Monday, November 14, 2005
Having said at the outset that I was likely to use this blog as a medium for discussion of political issues, let me immediately exercise editorial prerogative to discuss something that is, at most, indirectly political: movies.
The weekend before last, we went to see "Shopgirl." It has been widely promoted and greatly anticipated, presumably because the public at large is intrigued about the possiblity that an actor known mostly for buffoonery could write something "profound," although it is likely that fewer than one percent of those who will see the movie -- myself included -- have actually read Martin's novella from which the movie is drawn. Beware the "novella." At one time an art form of its own, particularly in Europe, in contemporary letters it more likely signifies "Lacked sufficient ideas to make a full book of it."
The movie is painful in any number of ways, starting with "dull." You sit there for close to two hours waiting for something to happen. Martin's voice-over narration substitutes for action. For Martin, writing the book (pardon me, "novella") was probably cathartic, allowing him to express much about himself, or his fantasies, without calling it autobiography. Making the movie seems to have been an excuse for doing a lot of scenes in bed with a nearly naked Claire Danes. There is nothing wrong with that objective; many 50+ plus men would embrace it. But even a lot of it can't make shepherd's pie out of sheep dip.
Martin's character is deviously manipulative, ego-centric if not outright narcissistic. He is so slick that you might be tempted to root for his transformation, but the chilling reality is that he has even co-opted his therapist into supporting his exploitative behavior. It is an indictment of the entire therapy industry.
Danes's character, Mirabelle, for her part, is liberated but naive, and so insecure about her sexuality that she establishes, even before Martin's alter ego, Ray Porter, arrives, that she is willing to succumb even without a plausible reason for attraction. She swallows Ray's act hook, line and sinker, even as he flippantly and extemporaneously -- or did he really intend it? -- insults her in a way that is, frankly, brutish. It is, therefore, painful to watch.
And, in the end, there is no redemption. Martin's narrator would tell us that Ray experiences moments of pain, but it is the pain of separation, not of remorse, and -- with his mansions in Seattle and the Hollywood Hills, three-bedroom apartment in New York, and private jet -- you doubt that he really misses Mirabelle very much.
Meanwhile, the pain of spending $9 for a ticket to watch this tripe is very palpable.
Next: Something positive to say.
The weekend before last, we went to see "Shopgirl." It has been widely promoted and greatly anticipated, presumably because the public at large is intrigued about the possiblity that an actor known mostly for buffoonery could write something "profound," although it is likely that fewer than one percent of those who will see the movie -- myself included -- have actually read Martin's novella from which the movie is drawn. Beware the "novella." At one time an art form of its own, particularly in Europe, in contemporary letters it more likely signifies "Lacked sufficient ideas to make a full book of it."
The movie is painful in any number of ways, starting with "dull." You sit there for close to two hours waiting for something to happen. Martin's voice-over narration substitutes for action. For Martin, writing the book (pardon me, "novella") was probably cathartic, allowing him to express much about himself, or his fantasies, without calling it autobiography. Making the movie seems to have been an excuse for doing a lot of scenes in bed with a nearly naked Claire Danes. There is nothing wrong with that objective; many 50+ plus men would embrace it. But even a lot of it can't make shepherd's pie out of sheep dip.
Martin's character is deviously manipulative, ego-centric if not outright narcissistic. He is so slick that you might be tempted to root for his transformation, but the chilling reality is that he has even co-opted his therapist into supporting his exploitative behavior. It is an indictment of the entire therapy industry.
Danes's character, Mirabelle, for her part, is liberated but naive, and so insecure about her sexuality that she establishes, even before Martin's alter ego, Ray Porter, arrives, that she is willing to succumb even without a plausible reason for attraction. She swallows Ray's act hook, line and sinker, even as he flippantly and extemporaneously -- or did he really intend it? -- insults her in a way that is, frankly, brutish. It is, therefore, painful to watch.
And, in the end, there is no redemption. Martin's narrator would tell us that Ray experiences moments of pain, but it is the pain of separation, not of remorse, and -- with his mansions in Seattle and the Hollywood Hills, three-bedroom apartment in New York, and private jet -- you doubt that he really misses Mirabelle very much.
Meanwhile, the pain of spending $9 for a ticket to watch this tripe is very palpable.
Next: Something positive to say.
# posted by JGB @ 8:39 AM 
