One and Twenty

Think I said I would write a blog entry today, so here it is...

Anyway, what did I do this week? I read a book on the Thames river and everything associated with it. Bridges over the Thames. Churches on the Thames. Place names on the Thames. Traveling on the Thames. Stuff like that. The book was pretty good, at least if you're interested in the Thames river, and you probably aren't. The idea of the book sure is neat, though.

Another thing: I'm reading Henry James's complete stories, 1864-1874. These were stories he wrote when he was in his 20s, so they probably aren't as good as his later works, which are unread by me. James is an author I'm having trouble coming to terms with. The book is part of the Library of America series, and James was indeed born in NYC. However, he spent much of his life outside the US - he probably spent more time in Europe than in the US, at least as an adult. The end of his life coincided with WWI, and he was so angry at US noninvolvement in the Great War that he became a British subject shortly before his death in 1916. 

So that forms something of a background to his work, which as I understand often consists of encounters between America and Europe: clash of civilizations and all that. This volume I'm reading was written before he settled in Europe so the encounter theme is less present. What is present? You can probably infer that James was well off (he was). Accordingly, the characters in his stories tend to be well off. And I think that's my biggest problem with the stories. No one seems to DO anything. Sometimes the characters are mentioned as working in a couple of sentences, but work is at quite a distant remove in all the stories I've read so far. The stories generally concern upper class people in very formal situations, often involving romance (usually gone wrong). James was definitely a Victorian writer, and that detracts from the realism of his stories. His most successful stories, in fact, are the ones that aren't at all realistic, that involve supernatural elements: curses on families, stuff like that. 

Good stories don't have to be realistic, of course. And despite the whole Victorian avoidance of sex and bad behavior stuff, I think there is genuine emotion in James's stories. And the stories are fairly varied. Each one is different. 

Also worth mentioning the term "stories" - by that I mean James's short stories. Short story here means anything that's not a novel: the stories in this volume can be 20 pages or 100 or anything in between. 

I had a 21st birthday for some reason today. Got a new laptop, a new cellphone. I'll get started using them soon enough. I got Lincoln Chafee's Against the Tide, which will no doubt warrant an entry of its own. 

Alchemist Panic Jacket

Well, I’m back, since I feel like unloading about Full Metal Jacket. I suppose it’s worth summarizing the movie a bit. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, a very notorious director. He didn’t make many films, and the ones he made are generally considered classics. Dr. Strangelove, 2001, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, among others. It is in two parts. The first part is the part everybody remembers: boot camp, and R. Lee Ermey cursing for 45 minutes at the new recruits. He says quite outrageous things, and they are funny at first, until they become not so funny. One kid in particular, Private Pyle, receives a lot of abuse from Ermey. He’s very awkward at first, then becomes colder. They all do, but he becomes a little too cold, a little too inhuman. He shoots Ermey, then himself, on the last day of boot camp. Yep, that was a spoiler. First ten minutes are here. Do not watch around people who dislike cursing.

Second part: Vietnam! This seems to be the confusing part…the main character of the movie, Private Joker, was around in the first half (although he didn’t do too much) and now is in the second half, which mostly has completely new characters. Everyone’s new except Joker and Pvt. Cowboy, who hails from Texas, which according to R. Lee Ermey only produces two things. Pvt. Cowboy has no horns. Not that he’s too important…what does happen in this Vietnam part? Well, Joker’s a journalist now, reporting for Stars and Stripes about Vietnamese soldiers being killed or charitable acts of American soldiers. (Not that they’re ever called Vietnamese in the movie, but I’m erring on the side of being inoffensive.) He meets up with Cowboy’s troops and also meets a fellow named Animal Mother, who is a force of nature, sort of like Pyle in the first half. He wants to kill. Hell, they all want to kill the Vietnamese. Why, Joker’s helmet even says “Born to Kill.” Anyway I forget most of the details, but the upshot is that they end up being shot at in some industrial war zone by a Viet Cong sniper. She (unseen) picks a few off, and we get to see agonizing death scenes. Anyway, they eventually find her, gravely wounded, and Joker mercy kills her. Then there’s a shot of a bunch of soldiers singing a Mickey Mouse marching song. The end.

Two parts, pretty disconnected. What’s going on? The word I would use here is “dehumanizing.” R. Lee Ermey in the first half just wears you down by his sheer relentlessness. Vietnam wears you down in the second half, I think. There really is quite a bit of terror in the sniper scenes, and I felt kind of uncomfortable watching the Vietnamese hooker scenes. Idealism is in short supply in Kubrick’s Vietnam – like I said, the soldiers want to kill. Are they joking? Some probably are, some probably aren’t – but I’m not sure if it matters if they are joking. It’s ugly.

The other dehumanizing thing – the main character is Pvt. Joker, and we never learn his name. Joker is the nickname bestowed on him by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, the character played by R. Lee Ermey. He’s called Hartman only a few times, so I just call him Ermey. Most of the other characters are called Private (some obvious nickname). The only exception is Private Pyle, and you can watch the film to find out about him. Kubrick’s not keen on the name thing, I guess.

I brought up Joker’s helmet, which declares “Born to Kill.” He also wears the peace symbol. Wtf, asks the viewer. Wtf, asks one general in the film. The duality of man, sir. The Jungian thing. (Whatever that means.) I don’t really understand it myself. Maybe it’s a reference to the duality of the film, maybe to the character’s name, probably it’s some inscrutable Kubrick mystery.

Of course the biggest mystery is the whole second half and maybe it’s worthwhile to bring up Horace here. Horace’s poems never ended with a “punchline”, a clear statement of finality, they tended to be a decrescendo instead. As with Horace, so with this film. Yes, the sniper scene and the odd Mickey Mouse scene are pretty final, but they still don’t have the impact of the first half. It’s an odd film. What can I say.

And another thing. The dehumanizing thing. Kubrick has a reputation for coldness, and this film delivers. I’ve been reading a bit about other Vietnam films, and this film is inevitably compared to Oliver Stone’s Platoon, which came out a year beforehand and which I’ve never watched. But I do understand that Platoon was a tug on your heartstrings film. The type of film that featured Barber’s Adagio for Strings. A beautiful composition of great emotion – the type of music utterly lacking from Full Metal Jacket. Instead we get 60s pop hits. Platoon was also a message-type movie. It was an antiwar movie. Now, most war movies are antiwar, including Full Metal Jacket, but Kubrick doesn’t really try to be explicit about it. And I understand Platoon is explicit about its message.

Gotta tie in Kubrick’s other films. The Shining. Good movie, didn’t have a single shred of warmth in it. Jack Nicholson seemed unhinged the whole way through. (I read the book, and Kubrick’s adaptation was much colder than the book.) 2001. Good movie, but I don’t think it can be called warm. Dehumanizing? Quite the opposite, interestingly enough, since it shows the progress of man. Dr. Strangelove. Well, at least it’s funny. But I wouldn’t call it warm, seeing as how it ends with the destruction of the world. Humans don’t come off so well in that movie.

Anyway I could probably write more, but I don't really feel like it. I will probably post more entries, but I'm unsure of a schedule at this time. I'll probably do entries on whatever I'm reading or watching at the moment. Maybe some Levi Johnston entries if I feel like it.