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Movies Forum Index » Miscellaneous » Rich Zwelling
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 Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:15 pm |
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The Relevant Anti-Reality and the Vapid Critic
Anyone for a little fantasy? Apparently not Adam Gropman of The
Simon, who recently published an article entitled "Movie Subject
Trends: The Relevant Biopic and the Vapid Sci-Fi Fantasy". This
painfully ill-informed, faux-polemic atrocity tells us just how bad
are sci-fi and fantasy films and just how good...no, scratch that...
virtuous is the biopic. After all, who would want to deal with the
badness of sci-fi and fantasy, with their "scrunchy, hairy faces and
wacky, extreme voices"? How vaguely descriptive.
The piece is not so much a critical inquiry as a mandate that
closes itself off from any discussion. The law of Gropmania states
that all serious issues must be treated with sufficient realism,
because realism and seriousness are, of course, one and the same. And
if we treat the article's title as fundamentalist doctrine, all
biopics are relevant (to what, I don't know) and "sci-fi" and
"fantasy" combine to form an indiscriminate super-genre. More
importantly, Gropman harbors the delusion that in narrative, reality
and fantasy are mutually exclusive and have no influence on one
another.
It's obvious that this man is just another critically
infantile movie-goer suckling on the silicon teat of Hollywood, but
that shouldn't stop us from having fun with his egregious stupidity.
First and foremost is the irony that Gropman doesn't seem to realize
how steeped in fantasy his idea of a biopic is! He rehashes a tired
aphorism: "The truth is often, if not stranger, at least more
believable and dramatically compelling than fiction." If it's the
truth he wants, then why does he cite the factually mendacious A
Beautiful Mind? If he wants compelling drama, why mention Man on the
Moon, whose point-by-point biographical regurgitations reduce the
vivid life of Andy Kaufman to a soporific Power Point presentation?
But then again, we're talking about someone who implies that The Doors
is an accurate, believable portrayal of Jim Morrison. After all,
Oliver Stone is never one for heavy-handed contrivance.
These gripes seem nitpicky in the face of a greater truth
ignored by Gropman: all of these films are Hollywood concoctions, and
all use techniques of narrative fiction to add artificial dramatic
weight. This is nothing new, or even objectionable, but I can't say
the same for the remarkably obtuse notion that there is nothing
fabricated, or even fantastical, about these "based on true stories".
Can't you just see Gropman salivating as those words oppressively
flood the screen? I wouldn't be surprised to find that he truly
believes T.E. Lawrence looked like Peter O'Toole.
I might have been willing to cut our friend some slack if he had
mentioned at least one recent biopic that offers some philosophical
depth - Capote, with its intricate exploration of the ethically
ambiguous relationship between journalist and subject, comes to mind.
Instead, Gropman cites Ray and Walk the Line, vacuous star-vehicles
that in terms of Hollywood narrative conventions amount to the same
movie. (Jon Stewart aptly describes the latter as "Ray for white
people".)
More apropos to the reality/fantasy dichotomy is the film
adaptation of Harvey Pekar's autobiographical American Splendor, which
turns the traditionally fantastic medium (not genre!) of comic books
on its head by relating the tedious banalities of everyday existence.
The film even ups the ante by intermittently replacing the actors,
sometimes mid-scene, with their real-life counterparts. It's a
startling, humorous, introspective, and bittersweet examination of
both the formalities of narrative and their representations of
reality. But even more poignant and intellectually invigorating is
its demonstration that a supposedly inferior medium is capable of
serious social and artistic commentary. With that being said, let's
see what pearl of wisdom our friend Mr. Gropman has to offer:
I enjoyed cartoons and comic books as a kid, and I think there's
nothing wrong with those forms of entertainment. But they didn't
masquerade in any way as serious, grave literature or examinations of
the human condition. Wizards, talking serpents and magic spells belong
in video games and in the lyrics to Led Zeppelin songs, but not in
huge, live-action Hollywood blockbusters that are obsessed over by
grown-ups.
Now we have cartoons and comic books suddenly thrown in with sci-
fi and fantasy to form a Gropmanian mélange. It seems that Disney's
Snow White, the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, the graphic novels of
Alan Moore, and the short stories of Philip K. Dick are the spawn of
the same evil generic womb. I suppose we can also conclude that Art
Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus - an intimate portrayal of the
author's relationship with his Holocaust-survivor father - was
masquerading when it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.
Video games and Led Zeppelin?? Are wizards, talking serpents,
and magic spells less than a half-century old? How about Grimm's
Fairytales...Greek mythology...the fucking Bible?!! I know that anything
short of militant verisimilitude (or the Gropmanian idea of it,
anyway) might prove transgressive, but even he cannot really be this
short-sighted. He also can't truly believe that only grown-ups obsess
over Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.
Earlier, he states, "I don't know very much about Lord of the
Rings and I don't care. I didn't read the books when I was a kid and
I'm not interested now. Same with the Narnia Wardrobe Witch thing".
Yet after claming ignorance, he still feels he has the authority to
say that "most juvenile literature...has little or no depth, no
philosophical exploration, no nuanced shadings or lyrical poetry
crafted out of the gray mundane texture of life." Mr. Gropman, you
say don't know very much, and for the first time, I can concur with
you. Even without reading those titles, any cursory study of Tolkien
or C.S. Lewis would reveal their uses of religious allegory and
mythological archetypes. As for poetic and philosophical subtleties,
Gropman should take a read of Madeleine L'Engle's metaphysically dense
A Wrinkle in Time and Ray Bradbury's politically cautionary The
Illustrated Man, and then I'll be glad to hear what he has to say
about the state of children's literature.
But before he does, let me address his most infuriating
statement: that fantasy films cannot be "subtle, complex, applicable
slices of reality". Even if we were to overlook the horrendous mixed
metaphor, we need only mention Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth to
show that Gropman's comment is not only dead wrong, but grossly
insulting. The film juxtaposes a young girl's fantasies against the
very real political turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. It contains
unmistakable elements of the fantastic, yet the ways in which these
elements interplay with the encroaching horrors give added emotional
resonance and a unique perspective on the ability to overcome
adversity. The girl's fantasies enable her to survive and provide her
with hope, even during the film's most bleak and violent passages.
Contrary to what Mr. Gropman would have you believe, there is a very
subtle, complex, and applicable message: our imaginations are sources
of inspiration and can aid us when reality is too much to bear. The
notion that fantasy has nothing of value to say is thus as infuriating
as it is stupid.
But such folly doesn't matter. Thanks to Gropman, we know that
fantasy cannot possibly offer insight into "the actual Earth that we
live in with its myriad issues and problems -- like for instance, full
gravity, the existence of only one species of biped creatures that
talk and the absolute absence of magic." I guess the moral here is
that we should judge our films based on scientific verity. By the
way, I never knew that gravity was a problem. Much less full
gravity. And I'm troubled by that pressing issue of biped creatures
that talk.
But ultimately, I just have to feel sorry for our poor friend,
who doesn't seem to grasp that exaggerating, distorting, or even
departing reality might allow for a kind of psychic liberation, a
unique possibility for discerning aspects of our reality that might
otherwise elude us. Or maybe...just maybe...viewers are looking at the
sugar-coating of Hollywood biopics - the Cinderella Mans, the Kinseys,
the Fridas - and deciding that if they are going to be fed fantasy,
they might as well demand the real thing.
Regardless, let's not lose sight of my most important point:
Gropmania is in dire need of an anti-reality check. |
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