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Odin versus World

It’s been a long time (two months, to be precise) since I wrote my last (and only) post here. Shame on me. It’s mainly because I had to pass some exams and I also worked a lot. I didn’t write, didn’t watch, didn’t read. I mean, I wrote some papers for my American Culture classes (on great topics, by the way), but who cares. Anyway, I finally found a time to finish American Gods. Therefore, I want to present you my thoughts. And more parentheses maybe. Let’s start.

I have to admit that I haven’t read Gaiman’s novel. I’m always scared when I find out that a movie or a series is based on a book. I think that I will not understand some threads, or that I will someday talk to somebody who not only will be surprised that I don’t know the original, but also would think that I’m an ignorant. Those thoughts are quite unreasonable, I know, but I can’t help them.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter whether you’ve read the book or not. Of course, it may help you and I know that I would have better idea of who is who and I would be familiar with the concept of old and new gods. This can help, sure, but what was more problematic is that my knowledge in mythology (even this “basic” like Norse, let alone African) is very poor. Nonexistent, I should say. Were it not for YouTube and one blog, I wouldn’t fully understand what I was watching. So I want to thank all those people who made materials about the characters. I also became more interested in this topic, and I will try to learn more about it, but I’m interested in many things recently, so we will see. And this is what is cool in this series - it enables you to discover interesting facts.

The beginning of my friendship with American Gods wasn’t easy. It was probably because of the opening credits which are great and I was in love with them from the first sight. This caused some troubles later because I was a bit... disappointed by special effects. I found it kind of tacky and it was definitely something that I had to get used to. The scene with Shadow in the forest, and then the buffalo with a fire in his eyes, not to mention the Jinn’s eyes (I still don’t like that one). I had some difficulties with it, but eventually I stopped noticing such things. And I realized it a moment ago, when I wanted to see these scenes again. Suddenly, they weren’t tough to watch, and I thought that wow, in the last two episodes I didn’t notice anything so annoying. 

My curiosity rose up again when I saw Technical Boy. How he and his “environment” look is my definitely aesthetics. I really wanted to see him more, despite him being irritating. Same with Media - awful character, but the style she is maintained in is great, although distinct from Technical Boy. 

Here we come to casting. Now I can’t think of any bad actor here. Some characters just weren’t given much time, but it’s good, I guess. It averted the chaos that could be made. The gods are presented one by one, so we have time to analyze who is who and dig up some information after watching every episode.

Yeah, after this short digression let’s get back to casting. I want to focus on some characters only. Not all, obviously, there is a whole pantheon of them, so it would take a lot of time (and I still have to learn for my Arabic test for tomorrow).

First, Mr. Wednesday. Ian McShane is fantastic. Just by looking at him you can tell that Wednesday lived through a lot, has seen many things. His wisdom, slickness, wittiness, and sometimes arrogance attracts me every time. His mimicry and gestures are perfect. All of these features made that I fell for this character very quickly.

As opposed to Laura. And I don’t mean that I don’t like Emily Browning here. She is gorgeous and it’s a pleasure to look at her, but I have a feeling that something didn’t work out here, at least for me. That is, I suppose that you should feel sympathy for her character. Despite the fact what Laura did when Shadow was in prison. And I’m sorry, but I hate her. Well, maybe now a little less, and I get rid of this feeling that I don’t want to see her on the screen. However, I still appreciate what Emily did here, both with Laura and Essie. And, oh my, she is so so different as Essie, I almost couldn’t believe that that’s the same actress. And this accent, I adore it.

Then we have all of the characters with sparks of madness in their eyes like Mad Sweeney, then Czernobog (thank you Mr. Stormare, I was terrified the whole episode), and Mr. Nancy. Every of them is different, all of them are great in their roles. And I can say this about each actor, because all of them seem like they had a great time on set, and while watching this series I believed, that they truly are those people. I know that it is what actors are for, their job is to convince us that what we see is real, but I rarely feel it.

I also wanted to say something about color grading. I’m far from being a specialist in that matter, but in my opinion those colors create perfect climate in each episode. Therefore, I want to mention in this post Dave Hussey who is the colorist of the whole series. He uses basic grading in his work, but it is flawless. I chose those photos for this post because every one shows a different epoch and was made in different style. By the way, if you want to listen how Dave talks about his work, you can do it here.

To quickly sum it up, I’m a fan. American Gods shows us how we abandoned old gods and start worshiping the new ones - gadgets, media, money. Nonetheless, it does not moralize. You have space to think and draw you own conclusions. And it is good to stop and contemplate sometimes. Of course it probably won’t change how we behave. We already have a great number of works which try to show us how addicted from technology we are, and hardly anyone cares. Anyway, I like the concept of��“new gods”, how technology is presented as a religion and paired with not so obvious myths (and by obvious I mean Greek and Roman).

I am aware that it’s not a production for everyone. I’ve heard that for some the pace is too slow. The visual concept may not be delightful in some moments. And I absolutely agree, as I said, for me this was the case in the first episode. I would dump on this series, but I don’t like starting and not finishing something. Now I don’t regret. And I want more, why there are only eight episodes?

So, I guess I’m gonna read a book now. 

Listening while writing: American Gods Soundtrack (mostly)

PS. I wanted to apologize for my chaotic writing, I’m not very good at formulating my thoughts recently, but I had to break my writing stagnation. I do it to practice my English, so I try, I really try.

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I have this thing with furry monsters

When I started writing this post it was supposed to start with words “I recently saw (...)”. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time and motivation, I am forced to change “recently” into “about three weeks ago”. So...

About three weeks ago I saw the new Disney movie, Beauty and the Beast, and I fall in love with it”.  I’ve never saw the original version of this story and to be honest I don’t know if I plan to. I’m just afraid that my expectations now are too high. Taking this into consideration, I won’t compare these two.

I know that Disney movies are sooo predictable, but this predictability appeals to me. And even though I know what can happen next, those movies still elicit strong emotions in some scenes. The characters are great as well. Simple, yes, but we have to remember that the target audience for most Disney movies are kids. Therefore, those characters cannot be psychologically complex. That would be probably too much for the young, about 7-year-old man or woman sitting in front of the screen. 

By the way, here we come to that part that my mom couldn’t understand. This movie is more than two hours long, while the original version was about 1h 30 min. Of course, this probably enabled film-makers to develop some threads. Nevertheless, my mother was a little bit shocked that parents go to cinemas with their children, often aged like 4 or 5. Because how is it possible for such a little kid to sit still for so long? I can barely do this while watching some movies.

Anyway, despite the fact that two hours are sometimes too much even for me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. And that’s beacause I love probably everything in this movie. The music is great. There was one moment when it crossed my mind that there is too much songs, but then I remembered that well, it’s a musical. If I had to pick only one song that is my favorite one, I would probably sit and cry. I particularly like “Evermore” by Dan Stevens (with and without Beast filter), but “Gaston” and “Be Our Guest” also sounds wonderful, especially hand in hand with the movie. Soundtrack alone isn’t as great, but that doesn’t matter.

Costumes. Gosh, I adore them. Now I have to watch every movie where Jacqueline Durran was the costume designer. And when you combine this with photography you get this beautiful scene in the ballroom where ladies were all wearing white dresses and dancing. And there are more as lovely shots as that one.

Another thing is casting. The creation of Gaston is splendid and I want to thank Luke Evans for creating a character so egocentric, mean, malicious and hard-heatred that I really, really hate him. LeFou is fantastic as well, funny, kind of clumsy, but so faithful to his companion (at least most of the time). Emma Watson as Belle? Couldn’t be better. She is a real beauty and I can look at her for hours. And Emma, just as Belle, loves books and is a really warm, charming person. Others are also wonderful - Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor. I can list almost everyone of the cast here, but that’s not the point. 

But remember this line where I wrote about emotions? Those are brought out inter alia by the history of Maurice’s marriage and his relation with Belle. And maybe I like their relation so much because of my personal experience with my father. Some people may say that Maurice shouldn’t left his wife. When you are in love with someone, you stay with them no matter what. But we see in almost all of his actions that if he could, he would do anything to have the possibility to still live with his wife. When the Beast imprisoned him, he didn’t want Belle to take his place. He had already lost his wife and he didn’t want to lose his daughter as well. This whole history, that you have to leave the person you love, because they are seriously ill, in order to protect the other person you love is really heart-breaking. Of course, it’s nihil novi and this motif is reoccurring in various films and books, but still.

Another thing is Belle – Beast relationship. How he changes under her influence is as cute as his face when he says:

Again, some people are cynical and you probably had seen those memes that “Beauty and the Beast shows us, that looks doesn’t matter, as long as you’re a prince who owns a castle”. Some of them are joking, some are not. Personally, I don’t agree. You know, there are people who do not look appealingly to us, but they do to someone else. And who knows, maybe Belle had this thing with furry monsters with horns. Anyway, the scene with soup is lovely, when the Beast is ashamed to eat like a pig in front of Belle, so she takes her plate and start eating without a spoon.

So finally, is there anything that is dislike about this movie? Yup, Dan Stevens as a prince. Without a beard and with long hair. Ew.

Listening while writing: Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack. Duh...