Quills: Voyeur as the Voice of Reason

The Voyeur as the Voice of Reason in Philip Kaufman’s Film Quills

Manipulation in film, not only of the objects within the frame but of the audience as well, has been the practice of film makers for decades. In Philip Kaufman’s Quills (2000), a biopic loosely based on the last years of life for the18th century author, the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush), the audience becomes not just an observer but an active participant in particular sexual acts through overtly suggested voyeurism. For what purpose does Kaufman so conspicuously manipulate the audience into committing these acts? In an ambitious argument for uncensored art, even when pitted against the utmost controversial fiction of the Marquis de Sade (a man who RollingStone.com calls “one sick twist” (Travers)) Kaufman wants his audience to actively lust for things they cannot have. For this reason, I examine the transition from the experience of fictional freedom in the first scene involving Mademoiselle Renard (Diana Morrison) with the oppression of that freedom within the rest of the film. By beginning the story here, Kaufman demonstrates that in order to understand what can be lost through censorship, one must understand, first hand, what exists prior to that loss.

Before the censorship debate plays out, there are subtle signs that reveal the director’s bias toward a lack of censorship intended to influence our opinion from the start. Within the first ten seconds, we are presented with the idea that fiction is the protagonist through white, beautifully calligraphic title credits which glow in stark contrast to a jet black screen. The gentle curves of the text represent something natural, not contrived, like human nature and the use of narrative to make meaning. The color and font also work as a metaphor for the greater good of those who bring fiction to light. With the title credits comes the sound of soft, quivering breath. It permeates the darkness and gains strength while accompanied by a lone clarinet holding a single, suspenseful note. It is unclear whether the soft breathing belongs to a man or woman, or whether it is derived from pleasure or fear. Immediately we question. We want to know more. In that wanting, we are seduced into lusting after the fiction unfolding before us. This ten seconds of manipulation is skillfully designed to guide us though a difficult debate as the argument for free speech is not one without complication.

Within the same opening minute, the Marquis de Sade is introduced to us through the sound of his voice which, like the white text, penetrates the darkness; or does it emanate from it? Either could be true. He addresses his “dear reader” introducing his “naughty little tale,” “plucked from the pages of history, tarted up, true, but guaranteed to stimulate the senses” (Kauffman). We are presented with the controversy that stems from the Marquis’ writing. While the film is a “tarted up” version of the real Marquis’s life, rather than embracing his historic penchant for committing horrific sexual crimes, it focuses on the writing that reflects the spirit in which these acts have been committed. If, in life, the Marquis’ actions are defined as criminal, could it be said that his fictionalized depictions of such acts should be considered criminal too? Or, is fiction the place to safely act out such libertine desires? In these few spoken words, we are presented with the dilemma which will plague and play with us throughout the film, whether we immediately realize it or not.

With no time to ponder, we are thrust into the tale of Mademoiselle Renard, a beautiful aristocrat “whose sexual proclivities [run] the gamut from winsome to bestial” (Kaufman). As the Marquis begins this line, the black screen fades up to an even, cobalt blue and classical music begins. We learn that the camera lens is pointed at a cloudless sky allowing us to gaze upward as if lying on our backs. The frame of blue is only contextualized by wisps of wavy, brunette hair which are carried into view on the wind while Mademoiselle’s rather innocent face, with half closed eyes and softly parted lips, enters and fills our entire overhead view. Her hair is upswept at the sides revealing the bare neck outstretched before us while loose tendrils of unruly curls carried on a strong breeze caress her face. That this sweet face belongs to a woman with such a wide range of sexual desire creates a great deal of intrigue and excitement for the viewer. With curiosity piqued, we linger in the space of this moment eagerly awaiting the Marquis’ next line.

At this point, the Marquis asks, “Who doesn’t dream of indulging every spasm of lust, feeding each depraved hunger” (Kaufman)? Mademoiselle slowly closes her eyes, gently leans her head back to the left and her breathing, growing stronger, is heard once again. Because the camera lens is understood to be the viewer’s eye, the positioning and proximity of that lens to this young woman has the intended effect of making the audience experiencing emotions they would generally entertain only behind closed doors. Having been inserted into this intimate space, we realize that the Marquis’ question is directed at the viewer as much as Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle Renard appears to be in a state of heightened pleasure and the viewer, for this brief moment, is unmistakably positioned to look up at her as if we are her lover.

Why begin with this image, particularly since Mademoiselle Renard is never to be referenced again after this scene? Cinematographer John Alton says of framing in Painting with Light:

The screen offers the advantage of an ability … to photograph the story from the position from which the director thinks the audience would like to see it. The success of any particular film depends a great deal upon the ability of the director to anticipate the desires of the audience in this respect. (qtd. in Barsam, 141)

Following this philosophy, one can deduce that Kaufman acts on the supposition that the audience wants a film to awaken certain passions and offer an avenue to safely experience them. Since film has always been a voyeuristic experience, Kaufman raises the stakes by making the viewer painfully aware of the desire for indulgence through film. As Linda Mulvey says in her article “The Visual Pleasure of Narrative:”

The magic of the Hollywood style at its best (and of all the cinema which fell within its sphere of influence) arose, not exclusively, but in one important aspect, from its skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure. Unchallenged, mainstream film coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order. In the highly developed Hollywood cinema it was only through these codes that the alienated subject, torn in his imaginary memory by a sense of loss, by the terror of potential lack in phantasy, came near to finding a glimpse of satisfaction: through its formal beauty and its play on his own formative obsessions. (Mulvey)

Not only do we become aware of our own desires, thanks to Kaufman, we are granted the utmost freedom to experience it under an open sky rather than behind closed doors before we experience the loss that Mulvey describes.

With one quick twist, we learn that this window of opportunity is short lived. The Marquis goes on to say:

Owing to her noble birth, Mademoiselle Renard was granted full immunity to do just that, inflicting pain and pleasure with equal zest, until one day Mademoiselle found herself at the mercy of a man whose skill in the Art of Pain exceeded her own. (Kaufman)

This man (Stephen Marcus), whose filthy hands glide over Mademoiselle’s head and neck from behind, intrudes upon our own experience. As his black, leather executioners’ hood enters the frame, we learn from Sade that “Mademoiselle found herself at the mercy of a man whose skill in the Art of Pain exceeded her own.” The executioner has slated Mademoiselle for his next kill and our precious lover is being taken from us. He slides his meaty fingers over her exposed collar bones and into the shoulders of her dress. The corners of her mouth spasm, although her expression is difficult to read. Does she enjoy this? The executioner rips the dress, revealing her shoulders, and she shrieks in terror “Please, no!” Only now are we sure of her distress. Leather straps bind her hands behind her back rendering her helpless, as are we in the throes of this horror. History, during this French Reign of Terror, is more appalling than fiction because it rings true.

It is important to note here the finesse of Mademoiselle Renard’s casting and acting. As screenplay writer Geoffrey Wright says in the DVD special features:

Philip Kaufman … wanted a classically beautiful woman, a woman who didn’t look contemporary, a woman who had a gorgeous antique quality and he looked at more actresses for this small role than any other in the film.

The attention paid to these details is a testament to the importance of the general viewer’s relationship with her. It is helpful that Diana Morrison, the actress who plays Mademoiselle Renard, does not have a great deal of star recognition so that presuppositions based on previous roles cannot be assigned. Also, Morrison’s facial expression during her extreme close-up remains skillfully blank. As is said about editing in Looking at Movies: An Introduction, the “tendency of viewers to interpret shots in relation to surrounding shots is the most fundamental assumption behind all film editing” (Barsam, 239). This holds true with any combination of cinematic elements. With no mis-en-scéne yet to contextualize our film, all that is left to make meaning is the Marquis’ narrative. What we learn very quickly is that this narrative is powerful enough to reorder our entire sense of “reality,” which has been upended in a matter of seconds.

So, who is the Marquis de Sade and from where does such powerful fiction flow? Watching from behind bars in a prison tower perched high above the guillotine, the master of this story looks on with his own blank stare. The pleading eyes of Mademoiselle make contact with his own as the executioner slowly moves her hair and inhales the scent of her delicate neck. The Marquis’ steady voice continues, “How easily, dear reader, one changes from predator to prey! And how swiftly pleasure is taken from some and given to others” (Kaufman)! He is not just speaking of Mademoiselle but of himself, once the predator and now the caught and caged prey. A packed audience cheers and jeers with smiling faces once the shirtless executioner slowly and seductively bends her over placing her head gently in the guillotine. A body in a green dress separated from one of the many heads in a cart is passed over the crowd. Another cart of people to be executed, one looking like a disheveled version of the Marquis, are visibly distraught and sickened. In sharp contrast, the Marquis is composed and unmoved. His lack of outward emotion toward this long line of executions suggests a numbing madness.

Regardless of the Marquis’ lack of emotion, he and Mademoiselle are inextricably connected as demonstrated by the film’s editing. An extreme close-up of Mademoiselle’s face captures a drop of bright, red blood that falls to her cheek from the guillotine blade. We cut to an extreme close-up of the Marquis looking out with one eye, the other obscured by a black window bar. His face is more gray than black, perhaps suggesting a clouded version of good with a definite black and evil streak. As he turns away, we enter with him into his space. We circle around a jar of fanned black quills interspersed with two of muted white, suggesting that, contrary to the man, his writing is more vile than good. He continues to write on a sheet more than half filled using a white quill while chains bind his hands. An aerial view of the execution mob is seen from Sade’s vantage point but only by us as he writes. Humming Claire de Lune along with the children in the street, the Marquis’ quill releases a single drop of blood-red ink just as the guillotine blade begins to fall. Our view enters the flesh and blood sliced by the blade, a view that the Marquis does not get from his desk. What this editing works to say is that the Marquis’ internalized experience of this French Reign of Terror is released through writing and the tragedy of Mademoiselle Renard is, in this case, his muse, and we are active participants as his audience.

This connection between the three of us becomes a significant source of the film’s realism. As Laura Mulvey explains:

To begin with (as an ending), the voyeuristic-scopophilic look that is a crucial part of traditional filmic pleasure can itself be broken down. There are three different looks associated with the cinema: that of the camera as it records the pro-filmic event, that of the audience as it watches the final product, and that of the characters at each other within the screen illusion. The conventions of narrative film deny the first two and subordinate them to the third, the conscious aim being always to eliminate intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience. Without these two absences (the material existence of the recording process, the critical reading of the spectator), fictional drama cannot achieve reality, obviousness and truth. (Mulvey)

No longer shall we follow Mademoiselle’s story for hers has come to an end. Instead, we follow the Marquis to Charenton Asylum for the Insane years later. It is the blood, red color of the execution scene follows us as well, unifying our connection and coating the inside of a cell as if to say that the internal workings of the Marquis’ mind are blanketed with the culmination of all the deaths he has witnessed. The close-ups of eyes that first connected Mademoiselle and Sade now connect Sade and Charenton’s laundress, Madeleine LeClerc (Kate Winslet). She slides the viewing panel on the heavy metal door open and calls for linens. Her eyes are centered in the open panel looking straight at us, but she cannot see the red that covers the inner walls. This is the Marquis cell and because Maddie is looking in at us, the audience members have just become lunatics.

This is the beginning of our time both as the asylum’s watched and the watchers. We begin by seeing limited parts of Sade, whether his eye through a circular hole in the door or his hands reaching through the laundry shoot. By the time the title of the film appears, our transformation is complete. From here on out we witness portions of the film one step removed and yet our experience becomes increasingly intimate. One example of this is when Bouchon, the executioner gone mad, is seen in his cell masturbating to his view of Madeleine through a hole in the wall. While he enjoys a peep at a girl, we are subject to deriving shock or pleasure from watching him watch her through our own hole in the wall. Regardless of our personal reaction, we have been made guilty of voyeurism and have a stake in the argument of whether or not we require censorship to protect us from ourselves.

It is now, in the unfolding of the film’s events that we are ready to assess censorship from a well-rounded standpoint. If fiction is a safe place to play out situations of vice, purging it as the asylum’s Abbe de Culmier (Joaquin Phoenix) instructs the Marquis to do, then the position of this film begins by leaning toward the Greek philosophy that art is cathartic. On the other side of the coin, because the power of the Marquis’ story results in the death of Medeleine, incites the chaotic destruction of the asylum, and frees the residents to copulate in the pouring rain, Plato’s belief that art is dangerous also comes to fruition. Even the The Bible, as a text, is portrayed as a dangerous narrative means, God being accused of stringing his son up “like a side of beef” making the Marquis fearful of what God might do to him if he succumbs to the word. The inclusion of this platonic argument asks the audience to truly examine all sides.

By partaking in such fiction, what does the debate surrounding censorship mean for and about the viewer? Kaufman says on the Cinema Review website:

I have always been fascinated by extreme literature… because it expands on our concept of what is human. And Sade more than anyone seems to demonstrate how extreme behavior can bring out hypocrisy in those who claim to be moralists. (”Production Notes: The Origins of Quills”)

We, the viewers are not left to our own idealistic assessments of what should and should not be. Kaufman is sure to make us get our hands dirty, tarnishing our own perceived halos. Forcing his audience to commit conscious acts of voyeurism, Kaufman does his best to remove that moralizing impulse we often feel in response to anything that appears to be dangerous, even fiction.

If this film proves anything, it’s that this argument is still going on today, whether through the resurrection an ancient criminal or the blaming of video game violence for children acting like vengeful lunatics. Telling are the last lines of the film which echo an earlier sentiment: that to know virtue one must also know vice. Fiction offers that outlet. In the viewer’s ability to experience natural emotions as well as exercise restraint is where Kaufman’s condemnation of censorship is revealed and thus gains its power. The audience is given the opportunity to strongly sense their own personal desire to act upon certain wants coupled with an understanding that such wants are best satisfied through fiction rather than experienced in real life. In that rare event that some person acts out the fiction, as is the case of the murderous executioner, Bouchon, there is already a predisposition to violence that exists before the influence of fiction. One is likely to conclude after seeing this film, censorship be damned and damn the author too.

Works Cited

Barsam, Richard. Looking At Movies: an Introduction to Film. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007.

Mulvey, Linda. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Sonoma State University. Aug. 1975. Sonoma State University. 23 Apr. 2008 .

“Production Notes: the Origins of Quills.” Cinema Review. 23 Apr. 2008 .

Quills. Dir. Philip Kaufman. Perf. Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine. DVD. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2000.

Travers, Peter. “Quills (2000).” Film.Com. Rolling Stone. 23 Apr. 2008 .

Wright, Doug. “Quills Script.” Screenplay.Com. 20 Dec. 2000. 15 Apr. 2008 .

Will the Real Harvey Pekar Please Step Up?

From the beginning of Berman and Pulcini’s American Splendor (2003), we are presented with many versions of Harvey Pekar:

• A comic strip frames Harvey Pekar (Daniel Tay), an uncostumed kid on Halloween in 1950. When asked what he’s dressed as, we learn that this kid is no super hero. He cranks off, “I’m Harvey Pekar. I’m just a kid from the neighborhood” and storms off with the voices of kids mocking his name in fading echos.
• If memory serves correctly, we hold that same external comic frame and fade the content to actor Paul Giamatti walking that same street playing the film’s character “all grown up.”
• A voiceover of the real Pekar tells us Harvey Pekar is also a real guy and we eventually meet that guy in a sound studio being interviewed, documentary style, by Shari Springer Berman.
• Interspersed are comic renditions of the character talking to us in bubbles, telling us about who he is.
• Giamatti thinks in bubble text at the supermarket where the idea for American Splendor was born.
• We meet the comic renditions of Pekar again at the the train station when Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis) arrives for the first time.
• Later, we get clips of the real Pekar on “Late Night with David Letterman.”
• Giamatti also stages Pekar’s volatile GE/NBC blast on the same show.
• Last but not least, we see one more permutation when Giamatti acts repulsed while watching a play about Pekar played by Donal Logue when the voiceover adds that he, the real Pekar, wonders how he’ll feel seeing Giamatti play him in this movie.

The genious mix of reality and fiction is enough to make my head spin…

On one hand, Harvey Pekar is very real. He documents his every day life events and those of his work acquaintances in American Splendor comics. He has appeared on “Late Night with David Letterman” as your average guy from the Cleveland rust belt (although he doesn’t seem very average to me). He has always kept his job as a VA hospital file clerk. Now he’s produced enough work and aquired enough fame to appear in this movie but divulges the fact that he’s doing it for the money. Throughout every rendition of American Splendor, Pekar’s reality bleeds from life to art and back again.

On the other hand, Pekar, like any artist, hand selects moments that portray his reality in a particular way. The comic story is first selected and shaped by Pekar. As one of the film’s screenwriters, he has some sway over what makes the film. Although he does little to openly display his controlled artistic bent, we get a small clue when, by his own admission, he says he has not always portrayed his wife accurately.  Pekar also relenquishes much of his control when rendered visually by a wide range of artists. That control is once again wrested from him with the inclusion of other screenwriters. At one point he fears what the film’s outcome will be with so much room for interpretation by others. In these small spaces, we can see that the real Harvey Pekar is not so easy to pin down. Perhaps this is why, after seeing other HP’s in the phone book, Pekar ponders both who they are and who he is.

This fictionalized reality becomes interesting in that, although Pekar rebels against commoditization of corporate entertainment, particularly as he and self-proclaimed “nerd” Toby Radcliff (Judah Friedlander) are commandeered on “Letterman” and MTV, Pekar has ironically been in the business of commodifying himself from the beginning. The Pekar doll made by Joyce, now his wife, is the perfect metaphor for Pekar’s construction process. The clothing is something Pekar has truly worn,the fabric of his reality, so to speak, and something everybody can relate to.  But it is his face, ultimately his identity, that is the creation of an artist. By making himself a comic book character, the visual product patterned by and after Pekar himself is what has been for sale at every stage of the game.

My Intellectual Cosmos

Taking stock, a reflective exercise often assigned at the end of a class, is also a graduation requirement. This is my first draft. Tweaking to follow… although references to ”navel gazing” and “mental masturbation” are definitely keepers.

The Collegiate Experience and My Intellectual Cosmos

This reflective essay has been assigned to help connect my Senior Seminar experience, with its focus on pre-romantic poetry, to the greater Saint Rose experience and thus my intellectual cosmos. To be honest, I find this task rather difficult. My trouble stems from the Senior Seminar portion of this ponderance. Let me first say that I have thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual, in-depth conversation every class has offered and that I find significant value in the exploration of early literary theory and the ability to measure today’s ideas by comparison. Still, I struggle to kindle some sort of greater passion for the subject matter in a present-day application that brings new awareness to light.

In my ideal world, Senior Seminar should be more than an entertaining intellectual exercise. I had hoped for a topic that would engage my passion, inspire me to action in righting some contemporary wrong and raise my own awareness as well as the awareness of those who read what new discoveries my research has to offer. Instead, I am reminded time and again, as we jest about the many ways in which poets have continually pondered their navels, that the struggle of the human experience merely shifts at a snail’s pace. Looking to history offers little more than greater historical knowledge of humanity’s slowly morphing circumstances, faulty attempts at understanding through overly general categorization, and constant repetition of these mistakes. While history is a fantastic place to begin, traveling back in time is not necessarily the best place to finish, at least in the opinion of this Saint Rose senior.

While the “official” capstone of pre-romantics study has been a wonderful venue in which to exercise analytical skills developed in other classes, I would say that the study of theory and postmodernism have been my “personal” and “intellectual” capstones. Through these two classes I have become significantly aware of and even horrified by the assault of stereotypes upon my own thoughts. I have since used that awareness to both examine and challenge knee-jerk reactions as well as my long standing perceptions of this crazy world we live in. Theory has provided new ways of understanding beyond those with which I was familiar. By studying an array of alternative ideas, I found freedom in choice and relieved the constraint on my personal identity. Of course, one could argue that social constructs not only bind identity, but that there can be no identity without such definition. It is in the understanding that boundaries are arbitrary and differ from culture to culture that freedom to make new and different choices exists. Liberated in my ability to move beyond the limited scope of what little I was told I could be, I have also learned to see this postmodern world for what it is and have situated myself within as a global citizen. Armed with my new perspective, I dare to dream bigger dreams and choose to live a life in which I am more aware of the impact I have on others as well as myself.

An example of how Postmodernism changed my life stems from examining a postmodern text through a theoretical lens. Choosing Linda Hutcheon’s definition of historiographic metafiction, I have explored the film and filming process of The Last King of Scotland. This movie focuses on former dictator Idi Amin’s reign in Uganda as experienced by the fictional Dr. Garrigan. Many uneducated Ugandan citizens who watched this film in underground viewing huts believed the fictionalized version to be historical, calling the film “real.” While this might appear to suggest the “realism” that film technology has the ability to create, the project reveals a far more disturbing picture. Intimidated extras believed that Forest Whitaker was truly Idi Amin and that they were being paid to support his political agenda. A twisted version of the death of Uganda’s beloved Kay, Amin’s wife, corrupts her image through one more Western violation of a black woman for the sake of appealing to a Western audience. Also, in a culture where modesty is imperative, filmmakers in a bind to find willing extras coerced Amin’s impoverished former poet to run naked through a party scene, essentially blackmailing him so he could make enough money to return to his family when he merely wanted to read. Throughout my paper, which I still intend to polish and publish, unethical Western film making philosophy becomes as exposed as that poor poet. By the end of the fifteenth page, there is no question that ethical behavior is required in this failed form of historiographic metafiction, one influenced by money and the reinforcement of stereotypes rather than empowerment of all of humanity . Revealing the horrors of Hollywood-style colonization and commoditization of an entire third world nation, this, by far, is my most meaningful academic work to date. My latest paper on the poetics of Anne Finch could never be as powerful.

On a personal level, what I have learned in Postmodernism has inspired me to action. I have begun to thoroughly and independently research my own possible impact as a Westerner when volunteering in Africa this summer. I will continue to diligently study how best to immerse myself within the Ghanaian culture while recording the lives of dying HIV/AIDS patients for their soon to be orphaned children. Preservation of cultural and familial information is my main goal and I wish to leave as little impact upon these people as possible. For this reason, I have chosen a non-governmental organization serving the needs and projects developed by the local villagers rather than joining forces with one imposing Western ideological ideas and solutions. This is not to say that Western philosophy is entirely corrupt, but there is no denying that, in inextricable conjunction with capitalism, it consumes other cultures at an extraordinary pace. While the study of literature has been invaluable in gaining better understanding, literature without action is nothing more than mental masturbation.

I have, in a previous reflection paper, likened my personal growth through the study of literature to a spiritual awakening; the best possible outcome college can have on an individual without the involvement of religion. I can honestly say that the study of theory and the global impact of the postmodern have changed, for the better, who I am as a person. Saint Rose initially rejected my application and, upon appeal, accepted me with condition, so it is with great pleasure that I have proven worthy of that chance by earning a 4.0. While earning that grade is certainly a crowning achievement, it means nothing but for the fact that I am walking away with a new world view as well as an eye toward making a difference. That, to me, is an end result well worth the hard work I have invested in myself these past two years.

Looking at Quills

Having selected Philip Kaufman’s Quills (2000) as my “Writers in Motion” film of choice, I watched it twice, first to take in the entire story and again to take notes. For further insight, I watched the DVD extras on screenplay writer Doug Wright’s commentary, costuming, setting and casting, searched for the text of the screenplay to read for sheer literary value, and hit JSTOR for some scholarly direction. I also found accounts of the Marquis de Sade’s real life on the Time Warner True Crime site and discovered another devoted to PVC fetish wear designed in the Marquis’ name. Before I knew it, I had shoved so much material into my feeble little brain that my ability to create a single thesis ground to a screeching halt. I screamed, “TOO MUCH INFORMATION!” and took a break. This is how I roll.

Reading Barsam’s last chapter of Looking at Movies offers the perfect springboard for this paper I have yet to begin. With graduation looming just 15 days away, that’s what I call salvation in print. One method Barsam suggests is a tracing of dualisms or binary oppositions. In Quills, that could include things such as:

• nature/culture
• good/evil
• freedom of speech/censorship

By outlining some of these issues, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, I find that the film pits these oppositions against one another in order to explore the gray areas in terms of what writing can and must accomplish.

What this film seems to want to say is that writing fiction or creating narrative is not only inherent in one’s nature, but that human nature is at odds with culture. More specifically, culture is the tool to reign in our human nature, particularly since the libertine nature of an individual is rarely good for a greater societal state of being. This is precisely where the purpose of fiction enters in and Barsam’s section on “Memesis or Catharsis” (321) comes into play..

If fiction is a safe place to play out situations of vice, purging it - if you will - as the asylum’s Abbe de Culmier (Joaquin Phoenix) instructs the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) to do, then the position of this film begins by leaning toward the Greek philosophy that art is cathartic. Departing from reality for the sake of the story, the creators want to say that the more those in power try to suppress public access to what is essentially 18th century pornography (inherent human nature?), the more persistent and even violent the fiction becomes. The idea of “story” takes on a life of its own and will fight through the quill of its author or any other means to survive.

Alternately, while the Marquis says his theatrics are “just a play,” his words are undeniably influential and carry a great deal of power. Because the power of the Marquis’ story results in the death of a laundry maid, Medeleine LeClerc (Kate Winslet), as well as incites the chaotic destruction of the asylum’s own society, Plato’s belief that art is dangerous also comes to fruition. The Bible too is portrayed as a narrative of dangerous means, God being accused of stringing his son up “like a side of beef” making the Marquis fearful of what God might do to him if he succumbs to the word. The inclusion of this platonic argument asks the audience to truly examine all sides.

If this film proves anything, it’s that this argument is still going on today, whether through the resurrection an ancient criminal or the recent blame of video game violence when children act like vengeful lunatics. Telling are the last lines of the film which echo an earlier sentiment: that to know virtue one must also know vice and that fiction offers that outlet. According to the filmaker’s, censorship be damned but so too is the fiction writer.

While I haven’t the skill for it, I’d love to address a Freudian analysis of this film’s creators. What kind of person venerates a man who, in real life (and this is merely one of many counts against him), locks up six young girls for 6 weeks of torture and sexual abuse, releasing them to separate convents with instructions not to talk about their traumas … all to make a case for free speech? I suppose I can understand that you’d want to use the worst case scenario for the ultimate effect, but what irked me most about this film is that I was coerced into finding the Marquis rather witty, sometimes charming, seductive and even logical if not completely self absorbed. How dare they make me cheer for such a perverse asshole. Maybe I should psychoanalyze myself (another approach Barsam mentions). Then again, I might get locked up too.

I’d go further but then I’d be writing my paper right here and now. That would ruin the surprise for even me (or something like that). This was an awesome place for some serious “brain drain” in order to sort some threads I’ve been considering (and to prove I read the chapter), so thanks for reading. Any feedback is welcome.

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

In Brian Gilbert’s Wilde (1997), we discover the early nature of Oscar Wilde’s fame (played by Stephen Fry) from a conversation between the characters of Ada Leverson (Zoë Wanamaker) and Lady Mount-Temple (Judy Parfitt):

Lady Mount-Temple: I know your friend is famous, Ada.
Ada Leverson: Notorious, at least.
Lady Mount-Temple: But I don’t understand for what.
Ada Leverson: For being himself, Lady Mount-Temple.

In Alan Randolph’s Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), this type of fame is said to be true of Dorothy Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) as well. The repetition of this notion (in these and other films) suggests that writers have a larger-than-life personality and high social profile in addition to the work they produce. While we know this to be untrue, particularly since writers lead much of their lives behind a desk writing about subjects other than themselves, only those eccentric, dramatic and often tragic figures lead lives worthy of having films made about them. Unless we look beyond the film portrayals, what an audience is left with is the notion that all authors must experience adventurous escapades to craft good work.

What Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle does differently is poke fun at the stereotypical valorization of the writer’s life at the same time that it partakes in the act. By creating a story about those literary figures that began at Vanity Fair and who eventually created The New Yorker, they are obviously held in high historical regard, certainly notorious enough to spend many thousands of dollars on production costs. While the film reinforces valorization in this way, the script itself is where the mockery of this process exists.

What does fame mean as compared with the value of the writing? Robert Benchley (Campbell Scott), Parker’s co-hort in the Vicious Circle, says in jest:

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

This suggests, at least according to this writer’ character, that when fame supersedes the work, the work can no longer fail. In fact, the work must continue in order to sustain the fame, but the work’s value mustn’t necessarily be of equal import. Interestingly, this character’s quote stems from Benchley’s real life and is incorporated into the film. Benchley truly pokes fun of his work in this way.

Parker’s character also pokes fun at the perceived writing life. While the character is described within the film as a “trainwreck” who “knows how to suffer,” she is called out by MacArthur for writing “fluff.” The description of Parker’s life is the polar opposite of what she writes. At a social gathering Parker is asked to recite one of her “little things,” a trifle of a poem to entertain. In response, Parker demonstrates that although she may write ”little things,” these little things are no real reflection of the life she leads. Here she pulls out “Resumé”, a poem prompted by her suicide attempt in which living wins out but only because the process of killing oneself is a nuisance:  

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Later she tells her psychologist that she only writes “doodads” because New York is “a doodad kind of town,” illustrating that perceptions are simply that. Her life is not light fluff. This same psychologist tells Parker that her writer’s block comes from the booze. Trashing the stereotype of booze as muse, he says that she is absent from living life and without seeing it, she can’t write about it.

Overall, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle is more a character study than dramatic device. Living “out loud” does not mean living an eventful life according to this depiction. Depression might be Parker’s muse but the events that depress her offer no real turning point in the plot. She just sinks deeper and deeper, the end. While this may read as a detraction from the film’s success, I find the departure from the traditional equation of life and work, glorification of alternate mental states and expected narrative form a refreshing twist from most other films about writers. 

Silence Speaks Louder

In response to Richard Barsam’s Looking at Movies seventh chapter on sound:

I find the idea of silence equally as important and perhaps even more so than sound. We have been conditioned to accept that the transitions and contrasts of sound certainly create a sense of drama, and so much is said too in the space of silence. While I realize this has more to do with music than film, listening to Ani DiFranco in my 20’s is what first alerted me to the importance of both sound and silence. I never much thought about it prior.

On her 1990 album, Not So Soft, the tune “Every Angle” incorporates sound in a way that moves beyond the music itself and into the audience’s imagination via the story.

i’m imagining your laugh again
the one you save for your family
and your very
close
friends
i’m imagining the way you say my name
i don’t know when
i’m going to hear it again
my friends can’t tell
my laughter from my cries
someone tell this photograph of you
to let go of my eyes

If this were a film, we’d see a tortured soul, heart broken, perhaps laughing/crying indistinguishably in the style of Charlie during the opening scenes of Barton Fink. In the background we’d hear another layer, a voice over of laughter perhaps muted at a distance like something nearly as intangible as memory. The main character’s name is softly spoken with that same echo of distance. In those few seconds of a single shot, we’d probably infer what is offered by Ms. DiFranco in descriptive lyric form.

Of course, the interpretation can’t end there. On the flip side, the 1995 song “Asking too Much” off Not a Pretty Girl emphasizes many of the understood meanings of silence to which descriptive language cannot easily be assigned:

If you hear me talking
Listen to what I’m not saying
If you hear me playing guitar
Listen to what I’m not playing
And don’t ask me to put words
To all the silences I wrote
Don’t ask me to put words
To all the spaces between notes

I read this passage to mean that there is always more to be said in the space of silence than in speaking. Language is limiting, as is the implied language of edited sound. This reminds us that, along with examining what is happening, we must remember to equally examine what isn’t. Sound alerts us to action, but silence often alerts to a lack thereof or a suspenseful lead up to a particular climax. It is in these silent moments where we must examine why the choice is made to include it and what it speaks of.

Objectivity: A Question of Perspective

In reference to whether or not the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson as portrayed in the 1997 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas offers any kind of objectivity, my classmate Catherine Dumas says:

Hell yeah, a lot more that the journalism that we get on a daily basis through our media. A lot of our media is controlled by some Australian dude, Rupert Murdoch.

While I tend to agree with Catherine on some level, I think we need to start with whether or not objective truth exists before answering this question.

Truth is constructed via the gathering of facts and means nothing without the connectivity of those facts through narrative. Since narrative is always written from a particular point of view, there can be no objectivity without the influence of culture whether it be race, gender, political affiliation, sexual preference, etc. That said, I say no form of writing offers objectivity. Regardless of any stated effort to achieve it (the phrase “fair and balanced” comes to mind), journalism is used to persuade the public toward a particular viewpoint.

Has anybody seen “The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of the News?”

This 1997 documentary features Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman addressing the filters that news must flow though prior to publication. Journalists are never free to write anything they want. They must satisfy an editor who must satisfy the corporate head who must satisfy the advertisers who have political affiliations. And these journalists are selected from schools who teach them to conform to certain parameters in the first place. There is nothing liberal about the process and persuasion, rather than truth, is always the end game.

One example of how this works is a favorite of mine. (I’m working strictly from failed memory so please pardon any inaccuracies. It’s the idea I’m going for here.) The film presents a journalist who published a story about the dishonesty of local used car salesmen. Once the article went live, the salesmen pulled their ads refusing to return until a retraction was printed. Since the majority of the paper’s revenue came from used car lot advertisements, the editor posted a retraction and the salesmen came back.

Where is the truth in this story?

Capitalism controls truth because the vehicle for certain “truths” can not exist without it. Granted, we have ways around corporately controlled truths these days, but if you aren’t looking for the alternative, you have only one point of view from which to form your opinion. Even when alternatives are found, one must question the alternate motivation behind what is written.

Thompson does have an agenda although we find it far more admirable than the flat out hype that corporate media offers. Thompson wants to present another (not “the” other) side of an era that had never been justly represented by, say, L. Ron Bumquist in the film. (As an aside, this name is a play on L. Ron Hubbard, and the Dianetics movement toward personal ”clarity.”) The problem is that Thompson is not a reliable source, particularly when he cannot remember, nor can he make sense of his evidenced experiences captured on his tape recorder. All he can report on is a loss of time, clarity, and a false hope in the shortcut drugs were supposed to offer to a better state of being.

Perhaps this conclusion did reflect the larger portion of the counter culture experience. Still, the story is particularly one sided. While we get the smallest sense of Thompson’s understanding and acceptance of the pigs’ fight for the clarity of humanity, their general story is wholly satirized. They are the antagonists, the symbolic boundaries that rail against ultimate freedom, a necessary “evil” in a Stuart Hall type system, and yet (if you ask the waitress at the diner or the hotel owners) these “pigs” are absolutely impotent in creating social order for the greater good. So, in this representation of the long arm of the law, where is Thompson’s truth? I’m pretty sure that we all know (and that Thompson did too), without the watchdogs in uniform we’d really be in a world of riotous shit at home, not just beyond our borders. This is why we see him in uniform at the beginning of the film.

I think what makes the difference in Thompson’s reporting, however, is the bigger picture. On it’s own, the film does read as awfully single sided. It isn’t until we think about where, in the mass collection of reporting of the time, Thompson was inserted that we truly see his value. Thompson’s story was presented in Rolling Stone, a pop culture news source that had a different agenda than that of the newspapers. Thompson’s point of view was entering into the public dialogue creating a more accurate representation, but only when in conjunction with all other politicized sources, and that’s where his “wave speech” becomes most relevant.

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

Hunter S. Thompson offers his own truth about his time in Vegas, but Dr. Gonzo’s would have been a different story. Lucy, the waitress, the maid, the desk clerk, the room service guy and others would all have had very different narratives weaving the same “facts” together. Each story would be a personal truth and yet none of them indicative of any one generalization of either time or place.

Rocket Fuel for Thought

Let me strap on my lizard tail, take a few hits of adrenachrome, and scrawl for you my musings. [Moments later…] Whoa. Right on. Here we go.

The question: Substance abuse… Writing fuel or writing substitute?

I say fuel.

Granted, the stigma of alcoholism and addiction adheres itself to the stereotype of writers. What drunks! What freaks! What introverts plagued by the pain and suffering of their own humanity! Sure, we’ve had a few of these throughout history. But really, doesn’t Poe’s addiction produce some amazing literary results? Writers, often referred to as seers, don’t necessarily like what they see. To observe the human condition at a deeply personal level can produce extreme depression, particularly when the writer sees no way out of the social confines that trap him or her. Think Oscar in Wilde. Addiction, even when detrimental love is the drug of choice, becomes the fuel used to examine the world around him. Narrative requires conflict, and those who are deeply conflicted have a great deal of material to work with.

Sometimes, when depression becomes severe enough, addiction becomes not the fuel but a salve applied to the wounds of the soul. In Barton Fink, we find W. P. Mayhew at the point when addiction gets in the way of his writing. This doesn’t mean Mayhew stops writing completely though. He simply abandons his role as sole creator and becomes part of a collaborative team.

In the case of Raoul Duke, a.k.a. Hunter S. Thompson, again, I say fuel. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas may have begun as an assignment to report on the Mint 400, but Duke’s gonzo journalism reported instead on his immersion in the counter-culture of the late 60’s and early 70’s. The difference here is that substance use (or abuse depending upon whether or not you’re in town for the Narcotics Convention) becomes the lens, not necessarily the protective salve. It is the reality and that reality is chaotic.

What I find most interesting about this particular travel narrative is that it becomes a commentary on a lack of control. Who has more control, the cops or the addicts? Let’s see…

While, the cops at the convention think they have their finger on the pulse of drug abuse by listening to L. R. Bumquest examine the advanced stages of cool and groovy, they completely miss the two offenders seated in their midst. On the flip side, Duke and Gonzo appear to be irrational, chaotic and generally unaware while submerged in their drug induced stupor. But are they? They know when to double dose, controlling their chaos through the knowledge that the ether will wind down in two hours just as the mescaline kicks into high gear. They have perfected their experience down to a science, in some ways making it seem less like chaos and more like control.

I must point out here that chaos does not refer either to random events or lack of control. According to Wiki:

In mathematics and physics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

Noting the above definition, is constructing the illusion of control a better way to live when you’re constantly at odds with what deterministic systems actually exists? Do you end up frustrated, angry and out of personal control because you can’t get a room at your original hotel, yelling at the desk clerk (”Law & Order” detective, Elliott Stabler) because your wife thinks that this is the end of the world and has fallen to tears? Or is it better to roll with the punches, taking it all in stride, and hold true to the understanding that control is the illusion? Perhaps, like Duke and Gonzo, you instead walk into the Bazooka, a symbol of American excess, with your knees as sturdy as rubber chickens and the understanding that you can’t make it stop. All you can do is watch yourself do this.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas seems to say that it doesn’t much matter which side you chose. While the film may end with Duke’s contemplation of Leary and the fall of the acid culture, calling them “a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers,” he offers no alternative and little comfort. Each person engages with life in their own way, creating new deterministic systems and chaotic effects for another and both approaches are no more that personal indulgence. In the end, the tattered American flag trails behind Duke’s car, a symbol of the past and failed ideal of control over your own destiny… a failed American Dream.

Let’s party!

Sounding Off

Having read the chapter on sound rather than film editing for April 3rd (DUH), I have formulated these ideas with our viewing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in mind. On one hand, this puts me ahead of the game by writing a week in advance, and yet I am also a week behind by missing the freshest corresponding film material made available to class. Please pardon.

I found an original script of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and have included the first portion of the first scene below. Highlighting the sounds mentioned within the text, they include everything from the wind, car tires, music, screeching bats, characters screaming, news, voiceovers and narration. This montage of reference to sound doesn’t include what might be assumed by the action, from slamming car doors and trunks to crinkling plastic and popping tops of bear cans. (Although, in the 70s, these were pull back tabs, they still popped from the pressure of carbonation.)

To illustrate what a sound editor might consider, I marked the direct reference to dialogue in red, narration in green, prerecorded music and news in blue, and implied sounds in orange. In doing so, I found it eye-opening to see just how much editing and mixing is involved in such a short span of film. This, by no means, covers the full spectrum.

You might also notice that there are several changes to the original script. To avoid large Rolling Stone licensing fees, Brewer and Shipley’s “One Toke Over the Line” subs for ,” the song that originally appears in Hunter S. Thompson’s book, “Sympathy for the Devil.” In the film, the radio stations are changed rather than competing with a tape recorder and the news station in the film reports on soldiers overdosing on drugs. Still, the following visual aid continues to provide a snapshot of mixing considerations.

FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
by
Terry Gilliam & Toy Grisoni

BLACK SCREEN
A desert wind moans sadly. From somewhere within the wind comes the tinkly, syrupy-sweet sounds of the Lennon Sisters singing “My Favorite Things.” A series of sepia images of anti-war protests from the mid-sixties appear one after another on the screen.

In the violently scrawled style of Ralph Steadman, the title FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS splashes onto the screen A beat, and then it runs down and off revealing:

TITLE:
“He who makes a beast of himself
Gets rid of the pain
Of being a man
– Dr. Johnson

The VOICE OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON — a.k.a. RAOUL DUKE

DUKE (V/O)
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

EXT. ON THE ROAD TO LAS VEGAS - DAY

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH

THE RED SHARK races down the desert highway at a hundred miles an hour. THE STONES’ “Sympathy For the Devil” blares.

AT THE WHEEL, STRANGELY STILL AND TENSE, RAOUL DUKE DRIVES — SKELETAL BEER IN HAND — STARES STRAIGHT AHEAD. BESIDE HIM, FACE TURNED TO THE SUN, EYES CLOSED BEHIND WRAPAROUND SPANISH SUNGLASSES, IS HIS SWARTHY AND UNNERVINGLY UNPREDICTABLE ATTORNEY, DR. GONZO.

The music pounds. DUKE stares straight ahead.

GONZO froths up a can of beer - uses it as shaving foam.

DUKE (V/O):
I remember saying something like:
“I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive.”

GONZO starts shaving

DUKE (V/O):
Suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car…

Close on DUKE — shadows flutter across his face. The reflections of bats swirl within his eyes. We push in close to one eye ball — SCREECHING SWIRLING BAT-LIKE SHAPES

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

DUKE (V/O):
… and a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

CUT TO WIDE SHOT OF CAR — DUKE, eyes rigid, flails at the air. No bats anywhere. GONZO casually looks over.

GONZO:
What are you yelling about?

DUKE SCREECHES to the side of the road. The sudden wrench makes GONZO nick his face with his razor.

DUKE:
Never mind. It’s your turn to drive.

DUKE (V/O):
No point mentioning these bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough

DUKE hops out of the car, keeping an eye out for bats, frantically opens the trunk to reveal what looks like A MOBILE POLICE NARCOTICS LAB. DUKE desperately rifles through the impressive stash.

DUKE (V/O):
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.

.3

DUKE, eyes darting madly as he hears what sounds like the SHRIEKS OF BATS returning, grabs an assortment along with another six-pack of beer - slams the trunk shut and dives back into the car.

DUKE (V/O):
Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

THE RED SHARK RACES INTO THE DISTANCE… on the ground, weakly flapping is a SEMI-SQUASHED, SLOWLY DYING ANIMAL… A BAT

EXT. FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD TO LAS VEGAS - DAY

IN THE RED SHARK GONZO grips the wheel - stares maniacally down the road -a lousy driver.

DUKE (V/O):
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

The radio news wars with “SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL” on a tape recorder.

RADIO NEWS
An overdose of heroin was listed as the official cause of death for pretty 19 year old Diane Hanby whose body was found stuffed in a refrigerator last week…

GONZO changes the station - “ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE, SWEET JESUS, ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE” vies with “SYMPATHY”… He sings along - washes a couple of pills back with a new beer. The RED SHARK fishtails.

Gonzo Editing

(This week’s observations stem from Richard Barsom’s Looking at Movies, “Chapter 6: Editing,” a viewing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and a personal account of family feud.)

I’m fascinated by the ways we, as humans, make meaning from images. Whether presented on their own, in a pair or a group, the story often changes when contextualized by what surrounds that central image. If anyone has ever done scrapbooking, you know that three well placed images on a page, and not necessarily in chronological order, can epitomize an entire event, whether it be a child’s birthday party, a wild night out on the town, or a child’s wild birthday night out on the town.

Welcome to the opening montage of Terry Gilliam’s 1998 film, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. A series of black and white images flashes before us: a helicopter, a Vietnam protest, and other faded war time images alternating with a repeated black screen covered with thick, wet and vibrant spattered blood. We immediately think of fresh death, destruction and civil unrest.

Once in that frame of mind, we’re hit with the jarring contrast of a long shot showing a pristine, cherry red convertible flying down the straight and narrow highway. Who is driving? Cut to a humorous image of drug induced driver/journalist, Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and passenger/lawyer, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro). We not only see the main characters, and I do mean characters, we also enter their LSD induced world as our view of them is contorted through the distortion of a fish eye and barrel lens. Next, Duke repels his invisible bat hallucinations with a fly swatter. The scene then cuts to a real bat casualty lying dead in the road. The audience has just left their own sense of reality and specifically entered that of Duke’s. Welcome to the 70’s.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas employs some seriously interesting editing, particularly in the drug scenes. At the same time, because the images are so surreal, it becomes difficult to find the faults. I read the two following facts at IMDb.com:

• Just before Dr. Gonzo pulls out the hunting knife room service sent up, Duke’s sunglasses instantaneously change from the purple-tinted pair that he wore in the previous scene to the yellow-tinted ones he wears throughout most of the film.
• In the scene in the Mint bar at the beginning of the movie, Duke inspects Gonzo to make sure he is not a monster. In the medium close-up, he turns his right shoulder towards the camera, while it should be his left shoulder like in the full shots.

While each might read as a product of the film’s constructed hallucinations, the sunglasses glitch is probably the easier of the two to gloss over upon first viewing. The second, a break in continuity in regard to human positioning, is something we are more likely to pick up on since our constant assessment of body language is second nature and important to our social survival.

***

On a more personal note, I learned a great deal about the importance of editing this past Christmas. My husband and I paid to have 8 reels of 8 mm family films transferred to DVD prior to their disintegration. The years spanned from 1947 through 1968 and it was a treasure-trove of lost footage unseen for decades. I couldn’t wait to share copies of it with Tim’s six siblings. Until…

The running joke in my newly acquired family is that the oldest brother Walter has always been his father’s favorite. (Let’s just call this brother Walter for this public post - as in the fictional Walter Mitty, who, according to Wiki is “a meek, mild man with a vivid fantasy life: in a few dozen paragraphs he imagines himself a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, and a devil-may-care killer.”) Walter can do no wrong and his father holds everyone to this standard. Unfortunately, viewing the video rendered the joke painfully true. Every scene involved Walter in some way, even if it was just him shoveling the walk for 7 minutes. When holding his newborn twin siblings, the camera’s focus was on Walter’s face. One full reel was dedicated to Walter’s scout campout, an event that involved his entire family yet featured only their backs as they all watched Walter. “Look! There’s Walter waterskiing! There’s Walter fishing! Aw, Walter is on the ferry. Look how cute.”

I think Walter, viewing with everyone from the family patriarch down to the youngest grandchild, was ready to crawl under the couch. At 6 feet 2 inches, not only would this have been an amazing trick, it would have backfired by drawing more attention to what else Walter can do exceptionally well. Additionally, If his father then had his way, all of us would have had to crawl in under the couch following Walter’s example… and I just don’t think twenty three of us could fit under there.

So, since this year’s holiday drama was inspired by my failed attempt to bring joyful memories to the forefront (welcome to the family), I have begun to edit the series in order to offer equal sibling representation and far less boring detail for next year’s gift. Perhaps this will heal the reinforced rift that some initial editing could have nipped in the bud.

Under these circumstances, cutting the average twenty feet of film for every minute seen sounds about right, although more could be required. I also find that the ellipses that occurs when I use my software’s dissolve feature “gracefully” suggests the passing of time while disguising my attempt at revisionist history. Another interesting and unexpected effect is that the music, which I can’t seem to replace, creates a new and interesting soundtrack with each overlap of the dissolve. Maybe I’ll try some different match cuts and wipes just to shake things up a bit. Maybe a split scene could show the constant images of Walter in the third panel while everyone else occupies the first two. Then again, calming effects are probably more appropriate for this project. The good news is that, since the editor is that person behind the scenes who tends to fade intothe likes of Hunter S. Thompson’s ether, perhaps my family faux pas will do so as well.