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300: Spartans vs. Persians

I saw 300 a couple of nights ago. This is most definitely not a movie everyone will like or find something to come away with. I found it to be a visually-stunning, immersing, and enjoyable film. There are moments of exquisite beauty in this movie, sometimes reminding me of Caravaggio or El Greco. In particular, there is an image when the Spartans, marching toward Thermopylae, watch the loss of much of Xerxes fleet. A triangle of men, their red capes swirling behind him, at the bottom of the screen watch a violent, churning, dark seascape. Perhaps the comparison to Caravaggio or El Greco is a bit much, but I felt at times that I was watching a painting in action. While I do not want every movie to be filmed like this, I find the use of false color or digitally manipulated images a particularly important aspect of cinema, one that Zack Snyder and Larry Fong make spectacular use of. Cinema does not have to be photorealistic or verismo to achieve its ends. In fact, I would suggest that to not use, sometimes, digital manipulation, etc., in film is to leave a powerful communicative device unfulfilled.

So what of the story? Let’s not bother to discuss the historical accuracy; this is not a movie that bothers to attempt this. Instead, I found the movie operatic in its dramatic and bold gestures, its extremes, its willingness to accept the implausible as plausible. The story is simple, but it is carried through with extreme diligence, with a knowledge of how it impacts the method, and so on. The film achieves a mythic quality and accepts that as fact. In doing so, it asks the audience to go along for the ride. I certainly did. It’s a ride I would pay to see again.

Mishima’s Sword

I recently finished Christopher Ross’s Mishima’s Sword. Some context of the story may be necessary for some. Mishima, Yukio Mishima in full, was a celebrated and controversial Japanese novelist, who in 1970 committed hara-kiri after haranguing members of the Self Defense Forces of Japan. Apparently, Mishima’s objective was to inspire the Self Defense Forces soldiers to restore the Emperor to his proper place in Japanese government and society. Of course, it is much more complex than that. Whorling around in Mishima’s mind were such things as the feminization of Japanese society, his disgust with aging, his belief in bushido and an appropriate death.

Mishima’s Sword is the story of Ross’s search for the weapon Mishima used to commit hara-kiri. His story takes him into the subtleties of seppuku/hara-kiri, the appropriate ritual associated with it, the history of samurai swords, the history of bushido with some tales of legendary samurai, etc. Ross’s writing captures one immediately and keeps one always interested in where the story goes next. His grasp of details is superb without being tedious. Ross included his own story as well. And that, perhaps, is its greatest flaw. Not because he discusses himself, but because he does not, in the end, a bit of summary. I am not looking for the Hollywood ending, but I would be very interested in knowing what happened with Ken and with Ross’s own severe nose-bleeding incident (was the cauterization the final result…no follow ups?). A very minor flaw to be sure, and one that states more about how interesting I found his story than a lapse on his end. I cared about Ross and Ken and learned a lot about Mishima and some aspects of Japanese culture.

Tan Dun’s The First Emperor

I traveled the few miles to Fishers, Indiana, this afternoon to attend the live broadcast of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor. I am immensely pleased that we now have this opportunity to watch these broadcasts–it is much cheaper than flying to New York, buying a ticket, and all the other ancillaries. Of course, it is not the same as being in New York, but I will take what I can (even if I was in New York, I still would not be able to attend the number of operas I would like…I can go to more via these broadcasts).

What of this opera? The critics have been harsh on it, and in many respects deservedly so. The introduction and interludes are the strongest portions of the music, full of Tan Dun’s sound effects: ceramic pots, stones, etc., the wonderful mixing of Eastern and Western styles. The problem lies, I think, in the story line. Operas are not known for their realism (despite the efforts of Berg, Leoncavallo, and Mascagni). That said, stretching three hours of music to basically have the plot be “The Emperor wants his anthem” seems to be stretching it. As a base story, I have no problem with it, but what the story could be mined for is left only possibility. What’s left on the table is the issue.

Finally, I often found the music did not match, “appropriately,” the subject. If I remember correctly, Gao Jianli has a line about his mother being killed. When he sings “killed,” the music falters, does not hit the correct tone.

All in all, a mixed bag. Perhaps we will get an orchestral version of this. That would be perfect.

Writing Poetry

“If you do not believe in poetry, you cannot write it.” Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, and the Imagination

I have recently finished the collected letters of Hart Crane and most of the letters of Wallace Stevens (I still have more to read). What I found quite interesting was the way both of them discussed the imagination. They were quite clear that the scientific truth and imaginative truth can be and often are two very different things. Crane often talks about the “logic of the metaphor,” by which he means that the imagination can create connections not allowed by factual, scientific reasoning. To quote: “in poetry the rationale of metaphor belongs to another order of experience than science” [italics in original]. Stevens discusses this relationship as well in his essays.

I found myself nodding my head in agreement. Not to sound egotistical, but I had often thought something the same myself, though I thought it far more imprecisely than Crane or Stevens managed to write about it. I remember sometime ago hearing about a poet criticizing another poet for using an image that simply was not actual in reality. One can, of course, bungle an image, mix metaphors because they are not careful, etc., but one should not necessarily as a matter of course place an image into a specific scientific or rational context. That, to me, does a disservice to the imagination, to the poem.