Talking Movies

As the title suggests, so forth.

Yes, and/No, because

GK Chesterton in The Crimes of England spoke of the spirit that affirms and the spirit that denies, and averred that Prussia was very much the spirit that denies – made flesh. I’ve come to think that when it comes to people these truly are the animating spirits. And not, unlike improv, the spirit that affirms says “Yes, And” to any and all propositions presented. The natural predisposition is to action, to adventure, and to figuring out solutions to problems. On the other hand is “No, Because” which magicks up multiple problems without any interest in ever finding solutions, because the problems are never real. They are after the fact rationalisation of the natural predisposition to veto, to shut down any hint of fun or progress. Why? Because. And in our time it has morphed from “Because, Health & Safety” to “Because, GDPR”. There is never further explanation offered, which is convenient because there wouldn’t be any behind the bullsh-t facade of respectability. The dynamic is familiar from watching bullies at play, if one can call it that: Whenever you see a larger child take something away from a smaller child, not because they want to play with it themselves but expressly to deprive the smaller child of it. The pleasure is gained entirely in causing someone else pain by capriciously depriving them of something they want; Shakespeare might put it as robbing someone “of that which enriches you not but makes him poor indeed”. When these people grow up, if they enter positions of power they are very recognisable by their words and deeds as people whose only positive pleasure in life is inflicting suffering on others and denying pleasure to others. I think the agreeable/disagreeable split is a precursor towards this affirming/denying dynamic, possibly interventions in childhood can prevent disagreeable people entering adulthood as brazenly cruel jobsworths. Instead they become disagreeable wretches, who could find quarrel in a straw.

Living by a Mann Code

“And what cheese-eating yahoo of a Governor signed that idiot bill into law? … … … It was me, wasn’t it?” – The West Wing

“Hoist on his own petard”.That’s what happened to Jed Bartlett there. And it’s not a phrase that is much heard these days, despite its applicability. It is something that, say, the French rugby coach at the Six Nations refused to do: if it happens to his player it should result in after the fact official complaints and hell and damnation for the entire Ireland team, if his players do it -well, rugby is a contact sport after all, and if you can’t take the rough and tumble of it… Hypocrisy! And yet, it is easy. The rules shouldn’t apply to us because we meant well, or, more accurately the rules shouldn’t apply to us – because we’re us. It makes me think of something The Engineer came across some years ago. Across many different cultures a survey found that men most deeply admired men who lived by a code. This is the point of the Mann Code. Across many films Michael Mann has portrayed characters who are men of their word, men of honour, who believe, par Chesterton, that people avoid making vows not because they are silly but because they lack the faith in themselves to be true to them. De Niro’s master thief tells Pacino’s cop in Heat that the discipline of the job is not forming any attachments that you will not be willing to walk out in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner. Kilmer and De Niro’s characters then do exactly that later in the film. It is not easy, but that’s the point of living by a code – it requires self-abnegation. Pete Hegseth, alleged macho man who is going to bring back masculine values to the Pentagon, does not live by a Mann code.Though he would care for you to think he does. He lives by the weasel code, which is far more common. He lambasted Hillary Clinton’s emails, but he’s allowed send classified information to every group chat. After the Six Nations I thought of Trevor Sargent. He swore that he would not lead the Greens into Government with Fianna Fail, and then resigned his leadership when it became clear that the party willed it. That seems … anomalous. Imagine a politician keeping their word, at such considerable cost. And yet it is admirable. Certainly compared to the ABBA parties in Downing Street during COVID-19 lockdown. So why did people just sort of snigger and raise eyebrows at the time rather than celebrating it? Perhaps the answer is from another moment in The West Wing: “No one expects.” “No one expects! Toby, more and more it seems to be that we’ve come to expect less and less from each other” Living by a code is damn hard. That’s why Mann has built such a distinctive filmography from interrogating it. Just look at 2020, as a recent Jon Stewart podcast had me thinking, and the clash between COVID-19 and BLM. Gatherings were bad. You couldn’t pray together. You couldn’t eat together. You couldn’t even walk on a beach or a moor alone. But if you wanted to protest together, well, that’s different. At which point the idea “of listening to the science” became defunct. Because the virus sure as hell could not tell the difference between good gatherings and bad gatherings. If it was bad for evangelicals to gather and shout and sing because that would spread the virus, then it was also bad for activists to gather and shout and sing because that would spread the virus. But, to their eternal shame, 1288 medicos signed an open letter saying the opposite, because it was easier. It’s always hard to tell your friends they are in the wrong: Imagine being the NIH person instructed to tell his political cohort that they aren’t allowed to do what they want, and being shunned socially for it. You can see the same dynamic at work with Bishop Barron of Minnesota who rightly castigated the Paris Olympics for their sacrilege last summer, which they didn’t have the decency of admitting was a deliberate impiety. But he is lamentably silent now as President Trump posts an AI image of himself as Pope, which is also sacrilege; and galling during the official mourning for Pope Francis. Trump also doesn’t have the decency of admitting it was a deliberate impiety. But it’s hard to tell your friends they are in the wrong. Perhaps this is another reason that Mann’s characters are so often lone men – living with someone who lives by a code is challenging, it’s as exasperating as trying to be friends with an actual saint.

Holy Generational Age Gap, Druid!

I still, from time to time, think of moments from DruidShakespeare’s Richard III back in 2018. Indeed it semi-poisoned my very belated viewing of Laurence Olivier’s 1955 film of Richard III because I had been trained to expect the black comedy of the White Boar’s race for the throne to be brought out, and it was not. So, I should be very excited that Druid are now tackling Macbeth for the Dublin Theatre Festival in September. And with Marty Rea as the bloodsoaked Thane, no less! And Marie Mullen as Lady Macbeth. … Wait, what? And there’s the rub. Marie Mullen is 72 years old. I don’t know what exactly Garry Hynes is thinking here, but it means that this dynamic will not be that of an imperious Ciara Gough in a 2007 Astra Hall production of Macbeth; sexually toying with her returning husband till he agrees to her ambitious desires. For context the historical Eleanor of Aquitaine was 12 years older than Henry II, and it was much discussed at the time, and ever since, as an unusual age gap in a marriage intended, as many medieval monarchical matches were, to unite dynasties thru the getting of children. What exactly is this casting aiming for? The (cough) Freudian interpretation of Hamlet has been more or less erased from the repertoire because it never did very much except show how 20th Century the director was. But Freudians never really went for Macbeth. Why start now?!