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Brace yourself, it's like talking to those two old fucks from the Muppets

1. Found in this weekend's mail: my contributor's copy of Mythic Delirium #27, with a beautiful cover by Paula Friedlander and containing my poem "Kalligeneia 2012." This is the one I referred to for weeks as "the sap poem," because I hadn't found its proper title yet and because that seemed a good warning of its emotional content. I wrote it in March because of

derspatchel. (He gets my other copy: a muse's ten percent.) It has Charon and subways and a shout-out to a popular song. Καλλιγένεια is the name of the third day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the celebration of Persephone's return aboveground. We are heading back into the dark now. I don't mind the reminder.

2. I have mixed feelings about Argo (2012), which I saw on Friday at the Lexington ex-Flick, but since I'd like to see more films directed by Ben Affleck, I think it has fulfilled at least one of its purposes. Its major problem for me is one of tone, although less drastically than Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. It is correct that the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis are owed the weight of history (and Western culpability) in order not to feel like just another backdrop of exotic danger, and it is correct that the premise of what became known as the "Canadian Caper" is so fundamentally batshit that the satire practically writes itself, and the first two thirds of the film reflect these moods in turn—the close-quarters boredom and nerves of the six "houseguests" of the Canadian ambassador, the cheerful industry cynicism of the makeup artist and the producer recruited to do everything for the CIA's fictitious movie but make it, and when they're working off each other it is impossible not to think of the results as The Scarlet Pimpernel meets The Producers, they fight crime. Where the film runs into trouble is the last third, when the two states need to exist simultaneously—confidence tricks across the abyss—and instead it lurches heavily in the direction of nail-biting suspense it really doesn't need, especially considering the real-life caper came off with nearly anticlimactic success. Sticking to the facts would have strengthened the absurdity without trivializing the danger with a Hollywood hairsbreadth escape. As it was, right in the middle of a chase scene was when I started wondering about the historical veracity of what I was seeing, and that's not when you want audiences to remember where they left their disbelief hanging.

That said, Affleck makes a solid leading man and that's not faint praise—it's an ensemble film, so he can't give himself all the best lines and he doesn't, but he can't be a charisma vacancy, either, when Tony Mendez needs to be the CIA's best "exfil" man with an improviser's knack for cover identities and a forger's way with a passport. I like Victor Garber whenever I find him, here providing the major Canadian presence as the ambassador who shelters the six Americans and works the other half of the charade; I would like to see more of Sheila Vand, whose small, mostly watchful role as the Taylors' housekeeper is complemented by her voice opening the story, setting the scene of Iran's recent history over a flicker of movie storyboards. Alan Arkin and John Goodman are a meta-delight to watch snark their way around Hollywood's backlots like something out of Preston Sturges, leaving no aspect of their profession unzinged. ("The target audience will hate it."—"Who's the target audience?"—"People with eyes.") But someone had better start giving Bryan Cranston more film roles of comparable complexity to his television work, because I left the theater texting Rob about him and I just don't think I can do four seasons of Breaking Bad right now. He's Mendez's boss, the probably composite Jack O'Donnell; he has the unenviable task of pouring first water and then frantic gasoline on the home fires when the op is called off halfway and Mendez, in Tehran, flatly states he's still bringing the houseguests home, which means all of a sudden those seven plane tickets need to be un-canceled and someone had better be staffing the office in L.A. and if the Secretary of State isn't taking his calls, does anyone know where his kids go to school . . . ? He's a career spook in a three-piece suit (which he looks good in, a long-limbed man whose habitual posture is a tense striding stoop) and sideburns (which nobody in this movie looks good in, but at least he got to dodge the porn 'stache) and in the strictest sense he is there to make the plot happen, but because Bryan Cranston is a terrific character actor, I found myself trying to parse the layers as I watched him, how much of that seen-it-all snappishness is really what he feels, how much is the vibe he knows his people need to feel from him, and it only confused me slightly that Cranston c. 1979 looks a lot like Denholm Elliott of the same decade.

3. And last night

rushthatspeaks and I heard a benshi at the Harvard Film Archive; it was an extraordinary experience. If you are in the Boston area and haven't finalized your plans for tonight, go hear Ichiro Kataoka perform Ozu's Dragnet Girl (1933). We heard the melodrama Shoes (1916) and Charlie Chaplin's A Dog's Life (1918). I had never before heard anyone do a voice for the Little Tramp. The character is a silent icon. He's going to sound like Kataoka-san's bumblebee-muttering, puttering commedia stream-of-consciousness every time I watch his movies now. And I don't even speak Japanese.

Plans for the remainder of this afternoon: in our ongoing efforts to watch everything of his that isn't Salò, Pasolini's Mamma Roma (1962). And then clean all the rest of the things.

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I did not know what a benshi was! It sounds like an amazing art form to get into, although I can't for the life of me picture what training must be like -- improv classes coupled with impromptu dramaturgy plus a fortifying shot of a fun beverage?

I will tell Nicole that Argo would probably appeal to her sensibilities. She adored the Bond flick, for what it's worth; probably you should see it, but with earplugs. (I didn't go. Oh, look surprised.)

Statler and Waldorf...

Didn't know about the benshi tradtion! It does sound astonishing.

Nine

The benshi sounds pretty damn awesome! It's hard to imagine Chaplin with narration.

I think the two old fucks were my favourite Muppets as a kid.

Well done on MD, and I hope you enjoy Pasolini.

plans for the remainder of this afternoon: in our ongoing efforts to watch everything of his that isn't Salò, Pasolini's Mamma Roma (1962).

What a magnificent project. I feel like that the former seems to overshadow everything he ever did these days, and it obscures what a remarkable thinker he was (this is not a slam on Salò, but obvs I don't pull it out to watch with friends).

I so agree about the spurious tension at the end of Argo, because it had done very well with ratchet tension up to that point, and there was enough of that, and the scene with the guards liking the storyboards was enough. It was climactic. It didn't need a stupid car chase. It reminded me of the end of the new Flight of the Phoenix where they didn't trust the perfectly good man vs canal plot of the original movie and had the plane take off pursued by a bear. I mean, some barbarians. Planes cannot be prevented from taking off by chasing them on the ground. They can be prevented from taking off from airports by calling the ATC, and anyone with half a brain would have done that.

Pity, because I liked it up to that point. And I was so glad the housekeeper also escaped, because she'd taken an awful risk there.

although I can't for the life of me picture what training must be like -- improv classes coupled with impromptu dramaturgy plus a fortifying shot of a fun beverage?

Someone from the audience asked this in the Q&A afterward—Kataoka-san is identified as a student of Midori Sawato, herself a student of the legendary Shunsui Matsuda, who very nearly single-handedly preserved the tradition (as well as much of Japan's early film history) after the war, but it sounded from his answer in translation as though there was very little in the way of formal training. Most benshi come out of other performing arts, he said. You start with silent shorts and work your way up to full-length movies. You have to be able to write your own scripts. He didn't mention beverages, but that sounds like a yes to everything else you asked?

She adored the Bond flick, for what it's worth; probably you should see it, but with earplugs. (I didn't go. Oh, look surprised.)

handful_ofdust made it sound irresistible to me, even if I'll mourn some of the plot choices.

Statler and Waldorf...

They were very well invoked.

Didn't know about the benshi tradition! It does sound astonishing.

rushthatspeaks was explaining to me how anime evolved out of street theater benshi (as well as the shift from film narration into what we would consider voice acting). I am hoping they write about the performance, because I could recognize maybe a handful of words or phrases as they went by in the dialogue, but Rush understood exactly what he was saying.

(Rush also says Shoes was the most Japanese film they'd ever seen from an American studio, which accounts for why Bluebird Photoplays is nearly forgotten in this country and their impact on Japanese cinema is almost incalculable. I would love to see another one with benshi narration sometime.)

The benshi sounds pretty damn awesome! It's hard to imagine Chaplin with narration.

That's how I know he was good. I would never have imagined it worked. And I don't think it worked only because I couldn't understand the language and therefore it registered more as a sound effect than an interactive element of the story, either:

rushthatspeaks told me afterward how Kataoka-san's Little Tramp was always one mental step ahead of his next move, but only ever one—which is how he ends up getting himself out of one kind of trouble by getting himself into the next—and I trust them when they say it worked brilliantly.

I think the two old fucks were my favourite Muppets as a kid.

I imprinted on Gonzo.

Well done on MD, and I hope you enjoy Pasolini.

Thank you! Mamma Roma was astonishing. Anna Magnani is the city and that's all there is to it.

I feel like that the former seems to overshadow everything he ever did these days, and it obscures what a remarkable thinker he was (this is not a slam on Salò, but obvs I don't pull it out to watch with friends).

This is our fourth Pasolini: we started with Medea (1969), backtracked slightly to Edipo re (1967) and Teorema (1968), and decided to see with Mamma Roma (1962) if he ever did have the neorealist period we keep reading about, to which the answer comprehensively seems to be no. We found him by way of Derek Jarman (and I had wanted to see his Medea for years, because of Maria Callas, but it was never available until very recently). Four films and not a disappointment yet.

[edited for inability to count consistently within the same paragraph; it has been a very tiring last few days.]

Edited 2012-11-21 04:16 (UTC)

and the scene with the guards liking the storyboards was enough. It was climactic.

And it is an appropriate climax because it's about story: how people tell stories, how they hear them. The narrative that Stafford makes for the guards out of the storyboards has nothing to do with the bazaars-and-minarets Star Wars rip-off we glimpse at the script reading in Hollywood, but that's what you can do with wordless pictures in any order you want to shuffle them. It's the proof of Mendez's earlier statement that a story—these ridiculous layers of story, from the real script of a fake movie to the film-crew cover identities that are just enough of the people who'll use them to be the most convincing kind of lie, the English major as the screenwriter, the production manager who speaks Farsi—is the only thing between the houseguests and a gun. Not the relative runway speeds of cars vs. planes. That just came into focus for me: the whole movie has been about what stories can do that more conventional action can't, and then the conventional action takes over anyway. That's especially unnecessary.

the end of the new Flight of the Phoenix where they didn't trust the perfectly good man vs canal plot of the original movie and had the plane take off pursued by a bear. I mean, some barbarians.

You know, I avoided that film on principle when it came out, and every time I hear something else about it, I'm happy all over again that I did!

(The original seems to have become one of my comfort movies: I own it on DVD and I still watch it every time it comes around on TCM.)

And I was so glad the housekeeper also escaped, because she'd taken an awful risk there.

And I liked that the movie took the time to care about her, where she might have dropped off the page in another script after her pivotal scene; I think she must be a composite character, because I couldn't find any references to a woman named Sahar in connection with the historical events, but still. Because she is telling the story, we can guess she's all right.

I'm glad for your contributor's copy. Glad as well that Argo wasn't a complete failure, and has a Muppet Show reference.

...it is impossible not to think of the results as The Scarlet Pimpernel meets The Producers, they fight crime.

I love this. You win an Internet, at least to whatever degree I can award you such a thing.

I'd not heard of the benshi tradition, either. I'm glad it was such an amazing experience for you.

The new FotP is nothing like as good as the original, but I hadn't seen the original then and it did lead me to seek it out, because I could discern the shape of it. The original is better in pretty much every way. I also own the DVD.

And you're absolutely right about story in Argo. I loved the story he made from the storyboards from the guards, because it was their story -- the bad king overthrown, the brave rebels -- and because he was the one who had been reluctant all along, who hadn't believed they had a chance. The interpreter in the market asked if it was a bride story, about cultural misunderstandings, and that has been one of the stories in Iran, but now it's that story, that revolutionary story, and they want to see that. (The bit with the Hollywood people being out of the office was also fake tension, but that was OK, it was the kind of thing that happens. Unlike the stupid unnecessary car chase.)

I know there were more people in the Canadian ambassador's house and involved than we saw, because one of them was the father of a friend. The Quebecois guard and Sahar were I think both standing for more people, some of them perhaps still alive and still in Iran. But she was a great character, and the film knew that and gave her the story, where a lot of films wouldn't have bothered to go back to her. And similarly, I thought it did a pretty good job with the Shah being a bastard and why the US weren't going to give him back, one that didn't even try to put the US in the right about everything, which was much better than I expected.

Sticking to the facts would have strengthened the absurdity without trivializing the danger with a Hollywood hairsbreadth escape.

Sounds like Hollywood unable to break free of its own stereotype of itself. "It's gotta have car chases! It's just GOTTA!"

Again on the last third! The fairies of theater and film have a minor curse on you, it seems: the third portion shall disappoint. How to break that curse, I wonder....

Again on the last third! The fairies of theater and film have a minor curse on you, it seems: the third portion shall disappoint. How to break that curse, I wonder....

Know people who write who don't fumble their endings.

(The bit with the Hollywood people being out of the office was also fake tension, but that was OK, it was the kind of thing that happens. Unlike the stupid unnecessary car chase.)

Agreed; I was frustrated by that, but in an in-story way.

I know there were more people in the Canadian ambassador's house and involved than we saw, because one of them was the father of a friend.

That is very neat.

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