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a-fantasy-lover-surfing-the-net · 3 months

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Till the end of the moon review

I recently rewatched the drama and felt like reviewing the first Cdrama I ever watched. After watching some cdramas in the past 7 months since I first watched the drama, I now trust myself to write a decent enough review after somewhat familiarizing myself with the genre and overall cdrama space.

Rating: 9.5/10 (1000 bonus points for searing itself in my mind and staying there even after 7 months)

Acting: 10/10

Story: 9/10

Chemistry: 100000000/10

OST: 10/10

Costumes: 10/10

Hair & Makeup: 9.5/10

Production/Set Design: 10/10

Visual Effects/CGI: 10/10

Rewatch Value: 10/10

Li Susu, an immortal time travels 500 years into the past to prevent the ascension of the Devil god, who goes on to destroy the world in the future. It's a story of love and hate, good and evil, redemption and damnation. The characters are very well conceptualized and depicted beautifully by talented actors, stunning costumes, really good hair and makeup, and great cinematography. The amazing production and set design along with impressive visual effects and CGI really immerse the audience in the world of TTEOTM. This was a high budget drama and it shows... each and every frame of the drama, it feels lavish. If you are even a little bit interested go watch the first episode and l promise you'll be hooked and end up finishing the drama.

Now unto my spoiler filled thoughts:

I find it interesting that the typical backstory themes and some character arcs of the male lead and the female lead have been swapped here. The FL usually has a dead parent or abusive household or terrible luck and so on. The ML usually comes to the FL's rescue or stands up for her and so on. We all know that Tantai Jin is Disney Princess coded given his dead mother, abusive and neglectful upbringing and his animal telepathy powers. LSS both as Ye Xiwu and LSS repeatedly saves TTJ and stands for him. While TTJ also saves her many times, he does not get a chance to stand up for her because she usually takes care of herself and she is not suspected or wrongfully accused where she would need someone to support her. Also, TTJ basically became a part of LSS's family as her uncle took him under his wing and he promised to stay in Hengyang Sect with her in ep 35 before all hell breaks loose. And who can forget that LSS marks TTJ with her Phoenix mark, typical ML behavior.

Their romance is my ultimate enemies to lovers pairing. It has just the right amount of fighting, messiness, animosity and angst for me. I feel that other pairings don't have enough of it for me to consider them as an enemies-to-lovers couple. Their visuals, their chemistry, their acting and the story everything was so great. Who else has three epic weddings in one drama? I am still not able to move on from this couple and drama.

While the misunderstandings were obviously supposed to lead to a turning point in the story, I feel like it was in character for them to jump to conclusions and assume the worst without fully thinking things through and which then led to them acting rashly. I mean both TTJ and LSS had bad history between them so in the early stages of their relationship where their trust in each other was shaky, it's understandable that they were prone to misunderstandings. Also, they're both not good at communicating with each other. In the mortal arc, LSS was never fully honest with TTJ and they never addressed their past misdeeds properly (like OG Ye Xiwu was very cruel to TTJ and he never talked to her about it and just brushed it off). In the immortal arc, TTJ deceived LSS when he became the Devil God.

For the most part the story was gripping, progressed at a good pace and conveyed many themes that become apparent on rewatches. Though it was obvious that the last 5 episodes and the ending were rushed because the censorship rules changed as they went into production. This was one of those dramas that needed at least 5-10 more episodes to properly flesh out the story. It was a missed opportunity that we didn't get to see LSS ruling the Demon realm and Ami's antics.

Another victim of the decreased episode count is the arc of the second leads. Tbh, I wish that Pian Ran and Ye Qingyu were the SLs but I think I would have enjoyed seeing the complete character arc of Xiao Lin/Gongye Jiwu and Ye Bingchang/Mo Nv and the resolution between them. That said it was appalling that they didn't bring back Pian Ran and Ye Qingyu in the immortal arc. I really missed their dynamic with each other and with the main leads. It is disappointing that they didn't even get an open/ambiguous ending to give us some closure and satisfaction.

The actress did a phenomenal job in making us hate her as Ye Bingchang and Tian Huan. Those characters as villians really worked as they were in a way the ones who had the markings of the female lead (these characters at the start of their stories could easily be heroines in any other story) but they turn into villians. Tantai Minglang was a good, serviceable villian and the actor did a lot with how little he was given. Di Mian was selfish and manipulative traitor who was almost scarily competent. I mean he did achieve what he wanted by becoming the Devil God and opening the Tongbei formation. The point of Devil God as a villian is not his character and his motivations but rather he represents our inner demons and how each of us has the power to overcome them.

Out of all the dramas I've watched, only TTEOTM's entire OST is on my regular playlist to listen to. Every time I listen to "Let's be like this for 10,000 years", I feel the love and tragedy of Sang Jui and Ming Ye's story all over again. It's impressive that a song can make you relive those feelings and the story every time you listen to it. All the songs fit wonderfully in the scenes they're played over and also make us feel those emotions again when listening to them separately.

On my first watch, the dream arc felt a little out of place and jarring, which, in hindsight, was probably due to the fact that it was my first cdrama. Upon rewatch I've come to appreciate that it gives a look into the age of Gods and it shows that the Devil God was so powerful that to stop him the Gods had to sacrifice themselves and only Ming Ye was able to survive. The action sequences here are just magnificent to watch and they definitely seem movie level. It also serves as a warning to the audience, LSS and TTJ that they could also have a tragic end if they don't learn the lessons from it. Unfortunately, in the mortal arc they did have a tragic end. However, in the immortal arc, TTJ is able to learn from his experience as Ming Ye and succeeds in defeating the OG Devil God and becoming the Devil God himself with control over his own destiny.

One of the most prominent themes of the drama is redemption and that love and compassion are powerful enough to change a person's fate. The themes of Taoism and Buddhism are evoked throughout the drama. There are also many other minor themes like the food is used as a guesture kindness (when LSS first gives TTJ a proper meal), affection/care (when TTJ gave LSS the goose themed meal), love (when LSS gives badly cooked meals to TTJ), betrayal and trickery (the poisoned porridge) and comraderie, friendship, brotherhood and familial love (when TTJ shares meals with his sect brothers and master). Both TTJ and LSS have dead moms, terrible fathers and great adoptive dads (Zhao You and Qu Xuan Zi), these are just some observations I made.

I may not love the ending but I don't hate it either as it was obvious to me that they reunite once again and live happily as a family (the audio ending really makes it clear). Even though I'm irritated we don't get to see it, I'm still satisfied that we get a hopeful ending rather than a tragic one.

Until now I've mostly been lurking in fandom spaces by liking and very rarely commenting and reblogging but never posting my own original post. The fact that my first ever post is on TTEOTM shows how much I love it. I'll probably be posting more TTEOTM analysis stuff so be on the look out for that if you're interested. Also, I welcome your recommendations as I'm still a newbie to cdramas and kdramas.

You can also check out my costumed cdrama rankings here.

#till the end of the moon #tantai jin #ye xiwu #luo yunxi #bai lu #cdrama #cdrama review #tteotm

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sabenvs3000w24 · 3 months

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Blog #4

In the subject matter of nature interpretation, art emerges as a distinct and strong medium for bridging the gap between the physical and intangible, the visible and unseen. It takes more than just having an aptitude for painting or a degree in art history. Rather, it concerns the ways in which each of us experiences and communicates the beauty of nature via different artistic mediums. When it comes to presenting its beauty to those who seek it out, nature, in all its splendor, does not discriminate. Observation, appreciation, and communication are increasingly important aspects of our work. We serve as messengers, bringing the quiet yet powerful message of nature to a broader audience. Every aspect of nature, from the delicate structure of a leaf to the majesty of a mountain range, is bursting with passion and a tale just waiting to be revealed.

The section "Interpreting the Gift of Beauty" discussed in Chapter five of the textbook explores how nature interpretation is an art form that extends beyond traditional media like painting and sculpture, including a wide range of disciplines such as spoken word, literature, music, and photography. Every platform offers a different perspective for appreciating and conveying the beauty of nature. Photographs capture transient moments in nature, such as sunrises and sunsets, and serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of appreciating the present. Through evocative tales, poetry, and descriptive narratives, literature creates vivid mental images that carry the reader to unexplored natural settings and strengthen their emotional connection to the outdoors even in the absence of visible cues. Natural sounds and music provide an immersive auditory experience that highlights the intrinsic beauty of the natural world. These sounds range from the soft flutter of leaves to the forceful cascade of waterfalls, reflecting the symphony of the environment. Furthermore, the spoken word strengthens the audience's enjoyment of and connection to the natural world by sharing personal experiences, information, and stories through storytelling, guided walks, and interpretive speeches.

These two sunset views from very different scenes highlight nature's fleeting beauty and how it remains consistent no matter where you find it.

Interpreting nature's gift of beauty is a complex process. It entails campaigning for sustainability and conservation, recognising cultural and historical backgrounds, philosophical thought, emotional connection, and creative inspiration. Every one of these elements deepens and enriches our comprehension and admiration of the natural world.

In summary, my investigation into the field of artistic interpretation of nature reveals the complexity of this subject. It highlights the ways in which art acts as a conduit between the material and the immaterial facets of nature, enabling me to interact with it and find its beauty in a variety of ways. Whether it be via photography, writing, music, or the spoken word, each media provides a distinct perspective on the natural world. This strategy highlights the significance of sustainability and conservation while also fostering a stronger intellectual and emotional bond with the natural world. This exploration of several artistic forms serves to reinforce the importance of art in nature interpretation as a potent catalyst for raising awareness and appreciation of the environment, rather than only serving as a means of expression.

#university #university of guelph #nature interpretation #ENVS3000 #Blogposts #NatureisArt

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niseamstories · 3 years

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10 Lessons on Realistic Worldbuilding and Mapmaking I Learned Working With a Professional Cartographer and Geodesist

Hi, fellow writers and worldbuilders,

It’s been over a year since my post on realistic swordfighting, and I figured it’s time for another one. I’m guessing the topic is a little less “sexy”, but I’d find this useful as a writer, so here goes: 10 things I learned about realistic worldbuilding and mapmaking while writing my novel.

I’ve always been a sucker for pretty maps, so when I started on my novel, I hired an artist quite early to create a map for me. It was beautiful, but a few things always bothered me, even though I couldn’t put a finger on it. A year later, I met an old friend of mine, who currently does his Ph.D. in cartography and geodesy, the science of measuring the earth. When the conversation shifted to the novel, I showed him the map and asked for his opinion, and he (respectfully) pointed out that it has an awful lot of issues from a realism perspective.

First off, I’m aware that fiction is fiction, and it’s not always about realism; there are plenty of beautiful maps out there (and my old one was one of them) that are a bit fantastical and unrealistic, and that’s all right. Still, considering the lengths I went to ensure realism for other aspects of my worldbuilding, it felt weird to me to simply ignore these discrepancies. With a heavy heart, I scrapped the old map and started over, this time working in tandem with a professional artist, my cartographer friend, and a linguist. Six months later, I’m not only very happy with the new map, but I also learned a lot of things about geography and coherent worldbuilding, which made my universe a lot more realistic.

1) Realism Has an Effect: While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating an unrealistic world, realism does affect the plausibility of a world. Even if the vast majority of us probably know little about geography, our brains subconsciously notice discrepancies; we simply get this sense that something isn’t quite right, even if we don’t notice or can’t put our finger on it. In other words, if, for some miraculous reason, an evergreen forest borders on a desert in your novel, it will probably help immersion if you at least explain why this is, no matter how simple.

2) Climate Zones: According to my friend, a cardinal sin in fantasy maps are nonsensical climate zones. A single continent contains hot deserts, forests, and glaciers, and you can get through it all in a single day. This is particularly noticeable in video games, where this is often done to offer visual variety (Enderal, the game I wrote, is very guilty of this). If you aim for realism, run your worldbuilding by someone with a basic grasp of geography and geology, or at least try to match it to real-life examples.

3) Avoid Island Continent Worlds: Another issue that is quite common in fictional worlds is what I would call the “island continents”: a world that is made up of island-like continents surrounded by vast bodies of water. As lovely and romantic as the idea of those distant and secluded worlds may be, it’s deeply unrealistic. Unless your world was shaped by geological forces that differ substantially from Earth’s, it was probably at one point a single landmass that split up into fragmented landmasses separated by waters. Take a look at a proper map of our world: the vast majority of continents could theoretically be reached by foot and relatively manageable sea passages. If it weren’t so, countries such as Australia could have never been colonized – you can’t cross an entire ocean on a raft.

4) Logical City Placement: My novel is set in a Polynesian-inspired tropical archipelago; in the early drafts of the book and on my first map, Uunili, the nation’s capital, stretched along the entire western coast of the main island. This is absurd. Not only because this city would have been laughably big, but also because building a settlement along an unprotected coastline is the dumbest thing you could do considering it directly exposes it to storms, floods, and, in my case, monsoons. Unless there’s a logical reason to do otherwise, always place your coastal settlements in bays or fjords.

Naturally, this extends to city placement in general. If you want realism and coherence, don’t place a city in the middle of a godforsaken wasteland or a swamp just because it’s cool. There needs to be a reason. For example, the wasteland city could have started out as a mining town around a vast mineral deposit, and the swamp town might have a trading post along a vital trade route connecting two nations.

5) Realistic Settlement Sizes: As I’ve mentioned before, my capital Uunili originally extended across the entire western coast. Considering Uunili is roughly two thirds the size of Hawaii the old visuals would have made it twice the size of Mexico City. An easy way to avoid this is to draw the map using a scale and stick to it religiously. For my map, we decided to represent cities and townships with symbols alone.

6) Realistic Megacities: Uunili has a population of about 450,000 people. For a city in a Middle Ages-inspired era, this is humongous. While this isn’t an issue, per se (at its height, ancient Alexandria had a population of about 300,000), a city of that size creates its own set of challenges: you’ll need a complex sewage system (to minimize disease spreading like wildfire) and strong agriculture in the surrounding areas to keep the population fed. Also, only a small part of such a megacity would be enclosed within fantasy’s ever-so-present colossal city walls; the majority of citizens would probably concentrate in an enormous urban sprawl in the surrounding areas. To give you a pointer, with a population of about 50,000, Cologne was Germany’s biggest metropolis for most of the Middle Ages. I’ll say it again: it’s fine to disregard realism for coolness in this case, but at least taking these things into consideration will not only give your world more texture but might even provide you with some interesting plot points.

7) World Origin: This point can be summed up in a single question: why is your world the way it is? If your novel is set in an archipelago like mine is, are the islands of volcanic origin? Did they use to be a single landmass that got flooded with the years? Do the inhabitants of your country know about this? Were there any natural disasters to speak of? Yes, not all of this may be relevant to the story, and the story should take priority over lore, but just like with my previous point, it will make your world more immersive.

8) Maps: Think Purpose! Every map in history had a purpose. Before you start on your map, think about what yours might have been. Was it a map people actually used for navigation? If so, clarity should be paramount. This means little to no distracting ornamentation, a legible font, and a strict focus on relevant information. For example, a map used chiefly for military purposes would naturally highlight different information than a trade map. For my novel, we ultimately decided on a “show-off map” drawn for the Blue Island Coalition, a powerful political entity in the archipelago (depending on your world’s technology level, maps were actually scarce and valuable). Also, think about which technique your in-universe cartographer used to draw your in-universe map. Has copperplate engraving already been invented in your fictional universe? If not, your map shouldn’t use that aesthetic.

9) Maps: Less Is More. If a spot or an area on a map contains no relevant information, it can (and should) stay blank so that the reader’s attention naturally shifts to the critical information. Think of it this way: if your nav system tells you to follow a highway for 500 miles, that’s the information you’ll get, and not “in 100 meters, you’ll drive past a little petrol station on the left, and, oh, did I tell you about that accident that took place here ten years ago?” Traditional maps follow the same principle: if there’s a road leading a two day’s march through a desolate desert, a black line over a blank white ground is entirely sufficient to convey that information.

10) Settlement and Landmark Names: This point will be a bit of a tangent, but it’s still relevant. I worked with a linguist to create a fully functional language for my novel, and one of the things he criticized about my early drafts were the names of my cities. It’s embarrassing when I think about it now, but I really didn’t pay that much attention to how I named my cities; I wanted it to sound good, and that was it. Again: if realism is your goal, that’s a big mistake. Like Point 5, we went back to the drawing board and dove into the archipelago’s history and established naming conventions. In my novel, for example, the islands were inhabited by indigenes called the Makehu before the colonization four hundred years before the events of the story; as it’s usually the case, all settlements and islands had purely descriptive names back then. For example, the main island was called Uni e Li, which translates as “Mighty Hill,” a reference to the vast mountain ranges in the south and north; townships followed the same example (e.g., Tamakaha meaning “Coarse Sands”). When the colonizers arrived, they adopted the Makehu names and adapted them into their own language, changing the accented, long vowels to double vowels: Uni e Li became “Uunili,” Lehō e Āhe became “Lehowai.” Makehu townships kept their names; colonial cities got “English” monikers named after their geographical location, economic significance, or some other original story. Examples of this are Southport, a—you guessed it—port on the southernmost tip of Uunili, or Cale’s Hope, a settlement named after a businessman’s mining venture. It’s all details, and chances are that most readers won’t even pay attention, but I personally found that this added a lot of plausibility and immersion.

I could cover a lot more, but this post is already way too long, so I’ll leave it at that—if there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to make a part two. If not, well, maybe at least a couple of you got something useful out of this. If you’re looking for inspiration/references to show to your illustrator/cartographer, the David Rumsey archive is a treasure trove. Finally, for anyone who doesn’t know and might be interested, my novel is called Dreams of the Dying, and is a blends fantasy, mystery, and psychological horror set in the universe of Enderal, an indie RPG for which I wrote the story. It’s set in a Polynesian-inspired medieval world and has been described as Inception in a fantasy setting by reviewers.

Credit for the map belongs to Dominik Derow, who did the ornamentation, and my friend Fabian Müller, who created the map in QGIS and answered all my questions with divine patience. The linguist’s name is David Müller (no, they’re not related, and, yes, we Germans all have the same last names.)

#enderal #dreams of the dying #worldbuilding #resource #writeblr #writing tips #mapmaking #cartography #illustration #realism #writeblogging #novelwriting #writing research #research #writing

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inamindfarfaraway · 3 years

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My Avatar: The Last Airbender Musical Songs Part One

With instrumental and staging ideas when I could think of them. Further notes and details will be added here. Someday I hope to have proper recordings of these, played and sung. But in my head the singers are professionals, so I’m afraid me singing them just wouldn’t cut it. I may sing them anyway to show you the tune and inflections given they have a massive impact on the song, of course. And I have no ability to compose or play music. For the special effects and cast and such, I’m assuming a pretty high budget. I want to see this on the West End, you know? Bending would be a combination of practical effects, martial arts and in waterbending and firebending’s cases ribbon dancing using ribbons to mimic streams of water and flame, and sometimes animation on a wall-sized screen behind the stage for really big stuff like most of the firebending done under Sozin’s Comet (this would also help convey the rich backgrounds and settings). I’m putting the numbers in a single post rather than individual posts because I have put in THEMES and LYRICAL ECHOES and PARALLELS to make this mini-soundtrack feel cohesive and I thought this would help you notice them better. Okay, let’s go!

This takes place in “The Southern Air Temple”. It’s Aangst Aang’s big emotional ballad outlining his severe guilt complex and rejection of his Avatar status and responsibilities. It basically sets up his character arc. I’m thinking immediately before this the chase of puppet!Momo (with only Aang wanting to pet him for time constraints and simplicity) involves Aang and Momo’s puppeteer breaking the fourth wall - they leap off the stage and run through the seating area. Aang even asks a few audience members if they’ve seen a flying lemur go past. “About this tall, fluffy, big ears, long tail? Oh, and wings!” It’s funny, silly, on brand for Momo and Book One Aang… and makes for a change in tone that will give you whiplash when Aang returns to the stage, which went dark when he left it, and discovers all the skeletons that were placed there while he and the audience were distracted. What do you think of this trick? Does it disrupt the immersion too much?

The “last airbender” part is sung with the “last” held very long, and longer each time he says it. Because he’s desperately trying to hold onto his past, his childhood, his culture and people which are now all mere memories. He really doesn’t want to end that sentence and admit aloud that he’s the last of his people left in the world. The exception is the final one where “last” is a short, choked sob of word. Also, it means that as the word preceding it rhymes with the final word of the previous line and due to being held so long makes its line match the previous one in duration at least, the “airbender” kind of feels out of place… just like Aang.

A general word about the lighting. Every nation has a lighting colour associated with them: yellow for the Air Nomads, blue for the Water Tribes, green for the Earth Kingdom and red for the Fire Nation. These colours are used in spotlights on important characters of the respective nations; important moments in the individual nations’ history; and to illuminate flashbacks by those characters or in those nations. So when Azula sits on the Earth Kingdom throne, the background lights change from green to red. Very simple. The Avatar then is represented by white, the balanced union of all colours, and has a white spotlight. The Avatar State is represented by four white spotlights converging on the Avatar. A few times for dramatic effect the spotlights will start each one of the four elemental colours and turn white, but if it’s a sudden change they’ll just appear already white. Whether Aang’s spotlight in songs or big character moments is yellow or white is an indicator of whether he’s acting more as Aang the Air Nomad or Avatar Aang. Got it? Good. Back to the songs.

This takes place in “The Storm”. It’s Zuko’s big emotional ballad and sets up his character arc. Until now Zuko’s only ever been the angry, cruel spoiled brat. But before the dust of a momentous shift to that perception - he is an abused child, misguided and manipulated - has settled, we learn how Zuko sees himself. The righteous banished prince, the noble, steadfast crusader. It’s so painful to hear him fantasizing about earning his father’s love when the knowledge is still raw to us exactly what kind of man Ozai is. We know he’s going to fail. We know his father doesn’t love him, we understand that his goal is mutually exclusive with Aang’s safety and happiness and indeed the world’s. But in this scene? My intention is to have at least part of every audience member cheering Zuko on.

While Aang, the real hero, has his big song in minor key because he doesn’t think he’s good enough to be a hero, Zuko’s is in major key because he is the hero of his own story. Aang looks excessively back to his personal trauma, Zuko looks excessively forward to his personal victory, and neither can see beyond that at the time of their respective arc-defining songs. Certain lyrics that contrast: “Everyone who doubted me, they were right” vs “Everyone who doubted me will see they’re wrong”; “What did I expect, a hero’s welcome?” vs “All hail the hero of the Hundred Year War”. They both just want to belong! Great, now I’m sad.

This is Toph’s debut in “The Blind Bandit”. It’s a rock song. This is actually the first of these numbers I wrote. I thought of the title and the blind jokes just called out to me like a chorus of angels. I was a little worried that it would defeat the impact of the fight in the series (where Toph demonstrates her skill by crushing the Boulder in a matters of seconds) to draw it out for a song, so I tried to give an in-universe explanation in the stage directions. I like that “She can’t really be blind. That’s just part of her character, right?” is what the audience is thinking about Toph’s actress too. The actress could be visually impaired or not, but would definitely wear milky white contact lenses. Normally I’m 100% on board with disabled actors playing disabled characters, but I couldn’t find anything about legally blind actors, let alone in a role like this with Toph functionally not being blind most of the time so not using supports on stage. Please educate me on the logistics of a visually impaired Toph actress, if it could work!

This takes place in “The Library” after Wan Shi Tong catches Aang and the water siblings leaving with the information about the solar eclipse. Owl scary. Owl mad. Owl… has a good point, actually.

This takes place in “The Desert” and is Katara’s big character song. I’ve always really admired Katara, especially in this episode. I love that despite the stereotype of her being an overly emotional (I think being fourteen and going through what she did, her emotional reactions were pretty justified) dreamer who spouts sappy speeches about hope and love, she’s very clever, savvy and practical in her own right, just in a different way to Sokka. To her hope isn’t a vague, nebulous ideal, it’s something solid and tangible that can be relied on when all else is lost. This constant strength and reliability is what I wanted to capture here, the core of her character in my opinion. She doesn’t have time for dreams or wishes. Her childhood was stolen from her, replaced by danger and fear and far too much responsibility. So she grins and bears it. Katara survives. She keeps going and keeps her family going. “The Desert” is by far the best demonstration of this side of her.

This takes place in “The Guru”. You know what scene. I don’t know much about the nuances of rock and its subgenres, but could this qualify as metal? The “All my life…” line changing from “I’ve been told what I can’t do” to “I’ve faced things I cannot do” shows her greater humility and emotional maturity since joining the Gaang. She’s experienced true failure now. She accepts that she has limits and can’t do everything alone. Toph being so dejected at the start may seem out of character, but I think the prospect of being imprisoned by her parents is really soul-crushing for her. For the first time in her life, she has friends - people who not only understand her true self, but love that person unconditionally. She’s finding and bettering herself far more than her old outlet of Earth Rumble VI allowed. She’s seeing the world, helping people, saving lives. She’s alive in a whole new way. Now all of that will be stripped away. And realizing her parents went to such lengths to bring her back tells her they’ll probably never trust or respect her. That’s a lot for a twelve-year-old to process. Vulnerable Toph rights!

Then she remembers she’s Toph Beifong, and singlehandedly invents a new form of bending on the fly and rescues herself. God, I love her.

This takes place in “The Awakening”. The traditional celebratory ‘I got what I wanted’ reprise of the ‘I want’ song…. except not. I’m thinking it could be the beginning of Book Three. We see what’s going on with Zuko first, building the suspense for Aang’s fate after temporarily dying. In the next scene Ozai is fully revealed to us, tells Zuko he’s proud of him, explains the impact the fall of the Avatar and Ba Sing Se have had (the screen displays an animation showing the invasion of Ba Sing Se and the rest of the Earth Kingdom) while circling a kneeling Zuko. He finishes with, “All because you killed the Avatar.” Zuko looks up to the audience with a horrified ‘WTF’ expression to a dramatic musical sting. Then, aware of just how badly the world has fared since he’s been gone, we see Aang wake up.

Starting with “Three long years I’ve waited” and ending with “don’t keep him waiting too long” really highlights how little Zuko’s been taught to value himself, and how much his father. Zuko struggling and suffering in exile for three years is nothing compared to a few minutes’ delay in Ozai getting what he wants. I want to note the word change from “goal” to “dream”. “Goal” shows that the old Zuko was laser-focused and his vision of the future was attainable, concrete and clear. Now his present feels like a “dream” come to life: wonderful, but implicitly too good to be true and unsustainable (you have to awaken from a dream eventually), and a hint he’s realizing that gaining Ozai’s love was nothing more than a fantasy all along.

This is also in “The Awakening” after Aang wakes up and learns the world thinks he’s dead, and just before Zuko confronts Azula about telling Ozai he killed him. Careful, Aang. You’re quoting lines from Book One Zuko. That’s never good. I’m very fond of the image of Aang and Zuko together on opposite ends of the stage for a split-second in the scene transition. There’s the white spotlight signifying he’s acting on his Avatar responsibilities, essentially running away for the exact opposite reason he did last time. But only one because he isn’t fully realized or embracing all four nations/elements.

There’s another “Just a Kid” reprise during the hypothetical song “Wisdom of the Past” which is in “The Old Masters” when Aang is consulting the past Avatars, specifically Yangchen: something, something, “I can’t let our whole way of life be lost to the past/Now that I’m the last airbender”. The “last” is still a held note, but much shorter. In case you haven’t guessed, I love reprises and repeated lyrical or musical motifs in musicals.

This takes place in “Sokka’s Master”. I saw the chance for Sokka angst and I took it. He is very self-aware, enough to know his role in the story and that it’s thus far his preferred roles of ‘protector’ and ‘leader’ dismayingly rarely, but just not enough to get stuck in the self-depreciation rut. I love him, and that right from the start but even more so over time he’s so much more than just the comic relief sidekick. The fast pace and wordy and/or unorthodox lyrics - the rhymes “criticism/witticism” and “conventional/mention all”, for example (I’m proud of those) - reflect Sokka’s quick, maverick intelligence. I had fun with the staging and lighting in this one. It’s almost like Sokka, the genre-savvy and perceptive character he is, is quasi-aware he’s in a musical: he sits downstage to be closer to the audience, as if directly explaining his narrative importance to them; he doesn’t feel comfortable being literally centre stage; he seems to see the spotlights when the others can’t. This trait is mostly exclusive to this song, but I think he’d make the most contact with the fourth wall in the rest of the play. Like in the beginning Katara or Aang starts singing and he gives a confused aside glance.

This takes place in “Sozin’s Comet, Part 3: Into the Inferno” and “Part 4: Avatar Aang”. It’s exactly what it says on the tin. Except with extra angst, because who doesn’t love the soul-crushing horror and tragedy of being a child solider? But not even, like, an average child soldier in a trench whose life is in the context of the war expendable (that’s a different kind of utterly awful), but one of three child soldiers stuck with a responsibility the size, scale and danger level of which would only be appropriate for either an entire army or huge division of one or if it must be a small group the most elite and powerful soldiers ever, meaning that at twelve or fifteen you are actually, somehow, one of the most powerful, competent people in this war. Did I mention you’re twelve or fifteen? And only have proper war experience - not training for future combat or fighting in an entertainment setting, but do-or-die battles - for nine months or less, and then mostly against individuals, a handful of enemies and/or other child soldiers that however dangerous couldn’t really do an army of adults with incredibly strong pyrokinesis even by superpowered standards justice? The airship fleet was designed and fully able to raze the entire Earth Kingdom (a giant continent practically occupying the whole eastern half of the global map) to the ground. To be an unstoppable, implacable wall of death and destruction. To everyone in the Earth Kingdom, this is the end of the world. To everyone on the heroes’ side outside the Earth Kingdom, there’s no defeating the Fire Nation with about half the planet out of commission, so it’s also the end of the world. A blind twelve-year-old who’d been extremely sheltered until a few months ago and two fifteen-year-olds without any supernatural abilities, all very traumatized. That’s it. That’s all that stands between the world and its end. Three children vs. the apocalypse. And they win.

“Sokka, I always be with you” were Yue’s last words too, so temporarily losing Suki and her possible last words being the same definitely triggers that part of his PTSD. Speaking of PTSD, I think this moment hit Toph the hardest. She’s utterly helpless, knowing only Sokka’s hand slipping from hers and the heat of the flames that wait to consume her when she inevitably falls. Obviously the ‘holy shit, we’re going to die, right here, right now, I’m never going to do anything ever again’ feeling has overwhelmed her and Sokka by this point, but Sokka at least is more familiar with that feeling. Toph’s never been in this kind of danger before. I don’t think the seriousness of the war ever felt real to her. Six months ago the idea of her dying at twelve was unimaginable - if her parents had their way, she’d be lucky to die before she turned ninety. Between then and now it was an underlying concern, but her skills kept growing and she had her friends. Even in the invasion, she wasn’t that physically endangered. She’s Toph Beifong! Nobody can touch her! But now everybody can and suddenly she’s a child again. She’s always been a child. She always will be a child, because in a couple of seconds she’s going to die. (Do you think her prospective last words being a blind joke detracts from the tone? I was aiming for ‘using her familiar humour to distract from oh shit I’m gonna die’ but I worry it might ruin the drama.)

The final song is in part two!

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chiseler · 3 years

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‘Anti-Zionist Naples’: Award-Winning Italian Artist Speaks about Palestine and Why He Quit Photojournalism

Eduardo Castaldo

On April 1, a mural appeared in the Southern Italian city of Naples, depicting Palestinian workers lining at an Israeli military checkpoint near the occupied city of Bethlehem, in the West Bank. It is called ‘Welcome to Bethlehem’.

The mural, which quickly became popular in the town and on social media, was the work of a well-known Italian artist and photographer, Eduardo Castaldo.

Castaldo, who is a cinematic and television photographer, is not your typical artist, as he dedicates part of his time and efforts to championing struggles for human rights, equality and justice, especially in Palestine and throughout the Middle East.

It is only befitting that Castaldo is from Naples, a Southern Italian city with deep historical and cultural connections with Palestine and the Arab world. As Italian culture had itself influenced the Arab world, numerous markers of Arab culture can also be detected in Naples, from the Neapolitan dialect to music and dance, to food and much more.

Moreover, Naples itself is a symbol of the Italian resistance. The September 1943 uprising, known as “Le Quattro Giornate di Napoli” - Four Days of Naples - was a watershed moment in the history of the city as it liberated itself from Nazi German occupation.

Castaldo’s mural of the Palestinian workers is not his only work on Palestine and the Middle East. He has done other artistic displays. Moreover, he has spent years in Palestine working as a photojournalist.

We spoke to the Italian artist to understand his connection with Palestine and the Arab world, his inspirations and his ongoing fight against injustice in all of its forms.

Capturing the Occupation

“This work originated from my experience as a photo reporter in the Middle East,” Castaldo said in reference to ‘Welcome to Bethlehem’.

Castaldo worked as a photojournalist in Palestine for about four years, from 2007-2011. These years allowed him to immerse himself in the Palestinian experience and to “directly witness the cruel dynamics of Israeli military occupation.”

Check Point 300; (in)human borders

“I visited the Bethlehem checkpoint several times, where I took many photos. My street artwork is a collage of photos that I took at the time,” he tells us.

“That was a particularly harrowing experience,” Castaldo reflects:

“I was standing outside the checkpoint bars, taking pictures of Palestinian workers between ages 30 and 60, even 70, piled on top of one another for hours to cross the checkpoint and reach Jerusalem to work. These people repeated this same routine every day, from as early as 4 AM to 8 AM. And every day, they were forced by circumstances to suffer that same dehumanizing experience, simply to earn meager amounts of money (to feed their families).”

Castaldo felt “uncomfortable being a Western photojournalist, outside of the bars, taking pictures” of entrapped Palestinian workers. He explains the reasons behind his uneasiness:

“These people were already deprived of their dignity and I didn’t feel I had the right to take photos of them as if they were animals in a zoo. This feeling was so unpleasant that I decided not to show or sell those pictures to newspapers.”

But that feeling didn’t depart Castaldo’s conscience; in fact, it grew “stronger and stronger” to the point that Castaldo quit photojournalism altogether. Needless to say, those experiences in Palestine were imprinted in Castaldo’s mind until this day.

“After several years, around 2018, I decided to re-elaborate these photos and I turned them into something else entirely,” he says, explaining:

“I put together 40-50 images in one single image, which won several awards, including the Sony World Photography Awards in 2018. Feeling the need to convey Palestinians’ painful experiences to the world, I transformed that picture into a street artwork. As an artist, that was my way to narrate that experience: both my feeling of discomfort and the humiliation and abuse that Palestinians were forced to suffer.”

Welcome to Bethlehem

From Naples to Palestine

The Bethlehem mural is not the only street artwork that Castaldo dedicated to Palestine. In Via San Giovanni a Pignatelli, also in Naples, there is another breathtaking mural of a Neapolitan woman dumping a bucket of water at two Israeli soldiers who are trying to climb the wall.

Castaldo says that this work is, too, a “reconstruction of a photo taken during an Israeli military operation in Palestine”. “The act of throwing water is quite common in Naples, especially by women who want to scare away kids when they are too loud in the street,” he says. “By associating this typical reaction with Israeli soldiers I tried to epitomize Naples’ solidarity with the Palestinian people. In my mind, that gesture became a symbol of anti-Zionist Naples.”

But Castaldo’s Palestinian inspiration exceeds that of the geographic boundaries of Palestine to Italy itself. “Subsequently, I decided to add an element to the Palestinian flag,” which is present in the mural, namely a portrait of Ali Oraney, a Palestinian-Italian activist who has been living in Naples since the early 1980s and died from Covid-19 some months ago.

“Ali played an important role in carrying out the struggle of the Palestinian people in Naples. He has been one of the key figures for the pro-Palestine activism in Naples and, more generally, in Italy and that is a tribute from my town to the Palestinian people and Ali.”

Human Connection

Like other artists, journalists and other visitors to Palestine, the human connection, for Castaldo, was far more powerful a rapport than books and news broadcasts. Spending time with Palestinians is usually the best answer to the dehumanization they suffer at the hand of mainstream media.

“Living in Palestine and the Arab world allowed me to create a strong bond with ordinary people living there, with their experiences, and with their daily struggles,” he says.

“I have made friends with many people there and I had the chance to experience some of these things firsthand, as a journalist and a human being. This is essentially what created my bond with the Palestinian people.”

Art and Change

We asked Castaldo whether he believes that art is capable of altering reality in any way.

As an artist “I have no illusion that my art can change things on the ground,” he says. “However, it is a way to offer my skills to what I perceive as important. It has undoubtedly a personal value to me. And I believe the political value of my artworks is intrinsically linked to the places in which they are set.” Castaldo’s “ultimate goal is to connect the city of Naples, where I live, to this cause.”

On art, politics, and freedom, the accomplished Italian artist says:

“I am perfectly aware that my art will not change such a dramatic political situation or have a key role, but I also think it can contribute because art is freedom. And, to me, it is important to point out that this freedom is not neutral, it has to stand on one side, on the right side.”

Beyond Palestine

Castaldo’s morally motivated and politically conscious artwork spans other areas and subjects beyond Palestine, although, at their core, all of these issues are connected.

Castaldo, who also worked as a photojournalist during the Egyptian revolution, dedicated another mural to Giulio Regeni, a young Italian scholar who was murdered in Egypt, presumably by Egyptian security forces.

“The mural was not only dedicated to Giulio Regeni, but to the Egyptian situation as a whole, because Regeni was part of it. Moreover, my ultimate goal was not only to denounce the single violation against Regeni but the repressive system in Egypt in its entirety.”

Castaldo is particularly happy that his artwork is very popular in the Middle East, where he continues to receive much support and accolades from the people and fellow artists in the region.

“Thanks to social media, my works are more popular in the Middle East than in Europe. And I have to say that their positive reactions, their support, and their solidarity make me proud,” he says.

Castaldo is not a typical artist. Ethics and morality play a crucial role in everything he does. He takes his inspiration from the people, and whenever possible, he exhibits his work also to the people. He feeds on the love and support he acquires from ordinary people, whether in Palestine or in Naples.

This artist of the people is on a mission to convey the kind of pain, suffering, and indignity that proud people often undergo in isolation. His art also tells the story of pride, beauty, and hope for a brighter future.

by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud

- Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles appeared in many online newspapers and academic journals. She holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and specializes in audio-visual and journalism translation.

- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

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anncanta · 3 years

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Dracula BBC as an alchemical novel

I noticed a long time ago that the stories that S. Moffat and M. Gatiss tell do not just have two or three layers (in fact, much more), but most often turn out to be such a complex field in which all the numerous levels work independently and at the same time manage to merge into a holistic melody. Actually, this is why their texts often ‘from the outside’ look strange, incomprehensible or meaningless (apart from those cases when they really are like this).

The thing is that stories of this kind are arranged in such a way that the plot, as a frame, ‘holding’ ideas and meanings on itself, is, so to speak, open — like a system of corridors leading in different directions, up and down, into those dimensions of the narrative that are currently needed by the authors in order to convey their statement.

In this respect, the genre is very important, because by structuring the story at the formal level, it allows, let’s say, to enter it and understand where to move from the entrance. And there — well, depending on how far you are willing to go.

One of the best definitions of the Dracula genre that I have seen among the reviews written so far is a metaphysical detective.

Some might say that the term looks artificial, but bearing in mind that the story itself seems to be enough… hybrid, it would be fine to start a conversation.

This really has everything a good detective novel needs, plus philosophical and (almost) religious motives organically woven into the narrative, the idea of self-knowledge that pushes the boundaries of any genre, and a mysterious ending. So it’s easy to agree with the above definition.

But I would say that this is an alchemical novel.

Let me remind those who have not come across the works of C.G. Jung, who in his later work paid much attention to alchemy and secret religious practices: in the context of his research, alchemy is a way of self-knowledge and one’s own psyche in order to achieve a higher level of development and gaining mental and spiritual integrity.

History of literature knows several rather interesting attempts to describe the alchemical Work and, since cinema in this sense is no worse, if you wish, you can immediately name a dozen films that also touch on this topic. Well, Sherlock, being viewed from a certain angle quite fits into this paradigm, and I will not even start about Harry Potter — this is a classic of Jungian thought, expressed in literature and successfully transferred to the cinema.

What about Dracula? Everything is very interesting in it.

The first thing to note is that Dracula’s structure is not a mini-series. It’s not a TV show at all. This is a three-part film, all parts of which are closely related to each other so that none of them can be ‘taken out’ from the text without losing meaning and understanding what is happening here.

The second, — it is undoubtedly a novel. The novel as a genre has many definitions, I will not give them here, I will only mention an element that is important for our conversation, without which a modern novel is impossible. This is the growing up and inner change of the hero. If the hero came to the end of the work, being not the same he was at the beginning, most likely we have a novel. Another question is how the hero came to these changes.

And here the third aspect is important — the way the story is told and the ‘language’ used by the authors.

Act I

Dracula begins with a young man standing in the middle of a dark forest and waiting for a carriage that will take him to the medieval castle of some mysterious Count. A girl comes out of the carriage in which the young man reached this place, and asks him to take the crucifix with him, assuring him that he will certainly need it. The carriage leaves, the young man remains in the forest.

Look, you can ‘exit’ from this scene both into a gothic novel (in principle, an entertainment genre, to which you can add a couple of additional meanings if you wish) and into an alchemical story. The exposition will be the same. Let’s suppose we are talking about an alchemical novel. For now, just suppose.

Dark forest is a place between worlds, between everyday life and the other world, between consciousness and unconsciousness, between daytime reality and nighttime. Place of transition, no one’s land. The laws of consciousness are no longer dominant here, but the unconscious does not yet dominate. You can also talk with those who live in the real world and get from them the so-called ‘magic item’, which may help the hero in the future, but it is already difficult to return. And — what is important — you can only travel further with a guide from the unconscious. Carriages from the outside world don’t go there.

The young man is picked up by a strange cart with a mysterious charioteer, after which, having driven some distance through the forest, he finds himself at the gates of an ancient castle. Going inside, he sees an empty room and a table set for dinner. This is the second point of transition if you follow the logic of archetypal storytelling. While Johnny is nothing more than a guest, a stranger, a man who has nothing to do with this castle or its inhabitants. He crossed the border of the unconscious but did not enter into a relationship with it. And here he does what the fairy tales strongly advise against doing to everyone who finds himself in such circumstances — he tries local food.

The game is on. From that moment — not from the first bite, but from this moment, Johnny enters the reality of Dracula, the reality of his castle, and begins to interact with forces that are incomprehensible and beyond his control.

But this is not the most interesting thing.

Let’s skip the moment of the Count`s appearance — here the authors again make a nod to the gothic novel, and the whole situation logically unfolds like an old horror movie, exactly until the moment when several new details appear in the narrative.

The first is the invisible inhabitants of the castle, who write on the glass with inverted letters ‘save us’, and the second is a journey through the castle-labyrinth and the discovery of the map.

Remember I said that this story could be a gothic novel, and the plot is quite like a gothic novel? So, forget it. From now, there is no way to return to this genre. The gothic novel is about controlled horror. It’s about tickling your nerves in a safe environment. In this form, it moved into the cinema and settled there in the form of horror films. It has no other functions and building blocks. Moreover, the symbolic details. The scary house there is always just a scary house, and the worms crawl out of the walking dead because it looks disgusting, and the viewers love the thrill.

But let’s back to Dracula.

Why are the castle-labyrinth and map important? On a metaphorical level, the house represents a person, that Self that a person knows, ‘builds’ throughout life and which belongs to it. A castle-labyrinth in which it is easy to get lost, which does not have a map, indicates a lost person.

And it was not Johnny who was here lost.

Have you ever thought about why, after being sucked dry and killed, the lawyer threw himself from the roof of the castle and was fished out of the river by fishermen, Dracula did not leave him alone and went to the convent after him?

What does this ‘bride’ mean to him, in no use as a food, dagger stares and pursed lips, and even threatens to fight Dracula while walking on the ground? Although it is doubtful he could fight — he could barely keep his feet.

Pride? Wounded amour-propre? A sense of ownership?

No.

In order to understand why Dracula came for Johnny, you need to return to the search for the map and remember where Harker found it.

In the depths of one of the corridors of the castle hung two portraits — the image of the architect who built the house and his wife. About which ones the architect himself refers in his notes as the Moon and the Sun.

It is noteworthy that a woman is the Sun here, while in the alchemical tradition, the solar energy is male, and the lunar energy is female. I think this is part of the inverted reality of the Count`s psyche, where landmarks are confused and roles are changed. For what it’s worth, such landmarks are enough for Harker to find a way out.

But it’s important for us to understand who Johnny is.

He is not a victim of Count Dracula. Rather, from the point of view of the plot, he is his victim, but at the symbolic level, his function is completely different.

Jonathan Harker is a figure from the outside world who comes to the house of a person whose psyche is immersed in chaos, who himself does not know what is in his house, and is able to get lost in it himself, keeps monsters in the basement and feeds on them. This person has lost touch with reality in the literal sense of the word. (For anyone interested, read about literalized metaphors in British literature.) And then someone comes to him, and involuntarily begins to order his chaotic world.

It is no coincidence that during one of his conversations with the Count Johnny hears a crying baby. At the level of the plot, this is a real baby that Dracula carries for his next ‘bride’ imprisoned in the basement of the castle. But at the symbolic level, where all the inhabitants of the castle are parts of the soul of the Count himself, the baby is his split-off child self. Of course, destined for murder. And turned into a child of the night.

What happens next? At the moment when the process of ordering the psyche and contact with the outside world is launched, it is already difficult to stop it. Therefore, Dracula with a manic passion rushes to the convent and tries to regain Johnny. But the function of the guide has been exhausted. Other forces come into play.

Act II

The central scene of what is happening in the convent is undoubtedly the scene of the meeting between Dracula and Agatha. And in their meeting, everything is important, literally every detail. Strikingly, it is harmoniously built both on the plot and on the symbolic level. There is literally no redundant element there.

We will only note the main ones so as not to get bogged down in details.

The first moment — Dracula went out into the outside world, but he cannot just appear there. Until now, his whole life has passed in darkness — both literally and symbolically. We do not know what made him so, but he obviously at some point in his life fell back to animal, primitive instincts. Therefore, in order to leave his world and exist in the real, in the world of consciousness, he needs to transform.

This is the first transformation of the hero that we see — when at the gates of the monastery Dracula is ‘born’ from the skin of a beast.

Having been born, he approaches the gates, which are opened to him by a genuine, not escheat, and fake bride — Agatha. Anima.

And she doesn’t give him any indulgences.

In Jungian literature, it is often mentioned that meeting with an archetype is a difficult and rather painful thing. Especially if the person is not ready for it. And, of course, it is extremely dangerous to project archetypal qualities onto a real person who can represent them for a specific man or woman. But this is in life. And a work of art`s entitled to combine symbolic and real layers in one context.

Agatha treats Dracula harshly, in a semblance of an erotic scene, giving an outlet for his insane disordered sexual and animal energy, in some way, ‘shaking’ him and allowing his inner chaos to restructure and acquire a consistency suitable for connecting with the new and the unknown.

And then the victim, close contact, an attempt to absorb — and the hero falls into his Anima and at the same time goes to a new world on a journey on the water.

Act III

I think that the symbolism of water (amniotic fluid, the water of the unconscious, water as an information and life medium) is not worth explaining. But what is happening with Dracula in the sealed world of the mother’s womb — the ship, in order for no one to have any doubts, called Demeter, needs to be considered more closely.

From this moment, from the moment when his romance with Agatha starts and begins to develop, Dracula’s relations with other people become extremely important. Until now, he had no relationships with people. The ‘brides’ in the castle are nothing more than food and separate parts of his own personality. The first person he established a real relationship with was Johnny. And this — on one of the levels — is another reason why Dracula was so attached to him. You never forget first love.

On Demeter, the Count consecutively comes into contact with several people.

What kind of people they are is very important.

The first is still just a victim. A sailor-helmsman, whom Dracula eats only because he needs a specific quality that the man has. This is how children are friends with those from whom you can ask for a useful thing or write off homework. After the object’s function is completed, the friendship ends.

It’s more difficult with the Grand Duchess. This is a story about memory, desire, and youth, Dracula`s question to himself — can I be liked, and if I can, then why: because my appearance evokes memories of youth or because I am interesting on my own? The dance as part of their interaction indicates an attempt to ‘taste’ the relationship (the Anima looks in-depth with a smile) but turns into a bloodbath.

What is important here is that as the ship sails further into the sea, and the relationship between Dracula and Agatha becomes more and more intimate, the Count begins to get more and more nervous, and his instincts, at first completely tamed for a distant goal, become more and more out of control.

He collected these passengers in advance, calculating how many people he needed to eat in order to safely get to England. And in the first two days, he ate half of them. The tension rises, the anxiety elevates, no one is safe. Including Dracula.

The meeting with Dorabella on deck (I just want to say — ‘date’) is a naive attempt to flirt, a conscious — not a vampire’s natural — desire to please, a short, but independently built with great difficulty dialogue. The portrayal of her possible married life shown to the girl is a gift that is discouraging in its brutality. And the conclusion: no, nothing will come of it. ‘I am a vampire.’

But if you have already gone out into the outside world, do not expect that you will be able to hide. Whatever you think, but you have made your choice.

After the murder of Dorabella, the ship literally ‘boils’, the hidden truth comes to the surface in the literal sense, and Agatha reappears on the scene.

Act IV

Many viewers ask: why did Agatha take command of the ship?

And who else should be the captain of the ship called Demeter under these circumstances?

Falcons give way to turtle doves.

But let’s back to the text.

The confrontation-connection of Dracula and his Anima lasts for some time, after which it logically ends with immersion of both in water.

And here is another interesting point. The first part of the alchemical Work is completed, the hero went through two transformations, began to communicate with living people, and even made some progress, but in order to consolidate the result, the psyche must close off from the world and allow deep processes to take place inside. Therefore, Dracula falls asleep at the bottom for 123 years, and Agatha fell off the map.

In the XXI century, the updated Count discovers that everything has changed, but the hunt for vampires is still relevant, and he himself is quite ready for new achievements.

The trouble is that he has already learned the taste of the genuine, and therefore surrogates are not to his liking.

When I watched the film for the first and second time, I just couldn’t understand why Lucy was needed there. Silly, superficial, narcissistic, she has no interest in anything other than herself and her Instagram images.

‘How could such a girl interest Dracula?!’ viewers around the world yell. And they are right.

How indeed?

Well, she couldn't.

In order to understand what Lucy’s role in this story is, you need to watch the film from the very beginning. Then it becomes clear that Dracula’s relationship with her, their dialogues, interaction, jokes and flirting, her willingness to voluntarily let him drink her blood is a complete parallel, a repetition of the Count’s relationship with Agatha. Having found the experience of deep love within himself and has found a connection with his soul, the hero is desperately trying to reproduce it — and fails.

Review these scenes. How he looks at Lucy, how he walks arm in arm with her, how he tells her what a brave and extraordinary girl she is, how he holds her on his lap, and asks where she wants to go. In fact, he does everything he did with Agatha. But doing all this, he has empty eyes. An indifferent look, mechanical movements, and bitterness at the bottom. He has a young beautiful woman in his arms, she is obviously in love with him, although she hides it, she is ready for anything to make him feel good. And he is bored.

In the eyes turned to Lucy, not the greed of a vampire is — there are darkness, sadness, and endless repetition: ‘Not her, not her, not her.’

But the psyche, especially the psyche of an adult, does not simply abandon its habits, so Dracula repeats with Lucy the entire cycle that has already passed with all his ‘brides’. The catch is that Lucy is not attached to him, but to admiration for her own beauty, and when beauty disappears, their illusory connection falls apart, turning into horror and contempt. But here, too, not everything is so simple.

In the scene in Dracula’s house, where Lucy realizes who she has become, an important parallel arises.

Look. There are four characters in the room. The situation is difficult, tense, the conflict reaches its limit until it is resolved through love. But how is it resolved?

I mean, what does it look like structurally?

It’s very simple. The man and the ‘monster’ stand and watch the kissing of the man and the ‘monster’ next to them.

And then something happens not only with Jack and Lucy, who finally managed to find peace but also with Dracula. This is the highest point from which there is only one path — to catharsis. The fact that Agatha led him there is logical and obvious, but up to this point, he was not ready for it.

And the final scene. When all the pieces are on the board, all conflicts are realized and all the ghosts are brought to light, there are no enemies left. Except for himself. Except for that, which he didn’t allow himself to do. Except for the fear of being yourself.

The ending of this film is the pinnacle of the alchemical process. Transformation. At the level of the plot, physical death, freeing a five-hundred-year-old vampire and a woman who loved him for many years. And at the symbolic level — going beyond one’s own limits and gaining integrity.

Therefore, in the final, we see the sun. The sun is a symbol of a purified consciousness, transformed and fully realized itself.

Epilogue

For those to whom the interpretation that I have presented here seems strange or stretch, I will separately note the following. Any interpretation is, to one degree or another, a figment of the imagination of the viewer or reader, although, unlike postmodern literary scholars, I believe that there are right and wrong interpretations. And the correct interpretation is not at all what the author wanted to say. This is what the story wanted to say. Often they are not the same thing.

And the second, closely related to the first: no, I do not think that S. Moffat and M. Gatiss put such meaning in their story. I think that European culture, with its multi-layered nature and the ability to reflect on complex experiences through symbolic stories, is that powerful semantic field that generates such tales regardless of the wishes of screenwriters and writers. And that seems wonderful to me.

#dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #count dracula #agatha van helsing #meta

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sarahhsaritaa · 3 years

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i took one continuous video of two candles burning side by side. instead of waiting for the candle to fully burn, i would go in with a lighter and melt the wax so the process went faster. it was a good technique until the flint wheel started heating up. at one point i went to grab another lighter; this is where the lighting changed due to me leaving and removing the hand-held red light. i didn’t notice it at the time, but the warmness of the red light turned cold and had blue tones. however watching it back once edited, i appreciate the lighting shifting with the dying flame. the warmth departs, as does the life in the candle. i included a quick reverse of the clip where you can see the candle building itself back up. it’s interesting because in the first clip, you naturally concentrate on the dying candle but when you watch the reversed clip, you notice how the ‘surviving’ candle is also dying. you often hear the phrase ‘twin flame’ when a friendship or relationship is being described. so i tried to convey two lovers and how their journeys differ. one lover starts to deteriorate and lose themselves. it is obvious that they are the ones struggling in the relationship whilst their partner appears to be on track and thriving. but when you take a closer look (or in this case when the image is reversed), you are made aware of the other lover’s silent struggle.

my initial idea was to have a daisy chain connecting the two candles, and the flame travelling across it. i stuck daisies to a string of candle wick and connected the ends. visually, as a still image, i like the look of the decaying daisies crawling up the wick. but when i tried to light the flame on one end, the fire burns straight through, detaching the chain. i do want to try this shot again and figure out a way that works. perhaps i could use thread to sew the daisies together, or i could make a literal daisy chain and find a way to attach it to the candles.

the significance of candles has always been apparent throughout the history of film. they’re used as symbols of romance, religion, relaxation and light into the next world as well as for set/lighting. in ‘The Lovely Bones’ (dir. Peter Jackson, 2009), Jack Salmon (played by Mark Wahlberg) loses his daughter Susie (played by Saoirse Ronan) and tries to reveal her murderer throughout the film. the two bonded over making ships in bottles; Jack sets up a candle on top of a bottled ship and lets it burn. in the room, the flame is still, but in the reflection, the flame dances as Susie has a breakthrough. she is in the ‘in-between’, not quite ready to let go of her life. her chilling narration connects her to the real world and the actions of her family as she tries to unveil her murderer to them. once she makes this connection to her father through the flame’s reflection, Susie realises “everything is gonna be okay” and sets about enjoying this otherworldly liminal space.

other films use candles in contrasting ways. in ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet’ (dir. Baz Luhrmann, 1996), there is a wide shot of Juliet (played by Claire Danes) lying atop her grave, immersed in a pool of brightly lit candles. the candles symbolise her innocence and create a sense of peace as Romeo (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) walks to her grave. we are seeing Juliet from Romeo’s point of view; he uses light and dark imagery throughout the play, describing her as a source of light that illuminates her tomb. Luhrmann has taken imagery directly from Shakespeare’s play to create this angelic image.

Judd Apatow’s ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ (2005) has an entirely different approach to candle significance. Andy (played by Steve Carell) is a 40-year-old virgin who, back in the early 2000′s, would’ve been classified as a ‘nerd’ for spending his free time playing video games. his friend David (played by Paul Rudd) encourages him to have sex, and in one scene leaves him a large box containing pornographic dvds. Andy tells him he doesn’t want them, but once David leaves, the camera slowly focuses on him lighting a collection of candles in preparation for his chosen dvd. Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello’ plays as a montage of Andy buttoning up his comfy pyjamas and turning around his framed pictures and trophies commences, all while revealing even more rows of candles. he is surrounded. this scene is comedy gold, and i believe the candles really emphasise his desperation and lack of experience.

when looking at the technicality of using candles in film, they aren’t the most reliable and are often made specifically for a film shoot. large studio lights and effects emphasise a flame’s appearance and most times you can’t tell the difference. however, when you watch scenes from films like ‘Barry Lyndon’ (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1975), you learn to appreciate the roles and efforts of the lighting department. many of the indoor scenes used natural lighting, including evening ones which were candle-lit. Kubrick, being the devoted genius that he is, used real candles he had specially made so the flames lasted longer. filming scenes that are only lit by candle is technically difficult today, let alone in the 70′s where equipment was limited. so Kubrick bought a lens from NASA that was used by astronauts on the moon that he then had fitted into a film camera. his devotion and attention to detail is what makes ‘Barry Lyndon’ one of the most accurate depictions of the 18th century. all the quirks and characteristics that come from natural lighting and unpredictable flames is what transports you into this world of european aristocracy.

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art-ahw · 3 years

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Final Evaluation: Verdant/Barren

At first, the theme ‘verdant/barren’ jumped out to me because it seemed to be so different to the others, in that it could be applicable to pretty much everything. There was something that appealed to me about the contrast of something flourishing to something dying, or being unable to produce life. From my recent escapades in the landscape of Uganda, I had fresh imagery in my mind of illustrious landscapes and fertile land, and so it made sense for me to pick something with more of a nature base.

Pablo Picasso has been a massive inspiration in the way that I have incorporated bodies into my pieces- the way that he zeroes in on forms and exaggerates positions is something that I find to be intriguing, especially his piece entitled, ‘Guernica’, which depicts a scene of horror after the bombing of the town. It shows bodies entwined in agony, and helped me along the journey of realising that I wanted to focus on bodies and the way positions can evoke different emotions. Another artist that helped me with this same issue is Fede Bianchi, who inspired my mandalas which were the basis of my ideas moving forward, and a major development in the final outcomes. In terms of the style of painting, Jenny Saville was the definite influence for the final outcomes, with the priority zooming into bodies and faces contorted in different positions. I also tried to take the way that she uses colour and mark making into my own portraits.

One piece of wider world research that I did at the start of the project was that of the book ‘Heart of Darkness’, conveying a story of a man journeying into the depths of Africa, finding the heart of darkness in the colonialist attitudes of the western powers. I think that reading this book so early on really helped pave the way in my ideas and the eventual final concepts. This is where the forest scenes crawling with black bodies and slaves is introduced, and a scene that has stuck with me and will stick with me in life.

‘Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment , and despair. Examining the edge of the forest above and below, I was almost certain I could see movements- human forms gliding here and there.’

My project concept was based on my own experiences with the racist aftermath of white colonialism in Uganda, and I explored the way in which a place that is so bountiful and natural voluptuous can be so vile in energy and have something so barren at the core of its society. In all of my artwork, I tried to depict a clear journey from drawing and capturing abstract energies, to pinpointing physical and specific ideas. I expanded this as well to include the ideas of our own environment in the western world; what our comfort looks like in relation to and in correspondence to the suffering that it is built on.

I experimented with a lot of process such as photoshop, chemical manipulation and painting in this project, learning about how to communicate ideas in many different media. The most important thing that I came to realise in my work is that even though I love to learn new things and explore more of my artistic skills, reverting and playing with my strengths in things like painting can sometimes be the most beneficial thing to do. I think the reason for this is because when there is such an important topic that is so close to my heart and fragile to many people, I need to be able to communicate in a way that I know I can do reliably, and for me that is painting.

The mandalas were definitely a part of my art that I feel like I really excelled on, presenting the message and relaying the theme extremely well. I wanted to show the fertility of the land within a different fruit grown locally in Africa, and then drew bodies intertwining with the leaves and crop- the first development to my final outcomes. I also think that my GIFs were very successful and I would love to work with animation again.

My initial ideas were based on these mandalas and this paired with the different thoughts on comfort in the white community was paired in a collage making brainstorm, where I figured out the imagery that I wanted to use and the message that I wanted to see within my pieces. After this, I then started researching my artists and finding a way to paint realistically, but with an edge. I wanted to create a world in my painting that didn’t look like it was from earth, because deep in the ‘heart of darkness’, it really does feel like that. After having the idea of living room furniture as representation of comfort, I realised that I wanted to include this in my final piece. I had an idea to show an actual living room scene in the exhibition, but as COVID restricted us from doing so, I had to come up with other ideas. I came up with a mini version of that, turning my painting into a chair that you could physically sit on. I photographed a person with their head pressed against it as if they were sleeping, and this picture was so powerful that I wanted to paint it on the back of the other piece. Throughout this process I learnt a lot about myself, and what process works best for me. I realised that inspiration comes from the most unlikely things, and to always embrace it and be on the lookout.

Hypothetically, I would have painted many forest scenes, covering walls in this imagery until it felt like the viewer was in nature- but within the scenes, an uneasy sense as you realise that there are bodies in the background as well as the foreground. However, the concept that I ended up with is tamer, but I would either like to make a full cushion/sofa set, and I would place it in a missionary space/ centre so that unknowingly they would be sitting on it. I would use the fabric prints created as the cushion covers, and I wonder what the reaction to the images seen would be. My painting piece is different, but I think I would like it to be shown in a more central western location, as I want to bring this message into our world.

10 words to describe my final outcome:

Nature

Peace

Contortion

Slave

Naked

Bodies

Illustrative

Fruit

Uneasy

Pain

Soundtrack:

(Album) To Pimp a Butterfly- Kendrick Lamar- an album about blackness in America and the history of slavery, hip hop rap.

Coffee and TV- Blur- the song that depicts the feeling of being in comfort.

Strange Fruit- Billie Holliday- the song that inspired the final piece, haunting melodies and poetry. I would put this song on repeat in the background to create an immersive atmosphere. I spent a lot of time outside of college on this project, at most about 10 hours per week.

Theme:

Research:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/13/a-missionary-on-trial

Development:

Final Outcome:

My final paintings- both on the same canvas, one behind the other. I wanted to again bring across the message of what white comfort looks like, the rejuvenation of sleep and peace compared to the energies that brought it there. We forget that our places of happiness are built on the backs of pain and suffering- and the image of peace here is literally on the back of a picture of pain and suffering. Using techniques that I started to explore in my other paintings, I also sewed into this, almost as if the painting behind it is leeching into the former- I used browns and greens for this.

Drawing from my own experiences, I wanted to showcase the power that the white community truly has over the developing countries in our world, and the discomfort we should feel as people with privilege but always cease to address.

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the-fox-knows · 4 years

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‘I’ll Tell You A Story’

I’ll Tell You A Story (5)

“It was 2019; June to be precise when I traveled to the United Kingdom — or as you would know it, this island of divided kingdoms.” She paused, her gaze cautiously reading his features as his own gaze slipped away from hers. His eyes were narrowed and calculating, a single line marring his brow as he stared at the cave wall, seeing beyond their cramped shelter. Molly knew what he was seeing, for she was seeing it too. That Northumbrian wood; the confusion, the fear, and the ultimate determination that ruled them both that day. He had wanted her, but she had wanted her freedom. Her will had ruled.

“These lands: Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, they do not endure as separate entities. They will combine into a single kingdom – England. That’s what it will be called,” she told him, thinking to influence his belief by offering tantalizing facts of the future she felt he would be unable to resist. She read him well, for his glazed eyes blinked into focus ere swiveling to the corner until they rested on her. A cautious grin quirked his lips, though she read little humor in his expression. She understood it was the façade he adopted when he wished to keep his true thoughts to himself; the flash of a grin only to be supplanted by a frown that conveyed the genuine depth of his interest.

“You claim to be from the future?” he asked quietly, his grin immediately dipping out of sight. The fire stood out like a live thing reflected in his stare. His eyes fixed on her while his posture appeared still, as if he wouldn’t take his next breath until he had riddled the puzzle that she was.

“Yes,” she nodded, holding his gaze.

“How?” he put to her. His expression was at once laced with a coating of cynicism, though, once settled into his question Molly recognized a gleam in his eye that gave her courage enough to believe in that questing wisdom she was relying on.

Recognizing this moment for what it was, she swallowed, gulping past her nerves as her fingers inched their way to her elbows where she held herself tightly. Only a beat of hesitation marked the moment when Molly Hatch decided to bridge the chasm that had yawned beneath her feet for so many years; to extend her hand and let somebody in. It somehow didn’t bother her that it was the Viking she was reaching for. During the past twenty-four hours he had lost his moniker and gained the identity of his person. He was Ragnar Lothbrok, a man she had a precarious history with, but the one who presently sat across from her willing to listen.

“I was on the shore,” she began, her voice thick, “in Scotland. You don’t that country because it hasn’t been formed yet, but it’s the land where you first found me.”

His head tilted as his narrowed eyes smoothed into a more pensive expression. He took his first breath.

“The rain had abated somewhat, and I don’t remember being concerned over lightning,” she continued. “My friends were waiting for me up in our rooms. There were three of them: Cathy, Ellie, and Gracie,” she said, taking care to say their names slowly, as if to savor the memory of what had once been a daily curl of her tongue. “We were visiting from our home - from America.”

She paused again, furrowing her brow as she tried to remember dates. “Do you know a Lief Erikson? Or perhaps know of him?” she wondered. She briefly remembered learning that that Viking had been one of the first, or maybe the only Northman to make it to North America before Christopher Colombus in 1492.

“I know many Lief’s,” he obliged, though looking uncertain of the question. “Why do you ask?”

“It is only that Lief Erikson will be a well-known explorer. He discovers North America. It’s the land that will eventually be my home,” she elaborated when she detected a hitch to his brow. “Do you know him?” she repeated.

“No, I cannot say that I do,” he answered. The ghost of his grin reappeared, hidden somewhat by his beard. And if Molly knew him better, knew all the quirks of his features and the glance of his expressions she would understand that the intensity of his stare was not mere focus, that the slight cant of his head no mere intrigue — but a growing triumph.

“It may be that he is after your time,” she shrugged a little disappointedly. She’d hoped that she’d unearthed a link that could be used to her advantage, unaware of the already shifting dynamic occurring between them in her favor. Molly believed that hers would be an uphill battle, trying to convince him of something she herself wouldn’t have believed in prior to experiencing it. In spite of her immersion with the culture of the time, she could not abandon the skepticism that belonged to her own culture, nor help apply it to what others would think of her story.

“This noorth umairika, you say it is the land you hail from? Where is it?” Ragnar wondered, drawing his good leg up and resting his elbow on it. He was leaning a little closer.

“Far from here,” she said, drawing her own knees up, though in a more protective stance as she hugged them to her chest. “It lies across the sea.”

“Which sea?”

“The Atlantic.”

Ragnar’s eyes narrowed again. “There is land beyond the Atlantic?”

Molly nodded, adding, “quite a lot of it. You Europeans think you’re the center of the world until the 1500’s. Or sometime around there. I was never good in history class,” she went on to explain, no doubt nonsensically to him.

“What other lands are there besides your home?” he continued with his inquiries, causing Molly to grimace slightly. She had wanted to sweeten the pot initially with these snippets of facts, but steadily she could feel her impatience mounting as the momentum she had gained for her own history was waning.

“There are many; too many to name presently, though I will tell you that there are three Americas. There is the North, Central, and South Americas and each is made up of countries . . . er, that is, a form of kingdom.”

“When does this Leif Erikson discover these lands?” he asked, already forgetting her ignorance on the dates.

“I told you, I don’t know. It must be after this time though as I’m sure you would’ve heard about him. And besides, he only landed on North America. He likely wasn’t aware of the expansiveness of the land.”

“What is the distance? How long will it take to reach your land?”

Molly blinked. “I don’t know! Months and months I’d assume.”

Ragnar’s brow furrowed. “How can you not know when you say you journeyed from that land?” His glance turned suspicious. Yet Molly could only indulge in a rueful smile as she envisioned a plane flying over his head as explanation.

“Travel does not remain the way you know it to be, Ragnar. Between the thousand years that mark your time to mine many things evolve into creations beyond imagining. I do not think you would understand even if I told you how I traveled to this island, for nothing of its kind exists today, save perhaps the winged beasts.”

Ragnar jerked his head back, his mouth wavering between that uncertain smirk and that curious frown as his eyes flicked to the mouth of the cave and back.

“You can fly?” he posed to her, clearly not believing. And Molly was glad to be able to shake her head.

“No, I cannot fly. But men have made machines that can.” And before he could ask another question, she ploughed on. “Whatever you wish to know, I will tell you - to the best of my knowledge,” she said, her voice deliberately low so that he would be inclined to listen and not speak. “I will tell you about America and all the countries that will be new to you. I will tell you of the plane, train, and automobile; how people can travel across the world in a day; how we can speak to those far, far away and hear their voices in our ear. I will tell you about Neil Armstrong and his famous footprint on the moon. I will tell you all this and more – but, first . . . first I need to tell you a story. My story.”

And she did.

Of that day she told him everything. It was either say it all, or maintain her silence – she could not imagine an in-between. As an outpouring, long bottled and static with energy waiting to be released, Molly found that the words she had mentally tripped over, prior to her decision of telling Ragnar, poured fluidly from her mouth and into his sponge-like mind – absorbing everything with ardor.

Occasionally, when her eyes would flick to his, she would watch him, noting his stillness that marked his absolute focus. He did not interrupt her again, not even to inquire over words she knew he couldn’t understand – words she couldn’t translate, though she did her best to explain. He was her audience, and as any good auditor, he knew what was required of him. When she paused to recollect a moment, or had to turn her face away to hide unbidden emotions, she was not hurried to continue.

In lieu of that courtesy, she indulged in speaking of events leading up to the trip, of bidding her parents a teary farewell at the airport; of her and her friends accidentally insulting one of the flight attendants by referring to them as English when they had, in fact, been Scottish; of landing in Heathrow and waiting over an hour for Gracie’s duffle bag. She spoke of a thousand and one things she had forgotten, lost somewhere in the hazy limbo of her interrupted life, but which now sprang forth as if resurrected.

While she spoke the night wearied, falling into shade and quiet. Hour followed hour, yet her soft tones did not dim in the presence of the watchful night. The only other companion to her voice was the snapping flames beneath the long-forgotten tea that bubbled in its neglect. It was only when the brew spilled passed the sides of the cauldron, hissing immediately at the contact with the flames, that attention was returned to it. Molly jerked out of her compact position, rising to her feet as she grabbed a fistful of her skirts to lift the cauldron from its perch, hissing herself at the heat. Quickly, she set it near the fire, releasing her grip and rubbing her hands together.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit burnt,” she told him, looking up from inspecting the brew. She swished it only to see the herbs shriveled and black.

“It is of no matter,” he said, unconcerned. “I would hear the rest of your story before soothing any stomach aches.”

From where she stood, Molly looked down at him, aware that a small smile tugged at her lips. A fanciful vision of a monk dressed as a nursemaid coming to serve out a stretched out Ragnar, undone by a serious tummy ache, distracted her momentarily as she remembered that the monk’s brew was for easing digestion. Her smile grew wider and threatened to morph into a chuckle.

Her heart was lighter. The burden of carrying her secret for so long no longer weighed on her even though she had yet to conclude her narrative. Yet, already she felt the ease of old manners returning to her as she remembered her old self. Intangible as it was, there was a certain amount of happiness that existed in simply being able to talk about her old life to another human being.

So as she resumed her seat, a tad closer to Ragnar than before, there was no pause or hesitation when she picked up the threads of her tale and continued.

“We were making a tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland, as I said, but I was always most excited to see Scotland. I’d dreamt of the Highlands and the heather, of the whiskey and kilts, of all the romantic associations with the place; my father even noted that I had an unhealthy interest in the pipes and drums.” She did stop then, only for a moment as she found what peace she could in the phantoms she’d summoned. She sighed. “I’m sure it’s best that I never got to see it in the end; it might not have lived up to my expectations.” Tentatively , she offered her companion — the one of flesh and blood, and the only one who could hear her — a glimpse of a smile that told a completely different story to the one that had just preceded it, and which forgot in that moment that he wouldn’t understand her silver-lining humor, as paltry as it was.

His eyes may be keen, either fixed as they were on her face or hovering just around her; brilliant in their intensity and strength yet, at that moment, lacking the spark of any recognition for anything she had just said.

Her face drooped suddenly, exposed as it was to the rawness of the many strong emotions required this night.

The relief that had belonged to the minute before was gone, usurped by the realization of reality. No matter the chances of ever getting close to anyone – and so far this Viking was the nearest to a heart-to-heart she’d had in six years – the nuances of her time would forever remain the property of its time; locked away behind the secrets of its knowledge that would always remain a barrier between her and others. The comfort of remembering home was hers; just not the comfort of home.

In a whirl of contained emotion, never flickering past the internal storm of her mind, Molly at once wanted to throw herself at Ragnar, cling to his chest and just be held as she sobbed and felt sorry for herself; yet in that same brand of impulsiveness she wanted to run – to run in a pointless direction, but one that took her far from the cave, far from him, and far from everything that resembled anything that had been her familiar for the past half-decade.

Swallowing, she steadied herself. Her thumbs were busy picking at each other’s nails, scoring her skin in a pattern of crescents.

She told him of the beach.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she told him of that landmark whose grey skies had blackened the water and appeared as the shores of superstition, serving as a portal that had opened for her unwilling passage.

The years spent serving Lady, then Lord Cyneric had been kind in one regard: never had she known her mind as well as she presently did. Despite her duties and chores, they claimed nothing of her time as the convenience of modern technology had. Days regularly burst at the seams with work, thoughts, and sometimes, even play. Boredom was no longer a constant in her vocabulary; indeed, she regularly forgot the word with how little she thought of it. What she did think of, however, and what had occupied her thoughts during her more menial tasks was the day in which she had stood on that shore. The tide had been low, and even then — ignorant as she had been — she had mused over thoughts of in-between places; crossroads, dusk, dawn, and of course that strip of sand, appearing only at its designated hours when the sea was low, so that that in-between area was not quite of the land, nor yet of the sea.

And that, she believed, had been her portal.

All this she told him; explaining her reasoning that found grounding in the very nature of the mystic land.

“There are stories – legends and myths, though, I don’t know their names in this speech – that tell of unwary travelers who find mischief done to them; the wanderer who does not heed the natural warnings of nature and find themselves in, what would be called, a fix. These stories are not so ancient as they once were to me, their narrative has more meaning as I now know that there is power in their messages,” she said, drawing her legs to her chest. She rested her hands atop her knees, picking at the fabric. “My sole regret is that I couldn’t have known that their significance endured even while my culture’s credence of them waned. I would not have stood on that shore otherwise.”

“Do people of your time not tell stories then?” Ragnar asked, speaking for the first time in many hours. He looked dubious, as if he was ready to argue her statements by using what he learned about her journal against her. Molly recognized it also as an admission. Despite his first hint of skepticism ere she began, and despite the natural aversion of Man’s to being fooled by seemingly impossible phenomenons, Molly had opened herself to him in a way that exposed her heart, showing him something precious and protected by unraveling her fabricated life.

Also – he had listened.

“For we have many that do much to warn the little ones away from danger,” he continued. “Maybe you did not listen as a child,” he said, pointing a finger at her nose in a playful, tsking manner. She resisted the urge to reach over and swat his hand back to his lap.

“Your people then have precautionary tales of traveling through time?” she said instead, partially rhetorical as she didn’t believe that the Norse did; though, also a little curious in case of the possibility.

Ragnar let his hand drop, adopting a rueful smile as he eyed her from under his brows. His quirked mouth turned thoughtful, however, and he gazed at her straight-on. She saw him only by the faint, ruddy glow of the now dwindled fire; more ember and ash then flame.

“You truly are from another time?” he asked quietly, almost marveling. His eyes were the only point of light on his face; two pricks of focus that somehow carried more expression than a torrent of voiced wonder.

“I am,” she answered simply. She wondered if he saw the same in her; two points of light staring back at him. The lights were disturbed when he blinked, turning his head away, looking forward as he had at the beginning. She could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind, the formulating questions, and the now deepened curiosity that she must undeniably hold.

“Well,” he said with a grunt, adjusting his position so that he sat straighter against the wall. He returned his gaze to hers. “I suppose I must concede to your claim – you have traveled farther than me.”

“Yes,” she chuckled, “my adventurous desire of walking in the rain in a foreign country has inadvertently seen me outpace the ambitions of any Northman seeking new land.”

Molly only just caught his smile as he leaned forward, taking up one of the sticks to jab at the fire. A ripple of warmth spread suddenly, tempering the chill air of the night and reminding her that she was hugging herself tightly in defense against the cold.

“Have you ever tried to return?” Ragnar asked, keeping his eyes on his work.

“Once,” she replied after a pause. “A week after arriving in that town you and your men had sacked,” she interrupted herself in order to deliver a long-in-the-making glare. The Viking at least had sense enough to remain quiet. “I found my way back to that beach. I stayed out there until I couldn’t bear the hunger any longer. I don’t remember how many days, but nothing happened. The road that had vanished didn’t reappear, and when I returned to the village I found it immediately. It hadn’t worked.” Molly often wondered if it would if she could reach it on the anniversary date of her arrival. But as of yet, she’d never been able to make it.

“It sounds temperamental,” he remarked, uselessly twiddling the stick between his palms, working a hole through the fire.

“Extremely temperamental!” she heartily agreed. “At least with you – well, you are very consistent; I always know what to expect from you.”

“Do you think it is so? That you will always know what to expect from me,” he stopped his fiddling to stare up at her, a queer look in his eye. Molly visibly swallowed as she held herself tighter. She felt the mood turn in an instant; dangerous and intimidating.

“You said you wouldn’t force me,” she reminded him, doing her best to keep her voice steady. The knife he had given her was still somewhere near her.

“Aye, I did,” he nodded, resuming his work, and the tension lifted somewhat, “and if that is where your mind has gone it has done so on its own for I have made no mention of lying with you. I would not speak against such a proposition, but I have not suggested it,” he said, flicking his eyes up to hers once more. She felt her heart stutter.

“Then what was all that about with your, ‘do you think you’ll always know what to expect from me?’” she questioned, altering her voice to imitate his low timber.

Ragnar tossed the stick aside and rubbed his palms together, brushing away the soot and ash. His movements were leisurely, almost deliberately so, which only annoyed Molly further when she was already feeling embarrassed by his presumption that her mind had been in the gutters.

“Well?” she pressed.

Ragnar shrugged, incorporating his hands as well as his face in the movement. “Is it not the truth? Who can claim that they know another so completely that they will always know what the other will do? As, uh, sweet as our meetings have been,” he smiled at her scowl, “they have been brief. Do you really think you know me as well as you think you do?”

She opened her mouth to give a remark about first impressions or something of that nature, when she hesitated. Her own first impressions were swiftly being supplanted by more amenable notions of her . . . not friend . . . companion. Her posture loosened slightly and, guilelessly, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear unaware of the way it drew his eye.

“I feel I must know you enough to trust you with the truth,” she admitted. “You’re the first person to know . . . any of this,” she said, initially searching for a word that could encompass her facts of life. “I don’t understand it, but you’re the first person that I felt I could share it with; no one else would’ve have understood, but you, somehow, seem to.” She quirked her brows, appreciatively curios.

Through the gloom and dull, red glow a gleam of benign teeth glinted as he smiled at her. “I always knew you were something more than you appeared,” he said, sounding vindicated. “I knew there was a reason for my safe-guarding your book – for you to be present in my mind, even when time continued and the possibility of ever finding you diminished; you never left me.”

Molly looked away, running her hands up her arms to hug her shoulders. She did not care to admit that she had experienced the same magnetizing thoughts towards him, though far less complimentary. Though, she supposed it was natural to have looked back on him; their first encounter was one of the most frightening moments of her life.

Cautiously, she turned back to him and was immediately confronted with the urge to yawn as she saw him indulging in his own. He did not miss her joining him.

“The hour is late,” he relented, sounding almost bitter by the fact. “You should get some sleep,” he advised her. Night had been with them for many hours, yet they seemed only now to be aware of the time.

“What about you? You have not slept since waking this morning.”

“I may shut my eyes, but don’t concern yourself. I am used to this more than you. Besides, you will need the rest for tomorrow; I have a number of questions I would ask you.”

“And I will do my best to answer them, but at present, you are the one with an injury and I am not. I’ll watch for now. I do not mind,” she added when she saw him preparing to counter. She reasoned that the likelihood of either of them finding much sleep was slim, but the few hours remaining to the night promised quiet introspection which she yearned for ere the next round of revelations began.

Molly stood, intent on switching places with Ragnar, and showing no signs of hesitance in taking his hands to help him up as she had originally. Again he stumbled, but only slightly, regaining his balance in the next second. She released her grip on him, though when he moved to step past her, she automatically brought a hand up to stop him, just grazing his chest before she dropped it again.

“I – uh, I just want to thank you,” with an effort, she managed to bring her eyes up to his, meeting them and reading in them a softness she had not thought him capable of achieving. She swallowed, suddenly very aware that her last vestiges of fear were leaving her as a new, even more frightening, emotion took its place. He was not touching her, as he promised he would not, but his gaze may as well have been a caress for the warmth she felt under its gaze. She cleared her throat. “You listened to me when I know no one else would have. You can’t know what that means to me,” she confessed. “You returned to me a part of myself I’d forgotten about and I must thank you for that.”

In response, Ragnar leaned down, bringing his face level with hers, their noses inches apart. Molly thought for a moment that he would break his word, yet she found herself too curious to back away.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” he posed to her instead.

Molly broke out into a wide grin, her teeth now the ones to gleam as she shook her head in amusement.

“Yes Ragnar Lothbrok, I suppose this means I must forgive you now – so long as you don’t try it again,” she added.

“Mmm,” he playfully groused, “that is a cruel thing to hold me to when you have made yourself even more valuable to me. You had better not smile too much,” he warned, “for I am want to lose all reason and do what I please should I see your smiling face near a boat.”

“You would have to tie me to the masthead for we both know I can swim,” she teased back.

“Don’t give me ideas. Where are you going?” he suddenly called when she abruptly turned to leave their cave.

“I thought I would search for the fairies and see if they know how I could return home.” At his arch brow she chuckled and told him truthfully that she had to relieve herself. When she returned, he was still standing, waiting. Without a word he limped past her and was swallowed by the night, likely to take care of a similar errand.

When he returned, she was already sitting, holding her legs close so that he could get by with as little difficulty as possible. From the darkened corners of the rear of the cave Molly heard his grunts, scuffles, and ultimate sighs as he lowered himself to the ground.

“Are you alright?” she felt compelled to ask.

“Fine,” he said, unconcerned.

A moment passed.

“Do you have songs from your time?” Ragnar’s voice came out from the gloom, contemplative, yet accommodating of a certain mischievous quality.

“I’m not going to sing one,” she replied immediately, not even bothering to look at him. She could, however, see his head perk up out of the corner of her eye.

“I did not ask you to,” a smile in his tone.

“You didn’t have to; I knew what you were leading to.”

“But you do have songs?” he urged, not giving up altogether.

“Of course we have songs,” she smiled at the ridiculousness. “A great many songs that would likely make you wish you were deaf. Music has evolved since the folk tune,” she told him wryly.

“You are not fond of music then?”

“On the contrary, I love music; in fact I used to love watching classic musicals with my mother. My father hated them!” she smiled, remembering. “He would walk in the room, hear Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire for a second, and make an about face. I think the only musical we ever managed to get him to sit down to was My Fair Lady. He knew Rex Harrison was in it and thought it would be a ‘decent’ movie as he termed it. He didn’t even get to ‘Wouldn’t it be Loverly’.”

Lost in her own memories once again, and not to mention the shadows that now enveloped Ragnar, Molly missed his puzzled expression. “You excel at saying much while revealing little.”

Molly laughed softly, understanding his plight. “My apologies, but it is difficult to translate something that hasn’t been invented yet.”

“I imagine it would be,” he considered, then added, “I envy you your knowledge; to know what will come after once all this is gone; once we here have all played our parts and are done.”

A brief silence stretched between them. In the distance, an owl screeched.

“Don’t envy me, Ragnar,” Molly quietly said at last. “You have the comfort of your time, even if you don’t appreciate it, while I often am adrift with only the cold comfort of memory to sooth me. My fate is not something to yearn for.”

Another, shorter, silence ensued, concluded this time by Ragnar.

“I will do my best to heed your warning Molly Hatch,” he said, a curious note to his voice. An unspoken sentiment hung in the air, trailing from Ragnar’s words, and without meaning to Molly waited for its release. It came as sigh of the wind, soft and coaxing. “But it would be easier if you were to stay with me,” he whispered.

Molly looked over her shoulder, seeking his gaze, but not even those pinpricks could be seen now in the gloom. Looking forward, Molly rubbed her arms.

“Sleep Ragnar, I will watch.”

#vikings #vikingfic #fanfiction #ragnar/OC #timetravel #adventure #romance #veil of time #ragnar lothbrok #ITYAS #fey #fey aspects

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202010731dci2021 · 3 years

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David Thacker's Adaptation of ‘A Doll’s House’

David Thacker and Realism

David Thacker’s 1992 television production of Henrik Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ replicates the theatrical naturalism that is evident in Ibsen’s original version, and uses realism to portray the life of a marginalised and oppressed member of society.

Realism is shown through Thacker’s use of authentic period furniture, specifically the cast iron stoves that appear in a corner in the hallway (Figure 1) and in the living-room (Figure 2).

Figure 1.

Libre, K. (2019).

Figure 2.

These stoves are specific to 19th century Norway, and so have intentionally been used by Thacker to indicate the setting and the time period that this adaptation is set in. However, the purpose of these stoves is purely decorative, as when Nora goes to make up the fire in the stove, she goes to this one (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

The position of this stove and the accompanying furniture is a part of the staging included in the original version by Ibsen, and so suggests that the others were included purely for historical context, and as part of the director’s own interpretation. This attention to detail by Thacker reinforces the realistic ideals that were prevalent at the time Ibsen wrote this play, as realism was utilised to create drama that was authentic, and that created the effect of the audience looking into their own homes to make them feel part of what they were watching, thus allowing them to see the inequalities and social issues within their own lives.

Costume

The costume choices for this adaptation reflect the clothes that would have been worn within this bourgeoisie society, as the dresses that were fashionable in the 1870s are described as having an “[…] elongated and tight bodice and a flat fronted skirt”, with “Low, square necklines […]” Victoria and Albert Museum (2016).

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

In Figures 4 and 5 above, you can clearly see both the tight-fitting bodice, and the low-cut, square neckline on Nora’s dress.

Figure 6.

What is also significant about this dress is its colour, as it’s the exact same shade of green as Torvald’s jacket (Figure 6) that we see right at the very beginning of Act 1. This costume choice foreshadows the ending of the adaptation with Nora’s speech, when she says, “You arranged everything according to your taste, and so it became my taste too […]” (A Doll’s House, 1992, 2:00:38-2:00:41). These ‘shared’ tastes are indicated through the matching colours of their outfits, and has been used by Thacker to reinforce Ibsen’s original idea that Nora is a character who has been controlled and moulded into the type of person that the men in her life have wanted her to be, thereby reflecting the 19th century social issues of gender inequality.

Figure 7.

Torvald’s costume (Figure 7) is also exceptionally accurate, specifically with his jacket, which is “[…] thigh length […]” and “[…] buttoned high on the chest” Victoria and Albert Museum (2016).

Original Staging

When ‘A Doll’s House’ was originally performed it would have used a stage with a proscenium arch. This created the effect of a photo frame that literally ‘framed’ the action, and made it so that the audience were looking inside this fictional house with its missing fourth wall, much like the fourth wall would be missing in an actual doll’s house. This created the effect of the characters being the audience’s dolls that they’d watch being moved about and ‘played’ with, in order to portray Ibsen’s desired effect.

Thacker’s adaptation means this type of stage is unable to be used, as it’s not being performed in a theatre. Instead, camera angles that allow the audience to feel like they’re following the characters through the house have been used, which still creates this feeling of being immersed in the drama, as seen here: https://www.youtubetrimmer.com/view/?v=ZJDnHQT2BDk&start=1667&end=1672

Single-Scene Analysis

The scene in Act 3 where Torvald reads the letter and everything that Nora has hidden from him comes to light, is one that handles the themes of conflict and identity. When he starts shouting for Nora and calls her a “miserable wretch” (1:49:30-1:49:31), the conflict begins, and we also see Torvald’s true identity during this scene.

While he’s shouting at Nora, we see how insensitive he is to her feelings, as well as how self-centred he is, especially when he says “[…] you’ve completely destroyed my happiness. You have ruined my whole future for me” (1:50:26-1:50:34). In this moment, we see how truly heartless Torvald is; he doesn’t even give her the opportunity to explain that she got herself into debt out of her love for him, and now, when she needs her husband’s support more than ever—as she knows she could be arrested for this—he completely disregards how she’s feeling about this, and instead starts panicking about what’s going to happen to him, and his future.

Figure 8.

This still (Figure 8) from the scene shows the Christmas tree in the background next to Torvald, and is symbolic of things coming to an end; Christmas day has passed, and the tree is dying, and now that Nora’s secret is out, her life of deception and of being controlled by Torvald is now also coming to an end.

The scene continues with Torvald reading Krogstad’s other letter that has Nora’s I.O.U. inside, and then exclaims “I’m saved, Nora! I’m saved!” (1:53:47-1:53:48). Again, he’s completely insensitive towards Nora, and only after being prompted by her does he add on “Yes, you too, of course” (1:53:52-1:53:53). In this moment, Nora sees Torvald for who he truly is. After burning the evidence, Torvald then says, “There’s nothing left now” (1:54:45-1:54:46), which refers to both the letter and their relationship, and foreshadows it’s end.

A crucial turning point in this scene is when Nora says, “I’m taking off this fancy dress” (1:56:21-1:56:23), which again has two interpretations: that she’s physically taking off her costume, and that she’s also taking down this façade that she’s created while being in this relationship. When she comes out of the room in her day clothes, Torvald remarks that she’s changed, to which she replies, “Yes, Torvald. I’ve changed” (1:58:03-1:58:05). This line holds so much power behind it, as it shows Nora is no longer going to be this submissive housewife, and that she’s also no longer going to be “his property” (1:57:23-1:57:24).

A part of this scene that effectively conveys Nora’s lack of identity is when Torvald says “First and foremost, you are a wife and mother” (2:03:45-2:03:48), to which Nora replies “I believe that first and foremost I am a human being” (2:03:50-2:03:52). Torvald believes Nora’s identity to be one that is built up of functionality, and in how useful she is to him. When Nora realises this, and decides that she wants to be seen as a person, and not as what her roles are in this society, she realises that she doesn’t have an identity at all, and that really alarms her; it’s at this point that she knows she has to get away from Torvald and live her own life, otherwise she won’t ever be seen as a person at all.

Overall, this is a powerful moment in the play, as not only does it show the themes of conflict and identity, but it also shows Nora’s inner conflict, due to her lack of identity.

References

Link to David Thacker’s 1992 television adaptation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDnHQT2BDk

Link to Victoria and Albert Museum website: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history-of-fashion-1840-1900/

Cover photo used on blog:

Libre, K. (2019).

Personal disclaimer for Tumblr: The subheadings were underlined however, Tumblr’s formatting doesn’t show this once the post becomes published.

#dci2021

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weilongguo · 4 years

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A Few Thoughts About World Cinema

Watching only American films and claiming to be a cinephile is like saying you’re a world traveler even though you’ve never left the United States. At least, after continued exposure to international films over the last few years, that has been my personal experience with cinephilia. In the last few weeks, I have had several encounters online with people who have dismissed non-English films. Their views range from “not interested” to an American exceptionalist attitude toward the whole concept of international cinema. I recently read comments in the official Turner Classic Movies group on Facebook, where members expressed their disdain for subtitles. A few acquaintances of mine recently voiced their disinterest in stories from other countries as well. And I know more than one individual who didn’t think Parasite should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture because it wasn’t made in the USA.

Whether it’s an aversion to something new, an unwillingness to read subtitles, or outright racism, one cannot exactly pinpoint a single reason behind this opinion. However, these conversations have prompted me to think about international cinema and what it means to me.

Even though I have always loved movies, I first began to realize that I knew nothing about them when I learned a shocking lesson: the United States does not produce the most films of any country, and some nations produce almost as many titles as Hollywood. India has the largest film industry in the world, making several hundred more films than America each year; the Nigerian film industry also releases more films than American studios. China, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, France, and Germany also make hundreds of films per year. Looking at the entire global marketplace, Hollywood accounts for only a modest percentage of the whole. Upon learning this, I began to ask myself: How can I claim to know anything about cinema when I don’t watch most of it? Even after watching hundreds, if not thousands of films from other countries in my lifetime, I still feel as though I have barely scratched the surface. To be sure, the film world is as diverse and multifaceted as the actual world: the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, whose samurai characters are among the most unforgettable; the understated comedy of French comedian Jacques Tati, who is in many ways the inverse of Charlie Chaplin; the life-affirming works of Satyajit Ray, the Indian director whose humanism and feminism transcends national borders; Senegal’s Ousmane Sembène, whose Moolaadé exposed me to the disturbing practice of female circumcisions. Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman, Jacques Becker, Agnes Varda, Federico Fellini, Masaki Kobayashi, Edward Yang—these are the names, some of them introduced to me through The Criterion Collection, that led me to explore world cinema, thus enabling me to explore the world through cinema.

Perhaps that feeds into why I take issue with the term “foreign film,” and by extension the somewhat more acceptable “international film,” which implies not only an American exceptionalism but an Otherness to the cinemas from other countries. Not only does the term implicate Hollywood cinema as central to the world but it diminishes the work of global filmmakers. I imagine that a similar line of thinking prompted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to change their category for “Best Foreign Language Film” to “Best International Feature” this year.

The history of cinema cannot be written without considering works from countries outside of the United States. Stylistically and narratively, Hollywood cinema would not have advanced the way it did without influences from Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the entire international network of national cinemas borrowing from one another, communicating with one another through artistic inspiration and homage. There wouldn’t have been The Magnificent Seven or A Fistful of Dollars without Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Yojimbo. The idiosyncrasies of Wes Anderson could not have developed without French New Wave directors François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard exploring the limits of cinema first. And we wouldn’t have the intimacy of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story without Swedish master Ingmar Bergman penetrating relationships in films like Scenes from a Marriage and Persona. The examples are endless.

Charting this cycle of influences between various nations, and therein the development of all film style, takes one on a journey around the world over a period spanning more than a century. By trying to outline these progressions as a viewer of international cinema, I realized as a young cinephile that film is a language whose grammar was written, and continues to evolve—not unlike linguistics—through an ongoing conversation between filmmakers the world over. All of which is to say that any accounting of a national or Hollywood cinema probably entails some investigation into its influences from other countries.

But American audiences, more than any other country in the world, remain jealously devoted to their own cinematic output. American theaters have far fewer imports from other countries—it’s quite rare to find a non-English film outside of arthouses, besides oddities such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Parasite—whereas films from the US dominate most international multiplexes. Hollywood’s dominion over the world market creates a kind of tunnel vision, where many audiences throughout the world are more versed in US movies than those made by their own countries.

The problem, as many postcolonial theorists have observed, is one of cultural colonization. Since the heyday of Classical Hollywood, American movies have immersed so many countries with exported product that local filmmakers have struggled to create a thriving national cinema of their own. If film is a product of a culture, then the spread and authority of Hollywood products in the international marketplace may diminish the local culture by crushing their films at the box office and Americanizing the audience. In fact, the problem of Hollywood films invading international theaters has resulted in some countries enacting laws that prevent Hollywood cinema from oversaturating the local marketplace. Even so, some countries have less than 20% of their own nation’s movies playing in their theaters at any given time. In all reality, Hollywood could not survive without the international marketplace; the major studios depend on the overseas box office to earn a profit.

Moreover, Hollywood’s dominance in world cinema has Westernized international filmmakers, who have learned the trade and craft by adopting a film grammar that was written in America. In some cases, making films that closely resemble something familiar and marketable to the American viewer is the only way filmmakers outside of the US have been able to find an audience and earn a profit, without which a national cinema cannot sustain itself. But let’s set aside the can of worms that is America’s cultural and economic colonization. I’ll just say how surprised I was when I started to watch works of 1930s French poetic realism, such as Marcel Carné’s Le jour se lève from 1939, and I noticed a striking similarity to many Warner Bros. gangster films starring James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Hollywood exports are so prevalent that other countries have emulated them in their own cinema, sometimes at the cost of developing their own unique styles and methods of screen storytelling.

Though many international films have drawn from the dominant Hollywood methods in the development of their own national cinemas, resulting in films that look and feel like Hollywood products, there are exceptions. Some international filmmakers have rebelled against the Hollywood mode of cinema with an oppositional style that dismisses Western visual and narrative archetypes in favor of something wholly distinct. Some of these international styles progressed naturally after the introduction of the film medium at the turn of the last century, as directors experimented with editing, camera placement, and formal intention. Sergei Eisenstein in Russia redefined film grammar through his development of montage, most famously applied to Battleship Potemkin (1925), by experimenting with how editing can imply an action between the cuts. Without Eisenstein, for instance, we wouldn’t have the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho; Hollywood would still be shooting movies like a sitcom, with one or two cameras pointed at a stage.

Elsewhere, filmmakers throughout Cuba and South America deviated from the Hollywood style as an act of political rebellion, a rejection of capitalism and American imperialism. Their use of cinema was not commercial; it was a statement designed to carve out an identity of their own. In the 1968 Cuban film Memories of Underdevelopment, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea experimented with narrative structure and editing to convey a sense of social alienation, a reflection of his country’s national isolation. It’s a film that you sense wasn’t made to sell tickets; it was meant to inflame a culture. And yet, it uses techniques such as open-air location shooting, unprofessional actors, and disenfranchised character types like those found in Italian Neorealism films of the 1940s. Both of these Italian and Cuban styles would later find a place in American independent cinema of the early 2000s, such as Kelly Reichardt’s stripped-down style in Wendy and Lucy.

By adopting Western styles of filmmaking, however, international filmmakers deny themselves the potential of creating their own film grammar unique to their culture. Only a few isolated examples, such as India and Nigeria, have seen their local industry succeed in a cultural bubble, with relatively few exports of their own, a limited number of Hollywood films, and a devoted national audience. Watching films from “Bollywood” and “Nollywood,” you will find cinemas that play by different rules. They’re not trying to imitate Hollywood standards, and there’s simply no comparison to anything the average American viewer is familiar with. Watch a three-hour Bollywood musical and you discover an aesthetic with a fragmented tempo, chaotic plotting, and hyper-stimulated energy. Search Netflix for 2003’s Koi… Mil Gaya—a hilariously strange film with music, aliens, dirt bike racing, basketball, and dancing—and you’ll have some idea what I mean.

What I have discovered after years of exploring international cinema is not surprising. Film style may deviate and distinguish itself from country to country, but humanity remains constant, blended. Aside from geographical lines and our personal sense of location, these films showcase identities that cannot help but resemble our own. Rather than reaching for universality or pandering to an American audience to achieve commercial success, as some of the most hollow international films do, films with an unsubmissive cultural specificity draw curious viewers and expose new ideas, new empathies, and new perspectives. And yet, the international film becomes inextricable from the Hollywood film given enough exposure; the connections between them are multifarious.

These remarks may not convince the xenophobic or the lazy. But in my experience, if you let your cinephilia expand with a freedom that holds no prejudice against borders, or subtitles, it all becomes one big cinema with countless distinctions and possibilities, no less diverse or worth exploring than the many gradations among human beings.

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doomonfilm · 4 years

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Review : The Irishman (2019)

As iconic a director as Martin Scorsese is, most modern-day film fans only know him for one thing : his statement about Marvel movies not being cinema. Nevermind the classic run he had from Mean Streets to Shutter Island, or his immeasurable influence on cinema of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, many have just written him off as a bitter old man whose time has come and gone. Scorsese, however, clearly has no plans on relinquishing his influential grasp on cinema, as he teamed up with Netflix to save his current passion project, The Irishman.

As Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) sits in a nursing home, he recounts his times connected to the Bufalino family and their criminal exploits. Sheeran reflects upon his time as a hitman for Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), the way that his lifestyle impacted his family relationships, and his close relationship with the iconic Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). As the years pass, Sheeran watches his friends succumb to the evils of the world... some pass at the hands of others, and some die of natural causes. Eventually, Sheeran attempts to reconcile his damaged family ties in the wake of his impending death.

The Irishman is a return to form for a director that is widely known as a master of his craft. While Scorsese does have range in regards to the stories he tells, no other director can tell crime family and mafioso stories quite like he can, and this film is a testament to his ability to tell these stories masterfully from decade to decade. While many of his previous mafia films have been based on real people and contain references to real-life events, The Irishman takes on one of the most notorious figures in the form of the giant that is Jimmy Hoffa, so Scorsese pulls out all the stops in regards to his bag of tricks. Iconic actors and actresses are cast as legendary figures of the criminal underworld, with referential footnotes provided for bigger picture context in regards to what roles they played and how long they lived, which parallels to both the film’s massive run-time and the irony of Frank Sheeran outliving everyone despite how dirty his hands became. Scorsese’s affinity for outsiders becoming deeply immersed in the worlds he illustrates is heavily present as well, as Sheeran becomes connected in ways that no non-Italian was previously allowed, or probably allowed since.

The Scorsese and DeNiro tandem has presented some fascinating character studies over the years, and The Irishman continues this tradition. This time around, we are presented with story of a man that is locked into the ideas of honor and loyalty for what many would consider a dishonorable lifestyle. It is never really made clear whether or not his motivations lie in something that Sheeran is missing as a former soldier, or something closer to an adoration for the figures that populate the world of the Mafia, but what is certainly clear is that whatever motivation it may be drives Sheeran nearly to the point of blind devotion for figures that fought epic, life-altering battles over minor personal squabbles and power games. This, however, does not mask the fact that the influence these men had changed the course of American history on more than one occasion, and Sheeran essentially played fixer to anyone who would not accept their role in this drastic course changing. As previously mentioned, the narrative irony lies in the fact that near the end of his life, all of the figures that Sheeran looked up to passed away, and all that he was left with were his memories of a time that most people are unaware of or care little about (other than for entertainment value), and he is forced to live this life in solitude due to the way that his choices fractured his relationship with his family.

Scorsese is a man that does not stray far from the tools that he has established to tell stories, and much of his familiar visual and sonic language is present in The Irishman. First and foremost, the soundtrack is solid from front to back, putting you in the proper state of mind for both mood and timeframe with each musical cue that is presented. His long steadycam shots are also present, though they are much more methodical in nature rather than used for show. Scorcese hearkens back to films like Goodfellas with his portrayal of stylized violence and explosions of classic cars, and at times, even frenetic cuts or camera moves that create a sense of uneasiness. Honestly, at this point, Scorsese fans know what to expect from him, and luckily, his skill has not dulled with age. The one (minor) knock I could give the film is that the de-aging, while shaving a few years off of the actors face, does not hide the fact that these men are older, very similar to how Samuel L. Jackson still moved like an old man in Captain Marvel, despite movie magic turning back the clock on his face and hair.

The combination of DeNiro, Pesci and Pacino is powerful and palatable, as the moments shared between the combinations of actors and the given scenarios leap off the screen... DeNiro especially shines, as he has always had an innate ability to communicate worlds of information strictly through the ways that his eyes convey a thought process. Seeing actors like Ray Romano and Bobby Cannavale in this movie makes me wish they’d been around for the older Scorsese films. Anna Paquin does a good job of manifesting the fractured nature of the family, and her chemistry with Pacino is interesting, but works well. Harvey Keitel manages to use his presence to great effect, opting to use minimal dialogue and implement a steady, intimidating gaze. Stephanie Kurtzuba and Kathrine Narducci make their presence known around DeNiro and Pacino without sacrificing themselves as tropes or caricatures. Jesse Plemons does what he does, but it also works, despite his looks making him stand out from the rest of those present in the film. Jack Huston steps firmly into the shoes of RFK, as does Sebastian Maniscalco in his wonderful portrayal of Crazy Joe (who I wouldn’t mind seeing in his own film). The cast is stacked from top to bottom, and performances of note include Welker White, Domenick Lombardozzi, Paul Herman, Louis Cancelmi, Gary Basaraba, Marin Ireland, Steven Van Zandt, Bo Dietl, Daniel Jenkins, Paul Ben-Victor, plus cameos from Jim Norton, Action Bronson, Patrick Gallo and Jake Hoffman.

As much as folks do not appreciate Scorsese’s views on what does or does not constitute cinema, having films like The Irishman is his oeuvre certainly validates any opinion he chooses to share. If you can manage to set aside the three-plus hours this film demands of your attention, I highly recommend diving in.

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paul-tudor-owen · 5 years

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The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen – reviews

My novel The Weighing of the Heart was nominated for the Guardian Not the Booker Prize. Here are some of the reviews from people who kindly voted for it.

You can buy the book here.

Beth Parry

Vote 1: Paul Tudor Owen, The Weighing of the Heart

Funny, moving and captivating all at once; a beautiful enactment of the unusual adventures that materialise from seemingly ordinary twists and turns in life. Owen is a brilliant observer of people and their deepest instincts.

Lualabear

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen

- This story of obsession, crime and mystery pulls you along with its fast-paced plot and unexpected twists and clever ending. The book has sparked an ongoing debate between me and my partner, which is a good sign of a successful book. Is the protagonist Nick a reliable narrator? Is it Nick who is leading Lydia or the other way round? Do people in the Big Apple really eat out so much?

Tudor Owen has a distinctive voice and throughout he conjours up a compelling vision of New York. He is clearly a writer who knows and loves the city and it shines through in this confident debut.

Plus it has characters called the Peacock sisters. What's not to like?

Christina456

VOTE 1:

Paul Tudor Owen: The Weighing of the Heart

A love story with a twist, set in NYC, beautifully written. Wonderful debut novel, real page turner, that I thoroughly enjoyed. I learned a lot about ancient Egyptian mythology and loved the mood, the characters and the New York feeling the book conveys.

davegat

Vote 1 - Paul Tudor Owen - The Weighing of the Heart

I read TWOTH in a single sitting - I found the plot so intriguing and the central character so engaging that, clichéd as this sounds, I couldn't put it down. As this Auster-esque tale unfolded, I began to question a lot of what I’d initially taken for granted about Nick Braeburn, the aptly (and appley) named Englishman struggling for success in the Big Apple, and needed to read parts of it twice. This stunning debut novel has much to recommend it, but something I particularly liked was the research the author had done into ancient Egyptian art, which took me back to childhood visits to the museum in Manchester - the hometown that Nick, Paul and I all left behind.

ID9836338

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart, by Paul Tudor Owen

A great debut novel by an author who's managed to bring a lot of different threads in to one short but gripping story. New York comes to life in a way I've not experienced before and the readers relationship with the protagonist is as curious as the plot he leads. A wonderful read.

Carolinechatwin

VOTE 1: Paul Tudor Owen: the weighing of the heart.

Owen’s debut novel pushes all the right buttons. The characters are well drawn and the author makes effective use of anecdotes from the protagonist’s life to draw the reader in and keep them interested. What begins as a light hearted romance set against the backdrop of NYC, ends as something darker and more troubling. I stumbled across it my accident in an Islington local bookshop and read it in one sitting. Recommended!

Wutheredangel

1. The weighing of the heart by Paul Tudor Owen is a haunting and unusual exploration of the psyche of a young man in New York. It’s a psychological love story with a dark side. But at the same time it’s funny, engagingly readable, and brimming with enthusiasm for the New York lifestyle.

MariCarmen89

Vote 1 - The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen. The plot was so gripping that I read the whole book in 2 days. Bringing together the art world, ancient mythology, a deep love and admiration for New York City and all it represents, complex literary techniques and engaging dialogue, this debut novel is a must-read!

Metropolitan247

Vote 2- Weighing of the Heart - Paul Tudor Owen - great insight into New York!

Ankahu

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen. Fabulous debut novel! Was immersed in the intriguing storyline. Loved the ancient Egyptian mythology which interweaves with the modern day New York the characters inhabit. You walk the streets of New York with the protagonist and really want things to work out for him. Excited to read more by this author.

Ahh6356

VOTE 1 - The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen (Obliterati Press)

Review of the Weighing of the Heart

This book draws in the reader from the start and keeps the pace throughout. The author cleverly reveals more about his main character as the story progresses, while keeping you guessing until the end. Characters are very well drawn and the descriptions of New York make it easy to picture the surroundings. The story combines crime, mystery and humour and is a great read.

JenniferJuan

Vote 1

The Weighing Of The Heart by Paul Tudor Owen

It's difficult to believe that this is the author's first novel sometimes. He does a great job of bringing New York to wherever the reader is, and helping them to fall in love with it, the way that he has. There is clearly a lot of passion that has gone into this book, and it is a fresh take on the clasdic New Yorker novel.

LyndseyR23

My vote is for Paul Tudor Owen – The Weighing of the Heart (Obliterati Press) I was captivated by the authors rich descriptions of New York, the tenuous relationship between the two main characters and the Ancient Egyptian motifs that occur throughout. Owen does a brilliant job of, little by little, offering deeper glimpses into the mind of the protagonist - Nick Braeburn - and effortlessly distorts reality as Braeburn begins to unravel. Compelling and original writing from a truly promising author.

KevRichardson

Vote 1. The Weighing Of The Heart by Paul Tudor Owen

A unique, New York set thriller-cum-romance-cum-art heist novel about a young Englishman who rents a room from elderly, wealthy New Yorker sisters ,and persuades a Portuguese woman who is renting another room to help him steal a priceless piece of art from them. Very much in the traditional of classic New Yorker novels and highly recommended.

Anna Helen Pickering

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart, Paul Tudor Owen

The Weighing of the Heart is a love story and a mystery. Lightly comical in parts its grip increases as the story progresses and the lives of the initially-aloof characters become more and more entwined. The descriptions of place and people are evocative and sweep you into the New York world of the characters, making us wonder if we would do the same thing if the opportunity presented itself.

NotJohnWayne

VOTE #1: "The Weighing of the Heart."

A classy, stylish novel about love, crime, art and madness. Gripped me from the first sentence and I honestly couldn't put it down.

2raggedclaws

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen.

The story of deviant artist Nick Braeburn and his pursuit of his desires amidst the old money of New York's Upper East Side had me gripped instantly. This is a shockingly assured first novel; funny, thrilling and hallucinatory, with echoes of the most enjoyable elements of Highsmith and Dostoyevsky. I didn't come away trusting Nick, or wanting him anywhere near my life, but I deeply missed inhabiting his world. I couldn't ask for more in a book.

RachelELane

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart, by Paul Tudor Owen.

Review of The Weighing of the Heart: Set in New York, and told through the narration of main character Nick Braeburn, Paul Tudor Owen weaves an impressive tale of New York possibilities, Ancient Egyptian art, and a passionate but fragile love affair. Emboldened by a seemingly straightforward opportunity to improve their lot, Nick and artist, Lydia, commit a crime that all at once realises their desires and triggers the steady crumbling of everything, including their relationship and perception of what's real.

This book is written so authentically, and pulls you in so completely, that it becomes almost oppressive, and despite it being a compelling page-turner, I had to put it down and walk away at one point because I was too stressed with how things were unfolding. To elicit that response from a reader in a debut novel is talent indeed, and I eagerly await the next offering from Paul Tudor Owen. A fabulous read.

Ellelong1

My first vote is for The Weighing of the Heart.

I loved being swept away to New York, its excitement and thrill and darker undercurrents. The narrator is a brilliant addition to the literary strand of outsiders who’ve told their tales of life in the City. As Nick Braeburn’s story unfolds, the author conjures that feeling of never quite being able to own New York, to make it yours and know it completely; and in a neat parallel the reader begins to wonder whether Nick is telling the truth, or whether he is as inscrutable as the city he loves.

I also really enjoyed the use of Ancient Egyptian imagery, which ushered in vague memories of primary school history and seems to tie in neatly with periods of New York’s architectural history, with so many key buildings built on classical and monumental lines. The painting at the heart of the book became so real to me that I sneakily searched for the artist on the internet – I love being convinced that a real-world element has found its way into a book.

The twists and turns of the plot make it a compelling and fast-paced read – highly recommended.

passionaria

My first vote goes toThe Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen (Obliterati Press), the story of a young English man in New York, his first relationship and how it ends and the move to rent an apartment from two elderly ladies who seem to be a bit “Grey Gardens” and slightly sinister. He meets and falls in love with a beautiful fellow lodger who is an artist. He works in a gallery and we learn a lot about the NY art world, and about the Egyptology that has always been Nick’ passion, and which he finds his landladies share. They hatch a wicked plot that ultimately leads to their downfall and brushes with NY’s seamy underbelly. There are hints throughout the book, but the ending came as a complete shock to me and took my breath away. I don’t want to say anything that might be a spoiler, so please read it for yourself.

AMichaelKay

Vote 1. The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen (Obliterati Press).

A beautifully written debut novel about a young Englishman, Nick, living in an Upper East Side apartment in New York. His mysterious landladies, the Peacock sisters and the other tenant, Lydia, have an increasing effect on his life as things take a sinister turn. I particularly liked the way Nick's state of mind took on a dream like quality as things started to unravel for him. The intrigue and suspense continue right to the end. I also liked the Egyptology references throughout the book. Highly recommended.

GGID2080179

First vote - Paul Tudor Owen – The Weighing of the Heart (Obliterati Press)

I loved reading this fantastically paced novel. The main character begins to unravel as the novel develops and the stakes continually increase. The plot is beautifully linked with Egyptology that adds a fascinating dimension and I loved the portrayal of the New York that Nick and Lydia inhabit. I was totally gripped and loved every minute of reading this. I particularly enjoyed the final third of the book as things really start to unravel for Nick and his grip loosens on his world. I’m really looking forward to reading more from the author in the future.

allen twyning

Vote 1 - Paul Tudor Owen - the weighing of the heart. A heartfelt tribute to the Big Apple. Owen in his debut novel gives us a touching almost palpable account of his times in New York. Emotions are raw as we explore the city through his eyes. The relationships explored throughout the book feel genuine and any reader can tell this is a true labour of love for the author. It’s an incredible piece of work and leaves the reader eager to see what this promising young author does next. Truly incredible.

jjsmclaughlin

VOTE 1: The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen (Obliterati Press)

The Weighing of the Heart is so compulsively readable that everyone I lent it to, like me, read it in no more than a day and a half. The story rattles along at a feverish pace, which sort of mirrors the narrator's thoughtless way of living. It's also very funny. It's supposed to be a mystery, but the reader is duped as much as the characters. Kinda reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis; Funny, absurd and mischievous.

Susi51

Vote 1, Paul Tudor Owen, The Weighing of the Heart.

Wow a fabulous debut novel, I loved it. It is definitely a page turner, I read it in two days! It is an intriguing and tense mystery with characters that really draw you in. Set in modern day New York with ancient Egyptian mythology, there are twists and turns and some humour. The main character is a young English man, Nick, who soon becomes obsessed with a The Weighing of the Heart piece of art work and wants it at any cost!!!! I can't say anymore without giving the whole story away. After the introduction of the art work in the book I checked to see if it was really ancient Egyptian mythology. Oh my, it is, obsession is not good!!!

Isobellong

Vote 1: Paul Tudor Owen - The Weighing of the Heart.

A pleasure to read from cover to cover - at once thrilling and thought-provoking. What appears to be an already intriguing love story becomes a cinematic journey through New York, the representation of which perfectly describes its timelessness.

A must read.

MrHandsomeBWonderful

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen (Obliterati)

Really enjoyed this book - very accomplished for a first-time novelist. Difficult to review without giving too much away, but the central character, Nick, is very well drawn and convincing as a narrator, with just enough glimpses beyond what he's saying to give you pause, and lead you on in the story. I think it would merit a re-read just to pick up on the clues once you've finished the book. I enjoyed the author's ear for dialogue, and particularly, given Nick's 'Englishman in New York' remove from a stable set of peers, overheard phrases that he chooses to write down - I've not seen this done before and it's very effective. There's a wry sense of humour that permeates the book, which makes the change in tone as the book goes on more jarringly effective. There's also a slightly dreamy, ethereal quality that's reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides or Emma Cline, and the pacing is very Patricia Highsmith in terms of propelling the reader to the end.

alexbuxton

Vote 1 - The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen

A tour de force of a book. Paul Tudor Owen not only has an excellent middle name, but also a gift for storytelling that makes this a real joy to read. As he's the writer, not me, I won't make this too long, but would simply urge you to read this now. Your summer will thank you for it. Evoking a stylish, at times menacing, New York, and bringing to mind all sorts of crime noir books but with an oh so original take, this gripped me from start to finish. As sexy and otherworldly as a book rooted in the very real world can be. No mean feat.

ArabellaFT

VOTE 1 - 'The Weighing of the Heart' by Paul Tudor Owen

I very much enjoyed this excellent debut novel. It's not a standard crime story, and it develops into an engrossing mystery as the reader begins to question the motivations of the characters and whether all is really as it seems. It has a slightly dreamlike quality, which works well with the references to Ancient Egyptian mythology. This is a book that can be read and re-read, there's so much attention to detail and the characters are each fascinating in their own way.

Tudor Owen

(1) The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen.

An exciting read this, as we ponder the reliability of the narrator, the tension of the crime and whether we (the parents of the author) appear in any thinly disguised form in the narrative. We don't and so we VOTE for this book. David and Sue Owen

simplicitydrifter

Tudor Owen

Have a recommend for your refreshing honesty.

MrKelly2u

VOTE 1: THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART by PAUL TUDOR OWEN

Original plot, perfectly pitched atmosphere and a great premise. Excellent read.

gpwigglesworth

Vote 1: Paul Tudor Owen – The Weighing of the Heart (Obliterati Press) I loved this book. A young man moves to New York and fortuitously takes up residence in a stylish apartment with 2 elderly sisters. What follows is a tale of art, love and theft with a touch of madness - all set withing the brilliantly realised bustle of New York City. This is an excellent debut from a very talented writer. There are echoes of Donna Tartt (no bad thing of course) though this is very much it's own book. I like a book that keeps you guessing keeps you enthralled and this certainly does that. I look forward to Mr Tudor Owen's next tome!

kkumaria

My vote goes to Paul Tudor Owen’s The Weighing of the Heart (by Obliterati), which - in addition to being wonderfully evocative of the energy of New York for the twenty-something - brilliantly builds a thrilling tale of obsession and recklessness.

pauldhull

I would like to vote for The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen. I rattled through this debut novel in a few days. A well paced plot and a page-turner in the best sense of the term. The ending also left me satisfied and avoided sentimentalism. Covering modern life in New York and Ancient Egypt there is something for everyone here.

stevetamburello

Vote:

1 The Weighing of the Heart - Paul Tudor Owen

Review:

I've never been to New York but within a few pages I was fully immersed in the city through the eyes of Nick Braeburn, as he finds his place in the New World in the spirit of the great American novels like Catcher in the Rye or On the Road. But before you realise, it all takes a less than ideal turn. The constant presence of the Egyptian gods added an interesting layer to the story and there's plenty to mull over when the book is done. A writer to watch..

Richard Luscombe

Vote 1: The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen

Review of The Weighing of the Heart: This is a brisk-paced modern New York tale spun around an art "heist" with a difference. Two young expat artists trying to find their way in the Big Apple meet and fall in love and chance upon an opportunity to cheat their wealthy landladies... but at least one of the young lovers may not be exactly who they seem and their ingenious scam stands on the edge of discovery. In his debut novel Paul Tudor Owen paints a vivid picture of NYC's art scene blended with a colorful dive into Egyptian mythology.

anna88

Vote: The Weighing of the Heart, Paul Owen

The debut novel from Paul Owen is illustrative and captivating. Set in New York, the reader is immersed in the life of Englishman Nicholas Braeburn. Much of the city is left behind as the novel is largely set in the mysterious setting of the grand yet dilapidated house of the Peacock sisters. Nick's existence appears somewhat simple and romantic on the surface. However, this simplicity is gradually eroded throughout the novel. One action turns Nick's life around, changing the pace and feel of the second half of the book. With echos of Donna Tartt, this page turner is a must read. Really looking forward to seeing more from Paul Owen!

patmayne

Vote 1 - 'The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen (Obliterati Press)' I can't believe this is the Author's first novel. Set in New York, it captures the style and feel of the City as majestically as anything I've read by such literary luminaries as Auster, Tartt and Salinger. Beautifully written, accessible language and a slightly phantasmagorical story line (that taught me more about ancient Egyptian mythology than any school trip to a museum did!) this book deals with love, betrayal, identity and the age old question of the American Dream. I'd certainly recommend that you give it a go and I personally cannot wait to read more!

Bookphace

2nd VOTE for Paul Tudor Owen's The Weighing of the Heart. An impressive debut novel, it's economic prose but the overall sense is one of richness and substance with a finely woven plot and some balanced and contrasting characterisations.

#paul tudor owen #the weighing of the heart #reviews #book reviews #ancient egypt #new york city #novels

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the-apocryphal-one · 5 years

Text

Novel Review: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

I’m sorry, but when you open up your book with that paragraph, intentionally invoking and subverting typical fairy tale tropes with a fun tongue-in-cheek narration...you’ve got me hooked. And if you get me hooked like that, you’d better follow through. And this book did. Hot damn it was good. I binged it in a day.

Apparently the author used to write fanfiction; it shows, because she took away all the good lessons you learn from it and left behind the bad parts. Uprooted is a stand-alone medieval fantasy with a refreshingly original tale and lovely use of fairy tale tropes and you should definitely check it out.

Summary: Once a decade, the Dragon comes and Chooses a single girl from the valley he protects as payment. Agnieszka (Nieshka for short) doesn’t worry about being taken; she worries about her beautiful, talented, perfect best friend Kasia, who everyone knows will be Chosen. But for a reason Nieshka can’t fathom, the Dragon picks her instead, and she gets sucked into a world that is dark and horrifying...but not in the ways you’d expect it to be.

Spoiler-free cliffnotes review:

- After a while, YA female protagonists start to get cookie-cutter. Nieshka is not at all cookie-cutter; she’s unique, sweet, and genuinely flawed. I never found myself irritated with her, and I kept getting prouder and prouder of her as she grew into her own.

- Likewise, YA romances tend to be cookie-cutter and feel shallow or lust-based. And don’t get me started on the love triangles. But thankfully, there are no love triangles here, and the romance is background, slow-burn emotional goodness. Bonus points for neither lead being hot; they’re actually kind of plain. Poor Nieshka especially gets called horse-faced and nothing special to look at.

- The other characters are all developed well; Kasia, the wizards at court, the royals, the antagonists, they all have their own distinct personalities and motivations. And boooooooy I love Nieshka’s friendship with Kasia, it is Good and Strong and we need more platonic relationships like that in literature.

- Worldbuilding was enticing, I was genuinely interested in the different legends and histories and songs. Downside is the world itself felt a little confusing in terms of layout; nothing that created a plot hole, but I could have used a map.

- Novik’s prose is beautiful, and especially shines when she’s creating atmosphere, but can be a bit too long at times. It definitely slowed me down while I was reading.

- She’s great at pacing and tension. The stakes start small but important, and then they grow a little larger, and then they just spiral up and up and more and more is at risk and I kept holding my breath waiting to see how the heroes would get through it this time.

...And have the spoiler version below the cut:

The Gushing:

- honestly I love Nieshka because she is just so unlike your typical YA protagonist. A lot of them are cold, brave, loner-types who don’t need help. Nieshka’s a self-admitted coward, genuinely clumsy (she’s always dirty from spilling stuff on herself and tripping), and anxious...but also a big sweetheart, idealistic, and kinda spacey. Like the Dragon took her to teach her magic, and she keeps thinking about how restrictive it is. Then she starts thinking about it in terms of wandering through the woods not knowing what she’s looking for, but she’ll know when she finds it, and she’s picking berries in her head, and suddenly: boom, magic. And the Dragon is furious because that’s too unorganized, what do you mean woods there aren’t any woods here, how are you doing it????

- it is essentially Wizard vs Sorcerer, to put it in DnD terms, only she is the only Sorceress in a world of Wizards and they can’t. get. it. it’s hilarious. (but she also can’t do their stuff, she has all the power without the precise control. They’re all stronger working together, so it’s not “super specialness”, it’s a fair trade)

- Delicious slow-burn, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance, yum. It’s written subtly and beautifully; I love the detail when she stops thinking of the Dragon by his title and starts thinking of him by his name. You just see the relationship changing without being told it is.

- speaking of, I love the Dragon. He’s laid out as nuanced and “not a bad lord” from the start--protective of his vassals, enough to personally step in to help them, but also extremely distant. He thinks of the needs of the many vs the few, he’s grumpy, he never socializes, and he demands a sacrifice of a girl every decade--just to clean his tower, but everyone thinks the worst because he doesn’t do anything to make them think otherwise. So no one likes him except in that local proud “he’s our lord” way. And he keeps getting taken off-guard by Nieshka (again: “HOW ARE YOU CASTING LIKE THAT?!”) in a way that’s kind of adorable.

- Nieshka's profession at the end is becoming a druid-type healer. I LOVE THAT. there’s like some stigma against women doing feminine things in YA literature, and Nieshka just goes for it. She has the power to be a war-witch, and she’s used her magic that way, but she hated seeing battle and death. She goes “nope, I’m gonna peace out and heal the damage caused by this war.”

- I love how Nieshka knows the Dragon is gonna run from their relationship and decides she’s not gonna beg him to stay bc he needs to figure that out for himself. If he doesn’t come back, she’ll be sad, but she’ll move on. Her life doesn’t revolve around him, that’s refreshing, and it makes the moment he does come back (bc of course he does) that much better.

- Nieshka and Kasia’s friendship is the Good Shit, they’re just completely devoted to each other and it’s not at all framed in a romantic way. ACTUALLY their platonic love is the central relationship of the story instead of the romance, and I LOVE THAT, because romance shouldn’t be The Only And The Biggest bond in our life. But they also have their secret envies and hurts, but their friendship just grows stronger for it??? it’s just so good???

- Okay, for some non-Nieshka things (but seriously I love her), how about the side characters? They’re never reduced to “stop mattering when the hero leaves the screen”, they get motivations explained and other facets of their character explored. Alosha the witch-blacksmith, the Dragon’s rival the Falcon, KASIA, Prince Marek. Marek is like the perfect shadow archetype of Nieshka, they both really want to save someone they love from the Wood, they both refuse to quit, and it’s just plain bad luck that his quest was doomed from the start. So even though she hates what he does, she understands why he’s doing it, and admits she might well have done the same in his shoes.

- The Wood is terrifying. Novik uses a lot of pretty descriptive words in her narration that borders on flowery at points, but when it comes to the Wood, it underlines how horrific that place is. At one point, the Wood corrupts Kasia, and she describes sap seeping out of her eyes and mouth and I gagged reading it. Or here, take this paragraph:

“I could see light shining through my own skin, making a blazing lantern of my body, and when I held up my hands, I saw to my horror faint shadows moving there beneath the surface. Forgetting the feverish pain, I caught at my dress and dragged it off over my head. He knelt down on the floor with me. I was shining like a sun, the thin shadows moving through me like fish swimming beneath the ice in winter.”

- yes thank you I really needed the imagery of living evil fish swimming under someone’s skin in my life (translation: beautiful prose but ahhhh!)

- plus the Wood is alive and incredibly smart. It spends the whole book playing speed chess and keeping you double-guessing every apparent victory the heroes have. Combined with the supernatural/horror aspects, it really feels like an eldritch and dreadful force of nature.

- there are like three books’ worth of plot in this one, but they all get developed and paced well. there’s just so much content, and it’s varied and exciting and gripping--training with the Dragon, rescues in the Wood, courtly intrigue, a siege on a tower, kickass magic battles, and The Big Final Mission which ends in a way I don’t want to spoil, even in the spoiler section.

Critiques:

- I really wish Novik included a map of the land, because I just kept getting confused where everything was. At first I was under the impression the Dragon’s tower was to the west, closest to the Wood; then it and the Wood turned out to be in the east? And the capital is...north, northwest of that? But then why are Nieskha and Kasia crossing mountains to get to the Dragon’s tower in the south, the mountains are in the east too, dividing them from Rosya, right??? where even is everything??????? it’s possible I was a dumbell and just misread/misremembered stuff, but that’s why a map would have been helpful.

- Novik’s writing style is beautiful, it’s fairy tale-esque and fits the setting...but once in a while it’s too much, you know? She really, really wants you immersed in the physical sensations of the world she created, and in cases like the Woods, it works well to convey the sheer monstrosity of the place. In other cases, it feels kinda like a slog; there’s one point where she writes at length about the pattern of a carpet. How interesting.

- Usually in YA fiction, the heroine doesn’t care about her parents or vice versa. Thankfully that’s averted here, but Nieshka mentions she has three brothers...who she doesn’t really think or care about. There’s a nice scene when she first arrives at the tower and starts crying about how she’s lost her parents, but her brothers? Nada. They don’t even get names or show up, with no explanation; at the very least a line about how they’re so much older than her that they’re not close would have satisfied me, but there’s nothing like that. It’s not huge, but it’s jarring.

- while I love the Dragon and Nieshka’s emotional relationship, I do admit the physical aspects felt sudden. Novik basically has it so that magically working together creates a charged intimacy between them, and the first time it happened I loved it because it seemed like it was gonna be ‘the gateway’ to more. Instead, it kind of ends up a crutch for their physical relationship. It’s like “slow burn, slow burn, magic, KISSAGE, slow burn, slow burn, magic, SEX”.

#book review #uprooted #book rec

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flutejesus · 6 years

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Interview With Composer Eric Britt

@ericbrittmusic @the-versatile-composer

What got you started in composition?

I used to be obsessed with soundtracks, so obsessed that I wanted to get into the field. I tried my hand at it little by little in high school. My production rate improved in the first half of college, and by the second half I was writing constantly.

What encourages you to keep at it?

I trust in myself. I don’t let any defeating thoughts get in my way or discourage me. Even when I had only just started, I was always proud of the work I was doing. Why? Because I was comparing myself to my own progress. It’s extremely important you measure your improvement that way rather than comparing yourself to industry leaders.

What about the art is most appealing to you?

Music, film scores especially are a form of nonverbal communication. Whether it be on screen or in a concert hall, the music almost always conveys a message that could only be told by music. For me personally, it’s one of the most effective ways I communicate the purpose of a piece or my thoughts.

What kind of classes have you taken?

Music Theory I-IV, Post-tonal analysis, orchestration, conducting, music history I-II. Aside from the obvious essentials for composition, music history is an important part of learning how to compose. By immersing yourself in different eras, it betters your ability to write. May it be form, melodic structure, or trying to emanate a certain time period, its importance is underestimated.

Did you take any music theory courses or music lessons before college?

I took two years of music theory in high school, as well as piano lessons for most of my life. Having never played in an ensemble before college, I faced some difficulty in understanding effective form and structure of traditional classical music. I learn as I went when I got to college.

What was your major, and what was your experience in relation to music and composition in college?

I was music composition/music business. My experience in composition in college was largely dedicated to writing for live performances. College is a ripe environment to have people play your original compositions, mostly in part because they will likely do it for free. Influence also plays an important role. You want people on your side.

Are you working on any projects now?

I am currently writing the music for the video game Underspace, set to be commercially released on Steam later this year. Aside from that, I write music for orchestra, typically with a cinematic approach which I release digitally.

How do you advertise yourself?

I believe the right amount of humility is important in advertising. I used to advertise in a fairly arrogant manner, and it got me nowhere. What I learned from it is that you can be proud of your work without thinking it’s the greatest thing ever. Advertise it accordingly. There is however a point where you can be TOO humble. If you fail to market yourself effectively to potential clients for the sake of humility, you’re shooting yourself in the foot and are not likely to be hired. You can talk about your successes, what you’ve done, commissions etc but do so humbly.

Do you freelance?

Yes. Once I graduated college I became able to dedicate much more time to it. Whether it be orchestrating a suite for concert hall or writing video game music, a contract is always a must. Well, that is in the case that you’re making several hundreds/several thousands off of the gig.

What is the hiring process like?

You have to be social. That’s EVERYTHING. I used to wait for someone to pick up my music and hire me. Didn’t work. It wasn’t until I started reaching out to people whom I thought might want music that I started making success. There are communities online where you can find a pool of potential clients. Indie game developers on YouTube/Tumblr is how I got started. The thing is, YOU have to reach out to them.

What kind of people do you work with?

Game developers. I am just starting my career as a professional composer, having graduated three months ago. I’ve had better luck with game devs than finding people who want music written for concert hall. I know that there might be demand for schools, but I haven’t looked into it yet.

Do you have a day job, or any career plans outside of music?

I plan to find a career in arts administration. I’ve worked in the administrations of a symphony and summer festival, which cemented my passion for the industry. Most composers have day jobs unless they’ve made it financially off their music.

What does the average day look like to you outside of music?

I enjoy reading. Particularly The Economist and New York Times. I also enjoy spending time with family and friends. For the time being I’m working in retail until I find something full time in arts admin, and that’ll occupy part of my day as well.

What challenges you the most?

Territory that is entirely unfamiliar to me. In the classical realm, that would be atonal music. It’s not easy to sound that dissonant. Not for me, at least. I can’t say I’d be willing to make commission if it had to be atonal.

What do you find the most rewarding?

I love hearing my creations come to life. The fact that I’m doing substantial with my time, and finally starting a path in it (profitably, might I add)

Which piece are you most proud of?

Legion. It centers around a rhythmic motif, and is incredibly action packed.

Do you have plans for the future?

My plans stand in pursuing careers in both arts administration and composition.

Do you have any advice for other young people interested in this field?

Everyone will tell you not to do it and get a real job. The truth of the situation is that if it’s monetary stability you’re after, they’re right. BUT that does not mean you have to stop composing. Having a consistent job will allow you to invest in composition. May it be software or sound libraries, it’ll start the essential steps for success as a composer. Having a job that paid well was essentially how I got started professionally, because I could afford the tools necessary to be hired as a composer for media.

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