Category Archives: Film

Art, Faith, Film

Brad Birzer: Your Faithful Guide Through Mythic Realms

Mythic Realms
The prolific Dr. Birzer’s latest tome

Angelico Press has just published a new book by Bradley Birzer (where does he find the time to write all these wonderful works?) entitled Mythic Realms: The Moral Imagination in Literature and Film, and it is an unabashed love letter to everything that is good in contemporary American popular culture. I’m sure some of you are spluttering, “Everything that is good in American culture? There’s nothing good there!” Dr. Birzer would beg to differ, and for that we can all give thanks.

A quick look at the Table of Contents gives the reader a sense of the scope of Birzer’s loves. Here are just a few examples:

On Loving Libraries
An American Greatness: Willa Cather’s Oh Pioneers!
The Dark Virtues of Robert E. Howard
Romance After Tolkien?
The Audacity of Frank Miller
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Batman on Film, Part I: Bruce Timm’s Animated Series
Steven Wilson’s Hand.Cannot.Erase: An Incarnational Whole

Clearly, his interests range far and wide! How many scholars can write intelligently on such disparate topics as The Inklings, Steven King, Russell Kirk, Alfred Hitchcock, a Batman animated series, and the prog rock wunderkind Steven Wilson?

But what makes Mythic Realms so much fun is Birzer’s infectious enthusiasm. When he gets going on a film or writer that he loves, he’s like a kid in a candy shop, and the reader can’t help but smile and join in. Take this example from his chapter on the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight Trilogy:

“In Nolan’s expert hands, Batman becomes what he always meant to be: an American Odysseus, an American Aeneas, and American Arthur, an American Beowulf, and an American Thomas More….Batman resonates with us because he is the best of us and the best of what came before us. Bruce Wayne is the embodiment of western virtue and heroism.”

Wow, that’s quite a claim, but Birzer makes an excellent case for it. After reading his in-depth analysis of Nolan’s trilogy, I came away having learned many fascinating behind-the-scenes facts, as well as gaining a greater appreciation for Nolan’s vision of Batman as another enduring chapter in western civilization’s mythos – oops, I mean Mythic Realms.

I also was introduced to a great American novelist of whom I knew next to nothing: Willa Cather. Birzer devotes two chapters to this underappreciated writer, and I hope other readers will take the plunge and immerse themselves in her delightful world of the American frontier. As he notes, “The Great Plains unveil treasure after treasure to those who explore. The same is true of Cather’s novels.” Birzer fittingly compares her painstaking craft of novel writing to Steve Jobs’ attention to detail when designing Apple products.

One of my favorite chapters is Birzer’s tribute to John Hughes. I have long thought his run of coming-of-age movies set and filmed the 1980s was one of the most brilliant series of movies ever made. Hopefully, Birzer’s thoughtful tribute to Hughes will spark a reassessment of this overlooked writer/director/producer.

Not many cultural critics can write credibly and engagingly on writers such as Ray Bradbury, J. R. R. Tolkien, Willa Cather, comic book writer/artists Frank Miller and Alan Moore, film directors like Hitchcock, Nolan, and Hughes, let alone TV series such as Star Trek and Stranger Things, and THEN pull them together to make a deeply meaningful point: that even in lowly pop culture, truth, beauty, and transcendent Christian morality can be found. Birzer does it, again and again. That’s the joy of this book – discovering eternal truths in the most unlikely places.

The last chapter, Oh, White Lady: Faith as a Struggle begins with Birzer’s personal confession of his struggle during his youth to see anything except hypocrisy in organized religion in general and Roman Catholicism in particular. But through the example of devout friends and a growing appreciation for the role Mary, the Theotokos, has played in history throughout the world, he returned to his faith. It’s a fitting finale to a wild ride through Mythic Realms. After all, how does the old saying go? “All roads lead to….”

Art, Film

Friendship and Star Trek

1 Comment

As young children, my older brother and I watched the original Star Trek series on Saturday mornings.  We weren’t big TV watchers as a family, but Star Trek was special.  To make it even better, it was the local PBS that aired Star Trek, presenting it free of all commercials. 

Every Saturday, Todd and I awoke very early and watched the rerun for that week.  This would have been around 1975, almost a decade after the show first aired.  After each episode, Todd and I would talk, always mesmerized by the possibilities of space, life, and a billion other things.  How much of the galaxy had this crew explored?  Were they the modern Lewis & Clark?  What happened when someone transported from one place to another?  How smart were the computers?  Were the Klingons the Soviets and the Romulans the Chinese?  Or, maybe the other way around?  Why did we only see the military aspects of Starfleet?  What about the colonists, the pioneers?  How did time travel work?  If the Enterprise found itself sent back to Earth, why did it happen to arrive the same year the show was being filmed.

Pretty serious stuff for an eight year old sitting with his much admired thirteen year old brother. 

I had no idea at the time, but the show’s founder and creator, Gene Roddenberry had actually described Star Trek as a “wagon train to the stars” when he first shopped it to studios.  It would be set, though, on the space equivalent of an aircraft carrier, a mobile community as diverse as Gunsmoke’s Dodge City, he continued in his show treatment.  The crew, roughly 203 of them, would be as diverse as possible, asserting that racial prejudice and ethnic strife would be things of the past in the non-specified time of Star Trek.  Only later did the show writers decide it took place in the 2260s.  From its beginning, however, Roddenberry’s Star Trek represented a brash Kennedy-esque liberalism, a confidence that America could teach the world the principles of civilization, tolerance, and dignity.  [Sources: Whitfield and Roddenberry, THE MAKING OF STAR TREK (1968); and Paul Cantor, Gilligan Unbound (2003) and The Invisible Hand of Popular Culture (2012)]

And yet, this wouldn’t be merely a western in space.  Roddenberry recruited some of the finest science fiction and horror talent available in the 1960s including D.C. Fontana; David Gerrold; Robert Bloch; Samuel Peeples; Richard Matheson; Theodore Sturgeon; and Harlan Ellison. 

Though much of Star Trek now appears campy, especially with its poor attempts at humor and terrible costumes (especially for the aliens), there’s no doubt the team making the show took science fiction and its ideas very seriously.  Themes of natural rights, equality, imperialism, personality, racism, religion, history, culture, and much else important in life appeared throughout the original 79 episodes.  It must be noted, though, that I don’t remember my young self thinking poorly of the special effects. 

Sharing my favorite scene—Kirk fighting a gorn—proved way too much for my kids.  Dad, my oldest daughter asked, “why is Captain Kirk fighting a guy in a rubber suit?”

And, of course, my brother and I loved all of the fight scenes.  Who wouldn’t want to follow Kirk into battle?  The guy was made for serious leadership.  Plus, the over the top fight music was simply incredible.  I can still recall the entire theme instantly, while poorly visualizing the yellow-shirted Kirk kicking, punch, and rolling.  I’m really not sure how many times I tried to perfect Kirk’s jump kick maneuver as a child.  It’s amazing I’m not more damaged than I am.  Thank the good lord I only tried it upon invisible and imagined foes.  I wasn’t so fortunate when it came to the Vulcan nerve pinch.  Practice with this—especially after sneaking up on members of my family and trying it—really only resulted in sore muscles and hurt feelings.

When it came down to the quick of it all, though, it was the interaction of the personalities—the characters of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty, especially—on the show that meant so much to us. 

Star Trek demonstrated, over and over, I think, that real heroism comes not from individualism, but from friendship.  These guys on that little screen not only loved one another, but they each bettered the other.  Spock needed Kirk, and Kirk needed McCoy.  McCoy needed. . . well, everyone.

When Star Wars came out in 1977, I loved it.  But, in no way did it compare to Star Trek, at least to my way of thinking.  I knew that Star Wars was essentially science fantasy, while Trek was real science fiction.  Again, as my young mind saw it.  Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were great, but for real fantasy, I turned to Tolkien.  For sci-fi, I wanted Kirk and Spock and a whole host of science fiction authors from Asimov to Clarke.

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out, my mom took me to an opening show in Kansas City—then, the major metropolis in my life.  We saw it right before Christmas, 1979, and I was completely blown away.  The scale of it reminded me of 2001, and the return of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft for a science loving kid was a dream come true.  To top it off, the movie ended with the creation of an entirely new form of life, an incarnation of man and machine.  What wasn’t to love?  This seemed so much better than the blowing up of a Death Star!

Rewatching it quite recently, it hit me what a beautiful movie it is.  Many critics have complained that it simply failed to have enough action, that it demanded too much of the viewer.  This is all probably true, and these are also the reasons I like the movie so much, even as a 12 year old.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a film that allows one to consider possibilities, to realize the immensity of the unknown, and to contemplate the potential dangers of space travel.  The movie demands immersion.

Nothing prepared me, though, for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  I saw it only days after my eighth-grade year ended.  It hit me hard, very hard.  The film is the best of the best when it comes to Star Trek.  Shakespearean acting flies freely, dialogue from Melville comes equally fast, and the plot moves as dramatically as the best war movies made prior to Apocalypse Now.  Realizing how quickly they’re aging, the crew encounters a late twentieth-century genetically created superman, a Nietzschean tyrant bent on absolute revenge for Kirk’s actions in the original episode, Space Seed. 

Unlike every one of the later movies, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan avoids camp, managing to tell a story as serious as Star Trek The Motion Picture but with immense humanity of friendship, community, and sacrifice.  Shatner is especially at his best.  The scene where he allows his arrogance to bring death upon his crew and the scene in which he realizes Spock has sacrificed himself for their mission are two very scenes.  For better or worse, I’m sure I have watched The Wrath of Khan more times than any other movie in my 46 years.  I have it memorized—dialogue, scenes, and music.  Still, the movie has never become so familiar to me that these two scenes just described don’t fail to move me to tears.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock had some fine moments, but it’s clear that the crew would never again reach the heights of Wrath of Khan.  Star Trek IV returns to sap and camp, and the movies really become uneven from that point forward.  Yet, no one could deny its popularity and money-making ability.  Thus far, there have been a total of five live-action television series, one animated series, and ten movies set in the original universe.  Two additional movies—though essentially action films in the vein of Star Wars—have appeared in the rebooted time line.  One can also find Star Trek toys, comics, and books everywhere and anywhere.

Star Trek has permeated our consciousness as much or more than any other manifestation of pop culture.

Why?  Several reasons, but only two need be mentioned here. 

First, I’m convinced its timing was most fortuitous, coming as an optimistic Kennedy-esque frontier vision just as the 1960s soured into the imperial horrors of our policy in southeast Asia and with the subsequent dramatic loss of American confidence. 

Second, and more importantly, the show was about friendship, community, and sacrifice.  Art, drama, and theater might very well mock or forget such themes in cynical and decadent ages, but such ideals can never be utterly destroyed. 

Kirk needed Spock, and Spock needed Kirk.  The same was just as true for Scotty and McCoy.  Individually, they succumbed to terrors, errors, and arrogance.  As a group of friends, playing off of and leavening the strengths of the other, they were unstoppable.

These are not just good lessons, they are western and, even better, transcendent ones. 

Art, Film

Hitchcock’s The Birds

The Idyllic Torn Asunder: Hitchcock’s The Birds

“I am neither poor nor innocent”—Melanie Daniels, protagonist of Hitchcock’s The Birds

Cinema as Art

From the time I was thirteen or so, I had fallen deep in love with movies.  I didn’t actually grow up watching a lot of TV shows, but I certainly loved renting movies and enjoying them in the comfort of my house, especially when my parents were out playing Bridge or doing something similar with their friends. 

For me—then and now—the more intense the movie, the better, though I also loved stupid, slapstick comedies.  Several of my high school friends appreciated and understood the actual art of cinema far more than I did, and I learned a great deal from them about directors, cuts, camera angles, actors, lighting.  Even to this day, I can’t watch anything other than comedy without analyzing every aspect of the film.

College didn’t give me much time for movies, but two events in graduate school not only re-awoke my passion but increased it exponentially.  The first, and less important of the two, was the attending of a film studies class on the 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Everything my friends in high school had taught me sharped to a finely and intellectually honed blade of finest steel as the professor explained how to study a film—similar to a novel, but with a different kind of depth—walking through the film, scene by scene.  I was, to put it crudely, rather blown away. 

Hitchcock, His Women, and Me

Additionally, while in graduate school, two friends really shaped my view on films.  The first was Craig, an apartmentmate as well as office buddy.  As it turned out, Craig knew British film really well.  I’d never appreciated it or PBS before, but he gave me that love of both.  Second, I found out that another close friend was also a Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) fanatic.  Tamzen (my great friend to this day) and I spent many hours watching and analyzing Hitchcock.  These moments with Craig and Tamzen are ones I still treasure.

Like Tamzen, I considered myself a Hitchcock fanatic as well, preferring a Hitchcock film even to a science fiction one.  I especially loved, in order, Rope, Vertigo, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, and North by Northwest.  I never fell for Kim Novak or Vivian Leigh, but I have always thought Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren two of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.  Phew.  I still do, though, of course, Kelly played attractive characters while Hendren played repulsive ones.  To my mind (that is, in the world of celebrities), only Morena Baccarin rivals Kelly.

[To continue reading, please scroll down and hit the page 2 button]

Pages: 1 2
Film, History, Poetry, Republic of Letters

THE STRATFORD FESTIVAL GOES DIGITAL

From Broadway World:

The Stratford Festival is following up on the success of its recent Shakespeare Film Festival with a $10-a-month digital content subscription, Stratfest@Home, offering more Shakespeare and more films, along with new commissions, music, conversation, cooking and comedy. A free film festival, with a theme of Hope Without Hope, will once again be offered on Thursday evenings.

“At this particular moment of pandemic, with social isolation once more upon us, nights growing longer and winter approaching, we need the consolation of community like never before. With these viewing parties and the many related artistic programs in Stratfest@Home, we invite you to enter the warmth of the Festival bubble,” says Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino.

The subscription cost will include:

  • access to the 12 Shakespeare films streamed on YouTube this past spring;
  • a growing library of Festival-related legacy films, interviews & discussions;
  • new content like the filmed-in-Stratford mini-soap opera Leer Estates, holiday specials for Halloween and U.S. Thanksgiving, and video introductions to the young actors currently studying at the Festival’s Birmingham Conservatory;
  • coming in 2021, the game show Undiscovered Sonnets and the concert series Up Close and Musical.

The free film festival begins this Thursday on YouTube. Already on the schedule are:

  • October 22: The 2011 production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night featuring the late Brian Dennehy (a great version that my wife & I saw in person – it includes cool songs by then-artistic director Des McAnuff, who worked with Pete Townshend on the Broadway version of Tommy);
  • October 29: The Stratford Festival Ghost Tours Halloween binge.
  • November 5: The 1994 production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. This one’s a legendary part of Festival history.
  • November 12: The 1992 production of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, with a young Antoni Cimolino as Romeo and Anne of Green Gables’ star Megan Follows as Juliet.
  • November 19: The 2000 production of Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex, a Festival commission. Playwright Findley was in the acting company with Sir Alec Guinness for the Festival’s inaugural season in 1953.
  • November 26: The Early Modern Cooking Show U.S. Thanksgiving binge.
  • December 3: The 2010 production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, starring Christopher Plummer. (Another great version that we saw live — and also got Plummer’s autograph on his memoirs!)
  • December 10: The 2008 production of George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Christopher Plummer.
  • December 17: All the Sonnets of Shakespeare, a lecture with readings.

You can learn more about Stratfest@Home and subscribe at https://www.stratfordfestival.ca/AtHome

— Rick Krueger

Art, Faith, Film, Poetry, Republic of Letters

An Ontario Tempest

The next Shakespeare@Stratford film to hit YouTube is the Festival’s 2018 production of The Tempest, premiering on Thursday, May 14 and running for three weeks.  Here’s my review from when my wife and I saw the play live in October of that year.

This is the third production of The Tempest we’ve seen at Stratford, Ontario; since we started attending in 2004, the Festival has usually marketed the play as a chance to catch an actor of high skill and reputation (and often getting on in years) in the role of Prospero. 2005’s Tempest served as a grand farewell for William Hutt, the most accomplished classical actor in Canada’s theatrical history; the 2010 production was built on Christopher Plummer returning to the scene of his earliest triumphs. This time around, the hook was seeing Martha Henry (since Hutt’s passing, the current Greatest Living Canadian Actor) playing the exiled magician — part of a season with multiple productions (a gender-swapped Julius Caesar and a gender-fluid Comedy of Errors, along with the drag-rock musical The Rocky Horror Show) trendily exploring postmodern conceptions of freedom.

But any dreams or fears of a transgressive Tempest faded quickly; Henry forthrightly played Prospero as female — duchess of Milan, mother of Miranda, wizard ruler of an uncharted, enchanted island — with a few modest tweaks of the script not even scuffing the verse rhythms, and that was that. (After all, it’s a fairy tale; if you’re worried about the lines of descent for Renaissance Italian nobility being messed up, you’ve come to the wrong play.) Even better, this was an ensemble Tempest, with Henry clearly featured, but also clearly first among equals. Rather than chewing scenery a la Plummer or waxing grandiloquent like Hutt, she drove the plot without swallowing the stage, working to provide for her daughter, bring those who exiled her to book, reward virtue and punish wrong with formidable focus, aplomb and dry humor. And all the while, she genuinely wrestled with conflicting impulses: would she take vengeance on her adversaries, or show them mercy? It’s a tribute to Henry’s and director Antoni Cimolino’s conception that, even if you knew the play, the answer wasn’t telegraphed.

The strong cast also elevated this production, consistently playing off Henry’s indispensable work while fruitfully developing their own characters. Andre Morin’s Ariel did Prospero’s bidding with delight, while holding her to the promise of eventual freedom; Michael Blake’s Caliban chafed convincingly under her authoritarian rule. For once, the shipwrecked mariners were three-dimensional characters, not plot tokens — the King of Naples Alonso (David Collins) ripely autocratic, Prospero’s usurping brother Antonio (Graham Abbey) convincingly sociopathic, counselor Gonzalo (Rod Beattie) more of a sage and less of a fool than usual. Tom McCamus as butler Stephano and Stephen Ouimette as jester Trinculo clowned to perfection, nailing every laugh possible whether on their own, with Caliban or with the ensemble. The young lovers were the most pleasant surprise; Ferdinand and Miranda can feel like weak sauce in the wrong hands, but Sebastien Heins & Mamie Zwettler were spunky, passionate, intelligent, fully cognizant of their developing affections — strong & spot-on.

And yes, the special effects and pageantry (serious creature puppetry by the ensemble of Spirits & Monsters at key moments, Festival stalwarts Chick Reid and Lucy Peacock regally presiding over Act Four’s celebratory wedding masque) were impressive as always. But Stratford productions go deepest when they cut to the heart — and this Tempest showed us, beyond its numerous charms and delights, the depth of Prospero’s sacrifice. To become truly great as well as truly free, the exiled ruler must serve her enemies as well as her friends — forgiving wrongs, securing Naples and Milan’s future through Ferdinand and Miranda’s marriage, releasing the spirits of the island, and abjuring her “rough magic.” Martha Henry’s reading of Shakespeare’s Epilogue – bereft but relieved, slyly humorous in its appeal to the audience for final release through prayer and applause – communicated both the cost of Prospero’s renunciations, and their true worth. It was a lovely end to the best, most bracing production of The Tempest we’ve seen at the Festival.

Watch the premiere of The Tempest on the Stratford Festival’s YouTube channel tomorrow at 7 pm EDT; a pre-show chat with Martha Henry, Mamie Zwettler and Antoni Cimilono starts at 6:30 pm.

— Rick Krueger

Art, Faith, Film, Music, Poetry, Republic of Letters

Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, Songs of Yearning

I have never before heard anything quite like this album.  And since I first listened to it at a friend’s urging this past weekend, I find myself returning to it again and again.  It resists description, yet compels a response; it’s utterly fresh but feels like it’s been around forever.

Working as a loose creative collective since the mid-1980s, Liverpool’s Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus have consistently pursued what they describe as “echoes of the sacred” in their work, striving to access a sonic space where transcendence can invade a stiflingly measured-out world.   On their fourth album Songs of Yearning, they’ve discovered new room for rumors of glory to run, and the result is uniquely powerful, its resonance strikingly amplified by the shadows of doubt that now openly stalk our lives.

RAIJ’s music calls to mind much that I’ve heard and loved over the years — abstract soundscapes by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno; the “holy minimalism” of composers Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki; the sparse, charged post-rock Talk Talk found with Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, to name a few.   But comparisons to other artists fall short of describing Songs of Yearning’s rich mix of reticent modesty and bold experiment. Dissecting the music into its component parts — a breathtaking gamut of sound sourced from liturgy, folksong, chamber music, pop & rock of all stripes, ambience, industrial noise, found dialogue and much more — won’t do the trick either.  The only way to catch the breadth and depth of what’s here is to dive in:

Short and relatively direct as it is, “Celestine” unfolds the Revs’ approach with inviting clarity.  The simple acoustic guitar pattern and the female vocal in French doubled by bells — they’re straightforward enough.  But that flute — is it slightly out of tune, or carving out its own tonality?  The acoustic bass and harmony vocals — how is it they sound now consonant, now dissonant, flickering in and out of sync by the second?  And in the end, each layer goes its own way, ever so gently drifting apart harmonically and rhythmically, but still bound up in an organic, contemplative whole.

Continue reading Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, Songs of Yearning →

Art, Film, Poetry, Republic of Letters

Shakespeare @ Stratford on YouTube

Since 1953, the little Ontario town of Stratford has hosted what is arguably North America’s premier repertory theater.  Down the decades, every summer the Stratford Festival has presented world-class productions of plays by William Shakespeare, along with other classics of the world stage and new, cutting-edge efforts.  (Not to mention musicals ranging from vintage Broadway to The Who’s Tommy.)

As with so many other performing arts institutions, Stratford’s 2020 season is currently on hold.  To fill the gap, the Festival’s YouTube channel kicked off free screenings of its Stratford on Film series last night — Shakespeare’s birthday — with an intense, gripping 2014 production of King Lear:

 

Each film of the series (an effort to film all of Shakespeare’s plays in ten years) will be available to view for 3 weeks, scheduled as below:

  • King Lear (2014): April 23 to May 14
  • Coriolanus (2018): April 30 to May 21
  • Macbeth (2016): May 7 to 28
  • The Tempest (2018): May 14 to June 4
  • Timon of Athens (2017): May 21 to June 11
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost (2015): May 28 to June 18
  • Hamlet (2015): June 4 to 25
  • King John (2014): June 11 to July 2
  • Pericles (2015): June 18 to July 9
  • Antony and Cleopatra (2014): June 25 to July 16
  • Romeo and Juliet (2017): July 2 to 23
  • The Taming of the Shrew (2015): July 9 to 30

My wife and I have been regular attenders at the Stratford Festival for over 15 years.  We return again and again because of the Festival’s consistently high quality  — an acting company of impressive craft, dedication and emotional heft, working together on the unique thrust stage of the Festival Theatre and other more intimate venues, creating utterly immersive artistic experiences.  (And all in a welcoming, delightful small town environment.)   We hope to return later this summer to see Richard III, Wolf Hall and Spamalot (!)  but in the meantime we agree: the Stratford on Film series is the next best thing to being there, and a first-class way to drink in Shakespeare’s luminous genius.

— Rick Krueger

Film

A Story of Friendship: Star Trek

As young children, my older brother and I watched the original Star Trek series on Saturday mornings.  We weren’t big TV watchers as a family, but Star Trek was special.  To make it even better, it was the local PBS that aired Star Trek, presenting it free of all commercials.  

Every Saturday, Todd and I awoke very early and watched the rerun for that week.  This would have been around 1975, almost a decade after the show first aired.  After each episode, Todd and I would talk, always mesmerized by the possibilities of space, life, and a billion other things.  How much of the galaxy had this crew explored?  Were they the modern Lewis & Clark?  What happened when someone transported from one place to another?  How smart were the computers?  Were the Klingons the Soviets and the Romulans the Chinese?  Or, maybe the other way around?  Why did we only see the military aspects of Starfleet?  What about the colonists, the pioneers?  How did time travel work?  If the Enterprise found itself sent back to Earth, why did it happen to arrive the same year the show was being filmed.

Pretty serious stuff for an eight year old sitting with his much admired thirteen year old brother.  

I had no idea at the time, but the show’s founder and creator, Gene Roddenberry had actually described Star Trek as a “wagon train to the stars” when he first shopped it to studios.  It would be set, though, on the space equivalent of an aircraft carrier, a mobile community as diverse as Gunsmoke’s Dodge City, he continued in his show treatment.  The crew, roughly 203 of them, would be as diverse as possible, asserting that racial prejudice and ethnic strife would be things of the past in the non-specified time of Star Trek.  Only later did the show writers decide it took place in the 2260s.  From its beginning, however, Roddenberry’s Star Trek represented a brash Kennedy-esque liberalism, a confidence that America could teach the world the principles of civilization, tolerance, and dignity.  [Sources: Whitfield and Roddenberry, THE MAKING OF STAR TREK (1968); and Paul Cantor, Gilligan Unbound (2003) and The Invisible Hand of Popular Culture (2012)]

[Please continue reading on page 2]

Pages: 1 2
Art, Film

Rocketman Reaches the Stars

1 Comment

Rocketman

The Elton John biopic, Rocketman, opened this weekend, and it is an amazing film. From 1970 through 1976, his music was inescapable on radio: AM top 40 radio was saturated with Elton songs, and FM progressive rock stations played his deeper album cuts. For several years, Elton John was the biggest musical star on the planet.

So it makes sense, given the success of the recent Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, to give Sir John the same treatment. However, Rocketman is a far more successful film. It begins with Elton stomping down the hallway of a rehab center in an outrageous devil costume with horns and wings. He bursts into a group therapy session, confesses his many sins, and begins talking about his life. As he opens up more and more about his childhood and early career, he gradually removes various parts of his costume, until he eventually looks like everyone else in the group.

What makes Rocketman such a memorable experience is director Dexter Fletcher’s decision to make this a musical, and not a documentary. His willingness to play loose with the chronological sequence of John’s hits, and let them serve the overall narrative of his life may annoy some fans, but it works. Throughout the movie, there are surrealistic sequences of singing and dancing that are wonderfully entertaining.

For example, a very young Reg Dwight (Elton’s real name) is asked to play a song in the local pub. He begins playing piano tentatively, but at the urging of his family quickly rips into “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”. The walls of the pub recede, and an young Elton – several years older – is running through a carnival belting out the lyrics while followed by a troupe of choreographed dancers. It’s a thrilling moment that drives home his promise and talent.

Another highlight is the moment when he and lifelong collaborator Bernie Taupin first meet and agree to work together. As Elton tries out the first few chords of “Your Song” while peering at Bernie’s handwritten lyrics, the audience is swept up into the excitement of their discovery that they are going to be huge.

No rock biopic would be complete without the star’s obligatory descent into drugs and paranoia, and Rocketman pulls no punches. As he gets bigger and bigger, and more and more people depend on his touring to fuel their greed, he gradually succumbs to every temptation given him. And this is where Taron Egerton’s performance as Elton deserves praise: his vocals are extraordinary, and his portrayal of Elton’s slow descent into drug and alcohol-fueled madness is harrowing. He truly deserves an Oscar for his work.

Of course, Elton’s sexual preferences are no secret, and they are an integral part of the story from the beginning. There are some love scenes that, quite frankly, would never have made it to the screen a few years ago. That said, everything in the movie is there for a reason, and nothing is gratuitous. His brief marriage to Renate is covered sympathetically, and his brotherly bond with Bernie is a constant source of strength and stability throughout the turmoil of his career.

The final scenes where Elton confronts his demons, both chemical and familial, are uplifting and satisfying. If you grew up in the 1970s as I did, or you are simply a fan of Elton, Rocketman is a fitting tribute to one of the most talented composers and performers of our lifetime.