Killspeak

(If you’ve not already seen WALL·E, you may not want to continue reading this post: it may spoil certain surprises, and won’t make much sense.)

The two robots in Pixar’s WALL·E represent, roughly, two kinds of personal computers: the PC (in the old sense: a desktop computer running Windows or maybe, GNU/Linux) and the Apple Macintosh (running Mac OS).

EVE has a glossy white shell that resembles an iPod or MacBook. As Sancho has mentioned, EVE was designed in part by a designer at Apple. While the superficial similarities are easy to find, you can find others if you’re willing to stretch a little.

Much like an Apple computer, EVE looks elegant and packs more power than you’d first expect. EVE is quite dedicated at performing the task she is designed to do. She goes to an expensive maintenance area, all white walls and frosted glass, to be repaired by experts. It’s really obvious when EVE gets scratched or smudged, and it takes effort to keep her looking clean (MO, the cleaning bot).

WALL·E, the PC, is made of worn and noisy machine parts. He works with what’s laying around, upgrading his eyes and treads, as well as adding non-standard enhancements—a lunchbox. WALL·E is not easy to repair, his boot-up sequence is slow, and data recovery can be an suspenseful ordeal, as EVE discovers late in the film. He seems even to invite bugs to crawl around him.

While WALL·E is not as modern and shiny as EVE, he’s more flexible and the only one capable of playing video games.

Alright, perhaps I’ve stretched the analogy too far. Nonetheless, it does seem difficult to deny that there is some unusually tight cross-branding going on in WALL·E. There are a number of nods to Apple in the film, some more conspicuous—WALL·E watches movies on a video iPod—than others. (This may excuse one of the failings of my analogy: that WALL·E plays the Mac start-up sound when he has charged his solar battery.)

I don’t find this kind of product placement particularly cute. Yes, EVE is a more sympathetic and business-friendly spokesperson for Apple than the smug Mac dude, but it’s odd to see this kind of marketing in a movie that uses the ubiquity of a corporate brand as a sign of decadence and ruin.

I do choose to interpret the love between the two bots as a hopeful message for nerds and platform-zealots everywhere. Like EVE and WALL·E, Mac and PC users can learn to get along.

Update: Seems I’m not the first to see the PC/Mac parallels.

When I see There Will Be Blood, I feel like I’ve watched a fantastic film. P.T. Anderson’s film is so rich in so many ways. I embarrass myself with the strength and number of adjectives I use when describing it to friends. Yet there is a strange feeling that, as much as I’m keen to shout my love for There Will Be Blood from the rooftops, I’m wrong; that I’ll find it tapped and drained.

The third act? When I first saw it, I enjoyed it. I went to see the film a second time largely to confirm that I did. I read reviews damning it, giving good reasons why it did not work with the rest of the film. I came in the second time with a long list of poor choices made by Anderson, of reasons why it crippled an otherwise outstanding masterwork. Daniel becomes a ridiculous caricature of himself. His way of dealing with his son, and with Eli are not in keeping with who he was. The dialogue is full of holes; it feels like Anderson speaking through the characters. The film ends abruptly, unfairly. And so on. I had read up. I was set to take the final act apart.

I didn’t. I couldn’t. I fell into the movie, immersed until the credits. The consistency of character, the radical shift in visual and emotional tone—my awareness of these things dissolved. Whatever seemed a failure on paper, worked wonderfully on screen. I did not leave the theatre feeling cheated or confused. I left smiling. “That was one goddamn helluva show.”

But I’m still not as confident of the film’s greatness as I should be. Perhaps its shocking third act overwhelms me; a magnet spinning my critical compass. Perhaps it’s the way the film squirms around, making it difficult to fit it into some interpretive harness. Perhaps I feel guilty for having liked it so much more than every other film I’ve seen recently. Perhaps I lack enough confidence in my own tastes, or am too aware of how they change.

I don’t know what it is that makes me hesitate. As much as I have enjoyed There Will Be Blood, I have a nagging feeling that I may, after future viewings, come to regret thinking so highly of it. As Vern says (via Rumsey Taylor):

Anderson’s There Will Be Blood has the feeling of greatness. It has the smell of greatness, the texture of it. It flirts with greatness. I’m pretty sure it even left the club with greatness last night but there is no way yet for us to know if it got lucky with greatness. We can only catch up with it later and ask it. If it turns out later that it was only faking it I’ll have to admit it had me fooled.

I’ve not liked much of what Scott has made, excepting Alien and Blade Runner. To me, his earlier films are worlds better than his latest ones. This new cut of Blade Runner has been a long time coming, and I’ve worried that it’ll end up bloated and distracted like Coppola’s Apocalypse Now: Redux (which would make Kingdom of Heaven Scott’s Jack, I guess). Ridley Scott is messing with something I really like. Sure, the Star Wars Special Editions are unforgivable, but Blade Runner is much closer to my nerdy heart.

So it was reassuring to find the following quote in a (somewhat misinformed) article in the New York Times:

“My original concept,” he said, “was almost operatic: the cadences, the deliberate pacing. I mean that in the sense of the best comic strips, the ones that adults read, which are very operatic. Batman—you can’t get more operatic than that.”

Batman? Yes. Fuck yes.
I’m all over those new DVDs.

Andrew Holden’s Cyberpunk Educator purports to define the “politics, monsters, and saviours” in cyberpunk film. It is a didactic collage of Google image searches set to techno and narrated by a synthesized female called Eve 2.0 which has the feel of an undergrad semiotics term project assembled by a dedicated, geeky student. There’s even a final quiz at the end of the film (which seems to underestimate the intelligence of the audience, in keeping with the dedicated, geeky student theory). While the pace is uneven and the narration difficult to understand at times, The Cyberpunk Educator is entertaining. Given an audience familiar enough with the films Holden intends to analyze, it can even be fun, the bud of many nerdy arguments.

And here are a few of them.

The choice of films is a bit strange. Few would argue with including Blade Runner, Akira, RoboCop, or Terminator. But Aliens and not Alien? The entire Mad Max trilogy (more punk-looking westerns than cyberpunk)? What about Brazil, Videodrome, Johnny Mnemonic, or Strange Days?

These oversights are further compounded by the fact that six of the nine films Holden examines were written and directed by the same people. The similarities between Aliens and the Terminator series are due more to the lack of variety in Cameron’s writing than cross-generic commonality; ditto George Miller’s Mad Max. Holden’s analyses may hold for the handful of movies he chose, but they are not a very representative group of films to generalize from.

Holden often resorts to illustrating his points with pieces of other, indisputably non-cyberpunk sources. While these are refreshing to watch (Cheers dubbed over in German), they cast some doubt on the applicability of his theories to cyberpunk film. You see much more of what he talks about in bits from Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, and old NES games than from clips of Aliens.

This could be due to the level and type of analysis that Holden decides to execute. While I’ve nothing against Northrop Frye’s theory of myths—indeed, from what I know, they appear to be very widely applicable and informative—they better serve higher-level conclusions. They classify a work according to repeating structures and themes from Christian (and pre-Christian) mythology. Holden applies these large, medieval structures (the great chain of being, the seven deadly sins, etc.), and the aptness and specificity of his conclusions are just as abstract and general. What Holden says of cyberpunk films could be said as well of many other films, and likely not of many films considered to be cyberpunk.

Nothing Holden presents is wrong, really: it’s broad. It doesn’t get at the roots of cyberpunk. You would argue for a more Marxist approach. Much closer to the causes of what makes cyberpunk distinct from other (sub)genres of film are the socio-political, historical, economic forces at the time of their creation.

Although Holden never really justifies his decision to consider films from the 1980’s, by doing so (consciously or not) he has limited himself to the short period in which cyberpunk could have been thought culturally relevant. Science-fiction had moved away from the shiny space-age of the 50’s and 60’s, and the desolate post-apocalyptic imaginations of the 70’s, bringing the technological future together with desperation and sadness and into the city. The social anxieties of that time are reflected clearly in cyberpunk works: the oil scare of the seventies, the transparently two-faced reign of Reagan, fear of the Japanese, microcomputers, larger corporations, pollution, punks, and phreaks.

By the time Hollywood released Strange Days and Demolition Man cyberpunk lost cultural and political currency; it was more of an aesthetic, set dressing. The world was different by the early 1990’s, with its push for optimistic multiculturalism, awareness of truly covert and cooptive methods of marketing, and the accessibility of personal computers. The most obvious sign of this shift in mindset is the late 90’s dot-com bubble: a time full of (entrepreneurial) optimism and hopeful futurism, when money flowed as quickly and voluminously as rhetoric. Technology was thought to be liberating, democratizing, a way of establishing a new and open way of things. In some ways The Matrix demonstrated this change: beginning with what seems a straight conflict between man and machine, but ending in a very blended world where technology and flesh live together, rather than struggle. This wasn’t a rainy tragedy, it was a collectivist dream of self-sufficiency, peace, and no ethnic (even biological) social divisions.

Now, in 2007, the mid-80’s harshness of technology and corporate rule is much less pronounced, as are the glowing benefits of the internet many were keen on in the 90’s. Technology in post-cyberpunk work is not alienating, feared, imposed, an entirely separate world. It is symbiotic and ubiquitous, full of web 2.0 rounded edges: iPhones, not eyephones. Anxieties over corporate and government power continue, but the clear sense of good and bad has been diffused. Gibson himself seems eager to turn the myth of cyberspace “inside out.” His two latest novels concern characters much less certain of where they stand, working with an insubstantial but powerful, moneyed corporation that lacks a guarded dark tower headquarters. The dangers of technology and capitalism are amorphous and enabling, not evil and enslaving.

The Cyberpunk Educator does skip across the surface of this more situational interpretation, dropping lines such as “the main purpose of minorities in 1980’s film is to be shot.” Indeed, in its incidental discussion of punk and irony, it comes closer to describing the cyberpunk mindset than with its talk of seasonal myths. Yet it’s limited by its self-imposed constraints to the rather dull conclusion that cyberpunk films are “tragedies with strong ironic content.” Holden’s is a fun documentary, especially for aficionados of sci-fi film, but it does a far better job of describing the framework of Frye’s interpretations than it does cyberpunk. It can be enjoyed it for what it is, but “Cyberpunk Educator” is a bit of a misnomer.

I had an opportunity to look through David Cronenberg’s Red Cars a few days ago. Donato Santeramo, a professor of mine, worked with Cronenberg on the book and was kind enough to let me browse through his copy. I spent the good part of an afternoon in his office marvelling at it, turning its pages carefully, and taking a few photographs.

Red Cars could be said to be the published screenplay for an unrealized film, an art project, or just a fancy coffee-table book. In the introduction, Cronenberg calls the book “a fusion of script and image… its own mutation,” and it’s as concise a description as possible, vague as it may be. The book is a gestalt of photographs, text, paint, metal—all tangled in semiotic support; and however well it may sit on a coffee-table, it deserves (and rewards) much more active reading than would, say, an Ansel Adams collection.

Set in the early 1960’s, the story centres on American driver Phil Hill. He hopes to become the first American World Champion, but is convinced that his sponsor, Enzo Ferrari, is undermining him and truly favours another driver, the German von Trips. His struggles with Ferrari and competition with von Trips are complicated by Ferrari’s wife, Laura, worried by her sickly bastard son Dino, and Hill’s own self-hatred and frustration. The racing season is arduous for Hill, who wins a place in the Grand Prix in the penultimate race—after von Trips is killed in an accident. Ferrari, ostensibly in respect to von Trips’ death, decides not to participate, taking the opportunity from Hill to race in the Grand Prix.

Such a summary fails to convey the colour and richness of this setting (including the famed Ferrari 156 “Shark-nose” of the title, a miniature of which is included with the book) and psychological depth of Red Cars. These come to light when reading the script and the graphic elements of the book.

The book’s rich colour photographs are striking. (I’ve not read many screenplays, but am certain that it’s rare to see one so beautiful.) The subjects of these photographs vary from the descriptive (drivers, cars, and courses) to the more abstract and metaphorical (a beaten paperback copy of Being and Nothingness makes almost as many appearances as Phil Hill). These are presented artfully. The technical perfection of the “Shark-nose” is shown through clean engineering schematics, light grey on white; its sexual influence evidenced by a series of red, close-up Polaroids. Other elements are decayed and chaotic. Photographs are blurred and torn. Some pages are splashed with paint, blood, motor oil, and even baby food; others appear to have been chewed or rubbed over hot machinery (particularly those following von Trips’ death).

Not only the images are emotive: select portions of text are set in larger, stronger type, and arranged and coloured to attract attention. These are key moments of fear or understanding, as well as smaller details expressive of the emotional texture of the story. For example: when Dino describes the changes he’s made to the engine, the text swells and reddens with his excitement. Hill is impressed, but asks why it leaks oil. Dino sees that his bed is sticky with something, and as he realizes that his bed is filling with blood, the type turns grey with dread and leaps out of the column in fear.

We see that Hill’s foot is absolutely to the floor but his car can’t keep up with its sisters.

Hill pulls into the pits, jumps out of the car and starts screaming at the mechanics. Tavoni is there. He watches in horror but doesn’t interfere.

Hill (screaming): I told you to change the engine! And you didn’t, did you. You know how I can tell? Because this engine is going to break any minute now, this engine’s valve springs have been overstressed because of the gearing change we made and they won’t last the race, and that’s why I can’t keep up with von Trips and Ginther.

At this moment Enzo Ferrari himself looms up from behind the pit wall. He wears a hat but his jacket is off revealing thick suspenders and rolled-up sleeves. Hill still does not see him.

Ferrari (angrily, to Hill): Are you certain that the problem is the valve springs?

Hill turns to face Ferrari. Despite his own very real anger and his certainty that he is right, he is immediately intimidated by this equally angry father-figure.

Ferrari: Are you certain that the problem is not really with your right foot?

Ferrari makes an exaggerated foot-pushing-on-the-gas gesture which is also a bit like a man stepping on a disgusting bug.

The script was written nearly a decade ago, but faced a variety of difficulties in being produced, not least of which were the objections of the Ferrari family and Phil Hill. Cronenberg claims that his screenplay doesn’t deal with anything not already known publicly (such as Ferrari’s bastard son, or Hill’s nervous habit of vomiting before big races), but it seems to be little comfort to the prideful family and retired race star.

The book, interesting in itself, is more so because it’s the only official piece of Red Cars, the film. To imagine the visceral experiences afforded by the text and still images brought to life with motion and sound is exciting, but at the same time disappointing. How much more thrilling would it have been to to feel the sound of the cars, of the crowd; to see beds fill with blood, engine parts churn, and faces flush with anger and success? It deserves to be made as a film.

There is a website for Red Cars that seems hastily made (“Thi site requires Flash Player 7” [sic]). There’s mention of it in the introduction, but I think it of small value and unfair to the book it’s attached to. Regardless, it’s the only easily accessible preview of the book. As much as I could recommend the book (if only to flip through for a glimpse of the photos and design), it can be difficult to find a copy: they’re in limited print, only one thousand.

Update: Santeramo was sent this entry by an acquaintance of his sometime in December. He recognized it as mine and, kind-heart that he is, gave me a copy of the book (#217).

In 1990, my father took me to watch Batman. I had no prior exposure to anything Batman-related; the one I was introduced to was scary, violent, and stiff-necked. I have very fond memories of the movie. I remember being scolded by my teachers for grabbing other children’s shirts, pulling them up to me, and hissing “I’m Batman,” in their faces. Despite feeling only the distant ripples of its American marketing campaign, I developed an appetite for Batman stuff. I was overjoyed when my grandmother bought me a foot-tall, pirated Batman doll; I carried my toys around in a cheap Batman bag for years; I requested that Danny Elfman’s Batman theme be played at my birthday party; I watched Batman: The Animated Series whenever I could (its title sequence is one of the coolest TV-show intros ever); and I was crushed when my mother gave both my cousin and I Robin costumes to wear—after I had explicitly requested a Batman costume. (It was a political move, no doubt, meant to maintain the balance of power between us.)

Perhaps I was growing out of it, or perhaps I was put-off by the later Batman movies, but my enthusiasm for things Batman dwindled in the mid-nineties. It resurfaced only recently, when a friend shared a few of his comics with me. I didn’t find the Hush series of Batman particularly good, but it did make me curious to read some other comics that are: Gotham By Gaslight, Batman: Year One and Two, Arkham Asylum, and, of course, The Dark Knight Returns. With the help of Les Daniel’s Batman: The Complete History (which I read cover-to-cover in a single afternoon) and the web, I was able to quickly immerse myself in Batman again.

I’ve come to realize that Batman is many things to many people (master detective, allegorical vampire, caped crusader, gay icon, money-making franchise undeserving of respect) but, as stated in Jay Pinkerton’s latest article, his appeal comes most strongly from one thing.

Batman isn’t a great character because of the camp value.
Batman isn’t a great character because he’s dark and gritty.
Batman is a great character because he’s batshit-bat-fucking-crazy.

Jay’s not the first to notice this: it’s been a theme in the ongoing Batman comics since the end of the Silver Age. Certainly, the gritty noir of Dark Knight and Tim Burton’s Batman is cool, but it’s incomplete without Bruce Wayne’s creepiness and tortured history. Batman’s mental instability, as well as that of his enemies, is what makes the myth so interesting. Superman, the Flash, and the Green Arrow (despite having a run of twenty-or-so well written books a few years ago) are all shallow do-gooders. They’ve all the appeal and moral flexibility of dedicated boy scouts. Batman, on the other hand, is nebulous and troubled, sometimes as twisted as the villains he fights. He’s a control freak who deals with his childhood trauma by beating the crap out of people at night. He’s a great character to watch, not so much because you want to be him, but because he’s so screwed-up.

I can’t be sure of just how much of my interest has been warped by time, introspection, and talk of the upcoming Batman Begins. Whatever worries I have about the purity of my interest disappear when I watch Batman Returns, and I can’t deny that I’m eager to see Begins. Here’s hoping that it can live up to both my fan-boy expectations and childhood memories.