The Shadow of a King

At one point in 1996's Looking for Richard, director and star Al Pacino discusses how difficult it can be to understand people who find Shakespeare difficult to understand. He dismisses the idea that the language is "fancy" as one person calls it and argues that if one just listens and goes along with the story, one will get the gist, even if one doesn't understand everything. The film is a fascinating look at the process directors and actors for theatre and film go through in adapting Shakespeare for a modern audience, using Richard III as a subject. I would've preferred a straight forward adaptation of the play starring this film's cast but its documentary elements are illuminating and fun.

The documentary segments follow Pacino and his collaborator, Frederic Kimball, as they go from the earliest stages of a film production with a focus on casting and discussions with actors. It's funny how movies directed by actors predictably have lots and lots of close ups.

This isn't mere vanity, though. Actors know how much story they can tell with their faces. The difference between the stage and film for Shakespeare is also discussed, with one person, I forget who, observing that the ability to speak in a lower voice on film, without the need of a stage voice to carry across a theatre, allows the actor greater intimacy with the lines. It suggests a more personal connexion between the character and the words.

Pacino interviews a variety of actors and scholars. John Gielgud offers an intriguing though somewhat incomprehensible opinion on the difference between the way American and British actors tend to perform Shakespeare, suggesting it's because the British spend more time in galleries contemplating beautiful art. One can question how true this broad statement is and also whether it's valid in pinpointing why British actors are more comfortable with the material though there's some insight, I think, in the idea that internalising brilliant artifice through rigorous contemplation makes one more comfortable with the scope and beauty of Shakespeare.

The two most interesting commentators, though, were Vanessa Redgrave and Penelope Allen--the latter plays King Edward's wife Elizabeth in Pacino's production. We see Pacino assembling actors in a hotel room to discuss their scenes and it's wonderful seeing how personally the actors attach themselves to characters. Allen's vociferous argument as to her character's motives is inspiring to watch.

Winona Ryder as Lady Anne is probably the weakest point of this production. Her turning on a dime interpretation of the scene where Richard woos Anne is kind of embarrassingly shallow and drains the scene of much of its insight and horror, turning it almost into broad comedy.

Pacino's performance as Richard is really good, as you might expect. He's vicious and magnetic.

The cast also includes Alec Baldwin as Clarence and an underused Kevin Spacey as Buckingham. I saw the film a few nights ago at a free screening at San Diego's Old Globe with my friend, and Shakespeare professor, Edith Frampton. The audience laughed when Spacey, in an interview segment, held forth on the nature of politicians who, in election time, typically promise change and talk about how miserable things are now. This timely comment from Spacey is of course prompted by the timeless insight in the play itself.

Dragon Surprise

Sunday's new Game of Thrones, "The Spoils of War", was the most satisfying in quite a while for me and my favourite Event Battle episode since "Blackwater". It was a vivid exercise of one of the best, distinguishing qualities of Game of Thrones--a portrayal of a conflict where there are reasons to like both sides.

Spoilers after the screenshot

Hey, is that Monument Valley? I can't seem to find any site that directly states what filming locations were used but there are plenty of articles comparing Daenerys' (Emilia Clarke) and her Dothrakis' surprise attack to a Western. Including this interview with the episode's director, Miguel Sapochnik, who says he drew inspiration in part from John Ford's Stagecoach. It makes sense--maybe Fort Apache would make even more sense--the Dothraki versus a wagon train of Lannister soldiers is kind of like Apaches versus a group of out-of-their-depth U.S. army.

This is the third surprise attack this season, the first one to benefit Daenerys. I would send a memo to both sides stressing the usefulness of scouts and lookouts, there's no reason a massive army of Dothraki shouldn't have been spotted sooner. How Daenerys knew to attack this group and when she decided to is another question that most reviews seem to be skipping over. The initial reactions I saw weren't about how it seemed like a Western but about how Daenerys is finally kicking ass now that she's stopped listening to Tyrion's (Peter Dinklage) clever plans. Is attacking the soldiers conducting spoils back to King's Landing not clever?

Daenerys mentions on the beach earlier in the episode that Lannisters are looting the granaries in the Reach. But the only idea we hear Daenerys put forward is attacking the Red Keep. There are a lot of strategic advantages to attacking the loot train--Daenerys gets to demonstrate the power of her dragons with minimal risk to civilians, also dispatching men who'd been terrorising farmers in the process. She also undercuts Cersei's (Lena Headey) standing with Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss) and the Iron Bank. It's so clearly a good idea that if Tyrion didn't see it it wasn't because he was being clever. Possibly we'll find out next week he was blinded by his lingering affection for Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as Daenerys seemed to be implying.

Certainly this was one of the highlights of the season so far, watching poor Tyrion watching Jaime being a fucking, tragic idiot. At least Tyrion has good dramatic material even if this isn't turning out to be the season where he'll finally be useful. Still, we don't technically know whose idea this attack was, it would be kind of fascinating if it turned out to be his.

It was also a good idea to have Bronn (Jerome Flynn) be the one who fires off that anti-dragon ballista. It was good to see Bronn again, everyone's favourite amoral, merry man and seeing him against other characters we like is a nice, sobering highlight of the basic ugliness of conflict, if all those roasting soldiers wasn't enough. It would have been nice to have another scene like Arya's (Maisie Williams) encounter with the regular joe Lannister soldiers from a few episodes back but the juxtaposition is still there. Aside from Ed Sheeran, whom I think few of us would mind seeing roasted, it was a nice way of showing these guys have little understanding of the lofty games of conquest and politics played by their superiors. This makes Jaime, and his reluctance to let his men be flogged, all the more effective a counterpoint to Daenerys. Yes, Daenerys avoided civilian casualties, but in the end, slaughter is never pretty.

It might be a pyrrhic victory, too, if it turns out to mean the death of Drogon Dragon, though it really doesn't look like a mortal wound to me.

Meanwhile, at Winterfell, in the drastically less interesting part of the episode, the Starks continue to be dull. The reunion of Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya was diminished by the bad writing both characters have been victims of for the past couple seasons. I can just imagine the conversation:

ARYA: "So how've you been?"

SANSA: "Well, I was still the same idealistic, foolish girl you remember until I was raped, then people started acting like I was a genius, though the only thing I've done so far is ask Littlefinger for help winning the Battle of the Bastards without telling Jon. You?"

ARYA: "I went to train to be a master assassin but I got impatient and stole their magic and came home. I'm now a master assassin who rides openly through Lannister territory."

Nevertheless, the sparring match between Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) and Arya was pretty cool and well choreographed. And the two have the beginnings of some nice chemistry.

I'm still not sure why everyone's being so openly rude to Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen). Apart from not being very grateful to the man who saved them in the Battle of the Bastards, what is it exactly they blame Littlefinger for? He didn't force Sansa to marry Ramsey and for all we know he really didn't know he was a psychopath. Do they know he betrayed Ned in season one?

Twitter Sonnet #1021

In tapered mugs the coffee points below.
A shining dress adorns a cloudless arm.
The marching flags proclaim a cooking glow.
Penne appeals beneath the crumbled parm.
Foretold like laundry spirals make the sun.
Against no other blanket paces match.
In duels they're much too destined to be stunned.
A forceful flower chomps the pollen batch.
Across transparent cakes grew frosting stones.
Upon the month of romping glitch it blooms.
The text received displayed in vision bones.
A building closely gripped the walking rooms.
Accounts portrayed collected courts in grass.
A plastic double chin was served with sass.

The Force is with Twin Peaks

Last night's new Twin Peaks showed the clear contrast between benevolent forces and cruel. It also contained the best arm wrestling scene I've seen in any movie or TV show and the best use of dandruff since North by Northwest.

Spoilers after the screenshot

Looks like a field of stars.

Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) has become a master zen fool. He has lost all connexion to illusory human attachments, even identity, and allows the flow of existence to carry him. There's no guile when he becomes transfixed by the dandruff on Anthony's (Tom Sizemore) coat but it just happens to be the right thing to do. I wonder how much Mike (Al Strobel) and the Arm appreciate this new mode of existence for Cooper since Mike had told him he needed to "wake up". Maybe there'll be limits to Cooper's new powers.

There's something unsettling about his success with the Mitchum brothers. When they come into the Lucky Seven insurance building in that conga line the music sounds like a handful of screws dropped in an air duct. And Candie's (Amy Shiels) glee at giving gifts to Bushnell (Don Murray) seems manic. Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) in his new jungle gym at night with a spotlight is almost frighteningly delirious.

A more markedly uncertain reality appears in Audrey Horne's (Sherilyn Fenn) second episode of the new season. We see her questioning her own motives and identity and her relationship with Charlie (Clark Middleton) has become less clear. Last week he seemed to be her husband, now I wonder if he's a psychiatrist who indulges Audrey when she slips into delusional narratives. Or maybe she's in a dream. It almost feels like Lynch and Frost didn't know what to do with Audrey in the new series and decided to use this uncertainty as a prompt. Well, it certainly works, in my opinion, and I'm intrigued. Her desperation at searching for a basic identity, lacking Cooper's contentment, is kind of heart breaking.

Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) shows how malevolence has greater, more logical efficiency than Dougie's brand. I thought the idea of an arm wrestling scene was silly at first but I was completely won over when C tortured the gang boss, Renzo (Derek Mears), not merely with physical pain but with a complete disruption of the rules of strength and dominance that define the world Renzo understands. Cooper's a master Jedi and C's a consummate Sith.

Cherry pie was discussed a lot again this week, both at Lucky 7 Insurance and at Twin Peaks where we have another nice scene at the RR. Becky (Amanda Seyfried) reveals she has a love for the famous pie as well, also revealing she hasn't seen Steven in two days. I'm no relationship expert but firing off several rounds into his girlfriend's door might have made him skittish.

Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) says they've just found something of his father's "to-day" which is either a continuity error or the police have recovered whatever treasure the capsule map was leading to. Lynch and Frost show a genius level attention to detail so it's hard to believe it's an error.

And poor Big Ed (Everett McGill), finally back and, while he seems to be doing better with Norma (Peggy Lipton) than Bobby is with Shelly (Madchen Amick), things are still remarkably unsure with Norma apparently being wooed by some cheesy corporate cutthroat (Grant Goodeve). Honestly, Ed, I wouldn't worry.

The Lovely Lives of the Shepherds and Shearers

To-day's my sister's birthday and also Robert Mitchum's 100th birthday so happy birthday to you both. Last night I watched Mitchum in 1960's The Sundowners, a relaxing, almost slice of life story about a family of sheep drovers in early 20th century Australia. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it has a wonderful quantity of location footage and real sheep shearing that turns out to be gently fascinating.

The Carmodys roll into frame in a covered wagon with little fanfare during the opening credits. The film does a nice job of bringing the viewer in with a fairly normal group of people who happen to have the lovely job of herding sheep. It reminds me of the obsession poets used to have with the idyllic lives of shepherds--there's something just so pleasant about even the arguments between Paddy (Mitchum), Ida (Deborah Kerr), and their son, Sean (Michael Anderson, Jr.).

The actors do a respectable job at Australian accents, refreshing after movies like Sister Kenny where no-one even bothered. I will say, as much as I love Deborah Kerr, she's definitely miscast here. When they're alone in their tent, Paddy compliments her body, telling her she's how women ought to be shaped, unlike the skinny women they'd seen in town--"Broomsticks, nothing to hang onto." She immediately replies with an amusing and lightly chiding, "Did you try?"

The only problem is Kerr is pretty slender herself. Throughout the movie the script comes back to the idea that Ida has looks that show she's worked hard and in poverty all her life but as fun as Kerr is with some of the snappy dialogue in this film she's just too naturally elegant and poised. In one scene, we see her wistfully watching a society woman in a train and in the next scene we see her in the hotel looking like this:

She has a bit of a tan but mainly she looks as crisp and graceful as any lady of refinement--really more so than most. Her and Mitchum are a really sexy couple, though.

More appropriately anachronistic is Peter Ustinov in a supporting role as Rupert Venneker, an English hired hand that takes up with the Carmodys, the strangest and most intriguing character in the film.

He won't say much about his past unless he's forced to defend his dignity and mention the time he spent as a captain on a Chinese ship or the great family he was born into in England. He seems to strike up a romance with the always charming Glynis Johns as the hotel owner but the relationship doesn't go where you might expect and it's not for entirely mercenary reasons Rupert's drawn to the Carmodys. Some might say what we're seeing is repressed homosexuality, which I think is possible, but there are other equally possible explanations for his isolation which is for the most part only incidentally referred to.

There's a conflict running through the film between Paddy and Ida over the idea of continuing as drovers, as he wants, and settling down on a farm, as she wants, but for the most part the film is episodic. We watch the Carmodys take a job shearing, Ida working in the kitchen. A coworker's wife gets pregnant, a fight breaks out in the road after two trucks of workers nearly collide, there's a brush fire the family barely escapes. Rupert convinces Paddy to enter a shearing competition--and Mitchum is clearly doing some actual shearing.

Mitchum, even in these circumstances, is, as usual, magnetic in his zenlike coolness and idle strength.

The movie ends with a nicely unresolved feeling as though the story of the Carmodys and Rupert is still going on somewhere, pretty much as it was most of the movie.

The Password is a Distinctive Wet Smacking Sound

This week I listened to a 2011 Fifth Doctor Doctor Who audio play called Kiss of Death which sadly did not feature Richard Widmark and Victor Mature. But it's a nice enough heist story with romance mixed in, focused on one of my top two favourite male companions, Turlough.

The Doctor (Peter Davison) is with the Fifth's optimum Companion group again in this one--Tegan (Janet Fielding), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), and Turlough (Mark Strickson). While the TARDIS is temporarily out of commission for dimensional maintenance, the group are stranded on a space station where Turlough is kidnapped by a couple of thieves. They take him back to his home world along with his childhood lover, Deela (Lucy Adams). Before the events of the civil war we find out more about in Turlough's final episode, Turlough and Deela, who came from families on opposite sides, met in a secret room where the thieves think there's a great treasure now and the only way the room can be opened is if Turlough and Deela kiss.

It's obviously all arranged to get some relationship drama going on and I enjoyed the sinister idea of material gain got from reopening someone's private wounds. An ancient alien security system makes things more difficult for everyone--this is the problem the Doctor focuses on for most of the story, basically playing background to the companions in this one but it's still always nice to hear Peter Davison performing in one of these.

The audio format forces Nyssa to explain in dialogue again that she's much older now than listeners are used to, this story, like the previous Fifth Doctor audio, taking place after Nyssa returns from a lifetime spent on Terminus. She muses a little on how experienced she is now when talking to Turlough about his romantic troubles but it's clear the writers aren't quite sure what to do with aged Nyssa. The initial idea was interesting but I can't see them keeping it up for long.

Twitter Sonnet #1020

Through tapes recovered late we found the proof.
The links appear to make a clearer field.
Too crowded was the team's assembled truth.
And now a waffle iron's fit the yield.
The stomach eggs return like boomerangs.
A catcher's mitt explodes beyond all thought.
In hallowed bins a muppet still harangues.
We'll say that all the drifting down was caught.
In cups predicted now and then it sprouts.
No time was like the present put to paint.
The pots are much too steep for shorter spouts.
The message leaves transmit to us but faint.
A waiting queen resorts to rooks and knights.
A single game could last a thousand nights.

A Gangster as Leaf on the Surface of a Pool

When thinking of yakuza, one does not normally think of contemplative, almost zen-like stillness. Yet Takeshi Kitano's 1993 film Sonatine owes more to Ozu than Suzuki with its tranquil, unhurried shots of characters sitting and talking about things that don't necessarily move the plot forward. Evidence of the characters' familiarity with violence and fear creeps into the substance of scenes, though, making this a peculiarly sedate and yet striking perspective on life in organised crime.

The film centres on Murakawa (Takeshi Kitano) who is caught up in some kind of intrigue with his own gang and another. Both seem to want him dead but Murakawa barely seems to care, for the most part expressing no emotion but a vaguely melancholy weariness. Eventually, he ends up hiding out at a beach house in Okinawa with a few of his subordinates.

Two of his younger subordinates discover they're from the same part of Tokyo and they have conversations about places and people they both know. A few moments suggest a suppressed homosexual attraction between the two, particularly a scene where the two play with a doll.

Murakawa seems to be keeping his true feelings suppressed as well as he explains to a girl named Miyuki (Aya Kokumai) that despite appearances he's in a constant state of fear and that's why he's so quick and sure with a gun.

He meets Miyuki after a witnessing a young man trying to rape her one evening. Murakawa doesn't seem to care very much about what he's witnessing and doesn't seem like he'd get involved except the would-be rapist becomes angry when he notices he's being watched and attacks Murakawa. We don't find out very much about Miyuki, who falls in love with him, her character seeming to exist to provide an alternate route into a more loving and stable lifestyle, but like the attraction between his two subordinates, he seems cut off from the possibility by his own ingrained patterns of thought and emotion.

Most of the movie consists of scenes of the group of misfits on the beach, playing games that would seem normal except eventually gunplay gets involved. A strange Russian Roulette scene early on on the one hand seems to show Murakawa's methods of inspiring fear are only a front but on the other hand it seems to confirm, along with what he said to Miyuki, that he's on a quiet, inexorable path of self-destruction.

Different Flowers

Is it possible for one to be a great artist and also find happiness in a relationship? Many stories have contemplated this question, like the 1946 Aleksandr Ptushko fantasy film The Stone Flower (Каменный цветок), based on a story by Pavel Bazhov which was in turn based on Ural folklore. One of the most beautiful fantasy films I've ever seen, the film tells its story of a young man, obsessed with mastering his art of stone cutting, with chiaroscuro lighting and deliberately artificial sets. Every shot looks like a painting and the special effects are charming.

I hope this poor lizard wasn't injured in being given this crown. She ends up being a Russian mythological figure, the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, played in human form by Tamara Makarova.

We see her taking an interest in the day dreaming young shepherd named Danilo who later becomes an apprentice to a master gemcutter, Prokopych (Mikhail Troyanovsky). Danilo (Vladimir Druzhnikov) soon surpasses his master. He crafts a beautiful stone flower commissioned by a French noblewoman.

As he gains fame and success, he and a farmgirl, Katinka (Yekaterina Derevshchikova), fall in love. But he becomes obsessed with the idea that his stone flower could have been better made, his urge to destroy his creation distracting him from Katinka. Soon the Mistress of the Copper Mountain seduces him into joining her in the heart of a mountain where he can do stone work in isolation forever.

Katinka, saddened by his absence, becomes Prokopych's new apprentice and a pretty good gemcutter herself, one of the more surprising aspects of the story.

I found the scenes where Danilo contemplates destroying his stone flower provoked some real anxiety in me. I guess it's like a metaphor for the Star Wars special editions. At some point the artist needs to give his or her art to the audience and in this may be the real answer to the conflict between artistry and relationships--an artist does have a relationship with an audience and treating the audience like it's irrelevant can be dangerous to the artist's mental health. On the other hand, the Mistress of the Copper Mountain is pretty fabulous.

The whole movie is currently on YouTube, I recommend checking it out for the gorgeous visuals before someone with absolutely no right to it files a copyright claim with YouTube so almost no-one will be able to see the movie for years. Click the CC button to get English subtitles.

The Ever Lopsided Duel of Thrones

Sunday's new Game of Thrones continued into the lightning round, as well it might considering this season is almost half over already. Major events are rushed through more to get from one plot point to another than to savour them and what they mean to the characters and most of the dialogue scenes were formulaic. But there were some satisfying exchanges, particularly involving Daenerys, Jon, and Tyrion.

Spoilers after the screenshot

As the show has drifted further from George R.R. Martin's material, the dialogue has very often consisted of a familiar repeated pattern--whiny person versus cool, smug person. Characters often contort well outside their previously established personalities just so Benioff and Weiss, who wrote "The Queen's Justice", Sunday's episode, can make the pattern work. Varys (Conleth Hill), who was once the figure of cool, collected, and scheming, is obliged to become Whiny to Melisandre's (Carice van Houten) Smug so she can lay him flat with that prophetic line about how the two of them are destined to die in Westeros.

Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has been playing Whiny consistently since about the middle of last season. "The Queen's Justice" ends with him paired with Olenna (Diana Rigg) in the Smug role who delivers her argument, about how she's been ruthless and cruel but Cersei's more ruthless and cruel so she's doomed, with such confidence it almost seems like it makes sense. We have Diana Rigg to thank for that, the show will certainly be poorer for her absence.

Another departure, and this was news to me when I read it in the Wikipedia article, is Ellaria Sand, played by Indiria Varma, who's quoted as saying, "Obviously there’s lots of trimming going on. It’s all coming to a head and you have to get rid of less important characters that the audience hasn’t had the chance to invest in as much. So I was expecting it. I wasn’t heartbroken. And I was like, 'As long as I die on screen…' and they were like 'Yeah!' But of course I don’t die on screen. I stay alive, I’m just not going to reappear. I think it’s really clever." It feels more like a loose thread to me. Despite the fact that she's gagged in her final scene, she basically occupies the Whiny role for Cersei (Lena Headey) to explain her wicked plan for tormenting her and her daughter, which was nowhere near as harsh as I was expecting.

Cersei was almost edged into Whiny herself when Euron (Pilou Asbaek) delivered his prisoners by Jaime valiantly stepped into the role for her. Though Jaime actually made a good point about how capricious the favour of the mob is he wasn't even allowed this moment of wisdom as Euron was already aware of this, too, and one upped him on it. Euron is taking over from Ramsay as the ridiculous supervillain and we witnessed his fleet's miraculous power again this week when it bamfed in among the Unsullied ships. Wasn't the attack on Casterly Rock supposed to take place at the same time as Yara's assault on King's Landing? That Euron sure gets around. With a fleet.

The dialogue between Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and Jon (Kit Harrington) was largely saved from falling into the pattern partly because the Authority role is too hard wired into Daenerys and partly due to Emilia Clarke's performance. She has gotten to be a much, much better actress in the past three years. I don't know if it's acting coaching or greater passion for her work but it's good to see. Jon presenting the problem of the White Walkers continues to feel like a metaphor for climate change but it being paired with a reference to events that make Jon a Christ-figure adds an interesting moral context to it. One could say that in reality the two things are in opposition--the right wing tends to maintain faith that climate change isn't real despite the evidence, here Jon is a figure of faith asking for faith in the absence of evidence. In a way, this works since many on the right consider science a matter of faith. Which is, of course, depressing.

I had to laugh when Jon said the game of thrones was basically like a bunch of children squabbling since that's exactly how I've described his arguments with Sansa (Sophie Turner) at Winterfell. My eyebrows were certainly raised when Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) described Sansa as smarter than she lets on and this week it seemed like Benioff and Weiss really were trying to make her seem smart now but only by lowering the intelligence of everyone around her. This week we see she's somehow the only one who's thought of storing sufficient food and, bizarrely, the only one whose thought of padding plate armour with leather. I would think if the armour smith wasn't doing this already it would be for a good reason, like maybe there's not enough leather for that. There is a lot of leather on the show, though, so I'm pretty sure there's already a suggestion of cattle being slaughtered in unrealistic quantities anyway.

We then see Sansa transfixed by Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) basically telling her to anticipate all scenarios. Since this isn't a particularly amazing piece of advice, the fact that Sansa seems so absorbed made me think, "Wow, she's falling in love with him." Which I suppose I'm probably not supposed to think. But who knows? I think it would be great if they actually became a couple.

Final thought: who's the Romulan working for Cersei?