Animation and Genre

draft

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/

Advice for Youth Regarding the Academy Awards

When experienced and senior people such as myself deign to teach callow youth about the "industry", what is our motivation and what is it we should expect?   Our motivation is, generally speaking, to help our students by generously giving them the benefit of our experience.  What we should expect in return is their complete obedience and undying gratitude.

One of the courses that I taught for NYU at the School of Continuing and Professional Studies provided an opportunity for me to relate a few simple suggestions that I thought would be helpful to them when/if they came to the West coast to try their fortune in the glamourous motion picture industry.  As time has passed I continue to believe that these suggestions are as valid today as when I taught those classes.

My suggestions, based on personal experience, are as follows.

First, its important to start practicing your acceptance speech for your Academy Award now and well in advance of actually needing it.   The simplest way to do this is to stand in front of a mirror and practice your speech.  A few minutes a day, every day, is recommended. Be sure to use a touch of humor, be gracious and never forget the virtue of being brief.   Everyone is nervous the first few times they receive this award and you will be no exception.   Also, remember that the "Oscar" is heavy, being made from depleted uranium, so you might want to work on your upper body a few weeks before the great day.

Second, its important as well as gracious to acknowledge your fans as you are getting out of your limo in front of the theatre. Your fans have been waiting there for hours if not days just for a chance to get a glimpse of you. Their lives are pointless and you can cheer them up, so why not?

Always be dignified as this ingenue is demonstrating here

Third, its important to be magnanimous in your speech. Always thank the little people who contributed to your award, even though you know, and the important people know, that they had nothing to do with it. All the good ideas came from you and you alone.

Fourth, if you are not being awarded this year by some mistake or oversight, you can still get some visibility on air if you follow this little trick and have a little luck.  The news pool usually has their camera used to interview stars placed so that the television audience can see who is arriving at the awards on the red carpet in the background.  If you are careful, you can evaluate who they are interviewing and make a judgment about whether or not they will be on air as you walk into the awards.  The technique is to stall until you think the time is right and then walk in and past that area, turn around and walk back, then turn around again and finally walk in.  This way you get three exposures, not one, and your fans will be grateful.

Fifth, do not be concerned about getting a date for the Academy Awards.  No one has ever experienced any problems getting a date for the ceremony.  You can be the most unpopular person in the world and men or women will line up to go to the Awards and tell all their friends about it later (who will be suitably impressed and jealous).

Finally,  I had a few thoughts on the topic of career planning which I shared and which I believe are even more valid today.   Do not go to Hollywood and offer to be an assistant, or work for free, or start at the bottom.  That is all crap.  Jeffrey Katzenberg was 19 years old and started by being assistant to the head of Paramount and look what happened to him.  Be warned,  Hollywood has plenty of people willing to start at the bottom.  What Hollywood does not have enough of is people who have the courage to come in and be the producers, directors, writers and actors who take charge and show them how its done.   There is a shortage in all these areas.   When you go to Hollywood, don't be modest but speak truth to power and tell them how they have fucked up and how things should be done now that you have arrived.

They love that kind of chutzpah.  For them, it means that you have the self-confidence to be a top player.

I promise you that they will appreciate your honesty and it will be the start of a brilliant career.

Why I am Not Working for the NSA

Many friends wonder, what with my strange beliefs about intelligence and national defense, that I am not working for that center of evil itself, the NSA. Why not go to work for the great oppressor of freedom that even now examines each individuals internet pornography use and deduces whether or not they are having kinky sex with women in order to inform the local Gestapo and have them beat in the doors to seize the miscreant and hang them in their cell?

But it is not out of a misguided sense of privacy rights that I am not working for the NSA.  The real reason is that I could not figure out how to apply.  

Applying for the NSA requires applying through the Internet, a bold new paradigm. Just applying for the NSA through the Internet requires hours of your time, and requires a reasonable understanding of our nation's civil service structure. And the NSA internal job classifications. 

The potential candidate for national security work is presented with a series of questions that to those of us filled with patriotism but outside the beltway will find completely baffling. What job classification was your dog when your dog applied for TS clearance? What job classification was your mother-in-law when she was denied SCI tickets? Did you or did you not visit NMIC in the basement of the pentagon when you were 23 years old with Dr. Stockton Gaines? What did you hope to gain from that stunt for your communist masters?

And then, forget about uploading a resume. Resumes are old fashioned here, son, put your old fashioned ideas away and get ready for some rocket science. Instead you must type in your resume and experience and education in carefully prepared html forms. What was the name of your 6^th grade Science teacher? If we contacted Mrs. Winkler, as you allege, what would she say about you and your commitment to the American Way? When you heard about the assassination of Kennedy, were you (a) happy, (b) distressed, (c) thinking only about the cute girl two rows up and to the left?

And on and on it goes, from Elementary School, to Middle School, to High School, to college. What was your grade in differential equations? Why did you have to take it over? What does your failure to excel at diff eq say about your lack of ethical standards?

And finally, when you think it is over, it isn't over.

Pick your job classification? Slovenian linguist or Finno-Ugric semiotics, junior grade? Sino-Soviet relations as manifested by their choice of profanity or perhaps Korean synonyms? Its your choice, boy, but choose carefully because forever is your destiny affected.

And then, if you think you finished but you did not get a reply, that means you did not finish. Yes, you left some box unchecked, and after those hours of work they did not actually get that application which they would use to ignore you. You were never officially ignored. You did not even get that far.

And that is what happened.

I went through this process, somehow missed some box to check, and did not actually submit. Should I try again?  What's the point?   No one ever gets a job by applying through the Internet.

Maybe this is a way to weed out the weak and find only those who are truly worthy?

Stanley Kubrick and the Hotel in NY

I believe that as we live our pathetic lives in our corrupt society, that we are all of us under a moral obligation to enliven and otherwise entertain each other, so that we do not all collapse into a puddle of stress and unhappiness. Sadly not everyone holds to this moral principle.

Also sadly, some of the attempted entertainment items, jokes, gags, whatever, are better than others. “I have a million jokes as good as that one” always sounds like a threat to me. Nevertheless, every once in a while things come together and work out to everyone's benefit. The point of this post is to review the structure of such a gag first used in 1997 that those who are interested in continuing in this great tradition may do so. For reasons that will be obvious in a moment, this gag would have to be updated to modern times or it would take an entirely new, and darker, feeling.

There are several ideas incorporated in this gag and so lets review them here. 1. It works to build up the mythology of the designated target in front of his or her coworkers in entertaining ways, 2. It uses as a primary mechanism certain behaviors that have been noticed in a class of worker in our society in order to achieve our goals without being physically present, 3. It seeks to achieve its goals by exploiting a weakness, in this case, the unfortunate willingness to hold in high esteem members of the motion picture industry and to think that there is anything glamourous or exciting in that industry, 4. The gag uses modesty and indirection as a technique for achieving its goals, in this case one is not impersonating a famous person, one is impersonating an anonymous and lowly assistant to the famous person, 5. It goes further by suggesting that the target is in fact the important person, whereas the off screen celebrity is actually just nobody of any special interest.

The occasion for this event was the imminent arrival of a friend from the West Coast to NYC. I knew that my friend, from ILM, would arrive on a certain day and somehow knew what hotel he was staying at. He must have told me which hotel it was, but I have no memory of that. I knew that it was possible at most hotels to leave a message in advance of arrival of the guest if they had a reservation, and furthermore, that there was a good chance that the front desk would read any such message to the arriving guest. I also knew that it was procedure for such people to arrive in groups from the airport, so that it was likely that my friend and target would arrive and check in with his co-workers all around him.

There was always the risk that the front desk would not read any message aloud, but hand it to my friend on paper. It could go either way, this is a flaw in the approach. In this case, the events turned out the way I desired but it could have been different. Had my friend received the note on paper, it would still have been entertaining, but not as much.

Given this intelligence of the imminent arrival of the target, I waited until the day before arrival and called the hotel, asking to leave a message for a guest who had not yet arrived but whose arrival was expected. The front desk was happy to do so after looking up the guests' name, Josh Pines of Industrial Light and Magic, on their arrivals list.

Then I told the front desk, in the nicest and most innocent voice I could manage, that this was Mr. Kubrick's office calling, and if Josh had any free time during his trip to NY could he give Stanley a call at home whose number was 212 888 8888. There are several tricks to this message worth pointing out. I. the person who is leaving the message am nobody, I am just representing Mr. Kubrick's office. I assume that everyone knows who Kubrick is, and would know that Stanley refers to the top guy, and that Josh might not have Stanley's home number, so I give it. In reality, of course this number is my home number, something I figured Josh would realize after a moment's thought. Also, note that it is an affectation of the motion picture industry that everyone at the top is referred to in an aw-shucks manner and by their first name. If this had been Jeffrey Katzenberg, I would call him Jeffrey, etc. The implication of course was that it was Josh who was the busy one, and it was Stanley who would rearrange his schedule to fit in Josh whenever he might be available.

So, the trap having been set, all I could do is wait and see what happened. As it turned out, in this case, everything went our way.

A group from ILM arrived at the hotel and while they waited for each member to check into the hotel, the front desk read out to Josh in a loud voice that “A Mr. Kubrick's office had called, and could Josh call Stanley at home at the following number”. This got a suitable response from Mr. Pines colleagues, although Josh immediately saw through the ruse, and said it was “just” Michael Wahrman. Nevertheless, when Josh went up to his room, his electronic key did not work. Puzzled he went down to the front desk and discovered that he had been upgraded to a better room by the hotel.

[Josh tells me that he never referred to "just" Michael Wahrman, but in fact informed Ellen Poon, a member of that party, after the fact and outside the lobby, who was behind the  gag.  He also reports that the people most impressed with the gag were behind the counter, which does not surprise me at all, and in fact is part of the reason I hoped that they would read the message out loud.  In other words, they would read it out loud and make a slightly bigger scene of it all because the workers at the hotel thought it was exciting, not because Josh's colleagues did.  Anyway, Josh does report that he got a better room and it was very nice.  That of course was an unexpected result].

If we were to try and repeat this gag exactly today, we would want to designate a different celebrity director, as Mr. Kubrick is no longer with us, which is a shame.

In fact, the person most amused by this stunt was and still is myself.  I was really delighted and still am.   Probably would not work a second time (at least not at the same hotel).

In this manner, we endeavor to entertain our friends and try to alleviate the endless boredom and misery of their everyday lives. If only some of them would reciprocate, that my life would also be enlivened. But I wait in vain for that happy day.

Enabling Google Chrome FPS (Frames Per Second) Display

There is a hidden feature in Google Chrome that displays the FPS and GPU memory utilization of the browser.

To turn it on, go to the page “about:flags” but without the quotes.

Find the flag “FPS Counter” and enable it.  In the following image it has already been enabled.

Restart chrome with the button at the bottom of the page, which seems to be faster than just closing the browser and restarting it.

This is what the FPS display looks like.

The FPS counter is in the upper right.  Here is a closeup.

Now, does it make any sense?  In other words, are the numbers accurate.  Its hard to tell, but they are not obviously wrong.  I plan to use this feature for all my WebGL development.

The Great Mystery of San Onefre

2.28.2015   The weirdness of this story continues to amaze me.   These private utilities seem to be nothing more than complicated scams to deliver the wealth of rate payers to an elite at the top of a private utility, quote end quote, that has no risk, only benefits.  They can make any mistake, and the rate payers will pay for it with the governments understanding and approval.  The CEO of SCE only makes 2.3 or so million a year, so its not as if it is infinite money.   

As I dig out more reference material, this post will be updated, and eventually may even be an informative summary of what happened here and who paid for it.  Right now, though, its far too loosy goosy with the facts, a situation I hope to remedy, with time.

2/20/2015 I continue to read about how such things as nuclear power plants are financed and indeed it is something of a worst case scenario.  Not only are nuclear power plants famous for costing at least twice as much as estimated, indeed they are nearly all paid for by the "rate payers", e.g. you and me, and with government guaranteed credit, at least in part.   When you realize that top executives at power utilities refuse all but a token salary, it is a little easier to take.  One CEO of an energy utility only makes 9 million $US / year, although I am told that there is also other compensation in various ways that are beyond this modest fee.

When the great ones who nobly serve society by generating and selling us electric power announced to a cheering world that they would shut down the nuclear generating station at San Onefre many questions occurred to me that did not seem to be answered in the highly detailed two or three paragraph in-depth articles written about the situation by our Fourth Estate.

But that was long ago, and as time passed, I knew that our tireless and intelligent press would think to ask these questions and report to the world the real situation. Sadly, this has not taken place and none of these questions have been answered. So I set to discover the answers to these great questions on my own, and clarified a few details in the clusterfuck that is San Onefre, but sadly not many of the answers that I sought were available online.

Nevertheless, I can describe the situation to you and what I think some of the questions are that should be asked, and even answered.

In the following discussion, the operators of the plant are referred to by SCE/SDGE which stands for the partnership of Southern California Edison (80%) and San Diego Gas and Electric (20%).  There is a third partner with less than 2% ownership.  The design and engineering subcontractor was Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.  NRC stands for Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The situation.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when the San Onefre nuclear generation system was built, the citizens were told that this plant would have a certain useful life. But it turns out, it didn't. And it was discovered that it didn't when the heat transfer system pipes (1)  started breaking. So they shut the plant and made arrangements to fix the heat transfer system which meant that they had to replace a very important part of the system.  They told the NRC that they were just replacing the system (in other words, no new engineering), but they were in fact redesigning the system, which should require proper notification to the NRC and their approval.   I am not sure who did the redesign, SCE or Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, but it was MHI that had the contract to build the new system.  This cost $750 M and the contract limited MHI's liability to 1/5th the contract amount.  But when the new system was installed it was found to be much worse than the original system.  So the plant was shut down again.   Only this time most of the $750 M was gone and they would have to start the process over again.

Boy, were their faces red.

The unanswered questions.

1. Why did they need a new heat transfer system before the end of expected life? Were they lying when they estimated life of equipment or were they merely incompetent? Or if they were simply wrong, were they lying when they said that this plant was not a research project?   You see, there is a difference between engineering and research.  In research, you do not know how long something might last, so you have theories and you run tests.  Then you create pilot plants and run more tests, and when you have your principles down, then you design a production plant based on what you have tested and know to be true.  It is not R&D to build a bridge, it is engineering.   A well-engineered power plant will have an estimated life that is likely to be exceeded in reality because it was over-engineered to do so.

It sounds as if they were either lying about this being a production technology, or that they were incompetent when they designed both the first set and the second set of pipes.

2. How is it possible to spend $700 million dollars on a new heat transfer system without having tested it first to know if it would work?   If there were risks to the new design, then it should have been tested and/or the contract not have limited liability.  

3. Were the operators supposed to notify NRC before doing this type of work or not?  If not, what are the penalties?   Why did Barbara Boxer call for criminal charges against SCE/SDGE and what became of that?

4. The decommission of the plant will cost over $4 billion dollars. There is a trust fund that has most of that money already. But where did that trust fund come from? How much of that is paid for by the customers and how much by SCE/SDGE?

5. Over 2,000 highly trained workers are being let go from the plant. What plans are being made to help those workers whose termination will certainly affect the economy of N. San Diego county.

6. How is the power that is being bought to replace the power from San Onefre being generated? Who pays for it, that is, who pays the additional fees?

7. What is the long term change in carbon output which is coming from this change to other forms of power generation, and what are SCE/SDGE's plans for mitigating this?

My suspicion is that the original plant, the changes and the removal of the plant are all paid for by the people of San Diego and Los Angeles and that this is just another scam for government to create a monopoly to give their friends a lot of money. I dont have a choice about where I get my power from, so I have no recourse but to use the bad decisions and management of SCE/SDGE.

My suspicion is that the reason SCE/SDGE were not punished for violating the law vis a vis the NRC is because of course their friends at the NRC and PUC protected them.

 As they always do.

What lessons can we learn from these series of events?   I propose to you that the lessons learned are (a) we can not trust the power companies, the NRC or the PUC to look after our interests and be honest with us about what is going on and who is paying for it, (b) that the best business to be in is a government enforced monopoly, like power generation.

That is where the real money is in America.

____________________________________________

1. San Onefre is, or was, a pressurized water reactor.  What that means is that one set of pipes contains water at pressure that flows through the reactor spaces and is heated by the heat generated from the nuclear reaction.   This hot water at pressure flows through the pipes to pass next to other pipes which also contain water at pressure and heat is transferred from the first set to the second.  No water is actually transferred, just the heat.  The heat in the water of the second set of pipes has not been directly irradiated and therefore is not radioactive and this is the water that drives the steam turbines that actually generate the electricity.   You do not want the water from the first set of pipes to leak because that water is radioactive.

The Inspirational Monologue from How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1979)

Low budget films that transcend their origins generally have something in common, and one of those things is to substitute brilliance for cash.   They can not pick up the pace of a film by having a flock of giant robots attack, intent on world domination, due to the prohibitive cost of such robots in these early days, so instead they have to be clever.  This cleverness does not happen all that often, so when it does happen we should celebrate it.

In particular, I have come across one of my favorite endings of any film, which takes the shape of a triumphant monologue by the lead character of a film.

For those of you who just joined us, a monologue is generally an extended bit of dialogue by one character, either to themselves or possibly addressing some other character or characters. Monologues were more common in the earlier, more analog, filmmaking because those films generally had the benefit of something called a script.   Back in the day, scripts were generally written by writers, a phenomenon we have dismissed for being inefficient.

These days, with digital filmmaking, we have transcended the need for a script and instead group source our plot  augmented with improvisational dialogue by our actors who tend to make things up as they go along.   But back when we had scripts, and thus monologues, they were used to achieve one of several narrative goals.  Perhaps they explain the character's point of view on something.  Or perhaps they try to sell another character on a course of action or try to explain to them what is going on.  If they are an evil genius, they might try to explain their plan and motivation for world domination.

There are some very famous monologues that come to mind from all sorts of films.  The movie Patton (1970) begins with a monologue that is loosely based on a real speech that General Patton gave to various troops that were going to participate in the Normandy landings.    Apocalypse Now (1979) has one of the most notable monologues in film, the famous “napalm speech” given by Robert Duvall.

Sometimes these speeches can be very inspirational, and in our corrupt and far-from-perfect world, inspiration is always welcome.

I want to bring your attention to the ending of a modestly budgeted film, How To Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), as it not only ends with an inspirational monologue, but it demonstrates bold initiative on the part of the filmmakers in the days before digital visual effects where things were actually filmed more or less in situ and out in the world

The following contains a spoiler for the end of this fabulous film.

The film is a satire of the advertising business in England, and its lead, played by Richard Grant, has been driven insane by his need to develop a campaign to advertise a medication for “boils”.  It has so unhinged him, that he develops a boil of his own, one that turns out to be in reality a second head containing his evil twin.  When his evil twin is victorious and taken over the body of the advertising executive, it describes its philosophy of life in a  triumphant scene on horseback.

You can see this scene at the following link on Youtube.  When you watch it, notice the setting of the last few sentences in the monologue as it will be discussed in a moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xeAY-9XvA8

The script of the monologue is approximately as follows:  

BAGLEY

There is no greater freedom than freedom of choice, and that's the difference between you and me, boil. I was brought up to believe in that, and so should you, but you don't.

You don't want freedom, do you? You don't even want roads. God, I never want to go on another train as long as I live! Roads represent a fundamental right of man to have access to the good things in life. Without roads, established family favorites would become elitist delicacies. Potter's soup would be for the few. There'd be no more tea bags, no instant potatoes, no long life cream. There'd be no aerosols. Detergents would vanish. So would tinned spaghetti and baked beans with six frankfurters. The right to smoke one's chosen brand would be denied. Chewing gum would probably disappear.  So would pork pies. Foot deodorizers would climax without hope of replacement.

FADE UP MUSIC IN BG

When the hydrolyzed protein and  monosodium glutamate reserves run out, food would rot in its packets. Jesus Christ, there wouldn't be any more packets! Packaging would vanish from the face of the Earth.  But worst of all, there'd be no more cars. And more than anything, people love their cars. They have a right to them. They have to sweat all day in some stinking factory making disposable cigarette lighters or everlasting Christmas trees, by Christ, they're entitled to them!

SETS HORSE TO GALLUP

They're entitled to any innovation technology brings. Whether it's ten percent more of it or fifteen percent off of it, they're entitled to it!  They're entitled to one of four important new ingredients! Why should anyone have to clean their teeth without important new ingredients? Why the hell shouldn't they have their C.Z.T? How dare some smutty Marxist carbunkle presume to deny them it? They love their C.Z.T! They want it, they need it, they positively adore it! And by Christ, while I've got air in my body they're going to get it!

They're going to get it bigger....  and brighter.... and better!  I'll put C.Z.T. in their margarine if necessary; shove vitamins in their toilet rolls. If happiness means the whole world standing on a double layer of foot deodorizers, I, Bagley, will see that they get them!   I'll give them anything and everything they want! By God, I will!  I shall not cease, till Jerusalem is builded here, on England's green and pleasant land.

FADE OUT

Now for the dramatic revelation.  At the very end of this important scene, the camera pans across Bagley to reveal a sunset in the background.   What you need to understand is that this is not shot on blue/green screen.  It was actually shot by the filmmakers on location, which means they had to wait for sunset.  Which means that they had time for only very few takes from the last cut to the last words of the scene.  They had to get it, or the ending of the movie would not be as powerful.

Outstanding work.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989) on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097531/

Apocalypse Now (1979) on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/

Patton (1970) on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206/

The Meaning of Baccarat in the Identity of James Bond

The modern term of art for the rejuvenation of a franchise is “reboot” and the art of rebooting a beloved property of another generation is full of subtlety as well as peril. A false step can not only damage a franchise for years to come, it can cause the property to deviate from its true nature, and once it walks down the dark path, forever is its destiny affected, at least until the next reboot. It is the management of these properties and their long term development that is one of the most important responsibilities that a studio or producer takes upon themselves.   Like a publisher or curator at a museum, their decisions will quite literally affect our culture, or at least our popular culture.   And with a solemn understanding of their responsibility they approach the problem of adaptation of a franchise with the sensitivity and deliberative nature not unlike a professional castrator of pigs at a slaughterhouse.

As a good producer or studio executive knows, no change is too shallow, inappropriate or ill-advised if it may result in more money in the short run.   In this, they express the highest morality and integrity that our society has to offer.

When the owners of the Bond licenses began development of a new series of Bond films, they had to choose whether to leave Bond in the cold war, and thus make a film set in that era, or bring Bond into our century. They chose to do the latter, updating the character with actor Daniel Craig, and changing Bond's background in a variety of ways both subtle and not so subtle.

One of the changes, at the time unmentioned by any but the most hardcore students of Bond, was to change the preferred card game from a variant of baccarat to a variant of poker, the far-too-trendy “Texas Hold Em” variety. This was either a fundamental mistake or a very bold move on the part of the filmmakers. Did they fully understand the significance of baccarat to the character and identify of James Bond?   Perhaps they merely thought to themselves that the general movie-going audience will not have heard of baccarat in any form and are even less likely to have played it themselves.  Yes, that is correct, and that is part of the point, baccarat is an elitist game of an upper class of society in Europe.

In Dr. No, Ms Sylvia Trench, a guest at the club, plays chermin de fer against a mysterious stranger. 

Joshua Pines, a semi-professional poker player, suggests that poker is a suitable game for James Bond as it is a game of skill, not of chance.  I have no doubt that poker is indeed a game that requires great skill. I would go further and say that poker requires much more skill than even the most skill-oriented form of baccarat, the chemin de fer, which is the variant that Bond plays. But demonstrating skill is only a small part of what baccarat means to the entity we think of as James Bond.

She makes arrangements to raise the limit on the table.  The mysterious stranger introduces himself as "Bond, James Bond" 

When we examine the backstory of James Bond and his relationship with British foreign intelligence, SIS, that is, where Bond came from and what services he can bring to that organization, one aspect of this background is that James Bond is a member of a minor branch of Scottish nobility. He is, as they say, “of station” in the eyes of both British and European nobility. This means that he can go to many places in the world where the rest of us are not welcome, except perhaps as a guest of a member. And even then, we would not be recognized as a peer. But Bond is a peer, a member of the inherited nobility of Europe, a more elite form of society than exists in our country. And this nobility has a long history of being very conscious of who is and who is not a member, and of the social conventions that come with it. In a sense, it is also part of his cover, as in intelligence as well as crime, a good cover is by definition mostly true.

Cmdr. Bond is called away on a secret mission, but he makes arrangements to meet Ms. Trench in a more private setting. 

The game of baccarat also has a long history among the games of chance of European society. It comes in three variations. One variation requires no skill and is a pure game of chance. One variation requires some skill, and the third variation, the chemin de fer, requires the most skill, about as much as the game of blackjack. But demonstrating skill is not the point, and has never been the point of the society of the upper classes. One is there because one was born entitled to be there, not because one was good at anything. That Bond chooses to only play the chemin de fer is revealing about him, he may have something to prove.

Ms Trench arrives early at Bond's apartment, and takes the liberty of getting ready for bed.  Baccarat is clearly value added in terms of improving or enhancing Bond's social life.

When the producers of the Bond movies chose Casino Royale for the reboot, it was the fulfillment of a long-term Bond anomaly. Casino Royale was the only Bond property they could not get the rights due to their being previously licensed to make the Bond spoof of the same name. Thus returning to the Casino Royale was in a way back to basics for Bond. The plot of the novel and of this 2006 motion picture testifies to the cooperation between the US and UK intelligence communities (the CIA backs Bond's game at a critical moment and allows it to continue), and to issues of “fifth columnists” as the antagonist, Le Chiffre, is the chief financier of a French worker's union as well as a paid agent of the Soviet Union in the original text.

Bond was SIS's best gambler, and as a member of the Scottish nobility, would not be out of place at this elite casino.He could legitimately be there and play this European game of chance and skill and work for the destruction of the French traitor. The high stakes game at a casino of this type is unlikely to be poker but could very well be baccarat.

But that is not the only role for baccarat in the novels and movies of James Bond.  Another very notable occasion is at the beginning of Dr. No (1962), the first Bond film with Sean Connery, which opens in Jamaica where a murder takes place, and then switches to Les Ambassadeurs / Le Cercle, a famously elite club of diplomats and aristocracy in London.

It is at this club that the lovely Ms. Sylvia Trench engages in a fierce game of baccarat / chermin de fer with a mysterious stranger.   This stranger introduces himself as "Bond, James Bond," timing his words to match the upbeat of the music track that begins, also mysteriously, in the background. Thus, not only is chermin de fer Bond's game, it is the game that leads inevitably to his first successful romantic liason on film.  Who is to say what would have happened had he been playing poker?  He certainly would not have been at Le Cercle that evening and thus is unlikely to have met Ms Trench.

Certainly CDR Bond knows how to play poker, and plays it well, but it is not a game of the European elite.  (1) Far from it. Poker is the quintessential American card game, a game of skill, a game that probably originated on the riverboat casinos of the Mississippi and then spread West with the frontier. You could hardly get more American than that.

In conclusion, when you change baccarat to poker, which I have no doubt they did without much thought, you actually change a fundamental aspect of Bond's public identity.   Was a reference to a currently trendy American card game really worth such a price?

________________________________________

1. In reviewing the games of Les Ambassadeurs, see URL below, I notice that three-card poker is currently a game there.  No doubt this is a sign of creeping Americanism and other degrading trends in European society.

Baccarat on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccarat_%28card_game%29

Dr. No (1962) on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055928/

Casino Royale (2006) on IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381061/

The club where Bond met Ms Trench
http://www.lesambassadeurs.com/

Ageism in Silicon Valley:Can't We All Get Along?

This is an attempt to write about a recent incident that involved ageism, or an attitude towards ageism, that I find reprehensible. The first post on this topic was deleted because it was filled with the genuine and honest rage I felt about the situation. Hopefully this second post can narrate the incident and some thoughts i have about ageism, sexism, racism and so forth in our less-than-perfect society without expressing this anger.

But the content of this post is almost banal.  The big idea is that people disagree about issues such as what to do about ageism because they do not realize that they do not share assumptions, and given a lack of shared position on big issues, the little issues "declaring ageism bad" is not so simple.  So I am going to go over the obvious three assumptions that lie at the heart of this debate and observe that indeed not everyone agrees with them.  

The first assumption is that discrimination on the basis of some characteristic such as sex, color of skin, age, and so forth, is a bad thing. When someone is denied a job, or a membership in a society that has an important role in the community, or acceptance to a university because of age, sex, race, religion and so forth, and not on who they are as a person, then an injustice has been done. But there are many people in America who do not agree with me and think that discrimination on some of these criteria, a priori, and without consideration of the individual applicant is perfectly legitimate. There are many people believe it is right to deny someone a job because the applicant is a woman, as she might get pregnant and leave. She might, but she might not. Why not talk to her about it?

This is the central meaning of what discrimination (1) has come to mean: to choose between candidates based on a stereotype or classification that is independent of their worth as a person, or a candidate, or a potential student. Oh, he has funny hair, I dont think we should hire him. We really are uncomfortable with a Jew as member, do we really want to see him in the locker room or at our annual dinners? No we do not. Get that fucking jew out of here.

But I think, and I am sure most of my readers believe, that discrimination on the basis of sex, age, race, religion, etc is wrong. People should be judged on their individual merits and lack thereof. This is the first assumption.

The second assumption is that discrimination of this type exists in our society in important ways. If you do not believe that there is unfair discrimination then obviously you would not be predisposed to do anything to stop it. Many people I know do not believe that there is, for example, discrimination against black men by some of the “local” police forces in America. But I have lived near Los Angeles for most of my life, unfortunately, and every black person I know, mostly men, has a story to tell. They can't all be wrong. I have witnessed and heard about discrimination against women based entirely on their gender. When I hear about such discrimination, I always take it with a grain of salt until I know more, but I have no doubt that it exists and affects the lives of many people. I have no doubt it has affected my life.

Thus the second assumption is that discrimination exists in our society in important ways. In other words, this is not a theoretical concern, but a problem that exists among us right now.

The third assumption is that we, as individuals, as local governments and as the federal government, have a duty to work to end this discrimination in order to create a more fair and just society. This assumption is hotly debated among segments of our polity for many reasons. Among those reasons are those who do not hold the two assumptions above, as well as those who benefit from these discriminations in a direct and tangible way and wish to keep them. Other people who disagree do so because they have a vision of what government means and do not want government involved in this area of life and business. Still others disagree because they do not see that they as individuals have a duty to stand up to this injustice, that it is someone else's problem. And others disagree with this because they are afraid that they might be discriminated against if someone complains about it.

In summary, the assumptions are that discrimination is bad, that it exists in our society, and that we all have a duty to do something about it, both as individuals and as government.

Now we get to the specific incident. A friend of mine, who is a right-wing republican through and through, has lived off his stock-options for a decade and finds that having spent all his money he needs to get a job. He has no doubt that he will immediately get a job, at whatever company he wants, at his perceived level of worth, in spite of being out of the job market for so long. Whenever he does not get a job or might not get a job, it is someone else's fault, which it very well may be. One place he is applying is Google, which he considers an easy place for him to get a senior job, but he has one concern, and that is ageism at Google.

Well, he is right to be concerned. Famously, throughout the world, Google has earned a reputation for ageist hiring practices and career development. In an industry, technology, which already has a strong age bias, Google stands out for being explicitly and radically age biased. Or so, I read, and so I have heard. Is this a fair accusation, I have no way of knowing. In general, however, when you hear things like this as strongly as I hear them about Google, then in fact there is something to it. My guess is that the ageism exists among the lower levels mostly, in other words, when you have a senior person pitching for you, then you are ok at any age. But when you are left to the tender mercies of middle management, then indeed they are explicitly ageist. That is my guess.

Whatever is true here, whether truly there is fire to all that smoke, one dismissed person in marketing took Google to court about it. And win or lose, that is where my friend looking for a job comes in.

His model of the world is that because someone dared to oppose Google on the basis of age after being dismissed, that he, my friend, would have trouble being hired, because Google would be concerned about hiring someone over 50 in case they got sued.

Thus the cause of this ageism is not Google's egregious and world-famous policy of discrimination, but because a victim of it protested his fate.

If only the victims of the unjust world would accept being fucked, my friend is saying, it would be better for me, because then they would hire me. But if they do not hire me, it is not my fault, it is because of that asshole who got fired who sued.

My friend has no concern about the justness of this discrimination, does not even really believe it exists, and could not care less about it except as it affects him. And it only exists in his mind because someone used this anti-discrimination law and used it to unfairly sue Google.

I find this attitude appalling but there are two good things to say about.  First, it is consistent with his other beliefs.  I like consistency in matters of principle.  The second good thing is that everyone has a right to their opinion even if they disagree with me and thus are obviously wrong.

But given this diversity of opinion about something I would think would just be obvious, we, the forces of good, must work extra hard to.end discrimination in our society.  It won't happen, apparently, unless there is a mass movement to change things.

_____________________________________

Notes:

1. Discrimination used to be a word that simply meant to choose based on some criteria. It was not a bad thing, it was a neutral thing. One might discriminate between two marbles because one was a cat eye and one was not, it did indicate preference but not unfair preference.

How to Join the Daughters of the American Revolution

Those of you who were raised on the west coast may not be as aware of the higher forms of society that exist in this country. But those of us who grew up on the east coast and, in particular, the Commonwealth of Virginia, are certainly aware of organizations, bodies, clubs, societies, what have you, that are for people who are of better breeding than the lower classes.

First among these elite societies is the Daughters of the American Revolution which is an organization of the women who are descended from those who fought on the side of liberty in the American Revolution. To the best of my knowledge no men can be a member of this club and I am uncertain about the status of transgendered people but I doubt that they are eligible. I guess you can always apply.

Eligibility is a big deal to these women, and to be a member, you have to demonstrate “service” of an ancestor, and show a clear line of descent to that person. To that end, and to be of assistance to those who would join this worthy society, they have prepared a guide to establishing service for purposes of joining the DAR.

What surprised me, but perhaps should not have, is that the guide contains a wealth of information about the American Revolution and who fought when. Its worth a glance and I have included a few representative pages here.

The guide goes by the provocative name of “Is That Service Right?” and is available via Google Docs at the following URL:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1hYywD4eS8sODkzMTYwMzgtYzYxYi00NzI2LWE1OWEtN2U0ZThjZmU3YjA3/edit?pli=1

I have three stories/comments about the DAR which I think are amusing.

1. When FDR addressed the national society of the DAR he began his speech with “Fellow Immigrants....”. This of course annoyed the hell out of people.

2. Strom Thurmond was the senator from the state of S. Carolina for many years, first as a Democrat and then as a Republican, changing allegiance in response to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In other words, a well-known Southern racist. What everyone in DC knew, and most people in the South as well, is that Strom had fathered a child by his family's young black maid when he was a young man. He always supported the woman and her daughter and appearances were maintained until Strom passed away, at which time his daughter went public. In order to avoid embarrassing her father she waited until he had passed away before she applied for membership to the DAR. I never heard whether she became a member.

3. Until recently, I did not realize how many black Americans fought in the American Revolution. But quite a few did. I wonder how the DAR deals with this, because, in case you had not guessed, the DAR is very definitely one of those famous racist clubs that only admits whites and looks down on blacks, jews, and other types.  This must be quite a problem for them.

Strom Thurmond

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

and his lovely daughter, Essie Mae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essie_Mae_Washington-Williams