Frank's a Class Act, Joe's Pix,
and Cine-Ketchup
A public thank you to
Frank Miller.
You know, in my 30+ years in comics, I've had a number of films linked to work I've had a hand in. The obvious ones --
Return of the Swamp Thing, From Hell, Constantine -- came and went without any special treatment or invites extended my way. I finally caught the former on video, rented from a tiny grocery store in
South Newfane, VT, and a cold and bitter night of video viewing that was, too; the latter two I saw at the
Kipling Cinema in
Brattleboro, VT. None featured my name in the credits, so why expect anything at all? At least
Constantine graced me and my family with royalties for my share of creating
John Constantine in the first place (along with
Alan Moore -- who deferred his share to co-creator
Rick Veitch -- and
John Totleben).
I've been invited to
three premieres linked to my work in comics: the NYC opening of
Steven Spielberg's
1941 (back in '79), which
Rick Veitch and I attended happily, briefly basking in the release of our graphic novel adaptation of the movie before it all crashed & burned in the backlash against
Spielberg's failed comedy; the
Northampton, MA premiere at the
Academy of Music of
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, which featured a character (
Tokka) based in part upon my toy concept sketches for a snapping turtle monster -- the only premiere I was able to bring my daughter
Maia and son
Dan to, and hence of importance to this ol' pop; and
Lance Weiler's cast-and-crew October 2005 closed debut screening of
Head Trauma, which
Dan and I were invited to (since we'd drawn the faux-Christian Comic,
Too Much Grief, that figures prominently in the film) but couldn't attend due to work schedules.
[BTW, only Lance made sure there was a byline (for Dan and I, in this case) in the film's credits. The other films, in their way, are as much a problem as a point of pride for my now-adult children: when they tell their friends "that was based on my dad's work," the inevitable response is, "Oh, yeah? I don't see his name anywhere." It was a comfort, at least, to see David Lloyd's name on the V for Vendetta credits; all the other Vertigo-based movies feature creator credits that are a slight variation on the bylines the 1940s serials based on DC comics characters sported -- of late, an unexpected consequence of Alan Moore's insistence his name be removed from any films based on his work. C'est la vie.
]Now, I've
nothing whatsoever to do with
Frank Miller's work, or the films based upon them.
But I've just received my
second invite to a NYC premiere of a feature film based on
Frank's work -- the Thursday, March 8 premiere of
300 at the
Lincoln Square IMAX.
Thank you,
Frank!
Alas, I teach that day -- but it means a lot to receive the invitation at all.
Frank had also extended an invite to me and my son to attend the NYC premiere of
Sin City; that would have been terrific, but again, work schedules prevented the trip to the Big Apple. But it meant a lot to be invited.
Frank and I grew up about 20 minutes apart, though we never met until the mid-'80s, when we were both working with
DC Comics. When you were a high school kid into drawing comics in the late '60s and early '70s, there were no mechanisms or means to meet, much less know one another even existed (oddly enough, it turned out we both had the same art teacher in high school, too --
Bill Cathey, who went from teaching at
Union 32, the school
Frank attended in
Montpelier, VT, to
Harwood Union High School in
Duxbury, from which I graduated).
We've had precious few chances to get together, but there was a period in which we communicated with some frequency (in part over
Frank's possible contribution to
Taboo; there were two stories he was toying with, "
Rats" and a vampire tale, but neither reached fruition). My first wife
Marlene and I were once able to help
Frank and
Lynn out, and we did. I have fond memories, too, of our initial chats at
Mid-Ohio Con, where
John Totleben and I ran interference for
Frank to ensure he could make it out of the building and to his plane, back when
The Dark Knight Returns had crowds of fans blocking his escape route.
Frank has always made time to talk to me the few times I've asked. It's been a real honor to have my work showcased alongside his original art in the two gallery shows to date dedicated to Vermont cartoonists.
In short, I love the man, his work, and it means a great deal to know I'm invited to his premieres -- it's a kind, generous and thoughtful gesture never extended on the films that
were adapted from my own work, or emerged from my sweat in other capacities (e.g.,
From Hell and
Taboo).
Thanks,
Frank, and bless you.
Have a great premiere, sorry I won't be there (again), and please, take care of yourself.
I look forward to seeing
300 like everyone else -- at the local cinema. Good luck in all you do!
____________
First pix from the Wednesday
CCS St. Johnsbury trip are
here, compliments of Joe Lambert -- enjoy!_____________
Cine-Ketchup, the Saturday Edition
*
An Unreasonable Man (2006) - This is essential viewing, and about far, far more than
Ralph Nader the man. Framed perfectly with the most caustic, scathing post-2000 election slams imaginable against
Nader for running -- a caricature that holds remarkable sway throughout the country to this day --
An Unreasonable Man chronicle
Nader's activist origins, campaigns, successes, failures and the man's true legacy, via comprehensive interviews, testimonials and a rich variety of archival materials from corporate commercials, propaganda and promo reels (particularly from the car manufacturers) to TV news excerpts, bytes and much more. Inevitably, the cumulative path of
Nader's fearless four decades of activism addressing public safety, corporate malfeasance and other social injustices leads to the fateful 2000 election trail and all that followed -- at last presented and analyzed in its proper sociological, political and media context.
En route, the filmmakers trace a sobering portrait of contemporary America and how we got here, candidly dissected and discussed by
Nader, his associates and his detractors (
Pat Buchanan's analysis of the post-1980 Republican agenda and successful campaigns to fragment the US is particularly concise and chilling: literally, the neocons divided and conquered). Actions speak louder than words, but this war of words is a genuine springboard for action, and that, after all, is
Nader's true legacy. Whatever you think of
Nader going in to this film, you will be reassessing presumptions, assumptions, spin, caricatures, chicanary and lies we've all bought into on one level or another throughout our lifetimes, big-time since 2000.
An Unreasonable Man will prompt deep thought, discussion and -- best of all -- action.
[Full disclosure: I voted for Nader in 2000, and I don't regret it -- it's one of two times in my life I've been able to vote my conscience in a Presidential race, instead of for the lesser of many evils.]*
Bamako (2006) -
Abderrahmano Sissanko's
Bamako (2006) is an amazing film on many levels: African agitprop (staged with disorienting & deft sleight of hand throughout), pragmatic portrait of a world tribunal in a pauper's kingdom, a meditation on 21st Century colonization, a sheathed castigation of the
World Bank, G8, IMF and the malign influence of Western capitalism -- once this cinematic machete bares its blade, it cuts deep. But
Sissanko takes his sweet time getting to that unsheathing, and therein lies the tale. Insistently rooted in the banality of Mali's day-to-day village life's rhythms, the film focuses on what is to Western eyes a most unusual and ramshackle 'world court', taking place outdoors in a yard adjoining a family dwelling in which life is lived (and lived out: a young man is apparently dying in a room adjoining the courtyard). This in and of itself evidences the utter disenfranchisement of
Mali in the wake of 20 years of
World Bank "adjustments" --
Mali can no longer support a single communal space dedicated to a court of law, if ever it could -- though many viewers will undoubtably miss the point if they haven't the eyes to see, the ears to hear -- and that, too,
is the point.
Bereft of even a proper communal court space, the trial proceeds in awkward proximity to daily rituals and work: a wife (who sings at a nearby club each night) calls for her husband to tie the back of her dress each morning before the procedures begin; a toddler wearing squeaky infant shoes idly wanders about and picks up a court document; women dying fabric work endlessly in the neighboring yard; outside on the street, villagers sit beneath old-fashioned loudspeakers, connecting and disconnecting the wires depending on whether or not they care to continue listening to the broadcast trial proceedings; a lanky man wearing sunglasses checks his book and screens the trial witnesses, denying entrance to those not on the list. Before the title appears, we see an elderly man walk to the witness stand to speak, but he is denied -- he has to wait "his turn," which never comes (though he does, finally, bear witness, via a song, in the last act). Furthermore,
Sissako's methodology is alien to Western audiences --
Bamako is absolutely linear in its narrative progress, but
Sissako disarms with fleeting use of cinematic devices used once, and only once,
sans the cohesion repetition brings.
For instance, he graces one witness's testimony with what could be either flashbacks or glimpses of parallel events (of refugees stranded in the
Sahara), but no other. 37 minutes into
Bamako, we are suddenly amid what appears to be an African faux-spaghetti western (starring executive producer
Danny Glover),
A Death in Timbuktu, which staggers into a black-comedic-shootout -- until we see the grinning faces of villagers who seem to be watching this "film," and the subsequent trial witness eloquently castigates the colonization of the African imagination via imported pop culture, providing (at last!) a context for this bizarre parodic western intrusion.
[An aside: this sequence consciously evokes an almost identical, but much less disorienting, passage in Perry Henzell's 1972 classic The Harder They Come, in which Jamaican audiences respond to a rousing sequence in Sergio Corbucci's 1966 spaghetti western Django. Henzell presents Django as what it was/is: a film viewed in a theater, showing his protagonist and fellow audience members in their seats watching an actual import film seducing Jamaican viewers with its orchestrated violence and parable of revolution against a red-hooded, KKK-like oppressor; Sissako's invented faux-Afri-western functions similarly, but Sissako refutes the linear cinematic devices that "properly" frame the insertion within a more conventional narrative framing device. Thus, the colonization of the African imagination is implicitly rendered with more urgency: are we/they watching this film, or indeed imagining it? Is it imported, or adopted and absorbed, imagery? The differences between how these two films incorporate similar material is striking, calculated and consequential.]Similarly, the loose narrative frame most Western filmmakers would make central to such a film -- the mysterious disappearance of a handgun (which we never see), the incompetent 'investigation' (conducted, just barely, by a cross-eyed authority who appears as impoverished as anyone else onscreen), and the inevitable shooting (a murder prompting the funeral concluding the film) -- is relegated to a near afterthought. This fringe 'plot' has barely registered, even once it culminates in a roadside murder, coming as it does in the wake of the final act's concluding arguments from the dissembling lawyer representing the
World Bank's interests and the piercing summation and final arguments of the attorneys representing
Africa. With death so ever-present, thanks to the bankruptcy and privatization of
Africa at the hands of
World Bank policies, what does another death matter, really? The villagers, though, feel the loss deeply; the silent footage of a cameraman (earlier refused permission to film the trial) dwells on a lone, ragged man -- is he the murderer?
Sissako provides no answers. What does it matter, given the explicit revelations of increased infant mortality, depleted life expectancy (now down to the age of 46 in Africa), gutting of any social or medical support network, lethal resurrection of diseases recently thought eradicated, the terrible toll of AIDS? Death is everywhere, its reign at best tolerated, at worst sanctioned by Western interests who deny their culpability with shameless abandon. In the end, it still means devastation and deprivation for Africa and its people.
Bamako is a difficult film in many ways, but its beguiling pacing and imagery casts its own spells until the more overt political agenda of the film asserts itself with increasing clarity. The witnesses are, each in their own way, painfully eloquent, none more than the embittered ex-school teacher who introduced himself to the court, only to walk away without saying a word. My only real frustration was typical of many subtitled foreign films: the songs are not translated, and there are indeed two songs that are absolutely key to the film (the song the nightclub singer sings, twice, which frames the film, and the peasant farmer's song, which is at least partially translated when the female black prosecuting attorney references it: "
Why can't I reap what I sow? Why can't I eat what I reap?"). This lapse is unfortunate, but as I imply, it's not unique to
Bamako -- I've seen a number of subtitled films that simply don't translate song lyrics, however central they seem/are to the content of the film.
This is the best
African film I've seen in years, a brilliant, angry and poetic work.
*
Brick (2006) - I've recently screened this again, though I first saw it (with my son
Dan) on the big screen at the
Latchis Theater, and posted a review on this blog after that viewing. Anyhoot, upon revisitation -- I still love this film. It's a brilliant high school/teen
noir, which is certainly its own genre (e.g.,
Over the Edge, The River's Edge, Heathers, Kids, Bully, etc.), though
Brick goes the rest better via its complete submersion, sans irony, into its universe. One must steep in the film and engage on its own terms, or you'll be lost: the language (which, to oldsters, often sounds as
outre as
Anthony Burgess's invented
nadsat language for
A Clockwork Orange), the body language, the situations and mercurial play of confrontation vs. aversion, conflict and avoidance rings true throughout, and the performers never flinch. You will. Note, too, that unlike many of this breed, there's no pop or perverse adulation of youth (usually manifest in these films via overt sexual imagery and nudity):
Brick's primary assertion -- the inherently fragile, often terminal nature of contemporary youth culture and subculture -- is its essence. Survival, with dignity, is fraught with peril, and many do not make it. It's a jungle out there, and nowhere is that jungle more lethal than in the realms well beneath the adult radar. For once, the bizarre vacuum of the teen universe is persuasively rendered, with mesmerizing, terrifying immediacy.
*
The Busker (2006) - Writer/director
Stephen J. Croke's made-in-
Boston drama focuses on a twelve-year-old Irish-American violin prodigy named
Seamus (
Alex Alexander) and his affectionate (non-sexual) relationship with
Ruby (
Ayla Rose Barreau), a 13-year-old Black girl, while while the city and family are torn with racial strife.
Seamus's father is killed in a racially-motivated shooting, knocking the family on its heels and plopping little
Seamus on to the street, busking (busking is street performing for donations via open violin case), which is indeed central to the film; his ability to transcend all this lies with a writer on a book tour who takes the kid under his wing and offers to get him into a music school in London. The film has all the right ingredients, but sadly falls short in the execution; too bad, as its heart is in the right place, and the whole is
very well shot.
Stephen Croke's visual and pacing sensibilities are solid, and some of the adult players hold their own; alas, it's stoic li'l
Seamus and 13-year-old
Ruby who do this in, or, more to the point
