Breathless and Paralyzed

I sit here, paralyzed at the keyboard. I'm trying to connect the dots of existentialism. But instead of making a leap of faith towards god, or becoming an ubermench, or being nauseated by a tree root, or embracing Marxism as the solution, I'm barely moving.

I watched Jean-Luc Godard's À Bout de Souffle, otherwise known as Breathless, last night. Besides being the usual French tale of love and death sans plot, it was full of dialogue such as:

"I don't know if I'm unhappy because I'm not free, or if I'm not free because I'm unhappy."

"I'm tired. I'm going to die."

"When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other."

Godard's existential dialogue is similar to Ingmar Bergman's work. To my contemporary ear, they sound cliché and pretentious. They've also been widely parodied. Woody Allen's comedy, Love and Death, turns this type of dialogue into a great joke:

Russian gentleman: So who is to say what is moral?
Sonja: Morality is subjective.
Russian gentleman: Subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Moral notions imply attributes to substances which exist only in relational duality.
Russian gentleman: Not as an essential extension of ontological existence.
Sonja: Can we not talk about sex so much?

I can only appreciate existentialism through art. As brilliant as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre are, their writing doesn't create empathy. Even Sartre's plays are like the dialogue of Breathless: interesting, but not empathetic. But the literary approaches are wonderful, Albert Camus' The Stranger, Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, and, for me, John Barth's The End of the Road not only illuminate existentialism, but they bring it home to me. Especially the idea of paralysis.

James Joyce talked of Irish paralysis in Dubliners, but he saw it as an Irish response to the repression of religion, England, and provincialism. The existentialists see paralysis as alienation from being authentic. We can't be authentic because we identify ourselves through other people's eyes. When one realizes that everything is subjective according to a group belief and not our own, we become paralyzed by the thought that nothing matters. Nihilsm, really.

I read that Beckett would lie in bed all day. When Jacob Homer, in Barth's End of the Road, sits paralyzed in a train station for a full day, I fully empathized. I feel that paralysis myself, especially working in a corporate environment. This is a go-go world, where the powerful people are nonstop 24/7/365 getting things done. And when those things are done, there are more things to do. For me, pushing paper is hardly an incentive to get out of bed. Homer Simpson solves this dilemma by posting pictures of his daughter at his desk. I don't have children, nor expect any soon. And I'm not sure children can stop existential paralysis. The only thing that can bring action is boredom and sex. Boredom is the lack of interest for a restless mind and sex is a basic drive. So I guess the key to life is boredom and sex. I have to admit, I've never been bored by sex, and I will definitely get out of bed for it. Although it's better in bed.

We're Gonna Twisty Twisty Twisty

Last night, while lying on my couch, prostrate from the heat, I watched Beach Party, the first Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello beach movie. The movie is high camp and very entertaining. I caught the beginning where Dick Dale and the Del Tones are jamming at a beach joint, and everybody is dancing. Perhaps it was the heat, but I was transfixed by the dancing. The movie came out in 1963, well before the Beatles flew into JFK Airport, but a couple of years after Chubby Checker released his hit song, "The Twist". I make this distinction because the cats and chicks in this flick are twisting it up.

The Twist is probably the most simple dance move you can do. Here's a quotation from a member of Checker's band—I got off of Wikipedia, so it's who knows of its veracity—but it captures the dance perfectly: "It's like putting out a cigarette with both feet, and wiping your bottom with a towel, to the beat of the music." It also resembles convulsions, at least in Beach Party it does. Now days, it's a dance that no one consciously does, but there are some moves that still are around. In the movie, a girl with tight slacks shakes her booty so quickly, that I was reminded of hip hop videos in which women with generous backsides shake it like an earthquake (girthquake?). Check out the dance scene in the second to the last panel of Moving Pictures on your left.

When I played in a cover band in the late eighties, we would whip out “Twist & Shout”, and that always brought people out on the dance floor. We played to mostly white crowds and The Twist is so basic that drunk white people have no trouble getting up with the get down. I think it is because they never have to move their feet. All they have to do is shimmy from side to side. With booze, the shimming becomes a lot less self-conscious. I'm not making of fun of those people; I'm no great dancer, although I do like to dance. I'm sure our contemporary dance movies will look ridiculous in 40 years, but in the end, dancing is about connecting with music in a physical way, so who gives a rat’s ass what you look like?

The Tipping Point

I bought the DVD, V for Vendetta and watched it again the other night. V has all the things I love about movies. In no particular order:

Good acting. Especially, Hugo Weaving, who had to act without facial gestures. Even though the ancient Greeks started theater with the actors wearing masks, drama these days has dropped the masks, unless you’re a psycho killer or a superhero. Natalie Portman does a good job too and with a good English accent.

Good writing. The plot is convoluted, but I always like trying to figure out a convoluted plot. Plus, there are lots of literary references and that always starts the serotonin flowing in me. If you want to do a comparison of good and bad dialogue, line up a scene of Portman from this film with any of her scenes from The Star Wars movies. You will see a huge difference.

Things that make you go hmm. Even though the graphic novel this movie was based on was written during the Thatcher years, the references to Bush are clear. A good work of art should always reflect human thought no matter what the time period. V talks about words and their power, and how institutions will use words to consolidate their own power. Bush and the Republican party use words in ingenious ways, especially since they are so well trained to repeat the talking points and never veer off. Of course, when you keep repeating the same lie when the truth keeps popping up, you start to look like a fool or even insane. Dick Cheney has a propensity to keep saying these lies so often that he really should be tested for mental infirmity.

But the main question that this film brings up for me is how much is enough for revolution? What does it take for people to say no more and take to the street? I’m not advocating revolution, and I’m hardly a street-fighting man. The dystopia of V is pretty bad with their secret police, curfews, and poisoning of their own people. America is not V’s England. We have the worst president in power since Nixon, but it’s certainly not bad enough to start a revolution. But since Republicans seem to love power over everything else except money, what would happen if Bush tried to grab power indefinitely? Or any president for that matter? Is it possible in America for a coup to happen? And if it did happen would Americans rise up and fight, or would we be complacent and stay at home, watching DVDs? What is the tipping point for China, Burma, Iran, North Korea, or any other totalitarian country today? What would be our tipping point? Hmm.

Suckin' Aces

I saw Smokin’ Aces the other night, and it made me realize how much I like Quentin Tarantino. Aces had the usual ensemble of wacky lowlifes and hoodlums. It had scenes of ultra-violence laid out like a ballet. It had great character actors like Jeremy Piven, Alex Rococo, Ray Liotta, and a very, very funny Jason Bateman. And it pretty much sucked.

Why?

I saw Grindhouse, which I enjoyed immensely. Planet Terror contained all that I love about zombie films. The trailers were great too. But Deathproof, Tarantino’s contribution, was fantastic. The violence in it is short but shocking. But what makes it a great film is the sparkling dialogue. There are four long scenes of dialogue around a table. Tarantino has such a good ear for colorful dialogue, the kind of talk that close friends have around a bar table or a breakfast table. Of course, there are the references to pop culture that are humorous and make those of us that are Tarantino’s age feel all googly inside. And he has plot points put in there too that make the story churn at a comfortable rate.

But the key is how the dialogue really fills the character. Do we really need to hear about the first date of one the doomed girls at the start? Why is it important to know what drink the girls order? Why does the Kiwi get faux-pissed when her friend asks about her Australian background? There is no main point to this except Tarantino loves his characters and gives them these needless details. Combine that with the vicarious thrill of the exploitation violence and you have a hell of a ride.

Now Smokin' Aces has weird dialogue but it doesn’t have the intelligence that Tarantino film's have. It’s too wrapped up in the plot to worry about filling up the many characters. So Joe Carnahan, the writer/director, seems like a hack trying to capture the Tarantino spirit and failing miserably. He's like a pale ghost. Worse, is his black female talk really seems hackneyed. You can only say mother fuckah and niggah so many times before sounding trite. And no matter how many bullets are flying, if I am yawning, something is wrong. Maybe he should do a Elizabethan costume drama