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Lumos 2006 Class Notes - Saturday - # 2

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Hogwart's School Song

Hogwarts, Hogwarts,
Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald,
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling,
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare
And full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff.
So teach us stuff worth knowing,
Bring back what we forgot,
Just do your best
We'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot!

The Alchemical Psalm (Psalm 19)

1: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2: Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3: There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4: Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5: Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
6: His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
7: The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8: The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9: The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10: More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11: Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
12: Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
13: Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
14: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Pirates and Potter Preview

I am in the middle of watching Curse of the Black Pearl with the screenwriters' commentary (tomorrow evening will be the viewing with Gore Verbinki's and Johnny Depp's commentary) and just had to hop on the laptop and write this really quickly before I forgot because it connects not only with Harry Potter but with one of the talks from Lumos that I missed but intend to read the paper if it is there on the disk or get the audio recording if the paper is not there (but I am really hoping the paper is there for the bibliographic material in the footnotes etc)

Anyway, Sumara mentioned the screenwriters commenting that Jack and Barbosa are two sides of the same coin, two immortals dueling it out amongst the onlooking mortals. What I discovered in listening just now is that they are two halves of a particular traditional character archetype ... the "trickster" ... as in the session topic "I Solemnly Swear I am up to No Good: The Trickster Archetype in HP and Beyond." - which, unfortunately was a roundtable, which means that it was an open discussion ... but "Go Seaward's" name is listed so I'll be probing the data CD for that.

The screenwriters have referred to Bugs Bunny as a precursor to Jack (the quick slip) .... and also Pepe Lepew (harking forward to Elizabeth's "and ... and ... personal hygiene" line from Dead Man's Chest, although the screenwriters base the connection in being convinced that the world is other than the way everyone else is viewing it)

I'll be writing more on this as I get into whatever I can find from the Lumos material, but, rest assured I will be writing up whatever I find because you know how much I am into Fred and George.

But also of related interest here is one of the matters they talk about in the introduction of Barbosa, particularly of interest to my interest in their "biblical background" in light of my way of reading this stuff ... they mention that to make the hero larger than life, you make his nemesis larger than life .... specifically mentioning David and Goliath and "storytelling that goes back thousands of years, even to the Bible."

NOTE (added 8/9/07):

To any who are just tuning in on this post, the comments thread is up to 50 at this point ... there is A LOT of stuff added in there by both Sumara and myself, a few posts are general banter but most of them contain substantial content stuff on both PotC movies, so check them out (since we mainly focus on Harry Potter on this site, as far as space and "new posts" I opted to just strecth this combox thread out instead of putting up new posts, for one to keep it concentrated in one place and 2 to keep the flow of the main posts on the Potter material, especially since we are getting more traffic these days, after Lumos, including, very happily, a couple of the presenters from Lumos, and from concentrations other than our own specific approach to the Potter works, which is making for some very cool combox discussion)

posted by Merlin at 2:38 AM

Comments on "Pirates and Potter Preview"

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 3:57 AM) :

Pirates and CS Lewis

Just got something further fromthe screenwriters of Curse of the Black Pearl

They noted that the pirates can really bleed (blood on the knife Elizabeth sticks into Barbosa) and that they are NOT skeletons that are disguised by daylight, but rather flesh and blood characters whose curse is revealed by moonlight.
In CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength Merlin the wizard returns after a 500 year coma/trance, which he went under on the eve of the Roman invasion, being actually a celt Christian in the service of the kingdom of Logres, which is ruled by the Pendragon (Uther and Arthur) and which is the "religious" kingdom in conflict with with the political kingdom of Britain(ie, they're the same kingdom, Arthur is both Pendragon and King ... but which role will rule him?). Merlin hides in this trance because he knows he will be called out of it at some point in the future to help the present Pendragon of that time (Ransom, the director of St Anne's on the Hill) in a decisive battle in this conflict. To find the Pendragon Merlin has a series of test questions in Latin (This is from the chapter "They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven"

"Who is Sulva? What road does she walk? Why is the womb barren on one side? Where are the cold marriages?"

The Answers:
"Sulva is she whom mortals call the moon. She walks in the lowest sphere. The rim of the world that was wasted goes through her. Half of her orb is turned towards us and shares our curse. Her other half looks to Deep Heaven; happy would be he who could cross that frontier and see the fields on her further side. On this side, the womb is barren and the marriages are cold. There dwells an accursed people, full of pride and lust. There when a young man takes a maiden in marriage, they do not lie together but each lies with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts, for real flesh will not please them, they are so dainty in their dreams of lust. Their real children they fabricate by vile arts in a secret place."

Doesn't that sound like pretty close to Barbosa's monologue:
"nothing would slake our lust ... too long have I been hungry but unable to eat." etc etc? His description of what the moon reveals about the "accursed" ones? I thought that was pretty cool.

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 4:10 AM) :

WooHoo ... my schitzophrenia justified.
They just said the single hardest line to write in the movie was Gibb's response to Will's "ahhh, so that's the reason for all the ..." (and imitation of Sparrow).

The response was so hard to write, I think, because it was so crucial ... and they got it right ... "Reason's got nothing to do with it."
The "Enlightenment" (the "modern" era of philosophy) WAS the age of reason, the tyranny of reason, the age in which Robbes Pierre invaded Notra Dame and set up, on the main altar, an idol to the "goddess reason"

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 4:33 AM) :

They just noted that in the first "altar" scene where Barbosa cuts Elizabeth's hand, Will has not accepted the "necessity of piracy" and has taken matters into his own hands and fails to save the girl ... if it had not been for Barbosa's pirate greed in cutting the hand rather than the throat ("waste not, want not") then Will's whacking Pirate Jack with an oar would have cost Elizabeth her life.

This is, in short ... the Slytherin Question - the same exact thing as the Snape question

BTW .. this "trickster" archetype, is actually used by Tolkien in the Silmarillion (just remembering this from conversations on that book)... A good friend who is also a good academic said to me once "Yeah, but Melkor is as much Loki as he is Satan" ... To be sure, the Satan motif is in there as the backbone, but Ed was right that there is also a bit of specific Loki. Loki was the Norse god of the underworld, the dark world, and he was primarily a mischief maker, a "trickster" - remember that Tolkien was well versed in Norse mythology (in fact, he and Lewis became friends in a group they formed called the "Coal Biters Club" ... a group formed to read through the whole body of Norse Mythology, and when they finished it ... they just stopped meeting ... the name comes from a Norse word for one who, in the mead hall, had to sleep so close to the fire that he was practically biting the coals) ... When Melkor and Ungolant (the original dark spider, ancestor of Shelob in LOTR) poison the 2 trees in Valinor - and they abscond over the wall and are far off before any of the Valar know what has really happened ... that's Loki in action.

If you want to see Loki in a more contemporary setting, watch Jim Carey's movie "the mask" (Steiner's doctor character actually mentions Loki by name in connection with the mask)

(BTW in that bit on Lewis and the moon ... Lewis actually has Ransom mention Numinor as a place, "the true west" ... which I had thought was a Tolkien specific name and thing)

Sumara said ... (August 03, 2006 4:54 AM) :

Yay! Merlin's back! With five-line sentences! :-)

I knew you'd love Ted n Terry's (and the other two story writers whose names I never remember) commentary. I'm glad you're back talking about it all... now I just have to hurry up and finish reading more HP books so that I know what you're on about. :-)

Ok was going to say more but the kids are climbing on me... look forward to hearing more from you after you listen to Gore and Johnny...

Pauli said ... (August 03, 2006 8:39 AM) :

Sumara wrote: "Merlin's back! With five-line sentences!"

Don't forget the parentheses. ;^)

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 12:44 PM) :

Hey .... the sentence was five lines so that I could believably pass off one sentence as a whole paragraph ... which is also (according to some) against the rules :)

But, I just remembered this, which floated into my brain as I was drifting off to sleep last night. The whole 2 halves of the moon thing in Lewis makes the moon "piebald," which is the name by which the Green Lady calls Ransom on Perelandra, and indicates humanity's two halves of body and soul. In Pirates too we have the whole thing of Jack and Barbosa as the 2 sides of the same thing.

Sumara, what part of Harry Potter are you on? I always love asking that questionand hearing where somebody is in their first reading - remembering how fun it was to experience the books for the first time.

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 5:34 PM) :

I also liked alot how the screenwriters talked about introducing the supernatural as their contribution, which had not been done in the drafts submitted before they came along with theirs. I liked that there were guys out there fighting for the supernatural in this kind of movie. I mean, there are movies out there with the supernatural, but not many of this kind, in the established pirate genre, in this type of action-comedy. They said that they think it was the supernatural element that made it possible for an audience to accept pirate cliches (such as walking tha plank and buried treasure ... pirates never had any one walk the plank and usually spent all the treasure on rum, women and song ... and for a modern movie, without the supernatural the audience would be judging the movie by the film by the standards of "is this finally a 'historical realistic' pirate movie" ... and, guess what, the element of the supernatural also, I think, allows the rum to be interpreted supernaturally :) ... just had to throw that in there)
But it (the supernatural element)also, the screenwriters thought, paved the way for the audience to accept Johnny Depp's performance as Sparrow (based on Keith Richards and all, fey, drunk, whimsey etc ... and they said that this is the closest they have ever been to actually seeing their dialogue on screen, the most respect for the written dialogue by a set of actors - that the character of Sparrow is the character they wrote, but the facial expressions and mannerisms through which the character is shown are all Johnny Depp's[back to what Sumara and I were saying about the import of physical acting ... which the screenwriters also note as important the Knightley is such a good physical actress, which I thick probably gets unjustly overlooked, even though I've not really noticed myself as a particular "fan" of hers, meaning I haven't followed her and gone out of my way to see other stuff she is in]) ... a really cool instance of the writers, director and actors working together to make it happen really well.

They also mentioned that the supernatural gives Barbosa's character a believable or gripping motivatio he would not have had otherwise

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 5:43 PM) :

These guys know their stuff too ... very informative about the literary progression. The supernatural of the cursed pirates gives the film a horror film aspect but basically they are doing a romance (Will and Elizabeth). They note, though, that the the horror genre actually descends from the Romance genre by way of the gothic ... which is pretty cool considering the stuff that was in that one talk at Lumos about Snape as a Byronic hero (I remember the screenwriters mentioning Lord Byron early on in the commentary)and Voldy as the gothic villian (which I think Barbosa would fit in this film, and Jack would fit the "noble outlaw" category)

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 5:55 PM) :

Slytherin in Action

The screenwriters note that the crew comes back to save jack at the end of the movie basically because of what Barbosa said, "the code is more kind of guidelines than actually rules," by way of Elizabeth saying it to the Interceptor/Pearl crew after she rescues them onboard the Black Pearl.
Really neat progression in light of some of what Sumara and I were talking about in regards to the second movie and the screenwriters saying that this movie is really Elizabeth's movie (her central role in the eventual rescue of Sparrow) and the role of Barbosa as a Slyhterin type who, even before the end of movie two, has played a role in saving Jack's skin.

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 6:05 PM) :

I loved the line whichever of the screenwriters used to describe Pintel and Ragezzi being cornered at bayonet point by Murtog and Mulroy - "Abbot and Costello on Acid meet Laurel and Hardy"

Also, they explained away, to my satisfaction, the "timing descrepancy" in the Barbosa heart-shot. Combined with what was said earlier that they really are flesh and bloos and not materially skeletal ... the bullet would lodge in his heart till and the flesh would actually be torn from the entry wound etc, so it does work ... whether or not Pintel should still be damaged from Barbosa's shot earlier is another question :) but all stories involve "suspension of disbelief" in some aspect or another, otherwise they would be more like autopsy reports.

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 6:34 PM) :

Some really interesting comments by the writers during the credits, one of them gives the official timeline:

-Bootstrap Bill predates Barbosa on the Pearl.

-They talk about Sparrow being ok with Bill staying onboard the pearl after the mutiny, "they did what was right by them, can't blame them for that" (spoken of the new crew, but would hold for Bill, they say) ... and this is corroborated by Bill in Movie 2 ... "I stuck up for you after the mutiny, everything went wrong after that" ... after he didn't stick to the code.

-Also note, this make Bill possibly the only one present when Jones raised the Pearl from the depths for Sparrow, or at least privy to info somebody like Barbosa might not be (which is why he still thinks of it as his ship) ... they say that Jack picked up Barbosa,Pintel and Ragezzi et al in Tortuga at the "ten years ago" point.

Oh yeah, that was the first time I watched throught the credits and saw the thing with the monkey ... I stayed and saw the thing with the dog at the end of #2 the second or third time I saw it because Nate's neighbor had heard about it ... now I will know at World's end to stay through for the little treat

Sumara said ... (August 03, 2006 7:31 PM) :

Oh you hadn't seen Jack the monkey steal the medallion at the end before? That's why he's undead in DMC - and will be for eternity because the treasure island was sunk in a hurricane. :-)

I really liked listening to the timeline too, really explained things... especially about Jack knowing Bootstrap as "William" and the fact that they had a long history which then makes it more interesting when Jack mets Will jnr.

Yeah, I liked that they wanted to emphasise the movie as a supernatural fiction-based-on-fact film, not a realistic pirate movie... and how much Johnny had to do with that. They say something like "he played it exactly how we wrote it, but nothing like we expected". Gotta love Johnny.

Anyway, ramble ramble...

I've only read Philosopher's Stone so far unfortunately. My local library is pretty hopeless. I was really taken in by the stuttering professor Quirrell who turned out to be the bad guy, which annoyed me because I usually see through that sort of thing. I loved all the enchantments that guarded the mirror/stone at the end, it was like Indiana JOnes and the last crusade. Anyway, yes I'm quite fond of young Harry and I'll try to read the rest as ASAP.

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 8:19 PM) :

Funny you shold mention Indiana Jones, because the screenwriters of PotC mentio ngoing for that feel in the first movie. And the thing is, one of the things about DMC as SUCH a middle movie is that the whole genre of the trilogy has come a lot more to the front since Indiana Jones was done. Before that it was mostly Star Wars as a new kind of thing, at least on that scale. Other than that you had mostly "serial" sequels, it seems to me.

The thing is, although Indian Jones was not a "trilogy proper" in the way LOTR was or Pirates is, the Jones movies were a kind of trilogy on . There is a whole kind of "cipher" tradition of images and literary instances using the ark as a cipher for the Grail(particularly the statues in the north porch of the cathedral in Chartres France, built beginning of the 12th century, and thw poem Parzival, composed by Wolfram also circa early 12th century, at the time a document came from the near east to Europe telling the legend of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba having an affair and the son born from it being the first of Ethiopian kings and coming back and taking the Ark to Ethiopia). The book that I read was The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock, detailing his 2 year trail of tracing the Ark to a Coptic Church in Northern Ethiopia, and it seems pretty reliable as I have heard from others (although Graham details the more probably story of the Ark being removed from the Temple to protect it in the times of the OT prophets, being kept on an island called Elephantine, where archiologists have disvoved a miniature of the Temple, in which the Ark would have been housed before eventually making it down to Ethipoia).

The thing is, while the trail worked for Hancock to find the Ark (didn't see it - nobody sees it except the priest who is gaurdian, and he is gaurdian for life, his only task is to gaurd it, pray and offer incense) I think that as far as the meaning Hancock, Wolfram and the architects of the north porch in Chartres get it backwards. The Ark, as the resting place of the Shekinah, the footstool of God, is the foreshadowing of the Incarnation, Immanuel (God with us) - and for the medeival Catholic imagination, the Grail was the Eucharist, the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament.

So, although there are no material links between the 1st and 3rd Jones movies, as the first and last of the trilogy they get the flow of the literary meaning right ... and of course sandwiched in the middle you get the paganism of Temple of Doom (with a nice "main image" play that nirrors the Judeo-Christian development closely ... Ark-Temple-Grail).

I'm glad you liked Philosophers Stone so ... there is a ton of stuff packed into that final sequence. Much digital "ink" has been spilt in debate on the identities connected with that potions riddle that Hernmione solves. The basic are that there is a different DADA teacher each year, by the riddle I think there are 2 who are niether good or bad, and kind of fruity (the nettle wines) 3 poisons and 2 friends ( I think, it's either that or the other way round ... I would have to look it up ... me noggin being all full of pirates right now :) ) ... much debate on which teachers are which and what it means for plot and meaning.

Anyway, the reason I hopped on here right now was that I am listening to the Depp-Verbinski commentary now and noticed that GV says that Will's character is the biggest character arc in the story, which would seem to make him the "main character" contra Ted and Terry's statements ... but really I think it is "both-and," and that that is what the movie is about: the interplay between the masculine and feminine (hence, it being, at its core, a romance)

Depp is a blast to listen to

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 8:21 PM) :

Sorry ... meant to say:

"the Jones movies were a kind of trilogy on the level of their symbolic main image"

Merlin said ... (August 03, 2006 8:27 PM) :

Here's a brain teaser on Quirrel:
Steve Vander Ark, from the Harry Potter Lexicon (see our left sidebar under "External Links") figured out that ... never mind, you (Sumara) have to read all the way to book 6 to find out what would be significant in what I'll note next (I hate spoiling things in the plot for people ... and this will drive you on to read more and more :) ... is this what is meant by being a "dag" Jo? :) ).

For the rest of you: What do you make of the implications of Hagrid saying, when he and Harry meet Quirrel in the LC, before the school year even starts, that Quirrel is scared by both his subject and his students? A mistake on her part or is there something else behind it?

Sumara said ... (August 03, 2006 9:37 PM) :

Re Will's arc being the biggest through the movie... I think that Elizabeth also has a big arc of a different kind... she herself doens't change so much, but the outward perceptopn of her does. Even her own perception of herself does. At the start we see her as (and she thinks of herself as) a conventional, proper english young lady who does not associate with such people as pirates... and we only get small hints otherwise... but throughout the movie she realises (and we observe) that she really is more interested in those silly little dreams she has of a life of adventure than in sticking to convention nad propriety. She was an adventurous pirate-type all along, but she took a while to allow herself to be true to that.

Will, on the other hand does have more of an internal change because he starts out a genuinely proper person and has to be taught that a bit of adventure never harmed anyone.

You can, I'm sure, draw parallels between any two movies. I only mentioned Indiana Jones as aside note and there you are writing 4 paragraphs about it. :) Perhaps I should mentioned a few more random films and see what you come up with. Tee hee. :)

Sumara said ... (August 03, 2006 9:39 PM) :

Oh, my point of me saying all that about Will and Liz both having big arcs was to say that it still fits in with Liz being the central protagonist and the film being essentially a love story, as Ted n Terry say, as well as what Gore said of Will having the biggest arc.... so those two are the "lead" roles.

Merlin said ... (August 04, 2006 12:44 AM) :

The cool thing about a movie like this, to me, is its similarities to older types of "literature." To say, as you just said, that Will and Elizabeth are the leads, but then also to have Jack and Barbosa be so central as well, as Ted and Terry say about them being "gods" playing it out before the mortal crowd ... seems kind of confusing - but only in the kind of modern dominated context. In medeival morality plays you would often have 2 stages, a higher one in the middle and a broader one down low, and on the higher stage you would have Biblical characters and scenes and on the lower one you would have your "common man" type characters and your "chorus," in the manner of the old Greek stage (ie they would have the communal parts - not meaning necessarily a musical chorus) being the voice for different elements of society at large (one that I had to read in a college course was "The Just Vengeance" by Dorothy Sayers, friend of CS Lewis and Charles Williams .. at one point a cantor asks, "Who will carry the Cross?" and different parts of the chorus respond as different groups, like the mentally ill respond that they will carry the cross of being marginalized etc). So you could have these ancient archetypal characters AND these "common man/woman" characters being the "lead characters" ... just like we have Christ symbol elements in both Jack and Will and Elizabeth.

(In the morality play you would have interaction between the two stages too, which is was this stuff is all about ... the "participation" between "higher realities" and the "mundane details" that is what symbolism is really all about ... which I know I sound like a broken record because I am always talking about this "methexis" in symbolist literature, but it just always rings so true to me)

I only had a little bit to say on Verbinski's and Depp's commentary, not because it's not as good - but it is more the "experiential side" of the film making ... which was rollicking great fun to listen to. The one other thing I was going to note (aside fromwhat you already metioned about Depp's input to the character etc) was back to the physical acting thing. In the scene where Jack breaks his chains in the beginning, in the blacksmith's shop, they noted how this was kind of a lot like a silent movie, which I thought was pretty cool because, even though Depp didn't bring it up, that is his history in what made him so great in the role, the whole Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton routine in "Benny and June." And it's just such a key thing, the physical acting thing to give a performance as a "whole person" ... being able to work with your whole presence as a physical person and body language etc (Including "smell," which a writing prof I had said is the hardest sensory data to "nail" well in writing but, for the same reason, the most effective to use when you can nail it ... I also had not ever noticed before the G. Swann and Norrington responses to Jack's breath in their faces, which was hilarious once they pointed it out)

Which is again this connection between "deeper meaning" and the "mundane" details of physicality.

There was only one other thing, which neither set of commentary brought up but the mention of the blacksmith's shop brought back to my mind. My firend Dom noted the name that Jack is given by the dockmaster and which he uses again with Murtog and Mulroy, "Mr Smith" ... after being rescued as a boy Will gets apprenticed to a Blacksmith, who could have acted as a surrogate father to him but does not - Jack sort of steps into that role of surrogate father in this movie and also operates as the channel of revelation about his real father, with whom the connection is picked up strong in DMC

amazingly fun stuff

Sumara said ... (August 04, 2006 1:08 AM) :

Yes! I studied quite a few of the "Everyman" plays in drama college. And I loved that interaction - the value of ordinary everyday life, even to God and the angels, and the importance of everyday decisions about life.

And yes, good points about the "silent movie" physicality and the use of the sense of smell.

Merlin said ... (August 04, 2006 1:34 AM) :

I learned the "smell thing" from the prof for advanced writing, and then I found some real world examples(this is just funny story kind of thing)

I love Bob Dylan's writing, as anyone who has read some of my previous posts ("It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding")can attest too. But sometime after I had had that class I was listening to Dylan's 1965 rambling poem "Last's Thoughts on Woodie Guthrie" which he read at a London concert and can be found as the last track of the first disk of the 3 volume bootleg set. Anyway, I noticed two places where he nailed smell in that poem. the first is the "funny story" one - "your good gal leaves and she's long-gone-a-flyin' and your heart feels sick, like fish when they're frying" ... in one group boarding situation one housemate was kind of nerdy was frying Salmon on a pan on the stove, and another housemate (who I am still friends with and lives in Queens) said later "I told him, you can fry salmon on the stove, but you HAVE to do it at lower heat, man" ... the house reaked of burnt salmon for like 3 days.
The second place in that poem is, "your hand can only turn two kinds of doorknobs, your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways" ... and when I listened to that line again I thought, "man, he just nailed that dead on"

(on the friend in Queens and the import of "physicality" to art ... for his MFA at the art institute in lower Manhattan he had to take two semesters of human anatomy for his diploma in drawing and painting)

Merlin said ... (August 04, 2006 2:26 PM) :

One last thing on the "Everyman" plays (which it was really cool you knew the correct deignation and have studied them, Sumara, I felt kind of bad that I did not have the correct designation on hand because that is one of the things I like to try to keep up on this site if I can, having information for people to be able to go and look stuff up on their own if they want to look into something or other brought up here)

Anyway, Lewis uses the Structure in the very same book I mentioned earlier, That Hideous Strength. After Merlin has returned (btw, in case a reader has not checked out my profile or forgotten ... this is where I take my name from - the name Lewis uses is "Merlinus Ambrosius" - I think Ambrosius is one of the real life Britton generals who is viewed as a candidate for some real world base of some of the Aurthur character. My first and middle names are "Merle Brett" - so it made a cool little adaption to "Merlinus Ambrettus" in copy of the name Lewis uses) ... anyway, after Merlin returns and they are preparing for the big finale battle, a number of the Eldils come to a conference with Merlin and Ransom in an upper room at St Annes on the Hill. These are the acrhangels that rule the other planets. Malacandra is Mars and is masculine, Perelandra is Venus and is feminine (like "Men are from Mars Women are From Venus") and Thulcandra, as the eldil of earth ("the silent planet") is obviously Satan (and he, as you can guess is not at this meeting but it is his forces they are planing against). The "foot soldier" characters are down below together in the kitchen at St Annes and as each of the eldil arrives their interaction takes the character of the eldil who is arriving upstairs in Ransom's study or library. I forget which one it is, but they have this amazing dance, very lively music. When Mercury arrives they begin to have this conversation that is witty beyond belief, word-plays, ironies, double-entendres, all fluid, the conversation just simply flowing and filled with laughter (Mercury being the "messenger" god/eldil). When Uranus arrives there is this sense of hushed awe and grandeur in the air that some might mistake for "coldness" but is really more like the "weight of glory." (the effect of Perelandra/Venus is left for the end of the novel when the battle has been one and all of the animals that inhabit St Annes, ie "all of nature," begin taking off in pairs ... and the man who has been self-indulged the whole book and thick-headedly preoccupied with his own career advancement and thus gotten caught up with the bad crowd, finally makes it out by sheer luck, or rather providence, and is reunited with his wife, who has been with the good people, and who is ready to leave everything behind in service of the good side [ie become a celibate etc] and Ransom tells her this is not her path, her path is to "go and heal this man" and she heads off to the cottage where her husband is just waking up, still muddle-headed about how he got there and what all went on)

It's a really cool scene ... if you haven't read the "space trilogy" (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength) ... I highly recommend it.
Travis had a great post somehwere about 3-stage alchemical process in the end of Perelandra.

Merlin said ... (August 04, 2006 2:38 PM) :

Oh yeah, also, back to the trickster archetype ... Puck, from Midsummer Night's Dream ... and really all the faries, but especially Puck and Oberon ... for a Shakespeare class in college we had to act out a five minute scene ... the prof was the head of the dept, and I'm sorry if he is reading this site (I gave him the url name once, but I suspect he did not take it "seriously" enough to check it out), but I have to classify him as a "starry-eyed prude" ... he wouldn't let me and a friend do a scene from Taming of the Shrew ... with me as Kate (I had an even longer fuller beard at the time, it would have been hilarious) ... so we decided to piece together the whole Oberon and Puck subplot as a 5 minute scene and we interpreted it all right I thought ... my sister had the second of the 2 courses the next semester and was sitting next to a girl who had also been in the one with me and they were talking and Lissa said "my brother was in the class last semester" and told the girl who I was and she said that our performance was "really spooky" ... which I thought was pretty cool.

Sumara said ... (August 04, 2006 5:44 PM) :

Ok, so as well as reading the next 5 Potter books ASAP, I have to go read three Lewis books and some Bob Dylan too... okay, I can do that. :-)

And what's with people who take Shakespeare so seriously? Ol' William probably intended for Kate to be played by a guy with a long beard, for all we know. :-)

I'm enjoying all this conversation. Thanks Merlin.

Merlin said ... (August 04, 2006 6:31 PM) :

Aye, 'tis my pleasure.

Yeah, when that prof told us "no" we were like "What?!??! ... all the parts were played by men in those days and he had a pretty rye sense of humor ... he would of loved it!" but professor starry-eyes stuck by his guns and his authority. He used to like to talk in classical lit about "the gusto" in Homer and all and I would chuckle up my sleeve thinking "I can tell you have never felt the gusto of nearly walking backwards off a 2 story roof after 8-10 hours in shingle grit and 95 degrees and 95 percent humidity ... that'll give you some gusto and some up-chucko."
.. but, such is life I guess
There were a couple disillusioning moments with that process ... the second was when we lit on the Oberon-Puck story, me and my friend Phil (with whom I really was good friends, we played quite a bit of music together ... he is a much better player than me) ... and I said, "hey, let's do it in the style of somebody to make it interesting ... let's do it in the style of Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton" ... and he said "Who?" and I said, "you know, the Honey-Mooners? The TV show from the 1950s when they used to do it all live? Jackie Gleeson was Ralph, who was a bus driver and married to Alice and always said 'one of these days ... bang! zoom! to the moon!' and Art Carney played Ralph Kramden and always did that bit with his fingers taking forever to write something Ralph was waiting for him to write, and we could have you do that as Puck and I could be Oberon as Kramden" ... and all I got was a blank stare ... I was very disheartened, like that defeated look on Jack's face when Will spills the beans after escpaing the exploding Interceptor and climbing up to the Pearl and Jack is trying to head him off from ruining the bargaining chips with the great "eunich singing voice" line ... I figured I could get tapes and watch them with Phil, but if he hadn't recognized it at first probably nobody else would ... I felt old LOL

Anyway, I forgot to note that we have a similar thing as the "Everyman" staging going on in Pirates 1, but in a really interesting mix with some other major symbols. You have the main characters of Jack, WIll and Elizabeth fighting with Barbosa and his remaining crew inside the island while the Norringtona and his "hoi poloi" fottsoldiers battle the Pirate foot-soldier masses out on the Dauntless ... kind of an inner battle and outer battle reflecting it and dependent upon it. And it's also combined with the Homer/Virgil/Dante descent among the dead motif of the island of death (Ille de Muerta ... or however you spell it). And in that island of the dead (or rather undead) you have this whole liturgical/sacrificial setting ... I was hoping to hear which of them (GV or the writers, or both in concert) came up with that whole "high altar" look for the stone chest of Cortez's gold (didn't really catch it on the commentary, but you can't have everything :) ) ... and Barbosa is definitely preaching a ritualistic sermon ... that whole "Begotton by blood; By Blood undone!" thing was over-the-top ... simply brilliant.

Merlin said ... (August 05, 2006 1:24 AM) :

More Dirt:
Sumara, keep checking this comments thread on this post ... I have more dirt from Dead Man's Chest. I went to see it again tonight with my friend and housemate Dom, with whom movie conversations are always profitable, for the first and only time. I have lived with Dom in 2 group boarding situations for the past 3 years (gonna miss talking with him and living with him) and I am clearing my stuff out tonight and he is moving over closer to Pittsburgh, where he is in school, on the 12, so tonight was likely our last hanging out together in person for quite some time.
Anyway, I have to pack for now but I jotted down notes on paper so I will be sure not to forget the stuff.

Sumara said ... (August 05, 2006 4:12 AM) :

Ah yes, I always love the intensity of that inside/outside battle sequence at the Ille de Morte. It's very gripping.

I'm glad you got to hang out with Dom (and I'm jealous of how many times you get to see DMC!). I hope all the packing and moving goes well.

Sumara said ... (August 07, 2006 4:38 AM) :

By the way, I only just noticed your "pirates tidbit" post, and commented on it.

I tried again today to get Chamber of Secrets but all copies were out again - they're all overdue so hopefully one will be returned soon. I was tempted to get Prisoner of Azkaban,which was the only one available, but I resisted. Will try to catch up soon!

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 5:21 PM) :

Monday August 7

Well, after much running aruond and packing and unpacking and keeping up on some of the potter/lumos material ... I am finally back to write out the comments Dom and I came up with on our final viewing of DMC and should have the time to get them all out.

Echoes
so, first there are just a few minor image/positioning/echoe things (minor in screentime ... but not so minor in "Merlin Verbosity time" LOL), of which there are 3:

1. Jonah and the whale (which is also a song by Paul Simon): You have this used twice in DMC, one with Will and once with Jack, kind of pairing the two of them in yet another way. The first time is on the innocent wedding dress ship that Elizabeth was on earlier. In fact, like the sailors who tossed Jonah overboard because of the bad weather being attributed obviously to forces and events other than "scientific explanations," the one sailor is holding up the wedding dress saying "take it" ... un fortunately that was not what it wanted and the ship goes down just after will says "I've doomed us all."
The second time is Jack himself, and Elizabeth does correctly identify the intended target of said terrible beastie and chains him to the mast. Like Jonah, Jack may have been doing a little bit of running away from duty (Dom instantly cheracterized Jonah as "the unwilling prophet")and may be saying "persuade me" to the fates (or the compass?), persuade me that this is really the right course of action ... I'm having my doubts. The ironic thing is that he used the "persuade me" line with Elizabeth earlier and it is indeed she who persuades him in this context.

but Jack, as we have said, at least once there is no denying it, stands and fights. and the only extra thing to note here is in relation to what I was saying about existentialism in DMC. Dom noted that when Jack faces said terrible beastie ... he looks like he is ready to leap. Soren Kierkegard is known as sort of the "grandfather" of existentialism, and as a "Christian existentialist" ... and this is the term he used ... sometimes he simply refered to the "leap" and sometimes to the "leap of faith" ... Dom's comment was "oh, well, yeah, existentialism was all about the 'leap'"

2. Father, Son and Gibbs. The second position pairing is in movie 1, via the timeline provided by the screenwriters in their commentary during the credits. If Bootstrap was on the Pearl with Jack before anyone else, and then they picked up Barbosa and company in Tortuga (which is interesting that the screen writers mentioned the swordfight choreographer from "Princess Bride" in talking about their own such choreography in movie 1 because with Bootstrap predating Barbosa on the Pearl with Jack but Barbosa becoming first mate you have a similar thing going on to what Wesley describes of the Dread Pirate Roberts system - not an exact match of characters, but same general type of thing ... maybe Jack wanted Bootstrap as an informant on goings on, which he could do better as a common sailor than as first mate, or maybe Barbosa was just really aggressive even before the mutiny, in seeking out the first mate position) ... THEN Will is following in his father's footsteps in movie 1 in pulling into Tortuga on a ship to pick up a crew, which makes the father-son relationship even more central and the whole "saving the father" thing that is set up in DMC (especially being as they have had the "good man and a pirate" talk right at that time that Will is sailing the Interceptor to Tortuga with Jack).

Interestingly in both movie 1 and movie 2 it is actually Gibbs who is the main facilitator of getting the crew. This is not necessarily the case pre-movie 1 with Bootstrap, although we know that Gibbs was around then as a sort of witness ... Gibbs is kind of like this "lore-master," the story-teller or the bard in the old mead halls ... and it is this that attracts crews ... Gibbs is a pirate spin-doctor for Jack :)

Now, this last thing under the point 2 heading of the Father and Son thing is VERY LOOSE ... let me say that again, VERY LOOSE ... and I emphasize that not just to cover my butt on being accused of having crazy interpretations, I do it to keep the necessary respect for the fact that what I''m about to say touches one of the deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith - the Trinity (which the title of this second subsection indicates).

So again, this is very loose and on a very "latent" level ... it is, to me, like a genuine image but one that is very cloudy, seen in a very dim mirror. For one, the Son does not "save" the Father in the Trinity, not in any way shape or form. But if you look at Will "saving" Bootstrap as maybe Will "revealing" to him his (Bootstrap's) own good inside him, a good he has ceased to believe in ... Will tells him "it's not a fate you had to choose for yourself either" ... in other words he is passing on Sparrows message that he is nto only a pirate but also a good man. In this sense Will "reveals the Father" as did the Son of God. Like I said, this is loose - here particularly because you have Bootstrap filling both the role of the Father and the fallen humanity to whom the Son reveals the Father.

Then you have Gibbs ... who I would hesitate to call anywhere near "Holy" (especially given that he plays the prodigal son role in the first movie, sleeping with the pigs ... a place Norrington takes over from him in DMC) ... but being as the Holy Spirit, as the person of the Trinity tradtionally accredited with inspiring Sacred Scripture, is the geatest "story-teller" of all time (and eternity as well :) ) If you look at Gibbs and his Rum flask as natural revelation perverted and taken to the pigs in paganism, and then replaced in the pigpen by Norrington, "the Law" left destitute, and maybe Gibbs in some redeemed form in World's End ... well, I could ramble forever :)

Like I said, it's all very loose and I would not want to even try to draw those lines tightly, all I'm trying to say is that these Christian images and themes and theology were so imbedded in medeival lit that when you have artists in this day and age who have, as part of their formal training (like you, Samara, with studying the "Everyman" plays in drama college), it seeps through in the very "texture" of the story.

3.
Anyway, number three under this heading of "echoes" is simply when Will is on the deck of the Pearl with Elizabeth looking down at him, mirroring their first meeting as boy and girl, when she is set to watch over him. I have sat here racking my brains for a few minutes on the sequence and I am almost positive that the only place this could have happened in DMC, and that it did happen here, was after the final rum and powder blast against the Kraken ... ie pretty much the last thing before Elizabeth kisses Jack and chains him to the mast ... ie, maybe she sees herself there as again "watching over" or protecting Will, this time from his pirate side. Not sure on that yet though :)

More to come :)

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 5:27 PM) :

oops ... sorry bout that slip and I really hope you haven't seen the movie "The Ring" ... it was purely accidental that I spelled your name like the dead girl Samara in that movie.

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 6:08 PM) :

Aye ... just went and read your comment the tidbit-sidetrip post (usually comments get emailed to me but for some reason

The jar of dirt is doing ok ... I think. It's all pretty much in place right now at least, rather than spread out as it was.

The "inevitability" line ... ahh yes, to quote/adapt another recent Depp movie of which I am a huge fan of his performance ... "The inevitability is most important" (after I saw Charlie and the Chocoloate Factory I got on a kick of telling people "you're really wierd!" in that way he tells the nut-mogul, I'm sure it became thorough annoying ... and given my otherwise brutish appearance, possibly disconcerting LOL)

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 6:11 PM) :

ahhh ... but for some reason I always forget to finsih my thoughts, just like (as I meant to say) for some reason the forwarding stack has not been making it through with emails of comments. But that may also be (and I would say that here possibility reaches the level of probability) some glitch on blogger's end and the comment emails are not getting sent by them to Pauli so that his forwarding stack can then send them on to said designated recipients ... ie me.

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 6:27 PM) :

Ok, On with the show

Speaking of my/the jar of dirt - this comment is on Dirt and Rings.

It's just a brief one ( and I do mean that this time ... I have two more comment topics coming up after this one, and I will be upfront with you right now ... they're not brief, even by my standards LOL who knows, maybe I'll manage to be concise for once :) )
This brief one is on possible mechanics of Jack's resurrection in World's End or between the two films. While Jack gets only a jar of dirt from Tia Dalma herself, he walks out of her hut with more than that ... ie he pockets a few things ... including a ring with a big stone ... he still has it on his person when he gets devoured by said terrible beastie. Is it maybe some type of betrothal or wedding ring to which the beastie has a terrible allergic reaction resulting in death? Another possibility is the jar of dirt itself ... which Tia gave him in her own setting of the wet-lands ... it broke on the deck and was still there when said beastie takes captain and ship down together ... could this be a source of how Jack resurrects from the belly of the beast ... through his connection with dirt/land/stability? (In Perelandra Lewis uses an interesting converse of this type of thing when he has the temporary prohibition for the Green Couple, who live separately on floating islands, be that while they can visit the fixed land by day, they may not stay overnite on it)

possibilities ... not necesarrily probabilities ... they would have to be done right if they were done in movie three, in order not to come off kind of goofy ... but I think these guys are pretty good, and I think there is more there that will come to play because they were so clealry happening but not explained.

Sumara said ... (August 07, 2006 7:36 PM) :

Aaagggh!!! Just wrote a huge comment and lost it! *sigh* Try again...

You know Merlin, if you're concerned about being brief - you could spend less time talking about being brief! I don't mind lack of brevity, though. I could read all day every day, I'm a bit of a read-a-holic.

Echoes 1: Yep, interesting. The difference being, though, that we know the Kraken is an agent of Davy Jones the evil guy, whereas Jonah's whale was assisting God's work. The similarities, though (both in action and motivation), are undeniable.

Echoes 2: Father, Son and Gibbs hey? Mmmm... *long sideways glance*... You're really weird!
very loose indeed. I definitely agree that such stories just work their ways into wrtiers' and artists' consciousnesses (?), and find their way out every now and then with glimpses of mythis stories. These big stories (the Christian story, other myths and legends) are so embedded in our history and our art and literature that you cna't help but be influenced by them.

Echoes 3: Yes, ELizabeth certain;y spends a lot of time, right form their first meeting, watching over will and trying to save him. Which, from the point of view that it breaks the conventions (of the bloke saving the damsel) and creates more layers in the characters, is really interesting. I think that when she's chaining Jack to the ship and we see Will getting down into the boat, it is an aknowledgement that Elizabeth has decided what is the right thing to do - I don't think she's sure that she *wants* to do it, but she's saying "I came here to save Will, that's the right thing to do so I'm darn well going to do it" even though it breaks her heart to do what she needs to do. It's like she realises that, whether she likes it or not, her job is to watch over Will just liek her father told her to do all those years ago.

Ok, I'll be back soon with more...

Sumara said ... (August 07, 2006 7:41 PM) :

I have not yet seen The Ring, though it is on my list of things to see. Is there a Samara in it? (or is she already dead?) I'll have to see it then, you don't come across Sumara/Samara very often.

Don't worry, by the way. People do that all the time. Doesn't worry me.

Sumara said ... (August 07, 2006 7:55 PM) :

Dirt and RIngs:

Aah, I'm glad you mention the dirt. A while ago I commented that I was a bit lost as to what the purpose of the dirt had been - it seemed to do not much more than briefly hide the heart. But you're right, all that dirt is still on the Pearl when it's taken, so maybe this is when it comes into it's own. (hmmm, talking about a pile of dirt as if it's a central character, I like it!) I definitly think you're onto something. Tia Dalma seems to know Davey Jones, the sea, very well and she was pretty keen for Jack to take that dirt. Does seem a bit strange though, I mean, there would surely be bits and pieces of dirt on every ship the Kraken takes down and it obviously doesn't help them too much. Have to keep an eye on that one (is it nearly May yet?!).

As for the ring, yes, I also think that must be pretty important because we see such a lingering shot of it when Jack needs to move it around to get the shackles off, and he's careful not to lose it even while trying to free himself.

One of the things he also takes from Tia Dalma's hut looks to be a little jar or puch of something, potion maybe? or some kind of substance. Perhaps something useful for survival inside a terrible beastie? Who knows.

Perhaps the ring or some other trinket of Dalma's is something precious to Davy Jones and could be used for bargaining power?

You're right, though. Ted and Terry and Gore etc are pretty good indeed... I'm sure they'll figure it out (figuring it out as we speak, I hope, seeing as filming of the remaining scenes of III is underway.)

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 8:39 PM) :

Ahhh, I forgot that about the possibility of Tia having something of Jones' - I was trying to watch but with the scenes not in close juxtaposition and not having it on DVD yet it's hard to do ... but there is a locket on her table right next to the ring and it seems to me to be pretty similar to the one that Jones has that plays his theme ... and I can't decide if it looks intentional (on the part of Jack) to me or not, but it does seem to strike me as oddly conspicuous the way he passed over the locket (in other words, I think it very well may be intentional on the movie-makers' parts, but it's still hard to tell without being able to rewind and freez and all that)

Also, on this round I noticed I had it wrong, it's not a pole that Ragezzi leans around ... it's a jar of eyeballs hanging from the ceiling (which are usually indicative of insight or revelation) ... but I was right about the monkey ... actually he goes for the pair of boots immediately after being released from the cage and takes up his position staring up longingly to the "offstage" occupants of the boots ... and then there is, a few minutes later, the shot of Ragezzi and the others leaning round to see the monkey still just sitting and looking longingly up past the boots (It has to be Barbosa "laying in state" in her hut ... no other explanation ... Dom thinks Tia needed the monkey as a living being connection to bring him back and I say it was Jack going down with the ship ... or I guess it could be both)

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 9:38 PM) :

Ah ... when you do see "The Ring" be warned ... the general rule that I have heard is that men find it to be the scariest thing they have ever seen and women find it to be dumb.

As for me ... I found it pretty scary but even more so I found it extremely gripping on the level I analyze the stuff ... and it's Gor Verbinski (directing the first one, the second one so far was directed by the guy who wrote it and did the Japaneese original).

There is debate for me, given what is given in the second movie, whether "Samara" is the actual dead girl or a parasitic evil spirit channeling through her ghost (which, as is the central "horror" thing of both movies, is a ghist with lethal capabilities) ... if you do watch and want my reading of it, let me know ... I wrote a very rough draft essay on it that I can put into my free web-folder and put a link here, or email it if you're comfortable with it (which many people are legitimately not comfortable with handing out their personal email address to anybody online that they have not met in person ... I myself use an account just for this stuff online [which can be found on my blogger profile] rather than my regular personal email address)

Merlin said ... (August 07, 2006 9:44 PM) :

I think you're absolutely right about the look Will has when he see her kiss Jack and when she gets into the boat ... I have never bought that what was going on was "you were cheating on me" and "yes, I was cheating on you"

Sumara said ... (August 07, 2006 11:10 PM) :

Did I say that?

When I talked about that moment I was talking about ELizabeth's thoughts about Jack vs Will.

Anyway, I agree. Their looks are far more complicated than just questioning her faithfulness. They're both having complicated thoughts along the lines of "Yes, she loves me, but I see she loves Jack too, and yet she sacrificed him, she saved us, what a woman! and yet she kissed him? I just want her to be happy but how do I do that?..." (will) and "oh my, what did i do? I so love Will but boy I think I might love Jack as well and now what have I done? Can Will still love me and can I still love him? I wish I hadn't had to do that but I *did* have to, will life ever be normal again...."

None of which really properly captures their thoughts or emotions at all, but perhaps you get my drift anyway...

The locket - according to about a million fans on a Johnny Depp fansite I came across - the locket in Tia Dalma's hut is indeed the same as Davy Jones' music box h... (and they would know, some of them have watched it 10 or more times); they have a theory that Tia Dalma was Davy Jones' lost love. And that Jack was at some time her lover too ("I thought I knew you" he says to her), hence some of Davy Jones' hate for Jack... who knows...

The Ring, from your vague descriptions, does strike me as the kind of thing I would think "dumb". But you never know. I'm keen to see more of Gore's work. I might just like it. I'll let you know anyway.

Merlin said ... (August 08, 2006 12:45 AM) :

The Dog and the Existential Keys

Ok, here is another one of those posts that I know is going to take a bit, mainly because of groundwork and explication to make sure I don't sound like I'm saying something I don't mean to. Like I said, there is a kind of existentialism that is congruous with traditional Christian thought and a kind that is not. And after I get done saying what I am saying about the dog and the keys, I don't want to be misunderstood as saying "hey, they're saying that you worshipping "God" is as meaningless as worshipping a dog ... and I think that's cool for them to say."

I also have to be up front when I do readings like this where I am the afore-mentioned "quasi-schitzo" of the pre-modern and post-modern. Like I said, I think this stuff in this movie is arguably distinctly of the line of Existentialism that is congrouous with traditional Christianity. But, there are other movies out there that use traditional Christian imagery and post-modern thought too, and do it in a way that I think is a very unhealthy syncretism that loses the truth of Christianity by admingling it as a co-equal with other forms of thought it is meant to be the ultimate and higher fulfillment of after they have had the impurites removed.

I am thinking particularly of the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies ("Reloaded and Revolutions"). I was a huge fan of the first movie, the second movie left a bad taste in my mouth and with the 3rd movie I think I got a lot better picture of what was going on. In the first movie there are ambiguities where I think the movie leans towards the Christian interpretation. And when I saw the second movie I thought they had pulled a fast one - set you up in the first film to accept it as a Christian and then took off in the other direction (both directions being "possible" in the ambiguity but one being more "probable" ... always love that line in Pirates 1), trying to drag you along with them. With the 3rd movie I think that I have lit upon that they might see it as the genuine development of western thought, in which everybody saw sense in traditional Christianity and then progressed to seeing the good of mixing it with forms of thought very antithetical to it ... I agree with them that this is the flow of the history of western thought, but I disagree with what I suspect is their belief that it is a good prorgression.

As for evidence in the Matrix movies, you have (for just one main example) the "Messiah" motif in a form adopted almost directly from Frank Herbert's second book in the Dune series, Dune Messiah. In that book Paul Atreide/Maud'ib returns from the desert without his eyes, but his prescience has grown so strong from the spice that he is able to see everything going on around him through it far better than his physical eyeballs ever could have, and so he has evolved into the blind prophet-messaih. In the end, if you read all six Dune books (which I must warn is a real head trip, your brain is kind of swimming for weeks afterwards) you discover that the central theme is evolutionary "survival of the fittest" or what Darwin called "natural selection." As a Catholic academic I know that the Catholic Church is fairly open-minded about scientific research into physical evolution. But one thing the Church is firm on, you are not free to believe or espouse [and remain othrodox rather than heterodox]that spirit in a human being merely evolved from animal psyche,let alone computer algorhythms running on electricity. But in the 3rd Matrix movie this is what you have - Neo as the "blind messiah" has evovled to the point where he can see, through his own "not jacked in" person, the psychic energry that the machines have evolved into. Likewise you also have Neitzsche's "God is dead" in the form of romantic tragedy when Trinity dies in the process of getting Neo to the machine city. Christian thought has been altered in this synchretism to the point where it has lost it's core in the Incarnation. And that is not what I think the guys of PotC are doing, but I just have to be open and upfront that there are instances of such pairings of the pre-modern and post-modern that have wound up, I think, in a "not good" place ("spiritually ... ecumencially ... grammatically" ... which side of his butt did Depp, or Verbinski or Ted or Terry, or whoever, pull that out of ... it was downright brilliant!)

ANYWAY - having said all that to cover my butt (and I am very greatful, Sumara, that you are, as you said, not allergic to verbosity ... I think I may have the most incurable case ever LOL) :) ...

Distinguishing Movie 1 and Movie 2

By way of intro I have to say that I do not think this aspect of the dog was there in Movie 1 but is there in Movie 2. In movie 1 I think the dog with the keys was simply a pick up from the original ride and that's about it ... the level at which I'll describe it here in Movie 2 leads me to believe it is a consciously used motif that, somehwere in doing the writing for movie 2, they realized it worked for this (as I'll explain later I think the post-credits "Easter Egg" supports this)

The Existential "Dog"

Ok, so lessee if I can give my brackground on the matter concisely (nope ... already began mentioning the said preoccupation with brevity right off the the bat, dead in the water right out of the gate on that one :) ). In a course on 20th century American novel, in undergrad, we read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Now I liked, and still like, the prof for that class, even though she retired after this last year. And she had good discussion questions for class ... but not only did the majority of the class not pick up on them, but they would then hijack discussion time for things that weren't terrible, but just kind of meandered aimlessly in areas that were themselves aimless, to the point that my friend Dave and I did not feel we could fit into the conversation and so we were just silent most classes, but we would get there about 15 min early and have our own discussion of what we were reading and then continue it after class out smoking cigarettes (he was roughly same age as me, both of us slightly "non-trad" age but we didn't fit the romantic category of "traditional non-traditional" either).

It was Dave who turned me on to all the existentialist motifs in Invisible Man. One of these images was a bum walking down a Manhattan side street with a shopping cart full of blueprints, singing a song. The "blueprint" represents all of the really belaboured hyper-rationalistic/enlightenment era agruments such as Kant's kind of argument for the existence of God (Kant is so soporifically thick in English, I hate the thought of trying to read him in German ... which I think would drive me insane enough to become a bum pushing a shopping cart down a Manhattan side street). And that just happens to be what the song was about too, only using the "standard" existentialist image for it ... "I got the dog, I got the God-dog" ... one of the famous things in existentialist thinking is noting the fact that "God" is "dog" spelled backwards.

Now, let's look at "Poochy" in DMC ... one, he has they "keys to freedom" - but then, as I noted above, he had those in Movie 1 and it just came from the ride. But here we have him introduced in the context of a very interesting (and hilarious) conversation between Pintel and Ragetti ... on "divine providence" vs "me bein clever" and "how do you know it wasn't divine providence what inspired you to be clever?"

Now, this is getting dangerously close to what I was saying about crossing lines of the wrong kind of existenialism ... and in discussing this stuff you have to be careful even on the literary grounds ... I always say it's best to stick to "canon" as much as you can (afore-mentioned prof starry-eyes once commented on the side margin of a paper "do you have any critical/secondary resource support for this?" and my resounding answer in my head when I read that was "Nope! Not a lick!" :) ... although I have learned since then to use secondary resources much more, in short to "play the game" ... which is actually good, there actually is a point to being in dialogue with other scholars etc etc)
So I will say that "in canon" (ie in the movie itself) I think it is ambiguous but that the particular way they use Christ symbols and moral symbols etc in the rest of the film, leads me to believe they lean towards the way that is congrouous with traditionally orthodox Christianity. But the "secondary resource" is the "easter egg" scene of the dog with the cannibals (which is first and foremost mainly just funny, but something can be funny and meaningful at the same time ... and, for any who do not know, as I did not, say a year or two ago, "easter egg" is DVD/online lingo for a hidden extra, bonus kind of thing) and I think this "secondary resource" (especially since it comes from the authors themselves) provides some more hint of traditional leanings. I think that with the dog they do not mean God himself, but "God" as we silly humans are continually trying to make him in our own image (which is very at the core of idolatry).

I'm not saying I think they're preaching a sermon ... just that I think this use of the dog provides further evidence that they are consciously crafting the movie in a post-modern, existentialist vein, but in the type of existentialism that is congruous with traditional Christianity.

So, that is my take on that ... but I do have one more big main comment coming but it is late here so it will have to wait for tomorrow :)

Merlin said ... (August 08, 2006 12:48 AM) :

Actually, I think (in response to "did I say that") that I was also still thinking along the lines of that prof who thought the "love triangle" un-necessary"

Sumara said ... (August 08, 2006 7:19 AM) :

Errmm... sorry Merlin, but I'm a bit lost in all the existentialism stuff. I read your comment three or four times so far and just read a few definitions of existentialism but I'm just not quite getting your point.

Are you just saying that the dog is a bit of an existentialist image/symbol of "god"; being that he has the keys (ie the way to salvation?) and is worshipped at the end? It seems like you're trying to say more than that, I'm just not sure.

Sumara said ... (August 08, 2006 7:23 AM) :

"("spiritually ...ecumencially ... grammatically" ... which side of his butt did Depp, or Verbinski or Ted or Terry, or whoever, pull that out of ... it was downright brilliant!)"

One of those lines that would look, on the paper, just completely stupid, but with the right delivery, becomes brilliant. A lot like the "you're really weird"s in CatCF. :)

Sumara said ... (August 08, 2006 7:33 AM) :

My husband loves the Matrix. We have a 10-disc boxed set which came in a big plastic display box with, get this, a *bust* of Neo. Yes, right now, Keanu Reeve's head and shoulders are staring down at me from the top of the DVD shelves. Next to (just to redeem our reputation for taste in films) a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy bar-runner, the Schindler's List boxed Collector's Edition and a little statuette of Puss in Boots from Shrek 2. (hang on, I don't think that redeemed us at all... moving on...)

Anyway, I too was a big fan of the first Matrix, but pretty much my only response to the next two was "huh?". And we watched them all in one day so I shouldn't have been lost, but I was. I remember thinking during the first that Neo was some kind of Christ figure, ok fair enough. Then during 2 and 3 I was like rightio, Neo's going to save the world, maybe he'll die, maybe it'll look like he was defeated but he wins....hang on, where's he going, what's going on??? And then, like I said... huh?

Maybe I'm just dim, or maybe you're right and then symbolism/imagery/thought processes all went whacko. Probably both; I'm dim and you're right.

Okay, enough of Sumara's random thoughts about The Matrix. Sorry for rambling.

Merlin said ... (August 08, 2006 9:55 AM) :

Sumara,
Yeah, on the dog, basically I was just saying I definitely think that in movie 2 the dog is the "God-dog" of existentialism but that I think it is mainly just a textual thing sort of buttressing the existentialist character, and not a comment on actual belief in God (although maybe about always trying to bend God into being mainly just athe authority" behind our own arguments) ... and mainly just wanted to try to hedge what I was saying and make no doubt that I was not saying anything like "heh heh ... God = dog, heh heh"

On the Matrix movies ... I have to admit that I own all 3 on DVD and go back and re-watch #3 and have even gone back and re-watched #2 (well, more bits and pieces on # 2 ... I griped about the overkill on the fight scenes in that movie and still think they overdo it, execpt that I do now think his first fight with Seraph was well-done and stylistically approaches the level of a stylisticaly choreographed dance ...and I re-watch the oracle scene and the architect scenes)
The second movie was the "lagger" to me and I thought in the 3rd movie they got back to some more characteristic "Wackowski" shots (which is what I mean by "lagging" - that they got preoccupied on other things and got away from even their signature screen-style) ... like the running out leth left side of the screen into the tunnel and back in from the right tunnel (in the train station) and the whole heavy rain thing at the end (and I found the almost entirely orhcestral and choral soundtrack of 3 much easier to accept than the hyper-techno of 2)
On the whole thing I was talking about in the post though ... There are other marked similarities with Frank Herbert's Dune series. In Reloaded I really thought the sex stuff was completely gratuitous in at least the level of depiction and Herbert crossed basically the same line in the 5th booke Heretics of Dune. The first one is the Neo-Trinity upstairs with the orgy dance down in the temple (again, though, there you have the same sort of staging borrowed from the "Everyman" structure). More pointed is the blond woman in the Merovingian's restaurant, the one he sends the cake program to. In both this scene and Herbert's 5th Dune book it was like "you had an interesting question, but it seems like you had some other motives/preoccupations that became evident in the actual scene" (actually one of the things I suspected of Dune was "man, Herbert must have been doing some heavy drugs when he wrote these ... I men in book 4, God Emperor of Dune , you spend just chapters and chapters inside the one characters head). In Dune it was the obviously inevitable question of, if you're doing this evolution thing and as the species advance people gain more and more control of their own evolution and their own bodies ... how does this affect something that has always had a mysitcal side to it like sexuality (basically the "over-the-edge" group that has returned from the outer-rim diaspora, called the "Honored Maters," and has learned how to kill directly with pleasure "overload") ... but even that specific question couldn't justify, at least for me, the level of graphic depiction he took it to in several scenes in books 5 and 6. In the end it is basic "origin of the species" - the group that has survived is the group that has adapted (the Bene Geserit) by assimilating the honored maters into themselves but kind of maintaining control of the powers where the honored maters had not been "self-controlled".

In Matrix 2 it is that question of, if it is all about determinism vs free choice, and determinism, with a machine that evolves like the Merovingian, being about control ... what ramifications does this have for human sexuality, which is so based in "openness" or willing vulnerability ... but, in my estimation, it definitely took it way over the top into grave gratuity (although it proves an interesting point, which is that a lot of our culture holds on to the "pornogrpahy = x amount of skin showing" ... and that scene is extremely (porno)graphic, I think, without any skin showing, it's all computer grid 3-D animation ... one of the most "emotionally/psychologically depictive" scenes in any movie I have seen, as far as concerns those specifics of sexuality (meaning physical/anatomical as well as the manifestation of psychological posturing and manipulation on the more "whole-person" level) is the "two flowers" animation in Pink Floy'ds "The Wall" ... it's just an animation of two flower, but the person who did it was extremely talented ... I mean, the whole movie is about twistedness in modern life and how we drive ourselves to isolationism from it in building "the wall" - and the motion of the flowers totally captures that dance of "love-hate" manipulation etc (in unmistakable male-female anatomical references in the flowers)

In the end "there's way too much information to decode the Matrix" ... and while didn't necessarily think these guys were trying to be "subversive" or necessarily get in your face just for the sake of getting in your face (although in places, especially the sex stuff, I thought they were at least a little jerkishly absentminded), I felt like in the 3rd movie I got a feel for the broad outline of the place the trilogy winds up and, in the end, I thought it was not a healthy place.

There are still scenes that really grip me, especially in 1 and 3 ... that final fight scene with Smith (and Hugo Weaving quite simply rocks as Smith ... all the way along ... another fave to imitate, at a certain point I was saying all my friends names as "Mr so and so" with the "mister" drawn out like that LOL) ... I did think some of Morpheus' dialogue in 3 was a little canned though .."Neo ... he fights for us" with kind of starry eyes ... but hey, can't get em all with good performances

Merlin said ... (August 08, 2006 10:01 AM) :

oh, and puss-in-boots definitely redeemed you all ... I'm a Shrek fan ... especially since they used a Tom Waits song in the second one (when the father goes into the tavern saloon and hook is playing piano and singing "I like my town, with a little drop of poison" ... that's Tom Waits)

Anonymous said ... (August 08, 2006 2:02 PM) :

Isn't the coffin in which Jack "sails" in the beginning of DMC a kind of "dead man's chest" too? I mean Jack is supposed to be dead at the very start of the story but he makes a lot of tricks to avoid his fate but finally has to face it.

Of course we don't believe he's dead for good ;^D but...

Merlin said ... (August 08, 2006 8:45 PM) :

Andrzej,
Ah, yes the "side-trip" from death we were talking about in the "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gallows" post ... which actually leads me nicely into this comment, the last of my ones I have prepared and thought out from this viewing of DMC (I have another one coming on 2 more "echoes" between movie one and movie two ... but I have to remember what the second one was ... it floated into my head as I was drifting off)
But for here, this comment is about another "side-trip" in DMC and is called:

What Vexes All Men? - A Marriage Interrupted, or Fate Intervenes?

Now, first, off the bat, I have to protect myself from undue reaction by making very plain and very clear that what I am speaking of is a perception that needs to die ... let me say that again - perception

OK, actually this has to do as well with what Sumara and I were noting about Elizabeth protecting Will (and herself) from Jack and the said terrible beastie that haunts him because he was so free-spirited as to challenge Deavey Jones and best "the devil" himself. BUT, Will is a man, and pirate to boot ... maybe he doesn't need protecting by his woman (remember ... perception).

In fact, there is a very "typical" image in the final sequence of this kind of tired sentiment (meaning that in the sense people speak of a "tired argument" ... one that is way over-used). If Jack is the male captain and ships are always refered to in the feminine ... well, you have the free spirit being chained to the ship ... and then he dies.

Now, remember, I said this was about perception ... the male perception that marriage is a "ball and chain" (and that would be the exact tired old expression that I wish to distance myself from by numerously and neurotically noting that I am talking about a perception that needs to follow Jack into said beasite ... not that I don't think that there is a danger in both spouses getting burnt out by the mundaneness of life and a real need to work at communication and keeping the fire of genuine marital love alive ... but as, as I said, a bachelor who feels a bit to much of the Bootstrap doom in my blood, I have a tendency to say " chain? from my perspective it looks more like a life line to keep this damned wind from smashing your bones to dust on every damn reef out here")

Like I said, this is about perception (and here I am not neurotically drying to cover my butt ... this time it is about explaining a little bit of how this ties in with the whole "post-modern" thing :) ). I'm not sure who actually coined the phrase and I can't remember the exact Latin phrasing (which can be important in Latin) ... but I do know that somehwere along the line it came down to a clearly formulated thing the modern period, a specific idea that gained a lot of popularity in philosophy (and I think has even more popularity on the popular level now-a-day, but on the subconcisous level): that "to be is to be perceived." In other words, there is no objective turth to matters, it's all in how you see them.

Now, to be sure there is a thing to perceptions being real entities ... especially in psychology. It is very difficult to simply tell yourself when you meet a said terrible beastie of poor self-perception of of bigotry or something that can really shipwreck the flow of being able to operate socially etc "that's all in your head" - the perception itself is a real thing and to confront it you have to confront what lies behind (or beneath, to use Kraken language). But I don't think this is the totality of what the philosophers who advocate "subjectivism" are meaning by "to be is to be perceived."

I think this may be somehwat at the core of what Jack's running or "riding the waves" is about. That whole speech on the island in movie 1 (I can see this one from both sides, I can see the need for free-spiritednessand I can see the fear of that guy who is pulling the ropes ... and then there isthat poor guy in DMC on Tortuga who says, "ever since I was a little boy, I wanted to sail the seas ... forever," and Gibbs says "sooner than you think ..." Really, this crew simply rules at dialogue), that dialoge with Elizabeth in DMC ... and then what? He runs off and abandons the ship to the Kraken (maybe ... like I said, it is, I think, one of those intentional ambiguities) ... the ship that was supposed to be freedom itself etc.

The whole thing is played out pretty well from the "seeing what is behind the perception" thing, although this often works the other way round ... we tend to "re-interpret the past" and tell the story of what went before based on the developed bias ... from the "bias" of marriage as ball and chain, what happens ... Elizabeth congratulates Jack for being a "good man" and rewards him with admiration and said smooch ... and then chains him to the mast for the Kraken to eat.

The whole thing, from the perspective of the "male perception" that has to "arise, ensue, be overcome," is fittingly revealed by a woman, "her," ... Tia Dalma - "He ran afoul of that which vexes all men," with Jack adding exasperatedly after the "guesses" (which I think all contain some element of the larger meaning ... but off the top of my head, "sums" kind of vexes me LOL ... but maybe there is a clue in the Becket-Liz interchange of "include that into your calculations") ... Captain Jack knows to what she refers ... "a woman."

The whole thing about emphaszing perception is that I don't want to sound like I am saying "Marriage IS death" (and even less do I want to sound like "the guy" saying "women ... sheesh!" - like I said, as a guy I am a lot more like that sailor who says to Will "No, beneath us, foul breath" or Cottony's parrot's response to Elizabeth in movie 1 "Any port in a storm" ... well not meaning promiscuity, just that "being chained down" might not be too bad it you're being rolled over by a tornado about to scoop you up into it's middle and bash your brains out against telephone poles and houses and "canon-aid and cutlass, and all other forms of remorse-less metal" - to quote Cutler Becket ... and to Jack's credit and my own discredit sometimes, it is sometimes healthier to be Jack willing to wheel and deal and, eventually, fight and die, than it is to be that sailor) ... but it is a typical thing for, especially males, but many in general to view marriage and kids like that. And not necessarily always on the polemic or "being irresponsibel" level either, sometimes it can be just a natural apprehension that arises, but one that human beings have to cope with in growing up ... the fact that finding the romantic in the midst of the mundane (or to use Incarnation language, the divine hidden in the messiness of humanity) takes work.

And so, Jack's little "side-trip" to avoid his own death in Davey Jones' locker becomes symbolic of the "marriage interrupted, or fate intervened." (Lord Becket - what a character - so spookily "prophetically" accurate and so morally wrong ... really richly written character I think)

I would argue that just as Jack could not avoid said inevitability of death, Will and Elizabeth could NOT get married until they confronted this question of the pirate vs the law, the sea vs the land etc etc in this way (which I would say is what this movie is about, and movie 3 will involve the resolution of said confrontation before they can get married, but I am thinking and hoping they will get married at the end of movie 3 ... maybe the last scene will be years down the road, Jack having sailed off into the sunset of mythical legend and Will and Elizabeth with a child who is old enough to be the "spittin' image of William Turner Jr" but also to get a good Sparrow imitation in looking at something and going "that's interesting" - and Will and Elizabeth just look at each other like "oh no, not another one! ... here we go again")

Merlin said ... (August 08, 2006 10:48 PM) :

Echoe 1: "The Opportune Moment"

Ok, I'm going to put up here the first of the other two echoes I was talking about and then track down the other in the labrynth of my brain (as I said, may take watching movie 1 again, or maybe even another trip to the theater for DMC ... it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it LOL ... actually I am hoping movie 1 is all it takes, time is too tight these days)

Anyway, basically it is just that I connect the "opportune moment" of Movie 1 with the "Opportunity to do the right thing" and the funny response "I love those moments ... I like to wave at them as they pass by"

A lot of this is connected with my definition of narrative, which is linked to on the side bar. Basically I say that narrative is a "Kairotic Chronology." Chronos is the Greek word for "clock time" or "real time" and Kairos is the word for "special time" ... it (and the Hebrew word "me-ode" which "kairos" is usually used to translate in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures/OT done circa 300 AD) generally get renedered in English with something like "the appointed time or season" - and I believe it is the term used by St Paul when he speaks of Christ coming "In the fullness of time"

(I changed said definition of narrative to this formulation from "a chronology of kairotic moments" ... basically because the Star Wars prequels fit that definition and still, I think, fell short. Lucas has a lot of good "icon" shots in the prequels, which are basically kairotic moments, but he just strung them all together and I think it failed to produce a good narrative [well, that and some other not-so-kairotic moments and some really wooden dialogue]. In my new definition it is not just the moments, but the actual movement of the plot of them that is "kairotic")

Anyway, basically, "the opportune moment" and the "chance to do the right thing" are basically just such Kairotic moments. But to read it this way it helps a lot if you have a "chronos" image to pair it off against. In the 4th HP book it is that his wristwatch stops functioning after the second task when he has to go to the bottom of the lake, and Rowling mentions it several times leading up to the 3rd task, and what I have characterized as the "4th task" in the graveyard, that his watch is still not working, or that he has stopped even wearing it because it is no longer functioning. Watches and clocks are very standard images of a chronology/tedium/dreaded concept of time (think of Hook's hatred of the clock and how he always hears the ticking of the clock the crock swallowed in Peter Pan) and in entering into this central set of events Harry has enetered more properly into the kairotic moment ... the moment more "pregnant" with meaning, as it were (I would have to look it up to be sure but I would be VERY surprised if "kairos" is not the word used to speak of Mary's "time had been fulfilled" and she gave birth to a son, a male child. I'm pretty sure the standard English translations use the word "time" or "days" there rather than the word "hour," which is the Greek "hora" that is used to speak of Christ's "hour" and "my hour has not yet come" in St John's Gospel and elsewhere ... which is kind of a corollary word to Kairos)

So ... who have I said is the bad guy on "real world" side of the equation (balancing Jones on the mythic side)? Lord Cutler Becket. And When Becket offers Will the "deal," they walk out on the porch and he is telling Will "the world is shrinking, the blank edges of the map filled in. Jack Sparrow is a dying breed, he will have to find his place in the new world or persih ... as will you." (btw "blank edges of the map" hooks up with Barbosa's comment in movie 1, "you'r off the edge of the map, mate ... here there be monsters!" [old maps did, I have heard, always have drawings of monsters at the edges around the oceans] and notice what introduces the Will-Becket scene - the cartographer detailing the HUGE map on the wall).

BUT (and here is my standard "jar of dirt" ... which is getting quite full of things other than dirt at this point ... is it not?) what is going on behind Will and Cutler as they speak on Jack's fate in the new world? A nice, big, fat clock is being hoisted up to be put into the face of the building, facing the bay that is the pathway to the "open ocean" - sort of making a statement of dominance (as in, "It's "Lord" now, actually"), I think (this scene had me all "twitterpated" from the very first viewing ... that is one of Pauli's favorite "Merlin words" :) )

As far as "intentionality" goes ... I don't imagine that clock and the rigging were cheap props :)

Merlin said ... (August 09, 2006 12:44 AM) :

Don't It Always Happen That Way?
Echoe # 2: Women in Men's Clothing and Voices

Well, I didn't even have to watch movie 1 again, let alone go to the theater to watch DMC, ot remeber - all I had to do was recreate the situation in which echoe # 2 presented itself to me ... In other words I was laying in bed trying to drift off to sleep and it came to me again, so I decided I would hop on here an jot it down (and this time I do intend actually to be brief about it ... need to get to sleep :) )

In each movie you have a female character pretending to be a man in a group of men in "their world." In movie 1 it is Anna Marie when Gibbs puts together the crew on Tortuga, when she has the hat pulled way down over and, in an attempted man's voice she says "what's in it for us?" ... and there we have the introduction of the she-pirate "Bleack Pearl" who gazes on compassionately as Jack takes the helm of the pearl, right after she lovingly puts his captains mantle back on him ans says "the black pearl is yours, captain." In DMC it is Elizabeth on that unfortunate ship when she swings down and lands on that barrel and says "what's that over there?"

Some Extras

Ok, Here I will also throw in my minor defense of Cutler Becket as "to be overcome," or more particularly the EIC as villianous mentality. In both movies you have the introduction of the Will and Elizabeth Characters and the "real world" characters they must contend with/against in the story. In movie 1 it is in the young Elizabeth watching over young Will on the ship, and in DMC it is the rainy day wedding scene (if I were not sleepy and more with my wits right now I would find some cute way to tie this out with Bob Dylan's song "Raindy Day Women # 12 and 35" song ... actually I just looked up the lyrics and Becket is definitely out to stone somebody, or at least use the threat of it to "bargain" with them). Then (speaking of Lord Cutler Becket's pentient for ruthless justice) you have the indtroduction of the two main characters with whom the hero and heroine must contend: In movie 1 it is Norrington and Goveneor Swann and in DMC it is Becket and the EIC flag ... well, and Mercer too - richly evil character he is(I suspect that a lot of this is "by the book" screen-writing technique that one would study in film-school).

Now, lastly, what I said about "not cheap props" of the clock and rigging ... this is a however-many-million dollar movie, so I am not thinking of the currency mainly, I'm mainly thinking of the time enad energy staging and choreographing that shot.

Sumara said ... (August 09, 2006 2:33 AM) :

Let's see if I can say anything intelligent today... ( my house is a big mess which tends to echo through to my brain...)

I'm glad I wasn't all that totally lost on your existentialism ideas. I think I just tend to take all of your parentheses and side notes too seriously!

Ah, Tom Waits is it. I often wonder about that little snippet of song because it seems familiar but I can never figure out where I would know it from.

"A marriage interrupted": I like all those thoughts. When you say Jack gets tied to the ship and it's like a man being "tied down" to a wife (don't think those were your actual words but you know.) And that maybe Liz and Will have the same problem - my first thought was yes, but it's Liz that's being "tied down" to will. She seems to be (at least at the end of DMC) to be the one searchign for soemthing more, something less conventioanl and boring and *heavy* like marriage. Which goes against the stereotype. Just a random character thought.

(Your brief thought about marriage is sweet. :) Take it from me (someone who was married at 19, with 2 kids by 24), it's both ball-and-chain *and* lifeline through the reefs. Anything good in life has to involve some difficulty.)

I totally believe in the power of perception in shaping both our everyday lives and relationships and the bigger story of our lives. "I think, therefore I am" (honestly I have no idea what the peron who originally said that meant, but to me it means you make your life into what you think it is, will be, or could be).

"The Opportune Moment": I think this idea is really important actually. Jack's whole life seems to be a series (a chronology, as you say) of Opportune Moments. His whole modus operandi is to wait for the opportune moment and take advantage of it.
Elizabeth follows his example beautifully, by refusing to kiss Jack or commit anything to him until that moment when it is of greatest need and profit to her and Will.

That big clock sure has to mean something hey? I think it goes along with the map - a visual reference of the idea that "modern times" are taking over, the empire is spreading and the world is changing. Times, they are a'changing. And "your time is up, Jack Sparrow".

Sumara said ... (August 09, 2006 2:42 AM) :

"Women in men's clothing":
Yep, and this ties in with what I was saying about ELizabeth being the more "male" stereotype in her relationship with Will. Apart from dressing up like a man, she's the one holding a gun to Becket's head to make him sign the papers, she goes voluntarily to Tortuga to find Will, she does the dirty work of trapping Jack.
Meanwhile, Will is doing what he's told and pretty much running errands for first Becket and then Jack. (the submissive female stereotype).

Merlin said ... (August 09, 2006 7:08 PM) :

Yeah, and Jakc notices ... "So, Will strikes a deal with Becket and upholds it with honor, yet you're the one standing here with the goods" and Gibbs notes "Will was working for Becket the whole time and never said a word"

And I agree on the issue of the tension of Elizabeth's choice of being chained down, but I think it works ironically because Jack, a male, is the one chained to the mast ... in other words, the male perception is that the woman will "chain him down" in marriage, when in reality things are quite different, as we can see, for instance, in the pained look on Elizabeth's face at the end of Movie 1 - when she says "we should get back to the Dauntless" and Will says "yes, your fiance will be wanting to know you are safe" ... at that point (and I think it is what holds the marriage up, the irony of this perception that has become sort of institutionalized,versus the reality) Lizzie is sort of like Jack with the cannibals, pleading with Will "Save Me!" ... save me from becoming just the "fine woman" as the feather in Norrington's political career, stand up and be a man and fight for me (and that's what makes Depp's addition on the whole Eunich thing so bloody insightful ... "otherwise incapable of wooing") ... it is she who really has the worry of being chained and shackled in a morally bad thing, a human being being veiewed as a "step" in the line of somebody else's "successful life" and that sort of thing, whereas ironically it is usually the male who thinks he is so beleagured because he has to accept the sacrifice of being "chained down"

Well, all that is kind of rambling but heopfully captured something accurate in it :) what do you think?

Merlin said ... (August 09, 2006 7:11 PM) :

PS ... oh forgot that I did want to let the Dylan ref go unappreciated - time's they are a changing indeed :)

Sumara said ... (August 09, 2006 8:28 PM) :

The usual complaint from men (and women too, mind you) is that marriage stops you having anything "more"; having fun and seeing the world etc. Not necessarily the case, but in fact in Elizabeth's case, if she married Norrington, it would be true. As an aristocratic wife she would definitely not tbe able to follow her dreams and live her own life. (though, mind you, if she hadn't changed her minda dn rejected Norrington, and Jack had still escaped, Elizabeth would probably end up a bar-wench in Tortuga. :) That's close enough to being a pirate!)

So, yes, agreed. We have an accord. :)

Merlin said ... (August 10, 2006 3:03 AM) :

And now that we have our accord ... you should make your way over to the "Snape's Eyes" post and the comments thread there ... because it was in this context that there being a "text behind" the PotC movies was challenged and so it was there that I answered with what the screen-writers provided in the commentary you wisely advised me to get around to listening to, and which I only realized tonight the full import of (Dom was the source of the Dracula material)

Merlin said ... (August 11, 2006 1:07 AM) :

I was also thinking of the Dracula material and pondering who might be the literary corresponance for Sparrow from that tradition, and I think it would be the Van Helsing character ... and I also liked the movei with Hugh Jackman :)

From what some of the commentary said onthe VH DVD it seems like the VH character was usually, at least on the "surface" of things, brought in from the outside but Jack's battle with Jones is out of personal interest.

but VH is also another of the "a-moral" hero types who actually comes to grips with a hiddem demon of his own in helping the others etc. (At least in the Jackman movie - I liked the whole Gabriel thing in the Jackman movie ... although I thought Drake might have been a little too whimsical here and there, but it was hard for me to pin down ... that sort of thing can add to style sometimes [cf Depp as Sparrow :) ] but I still think It felt too whimsical to me ... can't say I guess)

Anyway, just a passing thought :)

Sumara said ... (August 15, 2006 3:33 AM) :

Oh okay, there's another movie I'll have to see...

Whimsical is a cool word. :) And a cool trait for Johnny Depp to have.

Not sure about Hugh Jackman though.

Merlin said ... (August 15, 2006 10:15 AM) :

If you're saying, "I'm not sure about Hugh Jackman ...I've never really liked him" .... them's fightin' words! Just Kidding. I wasn't expecting to like him or be especially into him; I knew I liked the Wolverine character in the X men movie/s but hadn't really thought much about him until watching Van Helsing. very Different characters in very subtle ways, as far as mannerism and expression and all that, and I thought "wow, he's got some versatility" and then I just recently saw some preview but can't remember what it was, but HJ is in it and I thought "wait a minute, that was HJ ... wow, he's really versatile" (especially considering that these are not roles that involve make-up or prosthetic alteration ... I loved the beast character and Kelsey Grammer's performance of him in the X3 movie, but even with all that costuming, you could still read Kelsey Grammer ... with whatever this preview was with HJ in the movie, without any of that type of appearance alteration, you don't recognize HJ at first because mannerisms ect are so differently adapted)

HOWEVER, if you're saying "not sure about HJ doing whimsical" ... you would definitely have a point there. It was more the Drake character who seemed a bit of the whimsy to me. Nice storyline ... a little bit of what I call "Bondage" - as in James Bond - with the "mechanics" of the Church and Theology, meaning that for a story like this what usually happens is some very mechanical/spy element to drive the story - "if Dracula is not killed and the last of this family line dies the whole family will all remain in purgatory forever" - which doesn't work on the "real" levels but it is, at leas I think, sort of a justifiable mechanism of catalyst/motivation for the physical side of the plot (in other words people who look to movies as that kind of education, eductation on the material facts, should not be doing so ... and the same goes for those who over-tightly critique movies on "theological accuracy ... a story is a different mode of communication than an a philosophical treatise).

I don't know who the actor for Drac. was though

Sumara said ... (August 15, 2006 6:52 PM) :

No no, you're right, Jackman is a very talented actor.

I admit I just have a silly grudge with him regarding him getting the Peter Allen role in The Boy From OZ for the New York season and the Aus return season, when I thought the actor (Todd McKenney) who first did it in Sydney should have been kept on.
So really my grudge should be with the producers or whoever, not Jackman.

But yeah... Jackman seems a bit too grown up for "whimsy". I much prefer actors who are more childlike and adventurous.

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Thursday, August 03, 2006

Pirates and Potter Preview

posted by Merlin at 2:38 AM