White Man’s Tears

Though I’ve belted you and flayed you / By the living God that made you / You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. – Rudyard Kipling, of course.

There’s a horrendous meme picture surfing the tubes which compares the picture of a recently dead celebrity (Steve Jobs, Whitney Houston, etc.) with the caption “one dies, millions cry” with a picture of a small African child with the caption, “millions die, no one cries.” My instant reaction first seeing it was, “What about their fucking families? Or do they not count because they’re not white Americans?” I think Teju Cole would have a similar reaction on the picture but with a far more sharp prescription that the kid is far better off if American’s didn’t care.

Twitter which is no place to make an eloquent statement but a grand place for snark has led Cole to write a beautiful, concise, and unpersuasive essay on the “White Savior Industrial Complex.”  While watching the social media new darling Kony 2012 Cole wrote several tweets going after not only Invisible Children but Kristof, Oprah, and any white dude who thinks they got Africa problems down cold after watching a 30-minute video. As way of explanation Cole writes,

“Those tweets, though unpremeditated, were intentional in their irony and seriousness. I did not write them to score cheap points, much less to hurt anyone’s feelings. I believed that a certain kind of language is too infrequently seen in our public discourse. I am a novelist. I traffic in subtleties, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn’t have a point.”

I’m interested in Cole’s opinion on twitter in general, which strangled subtly in the crib with Zach Snyder filming it but that’s an issue for another time. Let’s keep our eyes on those suddenly caring about Africa.

There’s all sort of arguments if the inside man or the outsider understands and fixes problems better. If a new, neutral position can lead to better solutions than those who have lived it and the greatest drive to solve it. Naturally the argument tends to focuses on the specific circumstances of the situation. Now here Cole understands Africa to a near infinite level higher than me. And the Western World in general has dug a strip mining-size hole when it comes to Asia, Africa, Australia, indigenous people, well you know pretty much everyone else and I shall not dream to lecture Cole on the issue, I do think there’s something I could write about human nature.

Where Cole sees a nuisance, a savvy politician would see clay for the art of the possible. People enthusiastic to save the world should be recognize as dangerous but it should also be recognize as a great tool. Short of demanding complete inaction, a very difficult solution to push as any realist arguing against humanitarian solutions can tell you. Instead, Cole suggests a course correction based around “the money-driven villainy at the heart of American foreign policy” which is as simplistic as anything suggested by IC. Cole is a novelist and not someone who is theoretically wiling to lead a crusade against crusades. His weariness is probably best served with this essay and maybe future writing. But I have a hard time staring at such a potential force for good without dreaming someone has to take them seriously and make some use of them. Hell, a babysitter is at least needed to keep them out of trouble. Asking them to keep out of the cookie jar has never stopped an Empire before, I’m hard-pressed to believe asking it snarkly was the secret.

Boogie Nights (1997)

Boogie Nights is somehow both a quirky character study and a sprawling epic. Covering a decade of gross excess and tragic heights, P.T. Anderson’s ode to movies understands that moviemaking is boring but sex, drugs, and John C. Reilly are not. The trials of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) the greatest porn star who’s name just pops off the marquee as he enter the banal world of porn-making to his fall, to his redemption covers the decade of banal excess- 1980s. We meet his new porn family (to say there are incestuous undertones sells the point rather low) director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) older co-star Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), younger co-star Roller Girl (Heather Graham), a sidekick Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) alongside hangers-on (Don Cheadle, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Thomas Jane). Diggler goes from soft-spoken bus boy to self-aggrandizing drug addict before fulfilling his call to be the prodigal son. It’s more than a monument to a fictional porn star but to the filmmaker who made it.

P.T. Anderson starts his mastery of tension building, the beautiful art of suspense in the film. Considering the slow simmer found in Magnolia and There Will Be Blood (originally wrote There Will Be Love as I’m a romantic at heart), the bad drug deal in Boogie Nights is a one-scene wonder. The second Dirk, Reed, and Todd get out of the car to when Dirk barely escapes without getting shot in half has been correctly recognized as a short film in itself. Watching Rahad Jackson play Russian Roulette with his Vietnamese boyfriend sets off firecrackers should be too ludicrous to work, it brings far too much attention onto itself but by catching the tone of the film’s comedic tragedy it’s not only successful but the most endearing payoff in any of Anderson’s films. (As we shall see in the next few reviews.)

Calling Boogie Nights the most cinematic of Anderson’s works which seems odd considering the biblical levels of There Will Be Blood and the sprawling heights of Magnolia but when Anderson finds the Greek tragedy of Boogie Nights. Shakespearian hubris might seem ridiculous talking about 80s porn but not when the inherent ridiculousness of every scene is admitted. When Todd starts laughing during the botched robbery that even in this unbelievably tense situation is sublimely ridiculous. The film naturally can’t take the characters seriously as they do themselves, topping such narcissism was not meant for mere man. No matter how awful the situation becomes, it’s obvious these characters have only themselves to blame for getting into the situation.

None of them know what they’re selling. At his job at a stereo store Buck has no idea what Hi-Fi has to do with audio equipment and drives away customers by playing country music full blast. Jack Horner thinks he’s making cinema where the sex is at most just a marketing tool.  Amber Waves thinks she’s a great surrogate mother for the porn stars while introducing them to cocaine. And Dirk Diggler thinks he can make it in the music industry. These flat-out delusional figures can more or less survive together but have little hope when they have to step-out into reality. A bubble of dream covers them until they make steps out in the real world.  The only violation of Horner’s home is Little Bill’s murder-suicide. Otherwise, the worst events all happened somewhere in the California nightscape. After their trials in the wilderness, like an Amish teenager on Rumspringa, each character returns to the Horner house wiser and sadder but with an understanding that they can only be happy in their dreamland. Why work when you can fuck for a living?

 

“That samurai honor is nothing but a façade.”

A great Samurai house in the early days of the Shogun’s rule and the French army during the 1^st World War would tend not to be compared even by the most dexterous history student. Yet in Harakiri and Paths of Glory two of the finest anti-authoritarian films ever had those two as their subject. The Realpolitk principles of institutions are not constrained by time or borders.

Both films are stories about men injured by institutions for crimes they not commit with the protagonist being an advocate who goes against the organization. In Paths of Glory, Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas) is ordered by Gen. Mireau (George Macready) (as he was asked by Gen. Broulard [Adolphe Menjou) to lead his army in a suicide attack. After the attack fails, Mireau demands 3 scapegoats (haggled down from 100) to put in front of a kangaroo court. Dax defends his men in front of the tribunal. Harakiri tells its story more indirectly with multiple flashbacks. A ronin Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai) wanders into the Iyi house- a feudal home of the 1600s asking for a place to perform seppeku (that’s ritual suicide for you American speakin’ folks). The chamberlain Kaegyu Saito (Rentaro Mikuni) senses a scam and tells a story about what happen when a young samurai made the same offer earlier in hopes of getting a bit of money and being shown the door. Instead, the House forces the young samurai to perform the ritual with a wooden sword (the young man must pawned his steel) in brutal fashion. Hanshiro turns out to know the young man- knew him very well and he’s here for an apology and more.

Authority’s main interest is always appearance over substance. When Saito orders a cover-up for Tsgumo’s massacre at the end, it is so the house would not admit a ronin can killed members of his house. Of course, the facts declare the opposite but Saito understands appearing weak matters more than being weak. Being weak doesn’t lead to being attacked, others knowing you’re weak does. The French Army is attacking German positions not out of any military logic but to keep criticism away from them. A French officer’s career ends when the blame falls on them not when the Germans win. Gen. Broulard cannot comprehend Dax acting on principle instead of pragmatism, it would be like finding out someone refuses to eat.

Dax thought himself clever for finding a political trump to play against the general staff to do the right thing. Dax miscalculated though as General Mireau can be sacrificed as easily as any of his men. The institution will survive because always be ready to lose any one man and continue to work. The Iyi house can lose its three best swordsman without a great deal of care as long as the façade remains. The beauty of the system is that while everyone looks out for themselves and feed the organization to continue its existence, their selfishness means not one of them is important enough for the machine to care if they leave. What Ayn Rand never understood is that Capitalism laughs when John Galt leaves the system. He doesn’t want to play by the rules, well there’s someone out there who’s just as good who will. The popularity of Atlas Shrugs comes from the idea that one person can fight the system; that the reader really can change the world if they’re talented enough. Paths of Glory and Harakiri do not have time for such fairy tales. No one man can move the world, no matter how desperately the world needs them to do so.

“Many of us will be joining you soon.” The injustice this kangaroo court will be repeated many times over the rest of the war. Just as Iyi erasing history will continue ignorance and injustice, the French army will retain its power. There will be more foolhardy attacks against the German army, more men will die in vain, and the army’s authority will remain unchallenged. However, these institutions will be finally destroyed by powerful forces. The Iyi will have centuries of success ahead of them until the Meiji Restoration knocks them out of existence. The old nemesis Germany will mauled the French Army in the 2^nd World War. Yet, they’re only replaced by different hierarchies with their own sins. Nazi Germany is far worse than the stuffed-shirts of the French military. The criticism made by the protagonists is true but will never change the deficiencies of systems. Systems are created to protect these deficiencies of the human spirit. These films are power by Hobbesian logic where cruel, greedy men will destroy the earth unless constrained by customs, laws, and organizations that can work as counterweights.

“The World does not bend to sentimental tales,” says Tsgumo. A friendly little comment on these types of films. Institutions have always won these fights and when they’re put out of business, it’s by a different institution. General Broulard isn’t scared of Dax, he’s worried about “the newspapers and the politicians.” More so than any threat the Germany army holds. Both films end on futility because their own efforts were obviously going to be futile. However, Harakiri allows a more satisfying if very bleak ending for its protagonist of what society has done to him.

While the ending satisfies the anti-war message of the film, Dax’s journey ends in a lurch. He has seen the system failed only to return to the job to do the best he can. While this might be the realistic outcome where the victims spit out by authority has nothing better than to return to it, there’s something to say for Harakiri’s call for personal honor even if it will be forgotten. After showing an institution’s hypocrisy the protagonist can show he still has personal dignity. Futile effort can still have a meaning if it’s literally the only thing you can do to stop the machine.

Sunday Short: The Room without Tommy Wiseau

When asked about income inequality in the United States Mitt Romney called critics of the rising wealth gap “envious” and that any decisions about the issues should be made in “quiet room” What’s surprising is not that Romney blundered into saying decisions should be made in quiet rooms but that he only did it once. Romney has complete faith in his abilities and the people he recognizes as peers. Everyone else: Obama, his GOP competitors, the American public are suspect. Pulling them into the discussion would only make them emotional, much better to solve their problems without their help or knowledge if the case may be.

All frontrunners suffer from coronation disease where the team is up 30 points with 3 minutes left on the clock and you just have to waste time till victory is yours but Romney is a special case. He expected this win from college and has been getting antsy since. Mormonism and his father has gave Romney the confidence to do anything and the few setbacks he’s dealt with from the car crash in France to his defeat in the 2008 race has not shaken his deep belief in himself. Unfortunately, the confidence means Romney has entered politics with no fixed or established beliefs in governance besides that he has the ability to solve any problems. He can promise anything, demand everything, and understand nothing about people because when the time comes to make the decision Romney knows he’ll make the right decision. A confident leader would make a great selling point but the story Romney could relate to it would not. While George W. Bush’s “decider” persona came from his belief in god and Teddy Roosevelt had his endless energy to drive his leadership, Romney can neither point to his disliked religion nor the “daddy-told-me-so” background.

So what do we got? A rich dude who think he can cure what ails America- if they weren’t just so stupid to vote against him. And a guy like that can awaken anyone’s inner-populist supporter of democracy.

Hard Eight (1996)

I’m going to review all of P.T. Anderson’s oeuvre over the upcoming weeks.

SPOILERS

One of the many gifts film can give us in a view in a new world. Not just the lives of dragons and aliens but also the world of ballerinas, reporters, and circus clowns. Even the mundane details of their lives can be fascinating when placed in front of a camera. The small touches can be more captivating than any melodrama. P.T. Anderson’s first film, Hard Eight capture these small touches in its first half with a character story of Sydney (Phillip Baker Hall), a gambler who rarely gambles.

Hall runs into a down-on-his-luck John (John Reilly) sitting outside a diner in Nevada. Sydney takes a quick measure of the kid and offers to buy him a coffee and to hear his troubles. Learning John needs money to bury his mother, Hall offers a ride to Las Vegas and 50 dollars. His motives for these charitable actions remain mysterious until the third act and Reilly doesn’t know what to expect from this oddly direct man. Instead we learn the tricks of the gambling trade, watching Sydney explain to John how you can get a free hotel room through a simple con. The rest of the movie shows  how Sydney’s wisdom made him the current sage he is and how it can not help him in the affairs of the young.

Sydney does not seem to be one of the Las Vegas crowd, he’s neither energetic nor seedy and Anderson underscores this rather well- this is the least energetic takes on Las Vegas and Reno put to film. When Jimmy (Samuel Jackson, an early performance showing the way for roles like Ordell in Jackie Brown) arrives in the 2^nd Act, he’s all seedy and energetic. Understandably, John is attracted to him (it’s what attracted him to Las Vegas in the first place) and Sydney takes an instant dislike. The difference between Sydney being goaded into making a bet and Jackson’s turn at craps after he gets $6,000 is the joy between a professional and an amateur between someone who does someone for fun and someone who must make a living. The long tracking shot of Hall going through the casino compared to say, Robert de Niro walking around in Casino. Both are commanding characters but while de Niro is surrounded by noise, color, and rowdies; Sydney is so set apart from the Casino floor he could walk through the tables. Trouble only starts when he creates a family for himself (his real family stopped talking to him a long time ago) with John and a cocktail waitress/Prostitute Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow).  When the couple marries, kidnaps one of Clementine’s john so they could get his money, and then have to run out of town all of Sydney’s frustrations start pouring out. He did not plan for this and all Sydney trusts is planning.

A man trying to find control on the craps table is naturally inclined to find domination over people. Both Sydney’s relationship with John and Clementine is based on his ability to influence. John becomes his disciple because of Sydney’s charisma. Hall’s performance shows a man with a natural command (Clementine nicknames him “the captain”). Each line seems forethought went behind it even when none should naturally come. Even when fearfully begging for his life Hall diction is strong, clear, and concise. When you get angry or panic, you lose. Sydney has learned this lesson well.  From this description, you might think Sydney is very one-note but Hall creates a character whose diction might not change but the emotions underpinning the dialogue does. His look of anguish at Ordell is much different than when he’s in the hotel room with John and Clementine.

When he tells John he loves him like a son, there’s finally acceptance on Sydney’s part on his role in the world. He cannot control the young couple’s future. It’s not that the student has overcome the master but that the student could never really become the master. His influence might still be there but that cannot be mistaken for being the puppet master. Instead, he can only give the best advice he can to John and hope it turns out for the best. Sydney has simply stopped looking for the hard eight in life.

Eisenhower: The White House Years (2011) by Jim Newton

Dwight Eisenhower president during the most nostalgically beloved decade has found his own affectionate place among those who dream of a time where moderates worked together while leaving those awkward extremists off their social calendars. Just look at the list of people Jim Newton got to blurb his new biography of Ike’s White House Years: John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Dianne Feinstein, and Norman Lear. The sort of folks who dreamed about two parties who GOVERNED not grandstand that worried about policy, not political affiliation. Of course such a time never existed but when you have to watch Republicans take (and following!) pledges never to raise taxes again, Senators understandably fall into a little daydreaming. What is not as forgivable is when a journalist and nominal historian does the same. Newton at the end of the book uses Eisenhower’s shockingly persistent warning of the military-industrial complex to take a couple swipes at George W. Bush and Obama and governmental regulatory policy. He’s stuck as Hagel thinking government could work or at least should as it did under Eisenhower

Anyone who would be subjected to such hagiographic biography is probably pretty awful.  Theoretically a good president made difficult, controversial decisions that would lead historians to make complex judgment of their accomplishments and failures. Not so for Jim Newton, who can barely sop to the idea that the general may have made a wrong decision. The White House Years is a chronological view of the day-to-day life (“struggles” would be a far too dramatic word to describe the book) of President Eisenhower where you get barely idea of the period or the man. Like most books of this ilk, crises are the focus instead of any philosophical underpinnings for policy. It doesn’t help that there is very little idea of domestic policy outside of Eisenhower slow (Newton describes it as a moderate) approach to McCarthyism focusing more on politics and foreign policy. In this field Eisenhower help overthrow the freely elected leaders of Iran and Guatemala. A course of action Newton only finds the courage to criticize near the end of the book.

Personality-wise, while Eisenhower has the reputation to be bland as oatmeal, he was still a man who led a multinational force against Nazi Germany and President of United States who navigated the waters during the early Cold War. He obviously had some ideas on America and its place in the world. But Newton can barely get past cliché pleasantries of Eisenhower’s upbringing in Kansas as though he personified the virtues of a state. When you are unwilling to talk about vices there are very little to say about a person. It takes away the sharpness of a human being when you will not question their motives. Also it makes any critics look like the Romans crucifying Jesus. Adlai Stevenson did not shame himself in 1956 when he questioned a man who suffered a massive heart attack and health problems could handle the difficulties of office for another 4 years but Newton can only wonder who would dare speak ill of Dwight. Yet there are serious criticisms of Eisenhower, he should have moved faster on Civil Rights and against McCarthyism. He shouldn’t have put so much trust in the CIA. The people he surrounded himself were not topnotch and would bring around governmental difficulties.

To quickly speak about the scholarship, Newton obviously read many book on Eisenhower and some primary sources about his White House years. He got to interview John Eisenhower (which leads to him being over-represented in the book) but otherwise keeps to the records. There won’t be any new arguments found for those with a decent background in the 1950s as Newton keeps us on the tourist campgrounds far away from any grizzly bears or anything interesting.

But I’m not one to ignore fascinating tidbits just because I hate the book and there are nice pieces of information throughout the work. Consider this speech given by Eisenhower to the American Society of Newspapers:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Even I, if only for a moment, dream of a time where keeping defensive spending down was a Republican goal and not some sort of crypto-form of treason which for them to yell about. Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich would watch Social Security burn before taking a nickel from the Coast Guard and it’s hard to see Ron Paul as an heir of Eisenhower. And thus a little nostalgia for moderate Republicans before they all went to the great golf course in the sky might be entitled. Let’s just not pretend it serves justice to them.

Can Santorum afford to lose Michigan?

Mitt Romney has returned to his state of birth to find that 40 years tend to change a place. The trees are more even, the cars are coming off the assembly line again, and George Romney is a distant memory. For all the doom and gloom the media is giving about Romney being unable to win the state his father was once governor, there’s no particular reason to think Romney should play in Michigan. Michiganers have their own problems to worry about and have little time to plan a coming home party for a former governor’s son.

What’s far more primary ending is if Santorum lost the state. Michigan is a rust belt state with GOP blue-collar workers. This is suppose to be Santorum’s sweet spot. He’s one of them, grandson of a coal miner; Pennsylvania politics is as pure as coal dust and a proper training ground for winning the hearts and minds of a Michigan voter especially when Romney’s most recent interaction with the auto industry involved him telling them to drop dead. Rick Santorum should have the primary wrap up.

And while Nate Silver has given Santorum a 72% chance of winning the state, his lead has dropped like a stone. From being up by 15%, Santorum is now leading only by 4. What happened? Besides Romney burying him in PAC money, Santorum is an unlikeable hyper-social conservative. Instead of making this race about Romney’s car flub or how Santorum can solve Michigan’s economic woes, Santorum has made the race about Obama’s contraception deal. The result? Santorum is losing Catholics to Romney.

In essence, this is why Santorum is bound to lose the race. It’s not only about Romney’s powerful entrenched stance with money and GOP VIPs (though that might have been enough), it’s Santorum is bad on the issues, bad on campaigning, and bad on organization. The last social conservative candidate is finding out you can’t fight basic political physics when you don’t understand the subject.