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A double feature of Kick-Ass and Hot Tub Time Machine at a drive-in movie theater a couple of weekends ago got me thinking about postmodernity -- again.
Both films are a reminder that these days creativity is about compiling previously imagined and executed texts, fulfilling the now ever-present postmodern expectation that any media text can be part of the creative toolbox. This can easily hinge on an over-the-top, relentless cut-and-paste storytelling style favored by the likes of Tarantino, but I was pleasantly surprised by these films' use of intertextuality and appropriation. Maybe we're just getting better at it and Tarantino was the unlucky guinea pig in the 90s, unable to shed his unfortunate style in the present day.
Hot Tub Time Machine (dir. Steve Pink), a comedy about time travel back to sometime in the 80s, relies on cultural references of the past to support its narrative but ventures into the realm of contemplating the time-space continuum through the casting of John Cusack, a man who (through no effort of his own) is a walking reference to 80s cool. He nearly single-handedly connotes an entire index of pop culture references: Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, the boombox, "I want my two dollars", fingerless gloves and kickboxing, pre-SNS romantic sentimentality among teenagers, and so much more. His aging gracefully only helps solidify these allusions.
Kick-Ass (dir. Matthew Vaughn), a film based on a comic book series of the same name, celebrates its intertextuality differently. Riffing off the comic book genre, it playfully references Batman (Big Daddy's costume and demeanor), Spider-man (was Aaron Johnson cast in the role of Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass because his voice uncannily resembles that of Tobey Maguire's?), and most comically and perhaps unintentionally, Hamburglar, the fictional burger thief imagined by a long-gone McDonald's campaign. This is made possible by the film's biggest hero, Hit Girl, a potty mouthed eleven year-old who dons a cloak, mask, and purple wig while acrobatically assassinating her father's enemies.
Her costume, size, and sneakiness are a subtle reminder of this bygone era of McDonald's advertising history. Interestingly, Hamburglar himself seems to be a bastardization of the protagonist Arsole Fantüme from the French novel Arsole Fantüme, Gentleman Immoralist by Marcel Maurice and Pierre, originally published in 1901 and recently republished last year. Fantüme, like Hamburglar, wears a wide-brimmed hat, a mask, and cloak.
While none of these bear the mark of direct inspiration, their similarities are nonetheless part of an on-going creative process of constructing culture through building on the past, most likely without being conscious of it. The riffing and intermingling of styles and cultural references and the absence of a fixed center create somewhat of a feedback loop of meaning. Meanwhile, the context in which these two films were viewed -- from the private sphere of our '87 BMW and the atmosphere of the drive-in, a relic of film spectatorship -- contributes to this.
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I might have said some bad things about Martin Scorsese sometime in the late 90s, probably after I saw Bringing Out the Dead. I wanted so badly to enjoy that film -- to re-experience some version of Taxi Driver -- but it just didn't happen. Soon after, he directed Gangs of New York, a film that felt unnecessarily long and theatrical. (Maybe turn-of-the-century New York was too distant a subject to his preferred backdrop of the Lower East Side circa 1970?) The Aviator forced me to question Leonardo DiCaprio's sense of good taste and whether or not Scorsese was still capable of delivering a daring, no-nonsense, unforgiving, meaningful film ever again. I wondered if he had been Spielberged in some way: had he given up on the visual style that graced his early work, defining for generations of filmmakers to come a unique way to play with perspective, conventions of editing, and audience's expectations? The Rolling Stones aside, what happened to his good taste?
Then in 2005 he directed No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, a D.A. Pennebaker-esque journey into the living legend's life. Here suddenly was a film that didn't feel like Hollywood. It felt like vintage Scorsese.
Even some of his recent mainstream films have revealed a return to a cinematic style worthy of acclaim. The Departed, a film with an all-star cast, dripping with Hollywood energy, was surprisingly unlike some of the hyped but predictable and ultimately disappointing Boston-based, troubled cop melodramas that were released roughly around the same time (Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River).
Shutter Island wasn't groundbreaking, but it wasn't disappointing either. It held my attention, looked amazing, and showed aspects of Scorsese's daring side. He had made psychological horrors before, but not like this one. This film had a beautiful ugliness that few are capable of orchestrating on this scale. Music never takes a backseat in his films, and this film particularly relied on sound to envelope audiences, using works by masters of sonic invention like John Cage, Gyorgy Ligeti, and others, favoring dissonance over harmony. Shutter also proved his fearless and ongoing approach to getting inside a tortured character's head and visually illustrating its contents, as well as which stories are worth translating cinematically. The New York Times fittingly described this film as Scorsese's "something else."
But what has really restored my faith in Martin Scorsese's directorial genius and good taste is his current line-up of films that are in pre-production: an untitled George Harrison documentary (a film about the most overlooked but possibly most complicated and interesting Beatle), The Invention of Hugo Cabret (based on Brian Selznick's brilliantly crafted cinema-meets-Georges-Mélies-meets-graphic-novel), and Sinatra (no description necessary).
There will never be another Mean Streets, but there will be more journeys into the complicated mind and behavior of well developed characters and real people, carefully constructed snapshots of a certain time and place, and the creation of visually inventive experiences for audiences.
Martin Scorsese is back.
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I recently had a chance to view Peter Greenaway's latest film, Rembrandt's J'Accuse, an experiment in documentary filmmaking, historical research, and academic lecture, at Film Forum. It embodies all of the cinematic elements that I usually regard with extreme aversion: historical reenactment, numerically defined vignettes, video layers and their subsequent animated entrances and exits through the frame, and shadowed text. And even though this film is laden with these normally distracting attributes, I couldn't help but fall for it completely.
I'm aware that Greenaway's style largely relies on the heavy use of the visual techniques that can sometimes seem cumbersome, even corny, but he also manages to use them stylistically and meaningfully, giving each frame a lush, robust quality that relies on this excess to achieve its impact. In the case of J'Accuse, I grew to enjoy, perhaps admire, his disembodied presence, delivering a professorial, wordy analysis of the famous painting in question, The Night Watch, painted by Rembrandt in 1642. Reconstructions of the events leading up to the creation of this painting are cleverly enacted within elaborately detailed settings.
The film takes an Errol Morris-style investigation into this richly textured painting to which I've never given much thought. The persuasive nature of Greenaway's well-researched findings brings the painting and its history to life, filling its audience with a sense of wonder, mystery, and accusation. And the manner in which he uses the normally distracting intersecting and overlapping imagery give this film a forensics-based credibility, exposing its every detail, proved painterly intention, and logic.
Though I wouldn't recommend this film to the easily distracted or the impatient spectator, Rembrandt's J'Accuse is among the most vibrant of Peter Greenaway's films, excellently combining art, technology, and documentary.
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Gearing up for the upcoming U.S. Open, The Times featured a short piece on the sometimes eccentric fashion choices displayed by tennis players over the years. My two favorites are pictured here: Bill Tilden (1930) and Suzanne Lenglen (1919).
I admire these athletes' ability to perform in unbreathable and excessive (though stylish) clothing. And we haven't exactly come a long way from this: Anne White's Lycra bodysuit (1985) fits the same description, while Rafa Nadal's recently retired clamdiggers always seemed distractingly snug.
Tennis players contend with more than their opponents; they are exposed to the elements (heat, wind, sun) and react to them (through sweat, blisters, tears), while warding off potential disasters (wardrobe malfunctions, injury, a cursed serve) that may interrupt their game.
Still, utility isn't the primary function of most tennis players' wardrobes. Personal style tends to be the goal, displayed through ornamentation, embellishment, and an eye for fashion. We've basically seen a little bit of everything on the court: headbands of all shapes and sizes, jewelry that dangles and catches the sun's glare, blindingly bright colors, and tennis dresses that are fit for a night on the town.
While this sport requires a great degree of athleticism, physical and mental strength and endurance, and an unflinching ability to focus, it's refreshing to know that, with the exception of the all-white attire required of Wimbledon participants, tennis players' apparel is, as we've seen, relatively unrestricted. Many players display the attitude that what they wear is clothing, not a uniform, and individuality is essential. This doesn't take anything away from the game; it gives spectators something more to wow about.
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It's been a while since either of us has posted. To be honest, we've been spending most of our free time Upstate. It's been a summer of gardening, cooking, reading, relaxing, and enjoying a pleasant life of disconnect. Without a television set, media exposure is based on our weekly Netflix movies, Hulu, and Wimbledon.org. However, the remaining weekends of the summer will likely be very different because this past week we bought iPhones.
This was a bold move for us because we resisted the pull of media technology and managed to survive, for the most part, without cell phones until they became absolutely necessary. (Working in television production in NYC without one just can't happen.) Even then we got by with the bare minimum: we bought clunky devices that allowed us to make and receive phone calls but weren't capable of much more.
Then a while back, I was forced to upgrade after my phone was stolen. My replacement wasn't a smart phone, but it was a step in a more useful direction. Suddenly I could take pictures, but I couldn't download or e-mail them, so my blurry images sat trapped in my phone by way of its limited memory. Though I rarely used text to communicate, the numbers and letters on my keypad were starting to fade. And more recently my battery began to show signs of wear, possibly terminal illness. My power button required a good two or three long pushes to execute the command. This, coupled with work demands that require prompt and frequent two-way communication, meant it was time for another upgrade. And this time it needed to be more adventurous.
As happy Mac users, we knew it was only a matter of time before we made the iPhone purchase. Our reluctance was a result of our not wanting to be connected all the time. Our antiquated phones gave us an excuse to disappear. To not have to answer right away. To not have to answer at all. So this purchase came with a condition: these phones will not change our lives.
But it's hard to deny the inevitable. It turns out they are as handy and fun to use as they are advertised. Their design is intuitive and effortless. Their applications are genius, making simple tasks like reading the New York Times online even simpler. It's clear that we're starting to show signs of healthy dependence.
The life change that we feared involved getting sucked into meaningless texting, downloading absurd applications (the virtual fart, the filled beer glass that clinks, etc.), and developing an inability to choose live company over an incoming message.
The life change we're experiencing so far has assuaged our doubts. Now we just need to buy our phones protective skins -- it could be a while before the next upgrade.
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Science fiction is the link between popular culture and modernity. Through it we can engage in fantasies that allow us to imagine ourselves in situations that seem too radical to realistically adopt but offer desirable alternatives to everyday life, at least in small, manageable doses.
Perhaps the most popular of these alternatives are the myriad approaches to artificial life in film, television, and other media. The Jetsons lived in a ubiquitously computed house, which was managed by a robot housekeeper. Likewise, Small Wonder offered a convenient alternative to both hiring a housekeeper and raising a real child. These relationships erase class and social hierarchies, removing things like animosity, disgruntled workmanship, and feelings in general.
Of course, the threat of takeover by these artificially intelligent companions has also been considered. Film classics like Metropolis and Bladerunner offer complex stories that mix elements of the future, the government, and the Underground with trust being a common theme of exploration. (Can we trust machines? Can human-machines be considered beings simply because they were designed in the likeness of humans? Is it unethical to kill one, for example?)
Manga/film combo Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix created additional blur to the distinction between human and machine, suggesting a soul is present in these manufactured objects, capable of feeling and constructing thoughts beyond logical computation. With these and many other varieties, it seems that every possibility has been entertained. What more can we add to the fictional amplified human?
Not much, but luckily the fun isn't over. Dollhouse, a Joss Whedon creation that debuted on Fox this season, gives the human-machine a new setting, operation, and mode of technological function, and leaves viewers with entertaining fodder for surveying the postmodern condition. It combines the ass-kicking vitality of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, clever dialogue, and just enough bite to maintain a sense of humor, despite the heavy theme of human-as-vessel and all of the other areas mentioned above.
Last week marked the season's finale, but all episodes are viewable on Hulu.com and Fox.com.
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Today, my latest curatorial project, an online exhibition that features the work of six artists, launched.
Shared Spaces is on view through May 6, 2009 at No Commercial Value, an online exhibition space created and managed by Amir Husak and Prem Sooriyakumar.
Shared Spaces
Curated by Natasha Chuk
On view at No Commercial Value
April 22 through May 6, 2009
Blu
Burak Arikan
Char Davies
Erin Gleeson
Melissa Grey
Yasmine Soiffer
Shared Spaces, presents work by six artists who investigate the expanse of human experiences by considering the boundlessness and overlap of real and imaginary thresholds through media. These artists unite curiosity and fantasy with captured and mediated realities, confronting material and immaterial networks of space.
The imagination knows no boundaries in the private sphere: conflicts can be disabled, scientific mysteries entertained, and time collapsed. Sensations are heightened, space is fabricated, and memory is restored through the discoveries afforded by media technologies. In this public sphere, these conceptual designs invite guests to consider a different way of considering time, memory, personal space, public space, and the relationships that bridge these concepts, valuing the realization of impossibility over reality.
****
NoCommercialValue.org is a showcase of six original works and hyperlinks curated by a variety of international contributors. Featuring artists,journalists, activists, photographers, social scientists, writers, filmmakers and musicians who want to share their creative perspective on the world. NoCommercialValue.org provides a space between user generated content and a traditional art gallery. Moving away from the widespread and often convoluted format of present-day media sharing sites, our objective is to provide a "clutter-free" platform for content that can challenge, entertain, provoke, and inform.
Her costume, size, and sneakiness are a subtle reminder of this bygone era of McDonald's advertising history. Interestingly, Hamburglar himself seems to be a bastardization of the protagonist Arsole Fantüme from the French novel Arsole Fantüme, Gentleman Immoralist by Marcel Maurice and Pierre, originally published in 1901 and recently republished last year. Fantüme, like Hamburglar, wears a wide-brimmed hat, a mask, and cloak. 
