The Autograph Man

Zadie Smith
Vintage - 2003

I have a shelf dedicated to writing, packed with about 30 books or so that include The Wadsworth Handbook, the Chicago Manual of Style, Writer's Guide to 2010, Writer's Market Deluxe Edition, Writing Award Winning Articles, Rules for Writers, Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, The Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel, Yes! You Can...build a Successful Writing Career, How to Write What You Love, The ELT Grammar Book, The St. Martin's Guide to WRITING (5th and 6th editions), etc...but NOTHING can help you write anything quite like the 8th Chapter of The Autograph Man, by Zadie Smith.

I'm not to the end of the book, and I'll tell you, I think she's channeling someone.  Ok, I am not a believer in that stuff, really.  I believe in a divine guidance that is from a true and living God whose origins are both Zionist and Christian in our culture at large, and I really do believe.  But Zadie Smith is either tapped directly into that source, or she has a consistent source of ACID from the 60s that did not get sold to anyone but her, stored in plastic in a freezer that she borrows from on a regular basis before her writing sessions.

There was a sense in reading the 8th chapter that, like Alex Li-Tandem, we (the readers) floated up near the ceiling, and became one with the honeycombed tiles there, and then floated above the sea of auction-house notables to the bar and consumed a rather unhealthy amount of alcohol in an effort to drown the reality that we'd just won the lottery and no one loved us any longer.

Zadie Smith is a true inspiration as a writer, and her work deserves the very best of critiques from all circles.  Well done Zadie.

Just pick up and read The Autograph Man, by Zadie Smith.  And if you have not done so, first go get a copy of White Teeth.  Together they make up a diptych of both cerebral and metaphysical ardor that is likely not to be equaled.

I'm hoping to attain to this level of writing some day, before I die, possibly just so I can communicate even a portion of what Zadie Smith communicates in a single paragraph.  Thank you for your craft, and humor.     

Breaking Bad Season 6
Episode 11
Ozymandias

Again, to be as redundant as I possibly can about anything, every shot counts in BB.  There is nothing unnoticed, nothing left to chance, and nothing wasted in this show.  It’s as near a perfect vision and a perfect 10 as anything I’ve ever seen in cinema.

This week’s examples?  

Detail #1: Ok, I’ll start with the near end of the show.  The chess game?  The White King is in the corner, and in a defensive move takes his allowed one-square move behind a pawn.  However, on noticing the details here carefully, I see that the King is not actually threatened by anything on the board.  So maybe there is no threat, but he’s moving, in any case.  The King can move one square without being threatened.

Well, the whole story is in this shot.  It’s obvious that the King has a plan, and is still carrying it out, despite the turn of events.  It’s often an endgame kind of thing, for the King to see what’s coming and move ahead of time.

Detail #2: The dog at the end.  That was most certainly a trained dog made by the trainer to walk across the highway behind the leaving car.  There is the skinny dog, head down, whisking through the frame, trotting as it were, all by himself, and out there, obviously ownerless, alone.  Then the credits come up.  Speaking of trainers, who exactly is doing the baby training in this show?  Fantastic responses, in the fire truck, on the changing table asking for “mama”.  Wow, is this baby intelligent? Incredible moments.  So there you go, a child, and an animal, 2 things that they say are hard to work with in show business.  Right.  Not for this crew.

Detail #3: The absolutely tortured and unrecognizable face of Jesse, red, satanic almost, taking up the entire right side of the screen as Todd appears in the background.  Torture never looked quite like this.

For me, the star of this show this week is Anna Gunn as Skyler.  Her performance, especially in the street, and then on the phone with Walt, is incredible.  Her terse tone about Holly, her set jaw, we’ve never seen her like this to my knowledge.  RJ Mitte’s work on this one is appropriately strained as well.  

The twists they just keep coming.

And one more thing, when people ask, “How come the good guys never get shot in TV shows?”, you can just tell them, “Well, you haven’t seen Breaking Bad.”

Breaking Bad Season 6
Episode 9
To'hajiilee

I wanted to repair my last post, which is an emotionally hyper dismissal of my responsibility as a media critic, and so I’ve calmed down now and written the following: 

Now that I’ve gotten over the shock and emotion of episode 9 (or 605), To’hajiilee , it’s possible to do a real review.  On second viewing, when my mind is NOT turned off to what’s going on (I willingly suspend disbelief with film and TV so I can allow the show to take me where it wants to, then engage the brain later), this episode, like ALL episodes in this show’s history before it, is chock full of nuance, subtleties, design, purpose, and outright outrageous cinematic perfection.  

I’m not sure what they feed the people in that writer’s room, but they will all walk away this next year with little statues, along with the cinematographers.

Ok, for starters, there is the plot thickens.  You could not get a better plot point than Jul getting put under pressure to give up where the money was last seen.  The whole brains on the floor thing….wow.

But the scene I’m most impressed with, as usual with this show, is not one that involves guns, or squinty-eyed neo Nazis out of prison ready to do a hit, or barrels of cash in the sand, or even frantic driving by Walt.  It’s the scene where Walt visits Andrea and Brock at their home.  THIS I’m exited about.  Being a cinephile with a long history of looking at the projected/recorded image, I’ve seen a great deal of footage, but this is really good.  

Walt to Todd’s Neo-Nazi Uncle:

“ I don’t know where he is, but I know how to flush him out.”

So begins the segue into this wonderfully played scene.

Brock stares at a cereal box, Frootloops, and while eating them deciphers the kid puzzles on the back.

Mother asks a question that challenges Brock to answer well, demonstrating her commitment to her son’s relational growth, responsibility.  She comes into full focus in this shot.

The colors of the house are all yellowish, bright, full, happy, with soft white cabinets and trim, tall ceilings, comfortable, upper-middle class.  The gauzy and bright curtains have stars in them.  Andrea wears red.  She is luminous here, hair curled around her shoulders.  This is a warm and inviting home.

In comes the Devil.  Brock knows.  The interchange between them, the doubt in the boy’s face, the dismissal by Walt…this man in beige clothes, business casual, glasses, bandaged eye, and may I observe here…overly fleshy and white-looking head, does not fit in their colorful world.  He is tripping over himself, treading carefully, a bull in a china shop.

The very next shot from the kitchen perspective is set genius.  Set design, blocking, camera angle, lighting, everything, is so well done.  DETAILS.  The child’s art work on the fridge.  The brightly colored dishes on the island.  The wood floors.  But the blocking as well: Brock is in the background, but he is positioned directly between Walt and Andrea as they talk.  Walt’s threat is still looming over him.  Andrea is lower in the scene as well, and to the right, while Walt dominates the center.

Ok, all of this sounds really boring, I know (it’s not guns and brains, right), but it’s absolutely beautifully executed Breaking Bad work.  Nothing goes unnoticed, and nothing is without purpose.  There are about 50 more blocking and psychological manipulations of mise’-en-scene in this scene.  But those aside, there is Cranston and his superb acting.  He can play Satan better than the Devil can.  The Great Manipulator does his job here and is extremely believable.  Back to basics, THIS is what has made this show work from the start, the transformation of a simple, and even likable man from a Chemistry-teacher/dad….to Beelzebub.

Just stinking unbelievable how far we’ve come.

Get all the episodes.  Don’t start here.  Enjoy, if that’s the proper word.

Monday, September 09, 2013

Breaking Bad Season Last - Episode 605 "To'hajiilee"

Created by Vince Giligan

I have had a heart attack.  My daughter had to console me at my desk after the episode ended.  I actually had a small breakdown and had to recover from breathing difficulty.  This made the word "intense" seem like Easter morning.  

Ok, I just can't go into it here.  You have to just get the show, ok?  If you don't know what's going on, just start with Episode 1 and go from there.  Have fun with that.

Stephen Marks

On the NYTimes aricle, "20 Directors to Watch" - 09/05/13

Critics 

Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott

You wonder if NYTimes writers and editors ever actually step outside their own writing and read it back to themselves in a very objective manner.  This type of myopia is very revealing, however, especially in the latest review of filmmakers that are "making a difference" around the world of cinema.  Here is the paragraph I'd like to concentrate on, in full:

"The good news is that, despite occasional critical claims to the contrary, the quality of contemporary cinema is as exciting as the quantity is intimidating. Filmmakers around the world are making movies that blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction, personal reflection and social advocacy, conventional narrative and radical experimentation."

This reveals a trend in the writing of media criticism, and media itself.  While trying to sound smart they reveal the very nascent nature of modern filmmaking, ergo social development, in that there is an ever-closing gap of style that also is closing the gap for us in reality.  Documentary and Fiction, for example.  I recently saw the teen flick Transformers 2 wherein two robots are fighting.  One complains, Hey that Hurt!  The other states quickly, It's supposed to hurt, it's an ass-kickin'!  Ok, so Documentary and Fiction are SUPPOSED to be different, otherwise, what are they then?  Please people, if it isn't a fact, don't call it one.  Call it fiction, even historical fiction, which is still fiction based on a reality.  Like the movie Perfume, no one will take that for fact, although it is surrounded by historical fact, and is a great period piece for its authenticity.  

Question: Are we "blurring the lines" because we're bored with them?  I'd say that, and the fact that it is in our nature to move the lines, to ignore them, to flout our disaffection with them, or to outright obliterate them.  The word Truth has become this social anathema.

I love Terrence Malick's work.  My new most favorite film ever is The New World.  It's a masterpiece.  Upon reflection my heart wants to say, "You know, that's probably a lot closer to the real thing in history than anything that we have written about it so far."  John Smith was more John Smith, and Pocahontas was definitely in character, as were all the others down the list.  Fantastic.  We know this based on many historical facts at our disposal.  Mallick was a Rhodes scholar and knows his history.  But I would never, ever, call this a documentary!  It's an "art" piece.  The whole thing is a giant allegorical, poetic journey into the CHARACTERS of Smith and the Indian Princess, not to be taken as a literal treatise that would lead one to re-write textbooks.  It is a romance that Mallick also cleverly uses to showcase the social and historical realities of the period as allegory.  Perfectly done.

As for boundaries existing between personal reflection and social advocacy, does this mean that it's getting harder to tell what is simply opinion and what is a statement that is political or has an agenda?  That makes no sense.  Films are always political, because life is political, and people always have an agenda, even in the most fluffy of family films.  Let's return to Transformers again, since that's fresh on my mind.  The new state department guy that is sent out to "monitor" the Autobot program confronts the big kahuna transformer Prime guy, and he states concerning the giant Transformer, to no one in particular, yet distinctly as narration over the top of all else taking place in the scene, "If God made us, complex as we are, then who made him?"  This would definitely reveal a philosophical bias on the part of the scriptwriter.

Concerning the aesthetic differences between conventional narrative and experimental film, my comments do not apply.  Someone has always tried to break the mold of both ends of this spectrum, and with surprising results have often had breakthroughs that redefine cinema.  This is a good thing, and indeed does reflect a creativity and level of fighting against tedium that is much needed for film to survive.

How about the rest of the paragraph?

"The oldest filmmakers on our list were born in 1973, on the eve of the home-video revolution, making them members of the first true on-demand generation. They have grown up with unprecedented access to movies from across the globe and from different epochs, an abundance of influences that informs their work and can make it difficult to pigeonhole them aesthetically or regionally."

Another way to look at this might be that they're confused.  I'd say simply that it makes it difficult to understand some of their work, because now, like the blurring of the documentary and fiction, we have a blurring of understanding of who we are, therefore purposelessness is a new staple of the modern script.  In fact, the more fundamentally "unfinished" a work is, the more it is adored, it seems, because along with "truth" being a word that is like the plague, there are also other words that we are crossing off the common usage and media lists: conclusion, purpose, moral, deduction, resolution, direction, the end.  You get the idea.

NYTimes writers have much in common, it would seem, with the modern filmmaker of the 21st century's beginning, having the same myopic inability to introspectively regulate their own blurring of the lines between documentary and fiction.

NYTimes article link: http://tinyurl.com/k7kplwr