Find the Beauty

Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing is interesting because it is set in contemporary time, with all the modern technological advancements that we use every day, but the speech is taken directly from the script that Shakespeare wrote. What does this do for the film? What does this do for the viewers of the film?

Take a look at this video. For my purposes, you need only watch about 15-20 seconds starting at about 5:51. This segment is Alexis Denisof, who played Benedick, speaking directly about the language of the film, and why they chose not to "update" it to the contemporary vernacular. He says that they "let the audience find the beauty of the language rather than have it presented to them."
I think that this is important, because to be honest, the language did seem a bit strange to me in a contemporary setting. However, I think that if I watched it again, I would may have a different outlook, especially with Denisof's words in mind.

*Swedish expression used when tickling someone, roughly "tickle, tickle, tickle"

Of course, since we are not contemporaries with the Bard, there is the possibility that we may confuse something in the language of his plays like these parents do in this comic. (Speaking of which, I think it's pretty funny.) However, it seems that Joss and his crew decided to take that chance.  

Or you could look at it the other way; that they were maybe afraid of taking something wrong, so they chose not to interpret and translate into our vernacular. Instead, they left it up to the audience to do so. 

However, I don't think that this is a very compelling interpretation. For one thing, what Denisof said in the video seems to indicate a different interpretation. Second, and what I think is most important, there needs to be interpretation in order to produce an adaptation of any of Shakepeare's plays, including this one. There is not much in the way of stage direction; the plays are almost completely dialogue. That means that what is seen on screen, in this case, as an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing is interpretation.

Overall, I really liked this adaptation. The only thing that bothered me at all was the language, and although I think it could still be a barrier, I like was Denisof had to say. Whedon left it up to the audience, left it up to me to find the beauty in the language.

I'm in my mind a lot. I live there.

Wait... who is this a picture of? I thought I was blogging about the movie Adaptation. This doesn't look like anyone who was in that movie, does it? Maybe he was a minor character. No, I don't think that's it. Where have we seen him?
Actually, the answer is quite interesting. He was in the movie. He's the main character. -No, that was Nicolas Cage! Well yes, Nicolas Cage was the actor in the movie. But this is the guy he was portraying. Yeah, that's Charlie Kaufman. In the flesh.

To me, they hardly even look like the same person. Wasn't he self-described as fat and balding? The real Kaufman doesn't look that way, not to me. And we all know that he doesn't really have a twin brother--that was just a creation for the movie.
So my question is: how much of this movie is based on the real life of Charlie Kaufman, and how much is just made up?
There is an interview with Susan Orlean in which she says, "I did have real concerns that people wouldn't understand what part if this was real and what wasn't." She seems to suggest that most of it is real, but that at some point in the film, it turns fictitious.  (You can watch the entire interview if you would like:)

 

This film actually reminds me a lot of Memento and the narrative ambiguity in it, except in this movie, it is more like veridical ambiguity. Where Memento leaves open the true events within the story of the movie, Adaptation leaves open where the fact from outside the movie coincides with fiction. What's interesting about this is that in Memento, one may never be able to know if s/he has the truth story figured out, and I believe that is done on purpose. Adaptation, however, since it borrows fact from outside the story, is open to being "figured out." One may be able to decipher fact from fiction.

So I guess we'll all have to go find Charlie Kaufman, befriend him, and figure out the truth! I know that I don't really have an answer. Sorry guys. :P

Memory's Unreliable

There is so much I could say about this movie, it is difficult to focus my thoughts.  The plot, the story, the characters, the mystery... where to begin? And end?

Well, thanks to the internet, I know how to narrow my focus.  I probably never would have noticed some of this stuff if it weren't for the internet.  Gotta love it.  Most of this stuff I got from christophernolan.net 

So, we all watched the movie Memento.  We all remember what happens, at least for the most part, right? This was I think my fourth time watching it.  I finally got everything sorted out straight, the order of all the events right in my mind, and I was feeling pretty good about myself and my memory.  I thought I finally got most of the stuff figured out, except for a couple of those big mysteries that I doubt will ever be answered concretely.

But then, I ran into some crazy things that blew my mind.  They totally shattered my faith in my own memory and the reliability of said memory.  And knowing this movie and what this movie is all about, I seriously doubt that these things were simply continuity errors.

Consider this quote from Lenny: "Memory's not perfect, it's not even that good. Ask the police. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable. The cops don't catch a killer by sitting around remembering stuff. They collect facts... They make notes and they draw conclusions. Facts, not memories. That's how you investigate. I know, it's what I used to do. Look, memory can change the shape of a room, it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record. And they're irrelevant if you have the facts."

So we talked about one thing already in class, which I had just noticed for the first time this viewing; that is, the quick change from Sammy in the hospital to Lenny.  While that is interesting, and a point of major contention for "Is Lenny really Sammy?", it is not what I want to focus on.

Here are the images that I really want to focus on.

This is the coaster on which Lenny finds the note from Natalie.  Note the two completely different styles of handwriting, supposedly on the same exact coaster, just at different times.

License plate when Lenny writes it down

License plate after he gets the tattoo

The same picture, but he has no beard in one.  Odd, huh?

There are probably several other things, knowing this movie.  All this goes to show that our memory is just as unreliable as Lenny's.  I think the main thing to think about in light of this, is this: maybe all these mysteries will never be resolved, because they aren't meant to be.  

Who is Jay Gatsby?

We have now seen/read three versions of The Great Gatsby. First, the source material, the original if you will--the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 

Second, the 1974 film version.

And third, the 2013 rendition for the big screen.

But... who is Jay Gatsby? Focusing mainly on the 2013 film version and the novel, I am going to attempt to give an answer to why Gatsby lives the way he does, and what it all is for.

We know that Nick says that Gatsby is the only one from the East who escapes his judgment. This makes Gatsby a point of interest, besides the fact that his name is in the title. This makes me wonder, why exactly is this?

Gatsby did not start out the way we see him initially; that is, he was not always wealthy, with a castle for a house and parties thrown every week. In fact, he started pretty much on the opposite side of the spectrum. He was born into a poor family with not much to show for themselves. And he was ashamed. He changed his name, left his home... and met Daisy. He fell in love with her. But he was deployed, so they were not together long. He hoped that she would wait for him, but alas, she did not. She married Tom Buchanan instead of him. He believed that she would not marry him if he was poor. And she would especially not leave her husband for him in that "state." So he made the money and the wealth that he thought would win her back.

I found this video psychoanalyzing Gatsby from Emory University. I think that it has a lot to say. When you watch it, I want you to be thinking of when Nick tells Gatsby that you can't repeat the past, and Gatsby says, "Of course you can."

I think this is pretty powerful stuff. There's a ton in this video. It's all about Gatsby trying to erase/escape his past. But it's filled with grief. I think that's the important distinction between Gatsby and the other characters in the story. Everyone else kind of escapes their pasts as well, if not where they came from then what they've done. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and people, and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness."

But this makes me wonder: is Gatsby's love for daisy authentic? Throughout this whole process, I've been of the mind to say that yes, his love is authentic. And maybe it is, but why does he love this girl? I think that it's because she represents the antithesis of everything that he is running from. She was born rich and wealthy. She was never poor. This is what Gatsby wishes he was, wishes he had, and wishes he would become.

Stranger Than Fiction

In Stranger Than Fiction, Karen Eiffel is an author who unknowingly is writing something that is actually happening in the real world.  The protagonist from her book, Harold Crick, is a living, breathing human being.  The question, however, is whether Miss Eiffel is the author of Harold's life, or a commentator.   This question is only an implied question, and is never explicitly answered.  It seems that she has the power to control his fate, as seen in this clip.

Even this, however, does not necessarily imply that she authors his life.  Even though everybody in the story believes that she does.

It reminds me of a series of books that I read called Myst.  You may be familiar with the computer game of the same name.  These books were written by the creators of the game and take place in the same world.  If you are unfamiliar, the only thing that you really need to know for this purpose is that there are books that link you to other worlds, like this:

Myst Linking Book

In the series, there are two characters that you need to know about: Atrus, the protagonist, and his father, Ghen.  They are the people who write the Linking books.  Ghen believes that he is a type of god that creates worlds by writing words on paper.  Atrus, however, believes that the books that they write are simply linked to preexisting worlds.  I can't remember if there is a definitive answer, but if not, then it is strongly implied that Atrus's belief is correct.

Before I tell you what I think, let me first lay it out on the table that I am a firm believer that God gives us free will.  I do not believe that God is a micromanager.  It just does not make sense to me that God would create the cosmos, and then decide every little happening that goes on.  God wants us to love him because we want to, not because he makes us.

Not God.

Having said that, I personally believe, like Atrus probably would, that Karen Eiffel is writing a book that narrates the life of a preexisting person.  The words she writes are determined by Harold's actions and circumstances, not the other way around.