Friday, October 28, 2005

turner classic movies and animé

this just in, from nathaniel:

Professor Kirby,
I remember you talking about Spirited Away in class earlier in the semester and wanted to point out this article to you:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=7677
As an avid anime fan, I think this is great news. Not only will many people be able to see these films if they haven't already, but it could mean a boost for the general population's perception of legitimacy toward the animation medium. What do you think about this development?

well, i think it's great. TCM has a lot of oomph in the TV world, and whatever it acquires will see frequent airing. and miyazaki is, simply put, a genius. one of the great film-makers alive today. i believe that the first and third places on japan's list of top-grossing films -- *ever* -- are held by his SPIRITED AWAY and PRINCESS MONONOKE [#2 is, i fear, our very own TITANIC].

watching SPIRITED AWAY is truly a wondrous experience. when i saw it, i felt that the genre of cinema had actually advanced. there were times when i looked at the animation and just had to nudge myself to remember that it was, in fact, *animation* and not photography. and it's not because it's 'trompe l'oeil' realism; it transcends that entirely, somehow. chalk it up to miyazaki's particular magic.

but we're not just talking about technical mastery here. he also has a sense of the *tale*, of what it takes in terms of plot and character to make a truly superb film. i submit to you that SPIRITED AWAY is an instantiaion of the monomyth -- though, as in THE WIZARD OF OZ, the monomyth hero is a young girl.

in any case, nathaniel is spot-on about the genre of anime' receiving a big boost -- both from the very work of miyazaki, and from TCM's wholeheartedly embracing these films from studio ghibli. it will be interesting to see how many more americans know of them in a year's time.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

joss whedon's FIREFLY and SERENITY

à propos of our conversation in class today -- this just in, via email:

I was just wondering what you thought of Serenity/Firefly the TV series if you saw either of them.

as it happens, i saw the film as soon as it came out -- having already viewed the entire TV series on DVD from the public library.

as you can probably guess from that, i think it's brilliant. i'm very impressed with whedon's creativity. it may be a bit too difficult or challenging for the average viewer, for whom [particularly in the case of television] material is often pitched at the lower end of the middle of the spectrum. remember, from the point of view of a sponsor, a TV show is just a way to get the viewer to watch their commercials. if the viewer is put off in any way -- including because s/he is confused -- one risks having h/er turn the TV off -- which is, from a sponsor's point of view, fatal.

i do *not* get the sense that whedon sacrificed his art on the altar of commerce. at least not in the making of the TV series. those shows are edgy and creative and transgressive of boundaries, in a number of healthy ways. those i know who have made it through the whole series [including the pilot, which -- perversely -- was *not* shown before the other episodes] find themselves playing the 'which FIREFLY character is your favorite?' this, of course, is related to our monomyth template [item #10, 'identification']: one is far less likely to identify with a character one doesn't resonate with and care about. but whedon has succeeded in creating a whole shipful of characters with whom one tends to engage strongly, and about whom one tends to have intense opinions. that is a measure of his success.

the film, i think, differs in some predictable ways from the TV show. [1] its production values are of course higher, which reflects the bigger budget whedon had to work with. [2] it can't assume a narrative arc of many hours, the way a [putatively] season-long series can; so it has to offer a potted history of the situation for the viewer who has no prior exposure. [3] the film is measurably more *violent* than the TV series -- a reflection of the fact that, when it comes to cinema, violence sells.

whedon's shows don't seem to be the most easily-marketable material, but this may just be an index of their ingenuity and originality: the classic 'ahead-of-his-time' syndrome. i remind you of the poster that was made in the 18th century, advertising an upcoming organ recital: 'please come to the such-and-such kirche this sunday at 4 pm to hear an organ recital by johann bach. herr bach is an accomplished organist and also a very passable composer.' artists, that is, are often not recognized or fully appreciated during their own lifetimes.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

KHALEPA TA KALA

thanks to nathaniel who pointed me to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_phrases

for a handy [though very cursory] list of greek phrases. the beginnings of a greek *bartlett's familiar quotations*, if you will.

at nathaniel's encouragement, i created a wikipedia account for myself, and added my first edit of a wiki article. nathaniel had pointed out that there was no entry for khalepa ta kala; this simply would not do.

thanks moreover to matt, who had emailed separately asking for the precise citation for this proverb in plato. as you'll see from the wiki page, i've located it in book 4 of the *republic* [stephanus page 435c, at the very end of that section; he calls it to legomenon, i.e., a 'saying' -- a synonym for gnômê or 'proverb']. i'm pretty sure i've read it in the *laws* too, but i'll have to keep searching for it there [and the *laws* is a biggish dialogue].

meanwhile, this passage in the *republic* is important for other reasons: here is where plato correlates his famous tripartite division of the psukhê to aspects of a polis. [brief aside on psukhê: what is that, anyway? the 'mind'? the 'inner self'? probably 'soul' is not the best translation for psukhê in plato, as it brings with it some christian religious connotations that would have quite bewildered socrates or plato. FWIW, however, psukhê is precisely the word that early christian writers do use for 'soul'; this may, among other things, tell us something about how they read *plato*.] you can read the passage online, in english, by clicking here.

well, nobody said any of this -- least of all, plato -- was easy. but it's worth knowing. or, to put it another way: KHALEPA TA KALA.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

homeric ithaca?

here's a provocative news piece from bbc.co.uk:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4293786.stm

this is actually a brief notice about a new book, ODYSSEUS UNBOUND, by robert bittlestone, just published by cambridge university press. bittlestone's theory is that what is now a peninsula of the island of kephallenia/cephalonia was once actually a separate islet. [note that kephallenia is in any case right near what is now called 'ithaca,' off the west coast of greece.] bittlestone has put up a website for the whole project, at

http://www.odysseus-unbound.org/

he is not the first to point to kephallenia, and his is not the first book on the topic, as you can see from this web page [though most of those books listed are not in english]:

http://tinyurl.com/d4hmm

he is, however -- as far as i know -- the first to bring satellite imaging technology or modern seismology to bear upon the issue. you can read more about 'world wind,' the NASA '3D planetary visualization' software at

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/odysseus.html

another review of bittlestone:

http://tinyurl.com/9c2da

here's the fundamental issue underlying all of this: how 'real' is the odyssey? you can set aside the question of whether athena and zeus are real [or *don't* set that one aside, if you prefer], but: what about the people and palces in homer? it's not so very long ago that people would have heaped scorn upon anyone who tried to assert that there had actually been a troy or a trojan war. and yet, well, there you go. and excavations at mycenae and sparta make it pretty obvious that there were glorious and mighty kings in those places during the period homer describes. [agamemnon and menelaus? you decide.]

so the next question is: did odysseus and penelope and telemachus ever exist? and if so, where did they live? *that* is the place to which odysseus would be trying to get back, after the trojan war [and note that if there *was* a trojan war, one assumes here that odysseus did participate in it].

another book [actually a summary of three previous books] that appears to agree with the bittlestone theory:

http://tinyurl.com/aawz8

this author, gilles le noan, claims to have actually identified the palace of odysseus. you see the ramifications of such archaeological quest[ion]s? if there was a palace, was it once actually overrun by suitors? if there were suitors, was there actually once a contest of the bow and axes? and so on, and on. the boundaries between history and fiction [fantasy?] begin to blur significantly.

if you want more bittlestone, you can start by reading the cambridge UP description of the book, at

http://tinyurl.com/7cgoj

the whole book is over 600 pages! but from the link above you can get a sneak peek by downloading a 1.1 MB excerpt, in PDF format, that includes numerous illustrations and a good map.