Great Performance Reviews in History: Lawrence of Arabia

Since employment and the search for employment seems to be on so many people's minds, I wish to share with you what I believe is one of the best "performance reviews" in film.  There are a few others, some more comical than this, but this is perhaps the best of the serious reviews.  It may even have some basis in fact.  That is less clear.

In this sequence, T. E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, has just come out of the desert and announced that he and the Arab Revolt have taken Aqaba. He is escorted into the presence of his commanding general, General Allenby, who is many levels above Lawrence's nominal chain of command.

Of course, this is from David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) starring Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence. 

The sequence is here, until Youtube takes it down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CsUOYazQQU

 The Review

Allenby reviews his file, questions his actions, promotes him, and builds up his morale to motivate him to go back and continue his work. How many of us can say that we have had as well-informed and insightful a review, or one designed to help us do our best work?

Lawrence, who of course realizes he is being manipulated, tells Allenby to his face, "Youre a clever man, sir", and through his presentation makes it clear that he is accusing Allenby of doing something nasty by rewarding Lawrence and making him like it.   I don't know about you, but I think that is pretty funny.  

Allenby manipulates his employee by telling him he has done a good job, promoting him and buying him a drink.  What a tricky, low down thing to do!

As background on the film, many of the key plot points in the movie are historical.   Which is appalling when you think about it.   Of course any detail or dialogue or colorful incident at an oasis or whatnot is certainly fiction, at least to some degree.   I am not sure if Lawrence ever met Allenby or if Allenby invited him for a drink at the Officer's club.  I would tend to doubt it, but I do not know.  But I think that we can be certain that if they did meet, whatever they said to each other was different than what we see here.

The performance review:

Allenby: (reading from a file) Undisciplined .... Unpunctual ... Untidy ... Several languages,

knowledge of music, literature, knowledge of ... , knowledge of ... You're an interesting

man, there is no doubt about it. Who told you to take Aqaba?

Lawrence: Nobody.

Allenby: Sir.

Lawrence: Sir.

Allenby: Then why did you?

Lawrence: Aqaba is important.

Allenby: Why is it important?

Lawrence: Its the Turkish route to the canal.

Allenby: Not anymore, they're coming through Bathsheba.

Lawrence: But we've gone forward to Gaza.

Alleny: So?

Lawrence: So, that left Aqaba behind your right.

Allenby: True.

Lawrence: And it will be further behind your right when you go for Jerusalem.

Allenby: Am I going for Jerusalem?

Lawrence: Yes.

Allenby: Very well, Aqaba behind my right.

Lawrence: It threatened El Harish and Gaza.

Allenby: Anything else?

Lawrence: Yes, Aqaba is linked with Medina.

Allenby: Do you think we should shift them out of Medina now?

Lawrence: No, I think you should leave them there.

Allenby: You acted without orders you know.

Lawrence: Shouldn't officers use their initiative at all times?

Allenby: Not really. Its awfully dangerous, Lawrence.

Lawrence: Yes, I know.

Allenby: Already?

Lawrence: Yes.

Allenby: I'm promoting you Major.

Lawrence: I don't think that's a very good idea.

Allenby: I didn't ask you. I want you to go back and carry on the good work.

Lawrence: No, thank you, sir.

For those who are interested, the scene where Allenby announces Lawrence's promotion at the Officer's club is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=0VGBDYeEAVk

See also:

The Arab Revolt

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

General Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Allenby,_1st_Viscount_Allenby

Thomas Edward Lawrence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/

Shakespeare in Doubt (also The Setup & the Payoff)

[One more time, we have two different blog posts inappropriately combined into one.  In the first one we have a discussion of how do we know anything is real, and using the case study of truth and otherwise in "Shakespeare in Love" and the crisis it is has generated.  In the second part, we have a discussion of the comedy writing technique of "setup and payoff" that Shakespeare in Love uses to great effect. Two different posts.  One of these days I have to get my shit together.]

This has been a day from hell for me. I spent several hours trying to write up a post about what was and was not true in Shakespeare in Love (1998) and discovered, through further research, that what I thought I knew here was far more ambiguous or worse. Somehow I had read an article (or more than one) somewhere in some reasonable place and it turns out to be wrong. Of course society is full of such things and belief systems that are incorrect, but it is both annoying and scary to run into one yourself that you were completely unaware of. Of course I can't remember where I read this article or who wrote it. Maybe I just dreamed that I read such an article. Once you start doubting there is no end to the depths that doubt can take you.

To give just one example, I thought I knew very clearly that there was a major scandal involving either the first performance or an early performance of Romeo and Juliet involving a woman playing the role of Juliet because of a last minute disaster involving the boy who had been expected to play the role. It was Elizabethan practice for boys to play the role of women, supposedly this was a way of avoiding licentiousness in the theatre. And since using women on the stage at the time was illegal, the theatre and the play were temporarily shut down. Thus I thought that this incident in the movie was based, loosely, on something that had happened in reality with this play. God only knows what I read or where to think that this was true, but I have known this story wrong as it may be for decades, well before Shakespeare in Love came out but I can find no evidence of any such story on the bold new internet paradigm and if this story had been true or even rumored, it is likely I would find a reference to it without much problem on the internet. But I don't find any such reference. So either I am psychic and somehow channeled from the future this plot point from a movie yet to be made, or I was just wrong.

This is just one example, there are others, and I am now spooked and wish to retreat to safety.

Fortunately, there are a few topics associated with this movie that I can talk about and have some hope that they are true and correct. One of them is how I happened to see this film, the second is to discuss a topic in the writing of comedy which this film demonstrates with great skill referred to as "the setup and the payoff" or words to that effect.

But first, how I happened to see this film.  

Arguably one of the best complements you can give an artist or someone you know is to view their work without realizing who did it. So, for example, say you see the work of a friend without knowing it was your friend, really like the work, and only later discover that your friend did it. Its really nice when that happens, or so I think. Well, Tom Stoppard is not a friend of mine, but obviously I knew of him, but somehow had not realized that he had written (or co-written) Shakespeare in Love.

When Shakespeare in Love came out in 1998, I really did not want to see it. The reasons for this are complicated but it mostly had to do with my contrarian nature responding negatively to the glowing effusions of praise that this film seemed to generate, and because I doubted very much whether someone was going to do an interesting film that I would want to see about Wm. Shakespeare's love life. On top of that, I hated the title. So I planned to miss this one.

But fate had other plans for me and sometime later I was on a plane between NY and LA and this was the movie they were showing. So after the movie started, I broke down and bought a headset and started listening as well as watching. And as I watched I started to wonder who had written this thing. It was being very clever, and I am not used to clever in successful films, I am more likely to think "stupid" than I am to think "clever", generally speaking. But as I watched this movie, I kept thinking: whoever wrote this has done a very good job here, I wonder what happened?

What had happened of course is that I was one of the few people in North America who did not know that this film had been co-written by Tom Stoppard. Oh, I thought, when I found out. That would explain it. Oops.

So now I want to seque to an important non-sequitor, the comedy technique of "setup and payoff." Setup and payoff works like this. You set up in the audience's mind some situation or idea so that they know that something is coming but the main character, generally, does not. Then in the course of time of course something happens that you expected but the characters didn't, and it is often very funny. I realize it does not sound funny at first glance, these things rarely do, but some examples will illustrate this.   First from a different movie that also uses this technique well, and then from Shakespeare in Love.

In the important film, Galaxyquest (1999), we have several completely excellent examples of this technique. The one that jumps right out at you of course is at the basic premise of the movie. A group of former TV actors who had experienced fame once by being on a TV series about a starship going around visiting various alien planets (e.g. Star Trek) get involved with a real group of aliens, the Thermians, who have also seen the show but believe it is real, and try to get our protagonists to save them from a real alien menace. So we know that these are real aliens and real spaceships, but our heroes don't but at various times discover the truth. And the inverse is true, the "good aliens", the Thermians, have to discover that the people they think are space heroes are really television actors who have seen better days. So we have the setup, and then we have a series of payoffs.

I have put on youtube an example payoff from the film.  In this sequence the crew of the TV series think they are trying to join their colleague for some sort of paid fan experience, or job.  They think these geeky looking "Thermians" are just badly adjusted fans of the TV series.
http://youtu.be/3yCFKT633j0

While we are on the subject of Galaxyquest, here is a link to a post by Ken Perlin in which he discusses a way to quantitatively rate a movie which is based on his experience of first seeing Galaxyquest.  His post is not about setup and payoff per se, its about the bigger questions that this movie raises.
http://blog.kenperlin.com/?p=163

The supporting actors learn the truth about the Thermians

Getting back to Shakespeare in Love, pretty much anyone who sees a film with a title like that, will know that Wm. Shakespeare did not, in fact, write a comedy with the title "Romeo and Ethyl, the Pirate's Daughter". But everyone does know that Shakespeare wrote a tragedy called "Romeo and Juliet". If they know nothing else about Shakespeare and his plays, they know that much at least. And so we have a perfect setup for a series of gags where Shakespeare is struggling with both the story and the title as it evolves into a tragedy called "Romeo and Juliet". The way Stoppard drags this out is spectacular, and also has elements of the running gag to it. I do not have a copy of the movie here so I can not count how many intermediate forms we have to go through on our way to the final, but its a lot, and every one is a payoff. And of course the audience knows where this is going and feels a sense of relief, or at least I did, when we finally get there. Although a "running gag" is a different technique of writing comedy, this particular example also has a sense of that going on as well. Its essentially setup and payoff combined with a running gag (or so I think).

In a future post I hope to get to the bottom of the real topic of this post, which is why I believed what I did, but I can not write that today, because I do not know the answer.

<ip>

TRW Commercials, Robert Abel & Associates and the Origins of Computer Animation

[Updated 3/6/2013   I am now quite sure that other companies also did TRW commercials, I remember explicitly one that Digital Productions worked on.  It did seem as though RA&A did get a lot of them, however]

The origin of computer animation lies in part in the very high end advertising production that was done by such companies as Robert Abel & Associates, R/Greenberg, Digital Productions, MAGI and so forth. Among these, highly prized were the very expensive and generally quite abstract  TRW commercials.

TRW was a major defense contractor, originally created to be the project lead on the secret space program of the United States after Sputnik. Their commercials were more about raising awareness of their name among the public and associating the name with cool technology than it was about selling product.  We would recognize their goals today using terms like "brand identification and management".

A typical TRW commercial might have a computer screen with CAD program, the wireframe design of a butterfly which then comes to life and flies off the screen with a voice over that says "A company called TRW". They were always hits at the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre back when that event, the so-called film show, was important.

These commercials seemed to be done at Robert Abel & Associates exclusively as far as I could tell.  If there were other high-end TRW spots done by other companies, I probably was just not aware of them.  I thought it was amusing, sort of, that my peers at RA&A did not have a clue what TRW did whereas I, coming from the RAND Corporation, had a pretty good idea what their business was: spy satellites and related technologies.

So I wrote a fake TRW commercial in my head and now, many years later, I present it to you here.

The logo for TRW itself was slit-scanned, but I have not found an image or copy of it yet, so for now the basic artwork will have to suffice.

The Mighty Mitochondria

When Star Wars / George Lucas started to explain the force by inventing the back story of the Midi Chlorians, a microscopic life form that is in symbiosis with all life, many of my friends in the glamourous and rewarding visual effects industry thought it was the stupidist thing they had ever heard. Which is impressive, given the number of stupid things they have heard or have said in their line of business.

One of the leads at ILM for The Phantom Menace told me that when he read the script in preproduction that he thought the idea was so wacky that it had to have been deliberately created and added to the script as part of the LucasArts technique to help identify who leaked the script should the script get leaked. (People who were allowed to read the script for the Phantom Premise, I mean the Phantom Menace, before the movie came out were given carefully modified scripts with unique plot points so that any leaks, which are common with such movies, could be traced.  They kept an access list of who read which version of the script and could narrow down the possible suspects).  My friend thought that the idea of the Midi Chlorians was so obviously a bad idea that it could not possibly be a part of the real script.

Well I don't think it was or is stupid. I thought it was obvious that "George" was making a reference to the Mighty Mitochondria, which are really, really important and in fact is in ancient symbiosis with all life, or at least all multi-cellular life.

Pretty much any animal or plant that has more than one cell is called Eukarotic, and it consists of cells with a nucleus and a lot of these little buggers, the mighty mitochondria, inside. These mitochondria have an eerie resemblence to bacteria, and in fact they probably were bacteria once. Not only that, but according to one theory they are probably or were probably methanogens and I will let you look up why that is funny.  (OK, I will tell you.  Methanogens are the anaerobic bacteria in cows and in swamps that generate methane, the active ingredient in flatulence and they are our ancestors, some think. )

You simply can not get more important than the Mighty Mitochondria: they power our cells, they are probably very much involved in aging, and the more you know the more interesting they are. Of course, since I am concerned about the mitochondria, perhaps even worried about them, I am probably a mitochondriac.

But if you do not know what I am talking about, and/or if you have not read Nick Lane's fabulous book "Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life", you should do so at once. You can get started online on Amazon.com by searching inside the book, but you should really order your own copy. The anti-oxident theory of aging comes from the Mitochondria and by reading this book you can understand why merely taking more anti-oxidents is not going to work. It will be your first step into a larger world, as Obi Wan would say, only in this case into a smaller world.

Here are some stained mitochondria that I found on the Internet.

It must be hard to make attractive pictures of devolved bacteria / pond scum, don't you think?

The book is at:

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Sex-Suicide-Mitochondria-Meaning/dp/0199205647

The Jedi explain the Midi Chorlians here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfDmu4f8l8I

The Wikipedia page is here.

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

Does Star Wars Have a Line of Dialog With a Double Meaning?

With this post we now broach a topic of central importance to all of us: the role of ambiguity in cinematic Space Opera.

Near the end of the final Star Wars film, Obi-Wan says something that set me back a moment and made me think. Is it possible that a character in a Star Wars film said something that was layered with meaning? Actually having one meaning on the surface and another at a different level? Could this be?

Arguably there is one other potential case of a double meaning in Star Wars, that being the sequence where Obi-Wan famously tells Luke something about his father, but certainly not everything.   He says that his father was a good friend, a great pilot, fought in the clone wars but had been "murdered and betrayed by Darth Vader", failing to mention that Luke's father and Darth were the same person. Now maybe that qualifies as a double meaning, or maybe its just plain old lying by omission, and that is not quite the same thing.

The case I am referring to is different. It takes place during the the climactic fight between Obi-Wan and his former pupil, Anakin, the proto-Darth. They are fighting over a lava field and of course have time to have a discussion while they try to kill each other.

So Obi-Wan and Anakin are fighting and talking, and they say things like this

Anakin: If you are not with me, then you are my enemy.

Obi-Wan: Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.

Anakin: You will try.

They fight for a few minutes, then Obi-Wan says

Obi-Wan: I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you.

Anakin: I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over.

Obi-Wan: Anakin! Chancellor Palpatine is evil!

Anakin: From my point of view, the Jedi are evil.

Obi-Wan: Well then you are lost!
Anakin: This is the end for you, my master.

Then they fight some more when suddenly Obi-Wan jumps to a nearby ridge, looks down at Anakin and says ...

Obi-Wan: It's over, Anakin!  I have the high ground.

You see, it seems to me that Obi-Wan is actually saying something here that is both literally true and metaphorically true. He has the high ground, standing on a ridge and all, but he also has the high moral ground. Is this possible, could it be that a Star Wars character would say such a thing?

Well, if it is true, it doesn't last very long.   The next lines of dialog are:

Anakin: You underestimate my power!

Obi-Wan: Don't try it.

But of course, Anakin does try it, and for the first time in the history of the cinema, someone who does a stupid move in a sword fight (like spinning around or jumping over someone) is rewarded as they should be rewarded: they are cut off at the knees. Or worse.

Of course, I can't be sure that I am right about Obi-Wan and his high moral ground but nevertheless I wanted to alert you to this exciting possibility.

The scene itself is located on Youtube at the following location.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSwy412nttI

Script for Short Version of Dark Star (1974)

I was searching the Internet to find a quote from the intelligent but disobedient bomb in Dark Star (1974), when I came across the entire script.

Dark Star was written by John Carpenter & Dan O'Bannon, and directed by John Carpenter.  It was the first film for both of them I believe.

This is an excellent example of a low-budget film that transcends its origins.   If you have a few minutes, that is all the time it will take to read the script.

 They spent literally $100s of dollars on the visual effects for this movie, and every penny of it is up on the screen.  The "alien" who invades their ship is famously a beachball with plastic feet.

You should definitely think you are reading a script by graduate students at a university in the early 1970s (e.g. the early 70s were the late 60s according to various theories about how this culture by decade phenomena works).

The sequence with the discussion with the bomb can be found at Youtube at the link below.  This is obviously a spoiler for the film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjGRySVyTDk

Script
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/dark-star_short.html

Imdb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/

American Foreign Policy as Presented by Clint Eastwood in the Unforgiven (1992)

Clint Eastwood speaking at the Republican National Convention reminds me of another speech he gave at the end of The Unforgiven, the 1992 film that he directed.  

In this speech, he tells the people of the town how things are going to be. As he does so, there is an American flag behind him.   I felt, watching this scene, that somehow the speech was metaphorically a statement of American foreign policy in various administrations.

The character played by Eastwood, Will Munny, is on his horse, in the rain, after killing a whole lot of people in a gun fight and, dramatically positioned in front of an American flag, he says:

You better bury Ned right. You better not cut up nor otherwise harm no whores. Or I will come back and kill every one of you sons a bitches.

It just seems obvious to me that he is talking about something more, something grander, than just the events in this movie.  

But see for yourself.  Here is the sequence until Youtube takes it down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-IayJ18EM&feature=plcp

The Sword Fight in The Princess Bride (1987)

Before we discuss the evidence for currently operational secret aerospace projects, we will briefly digress to a seemingly unrelated topic: the sword fight in cinema.

Although very little can compare to the sheer drama and subtlety inherent in a fight between giant robots, arguably the most important contribution of visual effects filmmaking in history, there have in the past been other conventions to demonstrate conflict and skill between characters.  At one point in the history of filmmaking  the sword fight was a required scene, a platform for good and evil to metaphorically struggle against each other and settle the matter once and for all time which of the two will triumph.

Although fans of fencing and students of fencing argue constantly about what would constitute a decent fencing scene in cinema, and whether any exist at all, there is general agreement that the sword fight in The Princess Bride (1987) between Inigo Montoya and the mysterious "Man in Black" is a cut above (as they say in the fencing world) most of the others in the genre.

If you do not know this sequence, or if you haven't seen it recently, here is a link to a decent version on youtube.       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC6dgtBU6Gs

The scene was choreographed by the late Bob Anderson, Hollywood's most famous sword fight coach, and the uncredited fencing double for Darth Vader in the early Star Wars films.  It features a dialogue between our two characters that, to a student of fencing, is apparently completely hilarious.  But most amazing of all for those knowledgeable about some of the techniques of fighting with swords, although the fight itself is not realistic per se, it does at least actually use genuine fencing technique most of the time.  Inconceivable!

As I mentioned above, the dialog is something of an in joke for those who know the history of fencing.  

Montoya: You are using Bonnetti's Defense against me, ha !

Wesley: I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain.

Montoya: Naturally you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro.

Wesley: Naturally. But I find that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro, don't you ?

Montoya: Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa... which I have !

Montoya: You are wonderful !

Wesley: Thank you, I have worked hard to become so.

Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.

Wesley: Then why are you smiling?

Montoya: Because I know something that you do not know.

Wesley: And what is that?

Montoya: I am not left-handed.

These are not the names of real techniques in fencing, but they are the names of well-known people in the history of fencing: Rocco Bonnetti, Ridolfo Capo Ferro, and so forth. See this link for a full discussion of who these people were.

http://combativecorner.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/fencing-language-in-the-princess-bride/

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts has a good collection of essays on various topics of classic sword fighting.
http://www.thearma.org/essays.htm

Deleted Toon Funeral & Police Beating Sequences From Roger Rabbit

[I apologize for the small type below, but I am having problems with formatting on blogspot, and when I enlarge the font all the other formatting goes to hell.  If you have trouble reading this, most browsers allow you to hit <control> + and that usually enlarges the type]

The following is a deleted sequence from the third draft of the script for Roger Rabbit. These sequences were filmed and animated and are available on the 15th Anniversary edition of the DVD. They were cut from the movie because it was running too long and because there are a number of very dark elements in here.

Two in particular stand out. Valiant, our hero, the detective, is dragged to the police station in Toontown by the Weasels and worked over before being released. The second is that they paint a pig head on him which makes him look half man, half toon. Then when he tries to take a Red Car home, he is made to sit in the back of the car, which I think helps to make clear the position of Toons in Los Angeles in this fictional world.   

EXT. FOREST LAWN CEMETERY - RED CAR STOP - DAY

A Red Car pulls up. Valiant climbs off. He calmly crosses the street and ducks behind the cemetery entranceway as Maroon's Packard ROARS through.

VALIANT:(impressed) Love that Red Car.

As Valiant starts to walk up the hill ... CUT TO:

THE ACME FUNERAL SITE - LONG SHOT - DAY

A hearse, and a line of black limos are parked in the lane. Nearby, Marvin Acne's funeral is inprogress. Clustered around a gravesite are the mourners ... TOONS of every stripe. There's MICKEY MOUSE comforting MINNIE. TOM AND JERRY. HECKLE AND JECKLE. CHIP 'N DALE. Everyone from the famous to the not-so-famous is in attendance. The eulogy is being delivered in a familiar blustery Southern VOICE. It's FOGHORN LEGHORN.

FOGHORN LEGHORN:Today we commit the body of brother Acme to the cold, I say cold, cold ground. We shed no tears for we know that Marvin is going to a better place. That high, high, I say that high-larious place up in the sky.

Foghorn Leghorn dramatically points skyward.

TOONS:
(in unison) A-men!

NEW ANGLE - VALIANT

is leaning up against a palm tree on the hill. We have been watching the proceedings from his POV. Now he sees Maroon's car pull up. He moves around to the other side of the tree as Maroon passes and starts wending his way through the crowd.

Foghorn Leghorn nods to the funeral DIRECTOR, a pasty-faced human in a black mourning coat. The Director starts to turn the crank lowering the coffin into the grave.

FOGHORN LEGHORN:
Give us a sign, brother Herman, that you've arrived ...

Much to the funeral Director's amazement, the crank starts PLINKING out the tune to "POP GOES THE WEASEL". Now the Toon mourners pick up on it and join in.

TOONS: (singing)
Round and round the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel ...

The crank and SONG start going FASTER AND FASTER.

TOONS: (continuing: singing)
The monkey said it was all in fun POP!
Goes the weasel.

Suddenly half of the lid to Acme's coffin flies open and a harlequin CLOWN BOI-YOI-YOINGS out. The funeral Director faints dead away as the Toon SOBS turn to LAUGHTER. The Toons turn and head away from the grave comforted by a funeral befitting a gag king. They climb into their cars and SCREECH off like the start of the Indy 500.

One mourner is left at the gravesite. Sitting in a chair dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief is Jessica Rabbit. Maroon walks up behind her.

MAROON:
So ... Trying to pull a fast one on me, huh?

Jessica turns, startled. She stands and faces Maroon.

VALIANT

smiles and leans in. This is the moment he's been waiting for. Now just as the conversation begins, it is drowned out by the NOISE from a LAWN MOWER. Valiant turns to see a GARDENER riding around on a small tractor cutting the grass. Valiant tries to flag him down as he watches Maroon and Jessica having an argument. There's accusatory finger pointing. In pantomime. Maroon gestures into his pocket as if describing the position of Acme's will.

Jessica tries to leave. He grabs her arm. They're screaming at each other but we don't hear a word. Valiant waves frantically for the Gardener to cut the machine. But the Gardener misconstrues it as a friendly greeting and waves back. Valiant turns in time to see Jessica kick Maroon in the groin and stomp off to a red Auburn Speedster. She jumps in and speeds away as Maroon staggers back to his car. The Gardener stops the tractor next to Valiant. He SHUTS OFF THE ENGINE. The cemetery is completely still again.

GARDENER:
Somethin' you want, mister?

VALIANT:
Not anymore ...

EXT. INK & PAINT CLUB - ALLEY - NIGHT

A Steinway piano truck is parked next to the stage door. TWO husky PIANO HOVERS are rolling a baby grand up the ramp to the stage door. They knock on the door. The Gorilla opens it and they muscle the piano inside. After a moment, they reemerge. We FOLLOW them back to the truck where a second baby grand stands ready to be moved.

MOVER #1:
I don't know about you, but it makes me sick to think of these beautiful pianos gettin' chopped into match sticks every night by those screwy ducks.

Struggling, they push this second piano into the club.

INT. CLUB - BACKSTAGE

They roll the piano over to the wall and park it next to the first.

MOVER #2: (shakes head)
And they call it entertainment.

As they go out the stage door, MOVE IN on the baby grand.

INSIDE THE PIANO - VALIANT

is lying prone -- using the Steinway as his own Trojan Horse. He lifts the piano lid to climb out. but then HEARS FOOTSTEPS approaching. He lowers the lid again. Now someone starts testing the keys. We see the hammers strike the strings, RUNNING UP THE SCALES until they reach the one under Valiant's nose. The hammer whacks Valiant's nose on the backswing and strikes the string making a terrible SOUR NOTE.

DONALD DUCK (V.0.) (exasperated QUACK)
Phooey! Out of tune again!

DAFFY DUCK (V.0.)
Not to worry, Donald. We can fix that with my sledgehammer.

DONALD DUCK (V.O.)
Never mind. Daffy. I've got an axe in my dressing room.

Valiant's eyes widen.

ANGLE ON PIANO

as the VOICES of Daffy and Donald recede. Valiant raises the lid and quickly climbs out. He eases over to Jessica's dressing roon. As he starts to open the door, he HEARS SCUFFLING from inside. Valiant puts his ear to the door. More SCUFFLING. Valiant straightens, then suddenly whips the door open and flicks on the light.

INT. DRESSING ROOM

Nobody's there. Perplexed, Valiant closes the door behind him and checks behind the dressing screen. In the closet. No one. He shrugs and starts to search the room. He goes to Jessica's dressing table and rifles the drawers. In her purse he discovers a Toon revolver. He examines it.

VALIANT:
Girl's gotta protect herself.

Valiant puts the gun back in the purse and closes the drawer. As he stands, he pauses to consider a Hurrel-like black-and-white photo of Roger Rabbit in a silver deco frame. He's dramatically posed with a cigarette like he was Tyrone Power. Valiant shakes his head and turns from the table. Something catches his eye.

ANGLE ON FLOOR

Behind the dressing table, the corner of a piece of blue paper peeks out. Valiant stoops down and fishes it out. lt's a cover for a legal document. "Last Will and Testament -- Marvin Acme."

VALIANT

stands, pleased. He opens the blue folder. But it's empty, Valiant puts it in his inside pocket and turns to go when suddenly an unseen hand flicks the lights off.

VALIANT:
Son of a ***...

We can't see anything in the darkness. But we hear the SOUND of A FISTFIGHT. There's the CRASHING of lamps and furniture breaking. Now the door opens for a second as the assailant escapes. Light floods in the room, illuminating Valiant on the floor with a curtain wrapped around his head. As he struggles free the door closes. The room is dark again. Valiant scrambles to the door. When he whips it open, REVEAL the Gorilla framed in the doorway. Valiant is frozen. The gorilla flicks on the light. He smiles wickedly.

GORILLA:
And here I tought we had mice.

Valiant tries to make a break for it. WHAM! The Gorilla lays him out cold with a right cross.

BLACKOUT.

FADE IN: VALIANT'S POV FROM FLOOR

As his vision comes INTO FOCUS, Valiant sees the Gorilla, Jessica Rabbit, the Weasel's and Judge Doom are standing over him.

GORILLA:
... I caught him rummagin' around in here. Then I called you, Judge, on a counta you be da one we pay juice to.

DOOM: (clears throat)
You did the right thing, Bongo.

THE WEASELS

pull a groggy Valiant upright and plop him in a chair in front of Doom.

DOOM:
Being caught breaking and entering is not very good advertising for a detective. What were you looking for, Mr. Valiant?

VALIANT:
Ask her...

Valiant nods toward Jessica, who stands coolly smoking a cigarette.

JESSICA RABBIT:
Last week some heavy breather wanted one of my nylons as a souvenir. Maybe that's what he was after.

VALIANT:
Look, doll, if I wanted underwear, I woulda broken into Frederick's of Hollywood. I was lookin' for Marvin Acme's will.

DOOM:
Marvin Acme had no will. I should know, the probate is in my court.

VALIANT:
He had a will, all right. She took it off Acme the night she and R.K. Maroon knocked him off. Then she set up her loving husband to take the fall.

JESSICA RABBIT:
You, Mr. Valiant, are either drunk or punch drunk. Probably both.

DOOM:These are bold accusations, Mr. Valiant. I hope you have some proof?

VALIANT:
I found the cover the will came in behind the dressing table.

Valiant reaches into his pocket. But the blue envelope is gone.

VALIANT: (continuing)
They must've taken it off me

DOOM:
They?

VALIANT:
The other people who were in here lookin' for the will. I woulda caught 'em if Cheetah here hadn't interrupted me.

The Gorilla makes a move for Valiant. Doom stops him.

DOOM:
Take it easy, Bongo. We'll handle Mr. Valiant our own way ... downtown.

VALIANT:
Downtown? Fine. Get ahold of Santino, I'd be more than glad to talk to him.

DOOM:
Oh, not that downtown. Toontown.

The mention of Toontown has a visible impact on Valiant.

VALIANT: (nervous)
You're not takin' me to downtown Toontown?

DOOM:
Indeed we are. We'll continue the interrogation there.

VALIANT: (very agitated)
I ain't tellin' you nothin'! Get me Santino.

DOOM:
You're a very stubborn man, Mr. Valiant. Very pig-headed. Boys. show Mr. Valiant how we handle pig-headed men at the Toontown station ...

The Weasels drag Valiant out of the room ...

VALIANT: (screaming)
No... you bastards! Leggo of me!

EXT. STREET - NIGHT

The Toon Control Wagon streaks along with the cat SIREN WAILING. It flashes by then slams on the brakes at the entrance to an eerie tunnel. A sign next to the tunnel says: "Toontown".

INT. WAGON

The Weasels look over at the bound and gagged Valiant. One of them turns Valiant's head to look at the Toontown sign.

WEASEL #1:
What're you shakin' for? Didn't you have a good time last time you were here?

With a wicked WHEEZE, the driver floors it.

EXT. TUNNEL

The wagon disappears into the murky darkness. PAN UP to the night sky.

DISSOLVE TO:

THE SKY - MORNING

PAN DOWN to the Tunnel. We can't see into the darkness but we HEAR HOOTING and HOLLERING from within, GUNS going off, FIRECRACKERS EXPLODING, WHIPS CRACKING, all accompanied by the WHEEZING LAUGHTER of the Weasels.

WEASEL #1: (0.S.)
Soo-eey! Soo-eey!

WEASEL #2: (O.S.)
Let him go, boys. I think he's got the message.

After a beat, Valiant comes staggering out of the tunnel. He's got a burlap sack over his head tied around his waist. Behind him, the Weasels emerge holding paint cans and brushes. They watch as he trips and falls by the side of the road. The Weasels GIGGLE victoriously and head back inside.

Valiant lies there for a moment, catching his breath. Then he struggles to free his hands. Finally he rips the sack off his head and sits up.

Copyright !988 Touchstone Pictures / Amblin Productions

CLOSE - VALIANT

We see he's got a huge Toon pig with a goofy grin painted over his head. Valiant pulls and tugs on it, but this is a costume that won't come off. Valiant curses, gets to his feet and stumbles down the road.

EXT. RED CAR STOP

Valiant gets in the back of the line of PASSENGERS boarding the Red Car.

INT. RED CAR - VALIANT

steps aboard. The Trolleynan, who we recognize as Earl from the Terminal Bar, does a double-take when he sees the ridiculously silly looking man/Toon.

EARL:
Here's one for the books ... a Toon wearin' human clothes.

VALIANT:
Earl ... it's me, Valiant.

EARL:
Eddie? Jesus, what happened?

VALIANT:
Toon cops worked me over.

EARL:
Boy, I'll say. They gave you a real Toon-a-roo.

VALIANT: (apprehensively)
What am I, Earl?

Earl breaks the news to Valiant soberly.

EARL:
You're a pig... a happy-go-lucky pig.

VALIANT:
No ...

EARL:
Does it hurt?

VALIANT:
Not much. lt's hard to talk.

EARL:
Uh, Eddie, do me a favor. Could you sit in the back so you won't cause as much of a commotion.

Valiant tries to pull the brim of his hat down. But it's comically small on the huge head. He makes his way down the aisle past a veritable gauntlet of RAZZING, poking, tripping PASSENGERS. Finally he finds an empty seat in the back as the Red Car starts up,

A LITTLE KID

wearing a baseball cap is sitting a few seats away with his MOTHER. The Kid looks back at Eddie and laughs. He leans over and whispers something to his Mom.

KID:
Can I, Mom?

MOM:
Go ahead, darling.Take your bat.

The Kid takes his baseball bat and approaches Valiant innocently.

KID:
Hi, Mr. Pig. If I hit you on the head, will you make me a cuckoo bird?

The Kid starts to take a swing with the bat.

VALIANT:
Kid, if you hit me on the head. I'm gonna throw you out this window.

The Kid's eyes widen in terror. This is not a typical Toon response.

KID: (crying)
Mommy!

INT. VALIANT'S APARTMENT - BATHROOM - DAY

We hear the SOUND of the SHOWER. Valiant's hand reaches out past the shower curtain and grabs for a bottle. But it's not shampoo. It's turpentine.

VALIANT:
Damnit!

CLOSE - TUB DRAlN

The water swirling down the drain is tinged with paint of different colors.

CLOSE - VALIANT

He scrubs manically until the last of the pig head is gone. He rinses off and he feels around his face. The absence of the Toon mask seems to bring him some relief. He shuts off the shower and slides the shower curtain back.

VALIANT'S POV - JESSICA RABBIT

is leaning up against the door jam, dressed as usual, in a black cocktail dress with elbow length gloves and pearls.

JESSICA RABBIT:
Hello, Mr. Valiant. I rang the doorbell, but I guess you couldn't hear it.

VALIANT:
That's because I don't have a doorbell.

Jessica, caught in her lie, flutters her eyelids nervously.

JESSICA RABBIT:
Oh... well, I ... I just had to see you ...

VALIANT:
Okay, you've seen me. Now give me a towel.

As she hands him a towel, she stares down at his anatomy.

JESSICA RABBIT:
What's that thing?

Valiant looks down at what she's referring to.

VALIANT:
Come on, lady, haven't you ever seen a mole before?

JESSICA RABBIT:
Toons aren't given imperfections.

VALIANT:
No? I guess we're not counting lying, stealing and murder.

New Trailer for 2001: A Space Odyssey

A new trailer for 2001: A Space Oddity in order to emphasize the action sequences.  I give it an A for concept and maybe a B+ for execution.

Thanks to Sally Syberg for recommending this.

http://youtu.be/ZSGsh9so_dA

The Ox-Cart Library

Although of course we can always use another movie about giant robots beating the shit out of each other, which is a timeless theme in art, but reading about the history of the Latter Day Saints movement, I came across this little gem of regional history.

Admittedly, it needs to have a romantic interest of some sort but I am sure Hollywood is capable of tacking on some shoddy and stereotyped romance without any problem.

And knowing the history of the biped mammals, I am sure that sex, as distinct from romance, fits into this somehow.

Without further ado, here is the fascinating story of the "The Oxcart Library", from Wikipedia.

The Oxcart Library is considered to be the first circulating public library in the history of the Western Reserve. The library is located in the city of North Olmsted, Ohio.

Captain Aaron Olmstead, a wealthy sea captain in the China trade out of New England, was one of 49 investors who formed a syndicate in 1795 to purchase a major part of the Western Reserve from Connecticut. He became the owner of thousands of acres from his $30,000 share of the $120,000 total land deal. The land encompassed the areas now known as North Olmsted, Olmsted Falls and Olmsted Township. At the time of the purchase, the area was known as Lenox. Olmsted traveled west on horseback to visit the land in 1795, but never settled here. He died on 1806. In 1826, Aaron's son, Charles Hyde Olmstead, offered to donate 500 books from his father's personal collection in Oxford, Connecticut, if the residents of Lenox agreed to change the name of the area to Olmstead. They did.

The books traveled by oxcart over 600 miles of rugged terrain. They were individually covered with blue paper and arrived partly stained with mud and rain. The books were housed in various families' homes and circulated to residents in the area.

Around 150 of the original books can be found in a display case in the North Olmsted Branch Library. The blue paper covers remain on many of the books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox-Cart_Library

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.