DeCaprio is Back In the Running with Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond is a terrific bit of genre entertainment from Edward Zwick, the director of Glory, The Siege, and the somewhat laughable Tom Cruise vehicle The Last Samurai. However, if you are looking for a serious treatment of controversial subject matter—illegal slave labor diamond mining in South Africa—this may not be the movie for you. Blood Diamond isn’t so much a political drama with action sequences (even if Zwick believes that’s what he’s making) as an action thriller with a convenient political backdrop to lend it some urgency and gravitas. It’s a movie, after all, and if Syriana is anything to go by—which was so utterly incomprehensible critics had no choice but to praise it—then politics and cinema simply don’t mix. Blood Diamond is considerably more poignant and moving than your average action thriller, however, and this is mostly due to Leonardo DeCaprio giving his first grown-up performance, as the embittered, hardened, and resourceful diamond smuggler Danny Archer.

In his earliest roles—the young retard in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Robert DeNiro’s battered son in This Boy’s Life, The Basketball Diaries, The Quick and the Dead, and as the young Rimbaud in Total Eclipse—DeCaprio was shaping up to be one of the most exciting actors since the young Robert DeNiro. But then something went wrong. He became a megastar with Titanic and got all buffed up for The Beach, and with his thick neck and his small round head, his Dr. Spock eyebrows and pallid skin, he began to look like he’d got stuck somewhere between adolescence and adulthood. As a result, he seemed miscast in the adult roles he was given (most of all as Howard Hughes), as if the qualities that made him such a mesmerizing actor as an adolescent made him almost uncastable as an adult. In his work for Scorsese especially (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed), he seemed to lack any substance or weight as an a actor, and he was a negligible presence. (The exception was Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, in which DeCaprio’s guilelessness and elfin features—his apparent immaturity—fitted well enough with the Walter Mitty-ish role.)

For Blood Diamond, DeCaprio assumes a thick, rather endearing South African accent and gives an impressive performance of contained intensity and depth. For the first time since those early roles, he seems to be tapping the reserves of his talent. If in his last few performances he seemed to be coasting, here he has apparently come to full attention. All of a sudden his acting is full of surprises—of small, almost throwaway touches, the kind of moments that create a fully formed, deeply affecting character. With this role, DeCaprio has rediscovered his instinct for acting—so formidable in those early roles—and with it his passion. Without him, Blood Diamond would be a so-so political thriller; with him, it’s something more poignant and memorable.

Jennifer Connelly doesn’t fare quite so well, alas, in an underwritten part as the conscience-driven journalist. In her early scenes, Connelly is poorly directed and too heavily made up (beauty like this doesn’t need make up); she appears to be overplaying to compensate for the lack of a character, and for some unfathomable reason she is practically salivating over DeCaprio. Later, she is more contained, and has some affecting moments. She does the best she can with this earnest, two-dimensional role, that of the dedicated journalist/free spirit torn between conscience and ambition.

The main role really belongs to Djimon Hounsou as the noble black man trying to find his family, and Hounsou’s Solomon is a powerful presence, the heart of the film. As an actor, he’s the ideal complementary presence for DeCaprio’s edgy, ruthless egotism, and together they make the most unlikely (and touching) of friendships. This is all familiar stuff, of course, and besides the performances and the political back story, there’s nothing really new about Blood Diamond—just another blood thriller dressed up as a tale of government corruption and personal redemption. But it’s an exemplary model—a muscular action movie with heart (if not brains) as well as brawn.

New Movie Posts: The Proposition, Bobby, The Good Shepherd, Borat, Thank You For Smoking

The Proposition is a very nicely shot, well-cast (Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, John Hurt, Danny Huston), but finally uninvolving little gothic Western written by Nick Cave. It is also yet another movie that was absurdly overpraised. Cave currently enjoys the dubious luxury of not being able to take a wrong step with critics - the surest recipe for artistic complacency and stagnation - and it's Cave's script that lets the film down. Admittedly, Cave has come up with a good, archetypal story (a criminal is sent to kill his brother in exchange for freedom), but he doesn't appear to be interested in writing real characters we can sympathize with, or even believe in. The dialogue is functional at best, at worst pretentious and heavy-handed. Cave's presence is felt throughout every scene and every line, and it feels like an intrusion. His penchant for murder, darkness, and quasi-Biblical subtexts works fine when it's the backdrop for Gothic ballads, but here it just seems indulgent, slightly sophomoric. Though it looks beautiful, The Proposition doesn't really amount to much, not least because the film - Cave's script - is so full of itself. It parades its "deeper" meanings and existential violence like some whiskey-soaked barfly trying to be deep but only succeeding in being annoying. The Proposition is somehow smug and self-enamored, and it has a kind of arrogance - it never bothers to develop its themes or characters or bring them to life. When all the blood and thunder is over, however much we may be impressed by the spectcale (critics bought Cave's malarky hook, line, and sinker), we really couldn't give a damn.

Bobby. One of the best things I have seen recently, Emilio Estevez's film came as a real surprise. It takes place on a single day leading up to Bobby Kennedy's assassination, in the hotel where it occurred. An ensemble piece with a great cast (Sharon Stone, Christian Slater, Anthony Hopkins, Demi More, Estevez, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Laurence Fishburne, and some impressive, lesser-known actors), Estevez (who also wrote the script) directs with sensitivity and assurance and a remarkable lightness of touch. Estevez's real gift is his empathy for his characters (and for the actors playing them), and it's hard to think of another recent movie so completely and effortlessly populated with living, breathing people. The film deftly aspires to Altman-style ensemble, and though it never quite rises above the level of slick and proficient filmmaking, it's an amazing achievement nonetheless. Every scene offers unexpected pleasures, and every performance seems to crackle with the joy of acting (with the possible exception of Estevez and Anthony Hopkins, neither of whom do much new here). The scenes are woven together brilliantly, into a seamless and flawlessly entertaining tapestry of human lives. The individual moments - engrossing when taken apart - build towards a devastating climax in which, against all odds, Estevez manages to make us feel the event as a bona fide tragedy. Rightly or wrongly, he creates the powerful sense of a more innocent, idealistic time in which the corruptability of leaders was not a given and optimism was not synonymous with naivete. And he gives us, free from the cynical/ironic distance of most movies today (vide The Proposition), the death of hope. (The heavy-handedness of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" here may be the film's only real wrong step, however.) In its own far humbler (and consequently more affecting) fashion, Bobby stands as a worthy companion piece to Stone's JFK. Not a masterpiece, but an almost perfect gem, a tiny work of art that is all the more impressive for being so unassuming.

The reviews for The Good Shepherd (in the UK) were almost unanimously damning in roughly the same terms, that the main character (Matt Damon) was a lifeless cypher and the movie was long-winded, meandering, and dull. All pretty much true, but lugubrious as it is, Robert DeNiro's film is still just about worth a look, not least for its early Skull & Bones initiation scenes and some fairly convincing snapshots of the inner workings of the CIA. It's half a good movie that never quite comes together and goes on way too long. But it's no worse than a lot of other 2006 movies that got praised to the skies.

Borat was one of the biggest moneymakers of last year and I suppose the time had come for a tacky, raucous, tasteless and politically incorrect third world comedy. Borat is certainly all those things, but it's not really that funny - in fact, it's kind of annoying. Like Clerks, it's an example of raw, amateurish and basically crude filmmaking that was lucky enough to coincide with what audiences wanted, and subsequently soared to heights of success far beyond any actual merits the film possessed.

Thank You For Not Smoking
Very entertaining little social satire, carried by Aaron Eckhart in a career-topping role, with some mildly subversive insights and a good supporting cast (Maria Bello, Rob Lowe, William H. Macy, Sam Eliott, that annoying kid from Birth and all those other bad movies). It skillfully walks the tightrope of its subject matter - a protagonist whose job is to put a good spin on cigarettes and who is basically a scumbag, but whose charm is irresistable - and manages to avoid most of the pitfalls of pastiche and pass for a semi-realistic character tale. Recommended.

Stop Making Sense
Stranger Than Fiction and the Question of Creative Responsibility

Stranger Than Fiction is a perfect film with one tiny flaw: it doesn’t actually make sense. But such flagrant disregard for narrative logic is inseparable from the film’s charm, and whether directly inspired by Charlie Kaufman’s cinema of self-analysis, it’s probably safe to say that the film wouldn’t exist without Kaufman’s precedent for non-linear, anti-logic meta-narratives. Stranger Than Fiction is less lacerating in its wit and less dark and scabrous in its insights than Kaufman, but considerably more affecting. It’s also closer to perfection as a post-millennial, pre-apocalypse schizophrenic romantic comedy, and confirms that the schizo comedy more or less invented by Kaufman (after some early flirtations by Woody Allen) is the natural evolution of the rom-com genre. Current times are far too precarious for a simple “boy-meets-girl” scenario to adequately distract us from our collective anxieties anymore.

Reflecting what amounts to a global identity crisis, the film is populated by semi-functional lost souls doing what they can to keep their heads above the waters of despair. An OCD IRS worker (Will Ferrell) falls in love with a tattooed Harvard drop-out and failed revolutionary, resigned to baking cookies for a better world (the ever-enrapturing Maggie Gyllenhaal); an acclaimed author and suicide manqué suffers from guilt and uncertainty over her literary gift and her wont for killing off characters (a deglamorized Emma Thompson is the tortured soul of the film); a literature professor for whom books are more real than people (another terrific turn by Dustin Hoffman, well on his way to career resurrection in offbeat supporting comedy roles). All characters in search of something if only they knew what, who have taken refuge in their routines in order to survive. Such eccentric characters are perfectly at home in what amounts to a self-reflective, self-referential, meta-comedy, in which fictional beings grasp to be real.

Stranger Than Fiction concerns a character in a novel who realizes that he is part of a fictional narrative and attempts to break out of the story (the inevitability of his own death) and meet his maker. The moment he does, he becomes a character in her life, which thereby becomes fiction—the movie we are seeing. It was impossible for me not to try and figure out if Stranger Than Fiction made sense, even while I was engaged in the blissful act of watching it. Fortunately, it was equally impossible to decide with any certainty, and in the end I realized it didn’t really matter much. Since we don’t have the opportunity to read the novel that Katherine Eiffel is writing, we can’t know how much of the protagonist’s life (i.e., the movie) is already captured by her fiction. Logically, however, the movie cannot really cohere, since Harold Crick (named after one of the inventors of DNA?), by finding out that a novel is being written about his life, would surely change the fiction’s trajectory entirely. He hears the author narrating his life, for example, but he doesn’t hear a narration about his hearing the narration, as would presumably be the case, within the (apparent) logic of the movie. Such an idea would force the story to replicate ad infinitum, spinning worlds within worlds, fictions within fictions, mirrors inside mirrors—a reflective universe in which there would be, finally, no object to be reflected.

Stranger Than Fiction shies away from the giddier and more psychedelic implications; wisely but also perhaps timidly, it does not venture where shamans and schizophrenics are compelled to tread, staying instead on the safer (and sweeter) ground of life-affirming (and death-defeating) romantic comedy. It flirts with tragedy, but never dares to consummate. It dips its toes into the dark waters of madness, but never plunges in. What makes Stranger Than Fiction different from other feel-good movies is that it actually earns our good feelings. It doesn’t sell itself short to please us. It’s eccentric and unique enough to create a sense of uncertainty as to where it’s going, and the resulting tension—the sense of the unexpected and the feeling that anything can happen—creates a fair imitation both our own lives and of Crick’s particular terror of losing control. As with Kaufman, almost every line in the film comes as a surprise; the scenes keep us guessing and the film seems fresh, uncalculated, uncontrived, effortless. The energy and lightness of Marc Forster’s direction, and the playful ingenuity of Zach Helm’s script, give the impression that the filmmakers are surprising even themselves. The film crackles with laughter and pathos, the laughs are easy and grateful, the tears sweet and unsullied by sentimentality. The beautiful irony of Stranger Than Fiction is that, by making Crick semi-fictional within his own life, he comes to seem far more real than most movie protagonists ever do. I think it's the best film of 2006.

The film is so breezily anarchic that there is even some doubt whether it will wind up as a tragedy (the IRS man might have to die for his sins). One of the touching quirks of the movie (and of Will Ferrell’s pitch-perfect performance) is that the “soulless” civil servant is the most innocent and endearing character in the film, while it is the tormented artist-writer whose soul is in jeopardy. When Eiffel discovers her character is a living, breathing person—not merely the concatenation of her genius—she is forced to face up to a new and disturbing sense of responsibility. The question arises: as a “creator,” is being true to her tale necessarily “right” for the character in it? This is not exactly a moral question; it goes deeper than mere morality, which after all entails ordinary human relations within an ordinary social context. Stranger Than Fiction raises the question of a God who lacks compassion for its creations, forced to face up to her own conscience by those same creations. Perhaps s/he even became a creator in the first place in order to learn such compassion? By her decision to abandon the necessary ruthlessness of tragedy and let Harold live, Eiffel may become a “lesser” (i.e. less-obsessed) writer, but she becomes a better person. She has learned that there is more to real fiction than taking lives, that there is a time for mercy as well as sacrifice. As any creator worth her salt knows, there is no tragedy without comedy, no laughter without tears.

Recently I have seen Children of Men, which I found to be fairly overrated. Good action sequences, admittedly, and decent enough performances, but overall this is not a particularly convincing or especially suspenseful film, and not in the least bit moving. Of course it made critics' ten best lists for 2006, along with all the other mediocre or plain lousy movies that these moron critics rate nowadays. But for a sci-fi classic, it's a poor show. Even Clive Owen and Michael Caine as a hippy can't save it from pedestrianism.

The one deserved "film of the year" contender was Pan's Labyrinth, an astonishingly well-crafted blend of adult realism and children's fantasy, beautifully shot and acted, both moving and quite disturbing, even shocking at times. After Stranger Than Fiction (more on which later) this was probably the film of the year, though I don't know who really keeps score besides morons. Certainly the best fantasy film since Mirrormask, and every bit as original.

The Prestige I was pleasantly surprised by, having read almost unanimously luke warm reviews. Admittedly it's a little slick and soulless, and not really that convincing, but it's entertaining stuff, and a partial return to form (or rather, substance) for director Chris Nolan after the disappointing Batman Begins. Of course, critics hailed that slop as a masterpiece, so Nolan won't have a clue, will he?

I also saw Nolan's first film, Following, which is unbelievably bad, tho not entirely uninteresting. Terrible acting renders an otherwise intriguing storyline ridiculous in the extreme. No indication of a major talent on the rise, so don't waste your time with this one.

The Illusionist is similar to The Prestige but much classier all round, terrific performances from Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell (whom by the way I ran into once in the west end, friendly guy) and some very nice direction by Neil Burger. This is also based on a novel and concerns a stage magician's battle with royalty. Unlike The Prestige, which never really rises above the level of a good yarn, this has some impressive visuals and a pleasingly restrained air about it, as well as a hugely entertaining (tho slightly implausible) finale.

A Scanner Darkly was a pleasant surprise; having seen the first twenty minutes last year I thought it looked fairly shoddy, but it is actually a partially successful exploration of true Dickian terrain, with some terrific little scenes between Reeves, Harrelson and Downey Jr. (as well as a pleasing return to the screen from Winona Ryder), and a few moments of genuine poignancy. Overall probably the best Dick adaptation since Blade Runner.

Hard Candy is pretty lame, nothing much of interest here, give it a miss.

Last and definitely least, I saw Little Miss Sunsine and boy, what a stinker it is. I am completely baffled and bewildered why so many people (never mind critics, we already know they are a bunch of morons) loved this shabby, sleazy little movie so much. It has absolutely nothing to recommend it except Pete Carrell and a few forced chuckles from Alan Arkin as ornery grand-dad. The whole thing is actually kind of queasy, probably the most overrated and misguided indie comedy since the truly revolting Garden State. This is the film of the year? I tell you, you people are insane!

Casino Royale: A Brief Rave

Saw the new Bond film last night, not expecting a great deal. I was pleasantly impressed. Amazed even. Easily (easily) the best Bond movie since From Russia with Love; frankly, it is the best Bond movie ever. The reason is that it is the first of the films that manages to be even faintly realistic, that is character as much as plot driven. The plot in fact is nothing special, but the handling of the scenes is refreshingly raw and gritty (not quite Bourne Identity, but close enough); for the first time ever, James Bond seems like a real personality and not just a fantasy figure, capable of suffering and other human emotions. Special praises go to Craig, who is a revelation. Eva Green doesn't do badly either: tho she weirdly fluctuates between divinely pretty and almost mannish (she looks way better without make-up), Green is extremely affecting as the first flesh and blood Bond girl. What really distinguishes this movie from other Bonds, however, is the touch of a real writer - Paul Haggis, whose hand is evident throughout the proceedings. There is actually something going on beneath the scenes now, psychological undercurrents, character dynamics, tensions; at least half the time, this is not just a good Bond movie: it's a good movie. I didn't even notice that the Bond theme wasn't being used until moments before the end when it finally appears - I had almost forgotten I was watching a Bond movie at all (yes, that's a compliment). These last few moments, after all that has gone before, made me very nearly euphoric. Never mind the fact that they celebrate Bond's acceptance of his fundamental soullessness and embracing his dubious destiny as a cold-blooded killer fantasy hero! This is cracking entertainment and final, unexpected proof that there is life in the old dodo yet.

Environmentalism is Just More Human Arrogance

What is all this stuff about saving the Earth?
have we lost our marbles?

So far as this green thinking goes, there is one basic flaw in the reasoning: all ecofriendly efforts on the part of humanity are nothing to do with the saving the planet. And thank God for that. The Earth can certainly take care of herself. It is rather that humans need to try and save themselves from the Earth's wrath before it is too late. And this is an individual thing rather than a "group action" thing. No government nor city (nor political movement) is likely to survive the earth changes that our mad activities have now made inevitable... the Earth's solution is civilization's death knell

but we are creatures of the earth (and sun) first and foremost, and so long as our allegiance is secure, we can be too

just don't get attached to your cell phone!

Babel and The Role of Movies to Provoke Change

few more notes on movies, from an email to a friend

finally saw dirty pretty things and loved it
also rules of attraction i found exhilerating, better than the book, based on what i have read so far, and avary's filmmaking chops seem to me to put tarantino's in the shade. But again the movie came and went without much support
as for babel, i did like it, quite a lot, but thought 21 grams was superior, and that babel was not nearly as powerful as it wanted and needed to be. it was harrowing, but not (for me) in the end all that moving. 21 grams on the other hand i found heartbreaking.
as for being "important" - to its credit i didn't think it attempted to hammer home any specific message and so i can't really see how (my friend) means that - important to who or what? at a pinch i can see the the writer and director are attempting some challenging things as filmmakers, but so far as....did you mean politically? i think only movies like clockwork orange or fight club (or nat born killers), ones that potentially provoke violence, can ever really impact society. calls for compassion are famously ineffective becoz in the end (tho this may be cynicism on my part) they are always really just preaching to the converted.
that said, i think babel was certainly one of the films of the year, 2006, unlike so many other stinkers that are being shortlisted.
as you may have noticed, i am getting unnecessarily exasperated with the lack of critical judgment these days!! it is not that it is almost a moral question. it actually is a moral question! the ability to tell the difference between good and bad movies seems to be disappearing in a society almost devoid of moral direction or context....
oh well

Last night I rented United 93, a film I had had no desire to see. I was swayed by the number of British publications that voted it film of the year (or at least in the running). I should have trusted my instincts. The film has absolutely nothing to recommend it. Are UK critics demented? Or is there a more complex explanation for this grotesque miscarriage of taste? The film is dull, stodgy, self-important, and devoid of any suspense or excitement. It attempts to a be a raw, gritty doucmentary renactment of "what happened," but since no one knows exactly what that is, it is just a crock. The only reason it was so well-received, I'd wager, is because the subject matter (9/11, specifically the 4th airplane that did not reach its target due to the passengers overpowering the hijackers; it came down in Pennsylvania and everyone died) is regarded with such hushed reverence that the movie enjoyed a kind of critical immunity. But what on earth is so goddamn special about 9/11 or about a bunch of passengers dying to save the whitehouse (this hardly makes them heroes in my book!)? It is just one more incident of "tragic" mass death in a world rife with such incidents.

It's ironic that after the event, Hollywood movies about terrorism were considered both bad business and bad taste; six years later, a movie about the event its regarded as the height of taste, artistry, and good commercial acumen. But it is just another movie, and in fact, a lot duller and less riveting than any number of bomb-on-airplane type movies you could name. The very thing that it is being praised for (its excruciating "realism" and muggy air of reverence) is precisely what makes it so tedious.

I think the reason people remain so in awe of 9/11 and continue to regard it as some great tragedy is that for once, a global catastrophe had repercussions on their own personal lives; it made people feel threatened and insecure. Ironically, this is the one solid justification that (objectively) one might raise in defense of the terrorists' actions: that they intended (and briefly succeeded) to wake people up and make them question the kind of society they were living in and dependent on, and question their own lives, too. But people do not appreciate being disturbed in their zombie slumber, and I think the hatred and resentment of "terrorists" has as much or more to do with this fact than with any compasison for the "innocent" victims.

None of these questions are raised by United 93, of course. The film is arrogant and complacent enough to assume that its subject matter is of such profound interest to everyone that it does not need to dress it up with any kind of dramatic artistry or character depth or much of anything at all. It is like a channel 4 documentary renactment, drawn out to an endless two hours. There is absolutley nothing controversial or daring about the film, but for some reason it was greeted as a work of art. But what I saw was a crock of shit. Further confirmation that critics are not to be trusted. Avoid this film like the plague of political correctness that it is.

Dandy in the Underworld: The Libertine

It’s extremely rare to come across a film with so sincere an artistic intent as The Libertine that isn’t also stodgy, pretentious, and self-important. Mercifully, the subject matter does not allow for a moment’s pomp or circumstance here. The film tells the tale of the resolutely dissolute nihilistic dandy, the Earl of Rochester John Wilmot, who drank and fucked with all the vigor of a one-man revolution against the hypocrisy of his society. With such a perverse protagonist as its center, the film is a tragedy that demands to be taken at least partway as comedy, and this is what the filmmakers have done with it (for the first half at least). As played by Johnny Depp (in a triumphant return to transformative brilliance), the Earl is fiercely intelligent and ferociously decadent, his decadence being both a twisted expression of and a desperate refuge from his relentless intelligence. Depp’s Earl is as bawdy and scintillating a character as we could ever hope to have as a guide through the dour and effete corridors of period melodrama (fear not, this is definitely not Merchant and Ivory terrain). In fact, he’s a blast, and from the very first moments, when he warns us we are going to be repelled by him and his story, Depp commands the screen with mesmerizing assurance. He creates a historical protagonist both eerily credible and at the same time deliriously entertaining. The same could be said of the film itself, which manages to find an almost miraculous balance between the austerity of historical melodrama and the freewheeling intensity of psychodrama. The Libertine is an imaginative portrait of the soul-searching of an artist unafraid to explore a truly fascinating subject: that of his own twisted psyche. At the same time, it is just such imaginative soul-searching—on the part of the artists who made the film—that have created a work of unusual subtlety and insight.

In the hands of Depp, playwright Stephen Jeffreys, and director Laurence Dunmore (with a little help from history), Wilmot is an almost perfect movie creation. The wayward nephew of King Charles II, Wilmot is a brilliant mind and tormented soul wrapped up in a handsome, pathologically sensuous body. He is driven by passions he cannot express to extremes few people dare to experience, extremes that will eventually bring about his death (ostensibly from small pox). It’s hard to imagine a richer, more rewarding role for an actor to play than a self-destructive genius who is also a hedonist, and Depp’s delight is evident in every scene, suffusing the film with dark, sensuous energy. Yet Wilmot is more than the sum of his parts, and Depp and the filmmakers never stoop to conquer us; they never reduce their character to manageable dimensions. Instead, they allow the Earl to remain enigmatic and obscure, both loathsome and lovable—his very own self, lost to history.

When Wilmot takes on the failing actress Elizabeth (Samantha Morton), for example, and promises to turn her into the greatest player on the London stage, we (and she) may begin to glimpse a noble soul beneath the tawdry airs and vulgar antics. Wilmot confesses to her his inability to feel passion in his own life and his need to experience it vicariously, through art and its various expressions. It is ironic, then, that his whole life—looking back upon it with the perspective of distance—should itself seem like a work of art, one in which all the human passions, the basest and most foul and the loftiest and most sublime, are enacted. These scenes between Svengali Wilmot and his winsome but ruthless apprentice are the heart of the film, and they are the toughest to pull off. Depp and Morton and the melodramatic dialogue are greatly assisted by Dunmore’s roving, hand-held camera here, and what might otherwise have been staged histrionics comes off as genuine pathos, laced with something eerie and surreal. We, like Wilmot, are unsure when his protégé is performing and when she is expressing her own true feelings. Reality and artifice, feeling and simulation, shift and blend into each other, giving the scenes a giddy, mercurial, faintly hallucinogenic quality. Yet at the same time, the unexpressed tenderness between the two, seemingly disparate characters hints at genuine tragedy: both are equally damned in their own way. In such moments, The Libertine captures the bitter elixir of impossible desire. Both the Earl and Elizabeth suffer from the same disease, and the actors convey beautifully their ache of longing, their need for acceptance on their own terms, for a moment of sweetness in the endless despair.

There are flaws, of course (John Malkovich’s false nose for one, and the Earl’s abandoning his drinking mate to die in a street brawl seems meant to be more powerful than it is); but there’s nothing to account for the reception the film received from critics, which was at best tepid and at worst scornful. While torpid, self-important drudgery like Amadeus is greeted with ecstatic reverence, The Libertine—easily one of the best historical movies ever made, and one of a handful of truly contemporary period dramas alongside Dangerous Liaisons and The Duelists—is sniffed at and dismissed as preposterous and risible nonsense. The only explanation I can think of for this travesty of judgment is that the subject matter was simply too unpalatable for most critics to come to grips with. The film’s treatment—from the superb script to the production design, the blissfully loose, almost dogme-style direction—is impeccable, and beyond reproach. Everyone involved with the movie seems to have been inspired to outdo themselves. And unlike almost any other recent film you could name, The Libertine is actually about something. It lives and breathes as a work, organic and complete, populated by a host of characters all of whom also live and breath, individual portraits within a greater composition, which is all of a piece.

I can think of no other film that comes so close to portraying, in colors both beautiful and obscene but always true, the appalling paradox of the dandy nihilist for whom pleasure is an expression of his torment. The Libertine is a superlatively performed, beautifully written, and admirably balanced portrait of a truly Luciferian character. In the Earl’s melancholic dementia, we are shown how the intellectual man, when he cannot find meaning or fulfillment in society, by virtue of his immense superiority is obliged to reject the values upon which that society is founded. The Earl willfully seeks out the inverse of these values as a means to expose the rotten hypocrisy and mediocrity of lesser minds. Yet how quickly and tragically—how inevitably—his rebellious urge turns, by slow, agonizing degrees, into the indulgence of the senses, the will for self-immolation and destruction. With his superior intellect, Wilmot is able to see through the lies of both faith and reason and is compelled to seek the only feasible reality or truth left him, that of pure animal sensation, bodily existence, and the sweet authenticity of lust. Is there anything quite so lost (so damned) as this?

In its own admirably unassuming way, the film reveals the path of the senses as the very hardest path of all to the divine. The deceptive allure of the flesh is, if anything, even more blinding and intoxicating than the heady pleasures of the intellect. Wilmot’s despairing mind drives him to an intensification of experience via sensual gratification; yet at the same time, he is seeking freedom from the intellect through lust, and the two opposing drives add up to a recipe for damnation. The road of excess is one few have the courage or strength to travel, and is as likely to lead to the gates of hell as the palace of wisdom. The Libertine is a profoundly heart-breaking yet curiously uplifting archetypal tale, one that critics (mostly male) reviled the world over, damning themselves with their prudery and squeamishness and what can only amount to a lack of courage and an incapacity to appreciate the devastating truths on display. The film they rejected offers up the quintessence of tragedy: the lofty soul dragged down to basest bodily depths through the self-loathing of the personality. As the Earl himself warns from the start, “You will not like me.” Apparently few people did, or the movie either.

Some lives—and some movies—cut a little close to the bone and reveal just how distorted and blackened the human soul can be, and must be, for its completeness to shine. By rejecting the movie, more weak-hearted, lily-livered viewers were able to reject the message also, that of the possibility of greatness and depravity co-existing, feeding off (and upon) one another in a dreadful complicity that makes moral judgments impossible. The Libertine shows in bald and brazen colors that the greater the potential for goodness is, the greater the temptation towards evil becomes. This is not a message that most decent, God-fearing critics care to contend with, evidently. Dostoyevsky once wrote that it is harder to be a great sinner than a great saint. The only real greatness—wholeness—is in having the courage to be both.

That the movie was reviled and rejected only confirms the paltry hypocrisy of the timid, soulless world it depicts, that the Earl rejects, with his own life as a sacrifice to the cause of universal revolt. Greatness will always be tested by the world, and will either be destroyed by it or brought to full fruition (for some, destruction may be the only possible fruition). The Libertine aspires after greatness. I think it achieves it; the world begged to differ. Time will tell which of us was right.

It’s difficult to express just how impressed I was by this film (especially considering how little impressed most viewers seem to have been), without getting carried away by my own enthusiasm. The Libertine is monumentally, heroically ambitious; it attempts to portray a truly unique historical figure and get at the root of his madness; at the same time, it is perfectly scaled to ordinary human emotions. The film’s ambitions never interfere with the telling of its story: they are not the ambitions of hubris, the desire to aggrandize a work beyond its station; they are from a simple desire to do full justice to the subject, a determination not to flinch from presenting it in a fully rounded light, and a need to be absolutely ruthless and honest in doing so. There is nothing superfluous in The Libertine—everything is put to good use, every line of dialogue, every shot, every set, every performance (and there are some dandies here, every one of them offers some surprises), all are woven together to form a tapestry both pleasingly simple in design and deceptively intricate in detail. It’s a work of pathos and beauty that comes not just from the hearts of those who made it but from their souls. A movie that that manages to be both heartrending and hugely entertaining at the same time, that shows the tragedy and comedy of the human condition, without shying away either from the horror or the sensuality of it, can only be considered an authentic work of art.

The Earl would be proud. His revolt was not in vain.

Inside a Moral Vaccum: Scorsese's New Clothes

I recently saw The Departed and admittedly it was a pirate copy (a perfectly good image but it jumped around a lot), so I can't be sure how much the film lost as a result; but what I saw was an incomprehensible mess and probably the sloppiest filmmaking Scorsese has ever done. Yet the critics raved; many of them even chose it as their film of the year. Are they no longer able to distinguish between intention and result, I wonder, or between the reputation of the maker and the brutal fact of the film itself? These days, even an incontestable stinker like Eyes Wide Shut gets a rapid revisionist take and becomes a "classic" in order for the critical consensus that has canonised Kubrick to remain intact. (As far as revisionist history goes, it's easier to believe the holocaust never happened than accept EWS as a great movie.)

The best way to comprehend the mathematical concept of infinity is to contemplate the stupidity of film critics. But it forces me to question whether I am in the right line of work.

There is a kind of collective dementia running our world. Of course, anyone with the most rudimentary degree of awareness has known that for a long time, and one can even get used to it and find humor in it, when an inarticulate moron like GWB becomes president of the USA. With global exploitation and political corruption reaching new lows of depravity, what is most exasperating is not that it continues to exist, but that one's fellow humans persist in pretending it doesn't, in voting, watching the news, expressing political opinions, just as if any of it had the least baring on what is really happening behind the scenes.

It's not the malevolent iniquity of the dark power elite that bugs me, but the docile acquiesence of the masses. After all, I am forced to live with the latter, at least to some extent, whereas the evil elite doen't really cross my path too often. Ditto with movies. I don't really care if once-gifted filmmakers churn out lifeless, over-stylized but basically worthless, clunky drek like The Departed; it's to be expected, after all. What I really object to is that they get praised to the skies for doing it, and often damned for their best work (Scorsese' Bringing Out the Dead, for example, easily his most impresive film in the last 25 years, and of course the critics ignored it.) How are they even to know when they have delivered the goods, if no one tells it to them straight?

People get the leaders they deserve; and if audiences get served up endless movie shite then it serves them right for taking it and having such lousy taste. What's really demoralizing is that they actually seem to enjoy it. There is a legion of tasteless and moronic film critics to misguide them.

Where oh where is dame Kael to point out the emperor's nakedness to the world and bring shame upon the emperor's head?

It's a lousy job to be a bearer of ethical/aesthetic sanity inside a moral vaccum; but someone sure has to do it

James Bond: Archaic Remnant


I am writing for a new online magazine, for any of you interested, see link below. my piece is called An Icon of Class, it's about James Bond and his influence on Hollywood
http://www.wearethemagazine.com/

I was paid a few bucks for this piece, and the editor in chief now considers me the "resident film genius," quote unquote. A position i am all-too happy to fill, needless to say, and savor the long-sought taste of recognition!

Balancing Accounts: How to Avenge Email Snubs

Here is something i sent out last week that may amuse those of you who have ever been snubbed or ignored in your efforts to communictae in this very volatile world of email.

To whom it may concern,

Please read this in its entirety if you have any interest in improving your business sense.

If you are receiving this message, here’s why: In the last 12 months or so you have, deliberately or otherwise, ignored emails sent you regarding my wares (books, scripts, articles, etc, all suffused with that unique, sadly underappreciated Horsley genius).

I am sure you have your reasons for this. Everybody always has reasons. But unless such reasons entail a debilitating sickness, an unforeseen accident, a lawsuit, abduction by aliens or something equally earth-shattering, I am not really interested. I am concerned only with the effects which your discourtesy had on me at the time. It may have been months back; perhaps you weren’t even aware of snubbing anyone at the time, much less now. But I do remember.

Writers have longer memories than elephants. Those like myself, touched or cursed by momentary genius, we are petty, obsessive, vengeful beasts. (All decent writers write at least partly for revenge.) Some day, when the success and recognition I shamelessly covet is finally mine, all your snubs will mean nothing. They are, I freely acknowledge, part of the necessary tempering of the artist, and I shall not kick against these pricks. But allow me at least to point them out.

It is in the interests of cleansing my psyche of you once and for all that I am sending this email, collectively, to let you know that, witting or otherwise, you have offended this “hot-headed fantasist” (quoting Pauline Kael, get it??)

Perhaps you think you (or your time) are too important to observe what my mother calls “good manners” and common courtesy? Perhaps you consider these ideas old-fashioned in the age of stem cells and Internet? Whatever business you are in—in most cases a publishing house or agency—I guarantee this is not so, and that your own advancement is suffering from such an attitude. Snubbing potential clients isn’t just sloppy and rude—it’s bad business.

I wanted to keep this short. Only those with sufficiently morbid curiosity (and any of you who still have consciences) will still be reading anyway. What is this maniac trying to accomplish here? I will tell you.

This email serves as a collective Curse upon all of you who had the temerity and arrogance to ignore one of the visionary talents of our age. It is a Curse in the old, Egyptian sense, not the modern, angry expletive sense (though I am tempted). Do not expect plagues of locusts or for blood to come through your bathroom faucet. Any of you who happen to lose a limb or contract brain cancer in the next few months, please don’t blame me. The curse should fit the crime, so this is a very mild curse, intended to cause just the amount of rancor, frustration, stress, righteous wrath and indignation that you have all (wittingly or not) inflicted upon my own sensitive psyche. A particularly obscene traffic jam, perhaps, an underserved parking ticket, an unaccountably rude bank teller, painful humiliation at the hands of a beautiful woman (or star client), and suchlike—expect any or all of these in the following months.

This Curse will become effective as of next Tuesday, 31^st of October, being the day of All Hallow’s Eve, also called Sam Hain, popularly know as Halloween. Any of you who feel undeserving of this cybernetic hex, contact me with humble apology and/or convincing explanation within the next seven days, you will hereby be exempted from it. The rest of you? The next time some stupid unthinking SOB snubs, disses, or ignores you FOR NO GOOD REASON, you will think of me.

That’s all. Now go about your flagging business.

Yours karmically,

The genius-whose-daddy-didn’t love him enough,

Jake Horsley

Divine Virus Productions

And the solitary response (two hours after i sent the email, a week ago, from a US publisher):

Jake,

Your email notice certainly did the trick in making me feel a “member” of the cursed.

With that said, I do apologize for not getting back to you over the last 12 months and I am truly sorry that I haven’t been able to connect with you in a way that ended up in our making a deal for one of your projects.

Please forgive me and don’t stop sending projects to me for review in the future.

Best wishes,

’Til Art is No More: Hollywood Devours Its Young


If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? An axiom that Hollywood regards with all the cynical opportunism of an unscrupulous mechanic—not only fixing things that don’t need fixing, but deftly messing them up in the process.

The 2006 remake of The Omen is the latest example of Hollywood opportunism run amok. So far as I can tell, the only reason the film was made—the only vaguely “creative” rationale behind it—was to make a big marketing strategy out of releasing it on June 6, 2006, (06/06/06, geddit?). Big, fat, hairy deal. They could have saved themselves $50 million and re-released Richard Donner’s original film, now thirty years old, with Gregory Peck (whom Liev Strieber does a peculiar, nostalgia-inducing impersonation of in the current film). Audiences would then have received a decent (if dated) bit of movie horror hokum, instead of a shallow rehash with nothing but some “cool” imagery and the stunt casting of Mia Farrow (remember Rosemary’s Baby?) to distinguish it.

The only thing that makes The Omen remake worth writing about is how it provides one more piece of irrefutable evidence as to the complete poverty of imagination or innovation in the higher echelons of Hollywood studios. Remakes have been the rage for a couple of decades now, but it’s only in the last few years that the industry began to cannibalize itself with such speed that, within another decade (Armageddon permitting), it will be remaking its hit movies fasting than it can come up with the originals. Where once there was at least the pretense of a creative justification for such remakes (i.e., old movies like The Postman Always Rings Twice, being done over to take advantage of the new permissiveness), there is now a total void of artistic rationale to cover the mercenary and soulless agenda at work.

Gus Van Sant’s Psycho was perhaps the turning point. Ironically, the movie was supposedly a “labor of love” on Van Sant’s part (so he would have us believe), a grand follie that remade Hitchcock’s movie, shot for shot and word for word, as a “homage” to the master. (Can pissing on someone’s grave be considered a homage? Only in Hollywood.) The studios probably approved Van Sant’s heroically demented enterprise because it meant getting a Psycho that was in color, hence could draw in mass audiences. (Colorizing Hitchcock’s original would have caused far too much of a stink even for studio execs to want to deal with.) Van Sant’s misguided Psycho was neither a commercial nor a critical success, but even so it seems to have set a precedent for “paint by numbers” sequels (and “join-the-dots” profits?).

Nowadays, it is perfectly natural for studios to employ no-name (and usually no-talent) directors to remake “classic” horror movies that aren’t even that old and where a simple re-release would serve. As prophesized by Robert Altman’s The Player, such a procedure may represent Hollywood executive dreams come true: the means for entirely removing writers from the filmmaking process. (All emphasis here on process, none at all on filmmaking.)
Assault on Precinct 13, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hills Have Eyes, When a Stranger Calls, and now The Omen and The Wicker Man, have all enjoyed the Hollywood “upgrade” in recent years, always to the detriment of the original movie (in cases such as Amityville, admittedly no great loss; the one exception to this rule is Dawn of the Dead, which almost justified itself by being a rip-roaring bit of splatter fun, just like the original.) So what’s next? A remake of Eraserhead, with Bill Murray as Henry? Or how about a new, extra special edition of Close Encounters (by James Cameron?), now that we have CGI? Hell, let’s remake E.T while we’re at it! Soon there will be no way to tell new releases from old favorites.

What I have to ask is, why not, for heaven’s sake, remake horror movies that might actually benefit from being done over? Either films whose potential wasn’t tapped the first time around or that didn’t have the technology needed to do full justice to the director’s vision? Let Cronenberg do a $50 million rehash of Videodrome, and inflict us with the postmodern paranoid epic he has always dreamed of inflicting upon us! What about all those horror movies with fantastically inspired plots that never managed to deliver on their promise? Larry Cohen’s God Told Me To, John Carpenter’s They Live, the visionary but disappointing Dark City? What about the old Nigel Neale “Quatermass” TV shows? The answer is that none of these have the instant recognizability of those ’70s horror “classics” which, once remade, pretty much sell themselves because even younger audiences have heard of (but hopefully not seen) the originals. There may be something like morbid curiosity compelling people to see these movies, out of a mixture of nostalgic affection for the originals and a desire to see how awful these new versions really are. I, too, have allowed myself to be tricked into watching these films—actually paying money to see them—despite the absolute certainty that I will repent of it afterwards. And invariably, I do.

Judging by the continuing stream of this warmed-over dreck, remakes of movies that either didn’t need remaking or never had much potential to begin with—so long as they are easily identifiable by title—more or less guarantee a profit for the studios. What could be simpler than taking a previous hit and giving it a glossy, FX-happy make-over? If they are in the mood for a good scare, people will go to see a horror movie, just like they will go to a dumb-out comedy for a laugh (let’s face it, like they will go the movies, period), no matter what it is. Remakes share their title with some movie that audiences have heard about and which they assume must be great; the mere fact it’s been remade means it’s a classic, right? They go to the movie out of some fuzzy “logic” (or rather, irrational hope) it will provide whatever special thrills made the original special. Teenage audiences (the target audience of these movies) have next to no awareness of film history and even less interest in it; they have all the memory or discernment of MTV-raised, ADD goldfish, and apparently, they like it that way. So long as they’re served the requisite gore and cheap thrills and can max out to their popcorn, who cares if they’re eating moldy old leftovers—and not last week’s but last year’s? It’s all been microwaved and MSG-ed to cover the lack of nutritional value or of anything faintly resembling flavor. Their retinas, brains and eardrums are being assaulted; and that, man, is what the movies are all about.
Ye gods. And this Hollywood agenda looks set to proceed, with all the inexorable inevitability of a fundamentalist Armageddon, verily, until Art exists no more.

The only possible way to justify an Omen remake—with its ever-more topical “Antichrist in the White House” archetypal unfolding—would be either by coming up with a whole new twist to the tale or by making the scariest goddamn movie ever. The new Omen accomplishes neither goal; most depressingly of all, it doesn’t seem to aspire to anything at all. The strongest sensation I got while watching it was an eerie, unsettling déjà vu that took me back to seeing the first film (a dozen times) as a teenager. This new version is so similar to the original, and yet so fundamentally inferior in everything but the cinematography, that it creates a kind of vacuum in the viewer—at least in those of us who have seen the original. It’s exactly the sort of vacuum you’d expect when an art form had begun to cannibalize itself. It’s happening so rapidly now that an art form is disappearing before our eyes.

If the antichrist were among us today, I wonder: would he be running a Hollywood studio?

The Inner Voice of Paul Thomas Anderson

In Dogville Vs. Hollywood I wrote a single line on Magnolia, calling it “a sprawling, only partly successful imitation of Altman, [that] suggested Anderson was a filmmaker with aspirations possibly beyond his talents.” Having seen the film for second time, seven years later, I have some serious crow to eat.

A soaring, almost wholly successful work (some scenes with Julianne Moore still strike me as overwrought and heavy-handed), Magnolia seems to me now the most heartfelt and original movie epic since, well, since forever. (I was going to say since Nashville, but the truth is, Magnolia is a considerably richer and more personal work than Altman’s.)

There’s no doubt Anderson’s ambitions as a filmmaker border on hubris; but what’s truly astonishing is that he actually has the wherewithal to see them through and do almost complete justice to them. With only his third film, Anderson made a masterpiece, a film that walks the high-wire between nigh-esoteric subtlety and melodrama bordering on soap opera, and it does so without a net. (At over three hours running time and a cost of over $40 million, anything less than a tour-de-force could have vaporized Anderson as surely as Heaven’s Gate vaporized Cimino.) Even so, Magnolia confounded many viewers (myself included obviously) with its brazen originality and disregard for movie conventions. To fully appreciate the scope, depth, and intensity of Anderson’s film, it may be necessary to meet the writer-director halfway, to allow his peculiar vision to unfold at its own tempo and in its own, unique manner. However brilliant a movie, Magnolia is not an ingratiating work; Anderson appears to deliberately confound his audience’s preconceptions about both art and entertainment, delivering a work unlike any other American movie of the last thirty years, without apology. As Anderson said to the crew on the first day of shooting, making a great movie is “nothing to be ashamed of.”

As a work of art, Magnolia is hugely entertaining, as well as being the closest American movies have come in recent years to a genuine labor of love. Against all odds, Anderson has made an intimate epic that stays true to his individual vision, a film that is both disturbingly personal and sweepingly universal in its reach. Anderson makes a proud and plaintive cry to be saved from the ranks of the freaks who suspect they can never love anyone; and the deeper he reaches into his own heart and soul, the more profoundly he connects with ours.

With his ability to pull off something this freakish—a movie that, by all the usual standards for judging movies, simply should not work—Paul Thomas Anderson proved himself to be a truly Promethean talent, a bona fide filmmaking genius. As Pauline Kael wrote of Coppola in his heyday (The Godfather Part Two), “that’s the inner voice of the authentic hero.”

Tarantino's Licensed Depravity

I just watched HOSTEL, which I found disgusting. I am not one to take moral stances, much less on movies. But in this case I am sorely tempted. Tarantino should have his head examined for supporting something as grotesque as this. That said, it does have some powerful imagery, once the barbarism begins (the first hour was just crap), and obviously it evoked a strong emotional response in me. But how hard is it to get an emotional response from scenes of graphic torture? (I felt the same about Tarantino’s ear-slicing scene in Dogs, which was just exploitation cinema done up in new, postmodern rags). The film was disturbing, sure, but at a visceral rather than psychological level. Footage of animal experimentation would also be disturbing. Big deal.

What I admire about movies like Blue Velvet and Casualties of War (also M), and even Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is the way they get to the psychological roots of sadism, (by) creating empathy not just for the victims (easy enough, obviously), but for the perpetrators also. Tarantino seems devoid of empathy as a filmmaker. It’s hard to imagine a greater defect (I think Kubrick suffered from it too, however, so I guess there are ways around it!). He delights in depicting scenes of pain and dismemberment with all the sadistic relish of a Goebbels.

They say a society gets the heroes it deserves. Tarantino’s success strikes me as (like everything) symptomatic of just how “depraved” (removed from basic human qualities like compassion, introspection, kindness) audiences have become, that they would take pleasure in what amount to sadistic orgies of violence with no leavening “moral” (i.e. artistic) intent behind them.

In the end, there can be no credible argument made for censorship of any kind. But if there was, Hostel would be exhibit A.

My Old Friend Pain

Of late, the state of my health and my corresponding mood seems to be fluctuating with eerie consistency between the extremes. When I am feeling healthy and my internal workings are “open”—for business and pleasure—my mood is accordingly good. I am happy and grateful for everything, starting and ending with my health. Praise the Lord.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere (and apparently unrelated to diet, though pot is a definite no-no), the symptoms return in full force and I am back “in Hell,” swallowed up by bitter despondence and nigh-suicidal despair. Thus disposed to dwell upon my misery, I no longer desire do anything besides eat, read, watch movies, anything, in short, that permits me withdraw from a now untenable reality. This extreme shift of mood—which in the past would have required several days at least—occurs sometimes in a matter of hours. Back and forth I go, a cosmic yo-yo of a soul.

At crux of my misery is not just the relationship I have with “my” body—i.e., that between my mind and body—but with external conditions in general. (It may seem odd to speak of the body as an external condition, but to the mind that is exactly what it is.) When the body is in revolt—if such it is—the mind also rebels. Perceiving the body as the enemy, it says, “Fuck you! I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want to do, whether you like it or not!” Not that this entails any extreme forms of hedonism, you understand, but at the very least a stubborn and defiant decision not to meditate. Why should I meditate if my body is gonna act like this? Screw you, body!

This madness is the result of my constant awareness of a rigorous force or intelligence, separate from the ego but nonetheless forever present. (Face it, the ego is separate from everything; the ego only exists in, as, and by separation.) In my madness, I end up pitting myself against this force—call it God, Spirit, True Will, or just plain common sense—exactly as if it really were outside of myself. Everything becomes a manifestation of this force—a challenge, test, punishment, mockery, or insult. Even something as simple as a barking dog or bananas that refuse to ripen no matter how fucking long I leave the damn things in the Sun, such matters become living, tormenting examples of how the Universe—life—defies me and continues to turn up the heat, here in my personal, private Hell.

Yesterday morning, I realized that the problem—hence the solution—is really very simple. Every time I focus on an external circumstance, condition, or event that frustrates, disappoints, angers or oppresses me, I cast blame upon it for undermining my happiness, will, and well-being, as I would some invading force that exists solely to destroy my hard-earned piece of mind. How dare it!!?

The truth, however, is that what is undermining me is none of these things. What is undermining me is rather the thought, belief, the stubborn, egomaniacal conviction that there is anything outside of me at all that could ever have the power to undermine me. It is my insistence on perceiving things as happening TO me, rather than THROUGH me, that is the source of my torments.

If I am the lead player in the drama of “my life,” the only thing that can undermine my happiness, logically, is me.

There is a difference between pain and suffering. “Pain” causes us to “suffer,” just as pressure brought to bear on a structure may create tension within it. So far as we resist pain, we suffer. When we accept the pain, even though it is still there, if we are no longer judging it (or feeling judged by it), there is no longer any need to prolong it. Suffering is pain prolonged—by resistance—beyond what is strictly necessary.

I’ve come to see all physical pain (including so called “diseases”) as simply blocked energy and the pressure and discomfort that it causes. If so, what blocks energy? What prevents it from flowing down its proper channels? The answer, generally, is our thoughts, combined with the moods they create (and are sustained by) and any “bad habits” we adopt as a response to (or a reaction against) them, are what block the free flow of energy.

When our energy is blocked, we experience pain or dis-ease. What is then required, usually, is to reverse the (emotional-mental-physical) pattern that caused the blockage. We have to break the habit and free up the trapped energy, and so relieve the pressure. The trouble is—as we all know from bitter experience—this situation creates its own vicious circle. Bad habits (negative thinking and moods) block the flow of energy, resulting in pain, which hurls us into suffering. Then when we suffer, we become gloomy and despondent, self-pitying and resentful, and “take refuge” in sloppy behavior and “bad habits.” And so it goes: the suffering is compounded, and indefinitely sustained.

I think at base of this diabolic predicament is the fact that, in our present culture and society, we have not learned—are unaware even of the possibility—how to incorporate pain into our lives and transform it into something else. In our prevailing culture of convenience, pain is the ultimate undesired (and undesirable) commodity. Pain is what we will do anything to avoid, even when it is already too late and the only sane and responsible thing is to accept it and deal with it! Because we try to push the pain away, however—even when it most sorely needs our attention—there is no way for pain to be absorbed into (and so healed by) our larger experience.
By denying pain—with aspirins and antibiotics and TV and alcohol and comfort food and whatever other relief or refuge we contrive to find—we believe we are keeping suffering at bay. But we are only isolating it, keeping it separate and alive as a “thing” unto itself, and so making it impossible to assimilate. From such a lopsided perspective, “pain” and “suffering” exist for the sole purpose of undermining our happiness and well-being! And the pain never goes away, only grows and mutates in its special, isolate state, the dreaded “other” that can never be assimilated. Eventually it grows into something we cannot ignore, something that takes over our lives entirely. On that day, suffering becomes our lot, and the only sound advice would seem to be—that of Job’s wife to her sorely afflicted hubbie—“Curse God and die!”

Before we take such an extreme resort, there is an alternate option, however.

The alternative is to allow the pain, without judgment or resistance, to exist as part of ourselves, to accept it and take full responsibility for it and allow it to become—or rather to be—an integral part of our total life experience. Why not? That’s what it is, after all. If we do this, we may begin to see just how small in relation to everything else the pain really is. Pain is not a “thing,” any more than knowledge or love or happiness are “things.” Pain is one of countless distinct qualities of living, a single point of view in a vast array of perspectives designed to “flavor” our life experience.

I am learning to think of pain as an especially powerful spice: mix it with the rest of the ingredients and it adds a special “bite” (and body) to the meal, bringing out all the other flavors (by contrast), making the eating experience more intense and memorable. (It may even help us to digest the food afterwards) The addition of this super-spice, in moderation, rounds off the dish and makes it complete; it puts the meal as a totality into a nice, sharp perspective. So it is with pain.

If we refuse to use that spice, for fear of what it may do to us (ruin the meal?), and instead keep it on the side, what then? We are always going to wonder what it’s doing there, and we will simply have to use it eventually. We wind up eating the spice on its own just to find out what it’s like, and sure enough—just as we suspected—it inflicts the most horrendous experience upon us. How could anyone imagine such an evil spice was actually good to eat?! But we have completely missed the point of the spice, and probably given ourselves indigestion to boot.
My own predicament appears to be thus.

Certain channels in this-body-which-I-am have been blocked (by fear of and resistance to pain, probably of the emotional variety) for a very long time. I am now attempting to unblock those channels, and what is coming through them is a lot of long-repressed stuff—sadness, fear, rage, whatever the hell it is and wherever the hell it comes from, it’s easy to see why it’s been repressed. This is all the crap that has literally been bottled inside me for decades. So naturally it doesn’t feel good when it comes out; and since the body is already in the habit of “closing up” to protect itself from pain, this is precisely what it does. By doing so, however (by mistaking an internal process for an external ‘thing”), it only traps the old hurt inside; and what is inside us, as we know, is what can really fuck us up.

The result of this internal warfare seems to be that I get to enjoy a period of grace in which I feel “good,” having cleared some of that baggage/blockage/tension; the energy is flowing and I can eat and breath normally, I am happy and grateful to be alive, thank you, sweet Lord, for all Thy blessings. Then, since I’ve cleared the way for that stagnant, foul, putrid, long-denied shit to come up, the pain wells up again and the poor body goes back to its default setting of rigid resistance. At this point, it feels exactly as though I am back to square one, like nothing has changed and I have accomplished absolutely nothing for all my suffering. The pain is exactly the same. I succumb to fear, despair, resentment, anger, all the old habit patterns that were once used to suppress the pain. To Hell with you God! Just let me die, you sadistic fuck!!
But of course, this doesn’t work anymore. It’s too late, because things have changed. I am at least aware of the grisly process, and of what I am doing to change it. Something besides merely keeping the pain at bay is now underway.

In a sense—though not, I hasten to add, a masochistic one—I am inviting my pain to show itself, not to be shy, to come out and talk, tell me how it feels and what it wants. I am striving to accommodate it, give it a place to be, make it feel welcome, accept it, embrace it, assimilate the damn thing and be done with it. Wine it, dine it, and put it to rest once and for all. Bloody hell, so mote it be.

In the meantime, like a good host, I am obliged not merely to endure the company of this gruesome guest, but to make the most of him and try to enjoy our time together. Since I invited Pain to come visit, I must be civil. Now is time for us to spend some quality time together, to learn to understand and respect each other, as worthy opponents must, and to plumb the depths of our experience together. As traveling companions in Hell we venture onward, my old friend pain and I.

Who The Bleep Are They Kidding?

Recent stomach troubles have dictated a strict diet with very few of the foods I most enjoy permitted. Primary among these is, that old English staple, bread and cheese. Like Wallace, I am a cheese-eater through and through, and could happily have it with every meal if not for digestive considerations. No more. In the past month, the only cheese I have been enjoying has been at the movies, most copiously at the What the Bleep Do We Know? sequel, Down the Rabbit Hole, a movie that ought to carry a warning to lactose- (and lachrymose-) intolerant viewers: “Contains potentially dangerous levels of cheese.”
A quasi-documentary about “the fundamental truth of unity,” Bleep 2 is more New Age physics for lazy laypeople to ooh and ah over. In fact, it is more of a remake than a sequel, a compendium of stuff left out of the first movie, perhaps, and with nothing at all by way of upgrading in evidence. 2½ hours of ineptly staged dramatizations and waffling interviews with self-satisfied “experts,” and perhaps a half hour of original material to justify, however limply, its existence, Bleep 2 is a shameless cash-in on the first film’s success that suffers from all the failings of the original. Despite the larger budget and longer running time, the filmmakers have chosen not to develop their technique in any significant ways, revealing their utter complacency as “artists,” and betraying a smug simple-mindedness and appalling lack of imagination completely at odds with the “ground-breaking” nature of their material. I can only presume they considered the original formula to be already perfect and that, since it wasn’t broken, why fix it?

The first movie made money and seemed to spark interest and excitement in the most unlikely of viewers, viewers perhaps grateful that such ideas were getting air-time at all in a popular movie. Yet it’s hard to imagine a work whose style is so profoundly in conflict with its content, that juxtaposes such profound, challenging ideas with so daffy and clichéd an execution. The expressed end of the Bleep films appears diametrically opposed to the means employed. They propose to present a whole new paradigm by which to interpret our reality (and live our lives), a quantum weltanschauung if you will; yet the methods employed are so profane and uninspired that the result is rather to discredit (if not actually debase) the awesome concepts which these films are so gleeful to bandy about. By endeavoring to deliver the findings of cutting edge physics to the mass consciousness, the Bleep films are the quintessence of New Age reductionism. They present a lowest common denominated version of the Mysteries, selling audiences life-changing ideas in cozy, non-threatening forms, so that the masses can have their manna and eat it, feel “enlightened” without having to change in any meaningful way.

In a quantum Universe in which information determines the spin of each and every particle, the Bleep movies spin their information into one big, dull, self-satisfied blah. As with all things New Age, by focusing exclusively on a positive “spin,” they render the subject flat, two-dimensional. Throwing around words like God, eternal, absolute, infinite energy, consciousness, etc, with so little force or precision saps not only the words but the concepts behind them of power and vitality. The concepts may reach more people by being so diluted—thinned out—but at what price? This user-friendly, multiplex-tailored view of occult realities is as far from shamanism as art from kitsch (and kitsch is what the Bleep movies are).

Fuzzy-headed professionals talking about the power of the brain? People we would avoid like the plague at a dinner party holding forth on “avenues of reality, unborn” and “infinite tomorrows.” Please.

Words, words, words, but where is the spirit? Images that belong in a Gatorade commercial not in a movie about time and space. The magical Universe seen through the lens of the Bleep movies becomes the asinine universe. A supremely patronizing experience.

Some comments from the filmmaker Keith Gordon (Mother Night, The Singing Detective on my blue pill piece; for more on his work, check out www.divinevirus.com/muse.html)

KG:

I found (the piece) very moving. And it echoed deeply with some of my own thoughts and experiences (including some recent health problems involving food and craving).To me, I don't see the spiritual path as one of perfection as a goal. Sometimes it sounds like you still see the world in terms of duality (blue pill OR red pill). But the wisest and best Buddhist teachers I've had emphasize that it's all about integrating the spiritual and the mundane. Merging, not dividing. (blue pill AND red pill, particle and wave, craving and letting go of craving). That even Buddha was human, and not 'perfect'. That he too was subject to craving, aversion, anger, greed and all the rest. All he had done was learn to deal with it in a very profound way.The Buddha himself talked about both relative reality (where we all live) as well as absolute reality (the more 'perfected' spiritual realm), and saw both as real or true (and of value), depending on what one's point of view at that moment was.

There's a great book by Jack Kornfield called, 'After the Ecstasy, The Laundry'. He spoke to highly advanced spiritual practitioners in many traditions, and almost to a person they noted that even after 'enlightenment' experiences, they were still human, still vulnerable to all the same stuff, still got mad at their kids, or impatient in traffic. They just had new options on how to deal with those things when they manifested.'Perfection' to me is an illusion in itself. The universe could only form because of 'imperfections' in how primal matter initially spread out from the big bang. Most art is made meaningful by it's 'imperfections'. A 'perfect' world (or person) would be unchanging, cold, dead.Indeed, craving 'perfection' on the spiritual path seems to me just as destructive a craving as those for food or money or power. It's still a craving. But craving ('I can only be happy when...') is very different than a healthy impulse to grow spiritually, and open our hearts and minds to knowing and enjoying both the 'illusion' and 'the truth' - and remembering that neither is as neatly pure of the other as our craving (for order and answers) minds might desire.

Of course I know you already knew what I was saying from your piece (I have the feeling you are far more well read and deeply educated in these areas than I). But there was so much pain in what you were writing that I wondered if your heart and soul could hear what your brain 'knew'. So I was really reflecting back your own ideas.To me, that's always one of the trickiest part of any spiritual path. Getting the heart and soul to really take in a concept the brain 'knows', or just the opposite - getting the brain to really digest something that's already part of the wisdom of the body or heart.

One other, random comment on the piece - re the starving man vs. the glutton. My take would be that either one might 'enjoy' the meal more. It would depend who could eat it with mindfulness and awareness.The starving man would likely find more relief in the meal from his pain - but that's not the same as enjoyment. If that was the secret to enjoying life, then we should constantly be starving ourselves (literally and figuratively) so we could enjoy things. But that was the path the Buddha rejected (along with gluttony). Neither extreme allowed balance. Those that would torture themselves into truth seemed to find it no easier than those that tried to pamper themselves into it.Besides, if the glutton was truly obsessed with food, he might, subjectively, feel just as much relief, even if his body didn't really need it.

Just a thought...

Why Oh Why Didn’t I Take the Blue Pill?
Meditations on the “Spiritual” Life

“The bright and morning star that fell did not fall alone, it tore down everything else with it, including me. Part of my own being fell with it, and I am that fallen being now.”
—Philip K. Dick, The Divine Invasion

Two days ago I saw an inverted rainbow. Naturally I wondered what it meant, as signs go. The first thought that occurred to me, besides that it was beautiful, was that I had been seeing the world upside down, and that it was time to correct my perspective. Like a living paradox, I had been standing on my head to get God’s attention. Now God was doing the same. If we create our reality, that includes God, right?

We never left the Garden. We polluted it with our garbage and turned it into a Swamp. Good fruit still grows here, we just have to find it. Seek, you will find, knock and it will be opened unto you. Don’t seek, and you won’t find. If you don’t knock, the door will stay forever closed.

We have to take the initiative, here and now. God doesn’t come looking for us. Only the devil does that.

Some of the profoundest words I ever heard, I heard in a song, Leonard Cohen’s “Stories of the Street”: “You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.”

There is a Buddhist hell, called the Hungry Ghost realm, in which the damned soul is surrounded by food, an enormous stomach and a pin hole for a mouth. These souls “can never fulfill their hunger, so they are always filled with craving and desire. They can never be satisfied.” My situation feels like the reverse, a tiny stomach that will not allow food to enter, and a vast, gaping mouth that wants only to devour but cannot; not, at least, without suffering the torments of the damned as a result. But in either case, the hell is a hell of craving. According to Buddhists, the source of all suffering. I can definitely vouch for that.

For those of you unfamiliar with my predicament, I was recently infiltrated by hookworm, microscopic razor-fanged worms that gnaw into the intestines and drink the blood. The prescription medicine I took seems to have killed the critters, but in the process done untold damage to my intestines. The result is a continuous sensation of being blocked, sometimes all the way up to my throat, whenever I try to eat something (and sometimes even when I don’t). I am currently confined to fruit, porridge, soups and purees, which as you can imagine, leaves a lot of room for craving. This is a situation that may continue indefinitely, depending as it does upon factors beyond my control or even understanding. Hence, I have no choice but to accept the suffering and try to find the “lesson” in it; to use this affliction as a means to confront and overcome whatever psychological/emotional tendencies have caused it.

What this means in practical terms is that, for the first time in my life, mediation has become necessary to my survival. I have to get my energy somewhere, and without a couple of hours a day meditating and deep breathing, I appear to be wasting away to nothing. With it, however, I am slowly returning to life. Of course, never has the idea of meditation been so utterly, profoundly filled with dread as when the body feels like this. I am discovering the power of true will.

None of this is half so grim as it sounds at first glance. In fact, it is a source of joy. By entering bodily into the private hell of my mind to confront my demons, I am becoming free. This way lies freedom.

I am sharing some of these mediations with you, for no good reason save that I felt like it. Actually, there’s more to it than that. I am reaching out to you all, from deep inside my private hell, because I feel so horribly alone here.

Lucifer’s temptation, they say, was that of spiritual pride. I can vouch for this. Lucifer whispers in our ears that we can be as gods, that we may overcome our lower natures, our petty, grubbing selves, through nothing but our own efforts.

As most of you probably know, this is a “party line” I have long advocated. But no more.

The truth is, our grubby lower selves can never hope to overcome themselves, no matter how much they may simulate their desire to do so. Can a man lift himself up by his bootstraps? This is the essence, not of the impossible (nothing is that), but of the absurd.

The inhuman efforts of such unwitting spiritual clowning have killed many a noble soul, tricked by the serpent’s whisper into aspiring after the unattainable. I have been in danger of becoming one of them.

The snake Lucifer, in the present context, is the intellect. The intellect has a special gift: it can “prove” anything to itself, no matter how absurd. Mathematically, for example, it may be “proven” that an elephant can hang from a cliff with its tail fastened to a daisy. Once all the equations are formulated, however, reality is still there. The daisy breaks, the elephant falls.

There is no way out of the prison-hell of self save by accepting, once and for all, that there is no way out. Spirit can only take over when self surrenders. Only when we are completely emptied of the world can we be filled by spirit.

In Tales of Power, don Juan tells Carlos that a warrior is a slave of power. He uses don Genaro as an example, stating that, since Genaro has surrendered to the design of power, he has no choice but to serve the spirit through his actions, for the rest of his life. If he tries to live like an ordinary schmuck, he will waste away and die in no time.

It is time for a confession. My friends, had I known beforehand what the warrior’s path (the so-called “spiritual life”) entailed, I would never have embarked upon it. Not in a million years. In the words of my friend and fellow sufferer, Lyn Birkbeck, “It is hard beyond our dreams.”

I was tricked. I tricked myself, and now it is too late. There is no “Cypher option,” no blue pill, unless it be suicide: another absurdity, since we all know, deep down, that there is no such escape clause. We take our personal hells with us, wherever we go.

Although I still only have red pills to peddle, my advice to you all now is this: if at all possible, take the blue pill! The empty pleasures of our illusory personalities and tawdry desires offer sweet solace indeed, solace that is forever left behind once we embark on the warrior’s way. All that is then left are the obscene challenges of erasing the self, and of “serving spirit.” We become slaves to power.

Yet serving the spirit does not mean grandiose acts of selflessness. It is not what we do but how. And it all comes down to one simple feat: getting wholly into the moment, and staying there. The holy moment. Contemplate the boundless mystery of creation, every moment, and live, and do what thou wilt, and enjoy it to the full.

Give a starving man a bowl of rice. Invite a wealthy glutton to a ten-course meal made up of every imaginable delicacy. Who will enjoy his food more?

The simple life is the good life. The more we have, the less we appreciate what we have.

We can learn to enjoy what is there in front of us, however much it falls short of our desires. Or we can get everything we desire, and be unable to really enjoy it. Which is better?

Another wise trickster (A. Crowley) once wrote, “Only those are happy who have desired the unattainable.” I cannot vouch for this. Some day, perhaps. But not today.

I have for many long, hard years desired the unattainable, in the form of spiritual perfection, and mostly, it has made me miserable at the inescapability of my rank imperfections. It is far too late for me to go back, however. My yearning after abstracts has taken me so far from the ordinary, everyday pleasures of animal existence that I no longer find much solace within them (though God knows I try).

So be it. I accept my fate. I accept the indigestion, the craving, the daily torment, as necessary and true to the path I have chosen. But to wish it on another, to encourage it as The Way? This can only be basest folly. I begin to fathom poor Lucifer’s secret intent, the reason behind all the subterfuge. Is it anything else but sad desire for some company in His misery?

Here is the simple truth. The higher we aspire to “spiritual” goals, the harder we strive after them, the greater the toll will be upon our all-too-human selves, the worse the wear and tear on our lives.

There is no red pill. There is no blue pill. Such simplistic dualities only exist in movies.

There is no spirit. There is no matter. Such simplistic dualities only exist in books.

The means to attain joy in this life cannot possibly be by striving for another life that is “beyond.” More bootstrap pulling.

The pleasures of this world in front of us, the many-colored fruit for the picking, are pleasures that nourish the body and enliven the soul. They are here in the moment, where we belong, ever inviting us to partake of the Garden. This is not a test, this is a gift.

The pleasures of this world that are out of reach, the shiny baubles of success and happiness, satisfaction and spiritual perfection, our fond and endless anticipation of every next meal, next perk, next acquisition, these are but distractions. They are not promises, they are temptations, chimera to confuse the mind and keep it from focusing on the task at hand: cleaning up that swamp, and finding what fruit is still left, in our poor, neglected Garden of Delight.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, unto God what is God’s. Man does not live by spirit alone. Bread is also life.

If you honor the body, you serve the spirit. Neglect the spirit and the body will pay the price.

There is no “War of Opposites,” between light and darkness, body and soul, good and evil, warrior and gatekeeper. All just tricks of the imagination.

There is only a confused mind that has forgotten how to dance. Forgotten how to let the body do its thing, forgotten to enjoy life as it once did: as children at play in the Garden. Here in this Garden where there is only one thing God or Goddess ever wanted from us.

Our delight.

Go ahead and take the blue pill if you want to. Just be sure and enjoy the illusion.

“How you have fallen from heaven, bright morning star,
Felled to the earth, sprawling helpless across the nations!
You thought in you own mind,
I will scale the heavens;
I will set my throne high above the stars of God,
I will sit on the mountain where the gods meet
In the far recesses of the north.
I will rise high above the cloud banks
And make myself like the Most High
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the depths of the abyss.
Those who see you will stare at you,
They will look at you and ponder.”
(Isaiah 14:12)

The Question That Thrives Us

This one from The Church of the Matrix was so silly I had to paste it here

ChurchOfTheMatrix:

"Is there a global conspiracy against the founders of the Matrix franchise? Some say that there exists a global conspiracy to topple the fan base of the Matrix films. Some say that the persona of Sofia Stewart (i.e. the Oracle) is a fictional fabrication of the federal government (i.e. Mr. Smith) to harness control over the Matrix fan base (i.e. rebel Zionists) and destroy the testimony of the Wachowski brothers (i.e. The Two Witnesses of Armageddon). According to the prophecy of Saint John's Revelations, two witnesses shall be sent by the Architect to preach the testimony of the Chosen One for three and one half earth years. At the end of that time, the Dragon shall devour the two witnesses of Armageddon. The Matrix was released in 1999 and Matrix Revolutions was released exactly three and one half years later in 2003. Now Mr. Smith (i.e. the Library of Congress, the FBI, and the California Supreme Court system) is about to destroy the two witnesses of Deus Ex Machina (i.e. the Wachowski Brothers). Since the Library of Congress is owned by Mr. Smith, we do not know whether the documents registered by Sofia Stewart are registered factual works of fiction or a fabricated delusion created by a global government conspiracy against the Wachowski brothers and the Matrix fan base. Therefore when the Wachowski brothers are stripped of their wealth and crucified before the masses by the governing global government like Jesus Christ was exactly 2005 years ago by Pontius Pilate, the question will inevitably be left in your hands to either see that the testimony of the Matrix trilogy whither away and die or be resurrected and immortalized in the light of the Matrix fan base that which is the body of the Chosen One (i.e. The Church of the Matrix)."

"The Church of the Matrix is neither for nor against Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski nor Sofia Stewart. The Church of the Matrix is founded on the principles of the search for the question. It is the question that thrives us. You know the question as well as we do. What is the Matrix? (i.e. What is Life, and why were we created?) Under these grounds we leave it up to you, Digital Soul Searcher, to ponder the relevance of the Matrix and The Third Eye. Be the first to read the complete version of The Third Eye by Sofia Stewart right here at www.churchofthematrix.org and decide for yourself. The choice as always is yours. We can only show you the door. You are the one that has to walk through it."