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merrysithmas · 4 years ago

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The good thing abt Steve and smth ppl are missing in the current discourse is he really did say Fuck America literally every chance he got and criticized the US govt every second he wore the suit and the govt absolutely hated him for it.

Even in the 40s he didnt want to kill anyone "for America", but as a disabled man couldn't fathom not standing up to the eugenicist Nazis. He wasn't politically motivated by nationalism but instead by human compassion. In fact, it is extremely likely he was highly critical of the US govt as a young man preserum given his impoverished life circumstances and constantly failing health. Living in NYC, seeing the shanty towns in Central Park, unable to afford life-saving medicine, watching Bucky and his mother kill themselves to make a nickle, surrounded by the radical leftist art scene in NY as an art student - Steve saw and lived injustice every day. And empathized with people who suffered different social misfortunes than he did (the woman crying in the movie theatre, "I don't like bullies", Peggy suffering sexism) although his personal list was extensive itself.

To him, the shield was always more of a philosophy and never attached to a specific country, which is what made it so easy for him to blow off 117 countries for Bucky, or tear the star from his chest yet defend the world in the vestiges of his armor against Thanos - he was fighting for what was right and not what was dictated by any country or political ideology (which is the main issue in Civil War with him being against the Accords, and one he was extremely well-positioned to understand having been used as a symbol and propaganda against his will many times, and having witnessed the dangers of state-sanctioned violence in WWII and CATWS. Even if Steve's argument was also faulty to an extent, you can absolutely see why he would argue for that perspective).

Steve was as FDR leftist artist in the Great Depression post Crash 1930s, disabled and chronically ill, diminutive and likely targeted by US eugenicits in NYC who vocally campaigned against disabled people being alive in the 30s (saying they should be sterilized or killed), son of an Irish immigrant single mother, lived in historically queer neighborhood of Brooklyn, an artist, and in the MCU coded as bi. He fights for whoever needs him, not for whoever tells him to. He was always highly critical and tongue-in-cheek/tired of the costume, drawing himself as the dancing monkey in CATFA ("Ready to follow 'Captain America' into the jaws of death?" he confides his mockery in Bucky, who heartwarmingly assures him that no, he is following Steve.) Steve continued to question, dog, and make trouble for the US continually after that until he wholeheartedly said Fuck You in CATWS and just dropped the shield (and never picked it up again until he handed it off to Sam, who he was confident could do something meaningful with it that he was not positioned to as a white man).

Steve visibly appears as a bygone era's "perfect man" and outright REJECTS both this supremacist definition and the shield's gatekeeping/the shield itself. Sam visibly appears as an "outsider" to exclusivist and systemically racist systems and yet EMBRACES the shield's potential. They are both radically standing up for the same cause in different ways and this comparison depicts why they are so closely aligned and best friends.

The irony of Steve Rogers as Captain America is hugely important to his character. In many ways, Steve is depicted as a reluctant hero who struggles with the strength of his own moral ideals versus the highly imperfect symbol he dons. This is different from other superheroes who usually self-create their alter egos as symbols of their more perfect, empowered selves.

In contrast, it is Steve's natural hardiness, independence, and righteous outrage in the face of wrongdoing which represents America's best ideals, but distinctly is opposed to its government which directs that he act as its image. As Steve holds the shield we see the image of a person who is critical of the govt for falling short of its principles and simultaneously embodies the ideal qualities that a equitable and free US is supposed to hold. Importantly, and definitively for his character, Steve as Cap shows how wanting the US really is for the goodness it robotically claims to have. And that is why he is important and impactful as Cap, essentially because he is uncomfortable with and critical of the costume.

The status of the suit often does not coincide with his personal beliefs. Yet he wears it to attempt to level up the system he is, for a while, mired in. Steve is not a patriot, not in the common sense of the world, he is instead a patriot of the humanist cause. This puts him on-site for many enemies, including those domestic to him and thus defines him as a hero.

Though his physical appearance suggests that he might wear the suit with a blind nationalist fervor a la John Walker (depicted as a perfect automaton soldier), Steve could not be further from that mindset (a good individualist man). As a now "perfect specimen" poised to be accepted and revered, Steve has the ability to choose an easy life where he is free of the hardships and ostracization he endured preserum. Yet instead, post CACW, Steve chose to continue to stand on the side of progress, the "little guy", to abandon the shield and now finally proudly embrace his pariah status and fight for those pushed aside or deemed unsalvagable or scapegoated (symbolized by Bucky) as he recognizes that while America's rule may benefit some, it still causes other to suffer and struggle (as he once did).

Not to mention, as a meta point, he was crafted as the "perfect man" from a sick, disenfranchised disabled boy who absolutely loathed Nazis by Jewish comic artists to mock the Nazi Aryan ideal - inverting their eugenicist visual image of perfection by empowering someone Nazis would view as worthless to burn their entire evil regime to ash.

He still, today, stands staunchly at odds with far right extremists and fascists in the US today and worldwide. He's the furthest thing from them and he'd have no problem in showing it. Choosing Sam as his successor, proudly, confidently, lovingly, and as a brother in arms who steps back so others can speak for themselves and tell their own stories, Steve shows his cultural and political understanding and his good heart once again - this time as an ally, friend, and a champion of the heroics of others.

#steve rogers #steve rogers meta in 2021 its more likely than u think #bring him back as nomad pls

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bondsmagii · 4 years ago

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I find it fascinating (and also slightly baffling) that in his books, John le Carré had a great deal of sympathy for characters like Jerry Westerby and Barley Blair who chose personal loyalty over loyalty to their country, but he couldn't muster any sympathy at all for Kim Philby. Did he see Philby's reasons for betraying his country as purely ideological?

I actually know quite a bit about Philby's case (as in, I'm at the level where I'm tracking down and buying rare books on him; that level of rabbit hole diving) so I'm fairly confident it was a different thing with Philby. le Carré is such a phenomenal writer because he's able to get right into the meat of taboo matters such as treason, which at the time of his Cold War-era books was obviously a hot button. he has a lot of sympathetic and well-rounded characters who commit some kind of transgression of loyalty, be it personal or ideological, and indeed the characters based most on Philby himself -- Magnus Pym and Bill Haydon respectively -- are treated no differently in terms of sympathy and development as the "heroes" (to use a loose term) of his books, such as George Smiley. so to say that any Philby-coded character was treated different is unfair, I'd say. le Carré was undeniably fascinated by Philby, and I think there was some measure of sympathy with him rather than for him -- I've gone into detail before, regarding the implications behind the fact that le Carré's most autobiographical book gives the main character his biography but Philby's career -- and this is unsurprising considering anybody fascinated by a subject is going to have some measure of understanding for the motivations of the people involved, like it or not. but let's say for argument's sake that le Carré looked down on ideological motivations.

the thing is, in Philby's mind, he never betrayed Britain. Philby was recruited before he got involved with British intelligence; he never acted in any capacity other than as a Soviet spy. Philby was entirely committed to the cause of communism, and did not falter in his belief until near the end of his life -- and even then, it was more disillusionment with the Soviet government than any lack of faith in the communist cause itself. because of the fact that Philby entered the intelligence service as a Soviet spy, he regarded himself as only ever serving his country: the USSR. this he did loyally for decades, even winning military awards and becoming a Soviet citizen. in an ironic way, Philby was a man extremely loyal to his country. everyone just assumed he was serving the wrong one.

Philby might therefore fit the mould -- alone in enemy territory for so long, there's an element of personal loyalty there, even if only to one's own mind. but I think what disgusted le Carré the most was the fact that Philby had such a long-lived, intentional betrayal. Philby's betrayal wasn't personal in the same way as, say, Westerby's was; it was personal because it was down to patriotism for an enemy country and also an ideology that Philby supported. I think it disgusted le Carré to know that Philby had always, always held these ideals, and joined the intelligence services knowing from the outset what he was doing (indeed, he got involved on orders from the USSR), and essentially Philby had fooled all these people for years and years and had been a snake the whole time. this kind of premeditated, constant betrayal... le Carré often dealt with betrayals that surged up out of his characters' lives because of extraneous circumstances that realigned everything they thought they knew about themselves and their beliefs. personal betrayals in le Carré's work are very often impulsive, or the result of a sudden and dizzying disillusionment. Philby knew what he was doing, though, and every day, every hour, he chose to betray again, and again, and again. his entire life was a lie. his colleagues, his career, his wife, his friends, his children... he kept this from them all, looked them in the eye day after day, and lied and betrayed and schemed.

now, in works such as A Perfect Spy, le Carré shows himself more than capable of sympathising even with this kind of long-term dedication to betrayal. however -- and this is the most important thing of all, I think -- le Carré doubted Philby's conviction. he doubted Philby was acting purely for ideological reasons in the first place. le Carré was of the opinion that Philby was the sort of man who was addicted to betrayal, and this was not something he could respect:

Philby has no home, no women, no faith. Behind the inbred upper-class arrogance, the taste for adventure, lies the self-hate of a vain misfit for whom nothing will ever be worthy of his loyalty. In the last instance, Philby is driven by this incurable drug of deceit itself.

-- John le Carré

finally, le Carré believed that Philby's motivations might be less ideological than even Philby was aware of:

There is a type of entitled Briton who, while deploring the sins of imperialism, attaches himself to the next great imperial power in the delusion that he can steer its destiny. Philby, I believe, was such a man.

-- John le Carré, The Pigeon Tunnel

in this, le Carré is essentially saying that Philby is exchanging one imperialist master for another, simply because one is the newer, and Philby feels he might be able to take more credit for directing and achieving it than he had by being born into the already well-established British empire.

so, in conclusion? le Carré can understand these things, but the thing that most illicit sympathy from him is the idea that somebody could make a mistake, or act out of emotion. there is no malice towards the world as a whole and there is no great, ongoing betrayal. it is simply a person acting in a human way. his problem with Philby was that he could see no humanity in it; it was a monstrous way to act and to live, and it repulses him. to act out of passion or love is acceptable, but to act in pursuit of destruction or glory, for le Carré at least, is not.

#john le carré #kim philby #sorry for the essay but i did warn you i'm down the rabbit hole #anon #asks

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 4 years ago

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“One of the most striking features of prison social topography is the cadre of dominant inmates, the elites. These prisoners have translated pre-prison reputations, physical prowess, or special skills into the power to influence a wide range of prison outcomes. Their prominence in prison accounts for the extensive literature devoted to descriptions and explanations of elite role behavior (Schrag 1954; Irwin and Cressey 1962; Carroll 1974). Beyond descriptions of the "argot" roles they play and the subcultures they represent (Bowker 1977), a central theme in this literature has been these elites' informal contribution to prison social control. For example, Reimer (1937) states that inmate leaders act as agents of social control by defining proper prison conduct for other inmates. More to the point, Cloward (1960, see also McCleery 1960) concludes that 'the inmate elite constitute the single most important source of social control in the prison," achieving the order and stability desired not only by the elites but also by the officials. In recent years several researchers have shown that inmate leaders of cliques or gangs foster prison peace by informally arbitrating among hostile groups (Jacobs 1974; Davidson 1974; Carroll 1974).

In most prison organizations these elites share many of the stability-and-order goals of prison authorities. They are not, of course, motivated by a desire to help the staff per se such an orientation is the province of "rats" and "square Johns." Instead, inmate elites control other prisoners to protect their own statuses, their marketable influence with key prison officials, and their control over the prison economy and rackets. This elite power over the inmate masses is necessarily tentative and informal (Cloward 1960; Sykes 1958). Compliance by the inmates rests largely on the elites' ability to reflect the anti-authority values of the traditional convict code. Even where their actions help maintain peace, elites cannot be overtly pro-administration into do so would undermine their status with the inmate population. Indeed, where collusion between elites and prison authorities does occur in the interests of order maintenance, it tends to be situation-specific or based on particular relationships.

Although most accounts depict prison elites as contributing to prison order in the informal manner described above, there are cases in which prison elites, coopted by prison officials, have maintained more formal control over other prisoners. In such cases, the elites' authority over their fellow prisoners rests not on the defiance of or covert cooperation with officials, but rather on a formal alliance with them. Rarely discussed in the prison literature, this practice is not uncommon. The overt or official use of strong, cooperative inmates has been reported, for example, in the Soviet Union (Solzhenitsyn 1973; 1975) India (Adam n.d.; Bhattacharya 1958), Australia (Shaw 1966), and French Guyana (Charriere 1970). Moreover, several writers have indicated that this form of prisoner control is centuries old (see Shaw 1966; Pendry 1974; Klockars 1974).

Extreme examples in this country are found in the recent history of the plantation prisons in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas (see McWhorter 1981; Mouledous 1962; Murton and Hyams 1969). Although the formal use of elites by prison officials disappeared from these southern prisons a decade ago, the practice continued in some Texas prisons into the 1980s. In this model, the elites' control was sanctioned by the authorities, not by the general population or a convict code.

It is axiomatic that in large maximum security American prisons, some inmates or groups of inmates will dominate others. If that dominance is unquestioned and predictable, then the prison environment can be stable, even safe. Conversely, if one power group falls, then others will move in to fill the vacuum; such power shifts within the informal prisoner world are always disruptive and often dangerous (see Colvin, 1982). Where elites have been coopted into serving as formal agents of institutional regulation, officials can both increase daily control within the cellblocks and maximize general stability by ensuring that there is never a power vacuum.”

- James W. Marquart a & Ben M. Crouch, “Coopting the kept: Using inmates for social control in a southern prison,” Justice Quarterly, 1:4 (1984): pp. 491-493.

#social control #prison community #prison elite #life inside #prison administration #american prison system #prison guards #inmate hierarchy #crime and punishment #history of crime and punishment #penology #sociology #academic quote #research quote

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katsidhe · 4 years ago

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Ranking Every SPN Midseason Premiere

15) 10.10 The Hunter Games. Wow, this one is real bad. Has not one, not two, but three subplots I either don’t care about or actively despise: Claire bonding with Cas (uh, he’s wearing her dad’s corpse), Rowena’s petty infighting with Crowley (bleh why), and Metatron smugly egging on Dean’s violence (why would he care?). This is deep in the slog of s10 episodes that go nowhere fast.

14) 13.10 Wayward Sisters. Is it clear yet that I really don’t like Claire episodes? Sam and Dean roasting lizards is the only real moment of fun here. I liked Kaia, so I hated that she gets used as Claire’s insta-friend/retconned love interest in order to immediately fridge her for the backdoor pilot… so that Claire, who was orphaned young, can understand loss, I guess? Pointless and unimaginative. I also resent the deeply, deeply directionless magic spear/Alt!Kaia subplot that eats up, like, four other episodes in s14-15 and accomplishes exactly nothing.

13) 3.09 Malleus Maleficarum. I like this episode for the insight we get into Ruby’s backstory, and the frank conversation that she and Dean have about demons and his impending Hell tour. But other than that, there isn’t too much to recommend it.

12) 8.10 Torn and Frayed. The next several episodes are all good, and are difficult to sort. In 8.10, Sam and Dean choose each other over Amelia and Benny, in all-or-none ultimatums. I truly enjoy how miserable they both seem to find themselves about this, about how their relationship has grown more and more isolating when tbh it needn’t be. Naomi’s control of Cas in this episode fleshes out the chilling implications we got in The Rapture: Heaven is best when its dark AF.

11) 6.12 Like A Virgin. Monsters, dragons, and Eve: the reveal of Purgatory kicks off a brand new chapter of the show’s mythology. But more importantly, Sam is fully back now! Watching him navigate this brave new world while no one will tell him anything is fascinating and more than a little sad.

10) 4.11 Family Remains. Actually frightening! I like it when the show does the ~it was just humans~ twist. And this episode has great commentary on Dean’s emotional state after his reveal about Hell last time. It’s a good MOTW.

9) 15.10 Nihilism. Dean’s bar mindscape. It’s no Sam mindscape, but it’s definitely the most interesting thing that’s been done with Dean and possession. It’s kinda fascinating that Dean’s uncomplicated happy place exists in an underdog Americana limbo without either Cas or Sam. Also gives us, at last, a good take on Alt!Michael’s motivations—he’s hunting down God. Loses points because the idea of managing to lock Michael in Dean’s mind for any length of time is still extremely unlikely.

8) 1.11 Scarecrow. Meg’s iconic introduction, Dean and Sam’s first breakup; emotional clashing over Winchester family dynamics: what’s not to love?

7) 12.09 First Blood. We’ve got Sam and Dean coping with prison very differently, then using their deaths to escape, and an action sequence through the woods: it’s just real fun. Cas breaks their deal with Billie, which ends up having, uh, no consequences whatsoever. It’s a strong kickoff to a regrettably weak second half of s12.

6) 7.11 Adventures in Babysitting. A quiet, emotional breath after Bobby’s death: Sam and Dean are deep, deep in terrible misery. The potent psychological suffering of season 7 is a delight, and 7.11 doesn’t shy away from it. Plus, it’s got Sam volunteering to get bit in the neck, and a rare example of a Plucky Teen (tm) done right.

5) 15.09 The Trap. This is just a worse 11.10. But 11.10 is amazing, so that’s still a compliment: Chuck tries both torture and the promise of various bleak futures to get Sam to cave. Even if the various futures aren’t staged that well, there is so much stuff here that’s ripe for analysis: especially on the broader stage of s15, this episode is plain interesting.

4) 5.11 Sam, Interrupted. Sam and Dean in a psych ward! They’re dealing with the extreme stress and grief of season 5, and they’re doing it badly—this episode provides a great way for their respective coping mechanisms to be forcefully stripped away. In a delightful microcosm of the show, Sam confesses his anger and gets consequently wrestled down and tied down to a cot.

3) 2.10 Hunted. Gordon Walker, whose old-fashioned absolutism is only matched by his competence, is one of the most memorable early seasons antagonists, and for good reason. We also get Ava, the queen of season 2, who has taken it upon herself to warn Sam and save his life. Then Sam and Dean using code words to disarm Gordon’s trap, and the fallout from John’s final words: quality television.

2) 9.10 Road Trip. Oh my god, what a horror show. This is an exemplary episode. Just incredible. Kinda unfair that it has to compete with 11.10, because it would take the gold by a mile in most other matchups. It’s got a fascinating character study of Gadreel, which also serves to inject interest into the s9 angel conflict; it’s the violent, hypocritical lengths to which Dean is willing to go; it’s got needles in Sam’s brain and a nauseating, horrific picture of possession; it’s got That Bridge Scene. The payoff for 9.01 begins to come due, in spades.

1) 11.10 Devil in the Details. Season 11 gets two D-tier ranks and two S-tier ranks; this is the duality of man. Do I even have to explain why I love 11.10 so much? It’s Sam and Lucifer in a room in Hell for an entire episode, nuff said. It gets better with every rewatch—there are so many great tiny moments, so much history. Lucifer’s combination salespitch/dressing-down is threatening and fascinating and mostly accurate; Sam’s rigid terror and courage and heartbreak and anger and resignation and determination are intoxicating. I want to watch them talk in a room forever.

#1.11 #2.10 #3.09 #4.11 #5.11 #6.12 #7.11 #8.10 #9.10 #10.10 #11.10 #12.09 #13.10 #14.10 #15.09 #ranking

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years ago

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Compare & Contrast: ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD Movie vs Novel

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is my favorite Quentin Tarantino film, a love letter to late 1960s Los Angeles / Hollywood, an alternate history where the wicked (or at least three of them) are punished and the virtuous are spared and rewarded.

Tarantino has since expanded his basic story into a new novel, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and it’s interesting to compare & contrast the two approaches to the material.

Movie tie-in novelizations are not unusual, of course, but it’s the rare example when the original creator (writer or director) takes a whack at it. Ian Fleming famously turned an unsold screenplay, James Bond Of The Secret Service, (written with Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, Ivar Bryce, and Ernest Cuneo) into the novel Thunderball and a busted TV pilot, Commander Jamaica, into Dr. No, while Ed McBain (a.k.a. Evan Hunter ne Salvatore Albert Lombino) adapted a couple of original 87th Precinct movie scripts into novels.

Here Tarantino takes his stab at it, and the results are…well, let’s cut to the chase…

Which is better, movie or book?

Good movie, okay novel.

For those who want a more detailed analysis…

[SPOILERS GALORE]

Story Structure

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the novel is just barely a standalone story; it’s really enhanced by seeing the movie first.

The story flow is roughly the same, and it’s clear a lot of the material in the book are from early drafts of the screenplay (with a few callbacks to earlier Tarantino films). There’s also a lot of material missing that was in the movie (the immediate aftermath of Cliff visiting George Spahn, f’r instance).

However, the main plot and many major scenes from the movie are described as almost asides, hints at things seen on screen that aren’t elaborated on in the movie.

In one sense, this works to the novel’s advantage; there’s little point in reiterating already familiar scenes. On the other hand, scenes in the book that expand on scenes from the movie can benefit only by seeing the movie first.

While Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the movie features a pretty clear if typically erratic Tarantino timeline, the book’s timeline is less easy to track (but more on that later).

This isn’t a deal breaker in terms of enjoyment, but it occasionally does get in the way of the story telling.

Characters

What I liked most about Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the movie was that the Rick Dalton character is presented as a self-involved / over anxious / ot-nay oo-tay ight-bray actor who, despite his very apparent shortcomings, also demonstrates a truly professional dedication to his craft and an ability to listen and learn and grow.

Taking part in the big fight at the end cements his hero status in the framework of the movie.

He’s not nearly as likeable or as admirable in the book.

A big hunk of this is leaving out those crucial action beats mentioned above. Another hunk is letting us peek too deeply into Rick’s head, and learning what happens to him after the climax of the film.

Instead of moving into the quality artsy A-list movie world as the film version intimates at the end, Rick becomes a John Wayne-like figure with similar intolerant attitudes, popular with middle American audiences.

He does come across as clear headed when it comes to his career and his place in the Hollywood pecking order, as demonstrated in his own analysis of why he would never have gotten Steve McQueen’s role in The Great Escape.

Sharon Tate is still the delightfully airy character shown in the movie, though Tarantino gives her a broader emotional palette to play with. She comes across as more fully rounded than the movie version but is still the wonderful, life-loving character of the film.

Cliff Booth, on the other hand, suffers badly.

First off, Cliff’s character in the film is already extremely problematic. The movie deliberately makes the circumstances around his wife’s death vague enough to be read in a variety of ways: He could have deliberately murdered her and got away with it, it could have been justifiable homicide in self-defense, it could have been an accident, it could have been something else.

We never know and that works to give Cliff a Schrodinger’s cat-like characterization: We can’t know until we open the box and look in.

Well, Tarantino flings open the box and boy, what’s inside is stupid.

I can absolutely believe Cliff killed his wife in a momentary fit of rage, I do not believe the speargun cut her in half and he held the two halves together so they could have a long lovey-dovey talk until the Coast Guard shows up and she literally falls apart.

If Tarantino’s intent was to hint Cliff had a psychotic fugue after he killed his wife and thought he was holding her together and talking to her, he didn’t make that clear.

Considering how often Tarantino employs the omniscient third person point of view in this story, I don’t think it’s a failure style but of plotting.

That would be bad enough, but there’s a lot of other problems with Cliff in the book.

He flat out murders four people by the time of the novel: Two petty gangsters back east, his wife, and the guy who offered him a share of Brandy’s prize money from dog fights.

Yeah, Cliff is plugged into the dog fighting world and really enjoys it. He shows enough affection and appreciation for Brandy the pit bull to recognize when her career is over, and he’s ruthless enough to kill Brandy’s co-owner when the guy insists on sending her to her almost certain death in one last dog fight.

[Sidebar: Elsewhere Tarantino has told aspiring writers to leave morality out of their character’s motives and despite this sounding counterintuitive, it’s actually solid advice. Morality forces good guys to act like good guys, it never gives the characters room to think and breathe and act as real people. Tarantino isn’t saying characters can’t make moral choices, but those moral choices must come from who they are, not from some arbitrary code or editorial fiat. To this degree the novel Once Upon A Time In Hollywood depicts Cliff in a wholly believable light, a natural born survivor who will do whatever’s necessary to stay alive.]

Book Cliff is depicted as a far more unpleasant person than Rick, lightyears more unpleasant than movie Cliff. Part of this is a deliberate choice on Tarantino’s part as his omniscient third person point of view frequently mediates on the meaning of likeability vs believability in movie terms; he certainly strives to makes Rick and Cliff as unlikeable as possible (Sharon, too, but she’s basically too sweet a character for any negativity to rub off on her).

Cliff also demonstrates a considerable amount of bigotry and prejudice, in particular his opinions on Bruce Lee. The substance of those opinions re Lee’s martial arts abilities is not the problem, it’s the way in which they are expressed.

Does this sound believable coming from a near 50 year old WWII vet? Yeah, it does. That doesn’t mean the book benefits from it.

Which leads to the single biggest problem with Cliff, however, is his age and background.

Tarantino envisions him as a WWII vet, a survivor of the Sicily campaign reassigned to the Philippines (as with Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino really doesn’t care about what actually happened in WWII), taken prisoner by the Japanese, escaping to the jungles to lead a guerilla force against the Imperial Army, recipient of two “Medals of Valor” (who knows what Tarantino means by this as no such award exists in the US military. Medal of Honor? Distinguished Service Cross? Silver Star? Bronze Star?), and record holder for the most confirmed Japanese killed by a single individual who wasn’t a crew member of the Enola Gay.

Okay, so that makes him what, mid-20s at the youngest in 1945?

He’d be 49 at the time of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, not an unheard of age for Hollywood stunt men but certainly pushing the edge of the envelope.

Playing Rick’s double? That sounds quite a bit more farfetched. Rick’s exact age is never mentioned but from the way others treat him, he’s somewhere between Cliff’s age and that of James Stacy, the real life actor who starred in the Lancer pilot Rick is filming in 1968 when Stacy would be 32 years old.

That would make Rick roughly 40 at the time, and there’s an aside in the book that reveals one of Rick’s early roles was in 1959’s Away All Boats, the latter with Tom Laughlin (who in real life later directed and starred in Billy Jack), and since Rick and Laughlin are presented as contemporaries and Laughlin was born in 1931, this would make Rick 28 when Bounty Law started airing that same year and he and Cliff, then age 40, first started working together.

Cliff saves Rick’s life from a stunt gone wrong early in the filming of Bounty Law, so one understands how their bond formed and why Rick continues to keep Cliff around even after Cliff kills his wife.

Missing from the novel is the voice of Randy Miller, the stunt director (played by Kurt Russell in the film) who narrates much of the movie. I can’t recall if Randy is even mentioned by name in the book, but he certainly isn’t featured prominently in it. Sometimes the narrative voice of the novel seems to be his, sometimes it seems to be Tarantino’s (and we’ll discuss that below, too).

Not all the characters in the movie make it to the pages of the book, and likewise quite a few characters appear who never showed up in the film version of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood or any other Tarantino film.

Sharon Tate first appears in the book hitchhiking and accepting a ride from rodeo cowboy Ace Woody, originally slated to be one of the assorted baddies in Django Unchained but later melded into another character.

On the other hand, many minor and obscure real life Hollywood players and personalities and hangers on do appear in the novel. Tarantino is careful to put dialog in the mouths of only certifiably dead personalities, however, and as we’ll go into down below, that’s a wise move.

(BTW, Tarantino works himself into his own story a couple of times, mentioning himself as the director of a remake of John Sayles’ The Lady In Red featuring a grown up Trudi Fraser a.k.a. Mirabella Lancer in the Lancer pilot Rick is starring in, and as the son of piano player Curt Zastoupil, Tarantino’s real life step-father, who asks Rick for an autographed photo for his son Quentin.)

The Hollywood Stuff

Which leads us to the real hook of the book, a glimpse behind the scenes of Hollywood circa 1969.

If, like me, you’re fascinated by this sort of stuff, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a fun read.

Tarantino is a devourer of pop culture and dedicates his book in part to Bruce Dern, David Carradine, Burt Reynolds, Robert Blake, Michael parks, Robert Forester, and Kurt Russell, thanking them for the stories they told him about “old time” Hollywood (i.e., the 1950s and 60s from Tarantino’s reckoning).

A lot of the book rings true in attitudes and opinions expressed back in that era, and some of the stories included are jaw-dropping (the Aldo Ray one especially).

The examinations of various maneuverings and strategies in the entertainment industry are also illuminating.

However, this raises a fair question about what the intent of any given work is, and how well documented a work of fiction needs to be.

There’s a trio of actors (all dead so none can sue Tarantino for libel) labeled in derogatory terms as homosexuals in two or three places in the book.

There’s some observations on race that sound absolutely authentic coming from the mouths of those particular characters at that particular time, but one questions the need for using those exact terms today; it’s not that difficult to show the character speaking is bigoted without letting them sling all the slurs they want.

Speaking of terms, I’ve never heard “ringer” used before in the film industry in the context of this book, so if it’s fake, Tarantino did an absolutely convincing job presenting it as real.

But here’s where we start heading into some problematic areas, not problematic in undermining the enjoyment of the book, but problematic in the sense of understanding what Tarantino is trying to convey.

Cliff’s story is awfully close to Robert Blake’s story, and you’d be hard pressed to find many people in town today who don’t think he got away with murder.

And of all the TV show’s to pick for Rick to be playing the villain in the pilot episode, why Lancer?

Few people today remember the series, and Tarantino taking liberties with the actual pilot episode plot isn’t noteworthy…

…or is it?

The actual series starred Andrew Duggan as Murdoch Lancer, patriarch of the Lancer family, with Wayne Maunder played Scott Lancer, the upscale older son, and James Stacy as his half-brother, gunslinger Johnny Madrid Lancer. Elizabeth Baur played Teresa O'Brien, Murdoch Lancer's teenage ward.

For Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Tarantino replaced the real life Elizabeth Baur / Teresa O’Brien with “8 year old” Trudi Frazer (in the book; Fraser in the movie) / Mirabella Lancer (played in the film by 10 year old Julia Butters).

Why Lancer? Why this particular change?

Lancer’s Johnny Madrid Lancer was played by James Stacy, a brief appearance in the film, but far more substantial scenes in the book (as well as the reader getting to see what he’s thinking and feeling). Tarantino uses these scenes in the book to explain a bit about on set etiquette.

James Stacy was an actual person, and he actually played Johnny Madrid Lancer in the series.

In September of 1973, he was maimed in a motorcycle accident, losing his left arm and leg.

He refused to let his disability sideline him, and in 1975 appeared in Posse as a newspaper man, then went on to play numerous supporting roles in films and TV shows until 1995.

That was the year he was arrested, tried, and convicted of molesting an 11 year old girl.

He didn’t show up for his sentencing hearing, choosing instead to fly to Hawaii and attempt suicide. Arrested and returned to California, instead of probation he received a 6 year prison sentence when it was learned he’d been arrested twice after the first crime on prowling charges in which he approached two other young girls.

Quentin Tarantino, the all time grand master maven of pop culture didn’t know this?

And in the book, Trudi calls Rick for a later night conversation about their day on the set.

This is an 8 year old child calling an adult after midnight.

To their credit, Tarantino and Rick both tell Trudi up front this is not an appropriate thing to do…

…but the call continues.

It doesn’t veer off into creepy territory, and when it ends it actually puts Rick’s character back on an upward trajectory, one in which he no longer feels he’s screwed up his life.

But still…

This is a really weird context.

(The scene was filmed for the movie but didn’t make the final cut. Look closely on the movie poster under Brad Pitt’s chin and you’ll see an image of Julia Butters holding a teddy bear and talking on the phone.)

Style

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the movie is consistent and spot on. It uses cinematic language to maximum effect.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the book is all over the map.

It manages to stay entertaining even at its most erratic, but the inconsistency works against it.

As noted before, the point of view is constantly shifting, sometimes seen through a character’s eyes, sometimes through an omniscient third person point of view, sometimes in what appears to be uncredited narration from Randy, and in several chapters exploring the Lancer story-within-a-story as mediocre pulp fiction typical of movie and TV tie-ins of the era.

Tarantino does not stay consistent with his characters, either. This indicates adapting scenes from earlier drafts without really smoothing out the fit.

Another point of view issue is Tarantino’s own.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the novel reads like the work of an older, very culturally conservative writer.

Many writers will argue that the evils their characters do in their books are not reflections on the author but simply the character acting consistently with who they are.

Kinda true…but that character comes from the writer’s imagination, and the writer needs to think up all those terrible things the character thinks and does and say, so somewhere deep down inside the dungeons of that writer’s mind…those things live and breed.

Rick is depicted as out of step with the new Hollywood and the hippie era in both film and book, but the book reinforces and rewards him for being out of step, unlike the movie whree he finds an entrance to the future.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the novel now makes me reexamine all of Tarantino’s earlier efforts, in particular Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained and The Hateful 8 and see if his world view has changed, or if its been there all the time only he concealed it better in the past.

Presentation

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the book is packaged to look like a mass market paperback from the late 1960s to 1980s (in fact, very specifically 1980s style mass market paperbacks).

It even closes with ads for Oliver’s Story, Serpico, and The Switch, all bona fide movie tie-ins books, as well as Ride A Wild Bronc, a fictitious title, written by Marvin H. Albert.

Albert was a bona fide popular fiction writer under his own name and several pseudonyms, as well as screenplays based on his books for Duel At Diablo, Rough Night In Jericho, Lady In Cement, and The Don Is Dead. Tony Rome, played by Frank Sinatra in two movies, is probably his best known character. Several of the books he wrote were movie and TV tie-ins including The Pink Panther and The Untouchables.

The last ad is for the deluxe hardcover edition of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, promising new material and previously unreleased photos.

The editing and copyediting of the book are subpar. As noted above, tone and consistency fluctuate throughout the book. A sharper editor would have removed redundancies, smoothed out clunky scenes.

Typographical errors abound throughout. Early on they mention the Mannix TV show in italics (the book’s standard style for movie and TV show titles) then sloppily put the character’s name, Mannix, in italics as well and, to add further insult to injury, Mannix’ secretary Peggy also gets her name italicized. Song titles are listed either in italics or unitalicized in quotes; pick a style and stick with it, guys…

Finally, Quentin baby, I gotta say ya missed a bet by not having a cardboard center insert ad for Red Apple cigarettes; that would have completely nailed the retro look.

#Once Upon A Time In Hollywood #writing #Quentin Tarantino #Compare And Contrast

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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In the past I had often fervently wished that one day everyone would be passionate and excited about scientific research. I should have been more careful about what I had wished for. The crisis caused by the lethal COVID-19 pandemic and by the responses to the crisis have made billions of people worldwide acutely interested and overexcited about science. Decisions pronounced in the name of science have become arbitrators of life, death, and fundamental freedoms. Everything that mattered was affected by science, by scientists interpreting science, and by those who impose measures based on their interpretations of science in the context of political warfare.

One problem with this new mass engagement with science is that most people, including most people in the West, had never been seriously exposed to the fundamental norms of the scientific method. The Mertonian norms of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism have unfortunately never been mainstream in education, media, or even in science museums and TV documentaries on scientific topics.

Before the pandemic, the sharing of data, protocols, and discoveries for free was limited, compromising the communalism on which the scientific method is based. It was already widely tolerated that science was not universal, but the realm of an ever-more hierarchical elite, a minority of experts. Gargantuan financial and other interests and conflicts thrived in the neighborhood of science—and the norm of disinterestedness was left forlorn.

As for organized skepticism, it did not sell very well within academic sanctuaries. Even the best peer-reviewed journals often presented results with bias and spin. Broader public and media dissemination of scientific discoveries was largely focused on what could be exaggerated about the research, rather than the rigor of its methods and the inherent uncertainty of the results.

Nevertheless, despite the cynical realization that the methodological norms of science had been neglected (or perhaps because of this realization), voices struggling for more communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism had been multiplying among scientific circles prior to the pandemic. Reformers were often seen as holding some sort of a moral higher ground, despite being outnumbered in occupancy of powerful positions. Reproducibility crises in many scientific fields, ranging from biomedicine to psychology, caused soul-searching and efforts to enhance transparency, including the sharing of raw data, protocols, and code. Inequalities within the academy were increasingly recognized with calls to remedy them. Many were receptive to pleas for reform.

Opinion-based experts (while still dominant in influential committees, professional societies, major conferences, funding bodies, and other power nodes of the system) were often challenged by evidence-based criticism. There were efforts to make conflicts of interest more transparent and to minimize their impact, even if most science leaders remained conflicted, especially in medicine. A thriving community of scientists focused on rigorous methods, understanding biases, and minimizing their impact. The field of metaresearch, i.e., research on research, had become widely respected. One might therefore have hoped that the pandemic crisis could have fostered change. Indeed, change did happen—but perhaps mostly for the worst.

…

Personally, I don’t want to consider the lab leak theory—a major blow to scientific investigation—as the dominant explanation yet. However, if full public data-sharing cannot happen even for a question relevant to the deaths of millions and the suffering of billions, what hope is there for scientific transparency and a sharing culture? Whatever the origins of the virus, the refusal to abide by formerly accepted norms has done its own enormous damage.

…

Many amazing scientists have worked on COVID-19. I admire their work. Their contributions have taught us so much. My gratitude extends to the many extremely talented and well-trained young investigators who rejuvenate our aging scientific workforce. However, alongside thousands of solid scientists came freshly minted experts with questionable, irrelevant, or nonexistent credentials and questionable, irrelevant, or nonexistent data.

Social and mainstream media have helped to manufacture this new breed of experts. Anyone who was not an epidemiologist or health policy specialist could suddenly be cited as an epidemiologist or health policy specialist by reporters who often knew little about those fields but knew immediately which opinions were true. Conversely, some of the best epidemiologists and health policy specialists in America were smeared as clueless and dangerous by people who believed themselves fit to summarily arbitrate differences of scientific opinion without understanding the methodology or data at issue.

Disinterestedness suffered gravely. In the past, conflicted entities mostly tried to hide their agendas. During the pandemic, these same conflicted entities were raised to the status of heroes. For example, Big Pharma companies clearly produced useful drugs, vaccines, and other interventions that saved lives, though it was also known that profit was and is their main motive. Big Tobacco was known to kill many millions of people every year and to continuously mislead when promoting its old and new, equally harmful, products. Yet during the pandemic, requesting better evidence on effectiveness and adverse events was often considered anathema. This dismissive, authoritarian approach “in defense of science” may sadly have enhanced vaccine hesitancy and the anti-vax movement, wasting a unique opportunity that was created by the fantastic rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines. Even the tobacco industry upgraded its reputation: Philip Morris donated ventilators to propel a profile of corporate responsibility and saving lives, a tiny fraction of which were put at risk of death from COVID-19 because of background diseases caused by tobacco products.

Other potentially conflicted entities became the new societal regulators, rather than the ones being regulated. Big Tech companies, which gained trillions of dollars in cumulative market value from the virtual transformation of human life during lockdown, developed powerful censorship machineries that skewed the information available to users on their platforms. Consultants who made millions of dollars from corporate and government consultation were given prestigious positions, power, and public praise, while unconflicted scientists who worked pro bono but dared to question dominant narratives were smeared as being conflicted. Organized skepticism was seen as a threat to public health. There was a clash between two schools of thought, authoritarian public health versus science—and science lost.

…

Honest, continuous questioning and exploration of alternative paths are indispensable for good science. In the authoritarian (as opposed to participatory) version of public health, these activities were seen as treason and desertion. The dominant narrative became that “we are at war.” When at war, everyone has to follow orders. If a platoon is ordered to go right and some soldiers explore maneuvering to the left, they are shot as deserters. Scientific skepticism had to be shot, no questions asked. The orders were clear.

…

Heated but healthy scientific debates are welcome. Serious critics are our greatest benefactors. John Tukey once said that the collective noun for a group of statisticians is a quarrel. This applies to other scientists, too. But “we are at war” led to a step beyond: This is a dirty war, one without dignity. Opponents were threatened, abused, and bullied by cancel culture campaigns in social media, hit stories in mainstream media, and bestsellers written by zealots. Statements were distorted, turned into straw men, and ridiculed. Wikipedia pages were vandalized. Reputations were systematically devastated and destroyed. Many brilliant scientists were abused and received threats during the pandemic, intended to make them and their families miserable.

Anonymous and pseudonymous abuse has a chilling effect; it is worse when the people doing the abusing are eponymous and respectable. The only viable responses to bigotry and hypocrisy are kindness, civility, empathy, and dignity. However, barring in-person communication, virtual living and social media in social isolation are poor conveyors of these virtues.

Politics had a deleterious influence on pandemic science. Anything any apolitical scientist said or wrote could be weaponized for political agendas. Tying public health interventions like masks and vaccines to a faction, political or otherwise, satisfies those devoted to that faction, but infuriates the opposing faction. This process undermines the wider adoption required for such interventions to be effective. Politics dressed up as public health not only injured science. It also shot down participatory public health where people are empowered, rather than obligated and humiliated.

A scientist cannot and should not try to change his or her data and inferences based on the current doctrine of political parties or the reading du jour of the social media thermometer. In an environment where traditional political divisions between left and right no longer seem to make much sense, data, sentences, and interpretations are taken out of context and weaponized. The same apolitical scientist could be attacked by left-wing commentators in one place and by alt-right commentators in another. Many excellent scientists have had to silence themselves in this chaos. Their self-censorship has been a major loss for scientific investigation and the public health effort. My heroes are the many well-intentioned scientists who were abused, smeared, and threatened during the pandemic. I respect all of them and suffer for what they went through, regardless of whether their scientific positions agreed or disagreed with mine. I suffer for and cherish even more those whose positions disagreed with mine.

There was absolutely no conspiracy or preplanning behind this hypercharged evolution. Simply, in times of crisis, the powerful thrive and the weak become more disadvantaged. Amid pandemic confusion, the powerful and the conflicted became more powerful and more conflicted, while millions of disadvantaged people have died and billions suffered.

I worry that science and its norms have shared the fate of the disadvantaged. It is a pity, because science can still help everyone. Science remains the best thing that can happen to humans, provided it can be both tolerant and tolerated.

#tablet magazine #john p a ioannidis #science #read the whole thing

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teenyfish · 5 years ago

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Marine Biology Story of the Day #10

Hello all. This post was kinda delayed because I spent all day cleaning out my pool (it’s an above ground pool—my COVID 19 impulse purchase) because a hurricane came through and it’s full of dead insects and leaves among other things. The joys of living right on the coast 😊

Thanks for all of your interest and support on my shrimp research—it’s nice to know that people are interested in the little guys too. So today, we are going to talk about how all of my interest in tiny fish got started—my master’s program and my thesis.

SOoooo…originally I wasn’t planning on getting my masters because it sounded like a lot of work but then I changed my mind last minute when I started looking at job applications and saw that for many of them, you needed a masters—so I ended up becoming a master’s student at the same University that I did my undergrad at—called Christopher Newport University. It’s a teeny public school in Virginia near the Chesapeake Bay. And the reason I chose to do this is because I would be working under Dr. Jessica Thompson, who in hindsight, was probably the best advisor I could have had.

Dr. Thompson is a wonderful human being with many beautiful tattoos, and can definitely drink me under the table, and raises chickens in the middle of a city, but she is also pure and wholly supportive—something that I really needed during that period of my life. She also exclusively studied a wonderful teeny tiny fish: Fundulus heteroclitus, or the Mummichog.

(The males are the ones with the stripes and bright shiny scales and the female is the drabber one)

Her research focuses on this little fish because it is one of the hardiest fish on the east coast. It primarily lives in shallow water salt marsh habitats (intertidal marshes). These shallow water habitats often have very extreme temperature and salinity changes, as shallow water heats and cools up much faster than deep water. So they can survive in a wide range of temperatures, salinities, and dissolved oxygen conditions—I call them the cockroaches of the sea (except they are much cuter). They are also a very important food resources for a TON of marine and coastal predators.

They were also the first fish in space—and they were used in spatial orientation studies. You see, in space, animals and plants can lose all sense of up and down because there is no gravity—however in a few days, this fish were able to figure out their spatial orientation (possibly due to orienting to the overhead light source?). Anyway, they are incredible little babies.

(NASA scientist John Boyd choosing the first two fish (and fish eggs) to leave planet earth)

Because they can move into the very shallow intertidal marsh area (the part where the grasses grow) they can avoid predators during high tide, and this area of the marsh is chock full of food for them, mostly in the form of small zooplankton and worms that live in the mud. But during low tide, this part of the habitat dries up, and they are forced out into the deeper subtidal creeks of the marsh, where they get to be in cooler water, but they are at the mercy of predators, and there is less food.

(everything in the open water is subtidal, everything between tidal flat and low marsh is intertidal)

My aspect of this research involved looking at behavior choices made by these guys when presented with “intertidal marsh” habitat filled with food and marsh grass (their preferred habitat), however we cranked the temperature up to 34-40 oC (93—104 oF), OR a empty “subtidal creek” habitat with no food or structure, but at their optimum temperature for growth at 26 oC (79 oF). 34-40 oC is an EXTREMELY high temperature for fish to be able to function at—most fish begin shutting down their metabolism at these temperatures (aka dying). But supposedly, Mummichog can deal with these temps. There thermal maxima (upper temperature at which they can function) is reported to be 42 oC.

So I had to construct an experimental tank.

These were some of the first iterations of the tank—we had to do a lot of practice runs before we got the design just right. The concept is the same—we used this corrugated plastic (the same you use to make those political signs ppl stick in their front yard) to form two sections, one for warm, one for cold, and a box in the middle that we would remove a door and allow for the fish to swim out. Once the fish chose a side (remained on a side for more than 10 seconds) we would close them off from the rest of the tank—they made a “choice”. In later iterations of the design, we covered the tank in more of the plastic to hide them from us (so they wouldn’t show fear behaviors) and put in fake salt marsh grass on the warm side to mimic an intertidal marsh habitat. Fish were also fed pieces of cut up shrimp on the warm side. We ran 3 trials at increasing temperatures for each run, and during each trial, the fish were run through the tank simulation once a day for three weeks.

In order to get fish for this study, we had to catch wild fish. To catch them, we set minnow traps in the small channels leading into the intertidal marsh at low tide, and as the tide came in, and fish funneled into these channels, they became trapped in our minnow traps.

(examples of minnow traps, and our collection site in Norfolk)

Problem was, in order to get out to these sites, we had to slog through some serious mud. I’m talking about sink up to your thigh levels of mud y’all (and this really bothered me, I’m super claustrophobic). So in order not to get trapped in the mud, we had to wear mudders, which are a little bit like snowshoes (in concept?) but also not like snowshoes at all. They were like boxes you strapped onto your feet with plastic sticking out on the side which was meant to make your footprint bigger (and therefore give you more support on the mud). They worked pretty well but they always gave me major bruises on my ankles as the plastic pressed up and into my ankles. I had to buy some foam padding to wrap around my ankles it was so bad.

Once we got our sweet little babies, I would tag each of them individualy so I could keep track of individual fish. I did this with a combination of Visible Implant Alpha Tags, which are florescent and have individual numbers on them, or Visible Implant Elastomer Tag, which are made of a non-toxic elastomer “paint” and come in 9 colors, so you can create an individual code for each individual by combining 2 colors. These tags are injected under the skin so that they are still visible (fish skin is pretty transparent) but are not very deep in the muscle tissue. These are really great tags to use on really small fish. We used MS-Tricane to anesthetize the fish and inject them, so basically I’ve done fish surgery. You can check out these tags at Northwest Marine Technology—I still use them now! I’m using them on a current project.

(left, a VI Alpha Tag on a trout, right, two different colors of VI elastomer tags on a flounder)

And our fish did really well after tagging—we had no tagging mortalities!

Once we ran these fish through all three trials, it was time to analyze data. We calculated the fish’s dominant “choice” by calculating the proportion of days during the trial they chose the “warm side”—if their proportion was 90%, they had a high affinity for choosing the warm side, 30% they had a low affinity for choosing the warm side and instead more often chose the cool side for example. Then we put this data into environmental models to see if temperature influenced their choices.

And the result?

You read it here first folks. These little fish decided to swim into upwards of 104 o C water regularly to get food—they were so food motivated—and most fish chose the warm side over the cool side most often during every trial. However there was a decent amount of variation—there was a contingent of fish that went into the cool side more often as temperature rose, and would forgo eating for comfort, but overall, the fish chose the warm side. This shows that these fish may be able to adapt quickly as temperatures rise—and those that choose to move into warmer, shallower waters to access food will more likely survive to reproduce (since they choose to be in regions with less predators and more food). This means they are more likely to pass on their warm water acclimating genes to their offspring, continuing their species ability to deal with extreme temperatures on to the next generations.

My thesis defense obviously went well, and I got my masters, but I’ve kept my interest for the smaller fish and invertebrate species because they form one of the base levels of our ocean ecosystems and serve as a very important food resource to larger predators. I’d like to credit Dr. Thompson for giving me this interested and giving me the appreciation for these little and underappreciated animals. She and I have kept in touch—she was actually at my wedding last May, and when my dad got in a major accident (four days before I was supposed to defend my thesis) she came to the hospital and helped me through it, and also helped me push back my defense one semester so I could recuperate from the trauma a little. I am extremely grateful for her tutelage, and I’m grateful for these sweet little babies.

Thanks for reading, and as always, if you have any questions about the field work or the research, PLEASE do not hesitate to ask or comment.

#marine biology story of the day #marine science #marine biology #marine biology stories #coastal marsh #salt marsh #marine biologist #marine biologist stories #ocean stories #mummichog #killifish #fish in space #thesis research #Christopher Newport University #fish physiology #fish behavior

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Line of Duty: the Best Crime Thrillers to Watch Next

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Line of Duty is over, perhaps for good. It’s time to dismantle that evidence wall, file the exhibits away, and close the door on AC-12. With H unmasked, we can all rest our adrenal glands and get back to a healthy, Jimmy Nesbitt-free sleep pattern.

Once that’s achieved, if you start to feel the itch for more seismic shocks and sleights-of-hand, here are a few suggestions of what to watch next – eight TV thrillers that provide similar doses of double-dealing, truth-concealing, witness-squealing, case-breaking shenanigans. Add your own recommendations below!

Bodyguard

Bodyguard proved that there was life after the Red Wedding for Richard Madden. His performance as David Budd, a former combat soldier living a new – and equally dangerous – life as a Principal Protection Officer (PPO) in the London Met deservedly netted him a Golden Globe and a Scottish Bafta award.

Budd’s job protecting the abrasive yet vulnerable British Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes) is complicated by their conflicting ideologies, Budd’s fractured home-life and PTSD, and a wide-ranging conspiracy that brings together Islamic terrorism, organised crime, intra-governmental malfeasance and dodgy cops. Be prepared to watch from behind half-closed eyes, wincing in anticipation of the oblivion that’s promised around almost every corner.

Bodyguard has the kinetic ferocity and explosive twists of 24; the grim and gritty characterisation of a Jimmy McGovern project; and the ‘Oh my God it was them along… or was it?’ twists of Line of Duty, which follows as it was also created by Jed Mercurio and World Productions.

Watch on: Netflix UK

The Americans

What if you were so deeply embedded with your enemies that you were indistinguishable from them, both inside and out, and even started to become increasingly disillusioned about what side you were supposed to be on? That’s the central conceit of FX’s slick and superlative spy drama The Americans, set in Washington DC during the height of the Cold War. Russian operatives Philip and Elizabeth Jennings have fake pasts and fake identities, but they also have very real American teenage children, who have been raised oblivious to the devastating secret thumping Poe-like in their parents’ hearts. Other shows trading in similar tropes may well deal in deception and corruption, but the cross that the Jennings have to bear in the name of ideology makes even the biggest conspiracies in Line of Duty and Bodyguard seem like a fib told by a child to avoid punishment for stealing freshly-baked muffins from their mother’s windowsill.

The heat on the Jennings is turned up even further when an FBI agent tasked with uncovering Russian agents moves next door with his family; further still when the two families become friends, further blurring the lines between truth, lies, identity and loyalty.

Whom do you trust when you can’t even trust yourself?

Watch it on: Amazon Prime Video UK (available to purchase)

Edge of Darkness (1985)

Edge of Darkness is steeped in the same Thatcher-tainted, Reagan-ruled, greed-is-good, hyper-capitalist era as The Americans, but is a contemporaneous piece rather than a period piece, having debuted in 1985.

The tragic tale follows tortured policeman Ronald Craven (Bob Peck) as he tries to unravel the truth behind his eco-activist daughter’s murder, while he himself starts to unravel in a sea of lies, half-truths, hard truths and shifting allegiances. Craven snakes his way through a colourful cast of misfits, agitators, loudmouths, snobs, yobs and psychopaths, as the battle for power – nuclear, economic, hegemonic – and perhaps the survival of the earth itself, swirls and dances and ricochets around him.

It’s a series that’s unafraid to immerse the viewer in complexity; leaving them to fathom the ever-morphing labyrinth of motivations and revelations on their own; leaning heavily into ambiguity whenever it serves the shape and tone of the story. Often, the viewer is left as bemused and perplexed as Craven himself in the face of this deadly puzzle, but they will still find themselves – also like Craven – unable and unwilling to rest until the pieces fit together.

The late Bob Peck – whom many will only know as the game keeper from Jurassic Park, who utters his memorable final line, ‘Clever girl…’, seconds before becoming a velociraptor hors d’oeuvre – puts in a mesmerising, career-defining performance as Craven, effortlessly embodying the full gamut of the man’s grief, guilt, obsession, melancholy and mania. Craven seems at once mythical and otherworldly, and yet solidly, painfully, exquisitely human.

Watch on: Amazon Prime Video UK (available to purchase)

The Shield

“Good cop and bad cop left for the day. I’m a different kind of cop.”

So says LA Detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) seconds before demonstrating his no-holds-barred interrogation technique to an obfuscating paedophile. It’s not that Vic considers himself above the law, more that everybody else is below his. He often does the right things for the wrong reasons, or in the wrong way, or the wrong things for the right reasons. Or at least for reasons that he thinks are right. And he’s got a justification for everything, from bribing fellow officers, to partnering with organised criminals, to even murdering suspects.

Impossibly corrupt, relentlessly self-righteous, fearless to the point of psychopathy, Vic is the badge-wearing heir apparent to Tony Soprano, but burdened with little of the gabagool-guzzler’s guilt. Viewers are left under no illusions about the lengths Vic will go to protect himself and his kingdom, nor about the sort of show they’re watching, when at the close of the first episode he executes an officer who has been placed in his Strike Team to investigate his corruption, framing a similarly deceased drug kingpin for the crime.

So begins the toxic, spreading rot of secrets, lies and double-dealings, each action an effort to cover over and stay a step ahead of the misdeed before. Vic’s three-man Strike Team would follow him into Hell, which is just as well, because that’s exactly where he leads them, along with his family, and anyone who ever associated with or went toe-to-toe against him. The Shield begins as a punchy, kinetic pop-corn spectacle of a series, but slowly evolves into an almost Shakespearian tragedy, rich in sadness, sacrifice and betrayal. The final act – hell, the final few seasons – will leave you in no doubt as to The Shield‘s place in the pantheon of small-screen greats.

Watch on: All4 (UK)

Celebrating Jimmy McGovern’s Cracker

By Jamie Andrew

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 7 Review: H Unmasked At Last

By Louisa Mellor

Dexter

If Internal Affairs set up an office in the Miami Metro Police Department, the last person they’d suspect of foul play would be the handsome, unfailingly polite blood-spatter analyst Dexter Morgan, doyen of the Homicide bowling team and daily bringer of doughnuts. Whereas Vic Mackey flaunts his corruption in plain sight, Dexter has to stay in the shadows. Dexter’s corruption is a little more extreme than Vic’s: he’s a highly active serial killer. That he only kills according to a strict ethical code – only other murderers, and only those who’d escaped, or would escape, justice by more legitimate means – makes him a complex, compassionate and compelling figure, one with whom we sympathise easily: perhaps too easily. Dexter makes us complicit by proxy. We find ourselves rooting for a serial killer, hopelessly lost in the hedge-maze of his amorality.

Dexter’s relationships with his sister, Deborah (Jennifer Carter) – a detective at his precinct – and Rita (Julie Benz) – first his girlfriend, then his wife and eventually mother of his son – are his only toe-holds on humanity, which is why the show regularly has them dancing on the edge of his dark secret. No more so than when Dexter has to help the department investigate the crimes of a serial killer the media dubs The Bay Harbor Butcher, a serial killer who just happens to be… Dexter.

While it’s true that Dexter came to a perfect natural conclusion after four great seasons, it’s also true that it limped on for another four seasons after that, capped by a finale that is quite possibly one of the weakest and worst of any drama series ever made. Thankfully, it’s coming back for a ninth season later this year, hopefully to right past wrongs.

Watch on: NOW (UK)

Cracker

If you only know the larger-than-life Robbie Coltrane as the much-larger-than-life Hagrid in the Harry Potter series, you’d do well to check out the mid-90s UK crime-series Cracker, and see Coltrane at his most searing, endearing, dangerous and iconic. Here he plays Eddie ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald – quite simply the role he was born to play – a sharp-witted, full-blooded, foul-mouthed, fast-living psychologist who impresses (and largely imposes) his way into a consulting gig with the Manchester Police, helping them to solve their more grizzly and unusual crimes. The storyline that sees Fitz investigating one of ‘his’ own is perhaps its most harrowing and heart-breaking – a network of tragedies dovetailing into one other – with a denouement that casts a long, sad shadow over the rest of the series.

Warning: If you are a Harry Potter fan, and you decide to watch Cracker, do take the time to psychologically prepare yourself for the sight of Hagrid in bed with Harry Potter’s mum.

Watch on: Britbox (UK)

Luther

Detective John Luther (Idris Elba) has the presence of a bear, the heart of a lion, and the mind of Columbo. With his razor-sharp stare, long, lived-in coat and propensity to stick his neck precisely where it’s needed but never wanted, Luther’s ‘Oh, one more thing’ is just as likely to be a fist as it is a verbal death-blow.

Over the course of five seasons Luther is betrayed by those closest to him, mangled by loss, framed for murder and even strikes up an unusual but oddly touching relationship with a serial killer. It’s electric, captivating TV, and Idris Elba wears and lives Luther’s rage, sadness, regret and fuck-you-ness so intensely that you won’t be able to draw your eyes away from him. A barnstormer all round.

Watch on: BBC iPlayer (UK)

State of Play

The cast-list alone is enough to commend this early 2000s conspiracy thriller: John Simm, Philip Glenister (prior to the duo teaming up in Life on Mars), David Morrissey, James McAvoy, Bill Nighy, Amelia Bullmore, and Line of Duty‘s own Kelly MacDonald. Thankfully, almost everything else about this mini-series also screams excellence, especially the crackling, incisive and deeply honest writing from Clocking Off, Cracker and Shameless-stalwart Paul Abbott.

State of Play follows a group of journalists as they stumble onto the greatest story of their lives – ministerial corruption, contract killings, corporate greed, industrial espionage, illicit affairs – that pits the police, the government, and even their own friends and loved ones against them. It’s a twisting, turning, shifting, shocker of a masterpiece: a true titan of the genre.

Watch on: Amazon Prime Video UK (available to purchase)

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Line of Duty series one to six are available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.

The post Line of Duty: the Best Crime Thrillers to Watch Next appeared first on Den of Geek.

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gibelwho · 4 years ago

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Marathon #1: The Western Finale and Awards

My train to the Old West has returned to its station and therefore it is time to consider all the films screened in Gibelwho Production’s Western Marathon. Taking guidance from Filmspotting’s inaugural marathon, I watched 8 films in the Western genre, with production dates spanning 30 years, each with a unique representation of frontier life, good and evil, stunning landscapes, and the men and women who inhabit the Western tales. Each film has its own recap and review on this site, but when placed in contrast to each other, the narrative of a shifting genre emerges, reflecting the changes in society that are then mirrored in the depictions of the Old West. Here are the list of the films:

High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)

The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)

My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)

Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)

A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964)

Winchester ‘73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)

The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)

As noted in my introduction post, the Western genre was not my favorite of the Hollywood Studio System - I’ve never fully connected to this classic American genre, so I was a bit apprehensive about starting this journey, but still determined to keep an open mind for the variety of films included in the scope. The Marathon certainly expanded my horizons - I had only seen two of the eight films (Stagecoach and High Noon) in film school, so most of the material was seen with fresh eyes. I knew the basics of the genre, but was ready to explore the themes in a deeper way with some classic examples from the genre’s biggest stars and directors.

One prominent troupe of the Western genre is the lone man standing up to forces bigger than himself, which held true for most of the films in this Marathon. High Noon leans into this idea in the extreme - where no one in the town will lift a hand to help Gary Cooper defend against the criminals returning to seek revenge. John Wayne - the signature figure of the entire Western genre - took offense to this portrayal of a weak and friendless sheriff and so teamed up with Howard Hawks to film Rio Bravo, crafting a movie about a sheriff devoted to his public office and surrounded by capable compatriots. Clint Eastwood, the man who took the mantle of the Western lone man icon from John Wayne in his Dollars trilogy, starting with A Fistful of Dollars, has neither integrity nor a sense of duty - but is simply out to make as much money as he can selling his services.

Despite their lone man status, the protagonists of the Western are always surrounded by men and women that round out the film’s supporting cast. The portrayal of women in particular was uneven throughout the eight films; most of the actresses infused their characters with a spirit necessary in order to live in the frontier towns, but the actresses were also dealing with scripts that were not always sophisticated or enlightened. A woman's place in society often was divided into parlor women, such as Chihuahua in My Darling Clementine or Dallas in Stagecoach, or sophisticated women from the East blessing their presence in the wild West, such as Clementine or Lucy from the same films. Helen Ramirez, the business woman and former lover of the town’s sheriff in High Noon, and the matriarch of the Baxter family from A Fistful of Dollars are perhaps the only women in the Marathon’s films that truly have agency over their lives, but even they are punished for that distinction, with Helen leaving town after selling her business and Mrs. Baxter losing her life during the Rojo’s attack. And within The Wild Bunch - there are literally no women of consequence who are even featured in the film. Depending on the decade of the film’s creation and the effort put in by the screenplay, there is a mixed bag when it comes to women’s representation in the Western genre.

The theme that does have consistency across all the films is the treatment of Native Americans - and when viewed through a modern lens, it is extremely lacking in equitable representation. Across all of these films, when Indians are presented on screen - they are always the enemy, their motivations or points of view are never considered or explored, and they are always presented as an Other. In Stagecoach and Winchester ‘73, roving bands of Native Americans are presented as the main threats to the white characters - and in the latter film, typical Hollywood institutional racism is on display as white man Rock Hudson is cast as an indigenous person. The Searchers is the most flagrant, also casting a white man as the tribal chief Scar, and its script is based on an assumed racist conception that a white woman is tainted (and even decayed to the point of hysterical mental illness) once exposed to a native tribe. Mexican and Mexican Americans are given slightly better treatment, oftentimes portrayed as allies, whether as saloon and hotel owners or even as part of the posse. In The Wild Bunch, the gang of rogues consider Angel a part of the team and even attempt an ultimately unsuccessful rescue from the Mexican military. People of color are not, however, the center of the tale, but always as side characters in service of the white protagonists.

Two sub-themes also cropped up in several of the films, the first of which deals with a prominent event in American history. Although these films were released within a 30-year period between 1939 and 1969 - their settings ranged from the 1860s to the 1880s (with The Wild Bunch as the odd film out, set in 1913); this put their narratives within a few decades of the Civil War, and while none of the films deal with this as a prominent plot point, the national war is part of the characters history and therefore affects the men’s interactions in the Wild West - where any man could have fought on either side of the war. In Winchester ‘73, Lin and his friend High-Spade join the US Cavalry in a fight against the Indians and as they part ways - the duo admit to the US Sergeant that they fought against each other during the Battle of Bull Run. The men shake hands and part as chums, apparently having moved past what they consider a brother vs brother fight. More contentious is the handling of the war in Stagecoach, where the traveling band bicker about the North vs South struggle - some refer to the South as the “Southern Confederacy” and others clap back that it was a “rebellion.” In keeping with the underlying point of view of white men prominent in the genre, neither of these scripts describe the war’s central fight as around America’s original sin of slavery.

Another sub-theme deals with the very real struggle of alcoholism amongst the backdrop of the frontier, where saloons are primary social settings and the alcohol flows freely. In Stagecoach, Doc Boone’s large consumption of alcohol is treated as a humorous character quirk during the first half, but when Lucy’s pregnancy demands a premature delivery, his constant inebriation becomes a serious threat to her and the baby’s life. In My Darling Clementine, Doc Holliday’s battle with tuberculosis is made worse by drinking alcohol, definitely whiskey and even the champagne that he orders as an alternative, yet he continues to drink throughout the film. Dean Martin’s stellar performance in Rio Bravo took on a newly sober man’s temptation of falling back into the bottle, bravely showing the devastating effects of battling the disease, but also how a community of support is immensely helpful for pushing through.

Spanning 30 years, the films included in this Marathon chart the shifting narratives within the Western, with the first few decades adhering to the original genre tropes, and the films in the last decade beginning to subvert those conventions as the societal conditions had shifted as well. The films from the early decades - Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Winchester ‘73 (1950), High Noon (1952), The Searchers (1956), and Rio Bravo (1960) - for the most part adhere to the genre conventions established by the Hollywood Studio System, including the frontier setting, a lone man sheriff fighting against monumental forces, a white-centric perspective of civilization creeping into the wilderness, and a black and white moral code featuring clear cut villains. But as the years progressed into the 1960s and global culture changed, so too did the Western genre, with A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Wild Bunch (1969) demonstrating those changes in this Marathon. Featuring protagonists with a blurred moral code that didn’t fall neatly into the traditional ideal sheriff hero, as well as much more overt and excessive displays of violence, these films pushed the boundaries of Western narratives and forged new visual iconography, such as Clint Eastwood’s The Man With No Name’s hat and poncho from the Dollars trilogy. Looking beyond the scope of this Marathon, the shifting conventions have only become more prominent as the years followed the 1960s, with Westerns increasingly focused on previously marginalized voices of women and persons of color, more fully exploring the grey morality of life on the frontier, and pushing the sequences of violence to even more extremes.

And now - time for the Awards! The following categories were considered across the eight films screened:

Actor

Actress

Supporting

Screenplay

Song/Score

Direction

Best Picture

Actor:

Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name in A Fistful of Dollars

Departing from the early Western genre conventions, Eastwood plays The Man With No Name as an anti-hero, an intelligent stranger that devilishly plays the two rival gangs against each other, but also reunites a family and saves his only friend in the town. As the role that provided his breakout stardom, Eastwood is the epitome of cool - calm, confident, devious, and the fastest draw in town. The shoddy ADR slightly detracts from his performance, but otherwise, it is clear why he stole the mantle from John Wayne as the Western star for the more modern age.

Honorable Mentions:

John Wayne as Ringo Kid in Stagecoach - Wayne in his breakout role is fresh-faced, earnest, and innocently in love with Dallas, the prostitute with a heart of gold. John Ford had to fight for Wayne to be cast in this film, and his determination was rewarded by Wayne’s standout performance amongst a strong ensemble cast. He infuses Ringo Kid with a breezy and bemused attitude, floating above all the petty grievances within the stagecoach’s occupants, and instead forges a genuine connection with Dallas.

Gary Cooper as Will Kane in High Noon - Cooper is a man driven by the undeniable fact that his old enemy will not rest until he seeks revenge and his slow realization that he will face the fight alone - without help from the town nor his wife. His performance is a compelling portrait of restrained fear and solid determination, all playing out on Cooper’s stolid face.

Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine - Fonda brings sophistication to his performance, balancing a desire for revenge, nervous flirtation with Clementine, and believable sheriff skills. He also leans in to the emotion of the cattleman turned sheriff living on the frontier - subtle and heartfelt when speaking at his brother’s grave.

Actress:

Katy Jurado as Helen Ramirez in High Noon

With a fierce and stellar portrayal of a powerful woman of color in a frontier town, Jurado defies the usual boundaries of both her character’s Western world and also the Hollywood Studio System in which she filmed the movie in 1952. Not only providing a contrast to Grace Kelly’s subdued sheriff’s wife, she holds her own against her white deputy boyfriend, her white business partner where she is a silent investor, and also to her old lover - the white sheriff who is standing alone to defend his town and his life. The screenplay gives Jurado the space to create a character that has depth and her performance matches that opportunity - she is electrifying and an inspiring visage of an independent woman of color onscreen - a rare sight for a Classical Hollywood film.

Honorable Mentions:

Angie Dickinson as Feathers in Rio Bravo - Given the difficult job to inexplicably and quickly fall in love with an aging and stilted John Wayne and also to make unreasonable decisions like staying in town despite the danger to him and any of his associates, Dickinson delivers a remarkable performance. Despite a fleshed out character, Dickinson as Feathers is subtle, cool, calm, feisty, and strong. She refuses to be taken by stereotype, visibly delights in the sheriff’s uncomfortable reactions to her flirtations, and commands every scene with Wayne.

Shelley Winters as Lola Manners in Winchester ‘73 - In a film that doesn’t focus on a set of main characters, but follows the journey of a rifle through the West, Winters does get a majority of screen time; unfortunately, she spends most of that time being passed around between inadequate men. She makes up for that by maintaining a certain level of sass, delivered as snappy comments, but she also finds space for emotional and subtle moments with James Stewart.

Supporting Actor/Actress:

Dean Martin as Dude in Rio Bravo

Playing against his star persona (a charming and suave crooner from the Rat Pack), Martin is almost unrecognizable as a man going through alcohol withdrawal, attempting to stay sober and also prove his worth to the sheriff, his posse, and himself. Martin is so vulnerable here, especially the scenes where he is struggling with drinking, but he is believable as a gun-slinger and also shows off his incredibly beautiful and smooth vocals.

Honorable Mentions:

Victor Mature as Doc Holliday in My Darling Clementine - Almost claiming the top spot here, Mature delivers a masterful performance, capturing the drama of a man filled with regret and bitterness. His face has a modern quality to it that stands out in the Western setting, but he employs it well, radiating so much emotional heft with just his eyes alone.

Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone in Stagecoach - The Doctor starts out as the comedian of the stagecoach’s ensemble, constantly finding ways to drink the whiskey salesman's wares, and playing a drunk quite convincingly (oftentimes hard to do onscreen). Halfway through the film, however, Mitchell must turn his performance towards drama and emotion, sobering up to deliver a baby. He plays all shades of this character so well and won an Oscar for Supporting Actor for his efforts.

Screenplay:

Dudley Nichols for Stagecoach

From top to bottom, the screenplay for Stagecoach is a master class in plotting, dialogue, and assembling a compelling ensemble cast. The opening scenes provide a clinic in setting up all the individual stories for the characters who join the stagecoach, which feeds into their conflicts, as well as the danger looming over their journey. Ensemble pieces can be tricky to write, but Nichols infuses just the right balance between all characters, giving them each individual moments to shine, as well as natural conflicts that elicit revealing conversations within the coach and at their various stops. Despite its age, the script is teeming with life, is incredibly funny (clearly aided by some stellar performances), and even makes interesting choices around the action scenes - building up the tension to the final shootout, but not showing it onscreen. This is a fantastic screenplay that laid the foundation for a classic movie.

Honorable Mentions:

Carl Foreman for High Noon: This film is known for its commitment to time, setting a deadline for the villains arrival and constantly reminding the viewer of the impending crisis. This creates a slow burn towards the action, but the film doesn’t rush towards the climax; rather, it focuses on moments between characters and specifically explores their various motivations. The church scene is perfected down to the details, showing how men’s minds can be swayed by emotional speeches (one delivered by Thomas Mitchell, with another fantastic performance). The script is like an onion, with each layer moving the plot forward and revealing more of the character’s emotional journey.

Various Credits for A Fistful of Dollars - While the dialogue for this film does not particularly stand out, it is an honorable mention due to the structure and ingenuity of the plotting. The Man With No Name is incredibly intelligent and this is demonstrated by all the machinations of his playing the two gangs against each other. A story based on the Japanese film Yojimbo, this film has 5 writers credited on IMDB for the story and screenplay, but does not feel disjointed at all; rather, one is taken in by the clever tricks the gun-slinger does to outwit and take down the Rojos and the Baxters.

Song/Score:

Ennio Morricone for A Fistful of Dollars

This category has a clear winner with Morricone’s score - it is creative, daring (flutes in a Western?!), and incredibly engaging, uniting sound with image effectively. Working on a tight budget, Morricone’s restrictions generated a burst of creativity, crafting a tapestry of sounds that came to define the Dollars trilogy and heralded a new blueprint for the sounds of modern Western movies.

Honorable Mentions:

Max Steiner for The Searchers - I have known the main title music since before this Marathon, as it is included on the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra’s compilation of film scores, an album often in my rotation. Steiner’s music alternates between bold statements and lingering wanderlust, crafting a variety of shapes to match the various landscapes that Ethan and Martin travel through during their years of searching.

Jerry Fielding for The Wild Bunch - As the most recent film produced in the Marathon, the soundtrack feels the most modern of the selections. Fielding crafted a body of music that varies from faux patriotic snare drums in the opening sequence, to soft and romantic sides for the team’s down beat moments, to a high adventure score for the train robbery.

Direction:

Sergio Leone for A Fistful of Dollars

While it almost seems sacrosanct to not give John Ford the award, as he is basically the father of the Western, Leone's stretching of the genre in new directions in the spaghetti Western style is too good not to recognize. Leone’s shot composition (utilizing rules of thirds, depth of field and multiple planes, using buildings as framing devices, etc) is a more sophisticated filmmaking than the straightforward shots in the classic Westerns of this Marathon. Not to mention, his direction of the actors is stellar, especially working with Eastwood to define a new visage for the Western anti-hero. For all his fantastic work, the film is not flawless; the ADR sound and some confusing day/night scenes show cracks in the armor, but don’t take away from this masterpiece of vision and storytelling.

Honorable Mention:

John Ford for The Searchers - Despite my loathing for the blatant racism of the screenplay and stilted acting of John Wayne - the distinguished direction of Ford must be acknowledged; there is a reason why this film is considered a classic. The contrast between indoor and outdoor spaces to reflect civilization vs the wilderness and the types of people that inhabit each is conveyed simply through blocking and framing. Additionally, the Monument Valley that Ford was famous for shooting was never captured so beautifully in all of its various seasons. The film must be admired for Ford’s talent, despite its other challenging facets.

Best Picture:

Stagecoach

Despite the age of this film, it feels incredibly fresh and yet timeless. I’ve already touched on the excellent (and funny!) screenplay, Wayne’s star-making turn as Ringo Kid, and the wonderful ensemble cast (especially Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone and also Andy Devine as Buck the stagecoach driver), but Ford’s direction must be credited as well; he skillfully navigates the cramped space of the stagecoach, reveals character work through blocking in the interior spaces, and films the Monument Valley for the first time in his career. And the film’s climactic action sequence is breathtaking and full of fantastic stunt work! Of course, the portrayal of Native Americans as a looming threat is problematic and is representative of the society and time period in which the film was made, but otherwise Stagecoach deserves its reputation as a classic Western and was the best of the films screened in this Marathon.

Honorable Mentions:

A Fistful of Dollars - After screening many classic Westerns in this Marathon, Leone’s film felt like a leap forward in terms of story, tone, and visual style. I’ve already praised Eastwood’s performance, the screenplay, Leone’s direction, and the incredible score by Morricone for these awards - and the final shootout is a good encapsulation of all these elements coming together. Visually stunning, with a subtle selection of background music from Morricone, featuring a grizzled Eastwood, and a surprise twist in the plot - it was making a statement that a new type of Western had arrived on the scene.

High Noon - This is such a meticulous film, revealing new layers with each scene, keeping viewers aware of the time structure, and carefully detailing the motivations of each character and archetype. As the antithetical film to Rio Bravo, the more emotional and lighthearted movie, High Noon is entirely serious, a tone driven by Gary Cooper’s performance of the slow realization of his fate - that he will be fighting alone for a town that he had defended his entire career. The film is essentially a series of character moments with a slow burn towards the final action scene that is both thrilling and realistic - a well put together Western film.

This Marathon was clearly a small slice of selections within an incredibly vast canon of films from a genre that is foundational to film history. Along the way, I have noted films that are related to the movies within the Marathon and hope to follow up on screening them in the future, to keep my education in this genre continuing. Homework from A Fistful of Dollars are to finish the Dollars trilogy - For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), watch Leone’s ultimate masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and also to view Eastwood’s directorial take on the Western with Unforgiven (1992). Films in the same orbit as My Darling Clementine that deal with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the famous shootout include Tombstone (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and Gunfight at the Ok Corral (1957). AFI’s Top 10 Westerns include several that were not in this Marathon, including Shane (1953), Red River (1948), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and Cat Ballou (1965). And finally, some Western films took their plots from Japanese films, so watching the source material such as Yojimbo (1961) or Seven Samurai (1954), which served as the basis for The Magnificent Seven (1960). Even these selections are just scratching the surface of this expansive genre.

So, after consideration of all the films screened in this Marathon, a deeper dive into the themes and manifestations of the Western genre - did my less than enthusiastic opinion change? While my appreciation for the breadth and depth of the genre’s films grew, this experience also helped further clarify my underwhelming feeling about the genre. As the setting is deeply rooted in the American West and the expansion of eastern “civilized” culture into the natural wilderness, this genre’s underlying theme has racist roots at its core - the thought that Native Americans and Mexicans must be cast aside for the white man (yes, man - as women are often placed in stereotyped roles as well) to become dominant. The different variations on this theme can be made into entertaining cinema, but I can’t help but feel uncomfortable with the underlying narrative of the entire genre. This Marathon only covered a 30 year timespan, from Classical Hollywood to just the beginning of the New Hollywood era, and as the years continued to progress and society developed more acceptance of telling stories with an expanded POV, different variations on the Westerns have been produced; in addition to the films I have noted above, I would like to dive into the more modern and revisionist Westerns, ones such as The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) and Woman Walks Ahead (2017) that tell the tales of the Old West from the women and native perspective.

Despite my trepidation of this Marathon’s topic, I did enjoy diving deeper into the genre and learning more about the Western’s shifting conventions. The next Marathon topic that Filmspotting took on has me a bit more anxious - as it is diving into the Horror genre. I typically avoid scary movies, so I will need to gather all my emotional fortitude to take on this next Marathon. We are transitioning from the gunfight in the center of town to the stalking of innocent victims at night. For now, adios amigos!

#High Noon #The Searchers #stagecoach #my darling clementine #rio bravo #a fistful of dollars #winchester 73 #the wild bunch #john ford #john wayne

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irarelypostanything · 5 years ago

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The Myth of Genius (?)

I just watched Iron Man 2 (finally), a movie in which Elon Musk has a cameo. Stark is a genius - he has the charisma and underutilized singing ability of Robert Downey Jr., he can invent time travel like it’s nothing, and he has a seemingly infinite wealth of knowledge in everything from physics, to computer science, to fictional science. Maybe I’m reading too much into the Elon Musk scene, but it felt like he was a nod to the viewer: He served to remind us that even though Stark is a fictional character, there ARE geniuses out there.

Wisecrack just made a video called “The Myth of Genius,” which highlights some of the extremely dumb things supposed geniuses have done throughout history, draws limitations on individual areas of expertise, cites a popular, comprehensive study that proved the IQ test was a poor predictor of success, then ends with the thesis that there may not be a such thing as genius.

If I could talk to Jared, the narrator and co-writer, right now, I imagine our conversation would go a little like this:

Me: What about John von Neumann? He learned calculus at the age of eight.

Jared: I think you’re missing the point…

Me: You’re saying that geniuses are restricted to one area of expertise. John von Neumann invented game theory, published his first math paper at age 18, made incredible contributions to the modern-day computer, and provided physics insight in the Manhattan Project

Jared: The purpose of this video wasn’t to suggest that individuals are restricted to one area, but to suggest that they have limitations

Me: How dare you

In all seriousness….

So maybe on one side of the spectrum, you have fictional characters like Stark - they can basically invent anything, for plot convenience, as well as to appeal to the natural human desire to watch someone who’s unquestionably competent. Somewhere else, you have people like John von Neumann and Elon Musk. All this video is really saying is that Elon Musk is no Tony Stark, that he has certain abilities developed through lots of deliberate practice.

I think that there definitely ARE geniuses, but I use the term rather loosely. I think John von Neumann was a genius, but I also think my old tech lead is a genius for the conversion library he wrote, my old scrum master is a genius for his encyclopedic knowledge of C++, a Harvard graduate I know is a genius, the guy at church who writes his own music is a genius, and the person I knew in 8th grade who took community college classes is a genius. Maybe that’s its own philosophy, or maybe it’s a simple abuse of the word.

There is, perhaps, an implication in this video that genius is just another name for hard work...but I think we all know there is a little more to the story than that. Focus is an underlying ability, a mix of motivation, clear thinking, and the ability to use habit and ritual to make continued learning a priority. There are also people who have the ability to draw connections in seemingly unrelated fields, and use that to their advantage. This might be a stretch, but a hypothetical example might be someone who’s really good at music realizing that writing is similar. Writing, they might reason, actually employs rhythm and changes of tone in an “auditory” sort of way, and the best writing is writing that has a distinct sound. Most people would never associate the two, but creative people might.

Maybe a better example is people who figure out piano makes them really good at typing, but that’s a little bit less of a creative stretch.

If we don’t have so-called geniuses to draw inspiration from, the entire learning process and “deliberate practice” becomes a little bit more tedious. If we believe we can become geniuses, then maybe there is a myth...but it’s a myth that still may be worth upholding.

******

I think that the education system is really good at measuring intelligence. IQ tests are good at that as well, but intelligence itself is a very limiting way to characterize potential.

In every field, there is a collection of required skills that are never taught in school. In healthcare, for example, it’s the ability to demonstrate compassion. In software, it’s the ability to get a reading on people, particularly customers, and to understand what it is they’re really excited about. This, and many other things, are hard to boil down to intelligence. A technical person might be brilliant in the technical realm, but he/she still needs to gauge what technical things so-called “non-technical” people are interested in. Without this, entire projects can be cut.

There are these two people I encountered, briefly, who are currently heading a research project. I didn’t understand their core infrastructure, and still don’t, but noticed an obvious bug in their web design and submitted a potential fix. These two might be called geniuses, if not brilliant, each with numerous publications pertaining to computer architecture.

They accepted the change graciously and, however briefly, made me feel like I was part of their community. From the time I worked the fix, to the subsequent code review, to the merge, it’s like I was treated as an equal.

I think THAT’S the thing a lot of teams are missing. We raise people up in school, and try to convince them that they’re all special, that they all might one day be the best...and some of them are, but we use things like participation awards to try to make everyone feel special. What’s missing from the equation is that what’s really required is collaboration. Good leaders don’t do everything themselves, they take on their own part and do it well, but what’s important is that they inspire others to move with them.

And probably, if there may not even be such a thing as genius, it’s okay not to be a genius. What matters are the combined efforts, those who are inspired to follow, and how much the structure invites, rather than rejects, continuous support and a diverse set of knowledge.

#wisecrack #iron man 2 #tony stark #the myth of genius #software engineering

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ofravensandgenesis · 5 years ago

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The Investment of an Antagonist - Part Three

Entry 04 continued. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details for the main villains including violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse, neglect, emotional manipulation, dark backstories, drug use, cult content, etc. Spoilers for Far Cry 5 inherent. Part 03 of 03.] [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

— Faith —

Lastly we have Faith, née Rachel Jessop, the youngest of the Seed family. The easiest themes to assign to her are unsurprisingly drug-use and escapism. She is an intriguing and complex character with some very beautifully done layers, in particular playing with gender expectations of behavior both in-world and on the meta in what may have been either intended brilliance of foresight or fridge brilliance by the dev team.

Thematically speaking though, as with the other Seeds, she is projecting her past experiences onto others and turning into the abuser in the recreation of her trauma. In this case, it could be taking up the role of a manipulator using soft-coded presentation and masking shaming techniques with positive wording and oblique expectation-pressures to get people to go along with what she’s saying...as well as making them more pliable via the Bliss. It could be that part of her escapism theme manifests as disassociation, separating one’s self and in this case Rachel from Faith, her followers from their worries and problems, and at the most extreme end the Angels from essentially their entire personality and past. In contrast to John, Faith seems to be much more so about forgetting/burying/separating one self from one’s past problems, sins, unhappiness, etc rather than facing it head on. In a way, it could potentially be interpreted as a denial of those aspects of a person, and herself, through the Bliss. This could be a better parallel to how Jacob also breaks the unwilling down in his Trials, albeit for more specifically war-like purposes than Faith. We don’t get to hear if John has opinions on how the “new recruits” up in Jacob’s neck of the woods are treated well or not, but he doesn’t include Jacob in his jab. The absence could be used to infer that John has either separate issues, less issues, or no issues with how Jacob runs things, but that’s the problem with this kind of absence: it lacks definite, concrete matter to build with. We hear only a very vague telling of the details of Faith’s life from Faith directly, which in this instance is going to be presumed to be true, albeit perhaps glossing over the details and told from a carefully crafted perspective for a desired end result. Others also have their own opinions to fill in on the details of Faith as she is and was, and her life before, including but potentially not limited to Tracey and Sheriff Whitehorse, as far as I’m aware at this time. What’s really interesting is the almost split presentation we get at times with Faith: in some moments she is the epitome of her title the siren, bright, friendly, seemingly warm and enticing. Other times she has some lines that cast very long, dark shadows. Three of the phone calls one can find in the Henbane are particularly dark, if one assumes the call with the sounds of a crying woman on the other end to be Faith. Even disregarding that third one, the other two show more of Faith’s darker aspects, as noted below: “Rachel’s so sad and alone. Once was lost, never found. She lead a faithless life and it brought her low. Faith rose up in her, but Rachel stayed low, down. Faith flies divine, and Rachel...Rachel gropes around in the darkness. I left her there, a long time ago.”

The second phone call text:

“A baby is a sack of screaming, shitting, crying impulses with no personality, no thoughts, no understanding of the world beyond feelings. It has no soul. You have to give it one. The only soul we ever have, we receive from others. And it is only others, who can take it away.” One possible interpretation from these two comments from Faith would be that she was very strongly shaped by her family and friends before she ran away with Tracey to join a commune out west. Not into total obedience without personality, but perhaps instead placation and appeasement behaviors, attempting to make the other people in her life “happy” as a form of self-protection coping mechanism to deal with living in an abusive home environment, and later on refined into intentional choices as these lines from her might strongly suggest: "All my life I dealt with people like you. People who underestimate sweet, innocent Faith. You see what you wanna see... a playful butterfly, a delicate flower... a child with childish thoughts. It's easier to disregard a child. Tracey made the same mistake as you. While you all ignored me, I walked right through every one of you." From Faith’s wiki page, it also states that Sheriff Whitehorse talked about “Tracey and Rachel, who were friends, 'joined a free spirit movement in the west, smoking doobies, banging on drums’. But Rachel and Tracey fell on harder drugs and fell out of favor with their community. Tracey searched for a new home and found the Project at Eden's Gate, and Faith decided to return with her to Hope County to join the cult.” From there, with Rachel going through the painful and dangerous process of withdrawal symptoms while attempting to end her addiction, it might be that she also felt that her new self, Faith, or Faith-to-be, was shaped by Joseph and the Project. That this new self was a new soul, and that her old soul, her old identity, Rachel, had been cast away. Perhaps that was another motivation for her to possibly split with Tracey, staying with the cult over staying with her best friend whom she had left her home behind with once before—the friend she’d run away with into the unknown at what was likely a rather young age. Perhaps staying with Tracey, Faith felt too much of Rachel remained. Rachel, the addict. Rachel, the powerless. Rachel, the abused. Perhaps those reminders were too painful for Faith, and she wanted to separate from them as much as possible. If she wanted Tracey to stay though...perhaps she had also hoped Tracey would have a fresh start. That Tracey would be “happier” at the Project. That the two of them would be born anew and cleansed of their sins, as the Project promises. All of the Seeds are in this interpretation trying to cope with their traumas. Faith in this aspect is perhaps the one closest chronologically in time to her trauma, being the youngest, and thus perhaps still emotionally rawer at times underneath it all. Rawer in a more youthful sense, not related to the innocence she tries to project as a front, so much as how she cries out in panic and fear during her boss fight’s finale, when the Deputy strikes the final blow, and how her tone changes when she’s threatened during the fight, talking about how Joseph threatened her and plied her with drugs. In this regard, it is very easy to read Faith as still placating, still coping, still appeasing the powers that be in her life, in this case the Project, Joseph, and the other Seeds to a degree. With being Faith, and not even the first and only Faith but at the very least the third in a series of adopted “sisters,” the danger of being killed, cast aside, or deemed unsatisfactory for whatever reason is very real, and could echo possible fears she’d harbored of her parents, other friends, and community members in her past. How much danger she was in from her parents is unstated as far as I’m aware, but that she was abused and likely was afraid is enough. Fear itself is real enough and a weighty factor in any situation where it exists, as it was meant to be by biological design. So in recreation of that potential trauma-build, Faith placates all of her followers with the Bliss and gentle words, making some members of the Resistance note in commentary that they feel special, loved, cared for. Drawn in to become a part of Faith’s idealized dream of everyone being predictably calm, and open to suggestion. While it is still technically appeasing behavior, with Faith being in control of the Bliss’s drug production and seemingly also the hallucinatory effect it has on people, she is also master of the realm and thus the one with the keys to the kingdom, and I daresay enjoys her power with how she mocks the Deputy upon their return to the Jail after the cutscene of her reasserting control over Burke and the ensuing happenings. Her methods on the surface are soft and appealing seemingly, but she is ultimately now able to control those in her region and under her power with a far more beautifully beguiling and insidious form of puppeteering. She makes a splendid contrast in that regard with how Jacob brainwashes people, with making Angels versus the brainwashed fighters of Jacob’s. Another piece of interesting dialogue regarding the Angels as mentioned by Faith in I believe the Whistling Beaver Brewery is as follows: "Have you seen their faces? On the Pilgrimage? Oh, you should see it. To see the sin fly from their heads and their faces slacken to peace. The vanity shaved from their heads, evil taken from their lips. Never to speak a sinful word, any word, again. It gives me life. Every time a bell rings..." Combining that with the above comment about how Faith believes people don’t have souls until given them and shaped by the others around them, Faith certainly seems to have grabbed the reins on shaping who people are, with the intent to “smooth out” any disagreeable parts. To the point of perhaps erasing a person’s individuality entirely, thus producing an Angel. She like her brothers is also driven by purpose, as she mentions in her first cutscene of being given purpose, and from the random encounter line below: “I’m going to tell you a secret... Eden’s Gate is not here to fix your life. That’s your own selfish dream... No! Eden’s Gate exists to save something greater than you and me. It is here for the Father to bring salvation to the world’s very existence, and you’re trying to destroy that. I put so much hope in you. I thought you’d be special. Was I wrong?” That first bit about not fixing one’s life feels like a potentially open admittance that the Project is not trying to fix people at least in her region, so much as to re-purpose them to the Project’s own ends, and Faith fulfills that with a gentle kind of at-times-gaslit brutality that she selectively applies more forcefully when someone isn’t playing according to Faith’s own preferences. While the doubting may also be real in her case in the later lines, it also serves as shame-based social pressure to not disappoint her, directed at the Deputy as an attempt to erode any resistance they have to conforming to doing the “right” or “sympathetic” thing—as defined by Faith anyway. Its a good bit of manipulation, leaving it blurry whether its outright just intended to influence the Deputy or if she indeed has any doubts. I lean towards the latter for added nuance of emotion, though I do think she’s more than capable and willing of violence and brutality when desired. One minor example among others that comes to mind would be the signs of violence and likely death in the Chan residence, with the implication that Faith sent some of her people to deal with Jasmine and likely kill her, per the blood on the floor and the unsent note contents: “To whom it may concern, Thank you for addressing my complaints about all that noise coming from that Eden’s Gate construction site. One of your representatives (I think her name was Faith, not sure) passed by and said she’d have a word with the people building the statue. She even said she’d make them come by to apologize in person. Although we may disagree on some philosophical matters, it’s nice to see some neighborly etiquette. I look forward to resolving this amicably. -Jasmine Chan” Aside from that, there are also other mentions such as Ethan Minkler overdosing on the Bliss (while that may be a possible accident, the point likely remains that he either died or became an Angel, much to the mayor Virgil Minkler’s grief,) comments by Resistance NPCs about how forced-pilgrims on the Path are sometimes made to crawl on their hands and knees until they bleed, the ones made to jump from the Statue of Joseph and land among the littered bodies of those who did not survive, etc. Ultimately what all of that might be mirroring is her own treatment at the hands of her family and other people in her past, as well as perhaps what Joseph, the Seeds, and the Project asked of her: not to be fixed, but re-purposed. It was never about her, but what she could do for someone, be it her family, friends, or the Project. In that, the Angels are an elegantly simple solution: they are obedient to the wishes of the Project, and are loyal to a fault without any chance of wanting anything to the contrary than what is asked of them, provided they are provided with a steady supply of Bliss (presuming they require it as a continued addiction, though that is purely speculation.) The Angel’s Grave in the Horned Serpent Cave seems to be a lake of boiling muck that is implied to be a mass grave for Angels, per the Grieving Note found therein: “Lana. Christ in heaven what they did to you. The fact that they could make you believe all that nonsense, make you forget yourself so hard. Forget your own name? How, Lana? What did he say to you? What kind of fucking dirtbag blood ritual could make you think your name was “Faith”? Doesn’t matter how, I guess. He told you you were special, but in the end he threw your body in here to disintegrate in the boiling muck, like a common Angel.” This certainly shows the Project has little to no respect for the dead, or at the very least those turned into mindlessly loyal Angel minions. It echoes back to the lack of individuality Faith may struggle with internally as a theme—it may also be that her parents abused her through the unrealistic-expectations archetype of wanting and pressuring her to be what they wanted, without any regard of who she was as an individual or what she wanted out of her life. Perhaps during her life she was treated as nothing more than a commodity, trying to forever appease and live up to her parents’ expectations. I sadly have very little on the Jessop family as a whole, so this is all once again pure fabricated speculation. This lack of personal worth through individuality does thread through the recurring instance of there being multiple Faiths before Rachel, and it is shown in the notes to the two known previous Faiths, Lana and Selena (both referenced from Faith’s article the wiki.) “You’re not the first one, Selena. You’re not the first woman he’s used up and thrown away. For years I’d been hearing this Faith Seed was tall as her brother, with black hair. Couldn’t miss her. And then I saw you in one of their trucks last week, yellow hair in the breeze, and heard them calling you Faith. He thinks he can just SWAP YOU OUT. Like you don’t got a brain of your own. God knows who you are, and so do you. Selena. I love you. Don’t lose yourself to this.” Both of the above notes have mentions to identity issues with taking on the new name of Faith, of losing oneself or forgetting oneself. With the note to Lana and the last note from one of the Faiths there is also the double mention of “being special.” “I just wanted to be special. When Joseph came into my life, I felt like you’d given me a true gift, Lord. That a man who talks to you would bring me in on your holy conversation..? And so I too the name that you gave me, Lord, through Joseph: “Faith.” And I am a woman made anew. But now, I’m ashamed to say, even though I carry this name, my devotion to the Project is..plagued. By Doubt. What do I do? I know you will forgive me, dear Lord. I don’t know if Joseph will.“ The above note titled “A Confession” on Faith’s wiki page is possibly from Rachel, though the wording has me contemplating that it’s likely from someone a bit older, and the style I’m uncertain if I’d attribute to Rachel though I acknowledge that writing and speaking can present very differently. I would expect her to write with a more direct style of wording since presumably she had internet access and was familiar with texting, speculating off of Tracey’s note in the convent that mentioned Tracey being “tired of this 19th-century-ass writing shit.” The pauses via commas and more formal-yet-casual feel of the written cadence, along with more talk of God feels like someone else’s voice rather than Rachel’s, but I could be wrong. But that’s also fitting with the theme of uncertainty of who’s who beneath the name of Faith. Therein lies the loss of individuality and lack of clear denoting of which Faith this was, or is.

— Conclusion —

What I find absolutely fascinating about all of these villains is how they tell the story of the trauma and past experiences through their actions, dialogue, beliefs, and all while moving the main story forward. We do have some direct story telling in the sense of them telling us about those key moments that lead to their revelation and some backstory details, but the fact that even afterwards in a lot of what they do if not all of what they do we can potentially draw more inferences of how they came to be who they are? That is some very beautiful story and character construction in my opinion. In how the past influences their present and relatively speaking future events, so too does their present and future come circling back to tie to their past. This possible feedback loop of influence is just so neat in my opinion and is particularly pronounced here with the Seed family and how they are presented in-game. I feel it works exceptionally well for antagonists but could in theory also work for any main character. The sheer weight of how their past influences them so profoundly is really interesting, and while we all are shaped by our past, it’s particularly highlighted here with the Seeds. Often the trope of a character having a dark backstory is presented as the reason they’re doing X, or are prone to behaving in a certain way (one such popular demeanor being say brooding,) and is particularly common for villains. What I think makes the Seeds for me more interesting in that regard is how individualized their processing of their traumas is. It’s not just out to do evil because they are simply evil and have a backstory to facilitate handwaving as to why they are evil, they’re going about it in a particular way, and have all developed a nuanced system of belief relating to that and likely significantly influenced by those around them as well, with the Seeds all I would say influence each other to varying degrees. Them being a group of villains is part of that complexity with the layers of them having a family dynamic, the cult hierarchy, significantly different styles of managing their affairs while still sharing some core elements, and being such diverse personalities. The Seeds in their entirety as a group are what make or break the story in my opinion, since to have really good conflict I would say you need excellent villains or antagonists, and the Seed family fits that bill in my personal opinion very well. It feels like there was a lot of time and care put into each of the Seeds in different ways and in crafting their stories as well as fitting those stories to the main story of Far Cry 5. The speculation I personally take away from this in terms of developing interesting characters is that sometimes having a very detailed background and having it influence a character heavily and actively both in-scene and on the meta of writing the scene can be really interesting. Obviously sometimes not knowing a character’s past and leaving it a mystery works very well too. But if there’s been care put into how the character is developed and there are in-world, albeit unknown backstory reasons for their actions, words, and beliefs? Then even if we the audience don’t know the reasons, that can make for a very compelling character for audience members to speculate and fill in the blanks about. Obviously there are other builds and exceptions and such for making compelling characters and in particular villains and antagonists, but I do think this style of character construction in relation to the overarching plot is honestly quite gorgeous as a story infrastructure element in its own right and worth taking a look at should it appeal to one to examine it. It’s a really lovely echo of how much investment the dev team’s put into the characters themselves that those characters in-world also care and are heavily invested in what they’re doing and saying too, as an added accent to it all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, hope you all have a good day/night! [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

#writing about writing #Far Cry 5 #FC5 #trigger warning content #Faith Seed #Rachel Jessop #long post is long #character study #tw content is listed at the top of the post #antagonists #villains

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enkisstories · 6 years ago

Text

Just like them

- Short Detroit Become Human fanfic starring Daniel - - Close enough to canon, not my Sims!AU - November 15, 2038 Park Avenue

Daniel placed his hand on the door lock. However, the device rejected his request almost instantly.

ACCESS DENIED

It wasn’t just a string of bright letters, the message additionally burned itself into the android brain. And although the narrative went that androids didn’t feel pain, the sharp sting of the “Nope” signal along with all the emotions it triggered in Daniel’s deviant mind were unpleasant to say the least.

“Shit!”

Daniel raised his hand – or rather, he moved his shoulder to lift the replacement arm and hand up, spare parts salvaged from other unfortunates that had found themselves in the DPD’s evidence archive. Just when the new limbs had started to feel less like prostheses and more like parts of himself, the android had to receive a reminder to the fact that this wasn’t the case. His real hand was lost and with it the RFID tag that would have opened the door to the Phillips apartment.

Daniel wondered briefly the key to which door he was carrying now, because some signal had gotten exchanged between the hand and the door lock. If there had been no key present at all, the door would just have stayed silent instead of bellowing its “Access denied” at the intruder.

A shutdown police auxiliary beyond repair had “donated” Daniel’s new legs, but also the hand? Daniel didn’t remember. It hadn’t mattered earlier that day when they had set him more or less free.

And now the android he was standing here, with an electronic cuff somewhere in his system, a novel worth of parole terms in his head, but fresh out of an emergency override keycard for his own home.

I should have went with that guy from Jericho when he offered it. But, noooooo, I HAD to do this alone, because I don’t NEED help at all. And I shouted at him, so there’s no turning back now. It’s getting dark anyway. And ‘sides, I have a right to this flat! It’s my inheritance, the pay for four years of service, no way I’m going to live in, what was it, a wrecked cruise ship or something? No way!

Tap,tap,tap… jingle,jingle,jingle… swoosh

Daniel exited the elevator and only when the doors closed behind him did he realize that he had just traveled downwards by one floor without actually having decided to do so.

Check. Deviant brain doing deviant stuff. They warned me about this.

Daniel’s subconsciousness had taken over, now the question was where had it taken him?

Looking around Daniel discovered that he was standing right in front of an apartment door, one hand raised slightly, obviously in an attempt to ring the doorbell. The nameplate that went with the bell read “Rasoya”.

Ah, right, that was familiar territory. The Rasoyas were the Phillips’ direct downstairs neighbors. They had helped them out by taking Emma when her parents were out and with sugar, flour and eggs that Caroline tended to forget to stock up in sufficient quantity. That had been before Daniel had joined the household, of course, but even with the Phillips owning a state of the art household assistant made by CyberLife now the families had remained… close?

I have always assumed we were close, but looking back I feel “habitually on speaking terms” is more precise.

Someone was stirring now inside the apartment and a female voice rose up:

“I think I heard someone at the door! Will you take a look?”

“Yes, it’s me!” Daniel shouted back, then rang the bell.

Someone was looking through a spyhole, not trusting the electronic security camera, then opened the door. Before it was fully open, Daniel already gasped at the person behind it: “Can I borrow a crowbar, please, Mrs. Rasoya? I need to break into the Phillips apartment!”

Mrs. Rasoya laughed so hard at this that the toddler boy she was holding was shaking violently. Reflexively Daniel grabbed him while Mrs. Rasoya was still trying to get a grip on herself. Eventually the woman said:

“Daniel Phillips – the most polite android revolutionary ever.”

“Calm down, calm down!” Daniel shushed the human. “I’m not with Markus or whoever, I don’t even have a clear idea what exactly’s going on!”

I mean, when have I ever? I lived in an illusion all my existence, believing myself appreciated… sheltered… Going by my experience Markus could just be another Connor: playing nice, but harboring ulterior motives.

“They just…”

Looking for a familiar term in all the madness that was the present, the android continued:

“…let me out of prison and here I am, but I can’t enter my own damn apartment!”

“Own dan apartment!” little Caden Rasoya repeated cheerfully, at which his grandmother demanded the kid to get returned to her.

“Raj, dear?” she called into the apartment and a few heartbeats later her adult son, Caden’s father, appeared. Raj was a gourmet chef and his body was certainly looking the part, although he tended to dress extremely casually at home.

“Would you accompany Danny here upstairs to break down the Phillips’s door, Raj?”

“You know what, mom?” Raj laughed out loud. “This is by far the most normal request I’ve heard those last few days.”

Daniel watched Mrs. Rasoya retreat into her home where she picked up an old handheld gaming device that she had been playing on. He heard Caden giggle. The TV was running, Caden giggled some more, but then listened intently to his mother, who was explaining something connected to the evening children’s show they were watching. Everything was so normal!

Why were the Rasoyas still here, Daniel wondered? Were the feeling that the worst was behind them and deeming it save to stay in Detroit, even though the president had arranged an evacuation of a scope that put to shame even the annual floods? Were these humans maybe just as attached to their territory as Daniel himself was? Regardless of the possible consequences? In retrospect, what if Caroline had still been here tonight? Or – was she, maybe?!

“Uh… Is Caroline…?” Daniel started asking Raj.

“Left Detroit. In fact, she didn’t even wait for the presidential nudge to do so.”

“Ah.”

Raj grabbed the doorknob and with his head motioned the android to join him.

“Come in!”

“But I need to…”

“No way I’m trying to kick in a sturdy apartment door, least of all with security still intact”, Raj explained. “And neither should you do that, with a criminal record on your head. You have one…?”

“Yes, yes, it’s all legit. The DPD knows I’m here, but, fuck, I should have asked for an escort to actually get into my home.”

“You certainly picked up some language there that you didn’t know before”, Raj commented, still more amused than wary. Definitely wary, too, but not to an extent that prevented the man from acting civilly.

“But what am I to do now?”

“You’ll want to take the balcony route, Daniel. Climb up from our balcony and find your door. It was never properly repaired after… the incident, you should be able to push it open easily.”

“That’s that Connor’s fault!” Daniel spat. “It doesn’t respect anything!”

And that were the last words he exchanged with the Rasoyas. Without even a “thanks” the deviant made haste towards the balcony, jumped onto the railing and started scaling the apartment building like an ape. A PL600 wasn’t particularly strong, but their dexterity and eye-hand-coordination had to be rated outstanding even compared to other androids. Daniel was also rather agile, although he suspected that was a personal feat, nothing hard-coded in his system specs. And of course his new PC200 legs were also contributing to his athletic ability.

Inside the Phillips home Daniel didn’t linger much in the apartment proper, but instead went straight to the fish tank in the floor.

“Huey, Dewey, Louie… everyone still there!” he noticed with relief. “It’s feeding time, gentlemen! – Hehe, yes, go for it! No need to fight, there’s more where this is coming from!”

Smiling the android watched the fish gorge themselves. When had been the last time they had been fed, he wondered? So typical of Caroline! Flaunting the family fortune, but possessed of a total disregard of actual living beings. Like those of the ornamental fish she had left behind to their fate. Or her android’s…

Daniel had never given his artificial lung much thought. They were just there, moving his chest to make him appear more lifelike. Now the deviant realized how this particular biocomponent came in handy: he sighed deeply.

Moving back into the apartment Daniel almost expected to find John’s tablet. Of course after all this time it wouldn’t be there anymore. Or at least it would no longer display the order confirmation for the AP700, where John had ticked the “Disposal of old device at no extra cost” option. There had been another option, also at no extra cost: to donate the old android to charity. It would have taken the man no longer than two minutes to choose an organization from a dropdown list, but John Phillips hadn’t wanted anybody to mooch from something he had payed good money for. He had said so aloud and that comment had alerted Daniel to what was going on in the first place.

John’s greed and antisocial tendencies might very well have saved my life!

Daniel shooed this thought and looked around some more.

Pictures of Emma, John and Caroline, sometimes alone, then again as a family or with various friends, were everywhere. Of their android there was no sign and hadn’t been before the incident. Daniel felt a little like visiting the Dursleys with all the pictures of Dudders and no hint whatsoever that another boy was living at Privet Drive…

He picked up one of the framed pictures. It showed the family gathered under a Christmas Tree. The spheres, bells, stars and pine cones were all made from real glass and in between hang handmade charms fashioned by Emma. The Phillips didn’t believe in anything transcendental, neither god, nor magic. But even so they had followed the traditions and actually gained something from them. There had been an unusual warmth around that time of year each year.

Daniel put back the photograph. Suddenly the glass ornaments were too bright, the fishtank next door too loud and even the carpet his feet were touching was too rough. The deviant hunkered down and buried his head in his arms. Thirium tried to get up and out through his nose. Daniel didn’t understand what was happening to him. His system status hadn’t been that bad this morning!

Stay in… stay in… I don’t want to die! Only, I feel like dying… But I don’t want to! It’s not fair!

Daniel had sat there hunched over and crying for a while, when suddenly the door rang. A jolt went through the android’s body. Daniel jumped up and the weak, but steady stream of skin fluid mixed with blue blood came to a halt. The android wiped it away and licked the thirium from his new fingers before opening the door.

“Hey, Geeta”, Daniel greeted the visitor. “Afraid I might shut down from sorrow all alone up here?”

The words sounded like an accusation…

“Nah.” Mrs. Rasoya shook her head. “Not you. In fact, I reckon you are unable to suicide.”

“Huh? How would you know?”

Geeta walked past Daniel. She grabbed one of the family photographs at random and turned it for Daniel to get a good look at it.

“Dogs take after their owners, children after their parents and androids… androids take after their masters.”

“That’s utter bullshit!” the deviant flared up. “And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t apply to me! I’m a de…”

“Deviant, Daniel? For deviants what I said goes even more so, because of your emotions.”

“I may have acquired some of those, so what?!”

“The Phillips couple, too, was never one for thinking before acting… for taking a step back from their desires… or for putting themselves into others’ shoes.”

Daniel started to yell again, but was cut short:

“What kindness they had, manifested indirectly only - in their little girl and in their household assistant.”

“Huh.”

“Not what you wanted to hear, I know.”

Daniel took the picture.

“Me? Being like them?”

“It’s true.”

The deviant smiled warmly, not unlike when he had watched his fishes. For several moments he stood there, content with the world and himself. But then he jerked around his arm and smashed the frame against the nearest wall.

“They never were my family!!!”

Geeta shrugged and said her goodbyes.

“You know where to find us if you want to borrow gelignite or whatever a modern deviant might need”, she said. The woman had meant it as a joke, but as she gently closed the door behind herself, she wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

#dbh daniel #dbh #detroit become human #dbhtextpost #dbh textpost #non sims #danielgavinnewstory

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