The Marriage of Maria Braun

This week for class I had to watch the movie, The Marriage of Maria Braun. I actually had to watch for class last year too, so clearly it's the movie of choice for film scholars. Lately I've been watching a ton of foreign films, be it in German film class, or on my own with Wong Kar Wai's stuff and Cowboy Bebop. Well, this movie was foreign too, and it was great.

The movie's about a woman in post WWII Germany. Her husband is missing, presumed dead, and she has to go on with her life. It's a huge movie, spanning ten years, with a bunch of characters and subplots, which I love. The opening sequence is one of the most pop openings ever, especially impressive considering it's a film made in the 70s. It opens on a picture of Hitler which blown away, along with the wall it's hung on, revealing Maria getting married as the city is being bombed, papers flying in the air, buildings falling to the ground.

What makes the movie work is the direction. Fassbinder uses color brilliantly, and can expertly manipulate mood with his filmmaking. The movie feels extremely modern, despite being set in the 40s and made in the 70s. The story of the film is great, but it's the filmmaking that makes it a really special movie.

I've had to watch a lot of Fassbinder's movies for class, and this is easily the best of them. What this has that his previous movies didn't is scope. The personal relationships aren't that far removed from a movie like The Merchant of Four Seasons, but the difference is that this movie is set in a time of turmoil. When Maria seduces Oswald, it's not about feelings, it's about trying to survive. The entire movie is about seeing people dehumanized, forced to resort to their basest instincts in order to survive.

Just as the opening sequence is incredibly pop, the closing is too. This movie ends in such a way that you're sitting there just dazed, considering the implications of the ending. Any movie that leaves you so confused, not about what happened plotwise, but about what exactly motivated the characters to do it is worth watching. I'd rather be left thinking after a movie is over then having everything tied up perfectly neatly.

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Movie is to food as...

So, a while ago I was talking with Jordan, about movies, and he was saying something about how occasionally you just need a dumb movie, you can't always watch really high quality stuff. This prompted a lengthy discussion, in which I compared movies to food, the gist of which I'll replicate here.

Movies are like food, in that there are so many levels of quality, different types of food/movies, different ways to prepare and different ways to enjoy the movie/food. From a movie, you can get a bag of chips, which fills you up, but leaves you greasy and sort of nasty, a decent meal, or a gourmet dinner, with many courses, of impeccabe quality, the kind of meal that makes you think I've never even eaten before.

A good chunk of Hollywood movies fall into the bag of chips/fast food category. They're all basically the same, and you go in knowing what to expect. If you go to see Adam Sandler in a movie, it's like buying a bag of chips, you know exactly what you're going to get, there's no surprises, and it doesn't really fill you up. Most romantic comedies fall into this category too, very formulaic, the fast food of the movie world. Also, any Arnold/Van Damme/Stallone/Diesel type action movie falls into this category, just empty calories.
A movie like Love Actually works because it is like a buffet of fast food, you get a taste of many different foods, you're bound to find something you like. By giving you this variety, you're bound to find something you like, and the formulaic nature of some of the foods/plots is undermined by the fact that you're not only eating that one food. So, that's the bag of chips. you know what to expect, you're not surprised. Unfortunately, the vast majority of filmgoers prefer the bag of chips or fast food to a more filling meal. If you keep eating/watching this stuff, eventually you get a lot of fat on your mind, that's what happens when you don't exercise your mind.

Then, there's decent meal, maybe a diner type place. This is a movie that's pretty good, you leave fulfilled, something like Toy Story or Collateral. There's actual character development, a good story is told, and you leave the theater full. This isn't the kind of restaurant you'd neccessarily reccomend to your friends, but if it came up in conversation, you'd give it a good word. I'm usually satisfied with a meal/movie like this.

However, what any filmgoer lives for is the gourmet meal, the filet mingon of movies, something expertly prepared, with the best ingredients, and incredible presentation. When I hear that one of my favorite chefs has completed a new dish, I salivate, wondering what culinary delights have been prepared. This is the kind of meal that you tell your friends about, and if you have a dinner party, these would hopefully be the main dish. What are some gourmet meals? Magnolia is kind of my archetypal example. It's got all kinds of ingredients, brilliantly mixed together by master chef Paul Thomas Anderson. If you hang out with me for long enough, I've probably tried to serve you Magnolia at one time or another. The best meals compel you to share them with others. These are the meals that even if they aren't always to your taste, you still respect the effort put into making them.

Now, getting to the two flaws of the metaphor. One is, it costs you the same amount and takes the same amount of time to watch a great movie as it does to watch a bad one, which just isn't true of meals. It costs a lot more to go to a five star restaurant than to McDonald's. With movies you don't have that excuse. I understand that it's sometimes tough to get up for a movie like Requeim for a Dream, but it's so much more satisfying after you do watch it. So, no excuses for watching bad movies. One of the things that bothers me the most is people watching a movie that they know is not going to be any better than OK, when there's so many great ones out there.

What's the other flaw? Ironically, in food, I'm not really a fan of the gourmet meal.But, that's because I'm passionate about movies, and not about food. So, I can get people not liking the gourmet movie, it's unfortunate that they don't have the taste, but a food afficianado would probably be just as mad at me for not appreciating some higher cuisine.

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Twin Peaks

I wrote this back in May 2004, which was nearly a year after I finished the series. Twin Peaks is the best TV series of all time, you should all see it. And a side note, I'd point you to the entry on the side marked "Does liking something that's popular make you uncool?" You be the judge.

In terms of TV, Twin Peaks is definitely my favorite series. Just hearing the music and seeing the bird in the opening credits, it brings up so many emotions and associations. Similarly, seeing the sign and hearing the music in Fire Walk With Me, it’s like going home. Even though there’s a number of weak plots, the series on the whole just has an atmosphere completely its own. The music, the look of it, it’s unparalleled. And then the red room, the last episode is my favorite episode of TV ever, and my favorite David Lynch work. Similarly, with each viewing, Fire Walk With Me just gets better and better. The emotion in the film, coupled with the weird visuals, it’s exactly the sort of film I want to make. The last scenes are amazing brutal, but also beautiful. That juxtaposition is what makes Lynch’s work so unique. The first time I watched Fire Walk With Me, I was a bit disappointed by the opening sequence, which seemed completely pointless, but in recent times, I’m loving even that. The whole work is such a bold direction to take what could have been a formulaic TV movie. The ending brings everything full circle, and provides great emotional closure to the series. Though, I’m still annoyed at the series ending cliffhanger. The first time I watched it, I sat just staring at the TV for five minutes. I had read that it was a two hour series finale, so I was expecting another hour, when the tape ended, I was just in shock, and completely devastated, but also in awe of the episode I had just watched. It was one of the most affecting stories I’ve ever experienced.

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Cowboy Bebop: A Rockin' Show

So, recently I watched the show Cowboy Bebop. It's an anime, and I'm not usually a huge fan of anime, the high voices bother me, but luckily, there was only one character with an annoying voice on the show, and they acknowledged how annoying she was.

I loved the show because it had an amazing sense of style, combining Western, noir, sci-fi and action tropes into, what the show itself calls, "the show that will became a genre unto itself." It had a mainly standalone, episodic structure, which bothers me in somethings, but worked here. The reason for that is despite the fact that most of the plots were standalone, they still did a good job of developing the characters. An episode like 'My Funny Valentine,' in which a man from Faye's past appears is a good example of something that showed us a great deal about her, in what was essentially a standalone story.

I particularly liked the way that the character relationships were handled, which was really subtly. By the last episode, we can feel how close they all are, even though they never say it. You know it's killing Jet to let Spike go, and it's killing Faye too, but they don't come out and say, "I really care about you, Spike, and I think you're making a mistake." Instead they keep things internal, and I think that's much more true to life. The final episode was one of the best finales I've ever seen, recalling the brilliance of the last episode of The Prisoner. The scene where Spike goes through the syndicate building wielding grenades and guns, to the tune of "The Real Folk Blues," was pure brilliance, and the final scene was absolutely brutal.

I still think the single most brilliant sequence is Spike falling out of the building in 'Ballad of Fallen Angels.' Cutting between his memories and his fall in a way I'd never seen before, they created something completely new. And the choice of music is what made an already great scene perfect. A truly phenomenal series.

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Buffy Season Seven critique

Originally found here.

The First sucked. The things that they mocked in previous years with Spike, and his really pompous speeches they did for real with The First. It did absolutely nothing, and other than in Conversations, wasn't very threatening. It was a good idea in theory, but they had nothing to fight, and nothing to interact with on the evil front.

And Caleb was a retread of Warren, but without any of the interesting pieces. He's the most black and white villain since the Master. Seven's villains are definitely a reaction to what happened in six. It's the biggest, most evil foes the show has ever had, but also completely without personality, as well as totally impotent. The first does very little to actually hurt the group and Caleb wasn't particularly interesting. I can debate some things, but I think The First was a total failure, and the only weak villain the show ever did. Each previous villain built on what had came before in some way, the First went nowhere new.

Also, Buffy/Spike. I love what's done with the characters, it's just we have to go through so much cliffhangery bullshit to get to the real content. First, Spike is insane, so he's not himself for a while, then he might be evil, then he's under the possession of The First. I felt manipulated about what was going on with the character. When they finally get around to the frank discussion of the last few episodes of the series, it's brilliant. Spike just sleeping with Buffy is one of the most touching scenes in the show's entire run, and shows how much both he and Buffy have grown. It's also a great contrast to their scenes in season six. And, of course the discussion between them in the finale is great.

Anya. Selfless is obviously brilliant, and her sacrifice for Andrew at the end of the series is great, but for most of the middle of the season, she's without purpose and not really developed. She doesn't have much of a reason to be hanging out with Buffy and gang, but when she does get the spotlight, it's great.

Andrew makes me laugh with every line he says, and singlehandedly kept me going through the Bring on the Night/Showtime era. I love what they do with the character, particularly in Storyteller, where the comic relief becomes very serious. I really felt for the character, and I did in Chosen when he's talking about Anya too. Though I may crack on season seven, Andrew is a bright spot, and his evolution is probably my favorite thing about the season.

And, I would agree with you that Buffy is the star of season seven, but I think that's too much of a departure from where the show had been since at least season three. By six, it's a completely ensemble show, as the musical shows, each of these people has their own plot, and over the course of the season, all the stories are developed. In season seven, the other characters are reduced to sidekicks, in a way that they hadn't been for a number of years, and it just doesn't feel right.

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Mulholland Drive: Some Analysis

From Barbelith

I don't really see the limbo idea, because I think the first two thirds of the movie make the most sense when see from Betty/Diane's perspective. That whole sequence is about Diane's desire to both be, and to be with Camilla/Rita. She divorces Camilla from her role as a compettitor for roles (hence the creation of the new Camilla), and makes her into someone who needs Diane's help, rather than in reality, where Diane is the one in need of Camilla's help.

When Betty dresses her up in the wig, they look quite similar, to the point that once Betty has provided the box, she's not needed anymore, and just disappears. To me, the box is Betty's acceptance of death. In the diner, she asks "What does it open," and when it finally is opened, the dream/vision is over, and Betty dies. The Club Silencio scene is all about Betty coming to terms with the fact that her world is an illusion, a recording playing back the moments of her life, in a distorted manner. Realizing that, she finds the box, which is basically death, and opens it, and everything ends.

The most challenging part of the film is the moments after the box is opened, but before it goes int the real world segments. Aunt Ruth's entrance is tough. I think it's to show that Betty and Ria have merged, and are no longer in Aunt Ruth's apartment, they've been moved somewhere else. And then, we see the Cowboy telling her to wake up. Then, we see the dead body. I think by "wake up" he means leave the dream world, and go into the afterlife/actually die, basically to move on. And then, we go right into the real world, in an essentially seamless transition.

The thing I love about the real world sequences (last third of the movie) is the way that Lynch connects things not by linear time, but by feeling. The connection between Camilla telling Diane they can't see each other any more, "because of him," and then cutting immediately to Kesher and Camilla together.

Though even in the "real world" sequences, a lot of it is seen from Diane's point of view. Like the second love scene is in fact Diane's wank fantasy, the pain of Camilla rejecting her overtaking the pleasurable beginning of the scene, when they were together. If that scene is strict reality, it doesn't make much sense why Camillla would be choose to break up with Diane, while lying topless on her couch.

At the end of the movie, after a bit of the "real world" business, we go back to subjective narration. Diane, remembering the bum she saw behind Winkie's (an incident which is re-assigned to the other guy in the dream, perhaps because she didn't want to face it), imagines said bum unleashing the symbol of her Hollywood dreams, the old people (who are not her parents, but the judges of the Jitterbug contest, which she won back in Deep River), tormenting her, taunting her with how far she has fallen. The bum and the old people are opposites, one the symbol of her fears of what she could become, and the other, her hopes and dreams. The old people come out of the box, because it is connected to her death, they are the ones who drive her to kill herself.

Then, in the end, we see a representation of the first chunk of the film, Betty and Rita against the skyline, menaced by the bum. And finally, "silencio," as a mood appropriate closer. I like the idea above that the reliving of the real world may all have taken place at Club Silencio, though I'm not sure it fits into my view of the movie's chronology. I think the women is an extradimensional entity, like the Cowboy (or Bob, the Mystery Man or The Man from Another Place), and when she says "silencio," the dream world is closed, Diane "wakes" from the dream, into death.

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David Lynch's Dune, Surprisingly Good

Here's a review of David Lynch's Dune, originally posted to alt.tv.twin-peaks

I watched Dune yesterday, the only DL movie I hadn't seen yet. I don't know why I hadn't watched it, obviously being a huge Lynch fan, and also being a big fan of epic sci-fi. Just a note, I started the first book, but didn't really like it, and never made it all the way through. I think this may actually be the optimum condition for viewing the film, since I knew the basic characters, and setup, but wasn't attached the plot events. However, the reputation of the film led to a general apathy towards watching it. However, I watched it yesterday, and am really glad I did.

First off, I was shocked by how surreal the film was. The whispered thoughts device was Lynch's best move in making the film, since it cut down on massive exposition scenes, as well as giving us a good insight into the characters. It's something I've seen in some French New Wave films, but other than that, it's generally unused, but it's something that works really well if used right, as it was here.

And, for a mainstream film, the surreality of the whole thing was quite surprising. I expected it to be like The Elephant Man, in that you get occasional flashes of Lynch, but it's mainly a fairly straightforward film, but that wasn't the case here. There was a lot of strange stuff, and I saw
the roots of a number of Lynch ideas, seen in later films. The opening with Princess Irulan appearing against the background of the stars was phenomenal. The hand and dripping water dreams were very cool looking, and the repetition of the motif was very effective. The first scene with the baron was really nasty, and also quite cool.

I liked the whole 80's aesthetic of the film. It felt quite a bit like Blade Runner at times (Sean Young's voice probably did that), and I love that feeling of real sets, that you just don't get in current CG sci-fi movies. The spaceship effects may not have been the best, but I take it as a
stylistic choice, which makes for an even more surreal film. It was a visually dazzling film. Those hazmat uniforms on the enemy soldiers were amazing.

While it did feel like there were a lot of loose ends, the film held together. Rather than thinking of the plots that felt abrupt as problems, I see them as just snapshots of the world. I loved the ending with the rain, and Paul's sister.

Obviously, a lot of stuff didn't work. The Baron was awful, his cackling villainy was really inexcusable. And, I got the feeling that all the scenes with him were the same, he'd fly around, laugh awfully, and say he was going to kill Paul. And, since there were so many characters, you never really get attached to anyone, even Paul.

Stuff like the relationship with Channi was barely even developed, and I'd like to have seen a bit more of the Sting character (not in the bodily sense, that winged speedo was quite enough), but he was a much better villain than the Baron, and wasn't really featured. And also, considering
she was barely in the movie, I'm not sure why the Princess gave the opening narration.

I think David should really re-assess the film, since it's a great piece of work, and deserves a much better reputation than it has. So, after this, here's my ranking of Lynch's stuff.

Twin Peaks (Show)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Mulholland Drive
Lost Highway
Blue Velvet
Dune
Eraserhead
The Straight Story
The Elephant Man
Wild at Heart

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Vintage: Invisibles Reactions

This was posted on Barbelith a couple of days after I finished reading The Invisibles. My opinions have changed since then, but it's now available for you to read, enjoy.

Yes I know there's a bunch of threads on volume three already, but most of them were devoted to whether the trade was out, or there's the fiction suit one, which I've read and cleared up some things, but I still have questions that aren't related to that topic.

Anyway, I just finished rereading Volumes 1 and 2, and read Volume 3 for the first time. The first two volumes are indisputably brilliant, and are even better on the reread. I saw nearly everything come together, and it was nearly flawless.

Volume III felt a lot more disjointed. Particularly in the first eight issues, it felt very removed from the rest of the series. While I enjoy Mister Six and Sir Miles, I wasn't as interested in those characters as I was in what happened to our main five, and the near absence of them in the beginning was rather annoying. Still, the stories weren't bad, as both Satanstorm and Karmageddon had moments of great merit. The opening pages of the volume as Flint and Harper go after the Shoggoth were great, with the brillaint quote, "Division X! Get the Fucker in the back!" That bit made me long for a Division X ongoing.

The apperance of Mason in Karmageddon was nice, and Edith's procession to death was striking. Still, the Marquis de Sade story felt superfluous.

The worst decision of Volume III was to introduce Helga and have so much of the story go through a character who we didn't know at all. She had no real set apperance, seemingly changing from artist to artist, and had no real set character. It would have been nice to have an additional issue that gave her backstory, like each of the team got back in Volume I.

The Invisible Kingdom was crippled by the art. Earlier, I found the weak art annoying, especially when compared to the brilliant work of Jiminez and Weston in Volume II; here it often obscured the storytelling. IMO, it would have been better to have Yeowell, Thompson and Weston each do one issue of the storyline, instead of the schizophrenic switching. In the moment that should have been the climax of the series, I missed that Jack had ingested the archons, and only got that when they talked about it after the fact. It was a good idea in theory, but didn't really work.

However, the writing in that last storyline was excellent. King Mob's phone booth discussion with Jacqui was great, and the gathering of everyone together at the end worked. Also, Audrey Murray saving Mob was a brilliant touch. And, the final page (which incidentally featured better art than nearly all this storyline), was great. My only real complaint about this arc was that it may have got too out there, at the expense of the narrative, and there should have been at least one more page with John a Dreams, even if he doesn't give an explanation of what happened to him, to have him speak with King Mob would have been great.

Finally, Glitterdammerung had me rather confused, but I loved it. Even though I didn't get the specifics, I got the emotional significance. Mob's reunion with Robin was a great moment, and the final page was excellent. And the art was finally great.

Overall, I think it'll probably work better as a reread when I'm not looking forward to finding out what happens at the end, and can better appreciate the journey it takes to get there. I'd have loved to see more of our core team, and Mason, but I guess that wasn't to be. The counting down mechanism does accentuate some of the flaws, since as each issue passed it made me think more that we're getting so close to the end of the series, and we still haven't heard much from the main characters. Still, that's focusing on the negative. There were a lot of brilliant ideas in the book, and, like the rest of the series, will probably improve on the reread. And, I think that more than the other volumes, this really makes you think in different ways, and abandon all preconceptions of the universe in order to understand it, which is ultimately what Grant probably wanted to happen.

That said, I'm unclear on some things, and would appreciate it if someone could give me their opinion or the general thinking on the answers.

1. So, John a Dreams found a new kind of time machine that allowed you to completely leave the 3D and 4D planes and experience a new level of existence, in which you can inhabit multiple conciousnesses in multiple forms throughout different times? And through this, he became the gray spirit and was corrupted into Quimper, the Gnostic Satan, and Jack Flint?

2. It's probably impossible to answer this question, but what was "real" in the series? Was it all part of Robin's novel, or was it some massive multi-player game that people can tap into and experience certain characters, through a fiction suit? Or was Robin writing the novel some sort of view of the future, in that she somehow saw what would happen to her? And is "The Invisibles" mentioned in 2.20 the book written by Sir Miles? And if the story isn't a game, Mob just created a game based on his experience, and Jack plays some of it in the last issue?

3. How was Robin Edith? Were they both a manifestation of Barbelith, in that they are both essential parts of moving the race toward its higher evolution, and bringing about the new age of a sentient universe? I'm thinking that Edith's miscarriage could tie into the idea that Quimper is a representative of an abortion that Grant's girlfriend had. And one more thing, if Quimper is the baby that King Mob and Robin have, did they have him in his evil form, or was he born good, a manifestation of John a Dreams, and then corrupted into evil, or was he born evil? Or was Robin being pregnant, a comment on the birth of the universe?

4. On the last page of the series, is Jack returning to Barbelith, and returning home? Is that why he's the only person left in the white void? And on the last page of the previous issue, what point is being made concerning reality? I got the idea that Jack is saying that because we've read the book, it's as real as if it actually happened, and he's essentially recruiting someone who read the book to help him out, and she ultimately becomes Reynard of the last issue?

5. I know Morrison is outdated two-sided thinking is, and we have to expand, but what exactly is he advocating through the series, because both the Invisibles and the Archons are apparently fighting in vain, for nothing in particular.

6. If it's a rescue mission, who are they rescuing? And what's the deal with "Edith says to call on Buddha," in relative times, when is it first said, where is it distorted to, and when is it heard?

7. What has happened to Robin when she returns to the future. I take it that she understands the structure of time, that it all exists at once, and we are basically all in a time machine journeying slowly to the future, but what is meant by the comment about love she says to King Mob? I get the idea that love is supposed to be all that matters, but is there anything more specific? And, when they send her in the time machine, they send her to the end of the world, because she seems to have lost the machine? Or did she go to Barbelith, become enlightened and then come back for Mob?

8. And, what did Morrison think of the art in the Invisible Kingdom, obviously if he wanted the Ashley Wood pages redrawn, he knew there was a problem, but did he ever comment on the rest? Also, has Morrison ever commented on why the major characters of the series pretty much disappear in this volume? I've heard he said that he got lost in Volume II and this was going back to the original plans, but was there every anything more than that?

I know there's probably very few concrete answers for these, but any thoughts would be great, or if somebody could point me to interviews where Morrison talks about Volume III, that'd be awesome also. I've only seen interviews from pretty much before the series ended.

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Warren Ellis: Hypocrite?

This is about the comic book writer, Warren Ellis. Up until last year, he ran a web forum, where he preached waiting for the trade, instead of buying individual comics, and also was vehemently anti-superhero. Now, he has signed on to write Ultimate Fantastic Four.

From Barbelith

In response to a few things on the thread.

I think the WEF certainly hurt Ellis' output, and gave him this reputation as one of the top writers in the medium, when (other than Planetary, IMO) he's never produced anything truly great, certainly nothing on the level of Moore or Morrison's better work. It always amazed me that he had time to read every single post on the WEF, and reply to hundreds of them a week, yet he was so slow writing the script to Planetary 16 that Cassaday had to take on six issues of Captain America to fill his time.

By the end of the WEF, Ellis had only Transmet coming out on any kind of a regular basis, and while still good, it was so decompressed that what would have taken six issues at the beginning of the book took 12-18 by the end. Look at Back on the Street, or particularly Lust for Life, versus the end of the book. The beginning had some tightly structured stories, that were well told. By the end, there were so many essentially pointless splash pages that reading it in 22 page chunks was futile. Ellis' greatest contribution to the medium is probably the two page spread which contributes very little to the story, but takes up space.

I think Ellis' greatest problem is the hypocriscy inherent in his writing vs. his online commentary. Ellis spent years on the WEF disparaging "pamphlets," and basically creating the wait for the trade atmosphere. Then, he creates Global Frequency, a book designed to be read in singles, targetted at an audience that has been trained to disparage the single. Not to mention, encouraging people to buy that run of miniseries he did, which should have been put out as OGNs, but instead were packaged as three issue minis.

This isn't to mention the fact that while spending all his time disparaging superheroes, he goes out and writes a series of miniseries that are basically superheroes without the capes. And, then he brings out Ultimate FF, which is going against all he's been talking about for years.

I used to post to the WEF on occasion, and it was a really strong community, that I wish was still around. But, it also gave Ellis an inflated sense of self worth. It was not a good place to discuss his work, becuase any attempt to even suggest a flaw would be met with flaming, often from Ellis himself. So, now without his promotional machine, his sales have suffered.

As for the question of whether there can be really good writing in comics, I think the answer is undoubtedly yes. Work like Watchmen and The Invisibles represents a strong artistic vision from the writer, and accomplish feats that could not be accomplished in any other medium. Bad writers give comics a bad name, but at its core, it's a much easier medium for a writer to get their vision across than film.

Comics and Auteurism

Originally from Barbelith

A lot of the people in this thread recognize that film is the medium most often used as a comparison when reviewing comics, which leads some people to believe that comics are an inferior medium than film.

However, up until fourty or fifty years ago, film seen in a similar way to the way in which comics are now, namely an inferior medium that can only ape the tendencides of other media (at that time literature). In addition, at the time most directors worked in the studio system, without a strong degree of control over their work, much like your average comics writer can't really alter the corporate superhero title that they work for.

In the 60's, the auteur system emerged, and the individual director became more valued, even in the Hollywood studio system. I think this is what's starting to happen in comics right now. The writer is becoming much more important, as a marketing tool, and as a creative force, even in the corporate superhero title. And stuff like the Vertigo line is similar to the writer/director emerging in the 70's.

Until the emergence of the auteur system, a lot of people saw film as only a medium for staged plays. However, these auteurs were crucial to furthering the unique language of film as a medium.

Comics have been around for a while, but they're just starting to move beyond the "studio era." And I think as unique writers become more prevalent, they will sculpt even more so the unique visual language of comics.

And according to the classical definition of an auteur, an artist whose work has a thematic coherence, I think Grant Morrison and Alan Moore stand out by far as the only two comics writer you could really call auteurs.

Does liking something that's popular make you uncool?

Originally posted on Barbelith.

Just by virtue of posting here, you probably consider yourself a bit smarter/cultured than the average person out there, and as a result, your taste in films, TV and books is obviously above average. At least, I like to think that mine is. So, I often find myself subconsciously not liking the movie or book that's really popular at the moment.

I remember when Fellowship of the Ring came out, I was really psyched, and no one else around me was. I went on opening night alone, because I couldn't get anyone else to go on a week night. I absolutely loved the film, and was talking it up to people who were really skeptical about. A year later, it's time for Two Towers, and I've got a posse of eight people ready to go with me on opening day, and it seems like every person I run in to is really psyched about the film. Then, tonight I'm watching the Oscars, and people are really rooting for Return of the King to win stuff, and seeing this enthusiasm, I'm almost rooting against the film on some level, whereas I was celebrating every Fellowship victory. I actually think RotK is the best film in the trilogy, but it's almost more difficult to get excited about it when it's so popular among everyone.

There seems to be a moment when a film goes from being "your" film, to becoming a completely mainstream film. The film itself hasn't changed, but some of the cache of watching it has. An example of a film where this is happening right now is Donnie Darko. About a year ago, you say you're watching Donnie Darko, and people either say, "What?" or, for the minority who've seen the film, you sort of make a connection, like you're part of a secret group who've seen the film. However, now, it seems like everyone has either seen the film, or at least heard of it, and it loses some of that secret club feel. I don't think the Barbelith thread on Donnie Darko would be as full of joy if the film wasn't discovered like a secret on here, instead was heard about through more mainstream channels.

So, instead of being a cult film, it's almost become institutionalized, and as a result, it's not as cool to name drop the film, since practically everyone's seen it. You can see this sort of thing in early 90's film with Star Wars references. Before the re-release in '97, the films were basically dead, and dropping a reference put you in touch with the select group who remembered the film, and gained you some street cred. You could make a good argument that Kevin Smith's entire career is due to the Star Wars reference in Clerks.

So, do you find yourself feeling a backlash when a film you like becomes popular and mainstream? It may be tough to admit, but on some level, when you hear people at your job or school you don't respect talking about a film you used to really love as a cult thing, do you find it tough to be passionate about the film anymore? After all, no one says that independent, undiscovered crap, but mainstream Hollywood crap is thrown around quite readily.

This is a place for me to archive my postings from various places on the web, and in the process, create a little time capsule of my thoughts at a particular time.