Torrent Downloads and Personal Morality

A friend was trying to explain to me that he did not need Torrent to view such things as “Agents of SHIELD”, that he was willing to wait until God and the Networks allowed him to see it on Netflix.

Could it be that he was suggesting that I was in some way morally deficient, possibly even wallowing in sin?

I don't see it that way.

Like all misunderstood geniuses, I feel the need to explain myself, usually while the representative of conventional society, often dressed in a tuxedo, is held at risk, soon to be defenestrated, or laser-decapitated or even eaten by an Amazonian life form.  Unless I feel that he/she/they/it have properly acknowledged my good will and desire to help, their doom is certain.

Come now, Mr. Bond. You do not expect me to miss an episode of Agents of SHIELD, do you?

You see I am not stealing anything.  I am merely borrowing for my own personal and legally defensible use this media product, so that I might better analyze it and review it for this Blog and society at large.

My mission is to help the world, not to steal from it.

The networks were formed on the concept of advertiser-based content. Now, that is not good enough for them. Greed has driven them mad and now they change the rules and declare that the viewer must also subscribe to some service that they have made some sort of pact with to extract money from the newly disenfranchised.

When all I want to do is to view, unimpeded by any network latency or bizarre distribution rules, their creative product so that I might be morally or intellectually uplifted. Yes, I seek improvement, I seek enlightenment. They have broadcast the material, with advertisers as the FCC has permitted, should I not also be permitted to dip my beak and see what has been paid for?

Are we mere tools of corrupt, international media organizations who wish to extract more and more money from the innocent citizen?

And further, what harm am I doing?  Am I making financial profit with this material?  Am I generating badly derezzed rar files to send to my supposedly degraded and morally debased friends?  No, I am using it for my own use. What harm therefore do I cause?

Besides, these companies, all of them, owe me.  I sacrificed my life to help invent and prove the technology they use to create this product. Selflessly, I dedicated myself to that end, and what reward did I get? I was left for dead, impoverished and disenfranchised. Will it hurt so much for them to allow me to view their product created with technology whose early development they totally did not pay for, and review it for the benefit of my readers and all the world?

I personify, even objectify, the desire for all man and womankind to improve themselves through the new synthetic media.

I am only trying to help.

The Influence of James Bond on the Fashion of the Cinematic Evil Genius

When Ian Fleming, formerly of British Naval Intelligence and a dropout of Sandhurst, wrote the James Bond novels, he thought he was making a living as a writer. He had no idea that his work was, eventually, to define the style and appearance of the world criminal and evil genius in the cinema of the West.

Although it is not clear exactly why it is that the idiosyncratic but elegant mad geniuses of the Bond movies prefer the Eastern style of men's suits, prefer it they do. From Dr. No to Elliot Carver to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, they all prefer their jackets to have a Nehru collar and their suits to be the one preferred by Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party of China.

But which one is it? The Mao suit or the Nehru jacket? And what are the implications of this choice? Lets examine the evidence and define our terms.

A truly elegant and imposing evil genius

A brief search on the Internet, that bold new paradigm, reveals an essay on this very topic by Sonya Glyn Nicholson entitled “The Mao Suit and the Nehru Jacket” which you can read here on the parisiangentleman.co.uk website.

https://parisiangentleman.co.uk/2014/05/30/the-mao-suit-and-the-nehru-jacket/

Why it should be that the fashion website “Parisian Gentleman” is located in the United Kingdom is a mystery but it probably is a result of Globalization which combines the strength and elegance of the British tailoring industry with the importance of Paris as a capital of culture and style.

What Ms. Nicholson explains is that the defining characteristic of the Nehru jacket, so named because Jawaharal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India after its independence from England, famously used to wear this style of jacket when being photographed with other world leaders, is its Mandarin Collar. It is this collar, up to two inches high of unfolded material, combined with the lack of lapels, that makes the Nehru jacket distinctive. The jacket is also generally tailored to fit the form of the wearer. It is a jacket very suited to wear at an elegant dinner party.

Missiles are only the first step to show our power

Prime Minister Nehru and his Western sycophants

Ms. Nicholson goes on to explain that the Mao suit, so named for its use by the great revolutionary leader of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong, is a complete suit, not merely a jacket. It has a boxy cut, four pockets with a practical button, no lapels, and most of all

The strongest characteristic of the Mao is the short and rigid fold-over collar, with rounded points extended no further than the base of the band.

I hope three examples will suffice. In the first, Dr. No explains to his dinner guest, James Bond, his plans for world domination. In the second Elliot Carver, as played by Jonathan Pryce announces his new global satellite network in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). In our third example, none other than Ernst Stavro Blofeld introduces himself to James Bond in You Only Live Twice (1967).

Dr. No at Dinner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdiq_YcIzg0

Elliot Carver Announcing Satellite Network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PqjhsPYyy4

Ernst Stavro Blofeld of SPECTRE Introduces Himself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ay2sO6tWbE

But the most interesting question still remains. Yes, I think we have shown the obvious, never doubted fact that men's fashion has been affected by the design choices of the 007 films.  But what does it all mean? We still want to know why they feel compelled to wear this style of suits. What is going on in their master criminal minds?

I have the following theories. The first is that it is nothing more than these outsider geniuses, forced by society to prove their genius, have spent significant time in the mysterious and exotic East where this style of fashion is anything but exotic. Thus, they merely see themselves as well-dressed and they are, and would be quite conventional in Mumbai or Beijing.  The second theory is that this fashion style is a choice designed to appeal to the fears of the Westerner to the dangers and mystery of the East. In a sense it is a form of backhanded stereotyping, but not negative stereotyping. The East is dangerous and thus somewhat appealing and these geniuses of crime are therefore styled to evoke that Eastern feeling.

Even comic evil geniuses have affected this style

_________________________________________________________

Notes

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120347/

Thunderball (1965) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059800/

Dr. No (1962) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055928/

Jawaharlal Nehru

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru

The Explanation in Cinema: Third Example

We are now ready for our third example of this extraordinary technique in cinema, one which has eluded nearly all modern filmmakers because of its challenging technique and sophisticated requirements, which will be detailed in a later post.

I realize now that I will need many more than just three examples in order to illustrate the power and originality of this idea to the modern filmgoing audience, who unfortunately, have rarely seen anything like this in modern films.

In this scene, from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, Peter Sellers (Group Captain Lionel Mandrake) is confronting General Jack Ripper who has sent his Strategic Air Command Wing to attack Russia and force the US and the USSR into nuclear war.  We begin the scene and the conversation in media res with Mandrake locked in a room with General Ripper.  


I have cut this important scene down to the very minimum to illustrate the key idea.

    
                   RIPPER

Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war ?

                   MANDRAKE 

No, I don't think I do, sir, no.

                   RIPPER

He said that war was too important to be left to the generals.  When 
he said that, fifty years ago, he might have been right.  But today,
war is too important to be left to the politicians.   They have neither 
the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.

I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist 
indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist
conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.  

The careful reader will no doubt be able to deduce the ideas that lie behind all three scenes.

The Explanation in Cinema: Second Example

In our second example of “The Explanation”, consider the following dialog, this time between James Bond and Dr. No. They are having a civilized conversation over dinner, having first removed the female lead, Ursula Andress (my mother always used to refer to her as “Ursula Undress”) whose presence is seen as being inappropriate for serious discussion, of course.

Unlike the previous example, this sequence does in fact have visual effects. If you look behind Dr. No you will see that there is a large salt water tank or aquarium, just the sort of thing a Captain Nemo or Dr. No would want to decorate his dining room. From the matte lines, I will venture to guess that this is an optical blue screen composite, but I am just guessing.

This scene is one of the most memorable in the entire film, or perhaps any film. When I saw this sequence as a young lad, I was transfixed as Dr. No revealed the existence of SPECTRE to Bond.

And yet, there are no explosions, crowds of elves or giant robots. How could this be possible? In a later post we will explain the theory and practice behind this remarkable technique.

  

              BOND 

 Tell me, does the toppling of American missiles 
 really compensate for having no hands ?

              DR NO

 Missiles are only the first step to prove our power.

              BOND

 Our power ?  With your disregard for human life, 
 you must be working for the East.

              DR NO

 East ... West ... just points of the compass each as 
 stupid as the other.   I'm a member of SPECTRE.

              BOND

 SPECTRE ?

              DR NO

 SPECTRE.  Special Executive for Counterintelligence,  
 Terrorism,  Revenge,  Extortion. The four great cornerstones 
 of power, headed by the greatest brains in the world.

              BOND
   
 Correction: criminal brains.

              DR NO

 The successful criminal brain is always superior.  It has to be.

              BOND

 But why become criminal ?   I'm sure the West would 
 welcome a scientist of your ... caliber.

             DR NO

 The Americans are fools: I offered my services.  They refused.  
 So did the East.  Now they can both pay for their mistakes. 

Our third example of "The Explanation" will be from Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, and will be posted in a few days.  Then we will examine the structure and ideas behind this revolutionary cinematic approach.

The Explanation in Cinema: First Example

We will present a new theory of cinema, the theory of "The Explanation".

We first present several examples of this radical new approach and then explain the theory behind the technique in a future post.

Consider the following excerpt from Ed Wood Jr's masterpiece, Bride of the Monster. Notice that this scene advances the plot, helps develop the characters, and builds dramatic tension without the use of visual effects, gratuitous computer graphics, explosions, or even the use of giant robots fighting each other. How does the writer/director do it ?

In this scene, Professor Strowski has searched a jungle to find the missing and exiled Dr. Varnoff, and having found him, has a conversation.

                               STROWSKI

            OUR GOVERNMENT WANTS YOU TO RETURN... TO 
            CONTINUE YOUR EXPERIMENTS THERE. WHERE YOU 
            CAN HAVE EVERYTHING AT YOUR DISPOSAL.

                               VARNOFF

            MY DEAR PROFESSOR STROWSKI, TWENTY YEARS AGO I
            WAS BANNED FROM MY HOMELAND. I WAS CLASSED AS A 
            MADMAN -- A CHARLATAN -- OUTLAWED IN THE WORLD OF 
            SCIENCE WHICH PREVIOUSLY HONORED ME AS A GENIUS!

            NOW HERE IN THIS FORSAKEN JUNGLE HELL, I HAVE PROVEN 
            THAT I AM ALL RIGHT.

                               STROWSKI

            YES, THE AUTHORITIES HAVE LEARNED HOW CORRECT YOUR 
            FINDINGS WERE. SO I AM HERE -- SENT TO BRING YOU HOME.

                              VARNOFF

            HOME. I HAVE NO HOME. HUNTED...DESPISED... LIVING 
            LIKE AN ANIMAL -- THE JUNGLE IS MY HOME! BUT I WILL 
            SHOW THE WORLD THAT I CAN BE ITS MASTER. I SHALL 
            PERFECT MY OWN RACE OF PEOPLE -- A RACE OF ATOMIC 
            SUPERMEN THAT WILL CONQUER THE WORLD!