An Unused Voice

Recently Seen: The Producers (2005)

2007-11-01T19:04:00.001+08:00

The Producers is not your typical movie musical. It is based on the identically monikered Broadway musical which was in turn based on the 1968 Mel Brooks movie, which was about a musical but was not itself a musical.

So, The Producers is a movie musical based on a stage musical based on a non-musical movie. What makes it all so very meta is that the stage musical is typically Broadway and the musical-within-the-musical is presented as a parody of typical Broadway musicals. The movie version essentially has the challenge of filming two musicals - the Broadway musical "The Producers" and the musical-within-the-musical "Springtime in Hitler". How to do this without making "The Producers" a parody of Broadway and making "Springtime in Hitler" a parody within a parody?? (Okay, I have thoroughly confused myself now).

In a way, director Susan Stroman began batting with two strikes against her. It is a Herculean feat to film such an ostensibly old-school Broadway musical and not have the whole thing come across as precious or ridiculous. In the more intimate medium of film, the extravagance of musical theatre can appear exaggerated. And this is a musical so over the top that it almost parodies itself as a stage production, never mind as a movie. The musical was such a big hit precisely because of its exuberantly unapologetic excesses .Toning it down for the filmed version would have been neutering the energy that makes it work on stage.

Does Stroman avoid the pitfalls of unwitting parody? I suppose it is a matter of taste or perhaps, exposure. I love the old Hollywood musicals with the big production numbers and the likes of Ethel Merman pitching it to the back rows. Once you have seen any of the Zigfield Follies, you become rather inured against gaudiness in movie musicals. The OTT elements of The Producers are nothing I haven't seen before. I think Stroman just about avoided parody, but she did not alleviate the movie beyond being a filmed stage production. Her inexperience as a movie director told; too many scenes seemed bound them to their stage origins rather than being enacted in the language of cinema. In a way, it is both a good and a bad thing. I personally liked the staged quality of the film as a reminder of its Broadway roots. But cinema magic is very different from theatre magic. In keeping to theatrical conventions in the cinematic medium, Stroman captures the magic of neither.

Still, The Producers as a movie should succeed at some level on the strength of its source material. It is after all based on a very fine musical with a strong book. Musically, The Producers is not in Sondheim territory nor does it pretend or aspire to such lofty heights. The tunes are simple and almost repetitive; Broadway-by-numbers, if you will. (Just take these two songs -"I wanna be a producer" and "When you've got it, flaunt it". They are practically the same number in terms of their melodic lines.) The genius is in the lyrics, which are often bitingly clever, scan brilliantly and achieve rhymes of such virtuoso dexterity that they rival Ira Gershwin's work. "You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night" and "Keep it Gay" are particular highlights for their words, if not the music.

Most of the original Broadway cast reprise their roles in the movie, with headliners Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick playing the producers, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom. They inhabit the roles effortlessly, although I think the charm of the performances is less well served on film than it would have been in the theatre.

Broderick has the especially difficult task of playing straight ... well, straighter ... man to practically every other character in the show. Leo Bloom is not without his idiosyncrasies but he is the closest thing to an Everyman in the main cast. Much of the time, Broderick has to react to insanities around him and the script calls for much eyebrow popping, lip quivering and other exaggerated facial expressions. On film, his is the performance that seems most stagey, precisely because it is the least extoverted and the character the most normal. Everyone else gets to go to town with bombast and gleefully cross the line into caricature.

On Broadway, Nathan Lane must have been the show-stopper. This role is almost the perfect Nathan Lane role, giving him plenty of opportunity to do his Nathan Lane thing. It does not translate quite as successfully on film, but I can see how he would have prompted standing ovations on Broadway after his two bravura numbers, "Along came Bialy" and the one-man tour-de-force "Betrayed". In the movie, "Betrayed" seems out of place and too long (I think Roger Ebert commented on this), mainly because it is unimaginatively filmed. But in the theatre, this must have brought the house down every night and probably won Nathan Lane his Tony.

Two big names not in the original Broadway cast were brought in for the movie - Uma Thurman playing Swedish bombshell Ulla and Will Ferrell taking on the role of Nazi nut Franz Liebkind. Stunt casting? Maybe, but not necessarily bad casting. Franz Liebkind is exactly the kind of role that Ferrell can pull off almost as second nature. Thurman certainly has the necessary physical attributes to play Ulla, and she purrs her way through the role nicely. I wish she was a more graceful dancer, but perhaps the point is that Ulla is not supposed to be all that talented.

Gary Beach plays Broadway's worst director Roger de Bris and is an absolute hoot. When he assumes the role of Hitler in "Springtime for Hitler", he is marvelously, simperingly campy and fey. I just loved how he actually looks physically like Hitler once they get the moustache on him, much more so than any of the Hitler auditionees or Franz Liebkind. Then his entire body becomes limp-wristed, and we are suddenly watching drag!Hitler and the rest is history.

The castmember that stands out the most for me is Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia, "common-law assistant" of Roger de Bris. It is not a large role, but Bart is hilarious and steals every scene in which he appears. He is in turn and all at once bitchy, gossipy, loving, ascerbic, fawning and disdainful. I cannot believe this is the same man that played psycho-pharmacist George on Desperate Housewives.

Talking about cast members, special mention goes to John Barrowman who plays the lead tenor who plays a German soldier in "Springtime for Hitler". He gets to sing the titular opening number of the show-within-the-show. It is the most memorable song in The Producers, and is the only one which featured in the original 1968 Mel Brooks movie. I have only seen the original movie once, more than 15 years ago. In all that time, I have never forgotten the tune of "Springtime for Hitler". Barrowman (another versatile talent; he was Captain Jack in Dr Who) sings this wonderfully, in a very authentically musical theatre style and in full control of his very fine lyric tenor voice.

For what it is - the filmed version of a stage musical - this movie is thoroughly enjoyable. It moves along at a fair pace, is visually eye-catching and makes no intellectual demands on its audience. The tunes are hummable and grateful to the ear, if not always memorable. The dance numbers are well-choreographed and excellently performed. Mel Brook's screenplay is full of intentionally corny jokes at which one can laugh or groan and enjoy doing it. The songs have clever lyrics which are good for at least a chuckle or two. It is a fun little diversion for its two-hour running time.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Recently Seen: The 40 Year Old Virgin

2007-10-26T18:26:00.000+08:00

Up until last week, I was a The 40 Year Old Virgin virgin. I am suitably ashamed.

The 40 YOV, a gross-out comedy in the vein of American Pie and There's Something About Mary, is directed by TV veteran Judd Apatow and stars my favourite American, Steve Carell, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Apatow.

Like the typical gross comedy, the screenplay is peppered with mentions of bodily fluids and gases and jokes about various body parts especially reproductive organs. Unlike the typical gross comedy, the movie has many genuinely tender and touching moments. Even the gross jokes are non-sophomoric.

Despite the title and the genre, the movie is not preoccupied with sex. It's not about sex, or even about a man trying to have sex. It's a buddy movie and a rather sweet one, at that. It is also a romantic comedy and a coming-of-age drama.

Steve Carell plays Andy, the titular 40 YOV. He is shy, rides a bicycle to work, collects action figures and plays computer video games. His home is probably every teenaged geek's wetdream. He is a stockist in an electronics store, where he is buddies with David, Jay and Cal. They are his cadre of cherry-popping enablers, intent on helping him relieve himself of his virginity. Hilariously, their own love-lives are either disastrous or non-starters. David (Paul Rudd) is particularly tragic, being hung up on a woman who dumped him two years ago. For me, Andy's friendships with these guys are the best thing about the movie. There is affection and warmth in their interactions, even while they are making gross jokes.

Their efforts to accomplish "Mission: V Loss" make for several classic set-pieces. There is the by-now infamous chest-hair waxing scene. It is crude and pandering to the lowest common denominator, but it is also laugh-out-loud funny. The speed-dating segment is especially memorable, with an inspired assortment of single women including a lesbian re-entering the market and David's ex, played by Carell's The Office co-star, Mindy Kaling.

The rom-com plot charmingly handled, with Catherine Keener striking all the right notes as Trish, the love interest. Trish runs a business, is confident and go-getter. She exudes a joie de vivre that could potentially overwhelm Andy but around him, she shows her vulnerability and insecurities as a single mother and a woman who has failed in relationships. Importantly, Keener and Carell have chemistry and their on-screen relationship is believable.

The movie works because Andy is likable and worth rooting for. He could so very easily have been overplayed as one of life's pathetic sad-sack losers, deserving of contempt rather than sympathy. This does not happen in the movie. Even as he stumbles from one embarrassing encounter to another, we admire him for his own brand of sweet-natured courage to pick himself up and enter the fray again. Carell pitches this performance perfectly, as does all the cast.

This is not a movie for people with low tolerance for crass and crude comedy. But for the rest of us, this is one of the funniest movies of recent years.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Authorial responsibility?

2007-10-24T16:08:00.000+08:00

More on the Great Gay!Dumbledore Reveal.

People are not happy with Jo Rowling. More extreme members of the "values" camp are probably planning a campaign to keep Harry Potter away from the kids. They are around 300 million copies too late, but points for trying.

Even ~~sane non-bigots~~ diversity sympathisers are getting on Jo's case now.No less a liberal pillar than the Guardian Newspaper has weighed in on the issue (to be fair, James Ball's piece is on the whole quite even-handed). She should have written it into the books! She wasted an opportunity to make strong positive statement about gay people!

Realistically, COULD she have written it into the books? The books are largely written from Harry's point of view and he was not exactly going around taking note of everyone's sexual preference. (Hmmm .... come to think of it, OOTP would have zipped by a lot faster if Harry WAS doing that.) By the time Harry came to Hogwarts, Dumbledore was well into the "grandfather figure" stage of his life. Teenage boys tend not to think about their grandfathers' sexuality. Especially not teenage boys who are fighting evil forces on a regular basis.

To establish Dumbledore as a gay character within her chosen narrative device, JKR would have had to provide a context for discussing Dumbledore's sexuality at all. As it the books aren't long enough as they are! The alternative is to resort to appalling gay stereotypes (a taste for show-tunes or a prized collection of Vogue back issues) for Harry to observe and relay to us as the reader. Frankly, why should she go through the trouble to do either when Dumbledore's sexuality has nothing to do with the books' central plot? Sexuality is an interesting character note but it is hardly Dumbledore's (or anyone's) single most defining characteristic.

James Ball suggested that JKR could have made explicit Dumbledore's love for Grindelwald in The Deathly Hallows. After all, a fair few pages of that book is devoted to exposition on Dumbledore's past and the Grindelwald sub-text is quite apparent without being obvious.

Again, COULD she have written it that way? I think she knew that DH would have become ALL ABOUT GAY!DUMBLEDORE if she had done that. It would have completely overshadowed Harry, Voldemort and the Horcruxes, which is the main story she is trying to tell. This is a fandom with serious ADD. Large chunks of readers already think that Harry Potter is a teen-romance series.

James Bell wrote in the Guardian:

Harry Potter is not a story about a gay head teacher, of course. But mentioning Dumbledore's sexuality within the books would not have changed this.

I think it would have changed it. Maybe not in Britain, where attitudes towards homosexuality are perhaps more tolerant. But in more than one place I could think of, "mentioning Dumbledore's sexuality within the books" would have most certainly made Harry Potter "a story about a gay head teacher".

I like how JKR handled this. She spoke about Dumbledore's sexuality because she was asked. It was almost a throw-away fact. Yes, it is part of Dumbledore's identity but just one of the many things about him that she could not fit into the books. Not an unimportant detail, but not a big one either. Just another factoid about the greatest wizard of his age. By not making a big deal about it, she is saying that it isn't a big deal. Which is what tolerance essentially is; that differences in race, gender, colour, religion, sexuality etc., are not a big deal.

The Big Gay Dumbledore reveal

2007-10-22T20:55:00.000+08:00

JK Rowling has "outed" Albus Dumbledore.

Finally, fandom has a canonically gay character! Canon-compliant be damned, this is the real thing, straight from the ~~horse's~~ ~~oracle's~~ author's mouth!

I gotta give it to old Jo for doing this in such style. Already, she has turned a book reading in LA's Kodak Theatre into something of a rock concert. Then she chose that particular platform to tell the world that Dumbledore is gay (to be fair, the revelation was in response to a question from the audience and I don't think she planned to say anything until it was brought up). She even had a good-natured poke at fandom when she made a knowing comment about the fanfiction that this revelation would spawn. I think I have already come across at least one Grindelwald / Dumbledore fic, so fandom is ahead of the curve here.

The good folks at Fandom Wank have documented the Internet response. Splooge was naturally the order of the day. As expected, the anti-gay/ anti-yaoi camp are appalled. But what I really love is how sections of the "pro-gay" camp are equally unhappy about Dumbledore being gay, albeit for completely different reasons. For the anti-camp, Dumbledore is an important, powerful figure of authority - making him gay is "endorsing" gayness. For the pro-camp, Dumbledore is too old, too asexual, too dead, goddamit, to be an effective poster-boy for slash. Oh, Jo, you should have just said that Sirius Black is gay. That would have sent significant portions of fandom over the moon. And since Sirius Black met an untimely end in Book 5, the anti-camp could have cited him as an example of the dangers and risks of embracing the "gay lifestyle". Everyone wins!

Away from the internet fandom, some of the reactions are just downright sad. Not unexpected, of course. And what in the world is a Values Voters’ summit?

Recently Seen: Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (2006)

2007-10-15T17:54:00.001+08:00

This first of two sequels to the megahit Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl is a very, very strange creature. As strange as the creatures that man Davy Jones's Flying Dutchman, and the multi-tentacled sea-monster that wreaks havoc at the end of the movie.

The first Pirates movie was a rollicking adventure, with innovative special effects and an iconic anti-hero in Captain Jack Sparrow (Johny Depp). This follow-up appears to have amplified everything ten-fold: the music, sets, special effects, locations, monsters, creatures, action sequences. And despite all the visible effort, it is around one tenth as much fun as the original. Everyone seemed to be trying too hard and everything came across as much too effortful.

The entire episode with Jack Sparrow as the "king of the savages" was unwatchable to me. It dragged, was predictable and felt like something that could have been heavily edited and we would have all been the happier for it.

And then there was the interminable island scene with the three-way fight for the key to Dead Man's Chest, leading to the wheel sequence and Davy Jones's men chasing after Elizabeth in the jungle. It should have been heart-thumping, but I was left strangely unmoved and just wanted them to get on with it.

Davy Jones and Flying Dutchman crew are no doubt magnificent achievements in special effects and make-up, but does anyone really want to watch 90 minutes of THAT? All those boils and sores, and the rotting flesh and slimy tentacles - had they had less money in the budget, would we have had a movie less likely to induce mass loss of appetite?

Even Jack Sparrow seems less fun and not quite as outrageous this time around. He is also quite unlikeable in this movie, which is a major problem. He is not meant to be heroic and he is certainly petty, mercurial, selfish and all manner of non-indefensible traits, but in the first movie, there was always a vulnerability about him that made him sympathetic. In this sequel, I did not care if he survived. Not Depp's fault; he played the character he was given to play. It was the writing that served him most poorly.

As for the rest of them; despite Depp's scoring an Oscar nomination for The Black Pearl, this is hardly the sort of movie that brings out award-worthy performances. Orlando Bloom gets a story line involving his long lost father and with that, an opportunity to emote. He has improved as an actor since his days gracing the LOTR trilogy with his outstanding prettiness, but he is not quite an Ian McKellan yet. I was moved by the father-son sub-plot but mainly because Jonathan Pryce, who played Will's father, was tremendously affecting despite the layers of make-up. Keira Knightley fares about as well as Bloom does. She gets to play the cliched 18th century proto-feminist, who dons men's clothes, wields a gun and fights off the baddies with not one but two swords. It's not much of a role, really and she does not very much with it. (Oh, and I really could have done without seeing Knightley kissing Depp - a tremendous lack of chemistry even given the context of the scene).

The supporting actor that really caught the eye was Jack Davenport, reprising his role the former Captain Norrington, now just plain old Norrington, dispossessed of wealth and status. He makes a wonderful down and out villain. From a purely shallow perspective, Davenport also really suits the scruffy, unkempt appearance of a pirate - much more so than the more conventionally pretty Bloom.

All in all, this was a bit of a damp squib. It certainly does not leave me craving the final installment. Although, I suppose I would watch that just to see Chow Yun Fatt and Hollywood's recreation of Singapore.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Recently Seen: The Lake House (2006)

2007-10-09T01:11:00.000+08:00

Apparently, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock have a shipname. And it's Keendra. That blew my mind when I first heard it, although it is no worse than most of the mashed up shipnames out there.

Anyway, The Lake House is THE Keeandra movie. Attempting to recapture the chemistry that the pair showed on screen all those eons ago in Speed, this movie is an unabashed old fashioned romance. Unlike many modern romcoms, there is no sex and the two protagonists do not even meet properly until the last 3 minutes of the movie. In that way, The Lake House has rather a lot in common with Sleepless in Seattle.

I don't think this will become a classic like Sleepless, although it is certainly as romantic and the leads are certainly equally as attractive. (In fact, some may say that with Reeves as the male lead, this movie comes out top on the attractiveness score.) This movie is very sweet and likeable and propelled by a genuine romantic compulsion, something missing from many movies with pretensions of being romantic. It is based on a screenplay from Korea, where they know a thing or two about romance. There is a sincerity in the writing of this movie that is the hallmark of the best Korean movie romances.

However, Korean romances also tend toward sentimentality and melodrama. Some of this has made the journey to Hollywood and unfortunately bogs down parts of The Lake House. There is a pivotal scene in the middle of the film where the two leads have an encounter, involving a dance and an almost kiss (or maybe an actual kiss? I don't know, I was too bored to pay full attention). It was a scene with potential for great angst or some clever humour. Instead, the writers and director chose to play it as sentimental, with a ballad playing in the background and the scene lit by the glow of dusk.

Still it is churlish to nitpick when the film so clearly has its heart in the right place. The plot device is a time-slip and it is expectedly in turn clever, full of holes, illogical and plausible. She is in the present, he is in the past. They manage to communicate with each other while both remain in their respective times. Neither know where he is in the present, and he is loathe to approach her in the past as she did not yet know him. Certainly, as plot devices go, this is one of the more effective ways to keep the star-crossed lovers decidedly apart until the final joyous rapproachment. I have to admit to rather liking the conceit behind the resolution of the time-slip. It was predictable, yes, but done without any nod-winking and self-conscious cleverness.

In the lead roles, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are not stretched but do what they need to do. They are both thoroughly sympathetic and believable. I find myself rooting for them as individuals and for their relationship as a couple. Sandra Bullock plays noble workaholic doctor Kate, who works too hard and seems to have no life outside the hospital. Bullock rather specialises in pulling off these types of roles - the single modern woman who is somewhat lonely, who views her lot with good humour but is on the verge of sadness. The Keanu Reeves character, Alex, is an architect who is building the lake house. He has a side-arc involving his uneasy relationship with his father, played by Christopher Plummer. Usually, such sub-plots can come across as padding or filler material, but this was sensitively handled and relevant to the development of Reeves's character.

There are a few pretty illustrious names in supporting roles, including the great Shohreh Aghdashloo, the aforementioned Plummer and Niptuck's Dylan Walsh as Bullock's putative boyfriend.

You don't get a cast like this to put on a shoddy show. This is definitely not a shoddy show; the production values are superb. The eponymous lake house is a gorgeous glass construction and there are numerous scenes that showcase the beauties of the lake area in the fall and winter. It is a beautiful film to look at in more than one way. It is also heartfelt, feel-good and a pretty good way to while away a couple of hours.

Over-zealous Austen purist alert: I did have a major point to pick with the movie's use of Jane Austen's Persuasion as a symbolism for its themes of waiting and people being kept apart by time. It does not really mar my enjoyment of the show, but Persuasion is among my favourite books of all time, and it was rather jarring to have it quite thoroughly misrepresented.

A few of the Persuasion references worked very well. The initial almost-encounter between Kate and Alex takes place when he picks up her copy of Persuasion that she leaves behind on a train station bench. This neatly serves as a character note for Kate; she is an Austen reader, which tells us that she is slightly old-fashioned, a romantic and something of a softie.

The physical copy of the book also establishes a link between the two characters. Towards the end of the movie, Kate finds the exact same copy (now well thumbed and read, in a rather nice production touch) that he leaves under the floorboards of the lake house. She reads from it the line that Austen wrote about Wentworth and Anne Eliot during their first engagement - "... no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar ...". It reminds her of herself and Alex and she is shaken anew by the impossibility of their relationship. This works well, because at the same point in the book, Anne Eliot is similarly distressed at the distance that had grown between Frederick Wentworth and herself, despite their earlier compatibility.

If only they had kept the Austen references to these two scenes. Of course, Hollywood is never content until a piece of symbolism has hit us on our heads often and hard enough to induce a coma. And so, we have Kate and Alex discussing "Persuasion" just before they dance at Kate's birthday party. And what a wildly inaccurate discussion! Kate tells us that Persuasion is "wonderful" (it is), and that it is purportedly about two people who meet and "almost fall in love" (NO! NO! NO!) but the timing was not right (NO! NO! NO!) and then they meet again years later and have another chance at their relationship (yes, but only in a most oblique way).

Anyone who is halfway familiar with Persuasion knows that there is nothing "almost" about Wentworth's and Anne's first attachment. It was her family who stood in their way, not "timing", nor any lack of emotions. And when they meet again years later, he is not at all interested in a second chance and she is resigned that there would be none. Yes, Persuasion is about constancy, and in this respect, it has something in common with this movie. Persuasion is also about many other things that bear no parallel to the movie. And Persuasion is not about 'waiting' - had Wentworth overcome his pride 6 years earlier, there would have been no need for the long separation of time before seeing Anne again.

Rating: 7 out of 10

London first photos

2007-01-11T22:50:00.000+08:00

View from Hotel Room (Regent Park Lake)

St Paul's Cathedral

Classic Movie Meme (score: 108)

2006-06-26T22:00:00.000+08:00

From various people on LJ. There are 176 classic movies on the list. If you've seen over 105 of them, you are supposedly living in the past. Meh, maybe they just don't make movies like they used to.

Total Score: 108. This rather surprised me; I mean, I love old movies but we hardly get anything on TV in this part of the world, and the video rental places are not exactly over-running with b&w titles. I think I covered 75% of this list during my four years of compulsively viewing "The Golden Years of Hollywood, presented by Bill Collins" on Australia's Channel 7. You could say that my student years were exceptionally well-spent.

(X) Gone With the Wind
(X) The Wizard of Oz
(X) Citizen Kane
() The Bicycle Thief
(X) Birth of a Nation
(X) All About Eve
(X) Sunset Boulevard
(X) A Place In the Sun
(X) Mrs. Miniver
Total: 8

( ) They All Kissed the Bride
(X) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
() Captain Blood
() The Petrified Forest
() The Roaring Twenties
(X ) On The Waterfront
() They Drive By Night
( ) Riff Raff
() Fury
(X) M
( X) Pride and Prejudice (1940)
( ) Beloved Enemy
Total: 4

( X) Holiday
( ) The Moon Is Blue
( ) Golden Boy
(X) Stalag 17
(X) Suspicion
(X) Rebecca
(X) Wuthering Heights
(X) Gunga Din
( ) Platinum Blonde
(X) My Man Godfrey
() The Mad Miss Manton
Total: 7

( X) Ball of Fire
( ) The Cross of Lorraine
( ) Five Graves to Cairo
( ) Back to Bataan
( ) I Love You Again
(X) The Thin Man
( ) Shadow of the Thin Man
(X ) Another Thin Man
( ) After The Thin Man
( ) Torrid Zone
Total:3

(X ) Queen Christina
() White Heat
( ) Guadalcanal Diary
(X) Ninotchka
( X) The Major and the Minor
() Anchors Aweigh
( ) It Should Happen to You
( X) Bells Are Ringing
(X) Operation Petticoat
( X) Father Goose
Total: 6

(X) Notorious
( X) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
() Marty
(X) Jailhouse Rock
() Tammy and the Bachelor
(X) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
(X) Judgment at Nuremburg
(X) Woman of the Year
(X) An American in Paris
(X) Flying Down to Rio
() The Gold Diggers of 1933
() The Gold Diggers of 1935
Total: 8

( ) Pinky
() One, Two, Three
(X) Inherit the Wind
() Designing Woman
(X) How to Marry A Millionaire
(X) Bus Stop
(X) Road to Utopia
( ) Road to Zanzibar
(X) Road to Morocco
( X) Pennies from Heaven (1936)
(X) Top Hat
() Carefree
( ) Lucky Partners
( X) Shangri-La
Total: 8

(X) It Happened One Night
(X) The Apartment
( X) None But the Lonely Heart
() Test Pilot
() San Francisco
( ) The Northwest Mounted Police
( ) The Forty-Ninth Parallel
( ) Union Pacific
(X ) The More the Merrier
Total: 4

(X) Sabrina
(X) Roman Holiday
(X) Breakfast at Tiffany's
( ) Brother Rat
( ) The Voice of the Turtle
( ) Dream Wife
(X) An Affair to Remember
() Tortilla Flat
(X) For Whom the Bell Tolls
( ) The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
() Them
(X) Forbidden Planet
(X) Wuthering Heights (1939)
( X) Jane Eyre (1944)
Total: 8

( X) The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
(X) Brief Encounter
(X ) Hobson's Choice
(X) Jamaica Inn
(X) The Magnificent Ambersons
(X ) Portrait of Jennie
( ) Cabin in the Sky
( ) Without Love
(X) How Green Was My Valley
( X) Random Harvest
(X) The Talk of the Town
(X ) The Entertainer
() The Mouse That Roared
Total: 10

() Pocketful of Miracles
( ) The Little Colonel
(X) Daddy Long Legs
(X) Silk Stockings
(X) Easter Parade
( ) The Harvey Girls
(X) Meet Me In St. Louis
() The Pirate (1948)
( ) Rhythm of the River
( ) Made For Each Other
(X) The Shop Around the Corner
( X) You Can't Take It With You
(X) Ziegfeld Girl
Total: 7

() Broken Arrow
() Winchester 73
(X) Stagecoach
(X) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
(X) Fort Apache
(X) The Quiet Man
(X) The Mummy (Boris Karloff)
() The Blob (1958)
(X) Born Yesterday (Judy Holliday)
(X) Young Mr. Lincoln
(X) The Grapes of Wrath
() Across the Pacific
(X) Dark Victory
Total: 9

( ) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Frederic March)
() Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Spencer Tracy)
(X) Treasure of the Sierra Madre
(X) Casablanca
(X) Funny Face
( ) Blue Skies
(X) Holiday Inn
(X ) Meet John Doe
( X) Miracle at Morgan's Creek
() Home From the Hill
(X) The Long, Hot Summer
(X) Somebody Up There Likes Me
( ) The Pride of the Yankees
( ) The Bitter Tea of General Yen
(X) Morocco
() The Shanghai Express
() The Blue Angel
Total: 9

( ) The Plainsman
( ) The Virginian
( ) Johnny Angel
(X) Scarface (1932)
(X) I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
(X) Sullivan's Travels
(X) Adam's Rib
( X) A Bill of Divorcement
(X) Bringing Up Baby
( X) Dinner At Eight
( ) Everything Happens At Night
(X) Gaslight
(X ) The Bells of Saint Mary's
( ) Sink the Bismarck!
(X) On the Town
Total: 10

(X) The Robe
( ) The Sign of the Cross
(X) The Ten Commandments
(X) The Greatest Story Ever Told
(X) The Greatest Show On Earth
() Little Caesar
( ) Calamity Jane
(X ) South Pacific
( ) Rose Marie
( X) It Started With Eve
(X) The Philadelphia Story
() Bell, Book and Candle
() The Ladykillers (1955)
Total: 7

Recently Seen: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2005-12-11T21:17:00.000+08:00

Based on Roald Dahl's beloved story of the same name, this Tim Burton movie is visually inspired. It is bright candy-coloured rollicking good fun while being rather dark and disturbing at the same time. Standard Tim Burton, one might say.

Charlie Bucket lives with his parents and four grandparents in near-impoverishment in an unnamed town, most Dickensian in look but where people speak in a mix of English and American accents and the currency is apparently dollars. The family lives on cabbage soup and the meagre wages that Charlie's father earns as a cap-screwer in a toothpaste factory. They are poor, but delightfully cheery and loving. The early part of the movie, setting up Charlie's story and the charming dynamics of his family life, is my favourite.

In the same town is the chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, mysterious reclusive millionaire chocolatier. Wonka announces that five lucky children will be invited to tour the factory and one of them will win an extra special prize. The lucky five will be those who find five randomly placed Golden Tickets in Wonka Bars.

One by one, the winners are revealed to us in a series of hilarious media spots. They are the greedy Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, overly competitive Violet Bouregarde and TV-brat Mike Teavee. The fifth, of course, is Charlie.

These ill assortment of children, each with a guardian, gather at the gate of Wonka's factory. Charlie is accompanied by his grandfather, who had years ago worked in the Wonka factory, before it was closed down and later mysteriously reopened and resumed operations without any workers, apparently. From this point, the movie takes on a different tone altogether. We are introduced to Willy Wonka, a strange man in both appearance and behaviour. He brings us into his factory, run by the Oompa-Loompas, where we see many wonderous sights and a few disconcerting ones. The production and set designeers outdo themselves here.

One by one, the children encounter horrible fates until only Charlie is left. In the end, this is a morality fable for children and only Charlie has shown himself deserving of the reward that awaits him.

Roald Dahl was not a fuzzy writer. This story has a very dark edge, what with the rather horrific accidents that befall the four children. Tim Burton does not flinch at these scenes, which is to his credit. When the squirrels set themselves upon Veruca Salt, it was a true horror movie moment, minus the blood and gore. I also loved the scene with the cow being suspended above ground while being whipped by the Oompa-Loompas - to make whipped cream, of course. It is a bravura moment, so unpolitically correct that I half-thought that I had imagined it. I wonder what the animal rights activists have to say about that.

Wonka himself is not a nice character; he is meant to be strange, but surely, even Dahl could not have imagined as odd a creation as Johny Depp's Willy Wonka! Depp is a marvelous actor and an incredibly risk-taking one. Here, he chooses to play Wonka as a deeply weird eccentric who obviously hates children and does not quite know how to deal with people generally. The page-boy hair-cut is reminiscent of Michael Jackson, and some of the mannerisms could even be said to be based on the gloved one. Truth be told, I did not really see much of Michael Jackson in the portrayal; Depp's Wonka is less disingenuous, much more caustic and more genuinely disengaged from people. This performance of Depp's is never less than interesting, altogether unsettling and yet, strangely sympathetic.

As memorable as Depp is, the performance that defines the heart of this movie is young Freddie Highmore, who plays Charlie. Has there ever been a child actor that is more likeable and endearing? His acting is so natural, so honest and unmannered, that Charlie becomes more than a caricature of a good boy with a sweet nature. When Highmore says that he will never give up his family, a scene that could have turned cheesy and over-sentimental in a million ways miraculously becomes genuinely moving and resonant with sincere emotions.

This is a well-made movie and a wonderful treat for the eyes. I felt that the pacing was uneven, with periods of longeur especially during the factory visit. At the start of the movie, we are introduced to the different children and in extended scenes with the Buckets, to root for young Charlie. Once we get to the factory, Charlie and his grandfather take a back-seat to Willy Wonka and the wonders of his factory. There is a discordance here that disrupts the narrative thread and our identification with the protagonist. It does become a different movie once Johny Depp comes into the picture and begins engineering the come-uppance of the more rotten kids. The episodic nature of the children's denouement contributed to the uneven pacing in this second half of the movie.

Suddenly, at the end, we are back in Charlie's world and Charlie's story. There is a tacked-on backstory for Willy Wonka, involving his dentist dad, that is resolved in these last few minutes. It seems unnecessary to me, an attempt at softening a character that is perhaps otherwise too unlikeable. This scripting decision perhaps underlines the main problem that Burton had with this story - to balance his own instincts for the macabre with the need to bring out the positive message of this children's morality tale. We'll never know, of course, but I think he could have succeeded without bringing in Wonka's parental issues. Depp would have brought the macabre in spades and Highmore would have supplied the moral message with aplomb.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Recently Seen: Angels in America

2005-12-05T02:02:00.000+08:00

It took two years to get here, but finally HBO Asia has televised Angels In America. This is the long awaited and long-in-making screen adaptation of Tony Kushner's Tony Award winning plays - Angels in America: Millenium Approaches and Angels in America: Perestroika.

I saw all five hours plus within one day and was rather overwhelmed and initially, a little intimidated. This is fiercely erudite writing, a piece of work that wears its intelligence on its sleeves. Kushner was concerned with big themes and important ideas. As a viewer, one is challenged to look beneath what is said to discern what is meant.

The plays deal with gritty reality using the language of the theatre. It is ostensibly about AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. But Kushner was also exploring larger ideas of a world (and a Heaven) which has been abandoned by God, and our resilience in surviving this abandonment. There is an actual Heaven in Angels in America, and actual angels, as conceived by Kushner. The flights of fantasy (or at least what is fantasy to us, but is supposed to be as good as reality in the world of the plays) are plentiful and frequent.

I think Angels in America is a brilliant piece of work and a masterpiece of late 20th century American theatre. I also think it is probably a work that is best seen on stage. Because it is concerned with such large themes, it sacrifices nuanced characterisation for concepts, metaphors and symbolism. Characters in the play represent ideas, rather than being individual personalities. On television, this sort of stylisation is not 100% successful.

This TV version, directed by Mike Nichols, is as bold and audacious as Kushner's plays. It is a significant achievement and compulsively watchable, fully deserving of its multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Awards. But the medium of television focuses our attention differently and we find ourselves sympathising with the characters as people, rather than what they represent. It is here that I think Kushner's personal biases were revealed and this weakens Angels in America as a story about people and personal growth (of course, it could be said that Kushner was not telling that story, but these plays are about America; and what makes America what it is, if not its people?)

This review in the New York Review of Books says it better, more eloquently and more coherently than I ever could.

I can only say this. I found myself not reacting to the characters the way I think Kushner wanted me to.

The characters I find myself most interested in are Pryor, Joe and Roy Conn. Pryor is probably the central character in Angels in America, notwithstanding top billing going to the Roy Conn character. The writing makes sure that Pryor is always sympathetic; reminding us every so often of how he is coping with AIDS. We are obviously supposed to like Pryor and he gets a happy ending of sorts. I am glad that Pryor got his happy ending and I like Pryor as a character for his complexity and his genuine pathos. But Pryor the person was not always likeable and after the burden of prophetdom, has a creepy edge. I sensed I am supposed to like him, I don't actually like him, but I want him to be well.

Joe is a rather different prospect. Poor closeted Joe is left with no closure at all and in pretty bad shape when we last see him. Kushner does not mean for us to like Joe; he is closeted, he is repressed, he voted for Reagan and he likes Roy Conn. We are pointedly directed to blame Joe for the breakdown in his relationship with his wife Harper. And yet, in this TV version, I find Harper severely unsympathetic, whiny and unreasonable. Joe, despite his many flaws, is almost admirable in his struggle to reconcile his conservative value systems with the truth of his sexuality.

Roy Conn is of course the representative of all things evil in the Angels in America world. He says outrageous, terrible, insensitive things. He is a bigot, a homophone, a racist, a hypocrite, a liar and pretty much a murderer. For all that, I find Roy entertaining rather than evil. Ultimately, his character is just very, very sad. His death is not a comeuppance to me, but a tragedy of a life gone badly wrong.

How much of this is in the acting?

Jefferey Wright played Pryor on Broadway and interprets the role with care. He knows better than to portray Pryor as a martyr (and the writing would have easily allowed for this). Because he chooses this difficult and more honest route, I find myself becoming less irritated with Kushner's manipulation of his characters, and able to care for Pryor as a very real person.

Patrick Wilson (unrecognisable from his Raoul in the Phantom of the Opera) plays Joe with heartbreaking honesty and vulnerability. In this role, his face has a clear-eyed purity and innocence that contrasts so startlingly with his internal demons; the struggle within him is palpable every time we see him on screen. Mary Louise Parker, on the other hand, is somewhat mannered and makes Harper annoying rather than a tragic figure. When she is stoned on valium, she is manic in a way that reminds me of a whiny teenager having her period. We are supposed to sympathise with Harper when Joe leaves, and to blame him for his heartless abandonment. The way these roles are played, Joe's leaving seems an act of courage while Harper's reaction is that of an ungrateful and self-centred brat.

Al Pacino is Roy Conn. But of course, Al Pacino is always also Al Pacino. He does a remarkable job in this role, almost entirely escaping hamminess. I have learnt to forgive hamminess in Al Pacino because he has such an incredible ability to tailor a role to his own persona and strengths as an actor. As he spits out Roy Conn's vitriol, I get a sense of a man who says outrageous things partly for the effect of it. This reading makes Roy Conn seem more human, and I have no doubt that he must have been at least somewhat less of a beast than some writers would have us think. Roy Conn was no doubt a nasty piece of work, but Al Pacino plays him as more than just a caricature of evil.

In other roles, Meryl Streep is her usual terrific self as Joe's mother. Emma Thomson (whom I have said before is one of my favourite people in the world whom I don't actually know) is unfortunately miscast as Pryor's Italian nurse, and somewhat better cast as the Angel. As a classically trained actress, she pulls off the Angel's bombast and verbosity with aplomb, but the special effects rendered these scenes somewhat comical, rather than terrifying. Justin Kirk plays Louis, Pryor's lover who leaves after learning about Pryor having AIDS. Kirk makes Louis a lot more likeable than we are supposed to think, because he conveys such a genuine sense of self loathing even while Louis is being a complete bastard.

On the whole, this is a superlative production of a massive work. Mike Nichols has drawn wonderful performances from his cast and structured the movie (or mini-series or whatever) meticulously, playing up the advantages of the TV medium in choosing effects and locations. The issues, though, seem somewhat dated in light of what has happened in the world since the 1980s.

Recently Seen: House of Flying Daggers

2005-11-27T22:21:00.000+08:00

I had no expectations of what I was going to get from Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers. If I had put my mind to it, I would have been less taken aback by the visual extravaganza that awaited me. Zhang Yimou has after all made his name as the director of such cinematically beautiful movies as Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern and The Road Home (which was also Zhang Ziyi's movie debut).

What I did know about the movie was that it starred three big names of Asian cinema, China's Zhang Ziyi, Hong Kong's Andy Lau and Japan's Takeshi Kaneshiro (who is also partly Taiwan's and Hong Kong's, such are his muti-lingual skills). That was a promising start. Any movie that took the trouble to gather such star power together should at least have a decent budget, and hopefully, a reasonable screenplay.

In the end, I am not sure if the screenplay counted for much. It was certainly not bad, by any means, but plot, dialogue and characterisation all seemed rather secondary to the visual splendours served up on the screen. This was such a sumptuous production, with scene after scene of breathtaking beauty.

Set in the 9th century, during the waning years of the Tang Dynasty, this is a ostensibly a tale of duplicity, hidden identities, political upheaval and double-crossing. Essentially, though, this is an old-fashioned love triangle, a romance that is swooningly ardent for the most part, with occasional injections of raging jealousy.

But emotional undercurrents take a back seat to visual ingenuity. The movie begins with two major set-pieces in interior sets. The rooms of the brothel named the Peony Pavillion are wondeful to behold, with intricate details in the draperies and decorations. The ladies of the brothel are decked out in vibrant colours and seemed like a hundred butterflies in a field of wild-flowers. In these early scenes, Zhang Yimou stages a wonderful ballet, in which the blind Xiao Mei (Zhang Ziyi) dances and flicks her long sleeves to beat a circle of drums, echoing the drums that Leo (Andy Lau) had earlier struck using a well-aimed nut.

Shortly after, Mei is revealed to be a spy; she is a member of the House of Flying Daggers, a dangerous rebel group. She is arrested by Leo and his partner, Jin (Takeshi Keneshiro), who are the Tang Dynasty equivalent of policemen. Leo and Jin hatch a plot to use Mei to discover the identity of the Flying Daggers' leader and the location of their stronghold. Jin stages a rescue of Mei, in the hopes that she will lead him to the Flying Daggers' secrets.

As they flee, we watch Jin and Mei fall cagily in love, while dodging attacks from the army sent after them (the secret plot is not known to the entire army, and pretty soon, Jin finds himself being forced to save his own life for real). The action moves outdoors and what glorious outdoors it is. The scenes alternate between autumnal forest glades with their shades of gold and red, open fields of wild flowers, a pond covered in lotus leaves, hilltops with spectacular views and most significantly, a bamboo grove.

In this bamboo grove, with a hint of mist and soft sunlight streaming through the trees, the movie stages an audacious martial arts combat, that pretty much rendered me speechless. Soldiers leap from tree to tree, raining bamboo spears down upon Jin and Mei as they dodge with quick-footed grace. The guards swoop down the bamboo branches to attack up-close and devise a trap of sharpened bamboo spears portruding from the ground. This is just extraordinary cinematic imagination, choreographed like a dance and filmed with loving attention to detail. I particularly enjoyed the play of lights as the attacking guards cast shadows on the ground through which the lovers are running.

In the end, the movie reveals that Leo is also a Flying Dagger and has been undercover as a policeman for three years. Mei is in fact not blind and hadbeen double-crossing Jin just as he was double-crossing her. Leo is in love with Mei and enraged by her feelings for Jin. And so, while everyone turned out to be a double-crosser of some sort, the final denouement had less to do with this and everything to do with the love triangle.

For this resolution, we moved to a vast field against a backdrop of autumnal hills. Leo and Jin battle to the death, while the season changes and a snow storm transforms the landscape from green and gold to shades of white. This transition is handled marvelously; the film-makers have truly used the visual language of cinema here. When blood is spilled, it splahes crimson against the snow - a spectacular effect.

The visual beauty of the movie extends to its cast.

Zhang Ziyi's fine-boned features are a boon to any cinematographer. I must admit to finding her somewhat irritating, ever since seeing her petulant brat role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Her role in Rush Hour 2 (the only other film I had seen her in, apart from her debut in The Road Home) did not help to endear her to me better. I thought at first that House of Flying Daggers would serve up more of the same petulance, but this role called for something different and more likeable. I will give credit where it is due; she is most sympathetic in this role and looks a dream (in this movie, a very important achievement).

Takeshi Kaneshiro is blessed with good genes. His half-Chinese, half-Japanese heritage gave him striking looks and a cut-glass profile that is the hallmark of a movie star. Jin is not a particularly demanding role, calling more for charm and charisma than actual thespic endeavour. Kaneshiro handles charm and charisma without any apparent effort. Most importantly, he has sizzling chemistry with Zhang Ziyi and in their scenes together, they add not only to the beauty of the scenery but also to our emotional engagement with the proceedings.

Andy Lau has looked better in his life. There, I have said it. I know he is wildly popular in Asia, due in some part to his cultured good looks. But he really is not looking so hot nowadays. In the 1980s, this was one of the best looking people in East Asian cinema. With age, he has become rather gaunt and haggard. The camera that used to so love him is rather less enamoured nowadays. I think part of the problem that we are supposed to believe him to be younger than his appearance (at least, that is the impression that I get). Andy Lau's current visual appearance is of a man in 40's. This is not a slight; the man is 44 years old. He is certainly a fine specimen for his age. But I get the sense that he is trying to pass off as someone ten years younger. And it does not work for me as a viewer. In House of Flying Dagger, he professes a romantic interest in Zhang Ziyi's character when he looks old enough to be her father. When he reveals his relationship to Mei (the spiel about "It's been 3 years since I saw her), in all seriousness, I kept expecting him to say that she was his daughter! But putting the issue of looks aside, I think this was one of Andy Lau's better acted roles. It stretched his range and he rose to the challenge well.

Ultimately, when I think of House of Flying Daggers, I will remember it mainly for it's beauty. I suspect that the plot will slip my mind within days, but that bamboo grove battle will go down as a cinematic highlight for all time.

Overall rating: 10 out of 10 (for style), 8 out of 10 (overall)

Fandom favourites

2005-11-04T17:59:00.000+08:00

This is one of the things going around Livejournal:

Pick 5 fandoms and do this for each of them:
1. The first character you first fell in love with:
2. The character you never expected to love as much as you do now:
3. The character everyone else loves that you don't:
4. The character you love that everyone else hates:
5. The character you used to love but don't any longer:

This made me realise that I have dabbled in quite a number of fandoms, from rather diverse sources. Hmmm, that geek rating seems even more accurate now.

Austen's World
I hope this is not stretching it, but I think that there is a valid Austen fandom. There are discussion sites, theoretical discussions by academics and amateurs alike and that ultimate insignia of fandom - fan-fiction. Whether this is technically a fandom, Jane Austen's novels remain my longest-standing source of fannish-devotion. That is enough to make it count, for me.
1. The first character you first fell in love with:
Elizabeth Bennet. P & P was my first Austen novel and Lizzie grabbed my attention the moment she first appeared. I think Darcy has now overtaken Lizzie as my favourite P&P character (because he is a gentleman despite his imperfections and those are so wonderfully human), but she will always be not just a great literary character, but a person I would like to have known. I love her spunk, her wit and most of all, her willingness to admit her faults.
2. The character you never expected to love as much as you do now:
Anne Elliot. When I first read Persuasion, I liked Anne Elliot fine, but she seemed a little understated, too quiet when held up against the liveliness of Lizzie Bennett and Emma Woodhouse. Anne improves upon re-reading and I now appreciate her maturity, her calmness, intelligence and kindnessperhaps. These are traits that are perhaps harder to come by than liveliness of spirits.
3. The character everyone else loves that you don't:
Henry Crawford. Well, it's not like everyone loves him, but people seem to think he is redeemable because he clearly does love Fanny Price. To me, his devotion is not in doubt but his character is. Even his kind treatment of her family and his own persistence in pursuing her seems calculated. His improved behaviour stems from a desire to claim a prize rather than sincerity.
4. The character you love that everyone else hates:
Fanny Price. Well, I don't love her, but I am rather fond of the old goose. She is a little preachy at times, and massively lacking self-confidence, but she is kind-hearted and a good person. Good people are underestimated and undervalued.
5. The character you used to love but don't any longer:
None that I can think of, really.

Les Miserables (The Musical)
1. The first character you first fell in love with:
Jean Valjean, of course. He is almost the first character we meet and his story is immediately appealing. By the end of the show, he has aged many years and we have grown to regard him almost like a family member.
2. The character you never expected to love as much as you do now:
Marius. He was the cliche juvenile romantic lead (oh, who am I kidding? This is musical theatre, most characters are cliched in some way!), who was a little too concerned about his love affair when unrest raged around him. Now, when I listen to Les Mis, what I remember most about Marius is his kindness to Eponine in A Little Fall of Rain, and his introspection during Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. He is not just a romantic lead, but a person who deserves his happy ending.
3. The character everyone else loves that you don't:
Eponine. I don't get it, sorry. I don't hate her but I really do not see anything truly loveable in Eponine apart from courage (and even then, I believe it to be motivated by her obsession with Marius). She gets a great song and she is angsty. She is also something of a stalker and not a little creepy.
4. The character you love that everyone else hates:
Cossette. I could say that this is corollary to my lack of Eponine love. I think Cosette survives a horrific, possibly abusive childhood and grows up to be a caring, loving person.
5. The character you used to love but don't any longer:
Enjolras. Again, I don't hate him, but I have come to realise that his character is seriously under-developed in the show. His noble sacrifice in the end does come across as having been fool-hardy.

Harry Potter
1. The first character you first fell in love with:
Remus Lupin. And I have explained why before. This is a function of having read PoA before any of the other books. I suspect if I had started with Philosopher's Stone instead, my answer here would be Harry himself. The kid is wonderful human and REAL.
2. The character you never expected to love as much as you do now:
A tie. Firstly, Neville Longbottom. He is a minor character, but in OotP, he came into his own. His story is so poignant and his courage in dealing with his past is truly touching. There is no doubt at all why he is a Gryffindor.
Secondly, Arthur Weasley. He was a minor character, taking a backseat to Molly in the parental stakes. Now, I think he is among my favourite adult minor characters. His fascination with Muggle ways is delightful, as is his Everyman (Everywizard) normality.
3. The character everyone else loves that you don't:
Draco Malfoy. He is very popular in the fandom, partly because of the Tom Felton fangirls and partly because he has been envisioned as redeemable. HBP seems to have shown that he is in for a redemption arc. But I don't know - the kid has been a petty bully, a bigot and a spoilt brat for the better part of six books. He might be redeemable, but I don't find him remotely lovable.
4. The character you love that everyone else hates:
Nobody in particular, although if I was pushed to, I would say Tonks. Not counting the obvious villains (Umbridge and the Death Eaters), the only two characters that come in for universal villification are Tonks and Ginny. I like Tonks a lot, and am fairly indifferent towards Ginny.
5. The character you used to love but don't any longer:
Nobody.

Smallville
This show hasn't been good for a couple of seasons, but I find myself still watching it while complaining about its general suckitude. I guess that's what you call true-fandom.
1. The first character you first fell in love with:
Lex Luthor. This has a lot to do with Michael Rosenberg's initial appearance on the show; bewildered from the accident, grateful to Clark, resentful of his father and charming to a fault.
2. The character you never expected to love as much as you do now:
Chloe Sullivan. She is hands down my favourite thing about the show. I liked her pretty much from the get-go but I adore her now, for bringing a refreshing honesty to proceedings where everyone is lying their heads off.
3. The character everyone else loves that you don't:
Okay, I am going to cheat on this one. This character is only loved by half the fandom and the other half (to which I belong) positively loathes her. I speak of course, of Lana Lang. She's just so annoying, self-involved and completely uninteresting.
4. The character you love that everyone else hates:
I cannot really think of any character that is universally hated in the fandom.
5. The character you used to love but don't any longer:
Martha Kent. She started out as the coolest mom ever with a drippy son, but has gotten almost as preachy as old Jonathan. Her handling of of various situations have rubbed me the wrong way - Clark's relationship with Lex, Clark's relationship with Lana and Lois Lane's house-guesting.

Star-Trek (The Next Generation)
1. The first character you first fell in love with:
Jean-Luc Picard. I fully acknowledge that this has as much to do with Patrick Stewart as the Picard character. His dignity and gravity are such a relief after Kirk (and Bill Shatner).
2. The character you never expected to love as much as you do now:
Data. A cliched choice, I know, but there you have it. He was the source of some of TNG's most inspired episodes. Towards the end, they relied on his "emotion chip" a little too often for plot, but that didn't diminish my fondness for the old droid.
3. The character everyone else loves that you don't:
Will Riker. I am entirely indifferent to him, and to his relationship with Deanna Troi (who annoys me).
4. The character you love that everyone else hates:
Geordie. Not that he is hated, exactly, but he does not get as much attention as some of the other characters. I wouldn't say that I love the character, but I do think Geordie is funny, a great friend and obviously rather good at his job.
5. The character you used to love but don't any longer:
Nobody, mainly because I really only love Data and Picard, and they have not done anything (on either small or large screen) to change my mind.

Well, that's five. If I had a mind to, I could have done this for Arrested Development (TV), Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, the works of Jin Yong (TV adaptations), CSI (TV), Friends (TV), Seinfeld (TV), Phantom of the Opera (musical) ... the list is running away with me!

What have we wrought? (Part 3)

2005-10-28T20:04:00.000+08:00

This is slightly delayed (ahem!) but I am finally getting around to it.

When I left off Part 2, I said "Next, Phantom of the Opera and the absurdity of Christine/Erik shipping."

The Phantom of the Opera

This should be subtitled "Attack of the Gerry Butler fangirls". As I have said before, Gerald Butler is just far too good looking for the role of the movie Phantom. Predictably, we now have a bunch of females fantasising about the sex-god Gerry Butler and completely forgetting about the murderous sociopath that is the Phantom. Fine, be a fangirl about Butler. He's a fine actor and rather pleasant on the eye. But fangirling Butler should have nothing to do with fangirling the Phantom and twisting the POTO story and characters beyond recognition.

Because the movie had a good looking Phantom, the fangirls want Christine to choose him over Raoul. I understand this; I often want things to happen the opposite of how they are written; I want Mimi to live at the end of La Boheme, Guinevere not to have betrayed Arthur, poor Romeo and Juliette not to have been so stupid and my most wishful thought: for Ingrid Bergman to stay with Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca. But I accept the way things have been written, however much I wish they were different.

Erik/Christine shipping is incomprehensible to me personally because I just don't see a functional relationship as a possibility for these two characters. On the other hand, I do not deny that it is as valid a ship as any that has been sailed in fandoms, canonical or otherwise. After all, people have different experiences and diffferent ways of perceiving relationships. The innocent ingenue / murderous sociopath dynamic does work for some people. And I don't really have a problem with that, as long as nobody is making any claims that this is what Leroux or Lloyd Webber/Hart had in mind all along.

Where I do have a problem with Erik/Christine shipping is the (unfortunately sizeable) rabid element that is hell-bent on distorting canon and insisting that
a) of course Christine is REALLY in love with the Phantom, as she realises after she shares that soul-shattering kiss with hi,; and/or
b) what REALLY happens is that the Phantom and Christine do end up sharing a lifetime of love.

The slight problem here is getting the inconvenience which is Raoul, out of the way. At very least, Raoul's role in the book and musical as to be reinterpreted imaginatively. This has been accomplished, to varying degrees of incredulity on my part, in multiple fanfiction stories, essays, movie deconstructions and message board posts. In all these gigabytes on the Internet, Leroux himself is rarely mentioned as a reference point.

For the purposes of shipping, I suppose it is not fair to refer to Leroux as a source; many people are probably shipping E/C based purely on the movie. Well, fine. Let's not look to Leroux then (but more on that later). Let's look to the actual source material for the movie - the POTO musical (music AND libretto).

There have been different degrees of canon denial, ranging from the merely unlikely to the downright unthinkable. It's always easier to get warmed up with the stuff that at least does not make me think "WTF?", so let me begin with the milder forms of creative reimagining. The canon denial scenarios follow.

a) In which Christine marries Raoul and lives with him till her death but is secretly truly in love with the Phantom

I will say this much: at least this scenario accepts what is implied in the musical and what is explicitly spelt out in the movie. The older Raoul introduced in the Prologue has obviously had a long-standing relationship with Christine (a relationship shown in the movie specifically as marriage).

Sign #1 of E/C true love:
Christine looking back at the Phantom as she leaves with Raoul on the boat. This is supposed to be a last look, laden with a deep regret that she will feel for the rest of her life.

It's almost plausible to interpret that short glance this way. But at the same time, Christine is singing a reprise of "All I Ask of You" with Raoul. This would make her a massive hypocrite, not to mention directly contradicting her own words. And I don't buy it that she is actually singing the words to the Phantom. (One phrase she sings is "Say the word and I will follow you". I suppose it is conceivable that she is asking the Phantom to tell her to go with him on his fugitive's flee. It is conceivable but also a very tortuous and contorted reading of the book, when the simple explanation is also the obvious: she is singing with Raoul (at one point they even sing together) and the song has been established as Raoul's and Christine's love song.

Sign #2 of E/C true love:
Raoul sings to the music box monkey in the prologue that "She often spoke of you, my friend." This indicates that Christine never lets go of her experiences with the Phantom in his lair. She speaks of the monkey continuously to Raoul, a seemingly strange thing to do if she was in a truly happy marriage with a man who had rescued her from the lair. There is only one explanation: speaking of the monkey is code for pining for a lost true love.

Sigh, sigh, sigh. Stretching and scraping, anyone? The entire segment with the monkey is nothing more than a plot contrivance to segue into the introduction of the chandelier. But even if the words were more than just a throw-away line (the libretto is FILLED with these), how does Christine speaking of a monkey indicate an unhappy marriage? If anything, the fact that she could confide details of her ordeal/ experience to her husband indicates a strong relationship, not one shadowed by a secret yearning for another man.

Sign #3 of E/C true love:
She kisses the Phantom once, is overwhelmed by passion and dives in for a second kiss. True Love!

That damned double kiss has made for the worst sort of fandom fodder. I think it was Joel Schumacher trying to sex things up and completely misjudging the balance between acted gestures and the scripted libretto.

Moments before the kiss, Christine sings "Angel of Music, you deceived me, I gave my mind blindly." She goes on to call him "Pitiful creature of darkness". The point leading up to the kiss is one of Christine realising that she must make a sacrifice to save Raoul and that she can make herself do it because she has reconciled her horror of the Phantom with genuine pity. She regards him as a pathetic figure, one that she hopes to save from himself with her self-sacrifice. Hardly the stuff of heady romance.

b) In which Christine is abused by her husband Raoul and realises that it is the Phantom who truly loves her and whom she truly loves. And in which the Phantom is NOT a twisted sociopath.

Rapist! Raoul and Wife-hitter! Raoul are two fandom constructs that have absolutely no foundation in canon, whether it be Leroux or Lloyd Webber/Black. He is a bit of a fop, young and impetuous and probably shallow. How do any of these traits translate into future abusiveness?

If anything, it is the Phantom that shows the tendency for violence (well, in the musical, he murders a couple of people , so "tendency" is putting it mildly. One thing that angered me about the movie is the soft-pedalling of the Phantom's crimes, the soft option to make him more sympathetic). I think the E/C shippers realise a basic love-triangle dynamic: cruel, obsessive lover on the one hand; ardent, self-sacrificing lover on the other; and the maiden caught between them. See, canon already provided the characters for these specific roles. There was never a need to swap Raoul for the Phantom.

I think one thing that cannot be in doubt from the musical is that Raoul does love Christine. His actions and words in the final lair are proof enough of this. It doesn't make sense to turn him into some uncaring monster (at least, not without a huge amount of backstory to explain such a tremendous emotional and personality transition).

I think there can also be no doubt from the musical that the Phantom is a seriously disturbed man. Apart from the murders, he plays mind games with Firmin and Andre, is sadistically cruel to Carlotta and Piangi and invades Christine's mind! Look, the man might be a genius, but he is mentally unstable. Christine herself said, "It's in your sould that the true distortion lies". Now, that might not be entirely his fault and therefore it might not be fair to demonise him for something he could not help, but an in-character Phantom is a twisted, very scary man whom no mother would trust with her 16 year old daughter.

c) In which Christine and the Phantom has been carrying on a love affair throughout her marriage to Raoul

In the movie, there is an added epilogue scene in which Raoul visits Christine's grave and sees a ring and rose left there by a not-so-mystery person. I read a passionately argued theory that this was the Phantom's subtle way of telling Raoul about the super-secret love affair. The sadness in Raoul's eyes during this scene was not the mourning of a beloved wife (not my words, but those engraved on the headstone) but grief at discovering Christine's infidelity. There are no words.

Of course, this leads to the conclusion that Christine's children (again, a movie invention, with the headstone saying "beloved wife and mother") are in fact fathered by the Phantom. Oh well, as outlandish ideas go, this is somewhat better than the rapist! Raoul one. And don't get me started on the published sequels that assume this plot development (just because they have official ISBN's do not make them official canon).

Back to Leroux. For POTO, Leroux should be regarded as canon. The musical is based on Leroux, and despite the many changes, is fully faithful to authorial intent. The characters in the musical are clearly the characters in Leroux (although Raoul is much less developed and Christine is slightly more naive). Most importantly, the emotional relationships between the three lead characters are portrayed in the musical as they were written in the book. So, you know what? Leroux should be the point of reference for E/C shipping based on the POTO movie.

If people understood who canon Phantom and canon Christine are, I doubt E/C shipping would be as rabid as it is. I have no doubt that there are people who find the canonical Phantom and the canonical Christine to be a perfectly appealing pairing. But how many E/C shippers really ship canon Christine with canon Erik?

Recently Rewatched: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2005-10-24T19:28:00.000+08:00

Ahead of the release of GoF, HBO gifted us with the TV premiere of PoA last weekend.

I had seen this only once last year, and found it enjoyable enough and visually gorgeous, but a letdown compared to the general excellence of the book.

The movie does not really improve upon a second viewing. In fact, if anything, I find myself being less forgiving of the liberties taken with the screenplay and the elements that they chose to excise. They made a good action-fantasy movie, but a poor adaptation of a Harry Potter book regarded by many fans as the best in the series.

The good things are quite wonderful.

The Scottish scenery is wondrous and shot on film like a tribute to beauty. (A related aside: I was in Edinburgh last year and saw the building upon which JKR allegedly based Hogwarts. The film captures that great blend of grandeur and intimacy that makes Scotland so rewarding on the eye.) The outdoor shots are so lovely, you feel like packing your bags for the Highlands.

The acting from the adult actors was top-notch, as one has come to expect of British-cast films. Emma Thompson is one of my favourite people-I-don't-actually-know in the world. She is tremendously funny, touching and irritating all at the same time as Professor Trelawney. Michael Gambon assumes the role of Dumbledore after the passing of Richard Harris and the transition is flawless. He brings dignity and a sense of fun to the role. David Thewliss is physically so different from the Lupin that I expected to see, but he is a fine and subtle actor who overcomes this handicap (which is not inconsiderable in a visual medium). Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith are their usual quietly excellent selfs.

Note on the child actors playing the Trio: They are improving, particularly young Daniel Radcliffe. All three are still given to moments of over-acting, but Cuaron's darker, more meandering style seems to have dampened those tendencies.

Barring the werewolf (too thin, too hairless and not at all wolf-like), the effects were convincing and suitably awe-inspiring. The dementors were especially inspired; truly bone-chillingly scary. Buckbeak was also a much better effect than Fawkes had been in Chamber of Secrets, so things definitely looked up in the birds department.

And now the not-so-good.

First and foremost, the complete absence of any exposition about Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs is just mind-boggling. The fact that the four of them knew each other was mentioned in passing but not the fact that these were four great friends. Even James Potter's and Sirius Black's very close friendship was not ever made explicitly clear. There was nothing that explained that the creators of the Marauder's Map were also Harry's father and his friends. The fact that three of them became animagus because of Lupin was not mentioned. The fact that James Potter was a stag in animagus form was never connected to Harry's patronus (if a viewer had not read the book, the stag-shaped shimmer of light would have been nothing more than a rather cool effect). An entire emotional layer was lost by this screenwriting choice. Worse, by omitting this, the film-makers seemed to have missed quite a lot of the point of PoA: the link to Harry's past, the events of the first war and the dynamics of friendship and betrayal as it played out between the four friends.

I understand that a movie cannot adapt every event in the book and excisions are necessary. Much as I bemoaned the loss of the Quidditch matches and the Scabbers and Crookshanks side plot, I understand why they could not fit into a 120+ minute movie. But why drop plot points and elements that are central to the original story? It would not even have taken much more screentime to accomplish; a couple of sentences from Lupin and Black would have managed it just fine.

If I had not read the book before, so many things would have seemed out of the blue, with no narrative motivation. Why did three boys become animagi for no apparent reason? (Or were we supposed to assume that turning into animals is rather normal in the wizarding world?) Why the vague stag-like shape of Harry's patronus? Why did Lupin hug Black when he learnt he was not the traitor (the movie never drove home the friendships of the MWPP foursome)? How did Lupin know how to work the Marauder's Map? Why did Snape bear so much animosity towards both Lupin and Black (and no, it was not enough to simply say that Snape never much likes anyone anyway)?

The movie also downplayed the foreboding that permeated the book. The sights of the Grim and Trelawney's many predictions of Harry's impending doom were not used to any effect at all. In fact, the cloud Grim was a complete misfire; it would have made so much more sense for Harry to actually see a black dog, rather than just a dog-shaped cloud! There was an ongoing thread in the book about Harry's paranoia, fear and anger. These barely registered in the movie. Harry's character development suffers as a result.

And while on the topic of character development, Ron in the movies is annoyingly one-dimensional, played for comic relief and nothing more. The film-makers seem intent to make him seem stupid, which is not how JKR writes him at all. It is a disservice to the character. Hermione, on the other hand, is annoyingly and boringly competent and smart and brave. Definitely a case of "positive role model" gone wrong. A smart know-it-all, action super-heroine is just not very interesting. Again, Hermione is not like that at all in the books.

While I loved the look of the film's sets and scenery, the costuming drove me out of mind. Just not wizard-y enough! The Harry Potter series is about fantasy; I expect to see everyone floating around in robes, whether they be flowing, billowing or flapping. All those practical clothes were just too colourless, dull and uninteresting.

On the whole, there was something that seemed off about the pacing and tone of the film. I can't quite put my finger on it - there was an overall unevenness to the whole enterprise. It seemed all at once too rushed and yet too leisurely, too dark and yet not weighty enough, too sombre and yet too flippant, too melancholic and yet too uplifting.

Despite my gripes, I would watch it again, if only to see the gorgeous scenery again and to watch a bunch of British actors at the top of their game.

Overall rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Literary Crushes: In which I discover a preference for English gentlemen

2005-09-30T15:42:00.000+08:00

Following from a stray thought in a previous post, the fictional characters that could turn me into a fangirl, in no particular order:

(Add on: I just realised that most of these characters have been brought to life of celluloid. Could a literary crush have been formed because of the readily visualised screen version, rather than an impression formed from the pages of a book? I think my list is entirely based on literary characterisation, but my enjoyment of these characters might no doubt be enhanced by a well-acted, in-character performance. Comments on the screen realisations - and the actors - have been added)

1) Lord Peter Whimsey (Dorothy L Sayers)

Dorothy L Sayers was said to have indulged in a bit of Mary-Sueism when she wrote the Harriet Vane character, a mystery author that Lord Peter later marries. Sayers was accused of falling in love with her own character and writing herself into the books as a romantic interest. If so, who can really blame her? Lord Peter is delightful; a decidedly English nobleman with a clever mind and a graceful way with words.

(There is a mini-series on the Lord Whimsey mysteries, but I have not seen any of it.)

2) Mr Darcy (Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice)

P&P is my favourite novel because it is light, sparkling, hilarious and deeply satirical. Mr Darcy stands out because he seems different from the tone of the book. He is quiet, aristocratic (but not snobbish), inclined to be judgemental (but redeemably so), generous and given to noble Grand Gestures, carried out earnestly and with a seeming lack of irony. He is almost, but not quite the ideal romantic hero (that would be Persuasion's Wentworth) but his imperfections make him all the more interesting. Even without Colin Firth's wet shirt sequence, Mr Darcy would be a fictional heart-throb.

(Since I mentioned Colin Firth, it goes without saying I have seen the BBC P&P. It is one of my favourite mini-series/movies and I own it on VCD. It seems almost cliched to say it now, but Colin Firth is really the perfect Mr Darcy. He has the voice down pat; there is an aristocratic dismissiveness in many of his early scenes that is exactly how I imagine book!Darcy to be. What I like best about Firth's performance is his expressiveness when he isn't saying anything. In the book, Darcy is hardly voluble but you learn something about him nevertheless, because of Austen's masterful writing. Colin Firth ably substitutes.

I realise there is a new movie version of P&P out now, but Keira Knightley as Lizzie just seems so incongruous to me that it might take a while to convince myself to watch this. I don't think Firth's definitive Darcy would be bettered, even if it might be equalled.)

3) Atticus Finch (Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird)

Not an Englishman, for a change. He is almost English, though, in the quietness of his bearing, his non-demonstrative affection for his children and his impeccable good manners. Although TKaM revolves around Scout and Jem, Atticus is the heart of the book for me. He is a man who does the right thing despite knowing it to be a lost cause. He does it because to do otherwise would be be like killing a mockingbird.

(Gregory Peck won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Atticus Finch in the screen adaptation of Mockingbird. I enjoy most old movies and would watch this whenever it pops up on TV, but it does not quite have the same magic as the book. Peck was a very fine Atticus, bringing the right sense of nobility and an air of weary detachedness. To me, he was too good looking for the role, even with the hair-cut and the glasses. Not quite the Atticus of my imagination, but good enough.)

4) Lord Percy Blakeney (Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel)

I might actually prefer the stylish fop Lord Blakeney to the action-hero Pimpernel ! He is witty, genuinely funny, unfailingly good-natured and always fabulously turned-out. Of course, the SP himself has more than a few virtues, chief amongst them being a charmingly adoloscent enjoyment of a good prank.

(There have been more than one screen adaptation of the Pimpernel tales. The only one I remember had Anthony Andrews as Blakeney and Jane Seymour as Marguerite. Anothony Andrews was perfectly adequate in the role and I did enjoy the twinkling-eyed fun he brought to the Pimpernel's proceedings. It has been years since I saw this mini-series (TV movie?) but I remember thinking Andrews was not quite foppish enough when he was playing Blakeney.)

5) Benedict (Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing)

Ah, a woman-hater who speaks in Shakespearean verse! What is there not to like? Before he is converted to the cause of love, Benedict is particularly wonderful: caustic, wry and for all that, jolly good company and a genuinely loyal friend. He sounds exactly like the type of guy that you want to hang out with over a jug of beer and you could listen to him being sarcastic for hours.

(The version I have seen is Kenneth Branagh's movie adaptation, with the director playing Benedict alongside then-wife Emma Thomson's Beatrice. I adore Branagh as a Shakespearean actor; his voice fits the poetry of Shakespeare so beautifully and his line readings demonstrate true comfort with Shakespeare's language. Physically, Branagh is not anything like the Benedict that I read off the page, but I can forgive him that when he does such justice to the spoken words.)

6) Remus Lupin (JK Rowling's Harry Potter series)

This is ground that I have covered before. Lupin does not get a lot of page-time in the series although he is prominent in a couple of chapters in PoA. Yet he is one of the most popular supporting characters to emerge from the HP books. He is a good teacher and a good man who lives a difficult life with seemingly good cheer. But what I like best about him is something he shares with Percy Blakeney: an enjoyment of mischief. And I find it particularly appealing that this prankster is not boisterous or attention-seeking, but is rather portrayed as being quietly pleasant and unflappable.

(In the movie version of HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban, David Thewliss is a very tall, swing-music-loving Remus Lupin. He is a fine actor and brings off the character very well indeed, especially considering the butcher-job that was the screenplay. He is too tall and physically too imposing to be the Lupin that I visualise from the books, but that is hardly Thewliss's fault.)

7) Kester Woodseaves (Mary Webb's Precious Bane)

I just love this book. It is so lyrical and atmospheric, I can see myself in the Shropshire countryside, working alongside the Sarns and watching the dragon-flies with Prue Sarn and Kester Woodseaves. Although we meet Kester Woodseaves earlier in the book, it is in this scene that we fall in love with him. Before, we have learnt that he is brave, generous of heart and kind; here, we see his humour and intelligence. The cut and thrust of his gentle teasing is amusing, but never cruel to Prue. He knows that she feels something for him and befriends her with charming directness. When he leaves, he subtly hints that her feelings might be one day requieted. It is wonderfully done.

(There is a long lost BBC mini-series adaptation of Precious Bane, which, sob, I have not ever seen. I wish I could hunt down a copy, or that the BBC would release it from its back archives, if it still exists. Better still, could someone not film a new version? The book practically screams adaption, with its evocative visuals, strong characters and absorbing plot.)

8) Psmith (PG Wodehouse's Psmith series)

An eccentric Englishman with good taste and who plays cricket! You have to love him. Psmith is so marvelously quirky, self-assured and utterly comfortable in his own unique skin. His sense of humour is delicious and amongst Wodehousian heroes, he is the hunk du jour.

(I am not aware if there is a screen adaptation of the Psmith stories - and if no, why not?)

9) Lord Goring (Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband)

Well-dressed by all accounts, a bit of dandy, a philosopher and possessed of a wonderfully wry and irreverent sense of humour. If he is supposed to be a thinly disguised alter-ego for Wilde himself, we could do a lot worse. He makes some of the most marvelously subversive observations and seems to have no regard whatsoever for the conventions of society beyond the importance of a well-chosen buttonhole. This is the man who says, "The only possible society is oneself" and "To love onself is the beginning of a life-long romance". Simply superb and oh, so fanciable.

(Ahh, Rupert Everett playing Lord Goring in Oliver Parker's movie adaptation of An Ideal Husband. Everett being openly homosexual, the entire enterprise has an almost self-referential cleverness. But sexuality has nothing to do with why Everett's Lord Goring is one of my favourites in any adaptation of a literary classic. He pulls off the dry, cutting witticisms with nochalance and grace. When he duels verbally with Mrs Cheverley and Mabel Chiltern, he is completely amoral in two completely different ways. When I read An Ideal Husband, I imagine Goring to be impeccably dressed and fine-looking, but not drop-dead gorgeous the way that Everett is. But somehow, Everett makes it believable that Lord Goring should be devastatingly handsome, with a profile as sharp as his words.)

There's subtext and then there's subtext

2005-09-27T23:22:00.000+08:00

I was supposed to be ranting about Christine/Erik shipping in the Phantom of the Opera fandom, but had this to get off my chest first.

Why do people insist on seeing homoerotic subtext in everything and insisting upon it as canon? I am fine with the first part - reading unintended (or even intended) subtext is part of the fun of reading or watching TV or movies. But subtext is subtext and until authorial intent reveals otherwise, it's neither proven or disproven. The fun is in the speculation and extrapolation because it's not proven or disproven. Insisting on subtext as gospel truth actually removes the fun element from the whole exercise!

First off, I am not homophobic. Heck, I have been reading homoerotic subtext in to Smallville since Ep 1 of Season 1. Michael Rosenberg is a one man charisma generator and playing Lex Luthor, he manages to have chemistry with Tom Welling's rather wussy Clark Kent. Of course it's pretty much dead upon arrival in terms of canonical probability; Clark Kent dated Lana Lang and goes on to fall in love with Lois Lane. It's not just subtext, it's disproven subtext! Maybe the fact that it is disproven made it enjoyable. It was never going to be happen "for real", so fans could just have fun with the phallic symbolisms and heavy-lidded exchanges of looks. I understand the Smallville fandom and its obsession with subtext seeking; it is an entertaining diversion in a show that has gone seriously downhill.

In the fandom that I am having trouble understanding, the homoerotic subtext is more or less disproven, although not definitively. But before it was disproven, fans were claiming it as canon with rather frightening intensity and certainty. The latest revelations throwing a spanner into these convictions have been greeted with much gnashing of teeth and bitterness of spirit (it should go without saying that not all the subtext-seekers have reacted like this, just a sizeable and vocal segment). Yes, the fandom is Harry Potter and yes, the relationship in question is Sirius Black/ Remus Lupin. Now that Rowling has written N.Tonks as a (seemingly requited, but that is another whole kettle of fish) romantic interest for Lupin, it is that little bit harder to insist that Lupin is gay in canon.

I have previously confessed a fondness for the Lupin character (if I was to fangirl fictional characters, he would be on the list - together with Mr Darcy, Kester Woodseaves from Precious Bane, Sir Percy Blakeney and Atticus Finch, among others - Note to self: must post on this one day). But my fondness for the character has nothing to do with my failing to see the how the gay subtext could be read as being intended. The evidence for it has not been all that convincing. And I can see alternate interpretations that just made so much more sense within the textual intent and theme of the HP series.

Some of the subtextual evidence for Gay!Lupin being in a relationship with Gay!Sirius:

"... embraced him like a brother." (POA)
Using 'brother' to mean homosexual, as in "City of Brotherly Love", isn't totally off the wall. If this was not children's literature, that is. Since we are seeing everything through Harry's eyes, I think it safe to say that what Harry saw was precisely two men who embraced like siblings. I suppose Rowling could have made it clearer by saying "embraced him like a long lost dear friend whom he had wrongly thought to be a murderer". No danger of mistaken subtext there, if she didn't intend to them to be gay! I guess she was just trying the word-economy route.

Lupin lives in 12 Grimmauld Place with Sirius. (OotP)
Many fanfic writers who don't subscribe to the RL/SB dynamic have explained this as Lupin being tasked to watch over a dangerously unbalanced Sirius. I agree; the textual evidence points to it - Sirius was falling apart with frustration from his imposed imprisonment within his ancestral home. It was only human kindness to have an old friend stay with him, especially one who is himself impoverished and perhaps in need of free board.

Lupin and Sirius give a joint Christmas present to Harry (OotP)
This has been taken as some sign of a domestic arrangement akin to marriage. If you squinted really hard, you could see it that way. But is it not more convenient (or obvious) to say that Lupin is dirt poor and probably could not afford a present himself? Since the gift was books on Defence against the Dark Arts, it made sense that Lupin would have a hand in buying the gift, even if he didn't exactly pay for it.

Wolf (Lupin) and Dog (Sirius in Animagus form)
This is by far my favourite of the misinterpreted subtexts. It is compelling, for sure, and a powerful symbolism; dog and wolf, different yet alike. But there are practical reasons for Sirius being a dog. Only as a dog could he have prowled around as he did in PoA and GoF. Imagine if Sirius was a stag, like James Potter. Imagine a stag wandering around the grounds of Hogwarts, in Hogsmeade or accompanying Harry to King's Cross station. JKR would have had to resort to unnecessarily complicated plots to avoid this incongruence. Having Sirius as a dog was a convenient contrivance and made the most sense for her story. He could be seen in human company and be relatively unsuspicious.

Not to say that these aren't valid gay subtexts, because they most definitely are. Until Rowling put out Book 6, these could be read as suggesting a non-platonic relationship between Lupin and Black. But they do not PROVE that such a relationship existed, only that it was plausible.

It would probably save a lot of people a lot of angst if they just continue exploring the Lupin/Black relationship without the unfounded conviction that it was intended by the author. Why the devastation that "practically canon" has become "not likely ever to be canon"? It was NEVER canon, nor "practically" canon. Rowling was not making a comment about lycanthropy = homosexuality and did not intentionally introduce gay subtext as a subliminal message to her readers. It is fine for fans to read it any way they choose to, and in fact analysis of extra-authorial intent is part of enjoying literature. Let's just stop trying to put words in the author's mouth.

As for the belief that Rowling put Lupin and Tonks together to stop the Lupin/Black slashing, I don't buy it. Mainly because I don't think the slash community is much on her radar, and also because slashers, while so prominent in online fandom, are a very small proportion of her readership. Why stick in a (otherwise irrelevant) romantic sub-plot just to shut up a relatively insignificant minority? But it was the case, would that not be further proof that she never intended a Lupin/Black non-platonic relationship? The counter argument is that the gay subtext was intended but she got frightened by how her subtle symbolisms have taken on a life of their own, and have become not so much "subtle" as "explicit". I don't buy this either; it is giving the online fandom too much credit, and giving Rowling too litte.

Upshot: seek out the subtext, have fun doing it, be imaginative interpreting it, believe what you want from it. But don't claim that the author intended you to believe what you want to believe. And don't get mad at the her if she didn't.

What have we wrought? Popular Culture, Adaptations and the Death of Canon (Part 2)

2005-09-22T20:22:00.000+08:00

Part 1 is here

Les Miserables
The poor victimised creature in Les Mis is Cossette. For some strange reason, people "ship" Marius with Eponine; and milksop Cossette just gets in the way. I blame it on the music. Eponine simply gets the more memorable music and the more theatrically effective moments .

Eponine's solo is "On my own", a song that has taken on its own life and is now one of the most recognised and sung of show tunes. It has a sweet melody and a yearning, aching quality that translates well as straight pop music. It makes you symphathise with Eponine. It ends with a gentle fading of appregios, a perfect applause point.

Cossette on the other hand gets "In my life" (what's with these self-absorbed wenches? "On my own", "In my life", what next?). This is a rangy soprano showcase which is fiendishly difficult to sing but less memorable than "On my own". It is much more entrenched in the conventions of musical theatre and does not work as a standalone pop song. Worst of all, it does not even end properly, as it segues into "A Heart Full of Love". Whoever sings Cossette does not get her moment to bask in a soloist's ovation.

Even the duets with Marius musically favour Eponine. She sings "A Little Fall of Rain" with Marius. This is one of my favourite moments in the musical, a beautiful and quiet lullaby in the midst of all those soaring strings and stirring brass. It is an incredibly effective piece of theatre, her singing as she lies dying in his arms. She actually dies before the song ends, which is a coup de theatre on any terms.

Poor Cossette sings "A Heart Full of Love" with Marius, a song that I also adore for its artless lyricism and youthful ardour. It goes swimmingly, but then Eponine joins in and the duet becomes a trio and ends as a trio. Later in the musical, Cossette and Marius sing together on "Everyday" which transits into a reprise of "A Heart full of Love". Before Cossette can truly start enjoying her moment in the lights, Valjean has joined in and the song again ends as a trio. Cossette gets the short end of the straw again!

If people only knew Les Miserables through the musical, I can see how there are superficial arguments that Marius might have been happier with Eponine than with Cossette. VERY superficial arguments in my opinion, based on conclusions that are fallacies.

Fallacy # 1: Eponine loves Marius more than Cossette does

There is no doubt that Eponine is in love with Marius. She gets a whole song to make that point. Cossette only has part of a truncated duet and a few lines in an ensemble piece to communicate her love. She has less music and less memorable music but that does not mean that she loves Marius any less than Eponine does. During "One Day More", she sings that "I did not live until today. How will I live when we are parted?". I think that qualifies as love, just as much as "And all I see is him and me, forever and forever".

Fallacy #2: Marius loves Eponine and what he feels for Cossette is infatuation

Shippers who insist that Marius was in love with Eponine do not give full credit to Marius's feelings as expressed in his music and his characterisation. Yes, much of his music in his first meeting with Cossette is giddy and when he sings of her in "Red and Black", he is impetuous and impassioned. Compared to the subtlety of "A Little Fall of Rain", one might say this music suggests the flush of infatuation, rather than a strong love based on friendship (which is presumably what he feels for Eponine, sigh). One might say it, but one would be wrong.

To really get at Marius's feelings about these two women, one should look at ALL of his music, even that sung when neither women are on stage. And the only possible reading is that Marius loves Cossette romantically, and his love for Eponine is fraternal more than anything else.

But let's look at some of the specific claims:

Sub Fallacy #2.1: "A Little Fall of Rain" is proof that Marius loves Eponine

This is the trouble-making song, because Marius sings "You will live .... if I could heal your wounds with words of love".

That does sound pretty darn conclusive, doesn't it? Isn't this proof enough that he loves her? Well, yes, it is proof that he loves her, as he loves Enjolras and his ABC Cafe brothers. We have to look at this song in the context of what has gone on before. Earlier, he calls her "the friend who has brought me here". He regards her as a friend and grieves for her suffering, and later, her death. There is nothing in this song that suggests it is romantic love on his part.

Later, at his wedding, he tells the Thenardiers that "When I look at you, I think of Eponine. ... She is happier with God, I hope, than here on earth." His affection for Eponine is undeniable, but again, there is nothing here that even hints of romantic love. He is at his own wedding, for starters and his tone is one of fondness and not of regret.

Sub Fallacy #.2.2: Marius does not really love Cossette, he is just infatuated with her

And of course, he marries her only because his true love, Eponine had inconveniently gotten herself killed. The mind boggles.

Where the composers tripped themselves up was to play up the "love at first sight" angle. "Just one look and I knew ... I knew it too"and "She has burst like the music of angels ..." and all that really plays into the hands of the "infatuation" theorists.

It might have started as infatuation, but it certainly becomes much more by the time he is staring death in the face. Not long after Eponine's death (the very scene, mind you, where he supposedly realises he has been in love with Eponine all along), he sings, "Do I care if I should die now she goes across the sea? ... Life without Cossette means nothing at all...". Does this sound like a man who had just realised he had all along been in love with another woman?

After he has recovered from his battle wounds and sung his lament to his lost friends, he asks Valjean, "Is gratitude enough for giving me Cossette?". These are words from a man who had grown up overnight, watched his friends die and now lives with the guilt of having survived them. This is not a man who would be grateful for having an object of mere infatuation.

After the fall of the barricades, he refers to her as "my beloved Cossette" and "my love". I think the writer's intention is clear - he loves her. And because he loves her, he marries her.

Les Miserables in Canon

If we put aside the musical and consider the book, the entire shipping issue is completely moot. Eponine as portrayed in the book would never be considered a viable love interest for Marius. Victor Hugo never intended her to be and did not write her in a way that left any room for ambiguity. Eponine in the book is, to me, more interesting than the musical version but not a tragic romantic figure. She is a bit scary and has a stalkerish streak, if anything.

Cossette in the book is much more developed and her relationship with Marius is never less than convincing. Her innocence and kindness are recognised as virtues, and if she is less interesting than Eponine, we are never in doubt that she is a good person who deserves happiness. Marius's feelings for her are never in doubt. There is no love triangle with Eponine because Eponine is never in the picture as a romantic rival. Victor Hugo did not write that story. I wish the fans would stop trying to do it for him.

Next, Phantom of the Opera and the absurdity of Christine/Erik shipping.

What have we wrought? Popular Culture, Adaptations and the Death of Canon (Part 1)

2005-09-14T19:11:00.000+08:00

The point of this post, when I finally get around to it, is that adaptations of literature in popular culture have tended to emphasise an overly romanticised angle, spawning fandoms that are copiously creative in their worship of romantic pairings, but seem to have no regard for authorial intent in the original sources.

What got me thinking about this was a movie which is not even technically an adaptation of a book. I recently read a few online opinions on the Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur triangle and there was an uniform distaste for the glorification of the adulterous pair's passion for each other; as if passion excused Lancelot's betrayal of his king, or Guinevere's betrayal of her husband. I agree whole-heartedly. In fact, I wish the entire Lancelot plot was never in the classic Arthurian writings. It detracts from the true glory of Arthurian legend - the tales of courage, chivalry, battles, brotherhood, loyalty, love, magic and mysticism. The love triangle with Lancelot was just a rather tawdry distraction.

Then I came across First Knight while channel surfing. An entire movie ostensibly inspired by the King Arthur legend, and it had this tagline: "Their greatest battle would be for her love."
No prizes for guessing what was important to the film-makers. Not the battles for independence and sovereignty (although battles formed the backdrop), not the Knights of the Round Table (although several knights were featured), not Merlin (this was alas, not a wizard-world version of Arthur) , not even the creepy incestuous Morgaine/Mordred subplot (again, no magic in this version). Nope, the most important thing about King Arthur is that he had a wife who fell passionately in love with a young handsome knight and their love could not be denied. Yeah, well, ho-hum. I might be more interested if Lancelot wasn't played by Richard Gere, who was just so uncomfortable in period costume.

The thing is, I don't really much mind how film-makers choose to interpret the Arthur story. There is not one fixed text that they could faithfully follow or carelessly defile, as is more often the case. There are so many accounts and versions from Tennyson to White to Zimmer-Bradley. Canonical King Arthur is a many-headed creature. A romanticised approach is not at the expense of textual faithfulness, so I can live with it, although I reserve the right to decry shoddy film-making and maudlin sentimentality.

Too often though, romance is highlighted in book adaptations to the extent that it is deterimental to other textual points. While book purists cringe, the adaptations find new audiences and new fans, many of whom are of the "shipper" breed. I am not sure why, but female fans are especially quick to hook into the romance angle of any story. Even if romance is only a minor plot point in the original, fans have the ability to magnify it and analyse it to death.

This is still not so bad if the romance is within the realms of canon. The 1995 BBC mini-series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice launched a million Darcy-Lizzie ships, on the strength of one wet shirt, one exchange of looks and a very chaste kiss. Lizzie and Darcy did marry in the book, so this was a Austen sanctioned relationship.

Where it starts to get weird is when people start "shipping" pairings that are not in the original books and are clearly not within authorial intent. The two fandoms that come to mind immediately are the BIG 2 musicals - Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. Both are based on French novels and both have pseudo-operatic scores with lush melodies. And both have spawned rabid fans wishing death on one half of the central romantic pairing.

To follow in the Part 2: Les Miserables

Banned Books

2005-09-09T16:10:00.000+08:00

Here is the list of the top 110 banned books (of all time), according to the American Libraries Association. Not being raised in either Europe or America, I am not au fait with some of the cultural and political complexities of book banning in the US. I know better now, but it used to amaze me how straight-laced the Americans were back in the Victorian and Edwardian ages, especially compared to their European counterparts. This banned books list is a long one and contains some really strange and unexpected titles. The religious ones, fine. Huck Finn? Yeah, we know about the potentially explosive racism angle. The salacious and the scandalous, perfectly understandable. But Little House on the Prairie was banned?

The exercise: Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've read part of. Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of).

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (A childhood favourite. I can see why it was banned back in the days, but this is a GREAT piece of children's literature)
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Assigned book for English Literature. A tough slog, but good stuff)
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (I was too young to appreciate this when I read it the first time. The second time I read it was after seeing bits of the horrendous film version with Demi Moore. I had to re-read the book to cleanse my mind, and found it wonderfully rewarding.)
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Assigned book for Eng. Lit. But I would have read it anyway)
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Book? Musical? Movie? I love the musical and know most of the lyrics by heart. I cannot say the same for the book, but the book is by far a greater work of art. It is a stupendous achievement.)
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker(The original and the best horror novel. So creepy and atmospheric and truly bone-chillingly terrifying.)
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by EdwardGibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (My favourite Hardy novel after the Mayor of Casterbridge, which was another Eng Lit assigned book. )
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce (I was in University and surrounded by flyers proclaiming numerous Blooms Day events. I beat a path to the library and spent a month with Ulysses. This is not a book that I will read for fun, but I recognise what a monumental achievement it is.)
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell (Eng Lit assigned book. This was an easy read.)
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I owned a battered copy that my brother had recovered from a stack of disposed books at his school library. It had neither front or back cover. I re-read the book a few hundred times as a teenager. I own a nicer copy now, with a proper cover, and still re-read it often. Outside of the Austen oevre, this is probably one of my favourite novels, for its atmospheric writing and understanding of the growing pains .)
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Not sure why, but I couldn't really get into Steinbeck. I had this book on loan for 3 months, and could never get to the end of it.)
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence (This book is NOT smut. I think it is a beautifully written character study, with a romantic sub-plot.)
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Well, I had to read this because it was the cool thing to do back in university. The strange thing is that I don't actually remember much of it. It is the ultimate dystopia novel, the grandaddy of the genre, but it hasn't left an impression on me. Strange.)
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchel (I read this as an impressionable teenager in an all-girls school. This was the swooning 1000 page romance that my schoolmates and I cried over. Except that the heroine was a bit of a brat. And the romance wasn't really that romantic since everyone was lying to everyone else. But we were 15, what did we know?)
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker (I really liked this book. It is so much better than the movie, which was a decent cinematic experience but doesn't pack the punch of the written version. Very touching, very real.)
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (This is a work of genious. Yes, the subject matter is uncomfortable, and illegal, in many places. But it is so beautifully written and so wonderfully constructed. This is a book that challenges and rewards at the same time. Just brilliant.)
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola (I kept reading about how Emile Zola was supposed to have written such scandalous novels. Well, I found both Nana and Therese Raquin rather mild. Conceptually dangerous, but executed with such taste and class that I could not imagine being outraged by it.)
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Tally: 30 that I have read in their entirety. 16 that I have read in parts. Not bad. Not illicit-materials- smuggler calibre, but not bad.

The 12 Character Fanfic Meme: Austen Edition

2005-09-03T12:19:00.000+08:00

This had to be done. I had so much fun with the last opera version, I had to repeat the exercise, using characters written by my favourite author. That's right, Jane Austen. Nothing is sacred, after all. And there are TONNES of Austen fanfics, including numerous multi-novel crossovers.

Technicalities of this exercise:

I chose two characters, one male and one female, from each of Austen's six finished novels. So convenient that she wrote 6 novels and this meme needs 12 characters!
To avoid squicky incestuous pairings, I chose pairs of characters that are not related by blood. Not even first cousins, although Austen herself had no qualms about those (witness Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram).
No child characters, for obvious reasons. Imagine ending up with Margeret Dashwood/Mr Wodehouse. ** Mind needs to be sandpapered
No established couples that are married or engage in canon. That just makes things boring, no?
Minimal number of central characters. The supporting characters need their day in the fanfic sun. So, no Lizzie, Darcy, Knightley or Anne Elliot, even though they are my favourite characters in Austen canon.
I used Excel to randomly sort the characters into the order I am using for this exercise. I might have seen the questions before, but thanks to the random ordering, I have no idea what combinations will be thrown up.

The 12 Austen Characters:

1. Charlotte Lucas-Collines
2. James Dashwood
3. Henry Tilney
4. Mr Wodehouse
5. Jane Fairfax
6. Captain Benwick
7. Isabella Thorpe
8. Elizabeth Elliot
9. Lucy Steele
10. Tom Bertram
11. Mary Crawford
12. Mr Wickham

Here goes nothing!

Have you ever read a Six/Eleven (Benwick/Mary Crawford) fic? Do you want to?
No, can't say I have. Would I want to? Only if well-written. This is an unlikely pairing and their differences is great fodder for an imaginative writer. I can see how these two characters can fall for each other; she certain could be his type, at least. I think she might like his literary tastes, although not his tendency towards melancoly.

Do you think Four (Mr Wodehouse) is hot? How hot?
Errrrr, I really prefer NOT to think about Mr Wodehouse that way. I suppose he must have been quite attractive in his youth, to have produced Emma, who is by all accounts a young woman of pleasing countenance.

What would happen if Twelve (Mr Wickham) got Eight (Elizabeth Elliot) pregnant?
Hahaha. First off, I am so glad I didn't get a male pregnancy with this one. I can actually see these two having a steamy affair, and Elizabeth Elliot making sure that both kept a very tight lid on it. If Wickham got Miss Elliot pregnant, she would turn to Mrs Clay for a quickie abortion and probably not tell Wickham a thing.

Can you rec any fic(s) about Nine (Lucy Steele) ?
I have seen a few comedic pieces about Lucy Steele, but not read them myself. I guess she really is not on my fanfic radar.

Would Two (James Dashwood) and Six (Captain Benwick) make a good couple?
They would be temperamentally suited, but nothing much might ever get done because of their chronic passivity.

Five/Nine (Jane Fairfax/Lucy Steele) or Five/Ten (Jane Fairfax/Tom Bertram)? Why?
Jane Fairfax/ Tom Bertram. And not because this is a heterosexual pairing. Superficially, Tom Bertram bears some resemblance to Frank Churchill. Jane Fairfax likes her cads, I think. Lucy Steele is too lightweight and probably too silly for Jane On the other hand, I think Lucy Steele could like the Jane Fairfax "type" quite a lot, and both of them are great at keeping secrets, so who knows? For my money, though, Tom Bertram and his excesses are more Jane's cup of tea.

What would happen if Seven (Isabella Thorpe) walked in on Two (James Dashwood) and Twelve (Mr Wickham) having sex?
She'd plot to blackmail James Dashwood out of his fortune and spread vicious rumours about Wickham.

Make up a summary for a Three (Henry Tilney)/Ten (Tom Bertram) fic.
Two boys meet at Eton. Profligate Tom Bertram and charming Henry Tilney form a bond built on a shared ability to not take life too seriously. One weekend in the country, an encounter with a group of giggling girls send them running for cover ... and into each others' arms. (Hey, I am not a slasher by any means, but school-aged Henry and Tom engaging in a spot of experimentation is conceivable.)

Is there such a thing as One (Charlotte Lucas) /Eight (Elizabeth Elliot) fluff?
Well, this would make an interesting, and oddly plausible, femmeslash pairing, but not a fluffy one. Elizabeth Elliot is too sharp around the edges for fluff.

Suggest a title for a Seven (Isabella Thorpe)/Twelve (Mr Wickham) hurt/comfort fic.
"Relying on the Comfort of Hypocrites". I'd like to see this pairing happen; they are both so deliciously amoral.

What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted Four (Mr Wodehouse) to deflower One (Charlotte Lucas-Collins)?
** Choking ** Mr Wodehouse suffers from a rare ailment that can only be cured by his "taking" of a virgin (assuming that Charlotte hasn't married Mr Colllins yet).

Would anyone you know read Seven (Isabella Thorpe) slash?
I could think of people who might, yes.

Does anyone you know read Three (Henry Tilney) het?
Heh, a resounding yes. Much of the Republic of Pemberley would read Tilney het, I think. Even if the fic doesn't involve Catherine Moreland.

What might Ten (Tom Betram) scream at a moment of great passion?
"Oh, good Bertram!".

If you wrote a song-fic about Eight (Elizabeth Elliot), which song would you choose?
"My Way".

If you wrote a One /Six /Twelve (Charlotte Lucas / Captain Benwick / Mr Wickham) fic, what would the warnings be?
Threesome, slash, bondage (Charlotte/Wickham), suggested masochism (Benwick).

What might be a good pick-up line for Two (James Dashwood) to use on Ten (Tom Bertram)?
"Care to burn some money together?"

When was the last time you read a fic about Five (Jane Fairfax)?
About a year ago. It was a Jane/Frank missing moment fanfic about the circumstances behind their secret engagement.

What is Six's (Captain Benwick's) super-sekrit kink?
SM - the M part of it. I don't know why, but I get that vibe from him.

Would Eleven (Mr Wickham) shag Nine (Lucy Steele) ? Drunk or sober?
Hell, yes. And he wouldn't need to be drunk either. Neither would she, probably.

If Three (Henry Tilney) and Seven (Isabella Thorpe) get together, who tops?
Hahaha. A canon-possible pairing from Northanger Abbey. Isabella would like to imagine herself on top, but Henry would always get the upper hand on her.

One (Charlotte Lucas) and Nine (Lucy Steele) are in a happy relationship until Nine (Lucy Steele) suddenly runs off with Four (Mr Wodehouse). One (Charlotte Lucas) , broken-hearted, has a hot one-night stand with Eleven (Mary Crawford) and a brief unhappy affair with Twelve (Mr Wickham), then follows the wise advice of Five (Jane Fairfax) and finds true love with Three (Henry Tilney). What title would you give this fic?
"The Path to a Good Man is Paved with Hellish Encounters". I love how Charlotte has to get entangled with a bunch of Austen's most devious characters before ending up with her most likeable hero.

How would you feel if Seven (Isabella Thorpe)/Eight (Elizabeth Elliot) was canon?
Wow, Lisptick Lesbian Bitch Femmeslash heaven!

The 12 Character Fanfic Meme: Opera Edition

2005-08-30T18:58:00.000+08:00

There's a meme going around the Livejournal community, particularly the sizeble segment that read and write fanfiction. I found it in the Harry Potter community, but it probably has spread to the other large fandoms - Buffy, LoTR, Star Wars etc.

I thought I'd do something a little different and use characters from the world of opera. Yes, there is such a thing as opera fanfiction (I haven't read any yet, but I have seen it *shudders*).

The Meme:
First, write down the names of 12 characters. Then read and answer the questions.You can't look at the questions (or click on the cut) until you write down the 12 characters you're going to use.

My 12 characters from the world of opera (I have tried to spread it around a little, but ended up with two Pucinnian heroines. Perhaps I should drop Tosca for Aida? Naah, I like 'em wenches who murder for love).

1. Flora Tosca (Tosca)
2. Melisande (Pelleas et Melisande)
3. Siegfried (Wagner's Ring Cycle)
4. Porgy (Porgy and Bess)
5. The With (Hansel and Gretel)
6. Otello (Otello)
7. Lucia (Lucia di Lamermoor)
8. Turandot (Turandot)
9. Don Juan (Don Juan)
10. Oktavian (Der Rosenkavalier)
11. Cinderella (La Cerenatola)
12. Canio (Pagliacci)

Questions have been adapted. I don't maintain a friend list here, so those questions have been changed slightly. And opera fanfic isn't something I want to get my mind around, so I have dropped a couple of questions on who might read and write this stuff.

Have you ever read a Six/Eleven (Otello/Cinderella) fic? Do you want to?
Heh. Jealous general and innocent princess-to-be. It's not a stretch. Desdemona could well have been a Cinderella type before marrying Otello. Obviously, I haven't read any fic with this pairing, nor does it probably exist. But I could get behind this, if I am bored enough.

Do you think Four (Porgy) is hot? How hot?
When he sings "Bess, you is my woman now", he's hotter than Jude Law and Colin Firth put together. But that might have something to do with the drop-dead-gorgeous Gershwin music, rather than poor old Porgy himself.

What would happen if Twelve (Canio) got Eight (Turandot) pregnant?
"Off with the clown's head"!! I don't know if he could ever get close enough to her to get her pregnant, though.

Can you rec any fic(s) about Nine (Don Juan)?
Don Juan the opera character, no. Don Juan the literary character, probably a few. He's popular with the ladies, this one.

Would Two (Melisande) and Six (Otello) make a good couple?
Wow, I am getting het couplings so far (but probably spoke too soon! Watching out for disturbing slash to come, I am sure). Well, they both die at the end of their respective operas, and Melisande does have a vaguely Desdemona like vibe, so yes, I can see this couple happening.

Five/Nine (The Witch/Don Juan) or Five/Ten (The Witch/ Oktavian)? Why?
This is cracking me up. I am still managing to get het couplings, but only just. Oktavian, after all, is sung by a mezzo-soprano. Choice between Don Juan and Oktavian? Don Juan, hands down. Oktavian ain't man enough for The Witch!

What would happen if Seven (Lucia) walked in on Two (Melisande) and Twelve (Canio) having sex?
5 minutes of impassioned coloratura expressing shock and a dismayed realisation of being just the slightest bit intrigued. Melisande would be serene and inscrutable. Canio would be guilt-ridden. (Hahaha, still getting the het coupling!)

Make up a summary for a Three (Siegfried)/Ten (Oktavian) fic.
Siegfried finally gets squicked about having an affair with his own aunt and leaves a broken-hearted but brave Brunhilde. He travels the world (well, western Europe, I suppose) in search of his destiny. In Austria, he meets a newly-divorced Oktavian, whose ex-wife Sophie has left him when his voice refused to crack even after 5 years of marriage. Together, Siegfried and Oktavian nitpick the plotholes of their operatic past and form an unlikely alliance to preserve the right of composers to write lush scores requiring over-sized orchestras. (Hey, first slash couple, but like I said before, Oktavian is dodgy anyway).

Is there such a thing as One (Tosca)/Eight (Turandot) fluff?
Haha, femmeslash with my two Puccinian heroines!! Turandot and fluff? The mind cannot compute such a possibility.

Suggest a title for a Seven (Lucia)/Twelve (Canio) hurt/comfort fic.
Oh, this is practically "canon", isn't it? Or would be, if the two were in the same opera. I am not sure who would be comforting who more, since they are both great figura tragedia. I can hear the duet now - a violent clash of coloratura and anguished verismo. And the title? "Madness shared is madness doubled". Or maybe "Caterwauler and Clown: A Meditation on Crying, Craziness and Cluelessness." (Still with the het pairing!)

What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted Four (Porgy) to deflower One (Tosca)?
A good old fashioned courtship. Porgy, in my books, is essentially a good-hearted romantic, if a little inclined towards jealousy, as is Tosca. Heck, he just needs to sing "You is my woman now" and she'll fall into his arms (such a great, great, great operatic duet). (The het continues!)

Does anyone you know read Seven (Lucia) slash?
Is there such a thing as Lucia slash? Don't want to know, really. Who would you slash Lucia with? Don't want to know that either.

Does anyone you know read Three (Siegfried) het?
If there is Siegfried/Brunhilde het, yes, there are people who would probably read it, if they could get past the semi-incest angle.

What might Ten (Oktavian) scream at a moment of great passion?
"Marie Therese!" (well, that's the opening line of that wonderful trio in Der Rosenkavalier which builds rather orgasmically)

If you wrote a song-fic about Eight (Turandot), which song would you choose?
Well, I could cheat and say "In questa Reggia" which Turandot herself sings. For something a little more contemporary, "Fever". Or "I Can't Make You Love Me" - told from the Calaf's Point of View, of course.

If you wrote a One (Tosca)/Six (Otello)/Twelve (Canio) fic, what would the warnings be?
Murder, suicide, extreme morbidity, all major characters dead by end of story. Boy, this is what you get when you put three Italian operas together! (As threesomes go, this isn't a bad combination!)

What might be a good pick-up line for Two (Melisande) to use on Ten (Oktavian)? "What's your Symbolism?" Really, I can't imagine Melisande using a pick-up line on anyone, not even Pelleas! Oktavian might try something on Melisande, though. (Het-ing on!)

When was the last time you read a fic about Five (The Witch)?
Well, not ever, really.

What is Six (Otello)'s super-sekrit kink?
Bondage with hankies!

Would Eleven (Cinderella) shag Nine (Don Juan)? Drunk or sober?
Yes! Drunk AND sober. He's Don Juan, after all. I think that Cinderella could be quite the lusty wench. Nobody pulls of her coloratura fireworks without having a bit of fire in her. (Oooh, the het pairings continue ... what did I do right, or wrong?)

If Three (Siegfried) and Seven (Lucia) get together, who tops?
Lucia. Siegfried is too naive for tops. (And onward het couplings!)

One (Tosca) and Nine (Don Juan) are in a happy relationship until Nine (Don Juan) suddenly runs off with Four (Porgy). One (Tosca), broken-hearted, has a hot one-night stand with Eleven (Cinderella) and a brief unhappy affair with Twelve (Canio), then follows the wise advice of Five (The Witch) and finds true love with Three (Siegfried). What title would you give this fic?
Hehehe, I LOVE this. I would title this "The Fairy Tale of Flora Tosca: How I dated a slut but learnt to love a virgin". (Starts and ends with a het pairing!).

How would you feel if Seven (Lucia)/Eight (Turandot) was canon?
Okay, for this to be "canon" someone would need to write an opera pairing Lucia with Turandot. Nothing off-putting about this combination, but they are an extremely unlikely pair. Over the top Lucia and ice queen Turandot. I think I might actually find it rather boring! Now, Lucia/Tosca would have been more like it! (Okay, it ends on a femmeslash note!)

Recently Read: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2005-08-14T22:42:00.000+08:00

This is not a proper review, just a series of thoughts.

My HP readership history:

I saw the first two HP movies before reading any of the books. The movies did not particularly entice me to read the books, as they were entertaining but ultimately did not really convey enough wonder and magic. And okay, here's my snob's confession: I did not really see myself finding much enjoyment from reading what were essentially children's books. Not that I have anything against children's literature at all. In fact, one of my favourite books last year was Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time". My impression at the time was that the HP books were aimed at very young readers aged below 10. More Enid Blyton than Robert Louis Stevenson, as it were. The book covers did not help correct this mistake impression, neither did the first two movies.

When Order of the Phoenix came out two years ago, I came around to realising that JK Rowling probably did not write a 800 page book for readers aged below 10. Then I found out that my brother had read all the books and had also purchased OotP. I considered reading OotP, but was told that it wouldn't make much sense if I only knew the HP world through the first two movies. To appreciate OotP, I would basically need to read PoA and GoF, relying on the movies to fill in for the first two books. It all just seemed so much effort at the time and I had as always, at least 20 other books on my planned reading list.

One day last year, I was feeling slightly under the weather and not up to reading anything too heavy. My brother had left his much read copy of Prisoner of Azkaban in the living room (it's usually in his car as his stand-by reading material while waiting for people or stuck in traffic - he had told me that it was the best book in the series and the one that most repays rereading). I had just seen Chamber of Secrets on HBO a few nights earlier (I think this was around the period before the movie PoA was to be released). More on a whim than anything else, Prisoner of Azkaban became the first HP book I read and remains my favourite in the series (but more on that later). I was instantly hooked. I went through the other books in about a week, including the mammoth Order of the Phoenix and the only slightly less mammoth Goblet of Fire.

Thoughts on the JK Rowling:

JK Rowling is not a great writer, in the sense that you could not label her a modern-day Austen or Faulkner. Amongst contemporary authors, she lacks the edge of genius that elevates the likes of Beryl Bainbridge and Salman Rushdie to greatness. I certainly do not think that she suffers in comparison because she writes children's literature. LM Montgomery, Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis and Louisa May Alcott are all great writers of children's literature. JK Rowling is not a great writer because she lacks the deft use of language of these authors and their innate sense of how to structure and pace their work. That said, Rowling is a great story-teller, with a gift for imaginative flights of fancies and inventive plots. Her richly detailed Potterverse is testament to her talents.

Thoughts on the HP Series as a whole:

The books are wonderfully imaginative, and full of the wonder of magic. To me, they are far superior to the movies, that have been able to show us much because of the "magic" of visual effects but have left us little of the magic of our imagination.

I think the reason that JK Rowling has struck a chord with adult readers is that magic aside, the books are rich in characterisation. Harry Potter himself is a wonderful creation. As the books are told from his point of view, his is the most developed of the characters. I liked the fact that Rowling has written Harry as a very ordinary boy, who happened to have a significant destiny. Unlike his father, Harry is not a brilliant student, although he is a great Quidditch player,the one skill that Rowling gives him that distinguishes Harry from other students. To me, Harry is the Everyman hero, he is not obviously extraordinary but will save the world because of his courage, loyalty and sense of friendship.

Rowling has surrounded Harry with a colourful collection of loyal friends, schoolmates, professors and various members of the wizarding community. True to the dictates of children's literature, they are drawn economically but with enough detail that for the most part, they are never just plot devices and appear to have real personalities.

I have found it fascinating how the books have matured as their readers grew up. In the first two books, the characters were drawn in broad strokes, particularly the Muggle family of the Dursleys. Dudley and Uncle Vernon seemed less like characters than caricatures. I think this handicapped JKR in later books, as she was stuck with cartoon-like character attributes that were so extreme that it was difficult to soften them.

In PoA, we had Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, two complex grown-up characters. We learnt a little about Snape's past interaction with Harry's father, casting new light on this most interesting of the Slytherin characters. In GoF, we met Rita Skeeter and various unsavoury politico-types from the Ministry of Magic. We learnt of Hagrid's half-breed origin, lending a real gravity to this gentle giant. Somebody died in GoF (in an excellently written scene), and a even more devastating death came in OotP. From PoA onwards, Harry's world became darker and his struggles more difficult. While the first two books had Harry and friends triumphant against Voldemort, books 4 and 5 set us up for the return of the Dark Lord to power. By the end of OotP, the wizarding world was at war.

My favourite book in the series is PoA, by a mile. Tightly plotted and a real page turner, it has the happy position of being the "middle book", more mature in tone than the first two books and less gloomy and dark than the books that followed. PoA ends on a triumphant note as Harry and Hermione manage to save Sirius Black. And yet there is a sadness underlying the triump, as Sirius is on the run and Remus Lupin has lost his job after Snape reveals his werewolf background. The book foreshadows the coming darkness but is itself a good balance of despair and hope.

Harry in PoA is also "between" phases. He is no longer a child, and not quite yet the difficult teenager that he will become in GoF and OotP. He is genuinely sympathetic and likeable, as are Ron and Hermione. I particularly liked Hermione's character development in this book, she was as loyal a friend as Harry could ever hope to have.

In PoA, there is plenty of plot development that happens not only because of events, but because of characterisation. We get a glimpse into the past, when Harry's parents were at Hogwarts and are introduced the the quartet of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. We find out about who did what the night that Harry's parents died and how more than one life had since been wrecked.

PoA also introduced my favourite HP character, Remus Lupin. He is amongst Rowling's finest creations - a genuinely good man, a wonderful teacher and a werewolf. Rowling drops phrases that economically describe the difficulties that Lupin has faced - shunned all his adult life, difficulty finding employment, his ill and prematurely aged appearance - and we appreciate anew how much more admirable it is that he has remained kind and likeable, and a good teacher.

Thoughts on Half Blood Prince:

This was a very enjoyable read, especially after the relentless darkness and angst of OotP. There is a war raging on in the background, but the tone of the book is considerably lighter. While Sirius' death at the end of OotP seemed to plunge Harry (and the reader) into even deeper levels of depression, the death in this book, and the aftermath, was genuinely moving. The last chapters pack a real emotional wallop and the book ends on just the right bitter-sweet note. What I liked best is that Harry had grown up and matured since the last book and is much less of a pain in the neck in this book. This makes a big difference to my enjoyment of the book as much of it is told from Harry's perspective.

Apart from the death of a major and beloved character, not a lot actually happens in HBP. Much of it seems to be Rowling setting up for the grand finale in book 7. Even the title of the book - Half Blood Prince - did not seem to have a clear connection to the story-line (mainly because there really was not much of a main plot), unlike in the previous books. I can only assume that it will become important in Book 7 that we know about the Half Blood Prince, because otherwise, there isn't much that is that edifying about the fact that Harry did rather well at Potions for one year.

We learnt a lot about Voldermorth/Tom Riddle's past, in a series of Pensieve episodes. I greatly enjoyed these, although they were not really moving any plot forward and were more expositionary than anything else. It was good to have a change of pace, to learn something about the history of Harry's nemesis. On the face of it, these passages appear to suggest that Rowling had chosen a rather meandering way to tell us about the Horcruxes and that Tom Riddle likes Hogwart alot. But I have no doubt that these memories will become vital to the events of book 7.

Much of the book was also Rowling's dropping of hints and red herrings, particularly about Snape and Draco Malfoy. And yes, also about Dumbledore. She has truly mastered the art of diversion and misdirection in her writing, using Harry's POV narrative to great effect. I think that perhaps Rowling's true calling is as a writer of mysteries or detective stories.

The main event is of course Snape's apparent murder of Dumbledore. I haven't a definitive stance on the great "Is Snape Evil?" debate. I think Rowling has been very deliberate in not revealing anything that will tip the argument conclusively one way or the other. For every clue that she drops in favour of one side of the debate (eg. Snape stops the other Death Eaters from killing Harry), she drops a hint for the other (eg. Snape's expression of loathing before he kills Dumbledore). I am inclined to think that it cannot be as cut and dry as Harry seems to think - that Snape has to be a Death Eater that has re-pledged his alliance to Voldemort. Snape has been written with great ambiguity - truly unlikeable but seemingly redeemed by Dumbledore's faith in him, although essentially still a mean-spirited person who cannot let go of his hatred of James Potter. His motivations , whatever they are revealed to be, should hopefully be just as complex as his character has been written to be so far.

I do believe that DD is well and truly dead, although the folks at Dumbledoreisnotdead.com make a few pretty convincing arguments. Rowling has gone on record saying that she has written HP in the tradition of other literature where the hero's journey is one that he ultimately makes on his own. Dumbledore's death,sad as it is, has a purpose in this grand scheme.

This is also the "shipping" book. Befitting a bunch of 16 and 17 year-olds, hormones are on the loose and relationships are formed and broken-off. I keep out of the HP fandom by and large, but I know about the rabid shipping communities, in particular the Ron/Hermione and Harry/Hermione camps. With this book, Rowling settles the issue - Ron and Hermione will happen in Book 7 and Harry likes Ginny Weasley - although the Ron/Hermione development has been rather obvious to me since GoF, and even in PoA. The Harry/Ginny dynamic was set in motion during CoS, and her active role in OotP was a giveaway that she would be Harry's object of affection. All the passages on 'snogging' were rather fun, although Rowling isn't quite as deft with teenaged romance as she is with the fantasy elements. What she did manage to convey was the sheer turbulence of emotion that these teenagers experience.

In a nod towards the maturity of its protagonist, this book reveals adult relationships that a younger Harry might have paid less attention to. The pairing of Lupin and Tonks was a nice touch by Rowling. The revelation of this relationship at the end didn't take me by surprise, because she had dropped clues liberally throughout the book. I had also thought that OotP established a comfortable camaraderie between the two characters and a step up towards a romantic relationship was not unexpected. Rowling hints at the complexities of the emotions on both sides, contrasting this more adult relationship (which will carry baggage, not least of which is Lupin's lycanthropy) with Harry's less complicated relationship with Ginny. Perhaps these relationships, together with Bill Weasley and his fiance Fleur, are meant to illustrate the power that Voldermort knows not - the ability to love. Even Draco Malfoy's seeming redemption at the end appears to be motivated by love for his family (In my books, this is a very slight redemption, if it is as such. Draco Malfoy might love his mother and be a 16-year-old caught in over his head, but he is a thoroughly spoilt, sadistic brat and a racial supremacist to boot. It will take a lot more than losing his resolve to kill Dumbledore to render him completely sympathetic.)

It was a bonus to learn about Lupin's mission with the werewolves and his history with Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who bit him as a child. Greyback is as malevolent a creature as Rowling has ever written, as evil and repellent as even Voldemort himself. I hope that Greyback will appear again in Book 7. It would seem strange to introduce him only for one book, when the werewolf sub-plot holds such promise.

The big plot points that will carry to book 7 are the Horcruxes and the identity of R.A.B. I fully expect R.A.B to be Regullus Black, so we can revisit scenes from the first Wizarding War, possibly exploring in depth the dynamics of the Black family, not only Sirius and Regullus, but their Death Eater cousins Narcissus Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. These scenes from the past would also perhaps lead to a resolution of Snape's motivations, his relationship with Voldemort, Dumbledore and James Potter.

The Horcruxes are an interesting invention, and will set things up well for a treasure-hunt like plotline. I imagine that even while Harry has decided not to return to Hogswart, the search for the Horcruxes will lead him back to his beloved school. My suspicion is that there is a Horcrux connected to an object owned by Gryffindor, and that object will be found at Hogswart. It might even perhaps be something that has been innocuously mentioned in previous books, or even something that had been close at hand to Harry throughout his years at Gryffindor Tower. (Oh, here's an idea: the Sorting Hat is a Horcrux! Heh, wouldn't that be interesting.) I don't plan to go back and comb all the previous books for additional clues, but I think the Internet HP sleuth community should already be on the job.

In summary, Half Blood Prince is clearly a "bridge" book, rather like the Two Towers was a bridge in the LOTR series. It is exposition heavy and leaves a million loose ends to be tied up. It lacks its own central plot, because it mainly functions to drive the series forward to its conclusion in the final book. Because of that, there is a sense of incompletion at the end of HBP, rather like having read the first half of a novel that has had the rest of its pages torn out (that's what I meant by JKR lacking a great writer's skills with pacing and structure). That said, I think this is the best HP book after PoA. Not a lot happens, but we learnt something new about important characters, especially Voldemort, Snape (well, we got more ambiguity, but heaps of clues to ponder over for two years) and Harry himself. The expositions will reward rereading as we try to find the real clues and tie them together. Finally, HBP makes us feel as well as think. It is the first HP book that succeeds in being emotive without accompanying overwrought drama that cause the more cynical to roll their eyes a little (Harry's all-caps and exclamation-pointed shouting in OotP being a prime example). Rowling honours Dumbledore with a movingly written funeral chapter. Almost as moving was the gesture of friendship extended by Ron and Hermione to Harry in the final two pages. It reminds us that in the final analysis, the true magic that Harry found at Hogwarts was loyalty and friendship.

The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (Recently Seen: Revenge of the Sith)

2005-07-28T12:43:00.000+08:00

I am in the midst of reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and just watched RotS. Interesting parallels to be drawn between these two, especially the emphasis on the protagonists' status as "The Chosen One". And the death of a much beloved character in Half Blood Prince mirrors the "death" of Obi Wan Kenobi in the first Star Wars movie (now called Star Wars IV: A New Hope, but which will always just be Star Wars to me).

I hope that RotS is the last movie that George Lucas plans to make on the Star Wars saga. I did not dislike this movie, but the entire "prequels" trilogy has been a disappointment. The first two misconceived prequels damaged the franchise and robbed the Star Wars mythology of some its magic. For those of us who watched Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Jedi as children and young adults, this is unforgiveable.

In keeping with my previous posts on the Matrix and Lord of the Rings trilogies, I will dredge up painful memories of the first two prequels. I saw both movies only once each, and had no desire to see either again.

Ep 1: The Phantom Menace.
AKA The One with the Non-Acting Moppet
This was okay, passably entertaining summer-movie fare. The action sequences were exciting and made for a thrilling experience when watched in a super large-screen cineplex. I rather liked the pod race with little Anakin Skywalker. Seeing young Obi Wan, Yoda and the Order of the Jedi was also rather cool. On the minus side, Jake Lloyd, the child actor who played Anakin, was cute but an unconvincing actor. He was no doubt hampered by George Lucas's famous preference for CGI characters over human performers. This was also the movie that inflicted Jar Jar Binks on the world, so I am compelled to hate it on principle.

Ep 2: Attack of the Clones
AKA The One with the Non-Acting Pin-Up Boy
This movie should have been subtitled The Annoying Adolocence of the Chosen One. It was downright painful and cringe-inducing. The effects were better than ever and the movie looked great, but the action sequences seemed to drag. When the action scenes are not going well in a Star Wars movie, you know you are in deep trouble because the talking scenes are not going to save the show. My goodness, the screenplay was simply atrocious. Each time Anakin or Padme were given lines to say, my eyes got a rigourous rolling workout. The whole story line about the clone army was also boring - surely Lucas could have found a more interesting narrative device to tell his story about Dooku and the Dark Side. And the entire Harlequin-tinted romance between Padme and Skywalker took up far too much screentime. The scenes showing the "development" of their relationship were overwrought and yet managed to leave me completely cold. And as for the actor who inherited the role of Anakin Skywalker, the good news was that Hayden Christensen is a strapping and fine-looking young fellow. The not so good news was that his acting was unbearably bad. To give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he just could not rise above the awful dialogue. Although, it has to be said that most of the other actors had equally bad dialogue and did manage to come across better.

And now, onto Ep 3: Revenge of the Sith, AKA The One where Things Improved.

Judged by the standards of the preceding movies, this is a masterpiece. It's certainly the best of the three prequels, and in some ways, a better movie than the rather cheesy Return of the Jedi (but it lacks the charm and satisfying closure of RotJ). On its own merits, this is a very flawed movie, but nevertheless a thoroughly respectable addition to the Star Wars canon.

Because there were more things I liked than disliked, let me get the negative points out of the way.

The screenplay has more than its fair share of clunkers. George Lucas cannot write a love scene to save his life, as evidenced by these gems:

Anakin: You are so ... (huge, awkward pause) ... beautiful.
Padme: It's only because I am so in love.
Anakin: No, it's because I am so in love with you.
Padme: So, love has blinded you?

Padme: Hold me, like you did by the lake at Naboo, so long ago, when there was nothing but our love.

As some might say, OY! Kudos to the actors for not falling about laughing. Poor Natalie Portman - that "Hold me, like you did ..." line is just excruciating, like something from a parody of bad Gothic romance novels.

Apart from the love scenes, bad writing abounds. Obi-Wan's speeches, Palpatine's lines when he seduces Anakin to the dark side, even the expositional exchanges between members of the Jedi Council; all could have done with some tighter editing.
I am sorry, but Hayden Christensen is almost as bad here as he was in Ep 2. It is especially frustrating because he plays Darth Vader, iconic evil bad guy whose name alone is supposed to strike fear in every heart. As played by Christensen, the guy is petulant and a bit of a love-lorn wimp; it's difficult to imagine being terrified of this Darth Vader. Even at the height of his madness and fury, he seemed little more than a teenager that didn't get his own way.
I don't know if these were intended, but the allusions to Bush's decisions on Iraq and the corruption that comes with absolute power were extremely heavy handed. Yes, a movie can have topical relevance and a movie can be a cutting commentary on the norms and mores of our times. But not this movie. The screenplay is nowhere clever enough to be taken that seriously.
Either because of the screenplay or the direction (or both), Anakin's motive for joining the Dark Side is rather muddled. I think that Lucas was trying to say that Anakin was first attracted to Palpatine's offer because of the promise that he could save Padme from foreseen death. It was later that he began to crave power in and of itself because of his disillusionment and frustrations with the Jedi. If this was Lucas's intention, it was never communicated clearly enough (or perhaps, acted well enough) such that we understand and feel the full impact of Anakin's journey into darkness.

I found this annoying because the overwhelming impression I got was that Anakin did it primarily to save Padme. I suppose this is not implausible, but to hinge the creation of Darth Vader on this makes a mockery of the greatest villain in pop culture. The big bad man killed all those people, including innocent kids (albeit kids in Jedi training), all to keep his one true love alive. Excuse me while I gag. If this was true, and if Padme had survived, she would have divorced his lame ass faster than you can say "Naboo".

For the story to have true gravitas, Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader should be underpinned by his attraction to his own darker side; his own weakness for power and power's promise of invincibility. Oh well, that is the story I have in my mind, and I think it is also the story that Lucas was trying to tell. It's just too bad that it didn't quite come out that way.
General Grievous is George Lucas's latest CGI wet-dream. A blah and uninteresting character, despite all the CGI wizardry, this was a character we could have done without. He seemed to have been included so that Lucas could film another light sabre duel.
Darth Vader's cry of "NOOOO!" when he learned that Padme has died was laughable, mainly because it took so long to get out. After Palpatine told him that she was dead, Darth Vader seemed to just lumber around aimlessly for quite a long while, before letting out that wail. I suppose he could have been emoting, coming to grasp with the horrible revelation, but when the actor is in a mask, we cannot see what he is doing. I thought he was just coming to grips with his new metal encased body, because the whole sequence suggested a physical rather than emotional struggle.

Unlike the first two movies, the good stuff makes up for the bad. What I particularly liked about this movie that the Star Wars universe now looks like the one we first encountered in 1978. The costumes and hairstyles are especially well chosen, with special mention to Padme's breadroll hair that appropriately acknowledges Carrie Fisher's famous Leia 'do. The design for the Imperial Army's uniform and the space crafts and the look of the droid units are also spot-on.

As in all Lucas films, the set designs are dazzling and the look of the movie breath-taking. As Anakin and Obi Wan fly through intergalactic space in the first sequence, you have to admire the details on large spaceships, small crafts, distant planets and various bits of flying and floating objects.

Any Star Wars film must first and foremost be an entertaining summer movie and RotS fares well in this department. The action sequences (including many light sabre duels) are well staged and everything moves along at a snappy pace. The rescue of Palpatine, which opens the movie, harkens back to the tongue-in-cheek campiness of the original trilogy. It's all great fun and reassures the viewer that whatever else might happen, this is an entertaining movie.

Lucas spent the entire wretched Ep 2 on showing the Padme-Anakin relationship, but the true love story in the prequels is the bond between Obi Wan and Anakin. This is the relationship that will have the greatest repercussions in the future that takes place in the original trilogy. Obi Wan's sacrifice of his life in Star Wars is even more poignant in light of the events of RotS. The first part of the movie establishes the brotherly camaraderie between Anakin and Obi Wan and the easy banter between them is reminiscent of Redford and Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The buddy movie touch was a nice one and worked far better in establishing the tone of this relationship than all the romantic scenes did in establishing the Padme-Anakin relationship. As the movie progressed, we see that Obi Wan was genuinely concerned for Anakin and devastated when he learned of Anakin's brutal acts of murder. Anakin's side of the story is not so clear, again, because he's generally portrayed as a temperamental teenager.

Obi Wan emerged as the true hero of this film, and maybe even of the entire prequel trilogy. He had been a bit of a wet noodle previously, a little more so in Phantom Menace and less so in Attack of the Clones, but in Sith, he was classically heroic. More so than almost anyone else, he was betrayed by Anakin, yet could not bring himself to kill him. He was not as skilled as Anakin, but took him on and defeated him. Ewan McGregor gets first billing, and rightly so. He has the true leading role, and does it justice. (I had thought that McGregor seemed somewhat uninvolved in the first two movies, where the problem mostly laid with the under-written Obi Wan character.) In the buddy movie sequences, he displayed a cheeky sense of mischief which is his great gift as an actor. As the tone of the movie got darker, Obi Wan Kenobi was saddled with much speechifying, and McGregor did his best with clumsily written lines. His great accomplishment is that he succeeded in sounding like Alec Guinness. I could see how this Obi Wan will age graciously into the much-loved Ben Kenobi of Star Wars.

Apart from Christensen, most of the actors acquit themselves well. Ian McDiarmid is a standout as Palpatine. This was an over the top portrayal with much hamming going on, but with the lines he had to say, this was a brilliant approach to the role. He dropped the hamminess when the scene called for it and there was a genuine menace about his Palpatine. Even while he played off a rather stiff Christensen, McDiarmid was dynamic. Natalie Portman had to deal with corny lines and bad hair, and while this was not great acting, it was at least better acting than her screen husband managed. She even managed to inject deep anguish into the line "Anni, you are breaking my heart" (which Lucas wrote in such a "literal" manner). In smaller roles, Frank Oz (as the voice of Yoda), Jimmy Smits and Samuel L. Jackson provided reliable support.

This is an emotional movie, telling the tragic tale of a man's descent into darkness as he yields to the temptation of power. Notwithstanding the muddled motives (see above), Lucas handled this with the right dramatic touch, and resisted the temptation to relegate the emotions to second place behind the razzle-dazzle of special effects. Even as Obi Wan Kenobi fought Anakin in the final light sabre duel, the underlying emotions of betrayal, disappointment and resentment took pride of place over choreographed moves and the background CGI. I particularly liked how Lucas handled the pivotal moment when Obi Wan disarms (yeah, bad pun) Anakin. In that one second, we finally learned the background behind the powerful visual image we have always had of Darth Vader, in dark helmet and suit. Also in that one second, we begin to more deeply understand the words that the older Ben Kenobi spoke to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, and the dying words of Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. Lucas could have indulged in excruciating slow motion (ala John Woo!) to underline the importance of this one second, but he resisted it. The moment is all the more powerful for its brevity and its suddenness (it did come from nowhere and I found myself thinking, "Holy S***! Did Obi Wan just kick Anakin's ass?").

After all the fighting is done, Lucas takes time to tell us the backstory to the separation of Luke and Leia and to set up the events in the first Star Wars movie. These scenes are filled with great pathos. We also learn how Yoda and Obi Wan ended up in their separate planets in the future. Lucas also explained how Obi Wan was able to come back to communicate with Luke, after seeming to die at Darth Vader's hand in Star Wars. I appreciated these touches, as Lucas is acknowledging the devotion of fans who had grown up with these movies.

When I watch the original trilogy again, any scenes with Luke interacting with Yoda and Obi Wan will take on greater significance. This, then, is the ultimate endorsement for RotS. I don't think it's quite great enough for me to forgive the first two prequels, but it's good enough to stand on its own without the baggage of those two films.

Recently Seen: The Aviator

2005-07-21T01:54:00.000+08:00

Martin Scorcese is a master of the language of film. He understands the possibilities of cinema and brings this faith in the medium to every film that he makes. This does not always result in great movies, but a Martin Scorcese movie will always be authentic and innovative.

The Aviator is not a great Scorcese film, but it is a perfectly fine one. It tells the tale of Howard Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), one of the great originals of 20th Century America. Hughes was one of the richest men in the world. He led an eventful life, finding success in the glitzy world of film-making and blazing a path in the early days of commercial and military aviation. This dual career was dazzling and all the more amazing because Hughes was obsessive about both pursuits, although flying was always his most enduring love (hence The Aviator, and not The Producer). Hughes was also to die a recluse, having been mentally ill for years.

The movie traces Hughes's life in the 1920's up to 1946, ending with a triumphant maiden flight for the Hercules, his flying boat that had seemed earth-bound and been laughingly called the Spruce Goose. But this is not a feel-good biopic. Early on, we learn that Hughes sees things that others do not and his OCD driven tics are also revealed gradually but surely. We know that this is not just an eccentric millionaire genius, but a mentally troubled man, driven by demons he could not understand,

Perhaps the reason why this is not a great film is that we do not understand these demons either. We do not really understand Hughes and as such, we cannot empathise with him, although we may sympathise and even root for him. I suppose this could be a problem that was not within the film-makers' powers to resolve. In choosing Hughes as a subject, they had to work with a character about whose inner motivations little was known.

What they did have was a man who lived a colourful life, who did many interesting things and knew many interesting people. The film is about these events in Hughes's life and about Hughes's relationships with the people he knew. As these are enacted, Scorcese weaves in scenes to show us Hughes's mental decline, some of which are masterful film-making (I particularly liked the scene in the men's washroom when Hughes scrubs his hands and uses up all the towels and then finds himself unable to place his bare hand on the doorknob). There are also several well produced aviation set pieces, including one where Hughes crashes into a house and burns three quarters of his body. The music is wonderful, drawing on popular songs from the period, with very clever jazzy, big-band sounds serving as background music to several scenes. Visually, this is also a marvelous looking film and as always with a Scorcese picture, the attention to period detail is fantastic.

The movie depicts the events very well, but is less successful in depicting the relationships. Because the movie is so centred around Hughes, we do not learn much about the people around him or what they might have thought of him. The movie shows his relationship with two very famous women, Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). Hepburn, in particular is featured prominently but always in relation to Hughes. The male characters fare rather better. We know without equivocation what rival airline owner, Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) thinks of Hughes and the spikiness of their relationship is obvious from the moment Trippe first shows up on screen. Senator Ralph Owen Brewster (Alan Alda) launches an investigation in Hughes's dealings with the US Military. The interaction between Hughes and the Senator is the highlight of the movie for me. I wonder why it was that the characterisations of the women in his life could not be so balanced and well-fleshed out.

The acting has many hits but also a few misses. Leonardo Dicaprio is an intelligent actor who immerses himself in this role. He has several wonderful scenes and was especially convincing as a man in the grip of destructive phobia. However, as a whole, the performance is more admirable than laudatory. Perhaps it has to do with Dicaprio's ridiculously youthful appearance, which no amount of dishevelledness could cover. He just seemed rather light-weight in moments which called for greater gravity. That said, he has to carry the show as he is in almost all the scenes and he more than pulled his weight on this difficult project.

Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for her supporting role as Kate Hepburn. She perfectly reproduces Hepburn's singular speech patterns, physical traits and archness. It is something of a marvel to watch and listen to, because she did look and sound so much like Hepburn in her earlier movies (sidenote: In this period of Hepburn's life, she made Bringing Up Baby, which is a great, funny film). I understand why some critics had said that this was impersonation and mimicry, rather than acting. But I blame this on the role, which gives Blanchett little to work with. She is on screen a lot, but usually as a cipher for Hughes's latest display of eccentricity. I have read a couple of biographies on Kate Hepburn and she was a fascinating woman, not just a great actress but fiercely intelligent and independent. Her family background itself could make for a mini-series, with her parent's socialist leanings, her siblings' overachievements and her mother's activism in the suffragette movement. It is a pity that the movie could not give Blanchett a chance to play a more multi-faceted Hepburn. Taken on the terms of what she had to do, this was a very fine performance indeed.

Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner, on the other hand, was bland and did not register much. She looked gorgeous, but not at all like Ava Gardner who was sensuous and beautiful in a very unconventional manner, with her slanting cat eyes and full lips. Beckinsale is a much more mainstream beauty, so this was a visual mismatch.

Alan Alda was nominated for an Oscar and it was justified, in my opinion. His performance is very understated and edged with a guarded wariness. He does not have any big histrionic scene, but he makes an impact in all the scenes he appears in. His jousting with Dicaprio during the hearing is a highlight of the movie. Alda palpaby conveys the Senator's deflation and crumbling confidence as he senses the tide turning towards Hughes.

My favourite of the supporting roles is Hughes's long suffering assistant, Noah played very well by John C Reilly. I wished he had been given a few more scenes as Reilly made this beleagured man so sympathetic and likeable.

This is a very respectable movie indeed, with fine acting, great production values and Scorcese's trademark sure-handed direction. The technique and technicalities are superb, and while the artistry is not at the same high levels, this is fine film-making. The movie falls short of greatness but is a valuable addition to the film vaults.

Movie rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Recently Seen: Being Julia

2005-07-17T21:50:00.000+08:00

Set in pre-war London, this movie enacts the tale of Julia Lambert (Annette Benning), a great actress approaching a difficult age. She is surrounded by an entourage of characters including her husband and manager (Jeremy Irons), the ghost of her her mentor (the great Michael Gambon), dresser (Juliet Stevenson), gay admirer (Bruce Greenwood) and patron-business partner (Miriam Margoyles). They are both enablers and detractors of her neediness, her ego and her melodramatic sense of self. She is acting every minute of her life, but as her son points out, she isn't just playing one character. She does not always know herself what "being" Julia means.

The movie has two distinct parts. In the first, Julia begins an affair with a young American, Tom (Shaun Evans). Playing yet another part, she convinces herself that she is in love with him and her inner glow enhances her stage performances. She supports him financially and brings him to her family's summer home, where she watches him as he favours the company of young people his age, including her son. He eventually strays to a young promising actress, Avice Crichton (Lucy Punch) and ends their affair.

In the second part of the movie, Tom convinces Julia to help Avice obtain a supporting part in a new play that Julia will star in. Avice gets the part and it is revealed to Julia that Avice is dallying with her husband, who is directing the play. Even before the play opens, Avice is much lauded and London is abuzz about this new star. We get into All About Eve territory, as Julia fights to keep her turf as London's pre-eminent actress. This culminates with Julia hijacking Avice's big scene on opening night, wearing an unplanned eye-catching gown, ad-libbing her lines, throwing counter-punches as Avice attempts to engineer the scene back to her own advantage. Julia emerges the undoubted star of the play as her entire entourage watches in admiration.

This movie is a slight, frothy affair. It is a comedy which is charming rather than amusing. There really is not much of a coherent plot and other than Julia, none of the characters are sufficiently developed enough for us to care about. The first part of the movie drags and the pace is generally just too leisurely. On the plus side, it has pretty period London scenes and a tuneful soundtrack of songs from the era.

This movie would be completely inconsequential if not for a great central performance by Annette Benning. She is tremendous in this role, dominating the screen every time she is on it. You find yourself becoming very fond of Julia despite her egoism and her ocassional bitchiness, because Benning infuses her portrayal with an always present humanity and compassion. Even when Julia is being difficult, Benning makes you care and remember Julia's generosity of spirit. Her playing of the ad-libbed opening night scene is masterful in the steeliness of her resolve and the mischief that steals through in the twinkle in her eyes. This is a great actress playing a great actress.

Movie rating : 5 out of 10 (discounting Annette Benning); 6.5 out of 10 (accounting for Annette Benning)

Recently Seen: The Machurian Candidate

2005-07-17T20:02:00.000+08:00

Films about paranoia are hard to pull off. It requires a deft touch to sustain tension and reveal the truth in tantalising bits and pieces. The Jonathan Demme directed version of The Manchurian Candidate succeeds, although perhaps without the same impact as the original 1960's version. The story has been updated to make Raymond Shaw (Liv Schrieber) a candidate for US Vice President instead of a political assassin, as in the original movie. This new conceit works in the current US political climate, especially if you subscribe to Michael Moore's view of the unholy link between big business and the Bush administration. What it gains in relevancy, however, it loses in urgency because lifes are not as immediately at stake.

Nevertheless, I found this movie enjoyable. The screenplay is intelligent, with a notable absence of cringe-inducing lines. I particularly enjoyed the language used in the political convention, campaign speeches and the conversations involving the politicos. Jonathan Demme also kept proceedings moving at a snappy pace, so our attention never flags.

The performances are also uniformly excellent. Denzel Washington is one of the most reliable actors around, always able to believably inhabit any role. He particularly specialises in the noble Everyman, and the role of Ben Marco provides him with another chance to portray a damaged, confused and angry man, who is never anything less than a good at his core. Liv Schreiber is a scene stealer; the Raymond Shaw character is complex and calls for a duality - charming politician and conflicted introvert - which Schrieber manages with great subtlety. Schreiber has always been known for his serious acting chops, but I have only previuosly seen him in supporting roles in Scream and Kate & Leopold, and was not prepared for such a fine, nuanced performance. His performance made his sacrifice of his own life in the penultimate scene all the more touching. Meryl Streep plays Raymond's formidable mother, Senator Eleanor Shaw. She is as one usually expects Meryl Streep to be - exceptionally good. She can shift from cut-throat intensity to tenderness so gracefully, you almost cannot believe it while watching it.

All in, this is highly watchable, although perhaps less thought-provoking than it could have been. It would have been great if a movie could have caused us to really question the control that corporations have over polticians and government officials. But perhaps a movie like that would not have been half as entertaining as this movie is. It succeeds in keeping us interested for the duration of its running time, and perhaps to ask for more is being unreasonable.

Movie rating: 7 out of 10. Solid, enjoyable entertainment with great acting.

Recently Seen: Phantom of the Opera (the movie)

2005-07-04T23:32:00.000+08:00

Obligatory Musical Theatre Nut Confession
As I have recounted elsewhere on Ascending Chaos, I love musical theatre. I don't have the highest opinion of Andrew Lloyd Webber as a composer of "thru-sung" musicals, but he does churn out pretty melodies in the manner of other musicians who rank somewhat below the highest echelon (Meyerbeer and Mascagni, to name a couple in the same mould of composers of "popular opera"). I certainly don't get sniffy about ALW musicals. He is unashamedly mainstream and knows how to appeal to a mass audience. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not high art, but it brings pleasure to many more people than would an experimental opera by Phillip Glass (I have seen Einstein on the Beach, so I know that of which I speak).

I own a copy of the Original London Cast recording of Phantom, and have done so for 17 years. I saw the show on stage around 15 years ago. I have the VCD of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th Birthday Celebration concert. And I have two versions of Michael Ball singing All I Ask of You (Ball's voice is one of my favourite theatre voices).

At one stage in my life, I could sing along to the recording, even the overlapping parts, so imprinted had the libretto become in my mind. There was a time when I didn't listen to the recording for months on end, but each time I returned to it, I could remember every note, if not every word.

My favourite parts of the score:

All I Ask of You (especially the introductory notes, that swell with romantic ardour approaching Puccinian levels. I also like the bittersweet aftermath, with the Phantom sobbing "Christine, Christine")
Music of the Night (great theatrical piece and I especially like the ending, and the haunting chord changes when the singing stops)
The three part harmony in the Graveyard scene (the fragment Wandering Child, after Christine sings Wishing you were Somehow Here Again),
Prima Donna (a lush, swinging main melody and interesting overlapping lines)
Notes (nice comedic writing and a welcome respite from the high drama of the lair scenes) and Notes 2 (clever lyrics)
He is Nothing but a Man .... Twisted Every Way (Raoul tries to calm Christine as she voices her fear over his plan to trap the Phantom. It's a relatively short segment at the end of an ensemble piece but the music expresses the emotions with great economy - tender and wistful on his part, terrified and conflicted on hers).

I am pretty familiar with the music of Phantom, although not the staging, as I have only seen it once. This is why I was pretty excited to watch the Phantom movie, to see if the stage experience could be captured (I did not expect it to be emulated or even recreated, as these are two very different art forms). I saw Phantom on stage in Melbourne, with Anthony Warlow singing the role of the Phantom. This remains one of the most memorable nights I have spent in a theatre, and I have had a fair few of those. Whatever else you might think about the syrupy music and overwrought sentimentality, Gaston Leroux wrote a wonderfully atmospheric piece of Gothic romance and a halfway decent adaptation would be gripping. On stage, it worked marvellously. How would the movie do?

The Movie
I had not followed news about the movie, only knowing that they had cast relative unknowns, as the original cast of Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman are now too old to assume the roles. Other than this fact, I knew nothing else about the cast or crew.

Director: Joel Schumacher ??? Here's a head scratcher. Joel Schumacher made Batman and Robin, for crying out loud! This was the movie that killed the Batman franchise, before Chris Nolan's current rescue mission. What would Joel Schumacher know about making a musical? Could they not get Baz Lurhman? This was not promising.

And so it turned out that Joel Schumacher had a decidedly pop music-video approach to this movie. The movie is very glossy and visually beautiful but in achieveing this, Schumacher loses the Gothic edge and darkness that worked so well in the theatre. I suppose it helps to make the movie more accessible to audiences not familiar with the stage show.

This is also the Sexy Phantom of the Opera. Erik the Phantom (not named in this movie) is years younger than both the book and stage versions. In casting Gerald Butler, the film maker had a conventionally good looking leading man who is supposed to be horrifyingly disfigured. He wears a half mask, the edge of which traces his chiselled profile to perfection. He is filmed as often on his uncovered side as he is on his masked side. Before Christine ripped off his mask, I found myself thinking more than once that the actor must be quite nice looking if the right side of his face looked anything like the left.

When the mask came off to reveal the Phantom's deformity, I thought - "oh, is that all?" You see worse on an average episode of Nip/Tuck when they are introducing the case of the week. Really, the disfigurement was hardly terrifying, and the libretto describes the face as being so distorted, "it was hardly a face". This did not come anywhere close to that description.

Schumacher's directorial choices remove the mystic of the Phantom; he is supposed to be mysterious, other-worldly and a figure of horror. The mild disfigurement makes the character more tolerable to look at on a storey-high cinema screen, but ultimately, less complex and conflicted. This is compounded by having his illusions (so thrilling and inexplicable in the stage version) explained early in the game, so that we know from the start that this is NOT a ghost. I understand that the movie Phantom does need to be more human than the stage version; the nature of cinema dictates it. But to so completely strip him of his mystical qualities makes a mockery of the title Phantom of the Opera. In the end, this could have been a high-school teen-drama about a slightly deranged boy with skin problems, the newly discovered star of the cheer squad and the Porsche-driving football captain. The point of Gothic romance is that it is somewhat over the top and larger than life. It could have worked on screen - a Phantom at once human and supernatural. It just needed a better understanding of the material, and probably a better director.

Schumacher also plays up the sexual tension between Christine and the Phantom, rather than underlining the romance, which is inherent in the score or the theme of redemption which has always been the point of Leroux's novel. The Phantom is overtly an object of sexual desire. He stalks with feline grace into the Masquerade scene, generally exudes masculine swagger before his final breakdown, and enacts two seduction scenes, firstly during Music of the Night and later, on stage performing Point of No Return. In both seduction scenes, Schumacher drapes Christine provocatively over the Phantom, her cleavage heaving in time to the music.

Talking about cleavage, Christine wears one bosom-baring dress after another. Even in the cemetary scene, where she is wrapped up everywhere else, with snow falling around her, her cleavage is on decorative display. I suppose that part doesn't get cold?

In all, Schumacher's vision for this movie appears to have much more to do with sexuality than romantic tension. That is fine, in so far as that is the director's prerogative. Where I feel it fails is that this sexualised approach doesn't work with the music, which is rendered tawdry, instead of yearning, despairing and romantic (and I mean romantic in the sense of being about naked emotions, not in the sense of mist-swirled ardour). The danger has always existed with this particular ALW score; it is overwrought and unsubtle in construction. It can be served well if interpreted as a form of opera seria, self aware of its own cliched trappings within the conventions of the genre. Otherwise, it is one note away from being schlocky.

The Cast
It's not easy to cast a musical movie, especially if you insist that the actors do their own singing. They have to look right for the screen (all those close ups!) - something which is less critical for the stage, must sing reasonably well and must act decently. I would have thought that the best thing to do was to scour the musical-theatre stage for suitably photogenic actor-singers, but that is not apparently the way that Schumacher and gang went about it.

Gerard Butler (the Phantom)
As I said earlier, he is somewhat younger than expected and considerably better looking. He has screen presence, being tall and broad and having a gravelly speaking voice and an ability to emote through his eyes. Having such a good looking Phantom presents problems, as his burden of ugliness just does not seem that much to bear when the disfigurement on his face isn't particularly terrible. When Gerard Butler sighs, sobs and wails in anguish, I admire his craft and believe in his internal struggle, but wonder, all the same, if he isn't just being a tad melodramatic. But this is not the actor's fault, so much as the director's. Butler has obviously found a motivation for his character and portrays its many facets with subtlety, skill and charisma. His redemption scene at the end, when he releases Christine, evokes real pathos. He understands, more than his director seemingly does, that the key to the Phantom is his sadness and suffering. His acting is perfectly fine. He rises above Schumacher's mishandling of the character and delivers a heartfelt and emotionally nuanced Phantom.

His singing, though, is far from ideal. The voice itself is not bad; his tone has an unabrasive rock hoarseness, and he manages decent resonance on some of the head notes. But the Phantom is a difficult role to sing and his lack of training tells. He has trouble hitting notes and on Music of the Night and Point of No Return, he sounded like three completely different people singing as he moved between registers. His interpretation of the music was also sometimes overly forceful when subtlety or insinuating sensuality was called for; he resorted to shouting instead of singing, which probably has to do with lack of technique,

Emmy Rossum (Christine)
She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance, and I am not quite sure why. She certainly looks right for the part, with her doe-eyed beauty and unaffected screen presence. Christine Daae should have a touch of the unworldly innocent about her, and Rossum has the youth and charm to convey this. The camera loves her and she is simply luminous, with her glowing, flawless complexion and her dark hair and eyes. In terms of looking the part, she cannot be faulted.

I wish I could say the same about her acting. There are moments when I found her truly moving, but too many scenes where she seemed to completely lack emotion. Part of that might be Schumacher's fault, so it might not necessarily reflect her abilities as an actress. But she set the tone for the entire performance with her lack of facial expression during "Think of Me" when it transitioned to the gala performance. Here she was, with her big break, singing the star role, and she just stood there looking blank, her voice seemingly coming from an offstage recording (of course, it did!). It was almost like someone had said that singers look horrible on screen, with open mouth and possible sighting of tonsils, and she was determined to appear perfectly decorous, hardly opening her mouth at all. She relied on her eyes to do all the acting, but does not quite yet have the emotional maturity to be completely convincing.

Her singing was much vaunted as she had sung with the Met Opera Children Chorus. Her voice is certainly rich, especially in its lower register, but the girl needs lessons on technique. There were far too many cheats in hitting the high notes and in the transition between notes. And quite a few high notes were squeaked, rather than sung. When she wasn't struggling with unsupported notes, and resorting to scooping in and out of notes, she did sound lovely, rather like an old-style Hollywood soprano (Shirley Jones comes to mind, although I think Rossum might be more of a mezzo than a soprano). It's a pity they didn't give her more time to be properly trained; the promise is apparent, which makes the sour notes harder to take.

Patrick Wilson (Raoul)
Raoul is a thankless role to play, being essentially one dimensional and rather boring, compared to the complex Phantom. Patrick Wilson pulls off the acting about as well as expected; it's a dull, stereotypical romantic lead and he portrays it exactly as what it is. If it comes across as a somewhat bland performance, I think it has more to do with the role than the actor. Schumacher put in additional action-hero scenes to enlarge Raoul's role, but I felt these did nothing to make the character more interesting. Raoul is a narrative device; he is noble, impulsive-heroic and a bit dandyish - and is described as such by both Leroux's prose and Lloyd Webber's score; a fine and admirable character but not all that interesting. He is as an uncomplicated character functioning as a foil to the Phantom. A convincing performance of the role is one in which Raoul is superficially charming and ardent, and Christine's love for him is believable. In this, I think Wilson succeeded - he brings an easy laid-back charm to his early scenes and is suitably intense as the melodrama intensifies. I found Raoul in the movie to be extremely likeable, if not very interesting. It did take a while for me to warm to the character and I initially felt that he had been miscast, but much of that is because his appearance was so much fairer and paler than I expected.

He also gets saddled with a horrific hair-piece, which would be envied by any woman, so perfectly fine and silky are his tresses. This has the unfortunate effect of detracting from his great bone structure, and succeeds in making the character look even more foppish. Add the open-necked white shirts and tight breeches, and what you have is a Raoul that is styled from the cover of a bodice-ripping romance novel.

Raoul does get one of the best songs in the score, so while not a great role to act, it is a grateful role to sing. Patrick Wilson's singing is the best of the three leads, which is somewhat of a pity as he gets the least actual singing. He has a lovely lyric tenor, a light and sweet tone; it is a very "musical theatre" type of voice. He has two Tony Award nominations (one for playing Curly in Oklahoma! - I would love to hear his voice on Oh, What a Beautiful Morning) and his Broadway-cred is telling. He is the only one of the three leads without obvious vocal problems. Compared to Gerard Butler's rock-edge growl, he has less vocal heft, but considerably better technique and greater musicality.

The Supporting Cast
Miranda Richardson is a regal but human Madame Giry. Apart from the three leads, this is the most important role, at least in the movie version. Madame Giry is almost portrayed as an accomplice of the Phantom. It would have been easy for an audience to think that she approved of Buquet's murder and the obsessive stalking of Christine Daae. Miranda Richardson manages to infuse trepidation and remorse behind her icy gaze, so that this is never so clear-cut.

Minnie Driver plays Carlotta as a completely over the top caricature of an Italian Prima Donna. I found this somewhat grating, but the blame here lies squarely with the director. The singing is supplied by someone else who was instructed to indulge in the worst ever parody of an unmusical soprano, complete with broad vibrato and ear-splitting shrieks. This is just wrong, as Carlotta is the star of Opera Populaire and is supposed to be able to SING, whatever else might be wrong about her personality.

Simon Callow and Ciaran Hinds play Andre and Firmin, the two theatre managers. They are possibly my favourite thing about the movie, especially their scenes in Notes and Prima Donna. Simon Callow is a wonderful comic actor and his lightness of touch never fails here. He also does a fine job with the singing and produces a few wonderfully plumy tones during Prima Donna. Ciaran Hinds (who played Captain Wentworth in the movie Persuasion, talk about versatility!) was a delight with his smirking and raised eyebrows. He has no singing experience, but a great speaking voice and manages to pull off the singing well enough.

General Comment on the Singing
They marshalled the resources to have a 105-piece orchestra perform the score. This is welcome news indeed to cast recording collectors. I had always wondered why there wasn't a Symphonic recording of Phantom, like the one done for Les Mis (which is a marvellous recording, sound wise). This movie soundtrack could have filled that gap. Unfortunately, the uneven singing abilities of the lead cast has voided this promise. They are by no means bad, but not equal to performers in cast recordings.

The Movie vs the Musical on Stage
Changes were made in the movie, presumably to make it more easily digestible by a movie audience. Some of it works better than others:

Black and white flash-forward scenes, showing Raoul forty years after the main events. On stage, there is one future scene, right at the start, serving as a prologue. In the movie, the flash-forward scenes intersperse the set pieces and there is a substantial scene acting almost like an epilogue. As a cinematic device, this was useful but overused.
Changing the Phantom's back story as told by Madame Giry. In the stage musical, she talks about a disfigured man escaping from the travelling fair, but does not know what had become of him. In the movie, she is the one who, as a child, showed him the way to the dungeons below the Opera Populaire. I did not care for this change in the Phantom's history. It establishes a strange relationship between Madame Giry and the Phantom which the movie does not satisfactorily resolve (I think it cannot be resolved, because it's not in the score at all). This backstory also wipes out the Phantom's history of being a known genious, who had built a maza of mirrors for the Shah of Persia.
Adding spoken lines of exposition. The bulk of this took place in the first scenes as they established the characters. Later, Christine does a bit of explaining about her father and the Angel of Music and Madame Giry tells the story of how Erik came to the Opera's underground lair. I actually felt these were unecessary and broke the flow of a mostly sung-through musical.
Having certain lines spoken instead of sung. This did not make any sense to me at all. They kep the music playing in the background, so perhas they were going for a Rex Harison style of speak singing. Why, though?
Showing the backstage activities at the Opera. This was great, one example of how the cinematic medium can open up the action and show what happens off the scene on the stage.
Raoul defeats the Phantom in a duel. This was a strange scene, tagged on for seemingly no reason, other than perhaps generating some Schumacher type action. In itself, that is a sound idea, to take advantage of the cinematic medium and to produce a movie that was more than just a filmed stage show. The scene was well-filmed and generated some excitement, but seemed to have come out of nowhere. Having Raoul win the duel was jarring, especially after the Phantom had been shown to be so assuredly masculine and powerful.
Raoul almost drowning. I suppose they wanted to give the third lead a little more to do. The problem is that these scenes add nothing to the story at all. The thing that Patrick Wilson does best is sing, not play action hero. Couldn't ALW have written him a couple of extra verses if they wanted to give him more screentime? Although, I did not mind this addition as much, because it fit better with the structure of the movie - an active sequence in the midst of other sequences with people on the move - the Phantom dragging Christine to his lair and the group out to "track down this murderer".
Cutting Raoul's part in the three part harmony in the Cemetary scene. As mentioned above, this is one of my favourite parts of the score. Chopping it up this way was quite unforgivable.
Leaving out the final verse of Phantom of the Opera. So, it's the title song, right? And they left off the final verse. Go figure.
Leaving out the entire Notes II segment and the subsequent scene showing rehearsals for Don Juan Triumphant. Some of my favourite "Notes" lines are in this scene - the one about the third trombone is particularly droll. In the stage show, Christine has her breakdown (leading to Twisted Every Way) in this section, in front of everyone. It's a powerful scene in the theatre. The movie version has this segment as a two-hander with Christine and Raoul. It's more intimate and works quite well, but I would have preferred the old version, if only to see more of Andre and Firmin.
The chandelier dropping during Don Juan and not at the end of Il Muto. This was necessary because there is no intermission in the movie. In the musical, the chandelier comes crashing down just before intermission, creating a nice climax point. They saved this for a later point in the movie, but it did lose some impact because they then plunged headlong into the Phantom's kidnapping of Christine, Raoul's drowning scene and the group storming the lair, out for the Phantom's blood (while the theatre supposedly burnt above them - logic gap?)

For me, the movie does not have even a fraction of the energy and magic of the theatre experience. Scenes that grip you by the throat in the theatre seems oddly flat on screen. On stage, Music of the Night is a masterpiece of creepiness and mystery. In the movie, it lacks atmosphere because of poor direction that did nothing to sustain tension. The lair was also too well lit and too beautifully appointed. On stage, All I Ask of You is truly swooningly romantic, the Phantom's sob afterwards is heart-rending and his final declaimation "You will curse the day ... " is chilling. In the movie, these scenes play out and are pleasing to the eye and not too uneasy on the ear (see comments on the leads' singing above), but lack drama. Masquerade in the theatre is simply fantastic, a great set-piece and meta-commentary on the Phantom story. In the movie, there were a few too many cuts and the gold and black theme was visually arresting, but lacked the gaudy colour demanded by the bachinallian intentions of the music.

It has been said that this movie is not only for the fans, but for those who might not otherwise watch a staged musical. Hence the young, good looking stars, sexy costumes and heightened sexuality. I suspect the movie succeeds better in pleasing these casual viewers than the long-time fan of the show. And on those terms, we have to regard the movie as a success.

It is rather hard for me to watch this from the perspective of a movie-goer without the "baggage" of a having expectations formed from the musical on stage and on recordings. I imagine, though, that in terms of appealing to a wider audience, Schumacher probably made an astute decision to cast younger actors and ramping up the sex appeal of the story. How would audiences have responded to an uglier, older Phantom, a modestly dressed Christine and a less swashbuckling Raoul? Would the lack of sword-fighting and a more dingy lair diminish the movie as a cinematic spectacle?

Schumacher set out to make a movie, not a film of the stage musical. He remained faithful to much of the material in the sense of excising very little from the original score and book. Through casting and direction, he did change the psychology underlying the events. (In particular, Schumacher alludes to the "sexual and deeply soulful" connection between Christine and the Phantom, which is more than vaguely disturbing in an Oedipal sense. Christine spends much of her time believing the angel of music to be the spirit of her father - Schumacher even has the Phantom sing "Far from my fathering gaze" during Wandering Child, instead of "Far from my far-reaching gaze", as in the original libretto.) Lloyd Webber's Phantom still owed much to Leroux's Erik. Schumacher's Phantom seems to have been inspired less by Leroux and more by Alexander Dumas or even the Baroness Orczy. It makes for an enjoyable enough 2 hours in the cinema, but it isn't really The Phantom of the Opera, neither Lloyd Webber's or Leroux's.

Final Thoughts

For those who have never seen Phantom on stage, this is not a substitute, because it isn't even really the same work once Schumacher has had his way with it. As a movie, it achieves the virtue of being entertaining. The cast provides enough eye candy to satisfy the sweetest tooth. The sets are sumptuous and beautiful, and the cinematography showcases one visual highpoint after another (sometimes at the expense of logical story-telling). Movie-goers who are not allergic to on-screen singing and wall-to-wall swelling violins would probably enjoy this. I think it would especially appeal to women because it is so ostensibly romantic, especially the dramatic denouement in final lair scene with both Butler and Wilson in half-open white shirts and Rossum in a shoulder-baring wedding dress.

This is well worth watching for any fan of the musical, if only to see how it translates onto the big screen. It is wonderful to look at and certainly never boring. For me, it lacks the spark of the live theatre experience and most disappointingly, the singing is uneven. That said, it is a welcome edition to the video library, as there has been no recorded version of the stage play or even a concert performance.

Movie rating: 7.5 out of 10 (as a movie), 6 out of 10 (as a movie version of the stage musical)

Recently Seen: Maid in Manhattan

2005-04-02T18:32:00.000+08:00

I have a soft spot for romantic comedies set in New York. There is something about the glamour of the city that seems very appropriate to clever (if implausible) scenarios, crackling dialogue, jazzy soundtracks and photogenic people getting together.

Maid in Manhattan is set in New York, as evident in its very title. It stars Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes, so the photogenic people are taken care off. The soundtrack has Nora Jones. It's all set up for a fun movie experience.

The scenario is suitably implausible. She's a maid in a posh NY hotel, he's a senatorial candidate staying in one of the suites. She just happens to be trying on a gorgeous coat (DG or Dior, can't remember) that a guest in another suite had asked her to return to one of the hotel shops. He walks into the suite and thinks she's a guest there. They meet cute, take a walk in the park and have interesting conversations where her views on inner city development, among other things, mesmerises him. We spend most of the movie resolving this mistaken identity plotline, with a few amusing, if predictable scenes of her in maid's uniform, avoiding him. It all works out in the end, of course and along the way, we got to see some moonlit dancing, so the romance quota was filled.

The dialogue was not exactly crackling, but it was amusing and for a movie like this, satisfying enough. I think it helps if you just let yourself get swept into the plotline and the trials and tribulations of the characters. She is a struggling single mother, gathering the courage to climb the ranks to a management position. He is an aspiring politician, fighting off the weight of expectation that comes from being the son of a politician. In giving them something to do rather than just meeting and falling in love, the movie succeeds in making us care.

JLo is a much better actress than she is a singer. Her work here is charming and has the right lightness of touch for a comedy. Ralph Fiennes assumes an upper-crust American accent here, so we are deprived of hearing his wonderful Shakespearean English accent. He is suitably dashing and believably decent, despite playing a Republican senatorial candidate. Who I really liked was the young actor who played JLo's son, very touching and affecting.

Movie rating: 6.5 out of 10. Watchable and enjoyable, but not memorably so.

Recently Read: The Handmaid's Tale

2005-03-17T14:42:00.000+08:00

I don't know why I never discovered Margaret Atwood before this. She is a Booker Prize winner and in her native Canada, something of a national treasure.

The Handmaid's Tale is a modern classic, one that is studied in university classes both as an example of "dystopia" novels as well as an expression of the fears of the feminist movement in the 1980's. I had not known any of this when I started reading the novel, knowing only that it was recommended by many liberal-leaning North American women who have grave concerns over the right-wing idealogies of the current US administration. They said that this book is a chilling portent of what may happen if the religious right seizes control.

I read this book during my daily train commute, and had it done within a week. Atwood's prose is simple and elegant. Her ideas may be elegant but are anything but simple. She tells us the dangers of religious extremism by depicting a post-revolution world where America has regressed into a sort of pseudo-Victorian state. In the Republic of Gilead, men are in charge, everyone praises the Lord, television, advertising and commerce are things of the past and most chillingly, selected women are designated as "Handmaids". These are women who are of child-bearing age, who are unmarried, or forceably separated from their husbands because only marriages between previously unmarried people are considered valid. In this dystopia, childbirth rates are alarmingly down, and these Handmaids fulfil the role of ensuring the continuation of the species. They are assigned to high ranking officials of the new regime, to live in their homes, together with their wives. They has only one responsibility: to become pregnant and give birth.

The titular Handmaid is Offred - "Of Fred". Fred is the name of the Commander to whom she has been assigned. She has her own name, but we are never told what it is. All the handmaids are identified "Of" whomever they are assigned to. This book is told in the first person, from Offred's perspective. In the first few chapters, she describes her daily life as a handmaid and her relationship with the Commander and the members of his household. Her relationship with the Commander's wife is prickly and uncomfortable. I found this to be one of the most interesting aspect of the book. Written by a feminist, this is a fascinating exploration of two very different women living in very circumstances, one seemingly more privileged, but ultimately, both equally hellish.

Everymonth, during her fertile period, Offred, the Commander and the Commander's wife perform the Ceremony. This is the monthly attempt at impregnating the Handmaid, with the wife participating to symbolically establish that the Handmaid is simply a proxy womb and that any child conceived is spiritually of husband and wife. The Handmaid is nothing more than a necessary third middle man. This part of the book showed how religious fervour can be twisted into very strange practices.

The first person narrative ends on an ambiguous note, with Offred being whisked away by the Commander's driver, Nick. Offred and Nick had become lovers, and she sought solace in him, driven into his arms initially by the Commander's wife in an attempt to get Offred pregnant and out of her life (I believe that the wife knows her husband to be infertile). Luke claims to be a member of an underground resistance group. Offred puts her fate in his hand, while not entirely believing if he is telling her the truth.

The best part of the book for me is the Historical Notes at the end. This is set sometime in the future, many years after the timeline of the main narrative. It is in the form of a keynote speech being delivered at an academic conference. The speaker, Professor Piexito is speaking about a brief period in American history when the USA became the Republic of Gilead. He is speaking about a set of recorded tapes, narrated by a woman who lived in Gilead. We learn that Offred had narrated her tale on these tapes, that they were recovered from an underground safe house. In the style of a typical academic lecture, the Professor examines the context of the tapes, the techniques to establish its origins and the methodology of attempting to identify the narrator. He narrows down the identity of the Commander to two possible men named Fred and tells us more about Gilead and how it came to be, in the process. Ultimately, there is not enough surviving evidence to establish who Offred herself is or what became of her.

This book is deserving of its classic status. Some of its ideas about feminism might seem outdated now, but I think its message has a renewed relevance in today's world or rising fanaticism and fundamentalism.

Great 2nd movements in Piano Concertos

2005-03-11T01:26:00.000+08:00

I have been listening to a bunch of Piano Concertos on loop on my Zen micro. All 4 Rach, Grieg, Schumann, Shostakovich. I find the combined sounds of piano and symphony orchestra surprisingly conducive to work to.

It got me thinking about all those beautiful slow second movements in these concertos. Because they are melodious, they often get hijacked as romantic mood or film music with the strings engineered to sound overly-lush like a Mantovani album, and the piano passages played in a sloppy, indulgent style, with far too much tinkling and glissando ala Richard Clayderman. It's all a disgraceful massacre of wonderful music.

Thinking about 2nd movements led me to contemplating which ones I love the most. I haven't really given it that much thought before, despite many concerts and much money spent on recordings. So I have been listening to snippets of second movements from all the major piano concertos, to refresh my memory and gauge my personal favourites.

My Favourite 2nd Movements in Piano Concertos:

1. Piano Concerto no 21 (Mozart)
Yes, the famous Andantino featured in the film "Elvira Madigan". This was a no brainer. It is by far and away the greatest 2nd movement in any concerto, in my opinion. Everything about it is miraculously perfect, as only Mozart's musics can be, it seems. From the first slow hush of strings to the major-minor-major modulations in the middle to the classically clean lines at the end, it is touched by magic. The piano part conforms to classical conventions much as a minuet does, and yet it is never stifling or formal, but delicate and inspired.

2. Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini (Rachmaninov)
It's not called a piano concerto, but it follows the form of a piano concerto so it is one in my books. What I love about this is how it starts serenely with the familiar Paganini theme and suddenly bursts forth with an explosion of melody as Rachmaninov reversed the notes of the main theme. And what a melody it is too. Sublimely beautiful and romantic in the best sense of that word; turbulent, heartfelt and emotive. The interplay between piano and orchestra is masterfully constructed, one soars while the other thunders majestically. It is like watching an eagle fly against a darkening sky.

3. Piano Concerto in A (Grieg)
The word for this movement is "meditative". Even when the melodic line begins to build in the latter half of the movement, it never loses that elegiac, contemplative quality that is so well-established in the long orchestral introduction. To me, this piece of music is evocative of quiet, rainy afternoons in the countryside spent in deep thought. It is like a particularly lovely silk-covered diary, within which lies the promise of poetry and adventure (which Grieg gives us in great doses in the third movement).

Recently Seen: The Village

2005-03-10T21:05:00.000+08:00

Firstly, I may be one of the 5 people in the world who have not seen The Sixth Sense. I know the big revelation at the end, so there didn't seem much point to watching it. I did see both Signs and Unbreakable, without being spoiled for the "twists", and was suitably impressed by M.Night Shyamalan's use of film techniques.

Before I saw The Village, I read that this had been voted the Worst Movie of 2005 in an online poll at the Guardian Unlimited. Expectations going in were not all that high.

Well, it's nowhere near that bad. I was "spoiled" for the ending, as the twist was revealed in the aforementioned Guardian report. Still, there were enough details left unsketched that I could enjoy watching the plot unfold.

I think the problem with the movie is that its premise is inherently ridiculous. I don't doubt that it is possible to build that sort of Utopian society where "money is not part of ... life", where everyone seems to live and act for the collective good. After all, there are communities even now that live that way. In the movie, however, the choice to of the mid 1800's as the setting for this ideal life comes across merely as a plot machination. There is no internal logic to choosing that era, other than the supposition that modern inventions contribute to the evils that plagues society. Where did they then draw the line at what was too "modern"? M.Night Shyamalan tries to explain this away by having William Hurt's character, Walker, proclaim that he was a professor of American history. We are to suppose that his knowledge of rural American life in that era led to the formation of the village. That may explain it, but only so that they could have this particular plot device.

The problems with the premise become multiplied if you start looking closely for holes. If there were only 8 elders, where did all those people come from? A lot of in-breeding going on? Some of the people looked far too old to be children of the elders, so when did they arrive at the village? Were they brought there and if so, why can they not remember "the towns"? And how did the elders learn to speak so stiltedly, without the use of contractions? Why choose "red" as the bad colour? Are the women folk to aver their eyes when it's their time of the month?

The point is probably not to look too closely and to enjoy the film for its strength. M.Night Shyamalan is an uneven writer, but a gifted film-maker. He does genuinely build tension in a scene, with clever use of lighting, music and camera angles. The segment on Ivy Walker's journey through Covington woods is a little tour-de-force, despite the ludicrous premise of a blind woman not once getting lost in unfamiliar surrounds. If you can suspend disbelief, there is much to admire in his film craft.

The best thing about this movie is Roger Deakin's cinematography. The night scenes are brilliantly shot, with the glow of moonlight and lamplight diffused beautifully across the screen. The interior scenes are like paintings from the Dutch school. The outdoor day scenes capture both the idealism of the verdant valley and the foreboding beyonds of the forests. This is cinematography that tells its own story. Deakin also frames the scenes like an artists; there are certain shots that just took my breath away. I recall still the scene with the rocking chair in the fields and the moonlit montage as the villagers returned from Kitty's wedding.

The next best thing in the movie is Bryce Dallas Howard who plays feisty Ivy Walker. From certain angles, she looks a lot like her father, Ron Howard, which was a bit unnerving at first. She is not conventionally beautiful but has a strong, intelligent screen presence. I love her speaking voice; it is low and mature, yet not at all at odds with her youth. It came as no surprise that she had done Shakespeare on the New York stage; she has the beautiful enunciation of a trained stage thespian. Yet there is nothing stagey about her performance in this film; she is natural and lively and manages to make us believe in even the most ridiculous lines she was given to read.

The rest of the cast holds us well. Joaquin Phoenix is always an interesting actor to watch and here he does a convincing turn as brooding, taciturn Lucius Hunt. The relationship between Lucius and Ivy is the most appealing plotline in the movie, and both leads share the right amount of chemistry to make us care.

William Hurt is William Hurt, and depending on whether you like William Hurt, that can be a good or bad thing. He does his usual dependable work. Adrien Brody really hams it up as the mentally disabled Noah Percy. You can see the technique behind what he does and admire what a good actor he is, but it's an acting choice that stands him apart from the rest of the movie. Sigourney Weaver is not given much to do, but acquits herself well. Brendan Gleeson is the scene stealer; he has very few scenes, but manages in that brief time to establish a complex character torn between the darkness of his past and the bleakness of his present.

If the movie had focused more on these characters, instead of having them serve to push the central plot to its final revelation and resolution, perhaps it would not be so reviled. I rather liked it, because I think the actors (particularly Bryce Dallas Howard) make us care almost in spite of the screenplay. And it is a beautiful film to look at and to listen too. The score is pseudo-classical and Hilary Hahn is featured in several atmospheric violin solos. The composer received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for this original score. Someday, if M.Night Shyamalan writes a better script, or allows himself to direct another screenplay, he may yet find himself again an Oscar nominee as a director. In The Village, he is hampered by his own weak screenplay, but shows his brilliance as a technician and a film-maker.

Thoughts on another Trilogy (Lord of the Rings)

2005-02-27T16:13:00.000+08:00

Unlike the Matrix, I did not watch the three LOTR movies back to back within a 2 day span. I rewatched FOTR (4th viewing) in October, TTT (5th viewing) in December and ROTK (3rd viewing) on the 4th day of Chinese New Year. In any case, I think the LOTR trilogy would make a more cohesive viewing experienced if watched back-to-back, than the Matrix films. The quality is much more even, although the movies do stand as distinctly separate in terms of plot and theme. Viewed as a 3-Act piece, there is a logic to the structure and flow of the plot and character development, which cannot be said of the Matrix movies.

I have not read the Tolkien novels, fantasy not being a favoured reading genre, especially if the novels are set in imaginary lands. I did not watch these movies with any expectations of how faithful they would be to Tolkien's vision and narrative. I watched them as I watch most movies, for entertainment, and hopefully, for the kind of awe-inspiring experiences that are so unique to the cinematic arts. For me, the LOTR trilogy has these in ample amounts.

Most critics rank FOTR as the best of the three films, followed by ROTK and TTT bringing up the rear. Most fans favour ROTK, then FOTR and again, place TTT in last place. Unlike most, my favourite by far is TTT, with FOTR and ROTK tying for second.

The Fellowship of the Ring
This movie was tasked with the difficult undertaking of introducing not only characters, but the entire structure of Middle Earth, with its many beings, of which Man was only one. This could have meant a lot of boring exposition. There was a lot of exposition, but none of it was boring. I liked the buoyancy of the initial scenes, and the optimism that stayed with the Fellowship right till the last scenes when they were separated.

Of course, there was the marvelous cinematography as New Zealand was unfolded before our eyes in all its glory. The element of fantasy was strongest in this first film, perhaps because this was before the bloody battles necessarily took centre-stage. There was truly something woundrous in the scenes in the forests and the home of the elves.

Best of all, the movie was true to its title. There was a real sense of friendship and camaraderie amongst the Fellowship. And Sir Ian McKellan is just brilliant.

The Two Towers
My favourite of the three. On paper, this should be the most handicapped instalment. The characters split up so that there are actually three plots going on, two of which don't meet until towards the very end, and one which remains disconnected throughout. And yet, I thought it was so well paced and edited that the underlying theme of good vs evil was ever present, and it didn't feel like I was watching 3 disjointed stories. Gollum is ingeniously animated and voiced; and in many ways, the most interesting and complex of the characters. I thought the battle scenes at Helm's Deep were terrific, not just in scale but also in the brilliant pacing that made the final victory seemed all the more triumphant and inspiring.

It is a middle movie and has no real conclusion and yet it ends most satisfyingly. There is a sense of doom as Frodo and Sam gaze across the dark landscape at Mount Doom. And yet, there is that rush of hope in the wake of victory at Helm's Deep and at Saruman's Tower. We know what has happened and what is to come as we look forward to the final film. This is how you make a middle movie. The makers of Matrix Reloaded should take copious notes.

And Gandalf in this movie? Makes wizarding look cooler than being king.

The Return of the King
This is an appropriately rousing and wonderful ending to a great trilogy. It's the longest of the three movies, but it covers so much ground that there isn't room for longeur. I have my minor quibbles with Frodo's dazed, trance-like state, which started to annoy at the 1 hour point (I know this is portrayed as written in the book, and I think Elijah Woods is a fine actor, but he did make Frodo seem rather wimpy) but this is nothing against the narratives of the rest of the Fellowship, especially loyal, brave-hearted Sam.

I think it's interesting how there are many parallels between ROTK and Matrix Revolutions, besides both being the last film in a trilogy. Both have a character (Frodo, Neo) going to a remote location (Mount Doom, Machine City) with a loyal companion (Sam, Trinity) to accomplish a task. The fate of civilisation (Middle Earth, Zion) lies in the hands of this protagonist. While he is away, those he leaves behind fight great battles (Mirnas Trith, Zion) against marauding forces (Sauron's army of Orcs and other assorted uglies, the Machine's many tentacled sentinels and other assorted uglies). Both protagonists sacrifice themselves for the cause (Neo loses his life, Frodo loses himself) and accomplish the task of saving the world.

So many parallels, yet such a drastic gulf in quality between the two. Ultimately, Matrix Revolutions was an enjoyable enough action movie, rather too enamoured with its own cleverness and glitz. ROTK was a movie about the will to leave and the spirit to survive. Where Matrix Revolutions tried to be clever, ROTK succeeded in being inspired.

The scene in the end with Aragon saying "My friends, you bow to no one", and everyone bowing to the four hobbits? Has never yet failed to make me tear up. This is a story of heroes (and heroines, with Eowyn doing her share) and heroic acts. For all the razzle and dazzle of the big battle scenes, I like that it's the small acts of courage that we most remember. Merry sticking it to Sauron's right-hand man (whatever his name might be), Pippin climbing the beacon tower, Sam fighting the spider and carrying Frodo. Even with Legolas and Gimli, the scene that sticks with me is when they insisted on going with their friend Aragon into the mountains. Aragon's own finest moment was not in the battle field, but when he spoke of going to battle against the forces of Mordor, to buy Frodo and Sam more time. And Gandalf, despite all the ass-kicking, staff-wielding and military commanding, will be remembered most for his kindness to Merry and his compassion for Frodo. I tell you, Sir Ian McKellan is just the coolest.

Thoughts on a Trilogy (Matrix)

2005-02-15T18:25:00.000+08:00

Over the Chinese New Year period, I watched all three movies of the Matrix trilogy on DVD, over a span of 2 days. When seen back to back, the decline in quality and coherence was even more apparent than when I watched Reloaded and Revolutions in isolation. On the other hand, the last 2 instalments became somehow more bearable when the plot is followed through till the end. I still think these were excruciatingly overblown and preposterous, but perhaps this is magnified when they are seen in isolation.

The first movie, a few years on, is still landmark movie making. The writing was intelligent and even the psychobabble catch-phrases (Free your mind. Be the spoon.) were consciously clever enough to rise above the corniness. Trinity looked great, Morpheus was super-ultra cool and Keanu Reeves' impassive acting style (or if you like, his limited range) was perfect for the role of a character adjusting with bewilderment and wonder to his destined greatness. The plot was ingenious; it ended at the just the right place and left so much room for development.

Matrix Reloaded was an overly long and could not make up its mind whether it was trying to be an action movie, a cryptic noir film or a deep meditation on the meaning of being. Uneven pacing, however, was the least of its problems. The most unforgivable aspect of Reloaded was the screenplay, which was full of dialogue so insufferably self-important, I wonder how the actors kept straight faces. The writing was too consciously trying to be clever, as if the writers were nudging us at the end of each line and asking, "was that not clever?" Well, I found it mostly mumbo-jumbo. Words that appear meaningless are not necessarily cryptic. Sometimes, they ARE meaningless. I would like to think that the screenplay was written with some meaning in mind, even if it's not apparent. Otherwise, it's just plain laziness. Defenders of the film have argued that it is a strength when everything is not black and white, when questions are asked and not answered and each viewer can apply his/her own interpretation to it. The problem is that the entire mess is so meaningless, there really is nothing to interpret. The only question asked, and which is readily answered, is "Isn't this a load of crap?"

There is a lot that I did not like about Reloaded. The "rave" scene at Zion has been much maligned, and justifiably so. That was just completely unecessary and added nothing to the movie. Still, this was just a few minutes in a very long movie, and one can always fast forward to the next scene on the DVD. One cannot fast forward the encounter with the Architect, and the exposition in that scene, which completely betrays the mythology established in the first film. Mathematical anomaly, my foot! And that ridiculous "sacrificial" scene where Neo chooses to save Trinity instead of Zion. Suddenly, the movie turned into The Greatest Love of All (black leather edition).

Then we had the third and final instalment. A far grander name this time, Matrix Revolutions. I was so disgusted with the second movie, I actually thought the third was a slight improvement. Not that this is praise by any means. Having destroyed the magic of the original so thoroughly, they could not really do much worse, although they did try with the scenes in the "in-between" train station. This movie relied a little more on old-fashioned action-movie cliches (Niobe piloting the ship through the treacherous mechanical line, Link's girlfriend helping the underaged volunteer to open Gate 3 in Zion, the battle scenes, the sentinels chasing the ship) and a little less on the stilted dialogue of the 2nd movie. That was good, or at least better than the abysmal standards of Reloaded.

What was not so good was the resolution. Neo sacrificing himself to save Zion was perhaps not unexpected, but this was not anti-climatic because it was expected. It was ant-climatic because that eventuality was telegraphed the moment Trinity died. At that stage, we still had 20 minutes of Smith and Neo engaging in cheesier than comic-book fighting. All that slow-motion stuff became quite boring. Everything also seemed to be larger than life, as if flying higher, bigger holes in the ground and brighter flashes in the sky are somehow indicative of a great galatic battle. World War 2 had nothing on these 2 as they heaved and hoed their way through an unattractively dark version of the Matrix world.

Which brings me to the production values. They spent a lot of money on the 2 sequels, and it tells, but could they not have designed something more appealing? The metalic tentacled mahines were ugly and not in the good way of conveying evil (like the Orcs and Urukhais in LOTR) but in the bad way of just being unpleasant to look at. Zion was supposed to be impressive, I think, with all the panning camera shots trying to established the vastness and depth of the construction. However, the colours were so dull, and everything looked bathed in dust and coated by tarnished metal. The scene in the first movie, when the camera panned to reveal the field of "batteries" was so much more effective, genuinely chilling and spine-tingling in a way that the sequels never came close to replicating.

Even sadder was the loss of spark in all the lead actors. Keanu Reeves seemed still stuck in apprentice mode and was not totally convincing as someone confident in his own abilities as The One. Lawrence Fshburne was not even half as cool as he was in the first movie, which I think was due to the poor writing for Morpheus' role in the sequels. We had gotten used to seeing Morpheus as the patriach figure, and here he was being reduced to the rebel captain (who lost his girl to the anally retentive Commander, unthinkable of the first movie's Morpheus!) regarded with suspicion by his peers and superiors. And Carrie Anne Moss fares the worst of all. She had lost so much weight, she looked haggard. And Trinity's role in the third movie was relegated to strong, long-suffering love interest, albeit a gun-wielding, kung-fu kicking one. It was as if the movie could not sustain more than one bad-ass female character and Niobe had filled that vacancy.

All in, I wish the sequels had not been made. Without the sequels, people will continue to exercise their imaginations and speculate about its mythology and what The One was meant to do. Now, that is truly asking questions and letting the audience find their own answers. Without the sequels, The Matrix could be remembered untainted as a classic. This will still be its legacy, I hope.

The Booker Prize Project (Part 3)

2005-02-06T09:54:00.000+08:00

The Booker Prize Honour-Roll 2001-2004

2001 - Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang
I started reading this, and could not get through more than the first few pages. Again, it seemed to be one of those cases where I could appreciate the craftsmanship behind the book, but not the finished product. I think it was the story-line that I did not find particularly attractive (although as an Australian alumni, I have great affection for tales of Australia's history and lore).

2002 - Yann Martel, Life of Pi
A slim book, this one, and yet I could not sit down to finish it. There is something disconnected about it, like reading a complicated product manual that is jargon filled and which you don't really understand. To be fair, I have not gotten further than the first few pages, so this is an impression formed on relatively short acquaintance.

2003 - DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
I just bought this book and plan to read it after I finish Cloud Atlas and The Line of Beauty, from the 2004 Booker nominees list.

2004 - Allan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
I am reading this now. So far, it's a tumultous romp, very uninhibited and yet written with great control. The depiction of drugs and homosexual liaisons may be disturbing to some readers (and they feature rather prominently) but Holllinghurst knows how to use these to further his plot and construct his character, rather than just adorning the book.

In Summary
There are a fair few Booker winners that I have not read yet, especially the earlier ones. Of the more recent winners, I have attempted to read most but have not always found them to my liking. I suppose that a book-lover does not always love ALL books, not even prize winning ones.

I have been looking at the lists of nominees, and I have read a number of those that did not go on to win the Prize. In some instances, I may even venture to say that I have enjoyed these more than the winning books (or at least, have been motivated to read the non-winning nominees, while the winners were not appealing enough to get me started).But that's for another post.

The Booker Prize Project (Part 2)

2005-02-06T01:30:00.000+08:00

The Booker Prize Honour-Roll: 1991-2000

1991 - Ben Okri, The Famished Road
This is a strange one; it's a book that I keep thinking I have read, when in fact I have not. It has since become a classic and is on my reading list.

1992 - Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
- Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
I have read both books and own a copy of Sacred Hunger. I found Barry Unsworth's remorselessly dark and ultimately, a depressing read. There is no doubting the strength of his narrative line and the clarity of his prose, but the tale of slavery and greed was not entirely to my taste. I am glad to have read it because of what it had to say about the corrupting power of capitalist imperialism.

The English Patient, the book, is such a different animal from The English Patient, the movie. The book moves at a different pace, driven not by the doomed romance of the movie but by the unique voices of its cast of characters. I found this a fascinating read, cleverly constructed and written with great imagination and flair. I liked that Ondaatje was not afraid to make his protagonists unpleasant and sometimes unlikeable, something which the movie sought to do, but not as successfully.

1993 - Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
I was given this book as a birthday present. It took me a fair while to finish reading it. I can appreciate the cleverness and the humour, but this book failed to strike a chord with me. I cannot remember anything about it, apart from struggling through many of the early chapters, adjusting to the Irish vernacular that peppered Doyle's writing. I recall this as being earthy and honest (and I suppose, authentic, although I am not in any position to really know) and somehow not quite my cup of tea.

1994 - James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late
1995 - Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
1996 - Graham Swift, Last Orders

Not read. Frankly, I know nothing of the James Kelman book. The Ghost Road was much acclaimed when it was released. It was a book I passed up on because it seemed rather bleak. It is, after all, about the culture of death in Europe. I think I may try to read the entire Pat Barker trilogy if I find the time, now that bleakness is not so entirely off-putting to me anymore.

Last Orders was supposed to be a sad book, from the blurbs at the back. I rarely seek out sad books, no matter how acclaimed, hence this was a book I skipped. I don't know that I have change my mind since then, so this book may not get read for a while yet.

1997 - Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
I bought a copy of this book, on the strength of its Booker Prize win, which was much reported in the local press due to the winner being an Asian. I read the first half of the book in a couple of sessions, so riveting did I find Roy's narrative. Thereafter, my reading pace slowed considerably as I found the story turning somewhat predictable and the prose taking a rather florid turn. The early chapters were fascinating in their descriptions of life in India, including the mundane details of domesticity and work. Roy was particularly effective in depicting family relationships and the customs of South Indian society, The love story was touching, yet at the same time, it was the one element in the tale that made the larger story seem more hum-drum, to me. In all, though, this is a fine work which I admired greatly for its skill in weaving a mystery into an exploration of human behaviour.

1998 - Ian McEwan, Amsterdam
1999 - J M Coetzee, Disgrace
Both not read. I remember reading the blurbs and thinking tha these were not the types of books that would appeal to me. Despite the subsequent award of the Booker Prize, I was not tempted to change my mind.

2000 - Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
I have not read this yet, but hope to do so. I had only recently discovered Margeret Atwood's work by reading The Handmaid's Tale. That was truly a chilling, gripping read.

The Booker Prize Project (Part 1)

2005-02-05T14:42:00.000+08:00

This is an attempt at a feeble and high non-scientific experiment. What I plan to do is to go through the list of Booker Prize winners throughout the years (and nominees, in a separate exercise) and see how many I have read and of those, how many has left any impression on me at all. This may say something about whether prizes, especially one so prestigious as the Booker, actually get awarded to books that have longevity in the minds of typical readers. Not that I am sure I count as a typical reader, but I do read a lot, so I am at least an avid reader, if nothing else.

The Booker Prize Honour-Roll: 1969-1980

1969 - P H Newby, Something to Answer For
1970 - Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
1971 - V S Naipaul, In a Free State
1972 - John Berger, G
1973 - J G Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur
1974 - Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist and Stanley Middleton, Holiday
1975 - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
1976 - David Storey, Saville
1977 - Paul Scott, Staying On
1978 - Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
1979 - Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
1980 - William Golding, Rites of Passage

"Heat and Dust" is the only one of these early winners that I have read, although I plan to get my hands on Nadine Gordimer's book, plus Iris Murdoch's and V.S. Naipaul's. I read "Heat and Dust" after watching the screen adaptation, which was very tastefully done. RPJ writes very evocatively, like many Anglo-Indian authors. She successfully conveyed the atmosphere of Colonial South Asia and the book spoke with an authentic voice through-out.

The Booker Prize Honour-Roll: 1981-1990

1981 - Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Not read. And probably may not make a special effort to read it. I have tried reading the Satanic Verses, which is brilliantly crafted, but Rushdie's style somehow leaves me cold.

1982 - Thomas Keneally, Schindler's Ark
I read this after watching the Spielberg adaptation for the large screen, which remains one of the most haunting films I have ever seen. The movie reduced me to tears. The book was less emotionally wrenching but had details and layers that were necessarily left out in the movie. To me, these details enriched the remarkable story of Oskar Schindler. Of the books I have read set during periods of war, this remains amongst the most memorable.

1983 - J M Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K
1984 - Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
1985 - Keri Hulme, The Bone People

All of the above are not read. Anita Brookner is in the "plan to" list. The Bone People has excellent reviews, but I would need to go to New Zealand again in order to work up the motivation to read it, I think.

1986 - Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
I loved "Lucky Jim". And I think I may have read The Old Devils during my period of reading English comic novels. I certainly remember reading Difficulties with Girls and the story line for The Old Devils sounds mighty familiar. Sadly, I can't confirm if I have read the book, which probably means it wasn't all that memorable. Notwithstanding that, Kingsley Amis was a genious.

1987 - Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
1988 - Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda

Both not read. I frankly know nothing about Moon Tiger, having not heard of the book before I began looking up the list of past Booker winners for this project. It does sound like the type of book that I would enjoy, being about families and having flashbacks to war-time Egypt. I borrowed Oscar and Lucinda from the Library once, and left it unread until I had to return it. I must get around to it someday.

1989 - Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
A book I have read three times. I love Ishiguro's control over the English language. He writes so lucidly that it seems that the butler in the book was speaking directly to me as the reader. The restraint in the writing mirrored beautifully the character of the protagonist. This is a book that defines novel writing.

1990 - A S Byatt, Possession
This is a beautifully written book; A.S. Byatt shows that she is a craftsperson that uses the language of prose to recreate the lyricism of poetry. The plot device was a little too "clever" for my liking, but the pace never dragged and my interest was held from beginning to end of a rather long novel.

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