Fighting dragons

Just don't think about smoking!

I decided to take a dream on a Sunday and escaped civilisation for about 40 hours, which led to sleep deprivation and that in turn to a well remembered dream the night before last night the essence of which went into the previous post, but there is one more, circumstantial thing that requires an explanation. No, I will not talk about the dream directly, but I will say that I wouldn't have had it, if I hadn't some time ago made a little collage of film clips to the music of Gone Hollywood, the effect of which was truly sickening, for which reason I decided to erase it, but I will describe it:

• After the Thin Man: Asta comes home, music until heartbreaking, synchronised with the cut to the black puppy, then audio from the film until the black dog shows up,
• The End: Dom DeLuise bites his hand, music until mind aching, synchronised with I'm writing a book on insanity, audio from the film until female suicides, bleached hair and hysterectomy scars,
• 1941: The Japanese sailor looks upwards, music until dream about this town, synchronised with the appearance of the full moon, audio from the film until Hollywööd,
• Stalker: Writer talks about writing, music until shame about it, synchronised with they are all so literate, audio from the film until the squeezing out of hemorrhoids,
• 1941: Slim Pickens sits on the toilet, music until feel so good, synchronised with Christopher Lee demanding Weiterscheißen!
• Some Like It Hot: The band plays, music until creeps in Hollywood, synchronised with Imagine me, Sugar Kowalczyk, audio from the film until I hope my mother never finds out.

So, if you feel like getting sick, use mencoder or another program of your choice to create this collage, but I feel reassured in the knowledge that very few people will. What has happened here? Actually, it later happened again with Better Days, which also makes me kind of sick, and doesn't need any added video. But what is it?

It's getting worse than that what you criticise by tuning into its frequency.

We can lower ourselves to a standard, right? But can we also raise ourselves to a standard? Or do higher standards require substance, without which they remain empty words?

So, if you have the fulness and want to criticise the hollowness, be careful not to empty yourself.

I'd like to discuss some strategies how to do this and give some examples of them. As it turns out there have been, and there still are, film-makers who are acutely aware of this problem.

There are two dimensions as far as those strategies go, one is whether you gravitate towards observation or judgment and the other whether you concentrate on the fulness, the hollowness or the human condition in between them. The established ways to proceed then are in tabular form:

	observational	judgmental
richness of being	Blissful idiots Alexandre le bienheureux, Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire, L'Emmerdeur, Les fugitifs,  Le dîner de cons, Tais-toi!, Astérix & Obélix - Au service de sa majesté	Wisdom of storytelling 7 Faces of Dr. Lao,  The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Brothers Grimm Wisdom of being yourself Ni vu, ni connu
human condition	Alas! Au hasard Balthazar, Kin-dza-dza!, Shaun of the Dead	Fruits of ungodliness I'm All Right Jack, The Apartment, The Time Machine, Atlantis, the Lost Continent
delusions	Fools on a rampage Tom Thumb, 1941, Time Bandits	No free lunch Scarface

The blissful idiot genre is usually well executed, though not by Hollywood, Stan Laurel notwithstanding. The wisdom of storytelling genre likewise. The wisdom of being yourself genre seems to be already too heavyweight for cinema. Richard Wagner's Parsifal is perhaps its most worthy proponent. The Alas! genre is well executed, when tried, but that it is rarely. The fruits of ungodliness genre likewise. The same is true of the fools on a rampage and no free lunch genres, although that is sort of surprising, because these are easy genres and the ancient Greeks for example dealt a lot in them. Perhaps they are perceived as unchristian. Scarface is of course an interesting case, because its fans don't agree with me on the nature of the film, which is that everybody has to pay for the choices by which he tried to make his life easier. Not a single character in the film escapes this, no one is fortunate, no one cheats fate, not even Tony Montana himself, who has been the price tag for everybody else. It is truly in the spirit of Greek tragedy, where there is no redemption, thus emphasising the need for it. I think Oliver Stone just came out of cocaine rehabilitation when he wrote the script. It feels like it. Falco's Out of the Dark (Into the Light) feels similar. Perhaps that is the only time when we nowadays engage in the no free lunch genre.

The four greatest fighters in cinema against the spreading hollowness without making the mistake of succumbing to it are thus in my opinion:

1. Terry Gilliam,
2. Yves Robert,
3. George Pal and
4. Francis Veber,

but many others have fallen fighting dragons.