some profit (if I remember right, Auraeus Solito's Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) did modest business and Ang Babae sa Septic Tank (Girl in Septic Tank) did huge business (roughly 20 million pesos, or over $400,000).  In the case of Zombadings the big studios reportedly attempted to repress the picture, keep it out of theaters so it wouldn't threaten their mainstream product.

But--comedies and zombie pictures? What about Sari Dalena's Ka Oryang (see image above), this year's Cinema One Best Picture, and in my opinion one of the best and most important film I've seen this year, Filipino or otherwise? Not to put down the two titles (haven't seen them, but have heard good things), independent films are also meant to deal with things commercial product won't touch (that's why they're independent). If it's difficult to market independent films, that's a combination of a system rigged against the independent filmmaker, an often difficult to market subject matter, and--let's throw this in as well--Filipinos who if they don't frequent Filipino films often condemn said films to the trash heap ("If it's Filipino it must be trash (and no, I don't watch Filipino films)"). This particular segment of Filipinos is crucial to the indie filmmaker; he's the kind of viewer who might appreciate an innovative independent film--if he can be troubled to actually view it.

The attitude isn't new; Gerry De Leon, Lamberto Avellana, Manuel Conde had to contend with this in their time; so did Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Mario O'Hara.

I'm not trying to completely put down or thoroughly trash Benigno and Ilda and their like; I enjoyed reading their blog, and think they have the right position on some issues (the need for better reproductive health, holding Aquino accountable, and so on). I think their hearts are in the right place, and their effrontery appropriate--when targeted at those that deserve that effrontery, like corrupt government or conservative institutions. The Metro Manila Film Festival? For the most part, yes--I've seen my share, no, more than my share of their garbage; I've also seen a few gems, though, and I'm careful to make the distinction. More power, Get Real Philippines, only--get it right, too. It'll help you in the long run. 

* I know, I know, my sarcasm's showing.

** Old joke: 

Q: How do you make a small fortune in Filipino filmmaking?

A: Start with a big fortune.

Dream Factories of a Former Colony: American Fantasies, Phiippine Cinema (Jose B. Capino)

Nora Aunor in 'Merika

 My article on Jose Capino's Dream Factories of a Former Colony: American Fantasies, Philippine Cinema is available online, at the Cineaste website.

It was a pleasure to read the book, and a pleasure to write about it. Go, buy, read, enjoy!

The Killer Inside Me (Michael Winterbottom, 2009)

I say 'whip it!'--Jessica Alba in The Killer Inside Me

Bad to the bone

Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me (2010) is a mess. It largely misses the import of noir writer Jim Thompson's gleefully evil 1952 novel the same time it visualizes the book's most violent setpieces with unflinching courage. It's strong in many ways, yet seems completely clueless about the inimitable Thompson flavor--the sulfurous taint you taste with every helping of his bleakly funny fiction.

It's a perilous task, adapting Thompson; he seems so deceptively easy, so surprisingly difficult to bring to the big screen (Sam Fuller once said of Thompson's 1959 The Getaway that the book could serve as the movie's own shooting script--it's full of intricate plot, memorable dialogue, and little fat). But Burt Kennedy's 1976 version of The Killer Inside Me turned out to be a mostly toothless affair (despite featuring Stacy Keach as a massive Lou Ford), and Sam Peckinpah--"Bloody Sam" he's sometimes called, whose balletic slow-motion despair might have beautifully realized Thompson's terminal nihilism--ended his 1972 The Getaway at the point when it should have gotten really interesting. Critic and poet Geoffrey O'Brien called Thompson a "Dimestore Dostoevsky" and while Thompson's writing doesn't have the magnitude and complexity of Dostoevsky's moral vision, he does seem to share Dostoevsky's uncanny understanding of abnormal and criminal minds.

Stephen Frears did a good job adapting The Grifters (1990) from Thompson's 1963 novel--the whirling, fast-talking world of malignant gamblers, crooked businessmen, and money-grubbing con artists served as a seductive, glittering facade against which moved a figure of pure evil. Bernard Tavernier managed an even more difficult feat, transposing Thompson's 1964 work Pop. 1280 from a racist town in what is possibly Texas to the equally racist French West Africa (where the first slaves were shipped to the Americas) in Coup de Torchon (Blow to the head, 1981), and shooting what is said to be Thompson's darkest novel in the relentless African sunshine. Tavernier captures much of the dark humor, throwing in a few jokes of his own--the film's opening states that it was adapted from Pop. 1280; the end credits say it's from Pop. 1275, and it takes us a few moments to remember five whites died during the course of the picture.

The Killer Inside Me is not quite on the level of Pop. 1280, but builds up considerable irony on its own--the narrator Lou Ford, the town's deputy sheriff, presents himself as an affable bumpkin; the book's essential action strips away that facade to reveal an opportunistic schemer not above committing murder to exact revenge or protect himself, then peels away that layer to reveal a psychopath, pure and simple. Winterbottom sets himself a difficult task, attempting to replicate this action mostly without the use of Thompson's first-person voiceover; besides a few lines of narration taken from the book, Affleck's Ford keeps his thoughts to himself.

The task proves too difficult; without that constant voiceover we feel little empathy for the character, fail to follow close his descent down Thompson's noir hell. Possibly Robert Bresson, a master of the voiced narrative, could have done something about evoking the vast distance between what Ford says and what he does (or what he eventually says in an attempt to explain what he does)--Bresson's 1959 Pickpocket (basically Crime and Punishment set in the streets of Paris) could be seen as spiritually connected to Thompson's book, the eponymous criminal a distant cousin of Lou Ford. Winterbottom is no slouch at adaptation, but where I think he's brilliant at bringing a writer like Thomas Hardy to vivid cinematic life (as witness his 1996 and 2000 adaptations of Jude the Obscure" and The Mayor of Casterbridge), Thompson seems to keep a step or two ahead of him, playing existential games in a way Winterbottom can't quite understand, much less capture on film.

That said, the film isn't a total botch--in many cruder ways, it's a powerful experience. Casey Affleck's Lou Ford is a hoarse-voiced softshoe seducer whose tired-looking eyes bring to mind someone who just woke up and hasn't caught up with what's really going on--perfect guise for a killer. When he goes into action, the disconnect between his tired eyes and his efficient, economical moves helps evoke some of the disconnect Thompson was striving for in his novel.

Where I think Winterbottom really comes into his own is in the casting and directing of Jessica Alba as Joyce Lakeland: Thompson pictured a hardened pro, Winterbottom casts a waiflike angel with a stripper's bod (her sex scenes with Affleck have real sexual heat to them, and Affleck bends and clutches and mauls her body in ways that seem both playful and painful). Winterbottom exploits Alba's eagerness to please her director and win critical respect the way Lou exploits Joyce's eagerness to please him, and the parallels are doubly unsettling. When Lou pulls back and delivers a blow to Joyce's face, her response of hurt bewilderment is every bit as horrific as the beating that follows--it's like looking at a bright child prodigy, model student and teacher's pet who doesn't understand why she's being punished. She waits patiently, uselessly for an explanation that will never come. 

Alba's Joyce helps put some kind of alternate complexion to Thompson's nihilism, bring it closer to what Dostoevsky had in mind. It wasn't just human depravity that was the Russian novelist's unique province; he insisted on writing about human grace and redemption, on the light as well as the shadow, arguing that in many ways one cannot exist without the other. Winterbottom seems to want to suggest that kind of dichotomy, risking huge plot imponderables along the way. A brave attempt--not quite successful, but worth seeing, even acknowledging as such.

First published in Businessworld, 10.07.10

Thriller

NPR's audience picks 100 top 'thriller killers'  
 
Some thoughts (partly revised, with second to the last paragraph newly added, at 10.10.10, at 11 pm):

That number one choice, it's not bad. Thomas Harris writes well enough, knows his crime and law enforcement, even knows his weapons--guns, knives, killing techniques, so on. Have a problem with his writing such a monstrous hit that the 'genius serial killer' has become a tired, creaking-old cliche; have an even bigger problem with the subsequent books that turn his genius killer into tragic hero (it's not that Hannibal Lecter's appetites are so abnormal, Harris seems to say, but that we are so narrow-minded). 

To his credit, Jonathan Demme's movie adaptation added two elements that I think improve on the original: a grounded portrait of middle-class America (the landscape across which the killer operates, middle America being a Demme specialty), and a realization of Harris' thriller setpieces so cleanly staged that it pretty much renders the original novel redundant (I'm not even going to try touch on the charges of homophobia leveled at the picture--that's a whole other can of worms).

I wouldn't call it great; lacks heft and substance, I think. But can a thriller be great? By definition a thriller should cause one to turn the pages quickly; can it acquire enough mass (thematic, social, political) to be substantial as well? Some tangential questions: can a thriller book provide more or better thrills than, say, a film? Perhaps offer something a film might not be able to offer, and hence be unadaptable?

The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009)

The long and winding

John Hillcoat's The Road is an impressive act of courage--of chutzpah, even. Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel had all the emotional impact, the gravitas, that his previous novel No Country For Old Men, published just a year before, aspires to but fails to achieve (ditto with the Joel and Ethan Coen film made from it).

An unlikely candidate wins; a famous hack passes

In the light of recent events, had this to say:

The morning after November 4 the kids were asking "did you vote?" To which I said "no," and explained about my status. I added: "the White House though, isn't as white as it used to be, is it?"

After which I launched into a short rant on the significance of the recent US election, saying "I'm not a citizen, and in one way that's a disadvantage--I'm not as involved and don't have as much at stake in this as you do (in a way that's not completely true, though; as a tax-paying US resident, as a citizen of a world dominated by the United States, I do have considerable stakes. Have huge emotional stakes, anyway, citizen or no citizen). On the other hand, think of me as a man from Mars who has come to Earth to have a looksee.

"I've been accused by other kids of being anti-American (some portions of my lecture on Philippine history gave rise to this); I don't agree--America as a huge and powerful country will have its share of faults and virtues, mistakes and achievements. I happen to point them all out when I'm talking. I don't believe in sugarcoating.

"In this case, I think Obama's win is a showcase of one of this country's most admirable virtues, the tremendous possibilities presented to each and every one no matter what class, creed, or skin color. This is one moment in your history when my admiration for this country is ascendant. You should be proud--I am proud, of you, of what your people have done."

I ended the little speech with a: "Doesn't matter what your political affiliations are, Obama's victory means this: if a black man from a broken family can make it to the White House, then what can you, any of you, even me, what are we capable of doing? How high can we rise, now that we've been shown what's possible? Think about it."

On an admittedly more negative note, Michael Crichton has died at the age of 66.

He's done some good work. I think the best book he's ever written was The Andromeda Strain, where the star was a deadly microbe; I even liked the crisp 1971 adaptation done by Robert Wise (the recent miniseries, though, is a lengthy bore). I liked Westworld (1973), easily the best job of directing he's ever done (it helped that he had such a strong premise--the theme park as a reality show--and Yul Brynner as a terrifyingly implacable robot gunslinger). I liked The Lost World (1997), where Spielberg turned Crichton's dully sociopathic dinosaurs into hilariously sociopathic slapstick artists, able to provoke laughter as readily as shrieks. I even liked Kaufman's version of one of Crichton's novels, Rising Sun (1993).

He knew how to extrapolate a gripping premise from the latest in techonological and sociological trends, he knew how to frame said premise in a provocative way, and he knew how to market the hell out of it. What he didn't know how to do is write decent prose, and populate his books with sufficiently engaging, convincingly human characters (it says something of a writer when his dinosaurs are more expressive than his ostensibly human heroes).

I remember his Rising Sun, which film critic David Ehrenstein accuses of racism. I do think the novel is racist, but that filmmaker Philip Kaufman manages to subvert the book's themes, mainly by pushing them to one side and concentrating on making a great-looking film, sensual and playful with the conventions of noir and the sex thriller.

Coming away from Kaufman's picture, I pretty much summed up the film's theme as this: that the Japanese are gradually rendering the American businessman irrelevant, and that the true conflict will be fought between rival Japanese companies, not American ones (of course this was in the '90s; Japan and the world's economy were in better shape then).

I'd seen--and enjoyed--Kaufman's film first. Then I picked a paperback off of a Wal Mart shelf (funny how Crichton's novels seem to belong there) and towards the book's end read exactly that premise, blurted out loud by one of the man characters. Apparently Kaufman was able to suggest the film's themes without using a single word of Crichton's flatfooted dialogue.

In Disclosure he just about stated the same thing--this time women and not the Japanese would meet and battle as equals, and men would find themselves irrelevant.

Crichton's philosophy might more or less be found in one of his books--I'm thinking Jurassic Park (or was it The Lost World?), where one of the scientists (can't remember his name, only that Jeff Goldblum played him) declares that we shouldn't whine about saving the Earth; the Earth will be fine; it's our own survival we should be concerned about. He may have a point, but beneath that statement is the implication that if we do die, that's because we're stupid, and we deserve to die. There's a strong evolutionary (Libertarian?) strain running through his books (the question is always which is the strongest female or strongest Japanese or strongest dinosaur, ) and while I'm a strong believer that Darwin's theory applies to the natural world, I don't think it should necessarily apply as freely and thoroughly to our modern society. Choosing to follow or not follow trends in nature, after all, is one thing that distinguishes us from animals--one thing that marks us as fully human.

Thomas M. Disch, 1940 - 2008

Thomas M. Disch, 1940 - 2008

The man shot himself, presumably over the burden of many recent adverse events--but then he'd always been fascinated with suicide, and can have a friendly, even mordantly flippant attitude towards it.

So loud was the outcry over his passing that I missed this obituary (or was too busy to notice it) for over two months. No surprise; he's a writer with a special flavor, one not meant to please as many people as possible--only those with particular palates. 

Dr. Who, Season 2: The Girl in the Fireplace

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Dr. Who: Season 2 discs (belatedly available on Netflix), and the standout episode has to be this one, a tale of growing affection between an 18th century French mistress and a whatever century Time Lord, three thousand years and two and a half galaxies apart, linked together by (that cliche symbol of passion!) a burning fireplace.

It's also television writer Steven Moffat's contribution to the David Tennant season, after his oh-so-memorable pair of scripts for Christopher Eccleston (The Empty Child, and The Doctor Dances, 2005, both of which won that year's Hugo Award for Dramatic Presentation, Short Form), and it's one step in a carefully prepared story arc that ends with a once-in-for-all determination of the fate of Rose Tyler, the Doctor's companion for two (2005-2006) seasons.

That fate's been a long time coming. In Season 1's The Parting of Ways Rose learns just how much the Doctor means to her, how traumatic separation--particularly when one believes it's permanent--can be, and how that peculiar ability of the Doctor to regenerate (to in effect replace the actor playing the old Doctor (Eccleston, who left the show) with a new one (Tennant)) can turn all notions of the man upside-down.

In School Reunion Rose meets Sarah Jane Smith (the more-beautiful-than-ever Elisabeth Sladen) and discovers the grim fate of many of the Doctors' companions--that they often get left behind, or worse, abandoned. The Doctor's excuse is a valid one...more or less ("You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on, alone. That's the curse of the Timelords.") but Sarah Jane has a point: the Doctor could at least have said goodbye. Rose, in effect, has been given notice.

The Girl in the Fireplace presents a somewhat different case to Rose: what if the Doctor meets not a former companion--a long-ago, much-beloved memory--but a woman he cares for now, more than her, possibly? Moffat sketches an interesting portrait of the kind of girl that might catch the Doctor's attention: intelligent (of course); beautiful (naturally--with all of time and space to explore he needn't settle for anything less); famous (funny, for all his democratic instincts--picking up a shopgirl for a companion, for example--the Doctor still can't resist the allure of celebrities ("Cleopatra!" "He mentioned her only once!" "He called her Cleo!")). But more than beauty and status, it's possibly the nature of the girl's personality--straightforward, intuitive, perceptive--that the Doctor finds so enchanting.

More, Reinnette Poisson (a.k.a. Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV) is so damned aggressive (it helps, I suppose, that the Doctor's been watching over her since she was seven), and as we learn in this episode that's possibly the crucial quality needed to capture the Doctor's heart. Tennant's Doctor has an elusive charm similar to Cary Grant's: more than good looks it's the reserve that draws women to him. He's always the gentleman, ready with a quick compliment, but never aggressive, never threatening; women find him funny, find themselves intrigued by him, but before they realize they actually have to rise up and do anything about it he's gone, lost to the vast reaches of time and space in his police box ("Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?" Sarah Jane asks Rose; "Yeah, yeah, he does!" Rose responds, laughing. "I’m like, 'do you two want to be alone?'").

Rose and Sarah Jane are one of a handful of women able to come out and ask point-blank to come along; Reinette, however, is possibly the only one to reach out and actually grab the Doctor, hold him down long enough for a good, long hard kiss (you can sense all the males all over Britain, all the viewers of the Sci Fi channel, and all belated viewers of the DVD--from sixty to six years old--catch their collective breaths at that kiss). More rewarding than the stolen buss, however, is the mind-meld the Doctor has with Reinette (he's trying to find out why a collection of malevolent clockwork robots are literally after her head). He learns much about her, opening a doorway into her mind, but as Reinette points out, a door opens both ways--one can step out as easily as another can step in. No one's ever thought about it, I suppose, not for the nine hundred plus years the Doctor has been wandering; Reinette does and, interestingly, without much thought or effort (add 'impulsive' to her list of character flaws (or virtues, if you will)). The Doctor, bewildered and not a little delighted, asks "how did you do that?" Silly git--anyone could probably have done it all the time (he admits he doesn't mind-meld often, and most subjects are probably too intimidated by the experience); it just needed someone with the effrontery to go ahead and try.

I'd go on to say The Girl in the Fireplace is essentially a love story, and a heartbreaker (no spoiler here, surely--there are no 18th century courtesans accompanying the Doctor in succeeding episodes (though Tennant (at least I remember it was him) in the video commentary suggests that Reinette, if pulled aboard the TARDIS, would have ended up pairing with one of the next episodes' Cybermen (Rise of the Cybermen)). If the story is at all moving, that's because Reinette and the Doctor spend so little time together, just quick clinches and stolen kisses as the Doctor emerges from behind swinging glass and revolving fireplaces (shades of Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night) to present himself to Ms. Poisson, yet manage to learn a great deal about each other ("Your name," she whispers; "it's more than just a secret--" leaving us wondering "what the hell--?"). Love on the fly, on the run, past spinning stone fireplaces, with a horde of sinister clockwork figures after you threatening to cut it all short--that's the kind of life one can expect, loving a Time Lord; or, as Reinette so memorably puts it "The Doctor is worth the monsters."

Earlier I mentioned that tired old cliche, the burning fireplace as a symbol of love and passion. By episode's end the fire is put out, the cliche drained of all attendant cheesiness, the image of a girl looking through the flames given a new and powerful meaning. Love and passion--and loss and tenderness--indeed.

Five Blogs That Make You

In response to being tagged by The Self-Styled Siren, Gibbs Cadiz, and Last Night With Riviera--five blogs that make me think:

Rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

That was that! Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking! It is the first time I am starting something with my blog so I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me.

(Well, leaving out the "duh!" factor--blogs so essential (if you're at all interested in what I find interesting) that you have to include them: Chicago Reader blog (mainly for Jonathan Rosenbaum); Dave Kehr; girish (for practically being at the center of where it's at, filmwise) ; Observations on Film Art (David Bordwell).

Then there are the blogs that add enough color and flavor to the blogverse that I'd definitely miss not having them around to dip in, like a jarful of Halloween treats: Conversations with Ghibli (for the links and for sincerely detailed discussion of all things Ghibli); Elusive Lucidity; The Evening Class; Like Anna Karina's Sweater (partly for the weekly photo quizzes which at times can be fiendishly difficult); Quiet Bubble; Strictly Film School; the Shamus' (aka The Little Round-Headed Boy) Bad for the Glass; and The House Next Door (mainly for the scrappy commentaries in response to the articles), among many others I've probably forgotten or overlooked.

It's a big world out there. To add to the confusion, here are five (okay, six, and two of them have little if any relation to cinema--but I've never been one to follow rules exactly) I'd personally like to spotlight:

1. concentrated nonsense.

Alexis Tioseco's arguably the most intelligent and film-literate film critic residing in the Philippines at the moment; his is one of the rare blogs that paid tribute to the passing of both Edward Yang and Joey Gosiengfiao and keeps tabs on what a Thai film critic has to say about Lav Diaz's Heremias (yes, these links go to his old blog. His new blog can be found in the link above). He also runs Criticine, which I believe is one of the most important websites on Southeast Asian cinema (well, I have a few articles there too so I'm hardly objective--but I stand by my statement).

2. Designing Intimacy (not work friendly, not to everyone's taste, and definitely not for kids)

And sometimes it isn't only about films, or even about ideas. Chris Hall mentioned this site in his blog (not active right now, for some reason), and I've been reading it ever since. Not just for the sex (though yes, that's a good part of why I read it); it's the casual, fluid recording of thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes--by turns intimate and thoughtful and goofy--of a sexually and emotionally aware young woman. Not a sophisticated prose stylist, much less a literate one far as I can tell, but her voice is so distinctly hers I'm fascinated anyway. Like lying in bed right after lovemaking, listening to a modern-day Scheherazade recount her thousand and one days and nights to you, day after day, night after night. Narcissistic, yes; fascinating--that, too, I submit.

3. The Phil Nugent Experience

I've known the guy for somewhere up to seven years (I think), and never even seen his face. We could walk past each other on the streets of New York and never recognize each other, but let me read one paragraph of his distinct voice on paper (or screen, or whatever) and I suspect I will recognize it immediately. Strange situation.

What isn't strange is how compulsively I can toss down his blog posts, like peanuts. They're either sharp political rants (like this takedown of The New York Times), or intense bits of film criticism (like this assessment of Herzog's Rescue Dawn), or simply hilarious humor pieces (like this imagining of what it must be like to listen to President Bush seek advice).

4. Piling-Piling Pelikula (rough translation: Cream-of-the-crop cinema)

Dodo Dayao's thoughts on films usually come in short, paragraph-length increments--which doesn't necessarily mean they're short on thinking, or insight. He's written about everything from Jean-Pierre Melville to The Transformers to Lav Diaz's Hesus Rebolusyunaryo (Jesus the Revolutionary) and done so with a laser-sharp prose and perceptive mind.

5. Pinoy Penman

Jose 'Butch' Dalisay is a wonderful fiction writer, a memorable dramatist (I remember helping stage his play Pagsabog ng Liwanag (rough translation: Burst of Dawn) years ago, back in college), a very good scriptwriter (the late Filipino film critic Augustin Sotto once cited Ina Ka ng Anak Mo (You're the Mother of Your Child, which Butch wrote) as his favorite Lino Brocka film) in roughly that order--and I've barely scratched his resume.

Once in a blue moon he'll write about films, but mostly he'll do a gem of an article, like this one on written tributes to the city of Manila.

6. Sari-Saring Sineng Pinoy (All Kinds of Filipino Films)

If you ever wondered what sites I visit to learn more about Filipino films, this is one of em. Jojo de Vera is a diehard Noranian and avid film enthusiast who has seen more 70s and 80s era Filipino films (and remembers more details about them) than anyone I know; he also singlehandedly discovered the one and only existing copy of Lino Brocka's first significant gay film Tubog sa Ginto (Dipped in Gold, 1972), the discovery and content of which I briefly discuss (begging your indulgence, it's a few paragraphs in the middle of a very long post; that said, I like to think it's a fairly interesting long post).

The blog is written entirely in Tagalog, which is a pity, but if you want an essential site on Philippine cinema, I think this comes closest to being it.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

Was hardly his biggest fan. Can't help but think of how Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in their novel Inferno (A tongue-in-cheek retelling of the first volume of Dante's The Divine Comedy), relegated him to the Circle of Heretics, trapped in a garishly enormous tomb with a gigantic neon sign blinking over and over again (guess what the sign said). I wouldn't wish such a fate on the man--I don't think anyone deserves to be the victim of that kind of bad taste--but I can't help but think that Niven's rant ("he knew better!") had a point. Vonnegut's writing did at times get lazy, and he did at times seem complacent in his legendary status.

Of his works, a sentimental favorite would be God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater--mainly because when I read it years ago I wished I had the guts to live life the same way (I'd hate to read it now; it mightn't survive the experience). Mother Night was fascinating for the way, as David Pringle pointed out, it sustained the ambiguity (hero or heel?). I liked maybe one or two of the stories in Welcome to the Monkey House--well, okay, I liked one mainly because of the TV movie made out of it, and not so much because of Vonnegut's story as for the opportunity to see Jonathan Demme work with Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken (as a nebbish, yet!) together on a romantic comedy. Walken, incidentally, seems to me to be the most convincing Stanley Kowalski I've ever seen (and yes, I've seen Kazan's version).

Cat's Cradle is my unsurprising favorite, maybe the rare--or even one--time when Vonnegut's humor and despair were in perfect balance, sketching a portrait of a mad scientist and his dysfunctionally unhappy family, the birth of a cheerfully nihilistic religion, and the end of the world through crystallization (did this provide the germ for Ballard's hauntingly beautiful The Crystal World--my favorite end-of-the-world scenario--published three years later?). Vonnegut seemed to have said it all with this one (unfortunately he wrote for several more decades ("See the cat? See the cradle?")). But for this and a for a few others of his early work, I'm grateful for him.

A Passage to India, E. M. Forster, 1924

I remember being--what, fourteen? Fifteen? When I picked a library book from out of the pile that was in our room, and saw the words on the hardbound spine: A Passage to India. "What the hell is this?" I asked my Evil Twin Brother, "A travel guide?" "It's a novel," he replies. "Fiction. Actually quite good."

Twenty-five or so years and a David Lean adaptation later, I finally caught up with the novel, and yes, it's "actually quite good." Brings to mind Jean Renoir's The River and Anthony Burgess' The Malayan Trilogy in the way the foreign narrator (or storyteller) is able to evoke the sights, sounds, colors, feelings of another country, respecting its otherness at the same time he provides a fascinating view.

If I remember right, Renoir focused on British expatriates living in India, with maybe a few supporting Indian characters to round out the cast; same with Burgess, who also used a more satiric approach. Forster' novel has its share of humor (I'm thinking most of all of Dr. Godbole, who nimbly pads away with many of the scenes he's in), but there's also a magisterial confidence in the way Forster is able to inhabit the mind of Dr. Aziz (the novel's nominal protagonist), also the way he's able to sketch Aziz's lightly comical interactions with fellow Muslims (he can't relate to their passionate anti-Imperialism [at least not at first]), Hindus (he's suspicious and a bit perturbed at their odd [Godbole in particular] way of looking at things), his evolving relationship with the British (he desperately wants to be a friend, but is acutely aware of their contempt)--a remarkable achievement, really, considering how difficult the task is (Who has succeeded at something similar? Plenty of examples, I'm sure, but the first one that pops into mind is Graham Greene's whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory--made into The Fugitive, a much superior film adaptation to my mind, and by John Ford and Gabriel Figueroa, no less).

It's on its most basic level a withering account of racism in British India. Marvelous all the details Forster gets right (or as right as I can tell)--the way, for example, the British women seem more rigid in their attitudes than the men; the way the British pounce on any apparent lapse and hold it up as an example of Muslim illogic or duplicity (a late response to a summons) or even carelessness (a missing collar stud), when in truth matters are more complex; the excruciatingly funny--and pathetic--bridge parties, ostensibly (as implied by their name) meant to "bridge" the gap between Indian and British, only to emphasize the depth and breadth of it to everyone attending.

The rape trial is a comedy of horrors: the startling way the British community quickly and instantly (almost reflexively) comes together--like pioneers pulling their wagons into an embattled circle--at the news of a sexual threat; the odd detail of old Mrs. Moore's role in the alleged crime brought out, blown up, turned into local folklore (she's briefly deified as "Esmiss Esmoor"); the underplayed slapstick of having the community's most notable figures stand on the court's one-foot-tall platform with the complainant (Adel Quested, probably the only innocent involved in all this) as a show of support.

But the novel's so much more than its (accurate, acerbic) portrait of colonial era racism. It's as beautiful an evocation of a land through alien eyes (Forster's India ranks up there with Conrad's Africa, Greene's Mexico, Burgess' Malaysia) and it does something quite extraordinary, I think: where most writers would home in on a rape trial and its verdict as the novel's centerpiece and climax, Passage instead presents a number of storylines and zeroes in on the least likely thread--the friendship that develops between the accused (Dr. Aziz) and the town's school principal, Mr. Cyril Fielding. It's this friendship, more than the trial and its possible disastrous impact on Aziz (a lifetime in a British jail for rape, for starters) that provides the momentum, the pull, even the thrill that keeps one reading--not "will Aziz come through all right?" or "will Adela keep up this monstrous charade?" or "will the Indians show up those stuck-up Brits?" but "will Aziz and Fielding clear up their misunderstandings, and become friends again?"

Amazing how Forster is able to convey the effortless intimacy that can sprout between two sympathetic souls--and, conversely, how said intimacy can vanish for indefinable reasons (a misunderstanding; the steady venomous work of other, more jealous friends) only to spring up again, as unlikely as ever, at a later date. I'm tempted to say Forster's homosexuality at that time and age must have forced him to cultivate such platonic friendships, but the effortless way it speaks to many readers--the way it thrills some chord inside them, me included--makes me wonder if he didn't create something more universal.

I haven't seen Lean's film in a long time, and I do remember liking it quite a bit, but there's this crucial point where the film fails the novel, or fails to achieve the novel's greatness--the Lean of Lawrence of Arabia unable to resist the big drama scenes, and focusing on the trial, the rest of the book seemingly more like an afterthought, pinned on afterwards to forestall any accusations of infidelity to the source material. If Lean had taken the riskier route (a choice the Lean of Brief Encounter might have made), he could have followed the novel's meandering path more faithfully, tried dramatize it within the confines of a two-and-a-half or three-hour film without putting audiences to sleep (as is, I imagine the very title--can you really blame me for mistaking it for a travel book?--is not one to inspire passionate interest).

But even more than the sharp satire, lyrical evocations, delicate delineation of various relationships, there's the mysticism, the sense that Forster was constantly looking beneath and beyond the surface of things (and may have had more inside information--that's the impression I got reading the book--on the underpinnings of existence than any of us might suspect). Maybe one of my favorite moments involved Aziz trying to winkle out of Dr. Godbole the secret he suspects the man is withholding about the Marabar Caves; try as he might, though, Godbole refuses to respond, refuse even to admit he's refusing to respond, or that anything at all is the matter--as Forster puts it "the comparatively simple mind of the Mohammedan was encountering Ancient Night" (love the capitalization, the sense you get of a forbidding Hardyesque allegorical figure suddenly popping up in the midst of a sharply scribed comedy of manners). It's the slightest of omissions, a tiny little knot of nothingness--a foretaste, of course, of the Marabar Cave's mysterious echo.

That echo and Forster's evocation of it and what it means lies at the very heart not just of the novel, I suspect, but of Forster's philosophy, point of view, metaphysics. If, as someone proposed, one of the novel's main theme is "the unity of all things," and if the echo represents the most terrifying consequence of said theme (its single most terrible quality being that it reduces all sounds--from a simple clap to the recital of a beautiful poem--to one level, to the same massively lifeless roar), one wonders, perhaps even trembles, at Forster's view of things. The novel isn't all that dark, though there are passages where some characters undergo fearsome struggles, but that echo threatens to swallow everything (the satire, the setting, the extraordinary characters) into a single featureless "bo-um;" it does succeed in swallowing poor Mrs. Moore and all her idealism (of all the characters her fate is perhaps the real tragedy).

Preceding that echo is the my opinion far more disturbing (not to mention far beyond Lean's considerable powers of filmmaking to evoke) image, of a completely enclosed cavern--or not so much a cavern but a hollow egg, an empty space that "mirrors its own darkness in all directions infinitely." A mischievous reference to the central image in Forster's one science fiction story "The Machine Stops," perhaps (in that story, people are encapsulated--and enfeebled--by living all their lives in fully automated wombs, or eggs)? Or an awful summation of Foster's fatalism, his awareness of dark despair trapped inside unfeeling stone for all eternity--hell (or an unsuspected heaven) in an eggshell, in effect? I remember Kurosawa Kiyoshi's vision of the afterlife in Kairo (Pulse, 2001)--was Forster's echo and egg chamber something similar? Could--stray thought here--Kyoshi be the perfect choice to remake Forster once more on the big screen, at least when it comes to this crucial scene?

Whatever. A great novel, sure, by a great writer; I was enthralled.