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bookmark_borderThe strangest details become big facts

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

I knew a few things about the founding fathers. Most of them would have called themselves Christians, although some Christian denominations might deny them that title.

I could write a book on the definition of Christianity, but I don’t know if my interest on the subject is strong enough at the moment to do it justice. I perhaps know enough for a good essay.

But what got me thinking today was the memory of reading Thomas Jefferson talk about “the hindoo” among other religions. The idea of freedom of religion in the United States.

And what sparked that memory? There was an accusation of “anti-semitism” by a group that called the United States a Christian country.

In looking for the original article, I found one by Jewish Dems. It links to an article in The TImes of Israel.

The Times of Israel reports on an incident that others have called anti-semitic. The title of the article is, “US naval academy pulled exhibit for female Jewish graduates ahead of Hegseth visit.” Okay, so Hegseth didn’t want to see this exhibit, perhaps? But, soon we have a clarifying sentence. “Other displays featuring male Jewish graduates had stayed up.” So, the decision might have been anti-DEI, perhaps even sexist of mysogynist, but probably wasn’t antisemitic.

What does this proove? Democrats are so quick to condemn Republicans, they don’t even read the articles that they link to.

Another article, linked to by the Democrats, quotes someone as saying, “He’s always saying the first thing that pops into his head without understanding the weight of those words.” Yeah, perhaps many of us are like that. We say things, we do things, and we don’t realise the butterfly effect hundreds of years later.

So, let’s go back to the words of Thomas Jefferson. Here’s an extract from “The Works of Thomas Jefferson…”

“The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.”

“The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.”

Today, we have representatives who have sworn on Hindoo and “Mahometan” texts, including the Koran that was owned by Thomas Jefferson.

But the founders would have considered themselves to be Christian, even if they agreed to tolerate other religions in their midst.

Israel calls itself a Jewish state. Is that anti-Christian or islamophobic? If a country is Christian, does that mean that members of other religions are not patriotic or loyal? What does that say about the way Israelis might see non-Jewish Israelis?

Personally, I saw the United States as secular when I was a child. And Nazi Germany was also secular, as was the Soviet Union. I later learned that France and Turkey were supposedly secular countries, or that’s how their citizens saw them. Being secular and being tolerant are not the same thing, they do not correlate with each other.

To me, religion was never an issue growing up. It was an interesting subject, I was always interested in learning what different people were allowed to eat and not, their origin stories, their myths, their beliefs in the afterlife, their commandments, the way they might dress or celebrate important life events. It is like seeing different flowers in a garden, it is interesting to see the variety, to examine how a tulip differs from a daffodil.

Some people might see the United States as a protestant country. Most of the founders were protestant. Most of the influential Americans in history could be seen as “protestant” if you are a Catholic. But would a Baptist or Lutheran or Anglican today see the founders as protestant?

Jefferson was a Deist, and he was not alone among early American intellectuals. Franklin spent time as a Quaker, and so did many shipbuilders of the young American navy. Adams is said to have been a Unitarian, which is the opposite of Trinitarian. All of these religions have been heavily criticised by members of the religious right, the same people who say that “Mormons aren’t Christian” or call Jehovah’s Witnesses a cult because they deny the trinity. Others have problems with Seventh Day Adventists, alleging it is because they follow a woman who adds more interpretation than necessary to the Bible. In reality, their problems probably stem from insecurity among their own flock. Instead of preaching what they want, they need enemies. Just like ultra-secular Democrats, the Religious Right can’t spend long without attacking others, because they want to demonise the competition in fear that they will lose you to them.

It is like that terrible boss, who when you complain about your salary not being enough to live on, calls you a communist and tells you how bad things are in some drought-ridden war-torn part of Africa.

It is like both parties on their China fears, how they use a boogyman to get you to shut your ears to any idea that disagrees with theirs. They will brand people communist, fascist, anti- or -phobic or other -ist to dismiss something they don’t understand themselves. They will write articles condemnding others based on titles of articles that they haven’t even read.

However, let’s say you had a strongly Christian, protestant, country. That country could have loyal Jewish, Muslim, or Quaker subjects. Christianity itself could be the foundation for that tolerance.

Whether the US is a Christian country or not, what is important is that the founders wanted to protect all religions. There were suggestions that the first ammendment and similar parts in state constitions (like the constitution of Virginia) either not exist, or be modified to specify Christianity. So, yes, there were some who only wanted to protect Christian religions. (But, they had a much broader version of what it means to be “Christian” than the current religious right does.) However, the majority wanted to protect everyone’s rights.

We should remember that although the founders wanted to protect the rights of non-believers, the Declaration of Independence spoke of Deity, of “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Was it just being poetic when it spoke of a “Creator?” I don’t think so.

The religions of the Quakers, the Unitarians, and even the Deists, along with perhaps the Puritans, the Anglicans and others, all influenced the thoughts of the signers of the Declaration and drafters of the Constition of the USA. Some of these churches may have changed their beliefs, or even names, over time.

But, as much as I don’t think they would have objected, I think Adams, Jefferson and others would be surprised to see so many Hindoos and Mahometans serving in the cabinet and in the congress of the United States of America. When they mentioned the rights of these groups, they probably imagined these to be fringe elements of society, a student here, an ambassador there, a travelling businessman or a small community. The rights of all individuals were important to them.

I think Jefferson would have been surprised that his Koran was used for an oath. He might have been happy that it was his own copy of that book. If he objected to it in any way, he might have objected to the principle of having to take an oath on a holy book at all. What about those who didn’t believe in sacred texts? Where does that leave them? Or those who didn’t believe in oaths?

How many Hindus were in America in Jefferson’s time? Not many. Why does he mention Hindoos and not Budhists? Was he predicting that one group would enter significant roles before another? I don’t think so. I think it had more to do with the books that were available to him, or with those that were in recent conversation. India was under British domination, and there were probably a lot of texts in English on it. Also, the Tea thrown into the sea from the Tea Party was most likely influenced by India. The “Mahomatans” were bordering Europe, and had occupied many European countries for a time, and so there was a lot of interest in them. (And there were the Barbary wars as well.)

It would be interesting to see what off-handed comments we made today, how they might be seen in the future. Some details we give, that we might not see as important. The fact that I mention tulips and daffodils, and not other flowers, will that have a bearing in the future? Maybe not, after all, I’m not planning on running for president.

bookmark_borderTimes change, so do nations

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

I heard that people don’t read academic journals. When I was doing an undergraduate degree in film and French, I read different journals. Security, history, literary, and of course, film. I continued to read these after I graduated.

(I didn’t always find the works on the reading list as interesting as those that I found on my own. I am curious, and also an autonomous learner.)

I don’t know if what I read is true, there were mistakes. One PhD paper claimed that the United States, unlike Britain, had no Public Broadcasting. I found that funny, because PBS literally stands for Public Broadcasting Station. Now that PBS has received cuts, and a lot of good programs are in jeopardy, perhaps the writer of that paper is blushing.

Another thing that I found intersting, going through academic papers and books, is the claim how different countries had media literacy.

Perhaps if I read fewer books and journals, then I’d remember where I got all my information from. But, I remember seeing that Chinese audiences, allegedly, had less media literacy than American and British audiences. In China, I read, if someone entered a room, you’d have to show that person holding the door knob on the way in.

Well, I’d seen a lot of Chinese television shows recently, and I do not see that at all. What I do see is a lot of visual shows where you can often tell through the acting and cinematography roughly what is going on. That doesn’t mean subtitles (or better yet, learning the language) wouldn’t help, there are definitely additional subtle pieces of information in the dialogue. But, Chinese shows are great for learning Chinese, as the actors clearly enuciate their words, the sound people clearly record them.

American television, on the other hand, has been in a downward spiral since the 1990s. The quality of acting, cinematography, directing, and writing has all fallen. Only special effects have gone up. Now films look slicker, but they are not as fun to watch. They are like caviar, we can tell they are expensive, but most of us would prefer something less expensive and of better quality.

That’s not to say that all films of this century have been bad. Nor are all old films good. (Anyone remember the Masters of the Universe film from the 80s? I’d rather forget it.) But, generally, films made before 1992 are better than those after.

Of course, there are people who would rather stare at a lump of gold on a royal’s head for two hours than watch real actors act. To some people, just knowing how expensive a film is, how much the “stars” got paid, makes it worth watching. They like staring at famous people and at luxury.

We see Chinese films these days really care about the audience. They don’t waste time with tiny details, like showing every detail of someone opening a door. I wonder if they ever did. (Of course, if it is comprehensible input meant to teach us language, then go ahead and open the door. Explain every element to me so I learn the words.)

If we look at the media stereotypes of different countries from the 1990s, we see that the world has changed. Shows have gotten better in some countries, and worse in others.

Those countries that consider getting on Netflix to be “making it” tend to make the worst media. They lack the ambition to make films for the cinema, or to go viral on YouTube, and so they set a very low standard for their work.

Worse still are those who aim only to get followers on Instagram, and end up flogging all kinds of products rather than making films that are worth making it. Remember, true artists don’t want their art interrupted by advertisements. It’s one thing if your distributors put those in, but when you put them in yourself, it makes your art look like a “product.”

We now live in an age when Chinese audiences have more media literacy than American or British audiences. Perhaps that won’t last forever, but that’s the point we are at. And so, Chinese programs are more interesting to watch, for those of us who are media literate, even if we don’t understand the language. Because Chinese filmmakers, unlike those of some other countries, understand the language of film.

bookmark_borderRediscovering female artists

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

There are things I sometimes dislike about the BBC. They pretend to be neutral, but often their journalists and producers have an agenda. However, sometimes it is this agenda which helps them uncover interesting stories.

Deborah Nicholls-Lee had an article titled “‘Unsigned and Neglected:’ These artworks are by women – but men got the credit.”

Before I go further, of course we all know that women have painted, written songs, and all the rest of it since the dawn of time. Boys and girls have a tendency to create art from a young age, and continue until they get too busy or are teased out of it. But back to the article, “men got the credit.”

At first, the title itself looks probablematic. We wonder, are these anonymous paintings being reattributed to women just to create interest? Ten minutes on YouTube is long enough to find revisionists who will create any version of history you want to believe. (And long enough to find people who believe any old made up version of history, too.)

Well, it starts getting worse before it gets better. One of the sources for the article is a book called, “Art without men.”

Some of the storytelling is missing. We want to believe that Michaelina Wautier painted The Triumph of Bacchus, and we do, but the evidence they probably used has not been presented. So, she appears in the painting. Yeah, so do a lot of men appear in that same painting. She is looking at the canvas. Does that mean everyone looking at the canvas is a painter? Maybe that was the style back then, if so, tell us.

What we want to know is how the work was reattributed to her. You show me the painting, I agree it was a talented artist. You tell me that others doubted her, fine, I believe you. But let me know what happened, how they decided that Michaelina painted it. What journal did they find?

But if we sit through the bla bla, we finally get some evidence. Or at least a story. We have to sit through a lot of amnesia before we get to the story. (Coco Channel, maybe was in a different field, but was celebrated. There were female artists celebrated along the way, it wasn’t an entire history of women being hidden as the article seems to imply.) But where is the story, where is the evidence, when does the essay become a story?

For that, we have to wait for the final painting, Tomorrow Forever, a 1963 work by Margaret Keane.

Here, unfortunately, the story comes from a fictionalised biopic. (I love biopics, but they are notorious for being inaccurate.) But the setup comes from an analysis of paintings in a book ironically titled, “Why Women can’t paint.” The book claims that “when work by men is signed it goes up in value” and the article continues, “while for women the opposite is true.”

I think back to Victor Van Gogh. After he died, his sister-in-law was able to market his work to support her child. A signature by Van Gogh would raise the value of most work, after his sister in law created the “Van Gogh” brand.

Not all men’s signature will bring up the value of a work, of course. You need a story of the life of a person.

Now, I hope to find some book with good sources and references, so I don’t have to rely on a BBC article based on a biopic, but the story presented of Keane’s authorship is interesting.

Allegedly, her husband was the business saavy type, while Keane was shy. So, he convinced (or “coerced”) her to let him sign. Or to sign simply as “KEANE.” People thought it was the husband, Walter Keane and not Maggy Keane.

When they got divorced, allegedly, they couple went before the judge. The judge asked them to recreate the painting. The man, Walter, claimed to have a bad shoulder. The woman repainted it perfectly, on the spot.

We say “allegedly,” but we believe the story. We just don’t think the sources used are very good. I loved Julius Caesar for its entertainment value, but do I really think the Caesar’s ghost visited Brutus? Macbeth was a historical person, but were the witches who “visited” him? Did Richard III really say, “My Kingdom for a horse?” or that monologue about being “unshapen?”

I would like the real story about how these artists were rediscovered. Perhaps they studied the styles under a microscope, or found documents from their relatives. If nothing else, knowing how its done could help other curators attribute future paintings.

The stories themselves might be interesting. That said, my favorite artists were never the big names. They were the ones who had interesting paintings. Perhaps the artist had a relatively uneventful life, didn’t create a lot of quotes, but was able to tell a story in the painting.

A great painting, after all, is great no matter who painted it. A poor painting is poor, no matter who painted it.

bookmark_borderThere are no great writers, only great works

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

So, last year I graduated from a second masters degree. There is nothing you can learn on a masters degree that you cannot learn on your own, Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, Socrates, and many other wise men had less a middle school education. Even if we look to our own time, actors and directors like Quentin Tarantino and Michael J Fox started working without a high school diploma.

I knew this before starting my degee, so why did I do it? It gives you a framework. You can read a bunch of songs in magazines, a bunch of poems as individual sheets, but a book can put them together for you. A degree puts books together for you, and creates a kind of community to discuss them with. Who’s paying for this expensive book club with a fancy piece of paper at the end? Why do we finance these things if people can just organise their own learning?

Well, one thing a degree gives you is it pushes you to read works that you otherwise might ignore. Or, its structure encourages you to ignore details and go on to the next thing. It is like hiring a tour guide for your learning, in most cases, for your reading and essay writing.

And where does that take me? This degree had me read a lot of texts by “great writers.” Only, the works were mediocre. They just illustrated a point, and had a name brand attached. Every brand has a recall when they create a falty product, every brand except a dead writer. Almost every writer creates a dud or two. For some, like Shakespeare, these works are lost, or their authorship is doubted. For others, who release a poem, short story or song almost every week, it’s easy to find a mediocre work.

And, the AI, the teaching assistant, or the instructor decides to use some of these works. “Look, Tolstoy wrote this, and it says how I feel, let’s include it in the syllabus.” Sure, it carries the Tolstoy brand, but it reads more like a first draft. Or like the dregs left over after a great story.

We saw many such works. Some might have been great in the original, just poorly translated. Others were never good to begin with.

This is why I don’t have a favorite artist, a favorite actor, a favorite writer, a favorite director. If I say I do, you’ll show me the work he made when he suffered from insomnia, the unfinished draft she wrote when she was too tired to proofread, the AI compilation of their worst works that copies their styles but leaves out their genius.

Unless a writer only has one surviving work, then I am not sure I want to see all their works. Reknowned actor Bela Lugosi ended up working with Ed Wood to make the worst film of all time. Talent does not guarantee a masterwork, it doesn’t even guarantee mediocrity.

But even when they have a great work, there is no great work that has not been taking out of context to mean the exact opposite of what the writer intended.

And, even a great writer, in a great work, can say some mediocre, false, or stupid things.

I found a very interesting article about Iceland.

Iceland Is Reputed To Be Happy And Safe. So Why Is Violent Crime On The Rise?

Iceland is Reputed to be Happy and Safe. So Why Is Violent Crime On The Rise?

Okay, I have trouble copying the capitalisation. I don’t think that is the writer’s fault, I think the software does that. I found it a very interesting account of how crime rates are rising in Iceland. There are some great quotable lines in there, “Maybe we are bad at self-assessing our happiness. I mean, in 2022 Iceland also had the highest consumption rate of antidepressants in Europe. Maybe we’re not happy, we’re just high.” Wow, here is an interesting conclusion that still makes me want to read more.

What got me is that the story seems to be in favor of equality, or equity. After criticisng the right wingers, it makes a big mistake at the end. It quotes “historian” Will Durant completely out of context. Will Durant is more of an ultra-conservative philosopher who selects and distorts history to fit his worldview than a historian. Durant would be more in line with Thatchers, “society is just made up of individual men and women” than the text quoting him seems to realise.

Durant did indeed write, “Freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.” But, he was criticising the Soviet Union’s attack on freedom.

Here are some other Will Durant quotes from the same work which look very Thatcherite. Or even seem to scream, “Who is John Galt!”

“Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization.”

“If we knew our fellow men thoroughly we could select thirty per cent of them whose combined ability would equal that of all the rest.”

Or, let’s get to the Animal Farm sounding bit. “Since wealth is an order and procedure of production and exchange rather than an accumulation of (mostly perishable) goods, and is a trust (the “credit system”) in men and institutions rather than in the intrinsic value of paper money or checks, violent revolutions do not so much redistribute wealth as destroy it. There may be a redivision of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as in the old.”

Let’s see what Durant really thinks. “Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.”

Now, Durant and Thatcher don’t look that different, do they? If you read Thatcher’s treaty where she allegedly said “there is no such thing as society” you have a feeling that she and Durant are on the same page of the same book, with the same interpretation and the same opinion.

Like Durant, Thatcher was criticizing socialism. Like Durant, Thatcher saw education as the only way to allow true genius to shine through, making education reforms to allow individuals with talent or potential to rise above poverty.

In other words, they are either both right or both wrong.

I disagree with both of them. Both believe in the supremacy of the individual, the person, the great person. For them, the system merely needs to get out of the way of greatness.

To me, I believe that there are great works. The worker needs to get out of his own way. The system needs to have an infrastructure in place to support that work. Neither Thatcher or Will Durant owned a printing press, both benefited from millenia of scientific, political, and social innovations that created societies that allowed their works.

Neither was a total individualist. While Durant spoke of interdependence, Thatcher did give credit to many different professions, especially the military.

My point is this. Just because a famous person, or well liked person, said something, that doesn’t mean there is an ounce of truth to it. Or relevance. There may be. When we seek out great works, we might care about the moral character of the person who created those works. We might care about what they did before. But we shouldn’t trust something as great just because of the brand name.

bookmark_borderGreenwashing glamping as eco-tourism?

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

So, I just wrote a treaty on eco-tourism. Then, I tried to find out exactly when the term was coined. Sure, the idea was found by a Mexican architect in the early 1980s, but when and how did the term really catch on?

In Australia, the first steps toward “eco-tourism” were really a re-hash of glamping. The earliest mention of Ecotourism in the Australian press seems to be in the Canberra Times, on Monday, 16 September, 1991. Lorann Downer wrote an article on the Carnarvon Gorge, in Queensland entitled, “Bush Holidays for those less eager to rough it.”

in that article, the head of Nature Australia, Stephen Comber, defined ecotourists as those who “like “nature-based holidays,” and would devote time to “experiencing the wild, but who also want a hot shower and good meal at the end of the day.”

According to that article, “tourists” as well as “the industry, are still defining what they want.”

Nature Australia Inc and others seem to try to reduce ecot-tourism to a “buzz word for holidays in relatively unspoilt or wilderness areas with low-key building and servicing, and no glitz.” In other words, they tried to turn eco-tourism into a euphamism for glamping.

Now, we know that the real meaning of ecotourism is not about just seeing relatively unspoilt nature, like glamping might be, but it is about supporting a natural ecosystem, a local economy, in its current shape. It is about making a positive impact with your visit.

We didn’t find the origin of the word eco-tourism. But we did find that since 1991 at least, ecotourism has been greenwashed to sell nothing more than glamping holidays.

Even worse than that, a lot of mediocre camp sites in undeveloped places are selling themselves as ecotourism, without really giving anything to the tourist or the location. Minimalism is cheap, and tourists might be paying way too much for poor service because it carries the greenwash label of “ecotourism.”

And what’s worse is a lot of this tourism just goes to big businesses. As much as 95% of the money spent on tourism does not go to the locations where the tourists go, but to international companies that found ways to skim money off tourist traps.

Ecotourism doesn’t mean just going to undeveloped places. Rather, it’s goal is to make tourism more accountable, more authentic, more responsible, and more durable. In other words, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the attitude, the process, the way of interacting with the economy, the culture and the destination.

In other words, buyers beware. Just because something sells itself as ecotourism doesn’t mean that it is. Worse still, the media and the tourist industry don’t always know what ecotourism really is, so you might have to research a bit deeper than a single article or review in your favorite newspaper.

What we need, perhaps, is an “organic” or “fair trade” type label for ecotourism. A third party organisation that can verify the quality of the experience.

Until them, you can participate in ecotourism simply by the way you approach your holidays. You can buy locally instead of through those international websites. Buy food through local sellers rather than international chains. (If you need an app, then Detrumpify yourself might help there.) You can choose to walk places or bike, to just treat the places with respect, as respectful tourists did in the old days.

bookmark_borderMost quotable Rob Reiner films

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Did I like Rob Reiner? I never met him. I have no idea what kind of person he was. I met another Reiner once, great guy, very funny, didn’t look anything like Rob though so I doubt they were related. Also, they probably had different last names.

His career seems to have started with family connections, with father and grandfather in the business. Then he was famous as the character “Meathead” in “All in the Family.” He received a few writing credits in televion, but Rob Reiner’s best known films are as director.

I thought other directors who passed away recently were a little more significant. Robert Redford was instrumental in turning the Sundance Film Festival into an international phenomenon. He also produced films with meaning like Quiz Show. Probably the most underrated person in the independent film scene.

They had a link. They both worked with screenwriter William Goldman. Goldman wrote a few books about the business from a writer’s perspective, and he published his screenplays with interesting forwards. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid helped Redford cement his reputation as an actor, and not just a pretty face. And so, no surprise where we’ll start.

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is based on an eponymous book by William Goldman, full of dad jokes. (The jokes originated when Goldman was telling stories to his children, you can’t get more dad than that.)

An iconic moment in this film is when an assistant to the villain says, “you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The meme has shortened that to, “You keep using that word, I don’t think you know what it means.” (Do you know which word he was refering to? Hint, it wasn’t eponymous.)

Then there is, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

And if you ever get sick of people rhyming, you might find fans of the film if you say, “Stop rhyming and I mean it.” To which your Andre the Giant will respond, “Anybody want a peanut?” (It works with the accent. Yes, it depends on how you pronounce peanut.)

William Goldman should get credit for those lines. We look at Goldman’s other films, and see that even in duds like Ghost and the Darkness, there are a few memorable lines. “We have an expression in prize fighting: ‘Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit’. Well my friend, you’ve just been hit. The getting up is up to you.” and “You build bridges, John. You have to go where the rivers are.”

So, why didn’t Ghost and the Darkness work? Maybe the director had more of a TV style. There seems to be a flaw in the structure of the work, perhaps something was lost in the editing or some of the film was spoiled along the way. Could Rob Reiner have saved it? I doubt it, but we’ll never know.

A few Good Men

“You want answers?”

“I want the Truth.”

“You can’t handle the truth!”

That is like, my generation’s favorite quote. Taken out of context, that scene seems much more sympathetic to the old colonel played by Jack Nicholson than Tom Cruise’s lawyer looking for justice. If you see the rest of the film, however, you see the truth about Nicholson’s character, the struggle of Cruise and his team to bring justice, and perhaps the political view of the filmmakers.

It’s a great film though, it flows from the acting, the writing, and perhaps the directing. It’s hard to say where the best lines came from, but I would say the actors carried this one. Sorkin and Reiner worked together in another memorable film, The American President.

The American President

Sorkin is a great writer of dialogue, but he doesn’t always pick the best character names. Michael J Fox plays a character here who gives false statistics (but the film doesn’t question his statistics) and many lines are very politically oriented. (It defends Clinton’s arial attacks in the middle east, and other parts of domestic and foriegn policy in a way that ruins the pace and breaks the fourth wall.)

One of the characters has an unfortunately name. That is played by Fox. The name doesn’t seem to fit him.

A. J. MacInerney: [in the Oval Office] The President doesn’t answer to you, Lewis!
Lewis Rothschild: Oh, yes he does, A.J. I’m a citizen, this is my President. And in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders, it’s our responsibility!

How much better would that exchange have been if the characters had names that better suited their personality?

Here, I think Reiner probably helped Sorkin.

Fans of this film might remember a Saturday Night Live sketch where Bill Clinton reviewed the film. They might also be confusing it with Dave, a film by Ivan Reitman which many feel was superior.

The Bucket List

What about using Jack Nicholson without Aaron Sorkin? Then you get The Bucket List, a film about two old men talking about what they are going to do before the end of their lives.

Sentimental to the core, while pretending not to be, there is the point where Nicolson’s character says goodbye to his granddaughter.

“You once said you’re not everyone. Well, that’s true. You’re certainly not everyone, but everyone is everyone.”

You can look up the entire “find the joy in life” speech. It’s one of the best in post Hayes Code American cinema.

Okay, so Morgan Freeman gets some of the best lines in that film. But, doesn’t he always? I wonder if Freeman deserves some ghostwriting credit here, or maybe just knowing he’ll be involved inspires writers (and directors) to do their best work. Maybe he creates some magic on the set that brings out the best in everybody.

Still, I’m considering checking out more of Justin Zackman’s work if I can find it. Whoever is responsible for The Bucket List, it’s great writing.

Stand By Me

The film about kids walking across the raillines, kind of like the Goonies or the Breakfast Club, it helped define an eighties genre that seemed to die in the eighties.

I think The Goonies was one of the films that destroyed that genre.

Some quotes look like they could have come from an inferior film, like the Goonies:

“Hey, at least now we know when the next train was due.”

Funny, but it does take us up a level.

Teddy: This is my age! I’m in the prime of my youth, and I’ll only be young once!
Chris: Yeah, but you’re gonna be stupid for the rest of your life.

Still, I think other films were a little more innocent, a little less crude. Yes, we all know twelve year olds who swear and talk like that.

Reinman was a good director. Perhaps not the best, but he was still working. It’s a shame that his life ended that way.

Misery

Goldman was probably Reiner’s greatest screenwriter (although as I said before, I am still looking for more films by Zackman, who may well be underrated. And even if his other films weren’t hits, maybe the scripts were better than the end result, who knows. Okay, back to Reiner and Goldman.) Princess Bride was a great collaboration. And, they worked together again.

This time, you might say some of the best lines belong to a third party, the best selling author Stephen King. But, they could have been, let’s say, adapted and even possibly improved for the big screen.

“I know that, Mr. Man! They also called them serials. I’m not stupid ya know… Anyway, my favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE COCK – A – DOODIE CAR!”

Reiner had been working with great writers since his acting days. Those long speeches, those monologues that were allegedly too long for cinema, still had place in his films.

Even if he wasn’t known for his writing, Reiner understood writing well enough to not mess up a great line, a great speech, or a great exchange. He kept good stories intact.

conclusion

If you want to learn from Reiner, one thing you can do is start by being an actor. Actors read scripts carefully, they understand what works and what doesn’t. And great actors know why things work, how they work, and know how to find the line that can look flat on paper to the untrained eye and breathe life into it.

I can’t think of any techniques that Reiner is known for. It is kind of an invisible directing style, some might say naturalistic. I never worked with him, but I can guess his philosophy. He didn’t leave his mark, he simply didn’t get in the way.

bookmark_borderDid they find Adolf Hitler’s DNA?

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Adolf Hiter, also known as The Furher, is one of the best known figures of history. Although Adolf died a lifetime ago, people still write books about The Fuhrer as if she only died recently.

A new story blasted all over the internet is that someone found Adolf Hitler’s DNA, and it is amusing a lot of people with the results.

Some of the alleged findings is that the DNA proves that he is 100 percent Austrian German, that she had genes that might lead to autism, and that she had genes that might have stunted her physical development.

This discovery, however, is suspect. First, the doctor who supposedly tested the DNA is the father of the most infamous living hoaxer, Borat himself. Now, just because your son plays Ali G, a North African dictator, and all kinds of other characters pretending to be real, that alone doesn’t make you a hoaxer. But it is enough to cast doubt on your intentions. The results are the kinds that would draw humor, so it seems like a Borat thing to do.

The next part is that people are pretending like it is doubtlessly Hitler’s DNA. We recently heard that people doubted that skull fragments which were claimed to be Hitler’s actually belonged to the leader of the third Reich. Why? Because it was a “woman’s skull.” Well, why not just refer to Adolf as “she” then?

Well, if the skull, which matches dental records, is doubted, then why should a patch of blood found in a bunker be considered sacrosant? When was this patch of blood collected, and by who?

Supposedly, this patch was taken by an American soldier. The nationality of the soldier is important here. Hitler was cremated, and it seems all evidence of her physical body were destroyed. Soon, the Soviet Union moved in. They took control of evidence of Adolf Hitler’s death, but it is doubtful they would leave things that could be considered relics which would further the cult of the fuhrer. The Americans didn’t move in until much later, so there were plenty of opportunities for any couch to be contaminated by the blood of others by the time an American soldier could take a sample.

It could have easily been the DNA of a relative. Hitler’s relatives would have had more access to the bunker than we might think. We see with other dictators, from Napoleon to Castro, that their closest confidants were close relatives. Hitler may have had a secret half brother who had access to the compound and bled there.

Third, it is hard to imagine Hitler sitting down or lying down to shoot herself. Did the Fuhrer actually die on a couch? Maybe, but it is hard to believe.

Fourth, it is difficult to believe that Adolf Hitler had genes for autism. If the DNA proves that Hitler was female, perhaps she had recessive genes for some of these traits. But Adolf Hitler did not act autistically.

What motivation would someone have for making this stuff up? Not much. Perhaps it is not a hoax. Perhaps it is just a possibility being portrayed as a certainty. However, the most famous autistic individual in the world does have a lot of enemies. There are reasons someone might create a false similarity with Hitler to create more hatred toward Elon Musk.

And, of course, all these details are more interesting than just proving the ancestry of an individual. When people found out that Richard III seemed to really have a spinal problem, that made the news. Had they only proved that Richard was related to others in his family tree, it would have been less interesting.

The question is, why were all these details revealed? Would they tell us if Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Albert Einstein, Pocahontas, Charles De Gaulle, or Nelson Mandela had similar genes?

If the find is real, it could indeed belong to a Hitler. Maybe not an Adolf, however.

bookmark_borderIs communications the Athlete’s major?

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Famous youtuber Shane Hubris repeatedly mocks communications degrees. Hubris, or hummus, calls communications the “Athlete’s major.” But Why should I even care? I followed Shane because I tend to agree with the spirit of his podcast, that a lot of university degrees are scams, that the price does not always translate into a good return on investment, and so on. But when he uses false information to support these claims, it hurts the message.

I think that a lot of communications degrees are scams. The quality of education in the communications field has fallen incredibly over the past 30 years. A lot of the professors in the field should not be teaching, and should not even have degrees. But the students are far from athletes.

As with almost every degree, supply outweighs demand. Outside of fields like medicine and education (that require a degree by law) most people do not get a job that sounds like their college major.

But let’s test Shane’s hypothesis, that communications is an athlete’s major. He shows a video of a non-English speaking athlete, probably a soccer player who never went to university and didn’t even graduate high school, who struggles with his words. Come on Shane, I challege you to do better in an African language.

To prove this, I tried to find some famous communications majors. Apparently Dan Rather, and Connie Chung are famous communications majors. I couldn’t find any big athletes that I heard of that studied communications, however. The closest I could find was sports broadcasters, who studied journalism, broadcasting or a related field so they could relate what is happening in sports.

Most athletes do not have a college degree. The NBA recently tried to force more basketball players to graduate by changing the minimum age rules, but people still drop out at softmore year.

In the old days, a lot of athletes studied medicine or medical related fields. Tom Ditcka, the American football player who starred in “Kicking and Screaming,” didn’t go to university to play football, but to become a dentist. If you walk around a town like Cluj-Napoca, you will see a statue of a med student by the association football stadium.

Looking at the names of famous athletes, it is difficult to find a single one that went to college. I haven’t found a single soccer player or baseball player that I heard of. I heard of a rugby player who studied history, but if anything university might have slowed down his career. American football and basketball are the only two sports that universities pay players well enough to entice top athletes to play at university level.

Football players, I found one who was an engineer, others studied things like psychology. Sports science would probably be the best major.

What did Michael Jordan study? Geography. You can see his transcript online. He also took math classes, more math classes than any communications student in Europe has to take.

Communications is generally a very time consuming subject. Students do not have time to participate in sports. I have taken summer school courses in languages, in culture and those in film, and each says how many hours I was expected to spend to gain the credits. Film was by far the most labor intensive short course, requiring the most hours per credit. A similar course in something like artificial intelligence would have been around half the hours or less.

At the universities I attended, a lot of maths and computer science majors, and a few language majors, participated in sports. I can only remember one film or media (or communications) student being on a university sports team. And, when I went to university gyms in various countries, I never bumped into a media or communications student.

Say what you will about communications degrees, but they do not leave you more time than other courses to play sports. As much as some of us are fans of 80s action movies, communications is anything but an athlete’s major.

bookmark_borderIt is not about the lyrics (or even the song)

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Two recent artworks have called my attention to, well, why I liked the “originals” better. No, it is not what some of us call regression, and French critics the enmerdification, where things just get worse over time. It is possible to create better remakes, but people don’t do that as much as they used to.

The thing is, every copy of an artwork is a new artwork. When we speak of the film Wizard of Oz, we are probably talking about the 1939 film starring Judy Garland. We are not thinking about the version with Laurel and Hardy, or the cheaply made animation, or the other attempts. There is something special about that classic 1939 version. It was not the first adaptation of Frank Baum’s novel, nor the last, but it feels like the authentic one (even if it is pretty different from the novel).

In the same way, when I recently heard a remake of what I thought was my favorite song, I wondered why I disliked it. Did it disturb my sense of the past through change? No, I didn’t dislike it more than most songs. But, by changing the voices, by taking away the storyline of the video, by taking the lyrics out of context, it made me realise that, well, the lyrics mean very little on their own.

Which song am I talking about? Walk this way, by Run DMC and Aerosmith. The thing I liked about the song was the chemistry between Run DMC and Aerosmith, a chemistry that went beyond the song itself and steeped into the music video. The way they are both knocking on each other’s wall, complaining about two types of music that were considered on the edge of bad taste at the time, had a comic element. The mixture, the fusion, the competition between hip hop and heavy metal that somehow created a harmousious oneness was quite a feet.

The remake, on the other hand, only keeps the words. That fusion of styles, that conflict, that competition and resolution, is completely gone. It becomes too serious, too literal, and it loses all of its fun.

Walk this way is not a song that says, “dress as you like.” Rather, it is a comment on a moment of time, when subcultures seemed to clash. It is like the roughest Presidential debate ending in a “I hear you man.” It is like Darth Vader finally helping Luke at the end and saying, “tell your sister, you were right.” No, not as sentimental as that. It is more like, well, maybe a war film, where those guys who fight each other unite under a common cause.

Anyway, Vader’s admission only works because he was fighting against Luke, or trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side, for three films. All that energy we expended in seeing him as an enemy makes his admission more powerful. In the same way, the energy of seeing rap and metal and new, noisy, competing narratives made the power of the two styles coming together so impactful in the 1980s, in a way that cannot easily be reproduced today.

Yes, the lyrics exist, but it is a song with a music video, not simply a poem.

The other thing that got me was the new Trailer for Minions 4. There are a lot of songs that we can listen to in the gym, because they have that energetic kind of rhythm that works for working out. Because of that, they are terrible for sitting around and watching a cartoon. The songs sound like overkill, placed in the wrong place, and actually make the action seem weak.

Context is important. Not just context of the actual song or scene itself within a larger work, but the cultural movement behind the artwork, the place you listen to the song, and so many other things.

Sometimes context turns clowns into demons, or peaceful music into war songs. Quentin Tarantino played with that in Resevoir Dogs, using classical music for violence. He probably stole that from Stanley Kubrik and others, who mastered the technique long before.

Horror is cheaper and easier to make than art, and almost any hack can make banal things scary. But the true masters use context to do the exact opposite, and make us less afraid of what once frightened us.

Walk This Way (Run DMC and Aerosmith version) is not just a nice poem that can be adapted by anyone. It is a testament to the power of artistic fusion, one that links two supposedly irreconsilable artforms into a mix that, well, is fun to listen to. Beyond the song itself, and the weaving of the two styles, there is a video with a narrative. It takes many bad things and makes something great, like taking sour vegetables and making a delicious soup.

The new Minions movie seems to do the opposite. It takes our favorite characters and songs, and makes something that isn’t as good as any of them. There are a couple of funny jokes, but it doesn’t look like it is worth watching. It feels flat, artificially constructed.

bookmark_borderIs music getting worse? Why?

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Even before I found Rick Beato’s Youtube channel, I had a theory that technology was making many arts worse, (not just music, but especially music.)

However, unlike Beato, I think the downward slide began over 100 years ago, perhaps 200. And I do not think that technology is the only culprit.

Let’s summarize Beato’s theory. He seems to see the high point of music as some time around the 1970s. Still in the 60s, automation was making music easier to make. People no longer had to experiment, they no longer needed mastery of the instrument.

We can see something similar in painting. With the invention of the photograph, artists no longer had to know how to paint. Even if they wanted to paint realistically, they could merely take a photograph and project it onto a canvas (camera obscura existed for hundreds of years, but that did not necessarily create a timeless piece of art.)

However, artists reacted to photography by going in new directions. Some of these directions were worse, we no longer have true masters, paintings might be blobs of just empty canvases, and sculptures might just be hunks of metal.

Rick Beato’s opinion on why music is getting worse.

Movies also have a lot of the same problems as music. Films can be corrected in post (post-production), and many films are a mess without a screenplay and without rehearsals, designed to be fixed in post-production.

Economics leads to a lack of imagination. The more we have people from outside the industry pulling the strings, the more short-sighted decision making it. People who do not know how long it takes to make a masterwork are more likely to look for the quick buck, for a short term solution, than invest what is needed to create and promote the kind of films, songs, or works of art that last.

However, another possible problem is leadership. Many labels are no longer led by people who care about music. We look at the name of the companies, and they are merely subsidies of huge conglomerates.

That said, many of the CEOs have worked in the music industry for a time. But, they have bounced around companies. They seem to lack loyalty, to not have the same kind of stake in the individual business that most great leaders have.

Digitial technology makes it easier to fix mistakes. It also creates a lot of creative leeway. But, instead of being used to create new things, it is being used to try to create artificial duplications for the real world, and fix mistakes.