The Oscar for Best Picture went to Birdman (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) <1> in 2015. Also nominated for Best Picture that year was Whiplash (Damien Chazelle).
II.
Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) has come to New York's exclusive Shaffer Conservatory with the goal of becoming a great jazz drummer. Not just great in its generalized sense, mind you. Neiman, yet to turn twenty, seeks the greatness of a Buddy Rich. It made me smile, this sheer youthful scale of Neiman's ambition. I was smiling again when introduced to Shaffer conductor Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons).
Fletcher's strategies to elicit the best from his musicians are drawn from various kinds of abuse. He is rude and vulgar; he taunts and browbeats. He is prone to be blistering if his exacting musical standards are not met. He won't hesitate to use physical force, either. In an early scene when Andrew is having trouble with Fletcher's tempo, he throws a chair at the drummer, and contemptuously slaps him in the face.
There is no compulsory reason that Andrew, and the other musicians, should put up with Fletcher's bullying. But because Fletcher's reputation as a conductor might make them the players that achieve professional success, these musicians don't (or won't) just walk away. As a viewer I am free to smile, however, at Fletcher's posturing as some kind of perfectionist tyrant. Without the authority Shaffer affords him in the film, the spectacle of Fletcher's power-riffing would be laughable; me, I smiled.
III.
Once it's been established that Fletcher recognizes Andrew's ambition and talent, the narrative focuses on the tense psychological dance between mentor and student. Fletcher is relentless with Andrew's playing, till Neiman's hands bleed, and the drums are marked with his blood. Whatever we might think of Fletcher's brand of instruction is one matter. It does seem almost inevitable, though, that Andrew will eventually snap under Fletcher's barrage of aggression tactics.
He does. At a public performance, the conductor is just dismissive enough to Andrew at the wrong moment, and Neiman lunges at him, bringing Fletcher crashing down on the stage. Leading to that moment, there has been some fine acting by Teller and Simmons, in their respective roles.
IV.
Whiplash offers an enticing selection of vigorous jazz on its soundtrack. The film shows us how that music is made - the ferocious efforts it might take to make it - and as such, is suggestive of music's dionysian energies.
__________
<1>BMT. "Feathers Of A Birdman" (September 2015), and "When The Oscar Went" (March 2014).
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Thursday, November 1, 2018
The IT Crowd
The services provided by the helpline in The IT Crowd (Netflix/ Channel4, 2006) begin with a couple of standard responses. The help-seeker is first asked to check if their computing device is plugged in. If the difficulties persist, might they be resolved by turning the device on and off? Cheers! Please (don't) call again.
II.
Jen Barber (Katherine Parkinson) has come to interview at Reynholm Industries. The interviewer, Denholm Reynholm (Christopher Morris), accepts Jen's claim to computer expertise breezily, and assigns Barber to supervise the IT department.
The department is on the basement floor. Down here, Jen meets the two fellows she'll be supervising. Roy (Chris O'Dowd) and Moss (Richard Ayoade) both exhibit qualities that bespeak geek. "Standard nerds", as Reynholm had described them to Jen.
In his own view, though, Roy fancies himself a gallant gentleman, notably with the ladies. Moss, with his mass of curly hair strikingly parted on one side, has a great wealth of technical knowledge. Unfortunately, he's mostly unable to convey this knowledge to the comprehension of other human beings. Both Roy and Moss are prone to awkwardness and bumbling in social situations, especially when removed from their basement office.
III.
The IT Crowd's writer-creator Graham Linehan makes sure to land Jen, Roy & Moss in awkward and bumbling adventures throughout this first series, of course. The comedy is silly and absurd, salty and derisive. It's often amusing, this British sitcom, and sometimes quite funny.
The department is on the basement floor. Down here, Jen meets the two fellows she'll be supervising. Roy (Chris O'Dowd) and Moss (Richard Ayoade) both exhibit qualities that bespeak geek. "Standard nerds", as Reynholm had described them to Jen.
In his own view, though, Roy fancies himself a gallant gentleman, notably with the ladies. Moss, with his mass of curly hair strikingly parted on one side, has a great wealth of technical knowledge. Unfortunately, he's mostly unable to convey this knowledge to the comprehension of other human beings. Both Roy and Moss are prone to awkwardness and bumbling in social situations, especially when removed from their basement office.
III.
The IT Crowd's writer-creator Graham Linehan makes sure to land Jen, Roy & Moss in awkward and bumbling adventures throughout this first series, of course. The comedy is silly and absurd, salty and derisive. It's often amusing, this British sitcom, and sometimes quite funny.
Monday, October 1, 2018
The Good Apprentice
Practical jokes can go wrong. In most cases, the joker just has to face unsmiling advice to stop playing the fool. But what if a joke goes so terribly wrong as to end with someone's death?
IV.
II.
Edward Baltram thinks Mark Wilsden too uptight about mood-altering drugs, which are readily available in their English undergraduate scene. So he slips an alterant into Mark's sandwich, rendering Mark a "helpless victim, giggling and babbling". <1> Edward is quite enjoying his little prank, observing his close friend's "metamorphosis with wicked triumph". The phone rings.
The caller is Sarah Plowmain, a new university acquaintance that Edward finds attractive. Sarah lives in the neighbourhood, and invites Edward over for a drink. Normally, Edward wouldn't leave someone unattended who he has secretly sent on a drug-trip. He gazes at Mark, now blissfully asleep, suggesting he will sleep off the drug. Edward accepts Sarah's invitation.
At Sarah's, Edward is surprised, not unpleasantly, by how Sarah "would immediately undress him and introduce him into her bed". It is during the small-talk following their coupling, that Edward suddenly remembers he should check on Mark, just in case. In the afterglow of his romantic adventure, Edward runs back to his room, "levitated several times upon the glittering pavement."
III.
III.
Mark is gone from Edward's upper floor room. He has fallen from the opened window, past the street, down into the basement level. Mark Wilsden is dead.
The inquiry into Mark's death clears Edward of any criminal culpability. Small comfort to Edward, as grief and guilt overwhelm him. He obsesses that his negligence in leaving Mark in a drugged sleep has led to his death. Mark's mother is more direct. In her grieving rage she writes Edward, accusing him of murder. "You are a murderer. You killed my beloved son, blackening for ever my life and the life of his sister. I wish my hatred could kill you."
IV.
Iris Murdoch's <2> overarching theme in The Good Apprentice is not death, or grief. The theme is eros. Murdoch writes of Edward's eros in his present state. "Sexual desire had left him, he could not conceive of feeling it again"; fallen as Edward has into a deep depression; "the blackness that covered everything, blinding his eyes and annihilating space and time."
In Edward's circle of family and acquaintances, there is the psychiatrist Thomas McCaskerville. He agrees to take Edward on as a patient, and during a session with him, Edward relates a dream he's had. "'I dreamt last night that there was a beautiful enormous butterfly in my room...Then it lighted on my hand...I shook my hand gently to make it fly. Only it didn't fly. It just fell down onto the floor with a thud and lay there dead.' 'Psyche is a butterfly,' murmured Thomas. 'She is loved by Eros.'"
We learn that eros has been making complications in the lives of other main characters in the novel. Midge McCaskerville, for example, is having a secret affair with her husband's friend Harry Cuno. Harry's son Stuart meanwhile has decided to become chaste, renouncing eros altogether. Stuart is an apprentice to redemption, even as Edward's grieving trauma has him an apprentice to atonement.
V.
The novel requires its length to encompass a layered plot, and the treatment of philosophical and religious <3> matter. For all its density the writing is vigorous, and often bears resonant passages. The reader might find themselves turning the pages quickly, so absorbed by Iris Murdoch's The Good Apprentice.
__________
<1>Murdoch, Iris. The Good Apprentice. Viking, 1986.
<2>"Book Learning". BMT, May 2014.
<3>The novel's very first sentence: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." (Luke 15:18-19)
In Edward's circle of family and acquaintances, there is the psychiatrist Thomas McCaskerville. He agrees to take Edward on as a patient, and during a session with him, Edward relates a dream he's had. "'I dreamt last night that there was a beautiful enormous butterfly in my room...Then it lighted on my hand...I shook my hand gently to make it fly. Only it didn't fly. It just fell down onto the floor with a thud and lay there dead.' 'Psyche is a butterfly,' murmured Thomas. 'She is loved by Eros.'"
We learn that eros has been making complications in the lives of other main characters in the novel. Midge McCaskerville, for example, is having a secret affair with her husband's friend Harry Cuno. Harry's son Stuart meanwhile has decided to become chaste, renouncing eros altogether. Stuart is an apprentice to redemption, even as Edward's grieving trauma has him an apprentice to atonement.
V.
The novel requires its length to encompass a layered plot, and the treatment of philosophical and religious <3> matter. For all its density the writing is vigorous, and often bears resonant passages. The reader might find themselves turning the pages quickly, so absorbed by Iris Murdoch's The Good Apprentice.
__________
<1>Murdoch, Iris. The Good Apprentice. Viking, 1986.
<2>"Book Learning". BMT, May 2014.
<3>The novel's very first sentence: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." (Luke 15:18-19)
Saturday, September 1, 2018
Rory O'Shea Was Here
Rory O'Shea has muscular dystrophy, and the disease has forced the young man into a wheelchair. He hasn't let the disease effect his abilities as a charismatic talker, though. He uses that talk to provoke people, and challenge settled opinions. At the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, he meets Michael Connolly, a resident with cerebral palsy. Rory (James McAvoy) and Michael (Steven Robertson) become friends, portrayed in excellent performances by McAvoy and Robertson.
II.
Rory has come to Carrigmore with reluctance. He would rather live independently, but his application for the allowance to make that happen has been denied. Michael becomes convinced to apply for the same allowance. At his hearing before the board, Rory comes along as interpreter, for the cerebral palsy has altered Michael's speech so that it requires Rory's interpretation. The board rules in Michael's favour, and to Rory's benefit, he is allowed to go with Michael as his interpreter-housemate.
In their new apartment, it soon becomes clear that Michael and Rory need an assistant. They choose a young woman, Siobhan (Romola Garai). Michael develops an attraction to Siobhan. At a costume party, Michael seeks to express his feelings to her. Not sharing those feelings, and wishing to avoid further awkwardness, Siobhan resigns from her assistant position.
III.
There is another loss to come after Siobhan leaves, but the reader will have to learn about that for themselves. To focus on loss would be a misrepresentation of Rory O'Shea Was Here (Damien O'Donnell, 2004) as a whole, anyway. It wouldn't properly account for the vital, radiant quality of the film, that which also makes Rory O'Shea a moving experience.
II.
Rory has come to Carrigmore with reluctance. He would rather live independently, but his application for the allowance to make that happen has been denied. Michael becomes convinced to apply for the same allowance. At his hearing before the board, Rory comes along as interpreter, for the cerebral palsy has altered Michael's speech so that it requires Rory's interpretation. The board rules in Michael's favour, and to Rory's benefit, he is allowed to go with Michael as his interpreter-housemate.
In their new apartment, it soon becomes clear that Michael and Rory need an assistant. They choose a young woman, Siobhan (Romola Garai). Michael develops an attraction to Siobhan. At a costume party, Michael seeks to express his feelings to her. Not sharing those feelings, and wishing to avoid further awkwardness, Siobhan resigns from her assistant position.
III.
There is another loss to come after Siobhan leaves, but the reader will have to learn about that for themselves. To focus on loss would be a misrepresentation of Rory O'Shea Was Here (Damien O'Donnell, 2004) as a whole, anyway. It wouldn't properly account for the vital, radiant quality of the film, that which also makes Rory O'Shea a moving experience.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Peak Valley
Sarah Lancashire's work as an actor includes Coronation Street. More recently, Lancashire has a leading role on Happy Valley (BBC|Netflix, 2014), crime television that evokes a soap like Coronation in building its narrative.
II.
Catherine Cawood (Lancashire) is a police sergeant in a Yorkshire valley town, in Northern England. Her recent past and present has been plagued with troubles. Eight years earlier, her daughter Becky was raped, and then committed suicide. The rape also resulted in the birth of a child, Ryan. Cawood's decision to raise Ryan has estranged her from her own son, and wrecked her marriage. Now divorced, Cawood lives too with her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran), a recovering drug addict.
The man responsible for Becky's rape, Tommy Royce (James Norton) has just been released from prison. Ashley Cowgill (Joe Armstrong) is a local businessman, secretly open to lucrative criminal activity. Enter Kevin Weatherill (Steve Pemberton).
Weatherill is a frustrated and bitter man. He often feels unappreciated and undervalued as an accountant with the firm of Nevison Gallagher (George Costigan). When Nevison refuses a raise that Kevin feels he deserves, something snaps in Weatherill. He seeks out the corrupt Cowgill, and arranges to have Gallagher's daughter kidnapped for ransom. Cowgill has Tommy Royce and an associate put the kidnapping into effect.
Thus far, writer Sally Wainwright's plot exposition has settled us nicely into the narrative, as in a soap opera. And then, the story temperature rises, considerably.
III.
Kevin Weatherill, whose pathetic teeth-grinding we may have been watching with impolite amusement, proves himself capable of initiating a serious crime. Catherine Cawood, the police sergeant who projects wry, good-humoured courage, is shown privately battling a mental anguish that might overwhelm her. Pemberton and Lancashire are superb in their respective roles; and fine indeed is the entire Valley cast.
Cawood is going to need her courage, projected or otherwise, as the kidnapping storyline now bloodies with violence. The first violent encounter between Cawood and the kidnapper Royce is especially powerful, its progress and outcome suggesting figurative discourse.
IV.
This excellent first series of Happy Valley draws you into its story with the soapy comforts of a Coronation Street. But don't get too comfortable, as noir is just around the corner in this valley.
II.
Catherine Cawood (Lancashire) is a police sergeant in a Yorkshire valley town, in Northern England. Her recent past and present has been plagued with troubles. Eight years earlier, her daughter Becky was raped, and then committed suicide. The rape also resulted in the birth of a child, Ryan. Cawood's decision to raise Ryan has estranged her from her own son, and wrecked her marriage. Now divorced, Cawood lives too with her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran), a recovering drug addict.
Weatherill is a frustrated and bitter man. He often feels unappreciated and undervalued as an accountant with the firm of Nevison Gallagher (George Costigan). When Nevison refuses a raise that Kevin feels he deserves, something snaps in Weatherill. He seeks out the corrupt Cowgill, and arranges to have Gallagher's daughter kidnapped for ransom. Cowgill has Tommy Royce and an associate put the kidnapping into effect.
Thus far, writer Sally Wainwright's plot exposition has settled us nicely into the narrative, as in a soap opera. And then, the story temperature rises, considerably.
III.
Kevin Weatherill, whose pathetic teeth-grinding we may have been watching with impolite amusement, proves himself capable of initiating a serious crime. Catherine Cawood, the police sergeant who projects wry, good-humoured courage, is shown privately battling a mental anguish that might overwhelm her. Pemberton and Lancashire are superb in their respective roles; and fine indeed is the entire Valley cast.
Cawood is going to need her courage, projected or otherwise, as the kidnapping storyline now bloodies with violence. The first violent encounter between Cawood and the kidnapper Royce is especially powerful, its progress and outcome suggesting figurative discourse.
IV.
This excellent first series of Happy Valley draws you into its story with the soapy comforts of a Coronation Street. But don't get too comfortable, as noir is just around the corner in this valley.
Sunday, April 1, 2018
The Interior Castle
The cruellest month, April, said Eliot. I don't think the story I am presenting this month of April could necessarily be described as cruel. But in keeping with Eliot's broader evocation, "The Interior Castle" is an unsettling narrative.
II.
There has been a car accident. Pansy Vanneman is hospitalized from the injuries she sustained as a passenger. The time of year is winter, and a routine has set in. "Pansy could not remember another season in her life so constant, when the very minutes themselves were suffused with the winter pallor". <1>
Miss Vanneman thus, "hour after hour and day after day she lay at full length...perfect and stubborn was her body's immobility"; her "resolute quiescence" has the nurses thinking her a "frightful snob". The lady is well aware of the impression she is making. "Pansy, for her part, took a secret and mischievous pleasure in the bewilderment of her attendants".
Lying there on a hospital bed, Pansy has also taken to obsessing about her own brain. The rumination has led her to increasingly weighted conclusions. "She believed that she had reached the innermost chamber of knowledge and that perhaps her knowledge was the same as the saint's achievement of pure love." <2>
Six weeks pass. Pansy is to be operated on by Dr. Nicholas, the surgeon. "They strapped her ankles to the operating table and put leather nooses round her wrists. Over her head was a mirror with a thousand facets in which she saw a thousand travesties of her face." During the operation, the doctor needs to "penetrate regions that were not anesthetized and this he told her frankly". Then, the instruments are used. "The knives ground and carved and curried and scoured the wounds they made; the scissors clipped hard gristle and the scalpels chipped off bone. ... Mercy! Mercy! cried the scalped nerves."
III.
Pansy Vanneman has received injuries serious enough that she must rely on the care of a hospital medical staff. Such a reliance exposes her vulnerability in the situation. As it happens, the surgeon that must apply the scalpel to her, including areas beyond the anaesthesia, is male (Dr. Nicholas). <3> It happens too that physical pain and suffering effects the mind; the greater and more prolonged the pain and suffering, the deeper and more pronounced the effects on mind and soul. "The Interior Castle" is composed with an elegant precision by Jean Stafford, rendering a tale of potent, icy power.
__________
<1>Stafford, Jean. "The Interior Castle". The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford. University of Texas Press, 1993.
<2>Saint Teresa of Avila's "The Interior Castle" (1577).
<3>Compare, as an example, with Katherine Anne Porter's account of her character Miranda's hospital stay, in "Pale Horse, Pale Rider". ("The Light Of Being". BMT, February 2017.)
II.
There has been a car accident. Pansy Vanneman is hospitalized from the injuries she sustained as a passenger. The time of year is winter, and a routine has set in. "Pansy could not remember another season in her life so constant, when the very minutes themselves were suffused with the winter pallor". <1>
Miss Vanneman thus, "hour after hour and day after day she lay at full length...perfect and stubborn was her body's immobility"; her "resolute quiescence" has the nurses thinking her a "frightful snob". The lady is well aware of the impression she is making. "Pansy, for her part, took a secret and mischievous pleasure in the bewilderment of her attendants".
Lying there on a hospital bed, Pansy has also taken to obsessing about her own brain. The rumination has led her to increasingly weighted conclusions. "She believed that she had reached the innermost chamber of knowledge and that perhaps her knowledge was the same as the saint's achievement of pure love." <2>
Six weeks pass. Pansy is to be operated on by Dr. Nicholas, the surgeon. "They strapped her ankles to the operating table and put leather nooses round her wrists. Over her head was a mirror with a thousand facets in which she saw a thousand travesties of her face." During the operation, the doctor needs to "penetrate regions that were not anesthetized and this he told her frankly". Then, the instruments are used. "The knives ground and carved and curried and scoured the wounds they made; the scissors clipped hard gristle and the scalpels chipped off bone. ... Mercy! Mercy! cried the scalped nerves."
III.
Pansy Vanneman has received injuries serious enough that she must rely on the care of a hospital medical staff. Such a reliance exposes her vulnerability in the situation. As it happens, the surgeon that must apply the scalpel to her, including areas beyond the anaesthesia, is male (Dr. Nicholas). <3> It happens too that physical pain and suffering effects the mind; the greater and more prolonged the pain and suffering, the deeper and more pronounced the effects on mind and soul. "The Interior Castle" is composed with an elegant precision by Jean Stafford, rendering a tale of potent, icy power.
__________
<1>Stafford, Jean. "The Interior Castle". The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford. University of Texas Press, 1993.
<2>Saint Teresa of Avila's "The Interior Castle" (1577).
<3>Compare, as an example, with Katherine Anne Porter's account of her character Miranda's hospital stay, in "Pale Horse, Pale Rider". ("The Light Of Being". BMT, February 2017.)
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