S.E. Kaufman, author of my favorite Batman movie exegeses, has made the Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck Fox News interview either less horrifying or more horrifying, by taking out most of the Sarah Palin and all of the Glenn Beck parts and adding his own questions. Read it here if you love America.
So it bugs me when I read dozens of reviews (and yes, I know the real problem is that I’m reading too many reviews) that all start with the premise that this is all an allegory about Gilliam himself as a misunderstood genius artist fighting for imagination against a cold unappreciative world. Gilliam may have asked for it somewhat by having made a movie about Baron Munchausen and having tried to make one about Don Quixote, but still, that’s not what this damn movie is.
If there’s one thing that comes across crystal clear in this admittedly ramshackle script, it’s that Doctor Parnassus, although he’s on to something with his life-changing thingamajig, is a really bad artist. He’s sort of trying to convey something unique to the world, and he feels unappreciated, but he doesn’t exactly have his own unique creative vision—he mostly functions as a kind of mystical sweat lodge where other people can figure out their own thing—and more importantly he doesn’t know anything about anyone else in the world outside of his immediate family, and in the last 2000 years he’s apparently never tried to. He has no idea who his audience is or how to connect to them, and seems to be only going to places where there’s absolutely no chance that he’ll find any appreciate weirdos. Despite what he says about the importance of his work, half the time he’s doing what he does for totally selfish reasons or to fix the consequences of his terrible decisions. He’s so clueless about how his ideas comes across that he thinks a Python-style singing police drag act is a good way to impress Russian gangsters. And his whole magic thing requires that he be unconscious throughout the show, so he relies on a backup crew of people who actually have some theater skills, except they still can’t make the show into a thing anyone might ever want to go see on purpose, because they’re so blindly devoted to the old guy and his message; it takes a guy like the Heath Ledger character, who doesn’t believe in anything at all, to get them to try anything different (even if what he comes up with is incredibly tacky, and the audience they take it to is just a different kind of yahoos). And without saying too much about the ending, what the ending looks like to me is that the guy may finally have a slight chance at not being a total failure when he starts listening to his hard-headed colleague and simplifies things right down to the bone.
So I’d be really surprised if Gilliam, who in spite of a history of erratic productions has had a really successful career and a huge cult following, either sees himself as Parnassus or thinks that would be a good way to be. I can’t understand that reading of the movie except as a shallow response to aspects of style: Gilliam (or Wes Anderson, or fill in the blank with whoever’s getting pigeonholed as pretentious or too cool this week) likes theatrical contraptions and has some visual obsessions that can be lazily summarized as “retro”, so that must be what he thinks the whole world ought to be like. I don’t think critics have to be artists but when they talk about this kind of thing, it’d help if they had ever tried to be, because then they’d know that you don’t get to choose your stylistic tics; you do your best to tell interesting stories with, around, or in spite of them. And one thing I liked about this movie is that it’s mostly about a guy who’s not doing his best at all.
Since I live in northern California, I’m now unable to stop imagining the neo-pagan version of Holy Joe on the Senate floor. If such a thing comes about in my lifetime, I’ll know it’s a sign of social progress but I’ll still be yelling at the TV (e.g., “you dumbass, Robert Graves made that shit up!!”) as he drones on about how the “unbroken tradition of Mother Goddess worship upon which our civilization was [secretly] founded” means we have to help Ireland invade Morocco, etc.
And he would still oppose health care reform with the same excuses he does now, but he would do so while naked skyclad.
The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.
. . . .
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.
. . . .
At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided . . . Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere—three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.
. . . .
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance—and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.
This was written and published by The Guardian (UK) and 55 other newspapers around the world—none from the US.
People who are now complaining about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed getting a trial in federal court, because they think he’ll be able to communicate with other terrorists through his lawyer or start a new supervillain organization from jail or something, are among the silliest people in the world. If they were to take charge of the federal government again, those people would be terrifying, but right now they’re just silly in a disgusting kind of way. I’m not going to link to them because yuck; just trust me, if you haven’t seen them, there are people saying that. They think (or, I guess, they want other people to think) that someone who helped to organize one massive crime, and then has been rotting in dungeons for the last 8 years, is still so powerful that he must be kept away from courts and lawyers and all such weak-ass American things. Either that, or—as we heard about Guantanamo and, sadly, still hear about Bagram—if we captured a guy in 2001 and it’s now 2009 and we tortured the crap out of him and still aren’t sure what he was doing, we have to keep him until we can get all the urgent terror-related information he might have from 2001.
This might not work well as a TV drama—there’s a reason 24 takes place in 24 hours rather than being called 24x365x8—but if you think about it the right way, it could be a pretty frightening scenario. I picture it like this:
KSM: Okay, you’re sure the feds aren’t listening now?
Evil Lawyer: Yes sir, please feel free to communicate your evil plans.
KSM: First, and this is urgent, I need you to get in touch with [REDACTED]. He’s one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists—literally the number three man in Al Qaeda... Excuse me, did you say something?
EL: Uh no sir, I just thought I read in the paper a few years ago that... Never mind, please continue.
KSM: Well, you can get in touch with him and all the other guys I know at this number, [REDACTED]. Tell them you’re with me and they’ll bring you right over to the safe house. I’m sure they have a lot to tell me, and they need my instructions on the plots and the ticking bombs and so on, now that I’m done getting tortured and driven mad by the CIA. For instance, I had started a plot to plant an explosive device in Baghdad in case the Americans ever started a war there. They can go ahead with that now. Are you sure you’re getting this?
EL: Yes sir, I’ll remember every word. But I think they may have... uh, never mind.
KSM: In any case, my main area is terror attacks on American soil. I’ve worked out some of our early-stage plots in more detail in my head, while my head was under water. You may have heard of the Golden Gate Bridge. We will bring it down as follows: 1) Place peanut butter on the cables. 2) Unleash a cat with a raspy tongue who likes peanut butter. I only need to obtain photographs of this bridge, so I can determine how much peanut butter we need. The cat, we already have—I got it in Pakistan—just make sure they haven’t let it get too fat.
EL: Sir, that’s very helpful for the West Coast terrorists, but what about New York? Since you’re being tried there, should our organization now consider attempting some sort of attack in New York?
KSM: Yes, now that Bush and Giuliani can no longer shield the city with their invincible codpieces, we will strike at last. However, no offense, but this plan is too secret for your ears—so I’ve entrusted it to Larry, Bob, Jonquil, Khan-D, Armando, and BRQ/23 here. Just let them hide inside your cell phone like this. Go with God, you brave little purple guys!
p.s.
Is it a bad idea to make fun of an alleged mass murderer, and also make fun of people who are still scared of him and who want to subvert our justice system for that reason? I dunno. I take this kind of personally. I saw that crime happen and, as far as I can tell, no one else who was in NYC at that time—except Rudy Giuliani, who lives in a special world of his own—buys into any of this IslamoTerrorApocalypse fantasy, at least they didn’t when I lived there and they don’t seem to have been convinced by 8 years of Bush speeches. I don’t imagine that they like being called terror-appeasers for not having supported Bush, or being told that they should worry about terror attacks now because of this trial. People who were there already know how to be scared. The murderers made me scared, but they didn’t make me want to tear down the courts and destroy my own country. As for the Republicans, the fearmongering media clowns, and the opportunistic Democrats who help to feed the fantasy (like, unfortunately, Jim Webb)... this is all the seriousness they deserve.