Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich was nothing like what I had expected it to be. I heard about this movie when it came out originally and hadn’t seen it until now. The trailers are very misleading.  It is definitely a mix of the mundane and the fantastical with a darker tone.  It is not dark in the way that it is depressing but more that not of the characters are really all that sympathetic with the exclusion of John Malkovich himself and this could be done on purpose.  It is set in a city, specifically in very cramped crowded settings be it the office floor 7 ½ or the apartment where Craig and Lotte live.  This cramped feeling could be a reflection on the confinement of their lives and how they seek being John Malkovich as a way to escape that.  This urban fantasy also explores sexuality and being both male and female. Maxine, whom both Lotte and Craig fall in love with is probably the least sympathetic character out of all of them and yet she is the object of their desire and they both spend the whole film trying to be who Maxine wants them to be.  This film plays with the idea of free will and is a very interesting look into some of the ‘what ifs” of reality. 

Labyrinth

I loved this movie. And really what is there not to like. David Bowie, puppets, musical numbers, a fantastical quest, all very fabulous.  The spiritual education genre is defined as tales that are meant to instruct and enlighten typically younger audiences.  Sarah, the female protagonist of the film does go through a spiritual journey and is educated about growing up along the way. She first is shown as this selfish young girl giving up her baby brother for her old life back and then ends up being proposed to essentially by David Bowie’s character, as she becomes a young adult.  The educational journey is literally riddled with puns and puzzles that push her in either the right or sometimes very wrong direction. Misconceptions and judgments guide her decisions at first around the Labyrinth until she takes charge her self of where she is going and starts to get a bit more creative in her thinking.  Labyrinth is a film that can be enjoyed by both the younger generation as well as the older, who can appreciate the innuendos and references to adult life more (such as drug use etc.) Jim Henson does a wonderful job at conveying the different creatures in all areas of the journey be them sinister or otherwise. Often we notice that the creatures simply appear confused or bewildered as to what they are meant to be doing. It is not necessarily their fault that they are not adept enough to help Sarah find her way. Also we see the fear that governs character like Hoggle, controlled by the Goblin King. Spiritual Education often has a theme of control and how it has to change hands for the protagonist to complete their Journey. Sarah is initially helpless and confused but becomes strong and determined. She is able to play the game so to speak and we see this when she and Ludo are attempting to cross over the bridge and the bridge master says something along the lines of no one can pass here with out my permission. To which Sarah responds can we have your permission? And it is granted.  Sarah’s spiritual education is concluded with the return home along with her younger brother after having grown up and learned her lesson along the way. Be careful what you wish for. 

Spiritual Education

Notes

   The function of fantasy

Harry Potter

-       Establishes itself my word of mouth at this point

-       Published by Scholastic

-       Work of a single editor David Levine

-       Paid a fairly big amount

-       JK Rowling J.K stands for nothing)- they were afraid that boys wouldn’t buy the book so they hid the gender by making it an initial

-       Welfare mom

-       Good student

-       Her mother was sick and died when she was reasonably young

-       Teaching English to foreign students

-       Met her first husband in Portugal

-       Single mom and becomes a secretary

-       Waiting in a train because it breaks down and that is where she gets the whole story

-       Her friends believed in her- one of them cashed in her retirement funds to pay for her to live while she wrote the book

-       Book is auctioned off

-       Harry Potter becomes larger than the books

-       More people have seen the movies than have read the books

-       Embeds values that are relevant

-       Moral education

-       Leads you to the kinds of understandings you get when you are 18: shows societal norms in an absurd way (muggles etc.) 

The Magicians

-       Different kind of college experience

-       Harvard in a way (where the author went)

-       What are the real things you have to watch out for (binge drinking)

-       Mentions Harry Potter
-       Conceived of prior to harry potter but he writes it after
-       How it really is going to school in the magical world-not a façade
-       Darker- not so “nice”

The Epic and Tolkien

Class Notes

o   The epic exists to give a large cultural message

Tolkien

o   Spent most of his life studying languages

o   Born in South Africa

o   His father was middle class merchant kind of family

o   His father died as soon as Tolkien went back to England to cure his own respiratory illness

o   Tolkien’s mom converts to Catholicism causing a rift between her and her family

o   Where is the money coming from? They moved into a small house under the patronage of the priest- in a small house on a pond at the end of town

o   Industrialization of the country side reflected in the movie more than the book

o   Countryside being idealized

o   Destruction of nature

o   His mother dies when he is 12

o   Interested in linguistics

o   Make up languages to play with it when you learn the rules

o   If you are making up a language you have to make up a culture to go with it (why middle earth is so detailed)

o   Joins up for World War I

o   Marries the teenage sweetheart from the orphanage

o   Eventually ends up in Oxford teaching early languages and linguistics

o   He knows epics

o   The Hobbit is written before the 2^nd World War

o   The Bird and the Baby pub club meetings every week

o   The Inklings (college club) form the center of English fantasy club

o   He mumbles all his lectures

o   The lord of the rings was originally one big volume

o   The publisher divides it into three parts- this affects the entire realm of fantasy

o   Doesn’t really catch fire until the late 60’s in the United States

o   “Big hippie thing”

o   Gigantic revival with the movies

Time Bandits

This heroic journey film was full of random Monty Python humor slapstick comedy and famous moments in history. This movie, I would imagine, is what you would get if you combined Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with Labyrinth.  It combines adult humor with a child’s imagination, with rather an oddly depressing ending.  At times while watching this film I had ”what the ***” moments as the movie progressed.  I could, however, at times see some parallels between this film and The Hobbit. Here, though we have a young boy with crummy parents who needs an escape. We see this from the get go as his parents are more obsessed with their appliances then they are with him and his well-being.  I did like how Bilbo Baggins made a starring appearance as Napoleon (thank you Ian Holm).  You actually heroes or heroic figures show up in the film, such as Napoleon or Menelaus. And of course you have the battle of good and evil clearly laid out for you and the hero defending the good and clearly defining it for his peers. As discussed in class this film takes us through the stages of the journey with the Innocent world of childhood (boy in his room with his figurines and toys), call to adventure (when the dwarves appear out of his closet), refusal of call( his reluctance to follow them when the Supreme being shows up), crossing first threshold ( when he finally follows them down the path they create and through the time whole).  Trials and tribulations await him before he can return home. He has to help his companions attempt to live the life they wanted and face facts of what is actually good for them before he can go back to his time.  This is not blatantly said yet clearly is defined in the very concept of the film.  This was a very strange movie, but it did show a good example of the heroes' journey. 

The Hobbit

This book is the epitome of a heroes' journey. You go out and journey through the wilderness and triumph over your greatest fears in order to obtain something, an elixir or grail of sorts. The elixir would be either knowledge or power that changes the point of view of the character in question. In the beginning Bilbo Baggins is called away, leaving his humble existence.  Gandalf plays the mentors role in this journey. He is someone that helps Bilbo but isn’t always there for him or his companions.  Towards the middle-end of the story Bilbo gets the ring, which is essentially the elixir. Elixir is the symbolic thing you get in a heroes journey and is the very basis for the rest of the series. Although, there is a theme of growing maturity in this book as Bilbo develops, there is a clear difference between this heroes’ journey and some others. In that Bilbo is not an adolescent growing up and facing life for the first time. He is set in his ways as a peaceful almost middle age hobbit at home in the Shire. Yet he ends up facing whole new experiences that he wouldn’t have been part of if it weren’t for the push from Gandalf. Bilbo was reluctantly persuaded to join, and the hero is often persuaded to join against their better judgment or against what they would typically elect to do.  To embark on this journey with this group of strangers is completely against what Bilbo knows.  There is a series of battles, missteps, arguments and discovery along the way that set up the various obstacles along any heroes’ quest for adventure.  This story sets up an entire world and leads us through the most relatable character’s eyes in this wonderful escape of a tale. 

The Horror!!!!!!

                                                                             Audition 

There is nothing more profoundly creepy than an innocent looking soft-spoken Japanese girl gone wrong. This movie literally terrified me with its twists and turns, gore and soundtrack. For the first half hour of the film I was, frankly, bored and than it all unraveled before me.  A film with sex, vomit, psychological trauma, physical abuse, deformed humans, family, death and pedophilia, the story became more and more convoluted the more you were able to sit through. The director was great at setting the stage for all of that horror by really making sure you felt like you could understand the father’s life. The shots themselves were often close ups of his face or shots from behind so that we felt like we were actually in the room with him watching what he was doing.  The camera shots from a slight upward angle also made me feel like I was just a fly on the wall witnessing his life. This technique made me feel the suspense even when nothing was actually happening. This is a story that definitely keeps you on your toes.  I had to look away at some parts because they were just so disturbing.  The setting is one that anyone can identify with, as it is a city environment, which is one we all recognize and can imagine well.  The girl herself is portrayed as a very sweet and innocent one, wearing mostly white in her scenes. It isn’t until we find out her past that we see who she truly is. At its core this film is about loneliness and isolation and how we react to extreme amounts of it. The girl continuously leads an unhappy life because she has no one to turn to and is so incredibly lonely and abused. The man’s wife died and he has been lonely ever since.  I love the line in the film, which states, “ All Japanese are lonely”. This statement pretty much sets the tone for the film.  There is also some great foreshadowing in this film with the constant showing of the dog and a line like, “ the unhappy can act well.”  All in all this film was thoroughly disturbing and although I am glad I tried it, as its good to always try new things, it is not an experience I want to repeat anytime soon. I can still imagine her look at the end of the film. It still sends shivers down my spine. 

Well-done Takashi Miike.