The Mandalorian, Children's Literature and Boring Adults

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So now here we are in the third season of the Mandalorian, episode 6, and what do we find?  Boring so-called adults judging what is essentially fun-loving children's literature.  That's what.  

 

Instead of enjoying this episode for what it is, a goofy serial episode leading inexorably towards its climax, we have nattering nabobs of negativity complaining about sub-plots that no 12 year old would condemn.  Perhaps these old grouches should go away and watch their 70's sitcoms that they all adore and leave the current children's literature to those of us who can appreciate it.

 

 

 

Note on Thor Ragnarok

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I went to the local premiere of Thor Ragnarok. The screening that was most convenient was IMAX so I saw the film in that format, which I regret.

There are spoilers here for the movie.

I watched all available trailers before seeing the film but the filmmakers had reserved enough plot points from the trailers that I did not really know what was going to happen.

As expected, the movie was very funny and good humored. But it turns out that there are some reasonable character development points and even some very dark themes, but you do have to pay attention.

First, Loki's actions to usurp Odin's throne not only was an act of tremendous disloyalty to his step-father, it results in the return of Hela, the banished daughter and step-sister to Loki, and ultimately the destruction of Asgard and most of its citizens.

Second, the remaining citizens of Asgard are now homeless refugees. Take note you haughty, this might be you in the future.

But the final dark theme is also the most important. Hela reveals that Asgard, and Odin, as positive and noble people are living a fraud. They have covered up the conquest of the 9 realms by Odin, and the violence and wars that this entailed. As part of the cover up, Hela, Odin's first born, is banished and forgotten. But she returns and knows where the bodies are buried, literally.

By far the best moment of the movie is when all this is revealed and Hela, in the throne room, asks Thor “where he thinks all this gold came from?”

Technically, it is very good, well-art directed and the art and science of computer generated green rage monsters continues to advance.

The whole time I was watching this IMAX presentation, I thought I was watching some sort of cheap uprez with a sharpening filter. For a while there, the audio was too loud to tolerate but it got better, thank Odin!

And yes, for those who really want to know, our remaining Valkyrie is either gay or bisexual, it is not entirely clear.

The cast of Thor did a live spoof at an early screening of the movie in Los Angeles at the Grove theatres. It is a little goofy but good spirited and fun,.  You can see it on youtube here.

For more information about green people in our society and how they are marginalized, please see here.

Sicario, Films about the Intelligence Community, Sergio Leone

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Spoilers for the movie Sicario (2015) follows.

Most, but not all, of the movies which purport to be about the intelligence community (IC) of this or other countries are clearly fantasies with little basis in reality.  But there are some exceptions which show that the filmmakers cared enough to incorporate elements of the reality of this arcane and overly glamourized world into their creative work.  This is not to say that the more fantastic and unrealistic of these films, say for example the Bond or Bourne films, are not entertaining, they may be more entertaining in fact. But they are not based at all on the realities.

If we were to have an "Intelligence Film Festival" I would nominate Sicario (2015) by Denis Villeneuve to be on the list.  It seems as though the writer and director did know something about this world and used their knowledge to inform the script, at least some of the time.  I am not saying the film is totally realistic but it does have some excellent things going for it.

So what criteria might we use to denote a film that is more realistic than the pure entertainment product in this genre?

1. The different agencies of the US Government have different corporate cultures. We do not know much about the Josh Brolin character, but we do know that he is not FBI by his choice of clothes. It is the first thing that the Emily Blunt character notices about him.

2. When Kate is selected, we discover that the Brolin character does not want someone who is from FBI Narcotics, nor who is a lawyer, nor who has worked cases. We are told that Kate is selected for her "tactical skills" but this is revealed later to be not true. See next point where the real reason becomes clear.

3. The Brolin character never actually admits to being CIA, presumably because if you are covert in the CIA (and only a small number of CIA people are), it is not something you readily admit. But we are left near the end believing that he is CIA because he admits that the real reason he wants Kate around is that the CIA (and presumably Delta Force) are not permitted to operate in the continental United States unless there is someone from a domestic agency attached.

4. Ultimately Kate (and the audience) are told that the reason that the team led by Brolin is doing what it is doing is because they have been authorized by much higher authority. By elected representatives in fact, which presumably means either the POTUS or various parties in Congress or both. This is a key point for those of you who have been fed a diet of intelligence movie conspiracy theories. Generally speaking, the intelligence community is not breaking our law (even if they break some other country's law all the time) and they are acting under orders from a legitimate authority. Generally people blame the CIA when they should be blaming their elected representatives, and/or the National Security Council, and/or the POTUS. Generally speaking.

5. At one point Kate pretty much loses her mind and attacks both Alejandro and Matt but we are never really told why.  My speculation is because these two are killing a lot of foreign nationals without due process and this would be anathema to a law enforcement official.  

6. Why all the mystery about Alejandro? Because Alejandro works for the "competition", e.g. the Columbian drug cartel.  Yes the CIA is well-known for dining with sinners.

Now onto some stylistic issues involving the Benicio del Toro character and this film.  I wondered just why I found this character so appealing when, after all, without going into any detail here, he does some mighty nasty things. In thinking about this, it occurred to me that he fit a model that was not entirely expected and which may not have been intentional on the part of the filmmakers.

These characteristics include having a mysterious and tragic past, of being very good in a gunfight, of speaking very seldom and then cryptically.  He is very secretive about his motivations and his intents. He manages to convince us that while he is cruel, that he may have some worthwhile reasons for his cruelty. Although I am not an expert in such things, he seems very handsome. And of course this all takes place on the border between the US and Mexico and arguably during a time of war.

And while he is successful in some sense of the word, when the film is over he is walking away alone.

Of course the way I have described this, the answer is obvious.  He resembles, at least superficially, the Clint Eastwood character in Sergio Leone films.  Even if this analogy works for you, and it may not, as I have said before, it is not clear that this was the filmmaker's intent.

“Listen. Nothing will make sense to your American ears. And you will doubt everything that we do. But in the end, you will understand.”

Sicario (2015) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3397884/

Military Rules of Engagement on Wikipedia

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

Bird Dog on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_dog

A Dialog About Firearms and Superheroes in Cinema with a British Intellectual

I sent a friend in London a link to the opening of Deadpool (2015) to show off some excellent use of 3D animation in the service of art, or at least superhero movies.

His response was less than ecstatic:

(edited slightly for formatting purposes)

Yeah pretty good i guess...

I'm just so bored with all american productions and their fixation with guns... I mean what is the attraction in watching people firing guns? And in most of the shows it is all unimportant characters that are being shot. The main cast rarely get hit. Its really boring...

I much prefer Scandinavian tv dramas which like British shows rarely have guns because basically we don't really have them... But i currently prefer the Nordic noirs because UK drama is being influenced by US ideas and although they don't have many guns (although they are succumbing to that too) they have picked up the American sentimentality with people hugging at the slightest opportunity - Where is our stiff upper lip anymore? But the Scandi's they have almost no sentimentality so i really like them...

Have you seen the original danish 20 part version of The Killing, or Borgen or The Bridge or Wallander... I really love those shows - in the whole of Borgen there wasn't one gun or one hug - sheer delight! Its like they took away the guns and hugging from madame secretary ;-)

I do not completely understand all his references here (e.g. “madame secretary”) but I do see what his point is. Here is my response:

We must make allowances for cultural diversity. When Paul Verhoeven in the 4th Man (1983) revealed that the nurse at the end was none other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, he was taking a bold step for a Dutch protestant to acknowledge, in a practically Papist way, the Virgin Mary.

You see where this is going?

So it is with Americans and firearms.

The American cinema and its intellectual elite has moved beyond the giant robot and turned to the comic book superhero as a medium with which to express the totality of our civilization. And yes, there is a certain number of firearms in these movies, but there is also quite a few samurai swords, as well as more European broadsword types.

In the first Thor (2011) you will find very few firearms, but rather a lot of swords, some hand to hand, and most of all Mjolnir, the mighty hammer, "for if he is worthy, let him who wields this hammer have the power of Thor". (see attached picture)

To understand America is to understand the frontier of the old west. In the classic Western, good and evil must contend and settle once and for all which will triumph, and meet at noon for the shootout. What would you have them use instead of firearms?

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Notes

The 4^th Man (1983) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086543/

Thor (2011) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800369/

Relationship Between Sugar - Based Nutrition and Superhero Movies in America

As we all know, there have been recent, well-publicized attacks on American core values, on our culture and our civilization. These attacks strike at the very center of what it is to be an American and is nothing less than an attempt to destroy America from within.

I am of course referring to the disingenuous attempts to get Americans to stop eating sugar.

Americans instinctively know what is good for them and foods made out of high fructose corn syrup is as good for you as a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and grits. America was built by strong hands that were made strong through breakfasts of this type. Not to mention coffee with a lot of sugar. Maybe a muffin or two.

Lets look at the types of foods that these pretentious intellectuals would have us remove from our diet. Coffee with several heaping tea spoons of sugar, glazed donuts, ice cream sodas, waffles with syrup, Sugar Frosted Flakes, chocolate cake with ice cream, candy of all sorts.

The American diet is a healthy diet.

If America which is surely in its decline were to abandon its values and turn its back on the traditions that made this country great, were it to fall into this decadence and sin, then those that lead this attack against righteousness can be expected to attack another pillar of American strength, movies about comic-book superheroes.

They will say, these scum will accuse, these movies of being as empty of nutrition and cultural content as a box of Skittles or chocolate-covered raisins. These self-appointed keepers of nutrition and elite culture will try to tell us that we do not need another movie about the X People or the Avengers or even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The food of the God's encoded in chemical form ?

They are wrong, of course.  Not merely wrong, but anti-American.

Just as these wanna-be arbiters of our diet would point to a donut and claim it is nothing more than dough fried in grease with a lot of sugar, so they would point to another great movie about superheroes, for example, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and claim that this movie has no worthwhile plot, characters, motivations, while it is filled with violence and stupid helicopter-like aircraft carriers.  Yes it is true that a donut is made of fried dough with sugar and, on the surface, A:AOU is empty of even the flimsiest justification for its fulsome budget, in reality it speaks to the greatness of the American filmmaking tradition just as the donut speaks to our fine and healthy American traditional cuisine.  This does not even need to be defended.  Even the most craven of anti-American sentiment can see this is true.

Besides look out in the world.  What else would we do with the money, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on such fine films?  Feed the starving in Sudan?  Please be serious.  Educate our poor and disenfranchised people? Why bother? They are poor and they deserve to be poor. Everyone knows that.

There is a link between the great nutrition inherent in sugar frosted flakes and the cultural content of another Bat movie. These are the elements that have made America strong.

Yet that is what the so-called experts are saying we should do. Turn our backs on this bountiful harvest that we have grown with our own two hands. This very nectar of the Gods. The calories, vitamins, minerals, proteins, steroids, and most of all, the sugar that has powered Americans through the abolition of slavery, war and oppression and enabled us to make superlative superhero movie after superhero movie.

Faithless people! To turn your back on the great cuisine of America, brought to this shores by the huddled masses yearning to be free, free to drink Coca Cola, get an ice cream soda after the drive-in movie, or to start the day with a dozen or so glazed donuts and coffee, waffles with butter, and breakfast food cereals.

I think that subconsciously Americans realize that this is wrong, and feeling guilt, yearn for a simpler time. A time when we ate chocolate cake with pride, and not disgusting boiled kale with sesame seeds. A time when a real man would smoke unfiltered Marlboros and get up on his horse and go punch cattle.

Stand firm, America! Do not let these so-called nutritionists badger you to abandon the foods and movies that have made America the land of the free and the home of the breakfast food cereal marketing a superhero movie. Stay true to your values. This too will pass.

As American as a slice of hot Apple Pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Health Threat of Sugar is Vastly Underestimated Study Claims

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/27/sugar-health-threat-underestimated-obesity-study-claims

Ultron's Lament

When society looks back to this period of filmmaking, will they see great work? Will they perceive the depth of character, talent and genius that informed the works of Ibsen, Checkov, Pushkin, Moliere, de la Barca, Jan deBont and Michael Bey? Or will they see a noble artform brought to its knees and destroyed by waves of computer animated visual effects full of sound and fury and signifying very little.

Only time will tell but let us not forget that it took decades before critics saw even masterpieces like The Mummy (1933) with clear eyes and recognized its genius.

So it may be with the current crop of endless X-People, Fantastic 4, Avengers, Bat People and so forth. There may be substance behind their otherwise superficial facade waiting to be discovered.

I think that there is such depth and I propose to you as an example an otherwise overlooked scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). When I first saw this film I did not understand why it was made. It seemed not shallow, but paper thin shallow, without an idea in its head beyond the mere empty greed of the studio executive and his or her insatiable desire to exploit children for every penny they were worth.

But sometimes great work needs time and space to flower and demonstrate its greatness and I had occasion to watch this film several times in pursuit of another idea, one that demonstrates a linkage between the campaign against sugar in the American diet with a similar conspiracy against films about superheroes, when I noticed a scene of great pathos and feeling hiding among the explosions and pointless plot elements.

The scene involved the Scarlett Johannsen character as a foil for the attention of the uber - robot and AI intelligence, Ultron, the nominal villain. In this scene, he plays the part of the villain who feels the need to explain his evil plan for world domination or destruction to our hero, or in this case, our heroine.

Our token woman or lust object, one of three women with a speaking role in the entire film, lies unconscious on the floor after a battle. She groans, not realizing where she is, Ultron's laboratory, and Ultron notices she is awake and begins his great soliloquy.

We are at approximately 1:29:17 into the film.

                                                             ULTRON

                              I wasn't sure you would awaken. I hoped you

                              would, I wanted to show you.

                              I know, I haven't anyone else.

                              I read a lot about the meteor, the purity of them.

                              Boom! The end. Start again.

                              The world made clean for the new man to rebuild.

                              I was meant to be new.

                              I was meant to be beautiful.

                              The world would have looked to the sky and seen hope.

                              Seen mercy.

                              But instead they will look up in horror, because of you.

                              You've wounded me. I give you full marks for that.

                              But like the man said ... what doesn't actually kill you ...

METAL EXOSKELETON EXPLODES TO REVEAL THE NEW ULTRON

                              just makes me stronger.

CLOSES PRISON DOOR

Admittedly this scene ends in a noisy way not entirely compatible with the early monologue, but this is by far the most human and interesting acting in the entire film with the possible exception of when Ultron has his heart ripped from his chest, by the other woman superhero, near the end of the film.

Ultron is just a fool for women, it would seem.

Why do they make these movies?  

The Obsolete Vision of Dr. Heywood Floyd

When I was very young, I went to see 2001 in what must have been a 35 mm print in Richmond, VA.  . I was of course bored out of my mind.  I remember the concerns in the city that people might go to see this movie stoned, and I could certainly understand why.   Boring but beautiful.      But even though I was bored, it was clear to me, even then, that a particularly innocuous scene, that of Dr. Heywood Floyd's briefing on the Moon was filled with meaning.   A meaning that I, as a callow youth, could not understand.

Many critics have noticed this scene as well.  And completely misunderstood it.    One of the more well known, by Tony Macklin of Film Comment, said as early as 1969 that this scene was filled with tongue-in-cheek Kubrick irony.   And he made fun of his fellow critics for not realizing this irony and satire.  Or maybe it is the case that Macklin completely screwed the pooch here and himself misunderstood this subtle but criitical scene.

But before we go much futher, perhaps it would be best if you reviewed the scene to refresh your memory.

The scene can be found on Youtube. Note the natty checker suit of the photographer.

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

A partial transcript of the scene:

Dr. Ellison: Well, I know you will all want to join with me in welcoming our distinguished friend and colleague from the National Council of Astronautics, Dr. Heywood Floyd. Dr. Floyd has come up especially to Clavius to be with us today. And before the briefing I know he would like to have a few words with you. Dr. Floyd ?

(applause)

Dr. Floyd: Well, thank you Dr. Ellison. Hi everybody. Nice to be back with you. Well, first of all I bring a personal message from Dr. Howell who asked me to convey his deepest appreciation to all of you for the many sacrifices you have had to make. And of course his congratulations on your discovery which may well prove to be among the most significant in the history of science. Well, uh, (laughs), I know there have been some conflicting views held by some of you about the need for complete security in this matter. More specifically, your opposition to the cover story, created to give the impression that there is an epidemic at the base. I understand that beyond it being a matter of principle, Well, I completely sympathize with your point of view. I found this cover story personally embarrassing myself. However, I accept the need for absolute secrecy and I hope you will too. Now I am sure you are all aware of the extremely grave potential for cultural shock and social disorientation if the facts were made known without (bla bla bla, I got tired transcribing this dialog).. Anyway this is the view of the council. Oh yes, the Council has requested that a formal security oath be signed by everyone present. Well, are there any more questions?

Now how does our intellectual interpret this scene in Film Comment ? Tony Macklin says:

“When Floyd gives his remarks at the briefing the satire of the inept language fairly leaps out. It is trite and inarticulate. But it is not Kubrick's (or Clarke's) inadequacy, it is the characters' inarticulateness, their loss of language. A parade of meagre "well"s fills the air. Halvorsen, who introduces Floyd, starts out, "Well, . . . " He sticks his hands in his pockets. If this were done once, one might assume that it didn't matter. But this stance and feeble language are the imprint of the scene, the exposing of dullness.

“Floyd is no more competent in talking, "Hi, everybody, nice to be back with you," He follows this with the refrain, "Well, . . . " and then comments "Now, ah . . . " He too puts his hands in his pockets. When the floor is opened for questions, there is only one, about the danger of "cultural shock." Floyd responds, "Well, I, ah, sympathize with your point of view." (The questioner is against the cover story of an epidemic which has been used to protect the secret of the monolith on the moon.) Floyd concludes. "Well, I think that's about it. Any questions?" Halvorsen thanks Floyd, "Well, ... " "No more questions [there was only one]. We should get on with the briefing."

http://tonymacklin.net/content.php?cID=169

In my humble opinion, this is wrong, wrong and completely wrong.  Idiots.  Wouldnt you know that he would write for Film Comment, a nutty intellectual film magazine if there ever was one.

Instead of seeing Dr. Floyd's speech as inept, I see it as a masterwork; a bureaucratic tour de force and just what the situation called for. You see, Dr. Floyd is not there to bring new information: his mission is to tell everyone that they must keep quiet and do as they are told, and he finds the nicest possible way to say that.

In other words, Dr. Floyd demonstrates that he is in fact a senior and skilled bureaucrat perfectly capable of getting up in front and saying absolutely nothing in a genial and businesslike fashion.  And if there are no more questions as he points out, they can go on with their briefing.

But this is not the end of the story of the search for meaning in 2001.  Although 2001 is a solid 14 years behind us, clearly we can see that our psychohistorians have gone awry.  Pan Am and AT&T are way out of business, we do not have bases on the moon.  We did not send a manned expedition to Jupiter.   The interpretation of Dr. Floyd's speech required a firm grasp of the cold war aesthetic and the cold war bureaucracy.   But where is that bureaucracy now that Communism no longer exists and we have in its place the gangster capitalists of China and gangster gangsters of Russia not to mention the incompetent scum-politicos of America without two neurons to rub together?

New art requires new artists and our new society requires a new Heywood Floyd.  In the modern cinematic aesthetic, I can envisage Heywood Floyd ducking into the back to put on his superhero outfit and go out and punch a monolith in the nose.   Take that you damn monolith, he will say, go back to your masters, the giant robots, we will never allow you to turn Jupiter into a mini-mall.

The Genre of the Short Weapons Film

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As we endure the vast explosion of creativity enabled by the long-coming, often heralded, and deeply regretted democratization of the filmmaking and film distribution processes, we would expect, and we are told to expect, the emergence of new genre of film, in particular, of short film. These genre have exploded in number and, almost unnoticed, are embedded in our consciousness and evoke all the human emotions of humor, boredom, disgust, fear, envy, awe and hatred in varying amounts.

Oscar Wilde supposedly said, in a quote I have never been able to find, that “thank God not everyone writes plays, because if they did we would have to see them and that would be tedious.” Or words to that effect. 

One problem with being sarcastic is that every once in a while one is sincere and it can be difficult for one's readers or audience to catch the transition from overt sarcasm to sincere admiration, especially if one has a sense of humor that can be misunderstood. So be warned, this essay, about half way through, will turn sincere in admiration, as we talk about the genre of our nominal topic, the short weapons film.

Ah, the short weapons film! Lost among billions of short films about cute pets, fitness, how to fix your toilet, the prodigal grandchild, sex, young women in their underclothes, young men in their underclothes, narratives about crossing the border, self-hypnosis, TED talks, political or other character assassination, lists of things found in movies (10 best sexist jokes, 10 best science fiction movies that fail), films about the weather, machinima with voice over delivering narratives on how to exterminate aliens in your new synthetic Corvette, among all of these we also have the subgenre of the “short weapons film”.

The “short weapons film” comes in primarily two forms, the professional and the amateur.

The lesser form is the professional sales film that accompanies each new and proposed weapon system. Be it a missile, or a sidearm, or a new French small submarine for special forces insertion and “exfiltration”, these short films are professional (that is, people are being paid to make them) and contain certain standard elements in a predictable fashion. They are less than 10 minutes long and narrate how new technology and ideas solve a problem in conflict resolution whether that means seeing in the dark, blowing something up, travelling fast or what have you.  The film moves on to describe the particular solution incorporating live footage and synthetic imagery to show how this technology can solve this problem.  Story structure is straightforward and leads to the "obligatory" scenes, such as a solid set of time lapse photography of a missile launch or a target being hit.  Audio is typical for the genre of the short industrial film.  Often just voice over with a theme or inspirational music at certain times.  Occasionally a few seconds of an interview with a key weapons designer or customer.  Each subgenre of weapons film has its own conventions.  For example, few films about submarines can resist using that famous sonar ping at least once or twice in their film.

These films are boring  but they may have interesting elements if you happen to be interested in the technology.  

But there is another genre of short weapons film that is enthusiastic, exciting, fun, unfunded, amateur and occasionally completely drop dead brilliant.

This is the short film that is made by the sailors or soldiers themselves to describe their work, or demonstrate their esprit de corps or just show how much fun it can be to pilot an A-10 close support aircraft, or fly a modern air superiority fighter next to its brethren from WW 2, or the gorgeous choreography and jaw-dropping danger of flying from a carrier, or landing a helicopter at night in the desert. These are edited raw footage with a rock & roll background theme, generally speaking, and natural sounds from the activity from the point of view of the observer, the pilot, the ground crew, the control tower. The technical quality of the imagery varies from excellent to extreme low resolution and quantized night footage, but the authenticity of the imagery is never in doubt. The sense of presence, of being there, in Iraq, on the aircraft carrier, what have you, is genuine and completely sincere. These are young people flying jets, jumping out of airplanes and blowing things up.

Here is an example of an Airborne exercise in which people jump out of perfectly good helicopters when in the air:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od79V-gndfw

This art form is transient and perishable.  The issue of the music copyright for small art films continues to come up.   The classic in this case is the short film about U2 spy plane practice landings and take off.  The U2 is known as the "Dragon Lady" for a variety of reasons.  Among other things it does not have normal landing gear to save weight.  So it discards its gear when it takes off and then basically does a modified crash landing when it lands with the pilot being unable to see much of anything.

The original film was brilliant, but the music was not their's.  So they substituted another track, which is of course not as good.   But if you wish, you can watch the video with the sound off, and then play the real track in the BG with some manual synchronization.  Its really good.   The music is "She Hates Me" by Puddle of Mudd.

U2 being chased by the cops

U2 Dragon Lady: She fucking hates me (the video, turn the audio off)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=063_1404845846

She Hates Me by Puddle of Mudd (the music)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYE4CVhVkhw

For those of you who want to sing along, the words to She Hate Me are here:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/puddleofmudd/shehatesme.html

Yes, they got one of their chase cars to pretend to pull the U2 pilot off the plane and check him for drunk driving.

Not all these films are this brilliant of course.   But they are generally quite fun in a certain way.

Note: This post will be updated if I can find better versions of the video, or even the video with the original music track. Trust me, this is worth it.

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France will Build World's Most Advanced Submarine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqwkjOnJy78

Scopene Class Submarine

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/scorpene/

Animation and Genre

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Apparently someone at the Academy Awards referred to animation as a genre and this provoked a large negative response from many of my friends of friends on Facebook who are animators or in the animation business. They all unanimously thought that animation was not a genre. The person who made this comment originally during award coverage may have been an actor.

Remember, before we begin, that the motion picture industry, like many other industries, feels perfectly entitled to take any word in any language and give it a new meaning when it is convenient. So what genre means to someone in the motion picture industry might be very different from what genre might mean to a film studies professor at the university.

In film criticism, a genre generally refers to similar story elements and conventions that are common between films which are said to be a genre. For example, most westerns have a climactic shootout in which good confronts evil and the matter is decided by a gunfight. In most spy movies with an evil genius, there is often a scene in which the evil genius explains to our hero their plan for world domination. In certain fantasy quest stories, the plot often contains a section in which the hero searches for a special weapon to use in fighting evil. Time Travel was considered to be a genre that had no commercial potential until Back to the Future became a hit series.

Genres are often mixed, many films today are likely to have a romantic subplot no matter what the genre.

Genres tend to bring with them advantages and disadvantages as both a commercial property and also creatively. It is generally easier to market a genre film than a film that has no overt genre or which cuts across genres. The disadvantage is that generally a genre has limitations and requirements that the audience expects and you can not easily violate these expectations except with great skill and risk. A famous counter-genre element is the ending of Shane in which the hero is wounded, possibly fatally, in the climactic shootout. Anyone who violates genre expectations runs the risk of displeasing a part of their audience.

Hollywood often screws up genre when it tries to cash in on a film that is successful. Everyone wants to be first to be second. Most of the original imitators of Star Wars were pathetic in their gross misunderstandings of what made that film successful. Its always important to remember that many of the top people in Hollywood are not too smart. That is why they get paid their small salaries in the low millions.

So is animation a genre?

The first thing to realize is that the person who made this comment was an actor. Actors have always hated animation. Why? Because what they want is more films to be made that star actors, of course. Voice over with celebrities is a new phenomena, and besides, its not the same thing. The politics of the situation means that they are in general opposed to animation. The same is true for writers, directors and producers, because generally speaking the people who write animation are drawn from a special list. People who direct animation rarely make the crossover to live action (a recent exception to this is Brad Bird). Same issue with producers, generally speaking. Jon Davison is famous for producing “pop corn” movies, but when he tried to produce films outside his “genre”, e.g. Robocop and Starship Troopers, he did not get the approvals and support he sought. Now Jon loves animation, it turns out, but many producers who produce live action most certainly do not.

This is also the same reason why it is extremely hard for an animated film to win best picture. The academy is made up of actors, directors, producers, etc, and most of them do not make animation. They dont understand it and they dont like it, so they dont vote for it.

But there are other reasons why animation could be considered a genre. Animation generally falls into two categories when it comes to marketing films in this country: one category is so-called family entertainment, and the other sometimes called kid-vid, or animation for very young children. Now this is a cultural issue, and does not necessarily apply to other countries. In Japan and the far east, there is another category of animation which we might call “young adult”. In this category, we can have much more violence and it is much closer to action adventure films. But animated films in this category have never done well among general audiences in this country, although there is a very loyal and committed set of fans here. They do not have the economic clout.

By far the most desirable of these categories in this country is “family entertainment”, which generally refers to films that are for the most part intended for young audiences but which can be enjoyed by adults as well. Thus the parent of a child or group of children can take them to see a movie and not be bored to tears or wait out in the lobby. In the case of more pure kid-vid, its the sort of thing one might want to rent from the video store, use it as a way of performing day care for the children, but go and do other things while they watch.

Generally speaking, a successful film that qualifies as family entertainment is going to contain elements that appeal to very young audiences as well as having a plot, or nuances of a plot, or of a character that can be entertaining to adults. Famously, on television, Rocky & Bullwinkle by the Jay Ward Studios was such a show.

In longer product, such as films, it was pointed out to me that films that are going to keep the attention of very young children are all musicals: it is the musical interlude in particular that appeals to young children and without that they get bored.  So I am told.

The Walt Disney Company made a film called Rescuers Down Under (1990). It did not contain any songs and was intended for a bit more of the young adult audience. It did not do well at the box office. Disney felt that they had learned a valuable lesson here. (Rescuers Down Under was also the first feature film made entirely with the CAPS system).

May discovers the "dust bunnies" in Totoro.  How could anyone not love this film?

One of my favorite films of all time happens to be an animated film, My Neighbor Totoro (1988). Now Totoro has no musical numbers, it is very long, and the protagonists are two little girls. Very little apparently happens in this film, Mai gets lost, Mai is found, the two little girls are able to visit their sick mother in the hospital and believe that she will get better. I suggested this film to a friend of mine with a 12 year old American boy and he HATED the film with a passion.  Troma, of all companies, attempted to give Totoro a theatrical release in this country, which is how I happened to see it at its premier at the Director's Guild.  But it didn't work, and this unbelievably wonderful film died at the American box office.  So did Akira.   Nevertheless, later films from Japan did get larger releases and have done well.   So it is not black and white.

Nevertheless, I doubt you could get American financing for an animated murder mystery.  Or an animated western with a climactic gunfight. Or a film noir. Because it is commonly believed that such films, if animated, have no chance of making their money back.

There have been independent animated films that break the mold. But again, these films although independent, are also intended to make money. Had they made a huge amount of money, then people would try to imitate them.  But unfortunately they did not, at least not to the best of my knowledge. Still there is no law that says it has to be that way.   Was Team America an animated film?   Did it do well?  It also had at least one musical number.

So, is animation a genre? Well, yes and no, genre may not be exactly the right word. But it is easy to see why some professionals in the motion picture industry would think that it was.

Film Genre on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_genre

Rocky and His Friends (1959 - 1964) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052507/

My Neighbor Totoro (1988) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283/

Rescuers Down Under (1990) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100477/