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femslashhistorian · 4 years

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Cat / Kara / Lena Fic Recs

In this fanfiction recommendation I have collected my two favorite Kara Danvers/Cat Grant (SuperCat) and my four favorite Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor (SuperCarp?, SuperCatCorp) stories and a complicated story that I love that is mostly Cat Grant/Lena Luthor (read the full rec).

SuperCat was one of the most popular ships in season one and continues to be popular. The chemistry between both Kara and Cat and Kara and Lena is undeniable and while Cat and Lena never met in canon, this has never stopped anyone from shipping them in a polyamorous relationship with Kara. While not hugely popular, there is a decent number of fics on AO3.

Cat/Lena is a rarepair but in some of the polyamorous stories Cat and Lena are in a relationship first.

Featured stories - Detailed recs and links after the cut

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor

Between Two Mountains by fiddle_stix04 *

With Love's Light Wings by writerstealth (orphan_account) *

Promise Not To Break by SpaceshipsAreCool

I Wish I Could Carry You Away by PoppyCartinelli

Cat Grant/Lena Luthor (it’s complicated)

Art is Expensive by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered *

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant (SuperCat)

Commander in Chief by fictorium

Asking Too Much by fictorium

Note: * are my favorites

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor

The first two fics are by favorites. They have a very different dynamics and settings:

With Love's Light Wings is an AU set post season 2 in which Cat returns to National City. Between Two Mountains is set around season 5 (and diverges from canon then) and in this story Lena left National City, heartbroken because of Kara’s betrayal. Instead of the stupid things she did in canon, she does something much more sensible: she escapes to her ski resort.

Between Two Mountains by fiddle_stix04

Cat Grant/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor

Completed, 3 chapters, 74k words, 2020

Mature; smut with story

Lena runs off to her Metropolis ski resort to put Kara out of her mind. Across the globe, Cat's grueling schedule is no longer working to distract her from where she really wants to be, and as luck would have it, Carter has found the perfect vacation spot in Metropolis. But he needs a babysitter while on the slopes. Since Kara's powers are fritzing while she nurses her own despair, a vacation away from the demands of National City would be just the thing.

This story starts with a very hurt Lena and a fascinating look back on Cat and Kara's past, told from Cat's perspective. Cat and Lena meet for the first time and start an affair (or more?) before Kara can start her holiday.

I enjoyed this wonderful, very well written story. It is funny, witty, smutty and pretty much angst free. I especially loved Cat and Lena’s banter.

Favorite quote

“You received my thank you note for your donation?”

Lena laughed and leaned back in her seat. “I seem to recall it saying something about not destroying your city, your hero, and your assistant. I don’t really remember much of a ‘thank you,’ however.”

“Then I suppose it was really just a note,” Cat shrugged, unconcerned. “But it’s the thought that counts,” Cat said, eyes twinkling.

With Love's Light Wings by writerstealth (orphan_account)

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor

Completed, 19 chapters, 34k words, 2017

Explicit; ESP!Lena (Extrasensory perception); post Season 2 AU

Three women, each with their own sets of walls, find that they need each other to bring them down. Set about two years on from current S2 canon, Kara is a more seasoned reporter, more comfortable and mature. Her friendship with Lena Luthor has long teetered on the edge of becoming something more, but her lingering hangup on Cat Grant has kept it from even starting.

Lena Luthor is a lonely woman with ESP that she developed as a teenager after an accident in her brother's lab. The irony is bitter; she's subjected to everyone's feelings, like it or not, yet struggles to ever share her own. Cat Grant returns to National City to resume her role at CatCo, despite her own unresolved feelings for Kara, and things become complicated for all three of them as they realize that what they need is something different from what they ever thought or expected.

This is an AU, although the premise of the story only really diverges from canon of Season 1 and early season 2 in Lena's powers and that Lena and Cat meet. After that, it obviously diverges more from canon.

I am always a bit skeptical when Lena gets (super)powers in a fic, but my concerns were unfounded. This is a great and beautifully written story.

Favorite quote

“Lena was the first person who even began to make me think I could have something with someone anywhere near as good as you.”

Cat looked a little sad at that. “So, you do love her, then.”

Kara nodded. “Yeah. She’s a lot like you in ways, but then… in others, not. But… she’s been there for me so many times, and taken care of me, and tried to protect me, just like you. You know, protect me in… in the ways I can’t do for myself.” She smiled a little, then. “And she needs so much love, just the way you do.”

She couldn’t stand the wistful look on Cat’s face, so she kissed her again, so lightly, so carefully, imagining her lips and tongue as a butterfly coming to rest on Cat’s mouth.

Promise Not To Break by SpaceshipsAreCool

Cat Grant/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor

Completed, 8 chapters, 32k words, 2017

Explicit, dom!Cat, dom!Lena, sub!Kara

When Cat and Lena fell in love, they accepted that they would have to forgo certain desires in order to be together. For over five years they’ve been happy with that decision, but when Cat’s new assistant enters their lives, they can’t help but wonder if there’s another way.

What is really different in this story, is that Cat and Lena are together, have been married for years. I love their interaction. And their jealously and protectiveness for Kara. Cat and Lena are drawn to Kara, but they are afraid to start anything.

There is smut in the last chapters, but considering the tags, this story is really not that kinky. I enjoyed this well written story.

Favorite quote

“Don’t tell me you fired that young blonde one, Cat, she was cute. Do you know she blushed the most delightful shade of red when I complimented her cardigan the last time you sent her to my office?”

Cat shook her head, standing up from her chair and coming around her desk to greet Lena with a soft kiss. […] “She doesn’t need any encouragement in that area, Lena, but don’t worry, I haven’t fired her, I just sent her to get me a fresh latte. Aside from her continued horrendous taste in clothes, for which I apparently have you to blame, she’s actually decent at her job. And no-” Cat raised a finger, shushing her wife before she could interject, “if you tell her I said that, I don’t care how ‘cute’ you think her reaction will be. I’ll fire her and you’ll be sleeping in the spare room for a month.”

I Wish I Could Carry You Away by PoppyCartinelli

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor

Completed, 1 chapter, 7k words, 2018

General audiences

Disaster strikes, but our local heroine saves the day

Lena and Cat get stuck in a remote cabin for a day or two. Set after Cat left national city to join the government. Cat and Lena know that Kara is Supergirl.

Nice medium length fic. Angst free, lighthearted and soft.

Cat Grant/Lena Luthor – it’s complicated

Art is Expensive by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant, Cat Grant/Lena Luthor, Lena Luthor/Veronica Sinclair

Completed, 12 Chapters, 18k words, 2018

Mature; Cheating, infidelity, complicated relationships, end of relationships, angst; minor character death

Human disasters making a mess of things.

I have written about this story before, but I have expanded on my notes here.

Cat cheats on Kara with Lena (who is in a relationship with Veronica). Things get messy and complicated.

None of these are really my favorite ships and this is not something I knew I wanted, but I am mesmerized by this story. It is beautiful and so well written. It is told from Cats and Lena’s POV.

If you are looking for angst free, fluffy, and the usual Supergirl pairings, then this fic is not for you. But if you are open for an unexpected, bittersweet tour de force with a slightly unconventional happy ending, then definitely give this one a try.

Kara is asexual in this story, but while she has a role in this story, she is not the main protagonist. This is also not a happy story and while there is hope and some new beginnings, this is mostly a story about infidelity and the end of relationships.

And as this sums it up so much better than I could summarize it, let me also copy paste in a comment and the author’s response from AO3 here:

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant (SuperCat)

Commander in Chief by fictorium

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant

Completed, 21 Chapters, 73k words, 2017-2018

Mature; No powers AU (Alternate Universe), President!Cat, Lobbyist!Kara

45th President of the United States, Catherine Jane Grant, is entering the third year of her first term. Enter Myriad International, the country's most formidable environmental lobbying group, and their newest recruit: Kara Danvers.

With an ill-timed remark in a White House meeting, Kara makes an impression on Cat, who isn't about to let being President stop her pursuing the first woman in years to intrigue her. Can they overcome their political conflict to get closer?

Plot broadly lifted from Sorkin's 'The American President' :)

While it is (also) a story about Kara and Cat falling in love, it is probably more a fic about two people overcoming the first big crisis of their relationship.

While the point of view switches between Kara and Cat, I feel this is more a Cat than a Kara story, that Cat is the main protagonist.

While strictly speaking you don't need to know anything about the Supergirl TV show to enjoy this story you will probably enjoy it more if you do know it - in particular Season 1. I liked that many characters are featured and have small supporting roles: Hank, Alex, Winn, James (even Mon-El has a few scenes and gets what he deserves ;-) and especially Lena, Lucy, Astra and Sam - they are all written lovingly and their roles in the story nicely fit with their characters.

It is very well written and perfectly edited and very fast paced. I think it is mostly due to the quality of the writing that I liked this story a lot, even though I am not the biggest SuperCat shipper.

Notes:

This story has no relation to the short lived TV show of the same name (2005, with Gena Davies) that I actually enjoyed.

I have not seen the movie the author mentioned this story is based on

Favorite quotes

She walks down the short corridor and finds herself joining a line of guests waiting to go through the metal detectors. Just like at the airport, Kara has a vague sense of unease, as though she might have forgotten putting a machete in her clutch, or a titanium rod in place of her shinbone.

Completely irrational, and yet she can feel a prickle of sweat at her hairline.

But she steps through without a single beep, and then she’s being greeted by none other than James Olsen, White House Press Secretary.

The day is unbearably long, topped off by a trip to honor some… thing in Pennsylvania that Cat just hopes she was handed the right speech for. No one lost their mind on Air Force One on the way home, at least, and back from Allentown was only a short ride. It makes her too late for Carter’s goodnight, and that always darkens her mood. She looks in on him, pile of briefing memos in one hand, and smiles at how peaceful he is when he sleeps.

Asking Too Much by fictorium

Kara Danvers/Cat Grant

Completed, 29 Chapters, 94k words, 2015-2016

Explicit; diverges strongly form canon as the story goes on

Anonymous said to fictorium:

Cat needs a date to a party, she convinces Kara to go with her ("You're my assistant, nobody will think anything of it").

That's how it began.

Only it's not Kara who steps out on the red carpet, but Supergirl. As they continue with the public deception, chaos erupts around them: battles fought, lives lost, enemies old and new. Somewhere in there Kara and Cat have to deal with what happens when pretend feelings become all too real, along with the additional complications from Superman and both of the sisters Lane.

Ultimately, Kara has to find a way to make her ever-changing life workable. Can she do that while keeping Cat, her secret identity, and her family intact?

I am usually not that much into SuperCat but this story’s summery caught my eye. The premise is interesting, the power dynamics is quite intriguing and there is hot sex. The story goes far beyond the typical fake dating trope and is mostly about Kara. I was fascinated by her development, especially in the aspect of Kara’s vs Supergirl’s identity. This story drives this into a direction that is pretty uncommon in fics.

Note: I had written about the last three fics before, but I have slightly updated the recs for this post.

There are a few additional Cat/Kara/Lena stories (which I have not read and most of which are incomplete) on the Polyamorous Femslash Fanfiction Masterlist on my WordPress blog

This was cross-posted to tumblr and my WordPress blog

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#supercat #cat x kara x lena #kara x cat #cat grant x Lena luthor #supergirl femslash #femslash fanfic rec #polyamory #fanfic rec #fanfiction recommendation

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5millioncatipilars · 3 years

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Ok y’all I need

anime recommendations

(Non anime recommendations also encouraged)

Why?

I’m between hyperfixations and starting to Feel it

But I’m a picky bitch so here are my requirements

Fantasy world bc I deal with enough real life as it is. Modern day fantasy is fine too.

I need the angst. Either tragic backstory or future angst or ongoing I need it.

But not all angst of course bc it hits different when the person with all the angst is also the entire shows source of sunlight.

Preferably no annoying uwu damsel in distress with the overly high pitched voice. Strong women only bc I am a proud simp and need a woman to step on my neck, but I prefer male characters anyway.

Angst please. I have an aching void in my soul that craves to be filled with nothing but sadness and will continue to keep me up at night until I am crying over someone’s pain other than my own.

At the same time I will accept shows where nothing ever changes and everything is just fine and the mc is so op that nothing can bring harm to them or their world bc my life is currently in turmoil and I would love to see one that isn’t.

Nothing too long bc I’m not ready for that kind of commitment. Also those 12-24 episode anime are some of the best out there.

The art style has to be good bc I’m not going to stare at something for multiple hours a day that isn’t pretty.

Subbed or dubbed does not matter to me.

If the manga is better I will not be reading it bc books are expensive and I don’t like reading on my phone or computer.

Not in movie form bc I don’t have the attention span for that.

When I say angst I mean the kind of stuff you can’t find in American tv shows. Have any of y’all watched Saiyuki? I’m talking watch the fist season then go watch Gaiden kind of angst. I’m talking worse than any ghibli movie kind of angst. I’m talking needs a CW but there’s not even that much violence or blood type angst. I’m talking will make me rethink my life choices and better me as a person type of angst. I’m talking you’re surprised that mc didn’t turn into a villain type angst.

Speaking of Saiyuki, that’s a perfect example. All happy go lucky, basically the same story every episode, everyone’s having a good time, then Boom! Gaiden! Angst! Then back to our regularly scheduled program, then Boom! Reminder of angst!

No romance bc I am asexual and that shit is icky

Anime I’ve watched that I liked to give you a reference

Saiyuki

Chrono Crusade

Cashern Sins

Durarara

Trigun

Legend of legendary heroes

Blue exorcist

Inuyasha

Wolf’s Rain

Dramatical Murder (don’t watch the OVAs trust me)

Castlevania

Saiki K

Anime I didn’t like

Sword art online

7 deadly sins

Bleach

One peice

Naruto

Fairy tale

FMA (past a certain point)

Soul eater (liked it then, not so much now)

Non anime previous hyperfixations include, but not limited to:

DSMP

Bucky Barnes (specifically)

Danny Phantom

Rangers apprentice

D&D

Detroit Become Human

Renaissance faire

Six of crows (the book)

The last airbender (but not legend of Kora)

Invader Zim (much angst potential there if you look)

Merlin (BBC)

Good Omens

I have drained these fandoms of all of their content and the void demands something new to feast upon.

Tldr: I need angsty shows to watch pls.

#pls help #I’m so bored #the void demands something new to feast upon #this is kinda cringe #but that’s ok bc this is tumblr dot com #long post #kinda #anime recommendation #thank you #anime boy #ignore that I’m trying to get this to the right people #show recommendations #no books please I’m dyslexic #reading takes too much effort #kinda went on a tangent there for a sec but it’s ok I got back on track

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purplesurveys · 4 years

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1131

survey by lilprincess

Approx. Time you began this survey: 6:46 on a Wednesday evening.

Describe your mood right now: Erm, a bit exhausted because I just ended a work shift; but content for the same reason. Right now I’m simply looking forward to dinner and crashing on the couch or my bed, wherever I feel like sleeping tonight.

Spell your first name without vowels: Rbn. Let’s just also remove y for this one.

Age you will be on your next birthday: 23.

Zodiac Sign: Taurus.

Do you believe what your horoscope says about your sign? I do not believe in astrology whatsoever.

What state/region do you live in? Somewhere in the Philippines somewhere close to Metro Manila.

Height: Like 5′1″ ish. I had a massive growth spurt in 4th grade that also ended in 4th grade, which will always be a funny story to tell people lmao. I went from being placed at the back of the class line to the front really quickly.

Do you smoke? Super occasionally. My last cigarette was like...all the way back in February last year. It was easier to hide the smell around my family before, but because my parents and siblings have mostly been staying at home in the last year it would be so easy to weed out the smell. I never feel like smoking anyway since I vape, so there’s been no reason to seek it out.

Do you drink? Yeah, sometimes socially and sometimes on my own if I wanna unwind and feel a lil buzz come through.

What's your ethnic background? Southeast Asian, specifically Filipino.

What's your religious background? Technically my ~background~ would be Catholic since I was born and baptized in that faith, but I’ve long let go of this. Excluding one very brief period in high school, religion was something I never held much belief and faith in, even if I've been taken to literally every Sunday mass for the last 23 years and even if I was enrolled in Catholic school from preschool to high school.

What's your natural hair color? Black.

What;s your natural eye color? Dark brown, almost black.

Do you have any bad habits you want to break? I do overtime work a lot but used to seldom file it on our company shift log sheet because I get shy that they must think I’m doing it just to be paid more, lol. I’m starting to file them every time I do OT though because fuck it, pay me.

Name a few of your positive habits. I like that I always find a way to meet deadlines. I like that I’m selfless, even though some would see it as a flaw. I’d rather do too much than say I never did anything at all.

Have you ever lived in a foreign country? No, the most I’ve done was travel to one for a week.

Did you vote in the Nov. 6 2012 presidential election? No because I am not American -___- The last election that took place before I was eligible was in 2010, and had I been able to vote then, I would’ve given mine to Gibo Teodoro, who I believe was the most qualified at the time.

Are you even eligible to vote? Yeah, I’ve been for the last 5 years. I’ve voted twice - once for the presidential elections back in 2016, and the next was for the senatorial elections in 2019.

Are you right handed or left handed? Right-handed.

When you write, is your penmanship usually neat or do you tend to scribble? It starts off neat for the most part, but it gradually gets messy and becomes more like a scribble if we’re talking about writing several essays in one sitting, which was usually the case in my exams in college.

Have you ever experienced an accident? (of any type): Sure, I’ve been in car accidents before. I’ve also been shocked once.

Do you have/want children? They would be nice to have, yeah.

Are you environmentally conscious? For the most part, yeah. But there are some things that can’t be helped, like me driving. Unless the government does something about the shitty public transport system that we have and have had for decades, I refuse to take it.

What's your favorite mode of transportation? Like I said, my own car. If I’m traveling, by plane.

Do you prefer 80's - 90's music compared to today's music? Eh, not at all. I prefer music produced these days.

Are you more of an introvert (quiet/shy), or extrovert (social butterfly)? I’ve been more of an extrovert in the last few years but I will always be shy at first upon meeting new people, like that will never change. I warm up a lot quickly now, though.

What's your favorite emoticon? :)

Do you miss the good old days of hand-written letters? I caught the super super super last part of this era, so I didn’t even get to experience it. I know snail mail was still kind of a thing when I was a kid, but at the same time that was happening my mom was also already using email to keep in touch with my dad, so.

Nowadays, though, when I do write letters to loved ones, I will still prefer to make handwritten ones, especially for a significant other or best friend. I don’t think I’ve ever sent out a computerized long letter.

Do you enjoy receiving or giving more? Giving, but it’s nice to be treated too sometimes.

Are you good at keeping secrets? Sure.

Do you take or give advice more often? I don’t usually get into situations wherein I’d have to do either, but I think I’ve been asking for advice more, especially over the last few months.

Do you have your driver's license? “I got my driver’s license last week, just like we always talked about...” Haha this question made me sing a bit. Anyway, yeah, I got it shortly after I turned 18 since I needed to quickly learn before college started.

Would you rather be poor & happy or rich but miserable? Rich but miserable. Soz but I’d solve 4854983594857 of my problems if I never had to worry about money.

Have you ever had a pregnancy scare? Never.

Have you ever blocked someone on Facebook? Probably not blocked, but I’ve unfollowed some current Facebook friends and unfriended others entirely.

Do you think recreational marijuana should be nationally legalized? Idk much about the topic since it’s taboo enough where I live, but sure, I guess?I haven’t heard one bad word about the effects of marijuana.

Describe your perfect first date. I’ve never really had a first date, but I imagine an ideal one would be pretty lowkey, just a stroll around a nice city and maybe have fancyish dinner somewhere.

Have you ever been high? Nope.

Have you ever watched a NC-17 rated film? Sure. A good handful of Kubrick films pass for NC-17, right? I’d be surprised if they weren’t, lol. I’ve been scarred by some of them for sure.

If you ever become reincarnated as an animal, what would you want it to be? A dog.

Do you remember where you were/what you were doing on September 11, 2001? No; I was 2 years old. I did ask my parents where they were in those moments, and my mom understandably missed most of it since the entire thing unfolded in the late evening in the Philippines. The only thing she can recall was being insanely worried for my dad, who had just started to work in the US back then.

Do you ever wish you were of a different nationality/religion? Yeah, to a certain extent, just because the political and socioeconomic situation here is very messy and it doesn’t really give us the nicest reputation in front of the world. I’m proud of my Filipino culture and heritage though.

Are you more of a junk food addict or health nut? Health nut is the last thing anyone should be calling me. But I’m not so much a junk food addict either? I do like spoiling myself with food, but I still monitor my intake.

Do you believe Antarctica should be considered the 7th world continent? Isn’t it already though?? We’ve always been taught there were 7 continents and Antarctica is one of them lol.

Describe your own sense of humor in 1 word: Gen-Z, if that counts as one word.

Have you ever quoted the Bible (or any other Holy Book)? If I ever did it was probably meant to be sarcasm.

Have you ever completed a Sudoku puzzle? No. Never figured out how to play it either.

Would you rather be a nuclear physicist or marine biologist? Marine biologist. That’s one step closer to one of my loves, biology. Plus I was never any good with physics, so.

Do you have a deep, dark secret you're hiding from every one? I guess.

Would you rather be able to soar like an eagle or swim like a dolphin? I’d make my childhood self happy and go with flight.

If you wanted to learn a foreign language, what would it be? Korean so I can finally stop reading subs, hahah.

Are you bi-curious? No.

Did you watch the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon more as a kid? The Nickelodeon cartoons were far more interesting to me. I think I only got into Disney when I got a little bit older, once I was able to appreciate the more mature content in shows like The Suite Life, That’s So Raven, etc. But for the most part our TV was always tuned into Nick Jr., Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron and the other Nick shows.

Name 5 films that were made the year you were born: American History X (great watch), The Truman Show, Mulan, La Vita e Bella if I’m not mistaken (one of my faves, no matter how gut-wrenching it is), and Shakespeare in Love.

Did you have a lot of friends in high school? Yes, eventually I did.

Do you rely more on the newspaper, Internet or TV as your news source? Social media these days since I find that online writers are far more discerning in their reporting than TV anchors, who stay neutral at best.

True or false: Bigger is better. Very vaguely put, but not always, I guess.

Do you think religion is the primary cause of war? No? There’ve been plenty other reasons for war.

What's your favorite pizza topping? ...Cheese.

Think of your wardrobe. What color do you wear the most? It’s still black, I think.

Have you ever been to a planetarium? Just once, on a middle school field trip. I’d love to come back, though.

Do you feel like you connect more with animals or other people? I don’t get to be with animals a lot other than my dogs, so I’ll go with people.

Do you feel like sometimes you have to lie in order to protect yourself? Wow so dramatically put haha but yeah, I suppose it does feel that way sometimes.

How often do you exercise? Literally never. I’ve stopped working out this year since I didn’t see the point, and I’ve stopped feeling like I had to ‘get back’ at my ex just by getting a more toned figure. I’m totally at peace with how my body looks, plus I never want to give up on my favorite foods and snacks lol so there’s that.

Can you swear in a different language? Putangina mong bobo kang gago ka. That’s three for ya.

Do you think teachers/doctors deserve to get paid more than pro athletes? Everyone deserves to be paid fairly to the point that no comparison should be necessary, period.

From a scale of 1- 5, you would rate this survey: Erm, a 4.5. I had to delete some questions I didn’t feel comfortable answering or that I found a little meh, but the rest I fairly enjoyed.

Do you think most of these questions were more original or more ordinary? It’s a bit in between.

Approx. time you completed this survey: Hahahahah 10:38 PM. I took a million breaks.

#survey #surveys

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samirant · 4 years

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Yuletide Reveal!

One of the great experiences to come out of 2020 was that I braved joining not one, not two, but three fic exchanges. And only two were for Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth!

In Yuletide I was given an excuse to write a story for the Never Have I Ever fandom, a Netflix series I found funny, sweet, cringey, frustrating and altogether charming. Mindy Kaling being at the helm got my attention, but the silliness and heart of the show itself was why I kept reccing it to my friends.

NHIE, as I try to describe to fellow adults, is a teenage show told from the perspective of adults looking back, slapping their foreheads and going whyyyyyy, why was I such a moron and how did I not know I was? It hurts, y’all.

John McEnroe, of all people, narrates for the protagonist, the first generation Indian-American Devi Vishwakumar. She is brash and funny and clever and rude and so fucking self-absorbed, but you really want her to be okay. She’s grieving over a huge loss from the beginning scenes and perhaps that is what made me so attached to her but man, oh man, does she do some stuff that makes me just want to shake some sense into her.

Then there is Ben Gross. Devi’s scholastic nemesis, the one who goes toe to toe with her on countless occasions, both of them equally horrible to one another. Ben gets one episode where his own unexpected narrator takes the reins and it is the most. Perfect. Casting. Ever.

So Devi and Ben are constantly at odds. Neither of them is an innocent victim, but they’re also just teens, with bad ideas that seem good at the time, home lives that could stand with improvement and more in common than they are willing to admit.

Of course I ship them. Wouldn’t you?

And, in writing about a prickly, proud young man who has everything except the understanding of those around him, if I happened to write a story from his perspective and just happened to once or twice type Jaime instead of Ben, could you really blame me?

That’s not to say Ben is a Jaime Lannister stand in, absolutely not. He doesn’t have even a quarter of the emotional armor our JamLan does and Devi is certainly not a sub for Brienne, not even close. But maybe I just have a soft spot for goobers who discover they know what they want, but have no clue how to ask for it. These are my people.

In any case, I received the most perfect prompt from nausicaa_lives and had a ton of fun writing Best Night Never. I’d love for my fellow J/B fans to read it but, more than that, I hope they give Never Have I Ever a chance. It was entertaining as hell and if any of the absolutely fucking fantastic writers I know were to add that fandom to their repertoire, well. 2021 would be off to a great start, is all I’m saying.

Nausicaa_lives, if you’re out there in tumblrland, please know that I am incredibly thankful for the chance to write for this pairing. It wouldn’t have happened without you! ❤️

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144446

#never have I ever #devi vishwakumar #ben gross #devi x ben #my fic #best night never

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chiseler · 3 years

Text

The Silva Screen

Howard Da Silva

Am I the only one who constantly gets character actors Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva confused?

Howard Da Silva was born in Cleveland in 1909 and was working as a steelworker when he decided to go to drama school. He first appeared on Broadway at age 20, and made a name for himself playing Jud in the original production of Oklahoma!.

Da Silva (born Silvablatt) was a burly, jowly man with a boxer’s face, thinning hair and an unmistakable voice, half-midwest, half Lower East Side. He made the move to Hollywood in the mid-thirties and, over the next decade and a half established himself as a familiar screen presence playing gruff but ultimately understanding characters. He was the tough but fatherly criminal mentor in They Drive By Night, and Nat, Ray Milland’s wise but increasingly frustrated bartender in The Lost Weekend. He played opposite Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield in The Sea Wolf, and portrayed Wilson in the 1949 adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

After actor and fink Robert Taylor, while testifying as a friendly witness before HUAC in 1947, described Da Silva as a troublemaker “who always has something to say at the wrong time,” Da Silva himself was called to testify about his supposed communist sympathies. When brought before the committee in 1951, Da Silva became the first of over three hundred writers, actors and directors to refuse to answer questions, citing the Fifth Amendment. He was promptly blacklisted and for much of the next decade vanished from movie and television screens, though he continued to work in theater.

When he reappeared in the early Sixties, older, balder, and jowlier, he found himself playing an array of historical figures from Ben Franklin to Franklin Roosevelt to Boss Tweed to, ironically, Nikita Kruschev in The Missiles of October and Louis B. Mayer in Mommy Dearest. He also appeared in the 1974 adaptation of The Great Gatsby, this time around playing Meyer Wolfsheim. He made his final screen appearance in 1984’s Garbo Talks, and died of cancer two years later.

Henry Silva

Henry Silva, meanwhile, was born in Brooklyn in 1928. Although often accused of being Puerto Rican, he insisted his mother was Spanish and his father Sicilian. His father walked out on the family when Henry was three months old, at which point he and his mother moved to Harlem.

Silva, who had decided early on to become an actor, dropped out of public school at age 13 and enrolled in acting classes, taking a dishwashing job in a local hotel restaurant to help support him and his mother. Fourteen years later, he’d finally worked his way up the ranks to become a waiter in that same hotel.

Then twenty-seven, Silva, having grown into a darkly handsome young man standing six-foot-two, decided to apply to the Actor’s Studio, and was accepted. He soon made his Broadway debut in in 1956 in A Hatful of Rain, with classmates Shelley Winters and Ben Gazzara. The play became such a hit it soon landed Silva in Hollywood, where he co-starred in the 1957 film adaptation.

His commanding stature and sharp, angular, swarthy good looks not only made Silva an easy choice for producers looking for a suave but sinister villain, they also allowed him to play everything from Mexicans to Russians to Italians to Middle Easterners to Asians to Native Americans with very little extra makeup. He was a chameleon without even trying.

In the Fifties and early Sixties he played a string of suave and sinister gangsters, killers and thieves on TV series like The Untouchables, Climax and The Outer Limits and in films ranging from Green Mansions to Ride a Crooked Trail. He became a regular Rat Pack satellite, appearing in Ocean’s 11, Sergeants 3, and making guest spots on The Joey Bishop Show, as well as playing one of the evil stepbrothers in Jerry Lewis’ Cinderfella. In what may have been his breakthrough role, he again co-starred with Sinatra in 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate as the double-crossing Korean guide who delivers Sinatra’s company into the hands of those dirty commies.

He earned his first starring role the next year as the titular Mob assassin Johnny Cool (co-starring fellow Rat Pack alumni Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr.), after which he accepted an invitation from an Italian producer and moved his family to Rome. Over the next decade he would become a star throughout Europe, appearing in dozens of Spaghetti Westerns, occasionally even playing the hero.

He returned to the States in the mid-Seventies to once again co-star with Sinatra in 1977’s Contract on Cherry Street. Following that, he would spend much of the Eighties playing cartoon villains in comic strip movies (Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy) and and endless string of cheap jingoistic action films (Megaforce, Code of Silence), as well as a few sub-lowbrow comedies (Cannonball Run II, Lust in the Dust). He was admittedly spectacular in his brief turn as Brock, the would-be Great White hunter out to kill a monstrous alligator roaming the Chicago sewer system in Lewis Teague’s 1980 darkly comic monster movie Alligator.

After co-starring in Jim Jarmusch’s 1999 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and a quick cameo in the 2001 remake of Ocean’s 11, Silva retired from acting at age 73.

But back to where all this started—namely, am I the only one who gets Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva confused?

Yes, Howard Da Silva was some twenty years older than Henry Silva. And yes, Howard was born in Cleveland to Jewish parents while Henry was a Spanish-Italian kid from Brooklyn. And yes, Howard was a steel woorker while Henry washed dishes in a hotel restaurant. And yes, Henry was some four inches taller than Howard, and had thick black hair to boot. Yes, Henry tended to play suave and sinister villains while Howard tended to play gruff but lovable types. Yes, Henry played everything from Italians to Mexicans to Asians while Howard was as decidedly American as they come, and yes, Henry is still alive while Howard died in 1986. But if you’re going to say “Yes, you dunce, you’re the only one who gets them confused, because you’re stupid,” consider the following.

First, Henry Silva’s official biography is suspiciously inconsistent. Despite repeated claims about his heritage, a 1930 U.S. Census entry states that both of Silva’s parents were from Puerto Rico. But I guess being half Spanish and half Sicillian is much more Romantic than being just another Puerto Rican kid from Brooklyn. That same form also lists Henry’s given name as “Harry.” What’s more, after supposedly working at the same hotel for fourteen years, shouldn’t he have worked his way up to something more than waiter? You’d think he’d at least be night manager or something, right? And despite his claims he made his film debut only after the 1956 Broadway premiere of A Hatful of Rain, his first screen appearance was actually in 1952’s Viva Zapata!.

Now, given we can clearly not trust a thing Henry Silva says, or has ever said, about himself, ask yourself the following questions:

Is it mere coincidence that Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva, as prolific as both were, never appeared onscreen together? Their careers overlapped for some thirty years! What are the odds of that? I mean, Sinatra co-starred with Groucho Marx, for godsakes!

And is it sheer coincidence that Henry Silva’s film debut in Viva Zapata! occurred at the precise moment Howard Da Silva had been blacklisted? Think about it—Howard vanishes and Henry steps in. Hmm, right? Plenty of other blacklisted artists worked under the radar by using pseudonyms. Maybe Howard, given his troublemaking reputation, decided to take the idea of thumbing his nose at HUAC a few steps further. I mean, take a look at the two of them side by side. Give Howard some lifts, a little swarthy makeup and a black toupee and BOOM! He’s Henry Silva.

And what better way to throw off the scent than to play a completely opposite character type from the one you were known for? And how better to flip the bird, just for fun, than by playing a bunch of evil communists and revolutionaries?

After the blacklist ended, Howard was faced with a dilemma. He could work again, which was great, but what to do about Henry? Kill him off? Retire him? His career had just taken off and was going great guns in the early Sixties. Then it struck him—with Henry still around, he had two solid income streams flowing. Why give that up? Both Howard and his alter-ego Henry were character actors, after all, meaning they were rarely needed on set for more than a couple days on each picture. Easy as pie to do a Howard role one day, then a Henry role at the end of the week.

My god, it’s all so perfect! What an ingenious scheme! And what better way to throw everyone off the scent for good than to have Howard “die” in 1986? At that point, after all, Henry was awfully busy with those stupid action movies that paid so well, while Howard’s own jobs were becoming more sporadic and low-profile.

So there you have it, and remember you read it here first—Howard Da Silva and Henry Silva WERE THE SAME PERSON! I likely never would have figured it out for myself had Howard just put another minute’s worth of work into choosing a name for his alter ego back in 1952.

By Jim Knipfel

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kevkesblog · 4 years

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Translation: kicker magazine profile about Julian Brandt (July 27, 2020)

By Thomas Hennecke and Matthias Dersch

Had he made this artistic pass during the corona pandemic with empty stands in the stadium, it would have been a pity. A week before Christmas however, there is almost no free space in the Signal Iduna Park left. Everybody is ripped off their seats – except the RB Leipzig fans – the moment Julian Brandt marks the second goal. Brandt digs deep into his toolbox. Receiving the pass by Sancho, processing the ball, shot. Three actions in one fluent move, south American suppleness with ice-cold efficiency, a master class. Goal of the month December.

This cool blonde with the jersey number 19 – he is a man for the special moments. A player who makes a difference. And a gambler. A footballer having fun and who lets the difficult things look easy and made his relaxed demeanor a trademark. You can guess why he named Diego (the Bremer, not Maradona”, like Brandt said in BVB-TV) is his idol. The Brazilian used to have the blessings to do great things on the pitch. Diego also had a dream goal in his repertoire: 62,5 meter distance on April 20, 2007 against Alemannia Aachen. End score: 3:1.

The fact Brandt coolness also comes from a sometimes fatal way of risking things, relativizes his actions. You are torn a bit. People who appreciate show, spontaneity, art and creativity will love him more than people adding statistics and all mistakes and how they translate onto the pitch. The ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ looks beyond that and celebrated Brandt as a “Player with the Wow-Effect”. Brandt plays passes, so precise they will find almost every gap. As if they were managed by an electronic brain. He celebrates chop passes which look good and find their goals. But he also screws up counter chances with sloppy passes. He gives goals to his opponents with carless back passes. Or he shoots x-times against the goal, without a slightest danger to the goal keepers.

2019 is the second year with coach Lucien Favre and the so-called “restart”. BVB manager Zorc took a lot of money into his hands, in order to optimize the team. Looking back he wouldn’t be as passionate about some transfers as he was back then – but the 25 million euros for Brandt are still a good and useful investment, Zorc thinks: “Julian is a talented football player and has a lot of potential. He is very active on the pitch, demanding the ball, plays in a self-confidend way and doesn’t hide.”

Then follows the “but”. Zorc follows everything very closely from his box seat on the team bench. He sees mistakes by Brandt, unnecessary mistakes – calles “unforced errors” in tennis. “He still does a lot of them”, Zorc complains. “He has still work to do when it comes to working against the ball, Julian knows that best himself.” Indeed one doesn’t have to look far to find weaknesses. He himself is his biggest critic, the professional once claimed. Yet, he never lets that sort of self-reflection get out of his hands: “I always question myself, whenever I’m not performing well. But I never question the fact that I still can do it.”

It’s easy to spot: this Brandt-guy is not Mr. Perfect nor a football-playing robot. Rather he is an un-adjusted fine spirit on the pitch. Always in a good mood, with a fresh quote on his lips. During the USA-journey to Seattle last year, he was walking interested through the Museum of Pop Culture where Borussia was celebrating its “Black and Yellow night”. He had some small talk with journalists, he seems relaxed, approachable and cool. The opposite of the footballer clicheé of being arrogant. Brandt is “a fantastic guy” says Captian Marco Reus, “he’s a funny and open guy”.

As engaging, positive and uncomplicated his persona comes across: sometimes however Brandt appears to be less serious about stuff. It’s seems as if an extra scoop of ambition is missing, based on his body language. Unlike many other professionals. “I heard from many people before, about me looking like I’m sort of listlessness I embody”, Brandt said during an interview with the former BVB-player Patrick Owomoyela. Yet he assures: “My inner drive is always there.”

Brandt shows both faces during the game against Leipzig. Magical and faulty. He serves Timo Werner the 2:2-goal on a silver platter with his horrible wrong pass. “Perhaps someday there will be the award: wrong pass of the month”, says the 24 year-old. “I’m sure, I’ll get into the top 5.” BVB-boss Hans Joachim Watzke is face-palming on the stands in that moment. With some distance he likes Brandt’s way of playing. The BVB-boss says: “Julian makes extraordinary mistakes, because you can only play extraordinary if you take risky passes or have risky ideas.”

Five months later, both major teams in Germany play against each other on the evening of May 26. Borussia against Bayern; light house 2 against light house 1. Dortmund has to win, otherwise the Bundesliga title will be gone and Dortmund starts in a rush. Erling Haaland gets the ball in the midfield after 17 seconds, by winning a head ball against Joshua Kimmich. From the back Brandt storms in front like a speed train, captures the situation, speeds up the game and passes over to Thorgan Hazard with his left foot. The clock ticks – 19 seconds into the game – Manuel Neuer gets out of his goal and saves the situation for Bayern at the last moment. But he passes the ball into Haalands feet. His shot rushes through Neuers feet until Jerome Boating saves it for Bayern on the goal line. Brandt goal celebration dies on his lips. The blitz goal after just one minute – it would have been his act as well.

Same game, 43rd minute. Mats Hummels defending for Dortmund, the ball moves a few meters to the left. Kimmich gets the ball, looks up, sees Roman Bürki standing a bit too far away from the goal, shoots and scores. The guy standing the closest to Kimmich: Brandt. It would have been unfair to make him responsible for the goal alone, half of the team is responsible as well. Yet some people who’s heart is beating for black and yellow would have preferred Brandt at least trying to hinder Kimmich on making his genius shot. He does: nothing.

He's a day dreamer, Brandt once said. Day dreamers keep strolling through their thoughts. A study found out: day dreamers are capable finding time to dream because their brains have enough space left. In the past day dreaming was understood as a sign of lack of concentration and attention – today people see it as a sign of intelligence and creativity. Like a lost professor: brilliant, sharp mind, yet sunk into his own world.

It is however no explanation for him being passive in front of the goal in May that basically pre-decided the German championship. Brandt made his day dreamer confession in a different context – when asked about a career plan. He doesn’t have one, he said: “Everything that happens in my life, happens spontaneously. I don’t even know what I will be doing in three weeks from now.” Brandt lives his live as free and individual as possible and as disciplined as necessary. He likes to sleep long in the morning and only leave “shortly” in order to just barley making it on time at the training ground. “Every minute is sacred” he says with a wink of an eye. “I don’t know how often I had to pay a penalty for being too late.”

A year Brandt is employed in Dortmund. The statistics are showing respectable numbers. 42 games, seven goals, 13 assists, ten second-pass assists. The season prior in Leverkusen he had seven goals and 15 assists – just in the Bundesliga. He added six scorer points in the DFB Cup then and the Europa League. “I had to find my place during the first months. I played on many positions and didn’t know many of the boys yet. It’s why it was a bit un-harmonic”, says Brandt. “Nevertheless, now I’m “in”. I had a nice year with great moments. I have to say: I’m really satisfied. Everything can get much better. However its was fine for the first year.”

Brandt wanders through the BVB team, gets put into five different roles. The center midfield is the place where he can show his class the best – whenever he has the game in front of him. He can put his instincts and creativity into force and can create chances with his passes. He is basically a lost force when playing way in front. Except against Slavia Prag in the Champions League he confirmed with two assists, Favre decision putting him into the front as a striker. His abilities are also limited once he plays on the wings.

He never has a lack of commitment and engagement. Brandt is running on average 11,85 kilometers in 90 minutes. Nobody of the permanent Dortmund players is running more. He wins 52,4 % of his one-on-ones – more than Sancho (45,6%), Marco Reus (44,6%), Hazard (42,0%) or Haaland (41,4%). His passing with a 84 percent accuracy however still has room for improvement compared to the other specialists like Axel Witsel (94,1%), Dan-Axel Zagadou (91,1%) or Raphael Guerreiro (89,2%).

Brandt is brilliant in games like against Gladbach (DFB Cup, kicker-grade: 1,5), against Fortuna Düsseldorf or Schalke in the Bundesliga (both 1,5). He has personal low points in Freiburg (sub in and out of the same game; grade: 5), in Munich (grade: 6) and against Milan in the Champions League, where he basically loses the ball in almost every scene. Every game becomes a personal balancing act for the highly skilled national player: he dances on a high wire – here and there he loses his grip and crashes down.

His time in Dortmund started with a glitch. He makes a mistake and drives onto the parking lot of the youth time at 7.45am in the morning. A BVB employee has to show him the way. Brandt decided to leave the comfort zone Leverkusen on purpose. “Dortmund” – he says, “Dortmund is much bigger in terms of media interest, the stadium, the number of fans and in terms of pressure. It’s a different game here. It could make a mark on me and will serve me good.” And then there is the wish to win a title which made him to transfer to Dortmund. It’s about a basic attitude in sports, Brandt said a year ago, “everybody should have the drive to win every game.”

Because Dortmund only won 28 of their 46 games this past season (seven draws, eleven defeats) a lively debate about coach Favré heats up as well as a discussion about the mentality of the team. No fans will get together in Dortmund and celebrate the fifth second place finish of the team since 2013. Nobody will fill extra pages in historic club chronicles, some BVB players are now suspecting. “We are not satisfied to finish second”, Brandt confesses. “We aren’t angry, but also not satisfied. We want more.” He then sticks up for his colleagues who get criticized for some bad performances and whenever there are doubts about their mentality and the harsh criticism: “We want to the big price. The team is hungry, they are in for it to win titles. The team is capable of that. You have to always aim high.”

Children who are having their first day of school this year, have lived a life only knowing Bayern Munich as German football champions. In order for them to understand that other teams can be successful as well, Dortmund needs to win the “all-or-nothing”-games, Brandt thinks. The duels with the other Bundesliga havy weights: Bayern Munich, Leipzig, Mönchengladbach, Leverkusen. “You have to win those games, if you want to stay on top”, he says. “Yet you also have to take smaller teams seriously. Something like a 3-3 draw against Paderborn is fatal.”

Borussia Dortmund gave the players four weeks vacation. This Thursday the team will come back together well rested. The months during the corona crisis, the tough hygiene rules of the German Bundesliga, left a mark on Brandt. “It does something to you”, he confesses, “you don’t see many people. You see your family, perhaps a few friends. Otherwise: nobody. You are happy to be able to go out and have some freedoms again.” Now he can go out again – at least a bit.

#julianbrandt #julian brandt #bvb #BVB09 #borussiadortmund #borussia dortmund #Bundesliga #dfb #diemannschaft #German NT

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years

Text

Super Duper Supermen

This will be a long one, so pour yourself a cuppa and settle down. We may seem to meander, but we’ve got a destination.

. . .

I’m tired of superheroes.

I’m tired of a lot of genre fiction.

Part of the reason is that too much of the current material is ugly and loud, but the real reason is it isn’t fresh, it isn’t fun.

I tried watching The Boys. I got to the end of the second scene of episode one and realize, “This ain’t for me” and turned it off and went over to YouTube and watched guys build model airplanes.

At least they look like they’re having fun.

. . .

Look, superheroes are a power fantasy and they’re okay for little kids who want to believe there’s always going to be a mommy or daddy who will protect them, but they’re an absurd genre at best and when you start taking them seriously -- and recently even the funny parodies and spoofs take themselves Too Damn Seriously -- they become horrific.

What prompted me to realize this is an article posted on The Vulcan by Abraham Riseman “The Boys Is the End of the Superhero As We Know It.”

Highly recommended, by the way.

. . .

It’s not like Riseman was the first to make this observation.

30+ years ago Gary Groth observed:

“Superman is one version of the hero with a thousand faces -- to employ the title of Joseph Cambell's excellent book on the subject -- and his appeal should therefore not surprise us. But Superman is a crude version of the hero; if you will, an elementary one. Unlike his more developed analogues in all the world's great religions, Superman does not offer love or goodwill, self-knowledge or contemplation as keys to man's salvation. He offers his own physical powers.”

And he ain’t the only one.

Alan Moore recently chimed in:

“They have blighted cinema and also blighted culture to a degree. Several years ago I said I thought it was a really worrying sign, that hundreds of thousands of adults were queuing up to see characters that were created 50 years ago to entertain 12-year-old boys. That seemed to speak to some kind of longing to escape from the complexities of the modern world and go back to a nostalgic, remembered childhood. That seemed dangerous; it was infantilizing the population.

“This may be entirely coincidence, but in 2016 when the American people elected a National Socialist satsuma and the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, six of the top 12 highest-grossing films were superhero movies. Not to say that one causes the other, but I think they’re both symptoms of the same thing — a denial of reality and an urge for simplistic and sensational solutions.”

. . .

I don’t like cruelty.

I used to enjoy old weird horror films back in the day -- movies like The Reanimator -- because I appreciated their absurdity and never took them seriously.

When the torture porn sub-genre came along, I lost interest in horror films.

The Babadook is the only modern one I’ve seen in the last 5 years and I enjoy it because like earlier horror films (and here I include both classic Universal / RKO movies and the artistry of Mario Bava and Dario Argento) it’s essentially a very dark fairy tale, not an exercise in cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

Violence doesn’t turn me off.

Sadism does.

And sadism is all about power and fascism is all about power, so when I remark on modern superhero and thriller and horror stories as being fascist, I know whereof I speak.

. . .

Superhero stories may not necessarily be tales told by idiots, but they are full of sound and fury, and signify nothing.

Ultimately superheroes fail because:

they can’t lose

they can’t win

There is no finality in the superhero genre. The damn Joker keeps crawling back, Les Luthor constantly schemes, Dr. Doom and Galactus pop up whenever things lag in the sales department.

Superheroes as a genre are failures insofar as they can’t permanently deal with these existentialist threats, nor can they step out of the way to let others deal with them.

Superheroes promise salvation but deliver bupkis, slapping a band-aid on a cancer and telling us it’s all better.

They can’t permanently defeat their greatest threats, yet neither can they be truly harmed by them.

I’ll grant you the occasional Captain Mar-Vel but they are very minor exceptions to the rule. Gwen Stacy was bumped off in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 in June 1973, first reappeared as a clone in May 1975 then several times thereafter, and most recently shows up as Spider-Gwen in Edge of Spider-Verse #2 (September 2014).

As Roy Thomas aptly observed: “In comics they’re only dead if you have a body and even then only maybe.”

(In fairness, there’s no finality in most formula / genre fiction either, but we’ll get to that in a bit.)

. . .

Before we delve deeper, let’s be clear as to what we’re discussing when we say “superheroes”.

They don’t need to possess “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men”.

As noted above, they just have to be:

always victorious

never in real danger

You can bash ‘em / trash ‘em / slash ‘em / smash ‘em and they still bounce back -- heroically -- to save the day.

Break both legs, riddle them with machine gun bullets, hit them with a car, cave in their skulls with sledgehammers, and yet somehow they summon up the super-human reserves needed to keep in the fight.

Mind you, in the real world there are people who display super-human endurance in horrific situations and not merely survive but go on to achieve incredible success. They don’t do such things every year (as do heroes in movies), much less every month (comics) or every week (television). They sure as hell don’t make a career out of it.

Let’s veer away from brightly colored naked people flying & fighting to superheroes in a different genre than costumed crime fighters.

Mike Hammer is a superhero.

Sherlock Holmes is a superhero.

Philip Marlow might actually be a literary character.

Look at the criteria: Can they lose?

Never in Hammer’s case.

Rarely for Holmes (and when he does, it’s always with bittersweet irony).

Frequently enough with Marlowe that one can’t anticipate if any of his stories will end with him victorious (yeah, he solves mysteries, but always at profound personal cost, and in more than one novel he ends up realizing he’s been a sucker all along).

Here’s another example that snaps the dichotomy into ever sharper relief:

Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft is a superhero.

Richard Roundtree’s Shaft is just a hero.

Roundtree’s Shaft is aware he can fail.

No “macho bullshit irony” as they say over at the Church of the Sub-Genius.

. . .

Superheroes don’t grow -- they decay.

They never truly use their power for good (because that would involve changing the world) nor do they adequately protect the innocent.

They serve no true function except to entertain and to be exploited.

Series novels and television shows can feature character growth, but the concept has to be baked in from the beginning (Jan Karon’s Mitford series and Armistead Maupin’s Tales Of The City books are two examples that spring immediately to mind).*

More typically, in series fiction the character/s show little actual growth; they are more or less the same at the end of their adventures as they were at the beginning, maybe a little greyer, maybe a little creakier, but essentially the same person.

Sometimes, particularly in military or nautical or police series, they may start out as a callow cadet but soon wise up to the stalwart hero we want to see.

As perfect an example of superhero decay can be found in the Die Hard movies.

The original’s superhero character, Detective John McClane, implausibly goes through a night of hell yet actually shows some character growth: By the end of the film he’s able to swallow his pride and admit to his wife he was wrong.

A very farfetched movie but an emotionally satisfying one. We’ll overlook a multitude of injuries that would have rendered him hors de combat in reality in exchange for the movie actually being about something.

All that gets chucked out in the first sequel, Die Hard 2, where the characters are thrown into a contrived situation to mirror the first film without the satisfying emotional growth but with far more ridiculous action; Die Hard With A Vengeance jettisons McClane’s marital relationship except as an afterthought and ups the absurdity of the story (indeed, it’s best viewed as an action comedy); Live Free Or Die Hard totally trashes all the character growth before it; and A Good Day To Die Hard not only trashed previous character growth but went so badly over the top that it and the star’s aging out hopefully are the one-two punch needed to end the series once and for all.

. . .

Look at non-superpowered / non-comic book superheroes and see how they fare.

D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers are superheroes (conversely, Cyrano de Bergerac is not because the focus of his story is on who he is and not the what but the why of his actions; all the cool sword fighting is just bonus material).

Natty Bumpo is a superhero; anybody who can jump into a birchbark canoe from a tree branch 30 feet overhead without crashing through is a superhero because that character simple Can Not Lose.

For that matter, most 1950s TV cowboys and virtually all Italian Western protagonists are superheroes.

Tarzan is a superhero.

James Bond is a superhero (the SPECTRE / Blofeld arc in the novels and short stories actually do end up with him going through significant growth and personal change, ending with Smersh brainwashing him and sending him back to assassinate M…but then the British Secret Service intercepts him and a couple of paragraphs later he’s all better and off after The Man With The Golden Gun).

Modesty Blaise is a superhero.

Claire Starling is not a superhero, but Hannibal Lecter is (don’t give me that; even if you’re evil, when you’re the central character of a series of books / movies / TV shows you’re a damn superhero).

They’re all superheroes because they can’t lose and they can’t change their world and more importantly they can’t change themselves.

. . .

There is one exception to the above re superheroes, and that’s in the realm of sci- fi and fantasy stories.

Occasionally we find a character who becomes a king (viz Howard’s Kull) or a demi-god (viz Herbert’s Paul Atreides) and does alter their world for good or ill.

That, of course, is the ultimate power fantasy.

. . .

Fascism focuses on the Will and the Act.

It is a philosophy of movement.

It’s a philosophy that attracts the weak and the sadistic, because it promises protection from and power over others.

It’s a philosophy that actively seeks conflict, not necessarily overt violence, but the promise of same is always there.

. . .

A brief sidebar to the other side of the comic book spinner rack.

Funny animals are essentially anti-authoritarian.

From Aesop forward to Carl Barks, their characters, filled with all too human foibles, can and do fail.

And when they win?

Ah, then it’s almost never by force or action, but by cleverness.

Funny animals are tricksters, accurately sussing out a situation and maneuvering to gain the best outcome for themselves without obtaining dominance over their opponent.

Bre’r Rabbit and Bugs Bunny.

Ducks Donald, Daffy, and Howard.

Superhero stories seems obsessed with keeping everything orderly and in continuity.

Without continuity, anything goes, and that’s fatal to the superhero trope as it annihilates authority.

Funny animal stories rarely feature continuity and when they do, it’s rarely rigorous. If Porky Pig needs to be a businessman or a farmer or a studio executive or a traveling salesman, so be it.

He’ll be something else in the next story.

As tricksters, funny animals are bounded by one rule: They may save themselves and seek justice, but they will pay a penalty if they try to use trickery for selfish gain.

Howard the Duck -- “trapped alone and afraid / in a world he never made” -- is just trying to stay survive.

Daffy Duck -- greedy little miser that he is -- inevitably gets it in the neck when he tries to cheat someone.

Donald Duck -- floating somewhere between Howard and Daffy in his motivations -- finds no guarantee of success and reward, yet achieves success often enough to keep striving.

He may battle mummies or a reluctant coke machine, his stories may take him around the world on an adventure or no further than his kitchen to fix dinner.

It doesn’t matter.

Who he is makes his stories compelling far more than what he does.

He’s not on a power trip.

He doesn’t feel he has to win every time.

And as a result, he has a much richer life than Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.

. . .

“So whaddya sayin’, Buzz? ‘Superheroes is bad’?”

No.

I deny no one their pleasure.

But I also think there are times when we have to demand not just more of creators but of ourselves as an audience with the media we consume.

I only saw the first two scenes of the first episode of The Boys.

That was all it took to convince me not to watch it anymore.

For similar reasons, I have no desire to watch Mad Men or Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul or Game Of Thrones.

I’ve picked up a strong enough vibe from each to know I’m not going to connect with them.

I’m certainly not saying you can’t enjoy them if you like.

Bu I am saying we’re cheating ourselves by not demanding more.

And until we start demanding more, the studios and streamers are only going to offer us less and less variety.

C’mon, people, we deserve more than that.

* I’m sparing you a whole long analysis of The Mary Tyler Moore Show because frankly it goes too far afield of this essay’s central thesis and besides I can use it for another blog post in the future.

#comics #superheroes #Gary Groth #Alan Moore #Abraham Riseman #The Boys TV series #Watchmen #writing

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straightouttaneptune · 5 years

Text

It girl pt. 4 - Superhero debut

Pairing: Mentor!Natasha Romanoff x Mentee!Reader, Platonic!Avengers x reader, Peter Parker x Reader (In the future)

Warning: Reader being a kickass, Peter x Reader is settling in... Not much to warn.

Summary: Natasha had once joked about picking a random new recruit trainee to teach all her skills since Tony had recently become Peter’s mentor. Fury sees this as a legitimate idea, and asks Natasha to choose her protège, code name: “it girl”.

A/N: I’m so sorry it took so long! But it’s finally here, and the reader is on a mission!!! Anyways, it’s been decided that this little series will end with Part 5 or a 6, depending on how long it will be. Enjoy xx

Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5 Part 6

———————————————————————

2 weeks later

“We gotta go to that Stark internship now!” You and Peter told Ned and MJ simultaneously, before rushing out of the campus hand in hand.

“Peter, gimme your backpack.” He tossed his bag to you as you placed his and your bag into a self-navigating drone you pulled out of your pack, the coordinates heading right to the Avengers Compound.

“Alright. Ready?” You turned back at Peter in his spider-man get up, giving him a thumbs up.

He wrapped his arm around your waist, flustering you a little. No matter how many times the two of you did this, the contact with his well-built body always got your heart to pick up its pace. You’d liked Peter ever since he had that crush on Liz, but you’ve never had to suppress your feelings harder than the last few weeks. There were a lot more secrets, touching, grabbing and moments spent together compared to when you were just in the same friend group.

Peter thanked god that his mask covered his obviously red cheeks, and tried his hardest not to stare at your excited, adorable face.

You let yourself feel the cool wind combing through your hair, that drop of your stomach when he lets go of the web to shoot another, the awes and gasps of the people down below and obviously being hugged by Peter.

The two of you land right in front of the door, where Bucky and Sam were bickering at each other again. Something about Sam eating Bucky’s plums again, so now Bucky was going to make Sam mow the entire field.

“Oh hey, kids. Stark, Nat, your kids are here!” Sam yelled into the building, then continued to sass Bucky with arguments that made no sense whatsoever.

“Well, you have cooties, so I saved the plums from Bucky germs. It is safer in my stomach.”

“I hate you. So much.”

You waved goodbye to Peter and rushed up to your room, ready to change into training gear. But as soon as you entered the walk-in-closet, MINT's voice rang through the room.

"Mission gear lock: Deactivated. Welcome, Y/N Y/L/N." Your eyes widened in surprise, rushing to the furthest side of the closet to look at the Mission gear compartment.

To your surprise, the blue shield had been taken down, revealing black combat suits of different uses. The usual one, with all black form-fitting shape, tactical with bullet vests built into the top and knives stored in various places, covert that included zero design and came with a black eye mask, and so on. You pushed the clothes aside to reveal a screen, that asked you to swipe left and scan fingerprint to continue.

You followed the instruction without hesitation, MINT immediately replying with "Authorized personnel. Agent in training, Y/N Y/L/N. Congratulations, Y/N."

You jumped back in surprise as the walls started moving, the clothes that were hung up moved to the other side of the wall to reveal a new one, stacked with weapons and many types of guns.

"What. the. fuck." You mumbled to yourself in astonishment, staring at the various weaponry that seemed too high-tech to even exist on the Earth.

"I see you've already opened my gift." Your head couldn't whip sideways any faster, spotting Natasha standing by the entrance, leaning her shoulder on the doorway. She dressed in her Black Widow suit that you only saw on TV during the NY and Sokovia attacks.

"This is insane. I'm allowed on missions?"

"Only a small mission, with me supervising from the compound, okay?" She held up her finger and gave you a stern look, which you nodded happily to. You were already pumped with adrenaline, ready to take on basically anything.

“Alright. Let’s get you to Fury. Put the one with the... blue design on.” She rummaged through the suits, finally pulling one out. It looked exactly like the ones she wore during the battle of Sokovia, except it looked a little more updated.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, body covered in full-leather or spandex or whatever the material was. You looked good. Even though it was quite the workout to put it on, it felt perfect and comfortable, every inch of the suit hugging you right.

You felt the reinforced shoulder plates, the gun holster on your thigh squeezing lightly, and the best part was, the material was engineered by Tony to make sure whoever wore it, doesn’t sweat out of their minds. The material kept it’s cool even after the workout putting it on, and you didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

“Alright it girl, let’s go.” Natasha knocked on the closet door before her head poked out. “Grab that gun on your right, and follow me.”

Not even a few hours later, you were dropped off on a lonely hill of god-knows-where in America, left on your own to fend for yourself.

“Agent 13 will only be a few miles away in case anything goes wrong, okay?” You heard Natasha speak into your comms. “And, call me Natashenka on missions. Especially covert ones.”

“Natashenka?”

“Yeah, it’s the Russian nickname for Natasha.”

“Mm, I like it.”

You walked alone for a little while, no enemy or buildings in sight. So it really caught you off guard when a bullet flew straight beside your ear, landing itself in a tree behind you.

You recalled your past training with Natasha, rolling on the ground to find shelter behind a thick tree. Taking out the gun out of your holster, you tried to keep calm as you tried to spot the shooter. You also powered up your shock bracelet just in case.

If you were gonna do this, you were gonna do this right. Kneeling down on one knee, you aimed your gun at the man standing in front of a small army-camp looking building. With a sharp exhale, your fingers pulled the trigger and the bullet flew through the warm summer air.

The bullet buried itself in the guard’s bulletproof vest, knocking him out cold. “Good job, Y/N. But be careful. He’s not dead.”

“I don’t wanna kill anyone!” You whispered into your comms, slowly making your way to the gate. It must’ve been a severely under-staffed base since that guy you took out was the only guard outside.

You stalked into the base, and all you could say was that it looked damaged. It looked very close to collapsing, and you were trusted to retrieve all of the files on the Avengers from this dump.

"Hello, sweetheart. What's a girl like you doing here?" You turned around to face an unexpected number of guards, all standing behind one especially dark, suspicious-looking man.

Your mind rushed to find you a perfect lie to deceive them, so you wouldn't fucking die in there. "Mm. Anastasiya Primanova. Sent from the base in Russia, courtesy of Strucker." You used the thick Russian accent you've heard in movies before, hoping it would sound real. "Y/N? What is going on?" You heard Natasha's frantic voice after you introduced yourself as someone else entirely. You hid the nervous hammering heart behind a cold, dead expression, putting your gun back in the holster. Please buy this, please buy this, please...

"Strucker's dead." He stared at you, inspecting you, but at least he wasn't shooting at you.

"Obviously. I did his dirty bidding. He wrote a will. I was to take over this American base. It's quite the dump. кто ты?" (Who are you?) You used all the techniques in the book, making sure he took you in as 'Anastasiya Primanova', not 'obviously American girl on a mission'. You raised your chin and cocked your head, an unmistakable sign when one is looking down at someone. If you wanted anyone to see you as above them, you had to fake it till you made it.

"Kazimir."

"So, are you going to show me what you've been doing or what?" Your hand rested on the gun in your holster, the other on your hip. He looked like he was conflicted, but in the end, he bought the act. He dismissed the soldiers to go back to their designated posts and signaled you to follow him.

"You shot one of my men." He looked at your side-profile, seemingly still skeptical. But to be fair, that was justified.

"And I'll shoot you too if you keep talking to me." Your pocket knife made a sharp slash sound as you popped it out, looking back at him warningly. "I trained with the Winter Soldiers. Do not try me." Your acting was so on-point, you had to give yourself a pat on the back for it. Threatening him as a first-impression made him fear you, even though he didn't know anything about you. It was simple psychology in the animal psyche, where one learns to fear another if they seem superior to them.

“Oh, my god, Y/N, what are you doing?” A faint panic in Natasha’s voice was evident, but you were improvising.

He took you to every room from floor 1 to sub-levels, and you were down to the last room. Now, you had a perfect image of the whole base in your head. The base was much more complicated than you had thought, it was working perfectly underground even though it looked like a mess on the outside. The Avengers would have to come back to destroy this place.

“This is the archive.” Kazimir scanned his card to show you the inside, before taking off to do whatever evil thing he had on his schedule.

You grabbed his jacket before he could fully walk away, pulling him back forcefully. He showed you a look of hostility, but you paid his resentment no attention.

“Card.” You put out your left palm, and he uneagerly left his card in your hands.

“Thank you.” You eyed him carefully one last time, making sure he had no intention of betraying you or knowledge that you were an imposter. When he only showed bitterness, you let him go.

“Наташенька, I’m in.” You whispered proudly, but discreet in case there were any listening devices or cameras. That was most likely.

“Good job! What was the whole thing with Anastasiya and everything?” She sounded relieved, letting out a small sigh.

“Simple acting... Human psychology... The important thing is, I got the file on the USB.” You stared at the USB in your hand, letting out the breath you didn’t know you were holding in.

“Great. Now, get out of there.”

It was too easy from there. You glared at a couple soldiers on the way, made your way to the elevator and up, and just strolled out of the building. Once you were far enough, you called for the quinjet to take you back in.

“Y/N! Oh god, I was so nervous.” Natasha jumped out of the jet right as the door opened, rushing up to you.

The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and the full realization of what you did started to dawn on you. “I just walked into a HYDRA base, made them think I was their leader and stole confidential files?!” Your organs felt like they were being jumbled up in the washing machine. You felt so dizzy you even had to hold onto Natasha for support.

“Director Fury, Mr. Fury, um, that base, that base was not what you said it was.” You crouched down to sit on the floor of the quinjet, safe and sound on your way back to the compound.

He looked to you curiously, waiting for you to say more.

“There was a place, underground, and hundreds of soldiers. You gotta- you gotta send the Avengers or something in there. There was a room, sub-level 2, where they were doing experimentations on animals, and they said they’ll start-“ You rambled while Natasha sat by your side, her face twisting into various emotions before she set her eyes on Fury with anger.

“We sent her to a fully-operational HYDRA facility?!” She shot up, her eyes wide with rage. Fury appeared more interested in how you went in there and didn’t die.

“You went inside and fooled them all? You saw- no, they guided you through every inch of the place, and you remember it?” He walked over to you, eyes narrowed and tone low.

“Fury!”

“Right. But to be fair, you did a really good job.”

You chuckled, looking up at Natasha who still had a worried look on her face. Her sharp features softened when her eyes met with yours though, seeing how content you looked with yourself.

“Yeah. You did.” She smiled down at you sheepishly, as the quinjet came to a halt in front of the compound. The jet lowered itself on the concrete, FRIDAY’s voice ringing through the speakers. “Destination Arrived.”

A couple days later, practically everyone knew of the ‘it girl’ in the building who fooled over 100 HYDRA men and retrieved inside information and base layout that spies would take weeks to obtain.

You helped Steve make up a strategy for the infiltration, drawing him a map of every exit, every hide-out and all the places to avoid bombing. Sam started to randomly give you high-fives when crossing each other in the hall.

“What’s up, it girl?”

“Not much, Sam.”

*high-fives*

Thor would address you as “Y/N Natashadottier”, completely mistaking the whole Earth’s last-name system. You quite liked it, to be honest. A lot of times you went home to find your mother gone, her things packed with money on the table, clearly gone after your father again. In times like this, you never had anyone when you were younger. But now, you could easily show up at the Avengers Compound, and be welcomed, your room ready for you at all times. So in some ways, Natasha was your undocumented guardian.

Natasha couldn’t be more proud, everyone working in the new SHIELD was buzzing about the ‘it girl’, who was not a mutant, not an enhanced, not a genius, just a high-school girl who reads a lot of psychology books.

Peter also was excited for your big debut in the superhero world, the corners of his eyes crinkling every time someone mentions the ‘it girl’. Tony and Natasha obviously notice this, but they’re keeping quiet to see how fast you’ll get together.

Next chapter: Part 5

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theothersideofthecinema · 4 years

Photo

The Captive Lover – An Interview with Jacques Rivette, Frédéric Bonnaud

(September 2001)

Translation by Kent Jones

This interview was originally published in Les Inrockuptibles (25 March 1998) and has been republished here with the kind permission of the author.

* * *

I guess I like a lot of directors. Or at least I try to. I try to stay attentive to all the greats and also the less-than-greats. Which I do, more or less. I see a lot of movies, and I don’t stay away from anything. Jean-Luc sees a lot too, but he doesn’t always stay till the end. For me, the film has to be incredibly bad to make me want to pack up and leave. And the fact that I see so many films really seems to amaze certain people. Many filmmakers pretend that they never see anything, which has always seemed odd to me. Everyone accepts the fact that novelists read novels, that painters go to exhibitions and inevitably draw on the work of the great artists who came before them, that musicians listen to old music in addition to new music… so why do people think it’s strange that filmmakers – or people who have the ambition to become filmmakers – should see movies? When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980. Their films would probably be better if they’d seen a few more films, which runs counter to this idiotic theory that you run the risk of being influenced if you see too much. Actually, it’s when you see too little that you run the risk of being influenced. If you see a lot, you can choose the films you want to be influenced by. Sometimes the choice isn’t conscious, but there are some things in life that are far more powerful than we are, and that affect us profoundly. If I’m influenced by Hitchcock, Rossellini or Renoir without realizing it, so much the better. If I do something sub-Hitchcock, I’m already very happy. Cocteau used to say: “Imitate, and what is personal will eventually come despite yourself.” You can always try.

Europa 51 (Roberto Rossellini, 1952)

Every time I make a film, from Paris nous appartient (1961) through Jeanne la pucelle (1994), I keep coming back to the shock we all experienced when we first saw Europa 51. And I think that Sandrine Bonnaire is really in the tradition of Ingrid Bergman as an actress. She can go very deep into Hitchcock territory, and she can go just as deep into Rossellini territory, as she already has with Pialat and Varda.

Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)

I’ve never had any affinity for the overhyped mythology of the bad boy, which I think is basically phony. But just by chance, I saw a little of L’Armée des ombres (1969) on TV recently, and I was stunned. Now I have to see all of Melville all over again: he’s definitely someone I underrated. What we have in common is that we both love the same period of American cinema – but not in the same way. I hung out with him a little in the late ’50s; he and I drove around Paris in his car one night. And he delivered a two-hour long monologue, which was fascinating. He really wanted to have disciples and become our “Godfather”: a misunderstanding that never amounted to anything.

The Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1948)

The poster for Secret Défense (1997) reminded us of Lang. Every once in a while during the shoot, I told myself that our film had a slim chance of resembling Lang. But I never set up a shot thinking of him or looking to imitate him. During the editing (which is when I really start to see the film), I saw that it was Hitchcock who had guided us through the writing (which I already knew) and Lang who guided us through the shooting: especially his last films, the ones where he leads the spectator in one direction before he pushes them in another completely different direction, in a very brutal, abrupt way. And then this Langian side of the film (if in fact there is one) is also due to Sandrine’s gravity.

The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

The most seductive one-shot in the history of movies. What can you say? It’s the greatest amateur film ever made.

Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946)

I knew his name would come up sooner or later. So, I’m going to speak my peace at the risk of shocking a lot of people I respect, and maybe even pissing a lot of them off for good. His great films, like All About Eve (1950) or The Barefoot Contessa (1954), were very striking within the parameters of contemporary American cinema at the time they were made, but now I have no desire whatsoever to see them again. I was astonished when Juliet Berto and I saw All About Eve again 25 years ago at the Cinémathèque. I wanted her to see it for a project we were going to do together before Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974). Except for Marilyn Monroe, she hated every minute of it, and I had to admit that she was right: every intention was underlined in red, and it struck me as a film without a director! Mankiewicz was a great producer, a good scenarist and a masterful writer of dialogue, but for me he was never a director. His films are cut together any which way, the actors are always pushed towards caricature and they resist with only varying degrees of success. Here’s a good definition of mise en scène – it’s what’s lacking in the films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Whereas Preminger is a pure director. In his work, everything but the direction often disappears. It’s a shame that Dragonwyck wasn’t directed by Jacques Tourneur.

The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

It’s Chandler’s greatest novel, his strongest. I find the first version of the film – the one that’s about to be shown here – more coherent and “Hawksian” than the version that was fiddled with and came out in ’46. If you want to call Secret Défense a policier, it doesn’t bother me. It’s just that it’s a policier without any cops. I’m incapable of filming French cops, since I find them 100% un-photogenic. The only one who’s found a solution to this problem is Tavernier, in L.627 (1992) and the last quarter of L’Appât (1995). In those films, French cops actually exist, they have a reality distinct from the Duvivier/Clouzot “tradition” or all the American clichés. In that sense, Tavernier has really advanced beyond the rest of French cinema.

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Of course we thought about it when we made Secret Défense, even if dramatically, our film is Vertigo in reverse. Splitting the character of Laure Marsac into Véronique/Ludivine solved all our scenario problems, and above all it allowed us to avoid a police interrogation scene. During the editing, I was struck by the “family resemblance” between the character of Walser and the ones played by Laurence Olivier in Rebecca (1940) and Cary Grant in Suspicion (1941). The source for each of these characters is Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, which brings us back to Tourneur, since I Walked with a Zombie (1943) is a remake of Jane Eyre.

I could never choose one film by Hitchcock; I’d have to take the whole oeuvre (Secret Défense could actually have been called Family Plot [1976]). But if I had to choose just one film, it would be Notorious (1946), because of Ingrid Bergman. You can see this imaginary love affair between Bergman and Hitchcock, with Cary Grant there to put things in relief. The final sequence might be the most perfect in film history, in the way that it resolves everything in three minutes – the love story, the family story and the espionage story, in a few magnificent, unforgettable shots.

Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1966)

When Sandrine and I first started talking – and, as usual, I didn’t know a thing about the film I wanted to make – Bernanos and Dostoyevsky came up. Dostoyevsky was a dead end because he was too Russian. But since there’s something very Bernanos-like about her as an actress in the first place, I started telling her my more or less precise memories of two of his novels: A Crime, which is completely unfilmable, and A Bad Dream, a novel that he kept tucked away in his drawer, in which someone commits a crime for someone else. In A Bad Dream, the journey of the murderess was described in even greater length and detail than Sandrine’s journey in Secret Défense.

It’s because of Bernanos that Mouchette is the Bresson film I like the least. Diary of a Country Priest (1950), on the other hand, is magnificent, even if Bresson left out the book’s sense of generosity and charity and made a film about pride and solitude. But in Mouchette, which is Bernanos’ most perfect book, Bresson keeps betraying him: everything is so relentlessly paltry, studied. Which doesn’t mean that Bresson isn’t an immense artist. I would place Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) right up there with Dreyer’s film. It burns just as brightly.

Under the Sun of Satan (Maurice Pialat, 1987)

Pialat is a great filmmaker – imperfect, but then who isn’t? I don’t mean it as a reproach. And he had the genius to invent Sandrine – archeologically speaking – for A nos amours (1983). But I would put Van Gogh (1991) and The House in the Woods (1971) above all his other films. Because there he succeeded in filming the happiness, no doubt imaginary, of the pre-WWI world. Although the tone is very different, it’s as beautiful as Renoir.

But I really believe that Bernanos is unfilmable. Diary of a Country Priest remains an exception. In Under the Sun of Satan, I like everything concerning Mouchette [Sandrine Bonnaire’s character], and Pialat acquits himself honorably. But it was insane to adapt the book in the first place since the core of the narrative, the encounter with Satan, happens at night – black night, absolute night. Only Duras could have filmed that.

Home from the Hill (Vincente Minnelli, 1959)

I’m going to make more enemies…actually the same enemies, since the people who like Minnelli usually like Mankiewicz, too. Minnelli is regarded as a great director thanks to the slackening of the “politique des auteurs.” For François, Jean-Luc and me, the politique consisted of saying that there were only a few filmmakers who merited consideration as auteurs, in the same sense as Balzac or Molière. One play by Molière might be less good than another, but it is vital and exciting in relation to the entire oeuvre. This is true of Renoir, Hitchcock, Lang, Ford, Dreyer, Mizoguchi, Sirk, Ozu… But it’s not true of all filmmakers. Is it true of Minnelli, Walsh or Cukor? I don’t think so. They shot the scripts that the studio assigned them to, with varying levels of interest. Now, in the case of Preminger, where the direction is everything, the politique works. As for Walsh, whenever he was intensely interested in the story or the actors, he became an auteur – and in many other cases, he didn’t. In Minnelli’s case, he was meticulous with the sets, the spaces, the light…but how much did he work with the actors? I loved Some Came Running (1958) when it came out, just like everybody else, but when I saw it again ten years ago I was taken aback: three great actors and they’re working in a void, with no one watching them or listening to them from behind the camera.

Whereas with Sirk, everything is always filmed. No matter what the script, he’s always a real director. In Written On the Wind (1956), there’s that famous Universal staircase, and it’s a real character, just like the one in Secret Défense. I chose the house where we filmed because of the staircase. I think that’s where all dramatic loose ends come together, and also where they must resolve themselves.

That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977)

More than those of any other filmmaker, Buñuel’s films gain the most on re-viewing. Not only do they not wear thin, they become increasingly mysterious, stronger and more precise. I remember being completely astonished by one Buñuel film: if he hadn’t already stolen it, I would have loved to be able to call my new film The Exterminating Angel! François and I saw El when it came out and we loved it. We were really struck by its Hitchcockian side, although Buñuel’s obsessions and Hitchcock’s obsessions were definitely not the same. But they both had the balls to make films out of the obsessions that they carried around with them every day of their lives. Which is also what Pasolini, Mizoguchi and Fassbinder did.

The Marquise of O… (Eric Rohmer, 1976)

It’s very beautiful. Although I prefer the Rohmer films where he goes deep into emotional destitution, where it becomes the crux of the mise en scène, as in Summer, The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediathèque and in a film that I’d rank even higher, Rendez-vous in Paris (1995). The second episode is even more beautiful than the first, and I consider the third to be a kind of summit of French cinema. It had an added personal meaning for me because I saw it in relation to La Belle noiseuse (1991) – it’s an entirely different way of showing painting, in this case the way a painter looks at canvases. If I had to choose a key Rohmer film that summarized everything in his oeuvre, it would be The Aviator’s Wife (1980). In that film, you get all the science and the eminently ethical perversity of the Moral Tales and the rest of the Comedies and Proverbs, only with moments of infinite grace. It’s a film of absolute grace.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1992)

I don’t own a television, which is why I couldn’t share Serge Daney’s passion for TV series. And I took a long time to appreciate Lynch. In fact, I didn’t really start until Blue Velvet (1986). With Isabella Rossellini’s apartment, Lynch succeeded in creating the creepiest set in the history of cinema. And Twin Peaks, the Film is the craziest film in the history of cinema. I have no idea what happened, I have no idea what I saw, all I know is that I left the theater floating six feet above the ground. Only the first part of Lost Highway (1996) is as great. After which you get the idea, and by the last section I was one step ahead of the film, although it remained a powerful experience right up to the end.

Nouvelle Vague (Jean-Luc Godard, 1990)

Definitely Jean-Luc’s most beautiful film of the last 15 years, and that raises the bar pretty high, because the other films aren’t anything to scoff at. But I don’t want to talk about it…it would get too personal.

Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946)

Along with Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945), it was the key French film for our generation – François, Jean-Luc, Jacques Demy, myself. For me, it’s fundamental. I saw Beauty and the Beast in ’46 and then I read Cocteau’s shooting diary – a hair-raising shoot, which hit more snags than you can imagine. And eventually, I knew the diary by heart because I re-read it so many times. That’s how I discovered what I wanted to do with my life. Cocteau was responsible for my vocation as a filmmaker. I love all his films, even the less successful ones. He’s just so important, and he was really an auteur in every sense of the word.

Les Enfants terribles (Jean Cocteau, 1950)

A magnificent film. One night, right after I’d arrived in Paris, I was on my way home. And as I was going up rue Amsterdam around Place Clichy, I walked right into the filming of the snowball fight. I stepped onto the court of the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre and there was Cocteau directing the shoot. Melville wasn’t even there. Cocteau is someone who has made such a profound impression on me that there’s no doubt he’s influenced every one of my films. He’s a great poet, a great novelist, maybe not a great playwright – although I really love one of his plays, The Knights of the Round Table, which is not too well known. An astonishing piece, very autobiographical, about homosexuality and opium. Chéreau should stage it. You see Merlin as he puts Arthur’s castle under a bad charm, assisted by an invisible demon named Ginifer who appears in the guise of three different characters: it’s a metaphor for all forms of human dependence. In Secret Défense, the character of Laure Mersac probably has a little of Ginifer in her.

Cocteau is the one who, at the end of the ’40s, demonstrated in his writing exactly what you could do with faux raccords, that working in a 180-degree space could be great and that photographic unity was a joke: he gave these things a form and each of us took what he could from them.

Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)

I agree completely with what Jean-Luc said in this week’s Elle: it’s garbage. Cameron isn’t evil, he’s not an asshole like Spielberg. He wants to be the new De Mille. Unfortunately, he can’t direct his way out of a paper bag. On top of which the actress is awful, unwatchable, the most slovenly girl to appear on the screen in a long, long time. That’s why it’s been such a success with young girls, especially inhibited, slightly plump American girls who see the film over and over as if they were on a pilgrimage: they recognize themselves in her, and dream of falling into the arms of the gorgeous Leonardo.

Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen, 1997)

Wild Man Blues (1997) by Barbara Kopple helped me to overcome my problem with him, and to like him as a person. In Wild Man Blues, you really see that he’s completely honest, sincere and very open, like a 12-year old. He’s not always as ambitious as he could be, and he’s better on dishonesty than he is with feelings of warmth. But Deconstructing Harry is a breath of fresh air, a politically incorrect American film at long last. Whereas the last one was incredibly bad. He’s a good guy, and he’s definitely an auteur. Which is not to say that every film is an artistic success.

Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)

I like it very much. But I still think that the great Asian directors are Japanese, despite the critical inflation of Asia in general and of Chinese directors in particular. I think they’re able and clever, maybe a little too able and a little too clever. For example, Hou Hsiao-hsien really irritates me, even though I liked the first two of his films that appeared in Paris. I find his work completely manufactured and sort of disagreeable, but very politically correct. The last one [Goodbye South, Goodbye, 1996] is so systematic that it somehow becomes interesting again but even so, I think it’s kind of a trick. Hou Hsiao-hsien and James Cameron, same problem. Whereas with Wong Kar-wai, I’ve had my ups and downs, but I found Happy Together incredibly touching. In that film, he’s a great director, and he’s taking risks. Chungking Express (1994) was his biggest success, but that was a film made on a break during shooting [of Ashes of Time, 1994], and pretty minor. But it’s always like that. Take Jane Campion: The Piano (1993) is the least of her four films, whereas The Portrait of a Lady (1996) is magnificent, and everybody spat on it. Same with Kitano: Fireworks (1997) is the least good of the three of his films to get a French release. But those are the rules of the game. After all, Renoir had his biggest success with Grand Illusion (1937).

Face/Off (John Woo, 1997)

I loathe it. But I thought A Better Tomorrow (1986) was awful, too. It’s stupid, shoddy and unpleasant. I saw Broken Arrow (1996) and didn’t think it was so bad, but that was just a studio film, where he was fulfilling the terms of his contract. But I find Face/Off disgusting, physically revolting, and pornographic.

Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)

His work is always very beautiful but the pleasure of discovery is now over. I wish that he would get out of his own universe for a while. I’d like to see something a little more surprising from him, which would really be welcome…God, what a meddler I am!

On Connaît la Chanson (Alain Resnais, 1997)

Resnais is one of the few indisputably great filmmakers, and sometimes that’s a burden for him. But this film is almost perfect, a full experience. Though for me, the great Resnais films remain, on the one hand, Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) and Muriel (1963), and on the other hand, Mélo (1986) and Smoking/No Smoking (1993).

Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997)

What a disgrace, just a complete piece of shit! I liked his first film, The Seventh Continent (1989), very much, and then each one after that I liked less and less. This one is vile, not in the same way as John Woo, but those two really deserve each other – they should get married. And I never want to meet their children! It’s worse than Kubrick with A Clockwork Orange (1971), a film that I hate just as much, not for cinematic reasons but for moral ones. I remember when it came out, Jacques Demy was so shocked that it made him cry. Kubrick is a machine, a mutant, a Martian. He has no human feeling whatsoever. But it’s great when the machine films other machines, as in 2001 (1968).

Ossos (Pedro Costa, 1997)

I think it’s magnificent, I think that Costa is genuinely great. It’s beautiful and strong. Even if I had a hard time understanding the characters’ relationships with one another. Like with Casa de lava (1994), new enigmas reveal themselves with each new viewing.

The End of Violence (Wim Wenders, 1997)

Very touching. Even if, about halfway through, it starts to go around in circles and ends up on a sour note. Wenders often has script problems. He needs to commit himself to working with real writers again. Alice in the Cities (1974) and Wrong Move (1975) are great films – so is Paris, Texas (1984). And I’m sure the next one will be, too.

Live Flesh (Pedro Almodóvar, 1997)

Great, one of the most beautiful Almodóvars, and I love all of them. He’s a much more mysterious filmmaker than people realize. He doesn’t cheat or con the audience. He also has his Cocteau side, in the way that he plays with the phantasmagorical and the real.

Alien Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997)

I didn’t expect it as I was walking into the theater, but I was enraptured throughout the whole thing. Sigourney Weaver is wonderful, and what she does here really places her in the great tradition of expressionist cinema. It’s a purely plastic film, with a story that’s both minimal and incomprehensible. Nevertheless, it managed to scare the entire audience, while it also had some very moving moments. Basically, you’re given a single situation at the beginning, and the film consists of as many plastic and emotional variations of that situation as possible. It’s never stupid, it’s inventive, honest and frank. I have a feeling that the credit should go to Sigourney Weaver as much as it should to Jeunet.

Rien ne va plus (Claude Chabrol, 1997)

Another film that starts off well before falling apart halfway through. There’s a big script problem: Cluzet’s character isn’t really dealt with. It’s important to remember Hitchcock’s adage about making the villain as interesting as possible. But I’m anxious to see the next Chabrol film, especially since Sandrine will be in it.

Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997)

I’ve seen it twice and I like it a lot, but I prefer Showgirls (1995), one of the great American films of the last few years. It’s Verhoeven’s best American film and his most personal. In Starship Troopers, he uses various effects to help everything go down smoothly, but he’s totally exposed in Showgirls. It’s the American film that’s closest to his Dutch work. It has great sincerity, and the script is very honest, guileless. It’s so obvious that it was written by Verhoeven himself rather than Mr. Eszterhas, who is nothing. And that actress is amazing! Like every Verhoeven film, it’s very unpleasant: it’s about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that’s his philosophy. Of all the recent American films that were set in Las Vegas, Showgirls was the only one that was real – take my word for it.I who have never set foot in the place!

Starship Troopers doesn’t mock the American military or the clichés of war – that’s just something Verhoeven says in interviews to appear politically correct. In fact, he loves clichés, and there’s a comic strip side to Verhoeven, very close to Lichtenstein. And his bugs are wonderful and very funny, so much better than Spielberg’s dinosaurs. I always defend Verhoeven, just as I’ve been defending Altman for the past twenty years. Altman failed with Prêt-à-Porter (1994) but at least he followed through with it, right up to an ending that capped the rock bottom nothingness that preceded it. He should have realized how uninteresting the fashion world was when he started to shoot, and he definitely should have understood it before he started shooting. He’s an uneven filmmaker but a passionate one. In the same way, I’ve defended Clint Eastwood since he started directing. I like all his films, even the jokey “family” films with that ridiculous monkey, the ones that everyone are trying to forget – they’re part of his oeuvre, too. In France, we forgive almost everything, but with Altman, who takes risks each time he makes a film, we forgive nothing. Whereas for Pollack, Frankenheimer, Schatzberg…risk doesn’t even exist for them. The films of Eastwood or Altman belong to them and no one else: you have to like them.

The Fifth Element (Luc Besson, 1997)

I didn’t hate it, but I was more taken with La Femme Nikita (1990) and The Professional (1994). I can’t wait to see his Joan of Arc. Since no version of Joan of Arc has ever made money, including ours, I’m waiting to see if he drains all the cash out of Gaumont that they made with The Fifth Element. Of course it will be a very naive and childish film, but why not? Joan of Arc could easily work as a childish film (at Vaucouleurs, she was only 16 years old), the Orléans murals done by numbers. Personally, I prefer small, “realistic” settings to overblown sets done by numbers, but to each his own. Joan of Arc belongs to everyone (except Jean-Marie Le Pen), which is why I got to make my own version after Dreyer’s and Bresson’s. Besides, Besson is only one letter short of Bresson! He’s got the look, but he doesn’t have the ‘r.’

* * *

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years

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CASTLE KEEP: An Analysis

Few movies resonate as deeply with me as Castle Keep.

It is truly sui generis.

It’s a deceptively simple story: In the waning days of WWII, eight walking wounded American soldiers occupy a castle in Belgium, a token sign of force as the war rages past them. The castle belongs to a noble family who owned it for generations and stocked it with a vast collection of priceless rare and irreplaceable classical art. The current count wants to keep his castle and his collection intact, but he also wants a son to carry on the family name and tradition. He is, unfortunately, impotent. And even more unfortunately, the castle is located in the Ardennes forest, on the road to Bastogne…

Now, those raw elements are more than enough to fuel a perfectly good run of the mill WWII movie, with plenty of bang-bang-shoot-em-up and some obligatory musings on the meaning of it all.

And I’m sure that’s the way they pitched Castle Keep.

But director Sydney Pollack and screenwriters Daniel Taradash and David Rayfiel (adapting the eponymous novel by William Eastlake) delivered something far more…well…phantasmagorical is as apt a way of describing it as any.

Because despite being solid grounded in a real time and a real place and a real event, Castle Keep moves out of the realm of mere history and into a much more magical place.

Not so much fact, as fable.

And as fable, it gets closer to the Truth.

. . .

Before we analyze the movie, let’s set the contextual stage.

First off, understand the impact WWII movies still had on audiences of the 1960s and early 70s.

For those who lived through the war years, it occurred scarcely more than 20 years earlier, a period that seems like forever to teenagers and young adults but flies past in the blink of an eye when one reaches middle age and beyond.

Not only were WWII movies popular, they were relatively easy to make. A lot of countries still used operational Allied and German equipment up through the 1960s (Spain’s air force stood in for the Luftwaffe in 1969’s The Battle Of Britain), and for low budget black and white films or pre-living color TV, ample archival and stock footage padded things out.

Most importantly, WWII was a shared experience insofar as younger audiences grew up hearing from their parents what it was like, and as a result there was some degree of relatability between the Greatest Generation and their children, the Boomers.

But the times, they were a’changin’ as Dylan sang, and the rise of the counter-culture in the 1960s and the civil rights, feminist, and ant-Vietnam War movements (and boy howdy, is that a hot of history crammed into one sentence but you’re just gonna hafta roll with me on this one, folks; we’ll examine that era in greater detail at some point in the future but not today, not today…) led to younger audiences looking at WWII with fresh eyes and to older film makers re-evaluating their own experiences.

So to focus on WWII films of the time, understand their were 3 main threads running through the era:

The epic re-enactment typified by The Longest Day (1961), The Battle Of The Bulge (1965), Patton (1970), and ending with A Bridge Too Far in 1977

The cynical revisionism of The Dirty Dozen (1967), Where Eagles Dare (1968), and Kelly’s Heroes (1970)*

The absurdity of How I Won The War (1967) and Catch-22 (1970)

Castle Keep brushes past all those sub-genres, though it comes closest to absurdity.

. . .

While released in 1969, Castle Keep started development as early as 1966 (the novel saw print in 1965). Burt Lancaster, attached early on as the star, requested Sydney Pollack as director.

Pollack, an established TV director, started making a name for himself in the mid-1960s with films like The Slender Thread and This Property Is Condemned; he and Lancaster worked together on The Scalphunters prior to Castle Keep.

While his first three films were well received, Pollack’s career really took off with his fifth movie, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and after that it was a string of unbroken successes including Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Three Days Of The Condor, Tootsie, Out Of Africa, and many, many more.

In fact, the only apparent dud in the barrel is Castle Keep, his fourth movie.

Castle Keep arrived at an…uh…interesting juncture in American (and worldwide) cinema history.

The old studio system that served Hollywood so well unraveled at the seams, the old way of doing business and making movies just didn’t seem to work anymore.

Conversely, the new style wasn’t winning that many fans, either.

For every big hit like Easy Rider there were dozens of films like Candy and Puzzle Of A Downfall Child and Play It As It Lays and Alex In Wonderland.

As I commented at the time, it seemed as if everybody in Hollywood had forgotten how to make movies.

It was a period rife with experimentation, but the thing about experiments is that they don’t always work. While there were some astonishingly good films in this era, by and large it’s difficult for modern audiences to fully appreciate what the experimental films of the era were trying to do -- and in no small part because when they succeeded, the experiments became part of the cinematic language, but when they failed…

Castle Keep is not a perfect film. As much as I love it, I need to acknowledge its flaws.

The Red Queen brothel sequences feel extraneous, not really worked into the film. Women are often treated like eye candy in male dominated war films, but this is exceptionally so. Brothels and prostitution certainly existed during WWII, servicing both sides and all comers, but the Red Queen’s ladies undercut points the film makes elsewhere.

Their participation in the penultimate battle shifts the film -- however briefly -- from the absurd to the ridiculous, and apparently negative audience testing resulted in a shot being inserted showing them alive and well and cheering despite a German tank blasting their establishment just a few moments earlier.

Likewise, an action sequence in the middle of the film where a German airplane is shot down also seems like studio pressure to add a little action to the first two-thirds of the movie.

Apparently unable to obtain a Luftwaffe fighter of the era, Pollack and the producers opted for an observation aircraft, then outfitted it with forward firing machine guns, something such aircraft never carried.

Once the airplane spotted the American soldiers at the castle, it would have flown away to avoid being shot down, not return again and again in futile strafing runs while they returned fire.

It’s action for the sake of action, and like the Red Queen scenes actually undercuts other points the film makes.

. . .

But when the film works, ah, it works gloriously…

Pollack used a style common in films of the late 1960s and early 70s: Jump cuts from one time and place to another, with no optical transition or establishing shot to signal the jump to the audience.

Star Wars brought the old school style of film making back in a big way, and ya know what? Old school works; it was lessons learned the hard way and by long experience.

Still, Pollack’s jump cuts add to Castle Keep’s dreamy, almost hallucinogenic ambiance, and that in turn reinforces the sense of fable that permeates the film.

For as historically accurate as Castle Keep is re the Battle of the Bulge, as noted above it is not operating in naturalism but rather the theater of myth and magic.

Pollack prefigures this early on with a dreamy slow motion sequence of cloaked riders galloping through the dead trees of the Ardennes forest, jumping a fence directly in front of the jeep carrying Major Falconer (Burt Lancaster) and his walking wounded squad.

It’s a sequence similar to one in Roger Vadim’s "Metzengerstein" segment of 1968’s Spirits Of The Dead, and while it’s unlikely Pollack found direct inspiration from Vadim, clearly both drew from the same mythic well.

The sequence serves as an introduction to the count (Jean-Pierre Aumont) and Therese his wife (? Niece? Sister? Nobody in the movie seems 100% sure what their relationship is, but she’s played by Astrid Heeren) and the fabulous Castle Maldorais.

The castle is fabulous in more ways than one. While the exterior was a free standing full scale outdoor set and some large interior sets were built, many of the most magnificent scenes were filmed in other real locations to show off genuine works of art found in other European castles.

This adds to the film’s somewhat disjointed feel, but that disjointed feel contributes to the dream-like quality of the story.

. . .

As mentioned, Maldorais is crammed to the gills with priceless art, and the count doesn’t care who prevails so long as the art is unmolested.

The same can’t be said about Therese, however, and as the film’s narrator and aspiring author, Private Allistair Piersall Benjamin (Al Freeman Jr.), notes “We occupied the castle. No one knows when the major occupied the countess.”

The count, as noted, is impotent. To keep Castle Maldorais intact for future generations, he needs an heir and is not fussy about how he obtains one. Therese’s function is to produce such an heir, and if the count isn’t particular about which side wins, neither is he particular about which side produces the next generation.

Despite being the narrator and (spoiler!) sole American survivor at the end of the film, Pvt. Benjamin is not the focal character of the film, nor -- surprise-surprise -- is Lancaster’s Maj. Falconer.

Falconer is evocative of Colonel Richard Cantwell in Ernest Hemingway’s Across The River And Into The Trees, in particular regarding his love affair with a woman many years his junior.

Falconer wears a patch over his right eye, the only visible sign of wounding among the GIs occupying the castle.

Several military movie buffs think they found a continuity error in Castle Keep insofar as Maj. Falconer first appears in standard issue officer fatigues of the era, but towards the end and particularly in the climactic battle wears an airborne officer’s combat uniform.

This isn’t an error, I think, but a clue as to Falconer’s personal history.

An airborne (i.e., paratrooper) officer who lost an eye is unfit for combat, and if well enough to serve would be assigned garrison duty, not a front line command.

Falconer figures out very early in Castle Keep the strategic importance of Castle Maldorais re the impending German attack and very consciously makes a decision to stand and fight rather than fall back to the relative safety of Bastogne.

Donning his old airborne uniform makes perfect sense under such circumstances.

If the count is impotent invisibly, Falconer is visibly impotent -- in both senses of the word -- and sees his chance to make one last heroic stand against the oncoming Nazi army as a surer way of restoring his symbolically lost manhood than in impregnating Therese.**

. . .

Before examining our focal character, a few words on the supporting cast.

Peter Falk is Sgt. Rossi, a baker. Sgt. Rossi’s exact wounding is never made clear, but it appears he suffers from some form of shell shock (as they called PTSD at the time).

He hears things, in particular a scream that only he hears three times during the movie.

The first time is after an opening montage of beautiful works of art being destroyed in a series of explosions. When a bird-like gargoyle is blow apart, a screech is heard on the soundtrack, and we abruptly jump cut to Maj. Falconer and Sgt. Rossi and the rest of the squad on their way to Castle Maldorais.

For a movie as profoundly philosophical as Castle Keep (more on that in a bit), Sgt. Rossi is the only actual philosopher in the group. His philosophy is of an earthy bent, and filtered through his own PTSD, but he’s clearly thinking.

Rossi briefly deserts the squad to take up with the local baker’s wife (Olga Bisera, identified only as Bisera in the credits). This is not adultery or cuckoldry; Rossi sees her bakery, knocks, and identifies himself as a baker.

“And I am a baker’s wife,” she says.

“Where’s the baker?”

“Gone.”

And with that Rossi moves in, fulfilling all the duties required of a baker (including, however briefly, standing in as a father figure for her son).

The baker’s wife is the only female character who displays any real personal agentry in the film, Therese and the Red Queen and her ladies are there simply to do the bidding of whichever male is present.

This is a problem with most male-oriented war films, and especially so for late 60s / early 70s cinema of any kind; for all the idealistic talk of equality and self-realization, female characters tended to be treated more cavalierly in films of that era than in previous generations. Olga Bisera’s character appears noteworthy only in comparison to the other female characters in the movie.

Pvt. Benjamin, our narrator and aspiring author, is African-American. There is virtually no reference made to his race in the film, certainly not as much as the references to a Native American character’s ethnicity.

Today this would be seen as an example of color blind casting; back in 1969 it was a pretty visually explicit point.

Again, it serves the mythic feel of the movie. At that time, African-American enlisted personnel would not be serving in an integrated unit.

While Castle Keep never brings the topic up, the film -- and Pvt. Benjamin’s narration -- indicates these eight men are bottom of the barrel scrapings, sent where they can do the least amount of damage, and otherwise forgotten by the powers that be.

With that reading, Benjamin’s presence is easy to understand. As the apparently third most educated member of the unit (Falconer and our focal character are the other two), he probably would not have been a smooth fit in any unit he’d been assigned to.

Whatever got him yanked out of his old company and placed under Maj. Falconer’s command probably was as much a relief to his superiors as it was to him.

Scott Wilson is Corporal Clearboy, a cowboy with a hatred of Army jeeps and an unholy love for Volkswagens.

Volkswagens actually appeared in Germany before the start of WWII but once Hitler came out swinging those factories were converted to military production. Nonetheless, the basic Beetle was around during the war, and commandeered and used by many Allied soldiers who found one.

Clearboy’s Volkswagen provides one of the funniest bits in the movie, and one that plays on the mythical / surreal / magic realism of the film. Clearboy’s obsession is oddly touching.

Tony Bill’s Lieutenant Amberjack tips us early on to the kind of cinematic experience we’re in for. Under the opening credits, Amberjack is asked if he ever studied for the ministry; Amberjack says he did.

“Then why aren’t you a chaplain?” -- and Amberjack bursts out laughing.

Amberjack does not go with the others to the Red Queen -- “That’s for enlisted men” -- and while he enjoys playing the count’s organ, by that I mean he literally sits down at the keyboard and plays music.

But as we’ll see, Castle Keep is not the sort of movie to shy away from sly hints. Amberjack’s specific “wound” is never discussed, so it’s open to speculation as to why he’s assigned to Maj. Falconer’s squad.

(Siderbar: Following a successful acting career, Bill went on to produce and direct several motion pictures, sharing a Best Picture Oscar for The Sting with Michael and Julia Phillips.)

Elk, the token Native American character in every WWII squad movie, is played by James Patterson. Elk doesn’t get much to do in the film, though Patterson was an award winning Broadway actor. Tragically, he died of cancer a few years after making Castle Keep.

Another character with little to do is Michael Conrad’s Sergeant DeVaca. Most audiences today remember him for his role in Hill Street Blues.

Astrid Heeren (Therese) gets a typically thankless role for films of this type in that era. She possessed a beautiful face that’s so symmetrical it gives off an unearthly, almost frightening vibe. A fashion model in the 1960s, she appeared in only four movies -- this one, The Thomas Crown Affair, and two sleaze fests -- before quitting the business.

As noted above, no one is ever quite sure what her exact relationship to the count is. Towards the end it’s speculated she’s his sister and his wife, but since the count is impotent, does that really constitute incest?

Whatever she is, it’s clear the count considers her nothing more than an oven in which to bake a new heir, and in a very real sense she possesses less freedom and personal agentry than the ladies of the Red Queen.

At least she survives at the end of the film, pregnant with Falconer’s child, led to safety by Pvt. Benjamin.

Finally, Bruce Dern as Lieutenant Billy Byron Bix, a wigged out walking wounded who is not a member of Falconer’s squad.

Bix leads his own rag tag group of GIs, equally addled soldiers who proclaim their newly found evangelical fervor renders them conscientious objectors. They wander about, singing hymns and scrounging for survival, until the penultimate battle of the film.

Falconer, trying to recruit more defenders from the retreating American forces, dragoons Bix and his followers into singing a hymn in the hopes of luring some of the shell shocked GIs back to the keep.

Bix agrees -- and is almost immediately killed by a shell, not only thwarting Falconer’s plan but also raising the question of whether this was divine punishment for abandoning his pacifist ways, fate decreeing Falconer and his squad must stand alone, or pure random chance.

Dern, as always, is a delight to watch, and he and Falk get a funny scene where they argue about singing hymns at night.

. . .

So who is our focal character?

Patrick O’Neil was one of those journeymen actors who never get the big breakout role that makes them a star, but worked regularly and well.

He worked on Broadway, guest starred on TV a lot, starred in a couple of minor films (including the delightful sci-fi / spy comedy Matchless), but spent most of his movie career supporting other stars.

Castle Keep is his finest performance.

He’s supposed to be supporting Lancaster in Castle Keep, but dang, he’s the heart and soul of the film.

O’Neil plays Captain Lionel Beckman, Falconer’s second in command, a professor of art and literature whose name is well known enough to be recognized by the count.

Besides Falconer, Beckman is the only character explicitly acknowledged as having been wounded; this is revealed when Falconer mentions Beckman won the Bronze Star (the second highest award for bravery) and the Purple Heart.

Beckman is enthralled by Castle Maldorais; he and the count strike up a respectful if not friendly relationship.

He sees and appreciates the cultural significance of Castle Maldorais’ artistic treasures and futilely tries to share his love of same with the enlisted men.

He also understands how little Falconer can do at the castle to slow the German advance, and makes the entirely reasonable suggestion that perhaps it would be best for the squad and the castle to retreat and let the treasures remain intact.

Lancaster reportedly wanted to make Castle Keep a comment on the Vietnam War, but the reality is there’s no adequate comparison.

History shows the Nazis were a brutal, aggressive, racist force determined to conquer all they could and destroy the rest.

Beckman is not a fool for wanting to spare the castle and its art, and that’s why he’s vital as the film’s focal character.

He sees and feels for us the horror at what appears to be the senseless waste about to befall the men and the castle. His voice is necessary to express there are ideals worth fighting for, and there are times when not fighting is the best strategy.

But Maj. Falconer is shown as a good officer. While he maintains an aloof attitude of command, he’s interested in and concerned about the men under him, he’s willing to be lenient if circumstances permit, and he keeps them openly and honestly informed at all times of the situation facing them.

He figures out the meaning of the flares seen early in the film, anticipates what the German line of attack will be, but most importantly realizes more will die and more destruction will occur if the Nazis aren’t resisted.

He and Beckman’s difference of opinion is not simplistic good vs evil, brute vs beauty, but a deeper, and ultimately more ineffable one over applying value in our lives.

Falconer and Beckman represent two entirely different yet equally valid and equally human points of view of when and how we decide to act on those values.

Falconer by himself cannot tell the story of Castle Keep, he needs the sounding board of Beckman, and only Beckman can bridge the gap between those opposing values for the audience.

. . .

Before we go further, a brief compare & contrast on an earlier Burt Lancaster film, The Train (1964).

It touches on a theme similar to Castle Keep: As Allied armies advance on Paris, the Germans plan to move a vast collection of priceless art by rail from France to Germany. Lancaster, a member of a French resistance cell, doesn’t see the military value of stopping the train, but when other members of his cell decide to do so in order to save French culture, he reluctantly joins their efforts.

The film ends with the train stopped, the French hostages massacred, the art abandoned and strewn about by the fleeing Germans. Lancaster confronts and shoots the German officer responsible then leaves, dismayed and disgusted by the waste of human life over an abstract love of beauty.

The French resistance fighters who died trying to stop the train did so of their own fully informed consent; they knew the risks, we willing to take them, ad faced the consequences.

The civilian hostages massacred at the end had no knowledge, much less any say in the reason why their lives were risked. Lancaster, in successfully derailing the train to prevent it leaving France, also signs their death warrants when the vengeful Nazis turn on their victims.

The Train proved a critical success and did well at the box office, yet while it raises a lot of interesting points and issues, it ultimately isn’t as deep or as humane as Castle Keep.

The Train ends with a bitter sense of futility.

Castle Keep ends with a bittersweet sense of sacrifice.

. . .

All of which brings us to the screenplay of Castle Keep, written by Daniel Taradash and David Rayfiel off the novel by William Eastlake.

I read Eastlake’s book decades ago and remember it to be a good story.

The screenplay kept the basic plot but built wonderfully off the complexity of the novel, reinterpreting it for the screen.

It’s one of the few cinematic adaptations of a good literary work that actually improves on the original.

Taradash was a classic old school Hollywood screenwriter with a string of bona fide hits and classics to his credit including From Here To Eternity (1952), Picnic (1955), and Hawaii (1966). He also scripted the interesting misfire Morituri (1965), about an Allied double-agent attempting to sabotage a German freighter trying to get vital supplies back to the fatherland.

I suspect Taradash was the studio’s first choice for adapting the book, and as his credits show, an eminently suitable one.

But when Pollack came on as the director, he also brought along David Rayfiel, a frequent collaborator with him on other films.

Rayfiel’s career as a screenwriter was shorter than Tardash’s but more intense, vacillating between quality films and well crafted potboilers. Rayfiel and Pollack doubtlessly shaped the final form of the screenplay, and despite what appears to he studio interference, turned in a truly memorable piece of work.

As I said, Castle Keep is truly sui generis, but there are other films and screenplays that carry some of the same flavor.

The Stunt Man (1980; directed by Richard Rush, screenplay by Rush and Lawrence B. Marcus off the novel by Paul Brodeur) bears certain similarities in tone and approach to Castle Keep. It represents an evolution of the cinematic style originally found in Pollack’s film, now refined and polished to fit mainstream expectations.

True, it has the advantage of a story that hinges on sudden / swift / disorienting changes, but it still managed to pull those effects off more smoothly than the films of the late 1960s did.

As I said, some experiments work…

Castle Keep’s screenplay works more like Plato’s dialogs than a traditional film script.

Almost every line in it is a philosophical statement or question of some sort, and underlying everything in the film is each character’s quest for at least some kind of understanding if not actual meaning in life.

As noted, Sgt. Rossi is the most philosophical of these characters, though his philosophy is of a far earthier, more pragmatic variety than that of the count, Falconer, or Beckman.

All the major characters have some sort of philosophical bent, even if they’re not self-aware enough to recognize it in themselves.

The dialog is elliptical, less interested in baldly stating something that in getting the audience to tease out its own meanings.

Pollack directs the film in a way that forces the audience to fill in many blanks.

Early in the movie, Falconer and the count find themselves being stalked by a German patrol. They take refuge in a gazebo, duck as the Germans fire the first few shots --

-- then we abruptly jump to the aftermath of the firefight, with Falconer and the count standing over the bodies of four dead Germans.

Falconer, seeing they’re all enlisted men, realizes they wouldn’t come this far behind enemy lines without an officer.

There can be only one destination for the officer, one goal he seeks…

Pollack then visually cuts away from Falconer and the count to Therese in the castle, but keeps the two men’s dialog going as a voice over.

In the voice over, we heard Falconer stalk and kill the German officer as he approaches the castle…

…and without ever explicitly stating it, the audience comes to realize the count and Therese are not allies of the Americans, that they are playing only for their own side, and that their values are alien to those of both the Allies and the Germans.

The count is using Therese -- with or without her consent -- to produce an offspring for him, and if the Germans can’t do the job, let the Americans have a go at it…

This theme provides an undercurrent for Beckman’s interactions with the count. Beckman would like to believe the count’s desire to keep the war away from Castle Maldorais is just a desire to preserve the art and beauty in it, but the count’s motives are purely selfish.

He doesn’t desire to share his treasures with the world but keep them for his own private enjoyment.

The works of art are as good as gone once they pass through Castle Maldorais’ gate.

Later, at the start of the climactic battle for the castle, the count is seen guiding German troops into a secret tunnel that leads under the moat to the castle itself.

Falconer, having anticipated this, blows up the tunnel with the Germans in it. Through Falconer’s binoculars, we see the Germans shoot the count in the distance, his body collapsing soundlessly into the snow.

A conventional war film would show his death in satisfying close up, but Pollack puts him distantly removed from the Americans he sought to betray, and even the Germans he inadvertently betrayed.

It shows him going down, alone, in a cold and sterile and soundless environment, his greed for beauty scant comfort for his last breaths.

The film portrays the Germans as mostly faceless, seen only in death or at a distance, rushing and firing at the camera.

The one exception is a brief scene where Lt. Amberjack and Sgt. Rossi patrol the forest around the castle.

Amberjack, playing a flute he acquired at the castle, catches the attention of a German -- a former music student -- hiding in the nearby bushes.

The unseen German compliments Amberjack on his playing, but says if he’ll toss him the flute he’ll fix it so it plays better.

And the German is true to the word. Unseen in the bushes, he smooths out some of the holes on the flute and tosses it back to Amberjack.

Amberjack thanks him --

-- and Sgt. Rossi shoots him.

“Why did you kill him?” Amberjack demands.

“It’s what we do for a living,” says Rossi, ever the philosopher.

. . .

Castle Keep isn’t a film for everyone.

It offers no pat answers, no firm convictions, no unassailable truths.

It’s open to a wide variety of interpretations, and the audiences that saw it first in 1969 approached it from a far different worldview than we see it today.

It isn’t for everyone, but for the ones it is for, it will be a rich meal, not a popcorn snack.

Currently available on Amazon Prime.

* I’d include M*A*S*H (1970) in this group even thought (a) it’s set in the Korean War and (b) it’s really about Vietnam. Except for the helicopters, however, M*A*S*H uses the same uniforms / weapons / vehicles as WWII films; for today’s audiences there’s no discernable difference from a WWII-era film. It was a toss-up between putting this in the cynical revisionism or absurdity class, but in the end M*A*S*H is just too self-aware, too smirking to fit among the latter.

** Falconer’s relationship with Therese and (indirectly) the count and the castle also harkens back to a 1965 Charlton Heston film, The War Lord, arguably the finest medieval siege warfare movie ever made. Like Falconer, Heston’s Norman knight must defend a strategic Flemish keep against a Viking chieftain attacking to rescue his young son held hostage by the Normans; complicating matters is Heston’s knight taking undue advantage of his droit du seigneur over a local bride which leads to the locals -- whom the Normans are supposed to be protecting from the Vikings -- helping their former raiders. Life gets messy when you don’t keep your chain mail zipped.

#Castle Keep #Sydney Pollack #Burt Lancaster #war #World War II #movies #movie stars #philosophy #morality #ethics #art #beauty #Daniel Taradash #David Rayfiel #screenwriting #writing

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din-zel · 4 years

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Watch Elton John appear as if performing almost (REALLY) live in a wonderful worldly, pretend-like, loving NEW concert video titled "Rocket Man"! Rocket Man is a fascinating illusion: believably never-seen before "old day" drive-in effect; mixed with "modern day" digital technical background; displayed in full color as if it where like a real look on concert stage! The effect of the drive-in screen is rustic looking actually made real with new equipment displayed. This is the greatest timely video ever composed single-handedly created by multi-media producer named "DiNZeL", who treated the art of the original film with never-before-treated technical mastering, believed possibly never made before, ever in Hollywood or any other film industry. Purpose of sharing this projects posting is to bring full proper awareness to this brilliantly designed display of truly wild hilarity media as an almost feel-like visual example of any real geniuses all concerted consolidated happily altogether in only one truly amazing and mysterious fantasy work timely "Made by" DiNZeL. Please Enjoy the NEW Elton video "ROCKET MAN ".

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5sosspicedrosey · 5 years

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Hi! I'd like a 5SOS ship please! I'm 5'0 (5'1 at best), with black, shoulder length hair, with brown eyes. I'm on the curvy side too. I dance, sing, and i love makeup. I can be very sarcastic and loud with my friends, but I'm also known as the mom friend too cause I love taking care of people. I love RuPaul's Drag Race, Pose, Queer Eye, and I'm a huge fan of TMNT. I also love dogs and my biggest dream is to adopt all the dogs and have them live on a farm where they can roam free.

Michael Clifford all the way

p.s I love your name! and i had to do the gif 😂

-first of all, Michael obviously calls you Josie... ‘my lil Josie-Bear.’

-feel like you two are the fucking king and queen of cosplay. Literally.

-You practice your makeup on him.

-He will totally wear your makeup in public.

-UGH THE COSPLAY! like, you two are extra with it (for lack of a better word). you go shopping together and plan your outfits in a couple weeks in advance. whenever there is an even for cosplay, YOU TWO ARE DEFINITELY THERE.

-like you two talk in your characters voices, and sometimes you two just talk like that at home. you guess which characters you are impersonating.

-letting him practice makeup on you!

-teaching him how to apply makeup and what the names of the products are and what they’re used for.

-also, blind makeovers.

-having dance parties 24/7.

-you teaching how do dance! I love this concept sooo much. like, if you are doing a specific kind of dance he’ll definitely ask you to teach him. he might get a little shy at first because he isn't the best at it yet, but he soon gets comfortable and you two rock out.

-he becomes such a good dancer.

-he teaches the boys how to dance!

-they are all totally into it.

-KARAOKE DUETS!

-randomly singing around the house and him joining in from the other room.

- “she looks so perfect standing there-” “IN MY AMERICAN APPAREL UNDERWEAR”

-Michael if definitely your little kitten.

-He always looks to you when he’s nervous.

-he always asks for your help when he’s about to make an important decision about anything.

-before he does something stupid he’s like, “Would Josie approve of this?”

-he looks up to you so much.

-you’re dom and he’s sub. I really get that vibe. like he’s hella soft and you are too but like, you’re a badass.

-he LOVES your curves!

-he calls you his ‘curvy baby.’

-he loves running his hands over your body.

-if you are feeling insecure about ANYTHING, he always kisses you sweetly and reassures you that you are his favourite human being in the whole wide world. then he makes love to you. not sex, but sweet love.

-when you wear tight clothing, he’s dead. he can’t keep his hands off you.

-he loves holding you.

-HE GIVES YOU THOSE HUGS FROM BEHIND AND RESTS HIS CHIN ON YOUR HEAD.

-you two could binge-watch TV all day, and, you most certainly have.

-I imagine you two with your dogs, cuddling on the couch in only your underwear, watching Netflix.

-dressing him up as a drag queen!!!!

-your relationship reminds me of fairly lights.

-whenever he eats chocolate he thinks of your eyes and melts at the thought of them.

-I feel like he loves when you put your hair in messy buns.

-you two love being loud with each other. like you just scream for no reason and he’ll scream back.

-always laughing loud and collapsing in each other’s arms.

-sometimes only communicate in sarcasm.

-when he sasses you, you will definitely get him back.

-basically when you two sass each other it will lead to major tickle fights.

-you two have like a literal hoard or dogs.

-he’ll just come home one day with a new dog in his arms and won’t even tell you.

-”Michael, what is that?” *points to new dog* “Oh yeah, that’s Murphy. Can we keep him? Please?”

-going to petting zoos and farms to see the animals.

-COSPLAYING TMNT!!!!!

-going as them for Halloween every. single. year.

-you make the boys do a TMNT group costume!

-you totally do their makeup.

-when you two get older, you totally live in the country and have like a hundred dogs, letting them roam around your huge-ass yard.

-when you are seniors, I imagine you two sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch, holding hands as you watch your dogs play around.

ahhh I hope you like it!

to @hi-its-josette

- Winnie 💕

#hi-its-josette #michael clifford and josette!!#mosette?#michette?#jicheal?#i like mosette!!!#ships #its ya girl winnie #roseycal #5sosspicedrosey #5sosspicedrosey ships

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tlbodine · 6 years

Text

Ableism, Mental Illness, and the Horror Genre

Horror has a problematic history with the mentally ill, and I think there’s a lot to unpack there in terms of ableism and deconstructing harmful tropes.

* For purposes of this discussion, I’ll be using some potentially-triggering terms like “insane” and “crazy” and “lunatic” and “psycho” and I kindly ask that you don’t take that as any sort of endorsement or reflection of my values -- just as a bundle of terms familiar in the genre. Tread forward carefully.

Loosely speaking, I think mental illness has three flavors in the horror genre:

Stories where people with schizophrenia/DID/whatever are the villains

Stories set in or using mental hospitals/asylums as scary plot devices

Stories about people going insane/losing their grip on reality (or thinking they’re going insane because of the supernatural shenanigans happening in the story)

I don’t think that these three tropes are necessarily closely related, and I don’t think that any of them are inherently ableist if dealt with under certain circumstances -- but let’s go back to the beginning and try to break it down a bit.

What is Ableism? Why is it Harmful?

Before we get started, let’s talk about why we should care about this at all. So what actually is ableism?

Ableism -- The practices and dominant attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities. A set of practices and beliefs that assign inferior value (worth) to people who have developmental, emotional, physical or psychiatric disabilities.

(Source: http://www.stopableism.org/p/what-is-ableism.html)

Ableism against the mentally ill stigmatizes people who have mental illnesses. It dehumanizes and “others” them. In horror media in particular, it promotes the concept that “crazy people” are dangerous, which can lead to acts of violence against them or an overall lack of compassion.

I’m a firm believer that there are no bad tropes, and that people are always free to write the stories that speak to them - but I’m also a firm believer that you need to take responsibility for your creations and be aware of the effects your words may have on the world. So we’ll look at how mental illness is portrayed in horror media, why it can be problematic, and some ways to subvert it.

Mental Illness, as a Concept, is Relatively New (and a lot newer than the horror genre)

The concept of ableism is even newer. Many, many tropes are rooted in times when social concepts were different. Human behavior hasn’t changed much, but the way we talk about that behavior has -- and stories have a way of sticking around after the cultures that created them are gone. So we have a whole stack of tropes and narratives and ideas that are tied to older ways of thinking.

So for example: At various points in history and across various cultures, mental illness as we know it today may have been viewed as demonic possession, fae magic, witchcraft, etc. In other words - a lot of the tropes we already associate with horror may in part have been used as an explanation for mental illness symptoms (and the mentally ill may have endured terrible punishments for it throughout history as well).

Then, as more modern medicine started to be practiced, and psychology began to be developed, the concept of mental illness started to develop...and sometimes that, too, was horrifying.

Here are some supplemental reading links on the topic you might find interesting:

http://nobaproject.com/modules/history-of-mental-illness

https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/mental-illness-overview/the-history-of-mental-illness

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1673/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills

Even in modern times, we still don’t fully understand how the brain works and what causes mental illness and the accompanying behaviors -- and the unknown continues to be scary. All of our fears live inside unanswered questions. And that is why these narratives continue to hold sway.

Why Insanity is Frightening

Let’s go back to my earlier assertion that there are three flavors of mental illness in horror, because I think at their core that each version preys upon entirely different types of fears:

#1 The Psycho Killer Trope:

As seen in: Psycho, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs

Falls under the TVTrope “Insane Equals Violent” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneEqualsViolent

Many urban legends also deal with “escaped lunatic” or “dangerous madman” character tropes. The gist of it is that a mentally unstable person is violent, commits atrocious acts, does not feel remorse (or much of anything else), and may somehow possess superhuman strength.

This scenario is frightening because:

A crazy person has no motive and cannot be reasoned with

Crazy people behave erratically and unpredictably

An insane mind is harder to understand, effectively dehumanizing the villain

People with hallucinations or delusions can experience a twisted view of reality, leading to abnormal behavior (and cool cinematic effects)

Essentially, if you want to turn a human into a monster, making them “crazy” is an easy (lazy) way to do it.

Now, here’s the thing. Sometimes, the mentally ill really are dangerous, such as people who attack their families while experiencing delusions. And if you consider sociopaths to be mentally ill, then a good number of serial killers and other violent people count as mentally ill: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201409/the-sociopath-serial-killer-connection

All the same, there are many ways that this trope can become ableist and damaging:

The overwhelming majority of mentally ill people are non-violent and are actually much more likely to be victims of violence themselves in real life. There are a lot of reasons for that. For one, many severely mentally ill people end up homeless (or homelessness exacerbates existing mental illness), and the homeless are a common target of violence. For another, people’s fear of insanity can lead to them perpetuating violence against the mentally ill. Nasty cycle, right?

The other big problem with this trope is that it’s not portrayed realistically 99% of the time. Real-world psychopaths are generally not known for their cackling insanity and childish violence. Schizophrenics and people with DID/multiple personalities are statistically very rarely violent, and their violent tendencies are really overblown in media. And that is probably the biggest thing: If the only time we ever see a schizophrenic character in a story is when they’re a crazy killer, then we the audience are going to start thinking that all schizophrenic people are crazy killers. Because most people don’t know anyone with schizophrenia, and they’re not used to ever seeing positive or compassionate portrayals of those people in media.

#2 The Haunted Asylum Trope:

As seen in: The Ward, Session 9, American Horror Story: Asylum, and more video games than I can possibly count

Falls under the TVTrope: Bedlam House https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BedlamHouse

There are two flavors to the haunted asylum trope, and they can overlap or happen distinctly. The first is where the action takes place in a now-abandoned building that was once a mental institution and is now haunted as shit. The second is where a person is committed to a mental institution that may or may not be haunted and endures all manner of terrifying things up to and including: abusive staff, ghosts, violent patients, and torturous “treatments.”

There are more examples of this trope than I can possibly list out, and its roots dig back real deep into our not-so-distant past. Stories like Poe’s short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” is an early treatment of the premise (compare and contrast with the film Stonehearst Asylum, which is basically a re-telling); Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while not precisely horror, is a trope codifier for a lot of things that show up in these stories.

There’s a lot to fear in this setting:

“Treatments” that were dangerous and brutal, like lobotomies and electro-shocks, being essentially forms of torture

The idea of being locked up against your will (a justified fear in certain points of history, when locking up your inconvenient relatives was a viable option)

Being locked up somewhere occupied by those same murderous-madmen from the previous trope

Ghosts and vengeful spirits who are really pissed about all of the above

In some ways, the haunted asylum trope is actually anti-ableist, or at least inverts the ableism of the psycho-killer trope, in that the “madmen” are often sympathetic characters rather than the villains. However, it then creates its own set of problems.

One of the worst issues with the “haunted asylum” trope is it is anachronistic. Modern mental health care isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was 100 years ago -- but people don’t have a lot of cultural touchstones for what a modern inpatient care facility looks like. Painting psychiatrists and other mental healthcare staff as sadistic torture-lovers isn’t exactly doing the profession any favors.

If the public associates getting mental health care with the kind of things they see in media...well, they won’t be very supportive of that care, right? And that’s a big problem.

And, of course, if your haunted asylum is also home to crazy psycho-killers, you have a two-for-one ableism problem.

#3 The Am-I-Losing-My-Mind Trope:

As seen in: The Shining, 1408, The Babadook

Falls under the TV Trope Through the Eyes of Madness: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThroughTheEyesOfMadness

The diverse sub-genre of “psychological horror” quite frequently utilizes some form or another of this concept -- “Are these things actually happening, or am I losing my mind?” I’m the first to admit that I’m a sucker for this trope. It’s probably my favorite thing about the horror genre. But that doesn’t mean it’s wholly unproblematic.

There are a few sub-types of this trope:

Gaslighting, where someone purposely manipulates a character to make them feel like they can’t trust their own perceptions of reality

The “I think I’m going crazy but wait actually it’s a supernatural event” trope

The “something happened and it made me go crazy (and possibly violent)” trope

Of these, the third one has the greatest risk of becoming ableist. It’s sometimes used to give a backstory to the psycho-killers in #1, and it has some troubling implications. For one, the idea that trauma can make you go crazy is...overly simplistic at best. We don’t fully understand mental illnesses, but we do know that they are often linked to genetics, brain injury, neurological disorders, childhood experiences, etc. etc. etc. In other words, it’s pretty fucking insensitive and reductionist to suggest that a single traumatic event can “drive someone crazy.”

The other issue is that, in these cases, being crazy (or being viewed as crazy) is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to somebody, right? Like how often do we see the harmful trope of someone experiencing something, then being locked away in one of those mental institutions from #2, and then their life is effectively over? That has to feel pretty awful for the people who do suffer from mental illnesses in the real world.

So, Okay, How Do We Fix It?

All right. If you’re still with me after this long exploration, you’re probably wondering: OK, TL, I get it, but what am I -- a horror writer -- supposed to do about this? How do I tell scary stories without falling back on harmful tropes?

Gee, I’m so glad you asked!

Not every story is the same, and there is no single “do this and never be accused of ableism” formula, but there are some tips I think can make a lot of difference:

Ask yourself: Why am I writing this story? What is it about the premise that intrigues and frightens you? Drill down to the core of your motives and mine the untapped potential of fresh ideas rather than regurgitating more well-worn tropes. If you want to write a story about being locked in a place with violent people, can I set it somewhere other than an asylum? If I want to write a story about a murderer, can I make him frightening without him being insane?

Do your research and portray things realistically. Research here means original, real-life cases and events. If you want to write about a mental hospital, look at real mental hospitals and draw your inspiration from them rather than drawing from the stock tropes in other stories. If you have a psychiatrist character, learn about real psychiatric treatments in the time period you’re writing about. If you have a schizophrenic character, research the actual symptoms and behaviors associated with schizophrenia.

Question what your thematic choices are actually saying. Consider the implications of a plot point or character, and decide whether you’re comfortable with them. Be self-aware about what you choose to include.

Practice good representation. A lot of the harm from ableist narratives comes from the mentally ill character being the only representation of that illness - not just in their story, but in every story. Consider including sympathetic, non-villainous characters with (realistically portrayed) mental illnesses. If you have several such characters, it’s not so bad if one of them is indeed a villain.

Get a sensitivity reader. Find somebody who is familiar with what you’re writing about, and get them to read it and tell you if you’re being an asshole. Ideally, get more than one. Someone who has first-hand experience with the topics you’re writing about can tell you whether or not you’ve missed the mark (within reason).

Invert and avoid stereotypes: This goes hand-in-hand with doing your research. Study the tropes that are common in the type of story you’re telling, and think of ways to challenge or invert the most common stereotypes. Not only will you avoid falling in the same traps, you’ll also give your story a fresh and refreshing twist that the reader will enjoy.

I hope this was helpful. If you have more thoughts, feel free to add them below!

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#how to write horror #ableism #writing advice #mental illness #tropes #long post #i kind of wrote a treatise there #oops

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