New York can be a distracting place, a tough environment to imagine isolation and
silence, which is where my head is supposed to be these days. That said, New York is a very good place to find inspiration from others. While the constant flow of art and ideas can be numbing, it can also fit pieces in the puzzle as well. Last week, we attended the closing night screening of the New York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center. The film was Hannah Arendt, an eponymous biopic directed by Margarethe von Trotta. 
The narrative is strong, as is the setting and atmosphere – more cigarettes smoked than in a season of Mad Men – but most memorable are the philosophical musings of Ms. Arendt. Credited with developing the idea of “the banality of evil”, Ms. Arendt’s pursuit of understanding is ferocious.
She argued that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was not so much an evil-minded villain as an unthinking bureaucrat only doing his job. Viewers of the film witness Ms. Arendt espouse her theories to attentive students, argue her points with colleagues, and most interesting of all, contemplate the complexities of humankind as she sits and smokes at home, staring into oblivion. 
“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
Category Archives: film
My Broken Hand, Tim Burton and Me.
I was biking today. And it was cold. -14 Celsius. 
It’s the same bitter cold as it was seven years ago in 2005 when the Metro Transit Authority (MTA) went on strike just before Christmas. I remember Mayor Bloomberg leading his entourage over the Brooklyn Bridge every morning to make sure that we all knew that we were in this together.
He’s always been good at doing that. And then they opened up Madison, an entire lane for biking, pyloned off and policed, which was amazing until a taxi door opened right in front of me, and I went heels over head, “No!” and banged flat upside down onto the curb. I lay, looking into the cold blue, police everywhere, and thought, “Yeah, I’m okay. I can feel everything. I’m okay.” I sat up. My helmet was cracked. My hand was bloody and sore. I shook it out. And then I stood. The cab driver was there, looking desperate. “Please, please, don’t sue me. You can’t do that.” I tried to calm him. And then I realized it was the passenger who had opened the door, and he was long gone. An ambulance arrived. I told the medic that I was fine. He told me I had a broken hand. I didn’t believe him. “You’re in shock, man. Look at your bike.” The front of it was entirely bent. He took us – me and my bike – to the hospital. I waited for the x-rays and read Gotham. 
They sewed up my hand and I suddenly felt sick. I hadn’t eaten all day. They gave me orange juice and wrapped my hand in a cast. I had to walk my bike to the shop. “Doored?” The bike guy asked. “How many stitches?” “It’s broken.” “Lucky you’re not dead.” I left the bike to be fixed and walked home, 45 blocks through densely crowded streets; the strike was still on. I didn’t take the prescribed codeine – I was too tired for that – and felt oddly content and adrift when I flew to England for Christmas. They gave me a business class seat because of my hand. I stayed at a Hyatt Resort south of London for Christmas with my sister and mother and found myself on the elevator with Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter. 
I said something inane and one of them smiled. I wrote every night in the hotel pub and thought I might run into them again and I did. They were at a table right behind me; they only had to glance over to see my words. Wouldn’t Mr. Burton like to chat with a writer who had a broken hand? That was kind of like Oyster Boy, right? 
He might even need a quick re-write or a scene conceived. I could do all of that so much the better with my crooked and lumpy claw. I wrote and drank and finally looked. He was gone. I knew it wouldn’t have worked anyway. I didn’t write like him; his stuff was too weird. I continued to write and edit until closing time every night and woke up late and then came back to New York, the transit strike resolved, the cold weather too. The only scar that remained was my inability to make a fist and the fact that Burton didn’t jump at his chance.
Christian Marclay’s “The Clock”: Artistic Insomnia
Late last night, we decided to visit Christian Marclay’s 24-hour art installation The Clock at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was a kind of insomnia, a filmic one, reminding us we were awake when most others weren’t.
Mastroianni in “8 1/2”
The piece chronicles moments in film in a full 24-hour loop, focusing on a specific time, thus operating as a virtual clock. We arrived at 10:45pm and expected to watch shortly thereafter until 2:00am or so; however we were told that it would be a three-hour wait. Unbelieving, we went ahead and were oddly heartened when we found the wait was to be only 2 1/2 hours. 
We moved slowly, very slowly and envied those in front of us who had planned ahead; they had magazines and books.
We mused, checked our messages – there were none – took turns going to the bathroom, thrilled at the incremental steps and stared at the slowly looming sign.
We finally arrived, yes, three hours later at 1:45am. We were sleepy as soon as we sat but the film was good. More than that. It was exhilarating. We were in a cinematic world at an alluring hour…trapped in the frame with lovers, drunks and confusion.
Fonda in “La Ronde”
Shue and Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas”
“Planes, Trains and Automobiles”
A woman beside us kept turning on her phone, and I had had enough. I leaned over, “Please stop playing with your phone.” She glared back. “I’m not playing. I’m texting my son.” What was she thinking? She was missing it! These were the witching hours of celluloid, the time of transition, from darkest night, lost in thought, to the realization of the approaching day. This was the time of winding clocks, standing naked by the window and watching emus walk through the bedroom.
“Tales of Ordinary Lives”
“Phantom of Liberty”
The man beside me, a vague mix between Andy Warhol and John Cale in pale sunglasses and what looked like a tea cosy draped on his head, was fully reclined and began to snore; it was 4:00am. 
We considered staying longer – until 5:00am and beyond – but thought it better to come back another time, whenever the event may be staged again. We would just have to go to bed early and have Marclay’s film as our virtual alarm clock for another day. 
Writing Process: My Awkweird Self
I pull the album from the shelf. I open it to a random page. An odd figure is there. The elbows are crooked, the posture awkward, everything unsure. It’s me.
I’m a teenager. I think I know better than I do. I know I do. I say and do things because nobody stops me. I just want to grow up. I want out of this childish world. 
I call myself Dr. Shades as I play basketball in the backyard; I bounce in a chair when I listen to The Partridge Family. 
I remember running out the door and yelling something stupid. I was referring to a crazy idea in my head; my mother thought it was aimed at her. These memories aren’t treasured. As much as I might decry the lack of a sanctuary in Manhattan’s public spaces, the danger of the cranes overhead, this is the most unsettling aspect of writing, the reflecting, what I find inside, remembering what I wanted to forget so long ago. To quote Jodie Foster from her 2013 Golden Globes speech: “It’s like a home-movie nightmare that just won’t end.” 
It might appear cute to others, but it is utterly stupid, half-baked and wretched, so much so that I’m even willing to consider the notion presented in the film Looper, that of killing off this version of myself…just to get rid of it, the cringing, the inadvertent shivers, the denial. It’s almost a thought and then it isn’t. The truth is that I hate guns, and that, in the end, like Alvy Singer, “I have to keep going through it because I need the eggs.”
Oscars 2013 Surprises: The Good, Bad and Ugly
The 2013 Oscar Award Nominations were announced at 8:45 (EDT) this morning, some of which were sadly predictable (12 nominations for Lincoln), some happily not (No Best Director for Tarantino, Bigelow or Affleck) and some more good, bad and ugly than the rest.
The Good: This is apparently the year of Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild and Michael Haneke’s Amour.
The Bad: Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master wasn’t nominated for Direction nor Cinematography, despite the fact that it is certainly one of the most visually striking films of the past several years. 
The Ugly: Jafar Panahi’s This is Not a Film wasn’t nominated for anything. The failure to recognize this film for its cinematography and profound social commentary underscores the mind-numbing ignorance of Hollywood. 
Like every year, it is best to just breathe and remember that the Oscars are not so much about recognizing filmmaking as they are about promoting the Hollywood machine. The idea is to get more people to pay their $12 at the theatre – $26 with drink and popcorn – and leave it at that. Baa.
Googling the Past: Don Pullen to Adam Davidson and back again
Transferring cassettes to MP3 files is an arduous process. The technical aspect is easy enough; it’s the labeling of tracks that’s confusing. My printing is faded and obscured. There are distracting icons in the background of the paper, what looks like some sort of skeletal figure, holding eggs maybe. 
The title for one song is clear enough: Malcolm X extract…but I can’t make out the name of the composer. I remember finding the album in the dollar bin of a secondhand record store many years before; I can picture it well, a bright cartoonish lake. 
But I can’t remember the name of the composer. I remember the piano music. And then I remember that it is from the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. 
I was very excited about discovering that in the record store because I had just been in Montreux on a bike trip with 15 others. We had seen B.B. King at the festival and listened to Trio’s Da Da Da in the disco clubs across Europe. 
I bought the album on impulse, and everyone on the trip signed it. I must admit to going kind of crazy in those summer weeks. I pedaled right off the road. Furniture was dumped into a pool. A hotel door was burned with 160-proof rum. 
I even refused to visit a concentration camp because I didn’t want to be depressed. There was wine – and rum – involved in all of that. And I remember getting into a long discussion with a friend I had made through these travels, Adam Davidson, about everything from literature to the Holocaust. I pontificated nonsense while Adam was personable and good-humored. I really enjoyed his company and then lost touch with him as soon as the trip had ended. He was playing college football in Ohio; that was all I knew.
Years passed, and I was watching the Oscars Awards, and Adam Davidson’s name was announced as a nominee in the category for Best Short for a film called The Lunch Date. 
I knew it had to be another Adam Davidson, but then The Lunch Date won, and Adam Davidson, the Adam Davidson I knew, was thanking people on stage. That was really weird. I wanted to make contact but I didn’t know how to go about it, and I thought it would seem like I was just calling him because he was famous…which I probably was. I later rented the film and used it in my teaching.
It was some time after that again that I mused with a friend about wanting to get in touch with Adam. She worked at the D.A.’s Office and put together a print-out of his home address and phone number. That was too weird – and probably illegal – and so I tore it up…which brings me to now, me working on this blog.
Adam Davidson’s name comes up as the director of a number of television shows, including Grey’s Anatomy and Lost. 
However most of the Google images for Adam Davidson are not of the Adam Davidson I know, but of a NPR radio host who has been accused of journalistic corruption. 
That definitely isn’t him. I just had to scroll down further to find an image of my Adam Davidson. 
And another from a 2006 wedding announcement in The New York Times. 
I have consider trying to contact him now, but I know that would really be weird. It’s been almost 30 years. I would look like a stalker and he would probably be polite but then file an injunction or something to make sure I didn’t bother him again.
And so I get back on task and google what I was supposed to be googling: Malcolm X Jazz Montreux…and there it was, the same album I had found in the dollar bin of the secondhand record store years ago. 
The composer’s name was Don Pullen. And then I realized I didn’t have the track name correct. It wasn’t Malcolm X. It was called Dialogue Between Malcolm and Betty. I typed that into the iTunes box.
The Bottom Five: The Worst of Science Fiction Films
With the Yang, there is always the Yin. Science fiction filmmaking is replete with painful, awful work, and so I will not scour the depths and cite Plan 9 From Outer Space nor any superhero films, nor any of the B-movie messes concocted in the ’50s and onwards. And so my apologies, but no Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.
No Empire of the Ants. 
And no Barb Wire. 
The science fiction films I have selected for my Bottom Five actually seem to have tried to tell a story of some kind and failed…miserably. 
5. Damnation Alley (1976) Okay, I admit that this film is essentially a B film, but they had a lot of money – $17 million in 1976 dollars – of which they invested almost half a million in the Landmaster vehicle. It’s a journey through the post-apocalyptic desert. What could be better than that? (Apparently a lot of things.)
4. Avatar (2009) Talk about money and time wasted! $237 million and 15 years in production… all for a world of blue people who live around a magic tree. It seems that the film was a parable for something. I guess it went over my head. 
3. Dune (1984) Sorry to say it, but the book isn’t very good either. There is nothing in this world except sand, worms and spit suits.
2. Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace (1999) Three words: Jar Jar Binks. Thanks a lot, Mr. Lucas, for ruining a great franchise.
1. Event Horizon (1997) There is nothing good to say about this film. It is just gross and violent and stupid and gross. (Probably sounds fun to you young’uns. It isn’t.)
Top Five Science Fiction Films
I have always been a sucker – like a Christmas Tree – for Science Fiction films. I was insanely hyped for Prometheus (2012), Sunshine (2007) and Event Horizon (1997) and, 15 minutes after the opening credits, let down by a predictably dull and stupid story. 
And I expect Oblivion (2013) will be the same.
However every once in a while, there are films that follow through past the set-up, that actually have a thought-out story with characters who are interesting and a plot that intrigues to the end. Here are my Top Five:
5. Planet of the Apes (1968) The costumes and sets might be dated, but the concept and characters work very well. The relationship between Taylor and Zira challenges us to this day. 
4 Alien (1979) This film has everything in it, from the typical military conspiracy to grumbling union guys and, of course, the alien’s retractable punching bag jaw. Signourney Weaver’s Ripley is one of the great female leads in science fiction. 
3. The Road Warrior (1981) Mad Max is a great ant-hero, and the villains have ever since been used as prototypes for the post-apocalyptic films that followed. Max’s dog provides the tragedy.
2. The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) The human – and alien – aspect is developed beautifully with some unsettling moments of alien sexuality. It is a contemplative film that makes great demands of the audience.
1. Blade Runner (1982) This is at the top of many lists not only because it is a well-constructed film with a strong setting, story and cast of characters, but also because of its fidelity to the tenets of the Film Noir genre.
Barbarella: The Best and Worst of Science Fiction all in one film
Barbarella offers everything in Science Fiction film-making, all that is bad, and equally so, the good. 
Widely known but little seen, the 1968 film directed by Roger Vadim, is notorious for Jane Fonda’s sexpot character in various stages of undress. 
There is more to this film than vague eroticism; the costumes and sets – including Barbarella’s shag-lined spaceship – are awkward and clever at the same time, yes, campy, wildly so. 
The lines of dialogue are equally outrageous; the characters are vapid and the plot pointless and confusing. At one point, Professor Ping (played by Marcel Marceau) tells Barbarella that the angel Pygar no longer has the will to fly and so cannot get her out of the labyrinth of evil in which she is trapped. Barbarella solves that by making love to him; and off they go. It’s as simple as that. 
The film begins on a fantastical note, mocking the violence of man: “Why would anyone want to invent a weapon?” Barbarella is genuinely confused; after all, anything is possible in science fiction. The answer is overtly stated throughout the film – all you need is love – and resolved in the same way. Pygar rescues not only Barbarella from certain death but also Tyrant, the evil queen. 
His explanation, much like the logic of Chihiro in Miyazaki’s anime film Spirited Away, is that, “An angel has no memory.” 
Barbarella herself is enigmatic. She repays everyone who saves her life with sex. The President prefers to share matters of state when she is naked. The Mad Doctor tries to destroy her with a sex machine – only to be foiled by Barbarella’s remarkable sexual threshold. She dresses like a space whore, but she isn’t. Why, you may ask, does she not do battle with clever tricks and big guns? As trite and misogynistic as it might sound, she is above it all. She is an innocent who wants to help mankind. 
Rumor has it that a remake is in the works with a budget of $80 million and Rose McGowan to star.
I am dubious about a 21st Century Barbarella. I envision a multitude of bikinis and an excess of CGI. Fonda’s half-begotten Barbarella, in all of her wide-eyed stupor, is sure to be lost.
It’s Time for Sci-Fi.
my bad side is done. 
And I’ve started something new. It’s to be the first in a trilogy on leaving this planet. I have always been enamored of science fiction, and yet, have been, for the most part, disappointed by the story elements. There’s a good idea to start – a journey to the centre of the earth, to the sun, a dystopia, a mirror world, robots becoming human – but it drifts into fill-in-the-blank characters, story arcs and trite resolutions. Is this because the cosmos are beyond our conception? Or is it because science fiction writing tends towards the spectacle? 
One thing is certain: I’m out of my element. I’ve started my research with the Hubble Space Book and The Definitive Guide To The Universe, reading Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene and consulting my brother, who can translate anything of the universe, all of the neutrinos and dark energy for someone like me. One thing I know: Deirdre (from my bad side) will be the voice. 
The destination is as of yet unknown…and it’s time to figure out what’s beyond.