December 2011: Black Metal

How fitting, the darkest time of the year, yet one of the most festive, let's bring on the black metal!

1) Venom - Welcome to Hell (1981) - can definitely see, given the year (1981), of Motorhead's influence, mix of punk and rock, yet adding this satanic imagery, taking the "dark" gimmick to its most extreme, so here comes a dividing line (in terms of performer): was it only a gimmick? to be used as imagery from which to work with certain issues? or was it an extension of belief, are the people i'm listening to really believers in satanism? LaVey brand? is it so important that they be believers? what is the use of authenticity if we have the so-called "suspension of belief" necessary for fantasy/science fiction? whats the difference, if the stage/recording sets us apart as consumers, for the takers it is up to them to decide what is important to them, if and how they will understand what is being performed...

"In League With Satan" great song!

Halloween Music 2011: Goth

Explored the realm of Goth music this month, this month of Halloween, the decaying nougat of scary sentiment pouring out your eyeballs in an ecstasy of ne'er-do-wellin' goodness, or badness, or chaotic black hole in hearts smashed into strandy bits left in the mouths of wolves full of bloody cherokee tampon heads...anyways, there was none of this sap, as i have a strict aversion to such things, the over-heightened drama of what goth has become, yet drama has always played a part in it has it not? the idea of "gothic", perhaps but not so in the victorian sense, that verge of change, that intermediary between two worlds smashing, colliding, pummeling (great word)...dracula, frankenstein, the classics, right? goth. what is it, really? gothic architecture of the 14th century, what makes it so, goth? as before mentioned, could it be that meshing of difference, and the struggle to adapt? old and new?

Then how has the sense of  "darkness" come to play an integral, if not stereotypical, role in such discussion? these be my own musings of the subject, (have no research done) there could be the idea that darkness prevails in times of change, in times of struggle, the conflict brings about the dark, that surely is where struggle takes place, our first struggle in the darkness of the womb? our refreshing capture of the light seems to take us, entranced, into the realms of completion, of arrival, the transformation is complete here in the light, could it be otherwise? the gothic, the transferal, transitive exploration of struggle, for is it not in the forest out on the rim where our mysteries dwell? the unknown? the dark? tis where our unconscious is brewing, tis where it works, out in those hidden woods...

Here are the musics i checked out:

1) Xmal Deutschland - Fetisch (1981) und 3 EP's: GroBstadtindianer, Incubus Succubus, Sickle Moon great band, Fetisch and the first two EPs are golden, full of gothic/horror imagery, lo-fi production and a lot of imagination...memorable hooks as well as in "Incubus Succubus" and "Orient", need brush up on me German but really not necessary to enjoy their soundscapes...sadly, like so many, through the years they became more and more polished, more mainstream, and regrettably just awful, i mean by the third album the vocals are in English, as in, "we want commercial success! please love us america!" talent and ingenuity gave way to access, no good. Sickle Moon EP starts in this direction as well...at least we still can appreciate their real work: the early years!


2) And Also The Trees - And Also The Trees (1984) intense vocals, impish guitar, nice early goth!

3) UK Decay - 1979 to 1982 Singles (a fan compilation?) started out: delicious UK punk, soon morphing to the goth sound, perhaps could always be known as proto-goth?

4) Danse Society - Heaven Is Waiting (1984) and 3 EPs: There Is No Shame In Death, Wake Up, and We're So Happy great archetypal early goth sound from the UK, great EPs, the album not so much, tends to become lifeless and bland for a whole listen, you could get just as much out of the EPs and two songs from the album, "Come Inside" and "Wake Up", both are enough to satisfy your gothic black heart's desire!

5) Bauhaus - In The Flat Field (1980) too bad i missed the live show! great stuff, namely "Dark Entries" and "Double Dare"

6) The Cure - Pornography (1984) and whats a gothic review study without a little Cure, huh? heard this one before, threw it in the pot for thickness, this album to me (and as i found out part of a gothic trilogy of albums, the point when the cure found their niche, their classic goth sound) is a little raunchy for the cure, and helped to define their moody, dark sound

Halloween Horror II: The Foreign Horrors

Xenophilic foray into the horror sublime...stuck with that which was not uprooted and regurgitated from the American film collection, but wanted to sprout out, into the horror sublimities of foreign lands, foreign ideals and culture, what does the horror aesthetic mean in these different perspectives? these differing cultures? are there Bakhtinian carnivals in us all? universals to be shied away from, there are the viscerals of horror, the fear, is fear universal? are typical American fears the same as Japanese or Congolese fears? What is to be scared of in the Philippines? Do they find what is gross to be analogous to our own vomitings? Unfortunately i cannot peruse them all for now, since as far as my minuscule research has shown, there are sadly no Congolese horror films that i am aware of (Congo does not count, bad, bad American movie with animatronic apes"Ugly, woman...") but is interesting a thought nevertheless, what fears are universal? if at all? death? murder? open-faced surgery? monsters? demons? ghosts? what do our fears tell us about others and ourselves? across cultures? what does the term, horror, mean in these other lands, with other topography, religions and foodways? an interesting discussion to be sure, here's what i found...

1. Man Bites Dog (1992) cult film classic, serial killer genre, shot in the cinema verite style, follows a murderous rampage by Benoit by a happenstance film crew, whose goal here is to showcase ...? is it obvious? evil? murder? etc? based on this thesis, this narrative of a murderer's life, down to the balmy sundries of his trivial life/lives, are the viewers implicit? being entertained by this monster? we ae charmed by his wit and humor, his charisma splashes across the screen, do we root him on?only the most sadistic of us,

the "darker times" of the latter half of the film, after the film crew have ensconced themselves within the patronage of Ben, after they ran out of funding for "film", cannot pursue the project without the film, they have become interdependent, co-dependent even, in their relationship, one fueling the other, it does indeed seem that his escapades seem to heighten with every frame shot, yet we cannot be sure of this given no account of his actions before filming, yet it does seem to call into question the act with audience relationship, the seeming want of the audience for him to outdo himself every time, the voyeurism turned to bloodlust, can he top himself with every slash and cut? are those who watch with vigilance, implicit in the murders? as are the film crew, who only turn to become his lackeys by the end, in need of patronage, they become guilty, yet were they not from the outset? from the first frame shot upon a victim dying their last breath?

Ben as artist, proved as such with his colors of aesthetic philosophy, music, and poetry, is seen in a certain light: an artist. and so with every artist, there is a need for an audience, and as we perceive his "work" we perceive moral and ethical ambiguity resound, a kind of performance art as it were, only if it were real, would not be judged the same, it is comedic and distant enough for us to, in the abstract, philosophize the problem of Benoit and cinema verite in general...

Are we not participants in this moral outrage? are we not murderers as well? swooned by delight and intelligence, charisma? we have effectively said yes to Manson and Jones, cult-effective proper, yet should this all be taken so seriously? or should it? tends to blur the line between participant and observer, as in Bakhtin's carnival, in fact, it has some other similarities with his functions of carnival: crown/decrown, curses and billingsgate (could the actor here murdering be an example of this parade? this ceremony?) the mesalliances that happen: ie the serial killer with his mother, and grandparents (where is the father btw? no mention hmmm...) having jovial times, the pairings could be seen here? perhaps? is this what makes the proverbial serial killer who hides by day in his white collar existence a method example of carnival? a mixing of distinct realities in an "everyday"moral world where distinction is king, to a realm of undivided awareness and insanity a collection of haphazards...

Man Bites Dog as carnival!

July 2011: Werrrrrnerrrrrr (Werner Herzog Film Festival)

In celebration of Herzog's (finally and much anticipated) Cave of Forgotten Dreams coming to the local cinema, thought a ramble through his other works was in order for the month, a trip through documentary, fictional realizations, and montage surrealist escapes in the nether, without ever seeming to detach completely from existence at large, culminating in the sense of drama that alludes to the idea of fantasy and reality, the interconnectedness of each, and the difference that surrounds them both, seeming opposites upon a connected stripe...all of them filtered through Herzog's unique and sublimating keen sense of his/our world, and his inner mind...

Herzog shares with me a sense of the infinite, and the finite, the things in the universe that inspire awe, sublimity and those things and events that reach farther downward, more vertical in perceiving, reaching towards the bottom, and the highest reaches: religion, science, myth, history, the dark, the light, the Popol Vuh...creation and destruction, atrophy and entropy, are all flush within his creating, his recognizing, also the absurd and the insane, elements of which seem to always be present in his work, for, tis within him for sure, as in us all...those great translators are those who have not fully gone, for the fully recognized ones are the ones who cannot share, for they are fully dead in mind, in body , in soul, and cannot reach out to us, nor should they care to, having been immersed in such victifying liquid...no they have gone indeed, never to return as it seems, as it should be, as it has always been and will be...yet those who have tasted, those who taste, those whose existence lies on the parallel, on the border of which, those are the greatest artists that have ever lived, those who can share with us the oblivion of living and dying, of life and death, of the dark and the light, and live to tell us in creative ways, in ways that we can relate to, understand and comprehend those things that seem alien, that seem too unrealistic to care for, puts us in the right frame of mind to care, changing our paradigm perhaps for the rest of our lives, worn through the essence of being...

1) Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011) An excellent work, and saw it in 3D, which was probably one of the greatest uses of the technology besides pure entertainment, for purely entertainment purposes, for it brought to life those cave walls, and the paintings upon them, made by some long distant relative of us all (??) in spirit and in blood, that charismatic artist, or that sullen, melancholic one, who found himself in the cave, with an urge to create, was it random? was ti ritualized? was it everything he or she had hoped it would be? did he make error in his mind? in his fully formed, modern man, living prehistoric mind? did he ask for help? did he do it alone>? did the ones who came after finish his work when he was left stranded to die within the cave? or was he rushed off in a hurried scene, relishing his work, was it a sacred ritual, was it a place that was used for centuries? for days? for an hour? did trees and the ground outside not fit his ideal of the "perfect canvas"? how long did it take? did he feel like it was his masterpiece? was the best thing he had ever done? or were they sketches upon the rock in passing idleness? did the mean anything? did they mean anything at all? was it entertainment? was it obsessive? compulsive? must he had done it then or never?

30,000 years ago were they made, were they inscribed upon the wall of that there cave, what others lurk in the shadows upon our Earth? waiting to be found? or not waiting, but fulfilling their very purpose in the dark? what do the tell us? now? of ourselves and of them they who drew it upon the rockened stone? leaving it up to them to decide for us, would be too easy a task, thousands upon thousands of years had to pass for the journey to be complete, for the art to be pleasured and absorbed, studied by those and all of us who still care to look, how many were showed? did he feel pride? was it a woman instead? waiting for the hunt to come? watching the youngers in boredom and disbelief she inscribed upon the wall "i want this here, i want this...i covet that which i do not have" was there jealousy in the midst? was there cunning? Herzog was mostly transparent in this, as he should have been, only coming to the fore in bits with his Herzoggian insights, which up until the end (with the postscript numbers one and two) were completely Herzog and welcome, for his always broadens the mind in some way, he who hath made the journey to tell us from the parallel...

2) Grizzly Man (2005) Actually my second documentay by Herzog, Caves being the first, my first film having been Aguirre, Wrath of God from the "Insanity" series earlier in the year...also an excellent production by Herzog, still want to read the book that I suppose this documentary is based on, or better yet is supplemented with, however, the story is told with interview and with Timothy Treadwell's own video footage of his time spent with the bears, what gets me is the declination of his story, how it concludes and dovetails to the ending times, the hungry bear, isloated, not one that Timpothy was actuaslly famiolar with, the fact that he had come back to the area, at a time when he had never been there, his girlfriend with him, later in the year, after the summer was over, perhapos towrds hibernation time, food was scace and herees this hunman hanging around...it seemed cold, callous or was that a Herzoggian goggle? Timothy did indeed look anxious when he made his last taping, just minutes before he was attacked, anxious to leave tje front of the cmaera, anxious like he did indeed sense some dread, that death was lurkinr round the bush within a bear...or was that a Herzoggian goggle? were we lead to these conclusions by Herzog? isntr that what filmmakers do? all artists, all humans trying to make a point, indeed? bias manifest, yet for all that argu,memt, i do see it..."was this the bear?" Herzog asks, but metaphorically speakinf, Timothy did it to himslef, he did indeed walk the linme of the parallel, the obllisvion line, and Herzog took it from his death to compekete the jouirney, to relate to us, yet most people disreghard him as crazy, sadlym, they do not undrtans Timopthy nd what he was trying to do, its a shame really, a man who had no direction, was spiraling down anwya, takes it uiponm himself to chamion the bears of the alaskan wild, to educate those back "home" abotu what he has learned, wa slearnign at the time, he was beneficial, his work will endure and live on, yet what Herzog has done, is showcse the biographjy of a man set on destructon, yet one could not see it upon hsi outer libning, his enthusiasm, he was indeed becoming more and more detached from reality, one could argue this was how it all started anyways, but those who run the parallel are always said as such, as those who are crazy, insane, dense, on a path of self-destruction, Timothy was all these but so much more, he wanted a place, a significance, and whether it was insanity or bravery is up for debate, perhaps a mixture of the two?

Was it the bear, or Timothy himself who ate him up? Culpability seems to always dictate, yet the story's power lies not in this, nor his guilt for including his girlfriend on this dangerous expedition, again culpability aside, here is a man who did what most would not, would not even fathom, but because of this, he faced any fears he may have had, and overcame them, even to his own peril. and the peril of others, he loved it, til the end, he loved what he did, he relished every moment, how is that insane? perhaps those who bitter at their own lives, for seconds can empathize, yet what they tend to walk away with is, "Yeah, that Timothy guy is crazy..."

Romeo and Juliet cont...

"Through our tragedy are our bonds enlightened..." thus 'tis not Shakespeare, yet seems to be a summing of where we're headed in this play at large...yet in tragedy as in happiness/comedy do we also strengthen our bonds to our fellow common man, through life in general, the point? to live at large, living correctly fuses and endures our bonds with others, with indeed, the World?

but what does "living correctly" mean anyways?

Shakespeare fuses ideas together that are complex as they are beautiful, shadowing and enlisting facets of life that are enduring and woven, complexity that I heretofore had not realized, perhaps his insights are a part of what makes him a great dramatist? storyteller? poet? Surely. He brushes across certain ideas that are interesting like paradoxes and contradictions that are at home in each other's presence but not upon first glance are they in union, in fact, they are tied through their opposition, connected by what makes them opposing and at odds, their differences...one such idea connection not like this and infinitely interesting is the connection between love and death, Sjhakespeare has his characters Romeo and Juliet espouse such loving tender poetry to each other yet at the same time they touch upon darker aspects which truly give the story depth and feeling, a pathos, without which, would have the play wanting methinks

"Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye/
Than twenty of their swords"

This he says to a newest love, one indeed he had just met at the masquerade party ball down at the Capulet's happening Verona home...'tis not your regular rabble to a newest love, peril in thine eye? what is he jabbing at? death and love it is what Cemetery Man deals with, that lucid, not often apparent connection...but alas peril means danger here, (leading then to death logically) and so the teenage lust of danger and new love is obvious...it is passion, life, love, death all of it enrolled together, instead of life and death, there is indeed love and death...

O fiery Tybalt! O ratcatcher! You just had to put out the way the witty and rambunctious Mercutio! and then Romeo had to slain thee, to rebuke such a horrible fate upon his friend, death at the hands of a Capulet, one who was not even embroiled familial-wise with the whole feud within Verona, Mercutio actually being related to the Prince of the town, Escalus, Prince of Verona,a kinsman, one who decreed that the two families live in peace, and if they cannot, the ones who would be responsible for the duty breaking, public peace shatternment, would be executed in punishment, but ye know, those two who started the brawl, started the illegals, did die at their own hands per se in a way, Romeo being left to have the last, to have indeed a banishment i think is coming?

Romeo and Juliet: Act One, Scenes 1 and 2, Shakespeare, in the Year of Our Lord 2011

Thinking this to be the first installment in my year-long (possibly continuing beyond that) 2011 Shakespeare study extravaganza, March as Romeo and Juliet, tragic love story equals in the time of Spring, youthful love and lust, possibly the best time minus April? Here's where it begins

Romeo is an emo-goth kid. No doubt about it, his pining for his Rosaline, as Shakespeare put it, comparing her to Diana (goddess of the hunt and chastity) so Cupid's arrow just pings off her already heavy armor of chaste-ness, a fair target is early hit, yet this hit's a miss, as Rosaline is said to have the wit of Dian and so therefore, her being of the hunt, and experienced, although chaste as well, the double meaning allusion is brilliant, and the fact that he walks on the edge of town all night, then goes home to shut the shutters on the morning sun, goth, his poetry of failed and unrequited love, to a girl who has claimed chastity for her own, gets pretty emo-y as well

So, the play starts out with minor characters (Capulet's men), (seems to be a popular motif) sexual innuendos by the men (some would be saying homosocial right now, not me) blades are whipped out as Benvolio and Tybalt jump in the fray, oother citizens jump in as well, luckily the Prince heralds in and puts a stop to the brawl, for as he is the Prince of Verona, the moral that is building is that the tow warring families are a blight and a sickness to the town, their ancient hatred of one another must be healed, dealt with, under pain of death if one ever again tries to come up upon the other one, any of the house...he must keep his people civil! the moral being that nothing short of the death of their sprawling seed will solve it, will relinquish it to peace, tis a sick town, and the dying love can only calm the burning hate

great metaphors: crystal scales (romeo's eyes) as he must judge and contemplate all the other Ladies at the Capulet party, ones his ol pal Benvolio will show out for him...we know at this point that County Paris is trying to hook up with Juliet and he wants some, he wants to marry her (at thirteen mind you) and makes the case that there are happier mothers younger than she, yet Capulet wards him off saying, "hey guy, give her a couple more years guy, like at about 16 or so, and only with her consent will i give mine to you, ok? relax!) so Capulet seems to equal of mind, we'll see as the play progresses

We have a chorus in the begins as well, that basically sums up the story as to the tragic demise of our "star-crossed" lovers, btw Shakespeare took this story from an already established one that went some time back (Papp takes it as far back to fifth century Greek play Ephesiaca, and then later to 1476 and so on) leading me to believe that I simply do not steal enough when it comes to writing, but as my reading progresses, so shall the thievery...

to be continued...

January 2011: Insanity in Film

"Insanity on film...Insanity on film..." (a la Duran Duran yeh bad joke)

January was just cold enough, just dark enough to make the study of insanity on film bearable, for in these dark times "comes a rush of inhabitance worth of everyday living, madness and cold flesh upon them, lay it on of hands so may it be, the mouth of madness!..." and of what did I learn in these depths of insane triviality and frivolity and of larger universals that could exist in the mind of God? the mind of madness? the White Sound? the paths to enlightenment? the onset of broken mind from the likes of biology, the onset from the likes of megalomania, of the ego got out of control, the likes of identity, and the confusions and permutations thereof, asking the question "who are we?" and "who am I?", from the transcendence of social known boundaries resulting in those who reside behind them in safety and comfort, to award labels such as insane to those desperate few for meaning, those who transgress, those who step beyond, willingly, to gather for themselves some form of new truth, those who cannot be labeled as such, those who deconstruct by being, those stereotypes and contextuals that bind our identities together, leaving those who want to understand lost in their labeling paradigm, unwilling to cope, unwilling to broaden their narrow perspectives, the want of ignorance over newfound hope or ways of being, this is fear, the unknown, this is madness...

The Dark Knight, (2008), the Joker and his "evil", his uncaring, his desperation unapparent and non-existent, he is chaos embodied, the destructive force in nature, embodied, much to Gotham's chagrin, much to their, again, want of ignorance, chaos and destruction as means of change, agents of it, in the natural cycle, in more balanced times, your yang (or yin?) your dark, destruction comes at the hands of ones who have minute amounts of sympathy at least for themselves and their power mongering egos, but yet what do you do with one who will not stop? who wants not the treasures of regular men, the money, the fame, the power, the gold, the women...all they have akin to them is the greed, (an overindulgent and overpowering id perchance?) what does the world do with one who just wants to "watch it all burn?" as Alfred told Bruce Wayne...and so, in speaking, this attitude would be seen as "insane" this want for destruction, this greed for abandon, fire, apocalyptic nothingness, burning, ash, suffering, pain, this is all seen as dysfunctional for if twas seen as commonplace and regular, civilization would have a harder time keeping itself together, would be the fundamental breakdown of civilized society, the glue would reap and tear and falling bits of all-known would be lost to man and memory, however, this force is apparent and real, only to be embodied in one man (some would call monster) in this film, the Joker, and his rivaling opponent Batman, the force of "good", the Right, the stability, of sanity, of Order in the universe...in the universe this force is real, black holes, stars erupting into supernova, decay, entropy, death, these are very real forces in our universe yet seen as criminable in our society, but mustn't they? for how would society function, an orderly system, if destruction were allowed its abandon? how would chaos function, an inorderly system, without order? doesn't this happen every moment of our existence? tiny black holes surround us, caught at the quantum level, but from the bush fire comes the evergreen wood that seems alive interminable, and once its time hath come, there shall it burn again, this cycle, although seen as incriminating, destruction and chaos are as true and as fearful a reality as anything, for it to be embodied into one man, one character, is existence on PCP yet they are strong symbols for true forces in our universe..."what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?" as so quoteth the Joker, this paradox is existence, as is existence is seen as this conflict

Europa 51 (1952) (also known as The Greatest Love) a socialite turned Mary herself in ways...this story exemplifies what I mentioned earlier about transgression, she, through her upper class estate and living, "reduces" herself to the common ground, the working class, the poor, and, at first, uses her stately origins to help those in need, she begins to experience this other way of living (after such a traumatic episode as losing her son from complications of an almost suicide) could it have been guilt that drove her? she claims in the movie it was self-hate, that it was her self-hate that drove her out to be amongst the others, the others "below", it drove her to seemingly love all, to be open to All...so sayeth the Priest, who could not understand her, neither could the Politician (leftist/communist) neither could the Husband, or the Mother, all of these social institutions, all of these social constructs could not fathom her actions, none but the People, the commoners, the working class, our "heroine" did not agree with the beguilings of the Priest or Politician, seemingly saying without doing so, "it is much larger than what you claim to believe!" it is not what you think, what you apparently preach to others in order for them to save themselves, tis not a political system or religious belief, already prescribed in books and lecture, it is connection, it is help, it is understanding, it is empathy and sympathy, sacrifice, what these institutions proscribe yet fail to exemplify through its adherents, those who gorge in their power (stereotypically) others are lost to this...our heroine works in the factories, visits the sick, helps the prostitute, nurtures the children all for what? for what? is this reward system or question even valid? a result of capitalism? reward-based living? based on biology? is it an essence of our living? and is this why she seemed transcendent? for she neither seemed to be ascribed to, nor motivated by this system of give and take, she just was, an emblem of enlightenment, short-changed when she was ultimately charged as problematic and insane and put into the mental ward for therapy, for there is no way this could could be of value to her nor to anyone else, value of good...she had transcended her boundaries of what it meant to be an urban female socialite (through the self-sacrifice of her son, she was born again, ah the Jesus rears its head) into a being those around her could not understand nor label, she had transgressed a social line in the sand, and what do we do with those who transgress? we punish. that is social law, that is majority rule, and in ways that is democracy

The Tenant (1976) and Persona (1966) both deal with the complexity of identity, and the assumptions thereof...what does one do when treated as someone else? when you are seen as another? and not just another, but someone of the different sex, gender, class, or sexual orientation? does this mean that everyone else defines you? where are your own limits? your own boundaries of what one would call self? how were these implemented? layed down? how could it be that this all happened? seems natural enough but we are not born as these "selves" at least not wholly, only in part with room to grow...this tenant became that who came before him, a woman, he a man, or was he? it is the psychosis of pressures dealing with what it means to be a self, Polanski treats this as well in Repulsion (1965) (first part of the so-called Apartment Trilogy) with like-minded motifs it seems...and these pressures were so great that he caved, he/she could not withstand the pressures of society to be what he thought he was, and so he caved, so much so he broke himself upon the concrete ground, suicide was his answer to all this, the destruction of self, and as is shown in the movie, a vicious cycle, a loop is there, waiting to snare, for what began, ended, him/her in cast and screaming from the release of this illusion...
Bergman also dealt with identity in Persona breaking up the figures into parts of the self, mainly in two parts, the healer (true self) and the actress, the actress being our mask that is worn to the world great, what we show the world, what we want to show and therefore showing what we want to hide beneath as well, another paradox, the actress says our lines for us, so we don't have to, she motions us through the grieving world, so we can stay in shadowed corners and mull or cry or mope or be afraid, or try and cope, but, and as portrayed in this film, the actress sometimes breaks and falls silent, our creation snaps and will not go on speaking her lines, will not motion us anymore through the world, and it is left to the self to break through to gather its strength if any it has and shut up the actress forever, in this case, through much introspection, the actress is felled silent and left with only one line "Nothing." which could mean for her an existential quiet. Silence. We create the actress to cope. Yet it is ultimately unsatisfactory in existence to have that cover, although masks have their place, the sun must shine upon our faces at least part of the time, the light without dark is just that and is nothing, one defines the other, right? masks and self, self and masks, like good and evil, creation and destruction, here at the bottoms we find these paradoxes apparent and alive and they call this madness? and so as it turns, the actress had her own actress inside of her, and could not even reveal her true self, possibly a systemic problem with the art of theater? the habitual loss of self within created characters, so much so one becomes them? loss of self is never bad, how could it be? for self is not a stagnant thing, definable not by staunchly held grounds, but is more free as the wind, blowing ethereal, wispy, ephemeral. A sense of self lost is only a foray into a wider world (?)

The White Sound (Das Weisse Rauschen) (2001) was respectably a great film in regards to its realistic portrayal of paranoid schizophrenia, from the perspective of the main character, that brings the viewer into a first person account...aesthetically at first, it seemed a bit "student-filmy", but this gave way to a greater story, and I think, by the end of the film, the home video quality certainly adds to the realism of the portrayal, as if it were indeed a reality tv episode worth watching...this film was interesting in that, on a superficial level, it seems to claim that the character's eating of the mushrooms was the determining factor, was indeed the cause of his onset of schizophrenia, but his outburst at the movie attendant, and his seeming confusion at trying to get registered for classes at Uni, not to mention his mother's state of mental health and suicide, goes to show that the mushrooms were only a catalyst, something that amplified what was inherent, potential turned kinetic, the releasing of a wild boar or monster upon the unwilling, a caged one who was there all along. This film reminded me of Shawn in many different aspects, namely, his mental and emotional condition under the influence of the psychotic drugs, how Lukas felt numb and diluted under the weight of the drugs, they calmed his speaking mind, his paranoia, yet he did not feel alive, only living in haze, as a zombie, much like Shawn did since he started his prescription regimen...tis a sad occurrence, for anyone with sympathy for life could relate to Lukas' want to get out from underneath the huge weight of mind-numbing drugs, would want to live his life in freedom and clarity, even if it meant living the way he did, which ultimately, the first time around, ended with him throwing himself out the window....tragic in either case...one is instantly faced with the paradoxical dilemma of a schizophrenic when it comes to these situations of drugs therapy, or does one live just to be alive and a productive citizen? or does one face the elements of that "altered" state of mind and face potential disrepair?...The Naturals (a la Hippies) got him out of the urban landscape,which is probably not ideal for a paranoid schizophrenic, suffering from delusions of conspiracy and power control, more people = more agitation? which brings to mind the idea of the urban landscape being a reflection of man's mind, as a creation of man, therefore men living inside his creation, inside his mind, and man living solely in his mind is a definition of insanity, and i think this especially true in larger megalopolises, where nature can rarely be found and if it can be, is man-organized, manicured, and safe, still not the natural world...there is a definite dichotomy here, one that may or may not be real, for, as I am sure, the way to manage such "altered" states of mind, so that it is not all-consuming, is not beyond the borders of self-control and analysis, varies with every case, i just wonder this, the natural versus the man-made in this instance of mental illness, does it contribute in any way?are there factors rooted in this difference?
which brings one to question: did his rural lifestyle actually serve to dampen what was already festering there? in his mind? or harboring?, to what extent did nature, or the Natural Way actually help Lukas? well one could argue that the Natural Way was not a panacea, for it was the mushrooms (all natural) that broke open loose the floodgates, right? Either way the hippies traveled him to Spain, to this place to that, but even this idyllic way of life, this small-in-number-commune was still not healthy for his altered mind, it seemed at times that Lukas was on the verge of physical violence (Taxi Driver being an allusion in this regard), violence that would leave physical scars of severe damage, although he does have some altercations with his sister, he does not lean this way in dealing with his newfound condition, it leaves us plaintively, on the shores of some beach in Spain, where the hippies have left him, with his consent, watching as the waves crash repeatedly against the shore, and Lukas' monologue about the White Sound, the movie's namesake, about how it is the culmination of all things, and if one were to see/hear it it would drive the sane insane and the insane, sane...an obvious path is laid out before him, will he try to find it? will he walk backwards on the path, to reach sanity again? the voices are not given prominence in the movie in Act III, after he throws himself from a bridge--in his hippie quietude, were the voices silent? did the beach calm him? all alone is he along this trek, not his parents, grandparents, sister, friends, doctors, are there, no one is there in the end but man and nature, and his search...what will he find out on the brink?

Harvey (1940) twas a quaint tale about a man with a supposed hallucination, a 6'3 1/2 inch tall rabbit (which turned out to be a pooka, a mythical creature from Celtic mythology)...Elwood is seen as an outcast to those who do not understand his relationship with his pooka, Harvey, and, according to wiki, pookas are fond of social outcasts, and through the movie we are given details such as Elwood's fancy to drink, which could lead a narrow mind to assume and conclude that his alcoholism is the reason for his hallucinations, and yet he is thrivingly personable, friendly and charming, does not hurt anyone and is not malicious in any way, yet when the rabbit is introduced, there stems the wall from the ground, forever and anon with most, society is quick to judge these kinds of episodes as insane and delusional, society is not equipped, at large,on the streets, to deal with this kind of behavior that is inherently out of the norm, and is indicative of the conservative nature of the social structure and hierarchy, as in Europa 51, he is judged for we do not understand, and when there are those who cross the boundaries of understanding, they must be pent up, put away, therapy is the only way, therapeutics to revive this man back to "sanity" whatever that means...the "serum" of therapy, of injecting in this man all social norms and codes, would therefore permanently change his perceptions forever, who knows? without Harvey, maybe he would be a raving lunatic or a disagreeable man, or a binge-drinker alcoholic with real problems that we can see and treat, but a seemingly charming man with a unseen rabbit friend? that is just too bizarre, too outlandish! treat him! treat him! for we suffer from the curse of ignorance! Elwood was actually a kind gentle man who was very sociable and willing to meet everyone, inviting them to his house, even perfect strangers whom he had just met were invited to come and enjoy a dinner with him, yet he was deemed insane, he was more socially acceptable than most who wold deem themselves "normal"...the travesty! and through all this, we come to realize that even though those who do not understand: family, institutions, the social norm, that although we "accept" Elwood the way he is, (although it is only just a hallucination) the writers have given us the truth: that Harvey does indeed exist, and that Elwood truly does have a 6 foot 3 1/2 inch tall rabbit friend...who is crazy and why?

Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) is a great study in megalomania, the obsessive want of greatness, to find none other than the lost city of gold, El Dorado, the metaphoric obsession end-goal of anyone seized by such tantalizing prizes...he was driven insane by it, this want, to be famous, renowned, down in the jungle complete, lost and without food, nothing to sustain them or he, exceot this want for notoreity, the want for the seemign All. He sacrificed the lives of all in his shabby band of loyal followers, and those who took to his stead, even the monk was corrupt, his innocent daughter was even sacrificed, he did seem to love her, but did not cease to save her life as he sailed on down the river in search of the lost city, attacked by natives in a strange land, picking them down one by one, almost in a calculated way, the horse they left behind for death, probably in a better state of being than those left on the raft, the appointed leader of the party, taken off the boat to the mainland to be murdered, his early death was proabbly a welcome cure, it was a portrayal of madness and how it corrupted them and him, Aguirre, saw how it deconstructed the party one by one, showed the typical loyalists who for whatever reason always side with madness, giving them approval and a source of power, for without the Nazi party, Hitler would have been nothing, another mouth to feed, yet Aguirre had his cronies, had his men who would do all that he asked, even those who did not want to follow,had to, for fear of incurring the wrath of Aguirre or his men, and it so happens often in the story, it was almost as if they were all mad or dead by the end of it, even whist alive they all seemed mad by a certain look of it, even his plaintive daughter seemed straight out of a fairy tale, clothed in renaissance garb and long flowing hair, giggling at this and that, she seemed unreal and a point of sanity for Aguirre, or at least, a point of loving security, hunger drives the devil or is it the other way around? hunger was a problem after a while, hunger and sheer fatigue, but madness needs not these things to survive, just a want to find, to be, to become great, that search for greatness that never comes only makes the madness worse, deepens it for all, to where it is entrenched and can never be removed, for once the taste is there, tis hard to resist...even the setting was perfect for the story, the "undiscovered" Amazon, the raging river and rapids, the cannibals, the death, destruction, hunger (which makes one wonder would any have stretched themselves to such lengths, given they had run out of food, but i suppose that is beyond the movie's scope, but interesting nevertheless, they earlier condemned it, coming across a deserted camp with evidence of cannibalism all around...would they have resorted to it too? given the desperation?) Yeah, its that type of movie...depicts the sheer will of pure madness, the incredible endurance and vision of another scope, another field entirely, where gods are met and heroes formed, for tis the double blade of insanity, walking that fine line, will one fall into greatness? or will thou fall into the deepened darkness, that greater depth of chasm beheld, that of inscrutable and uncontainable madness...

Hour of the Wolf (1968) Another classic by Bergman, a horror jaunt for him, in this case, a horror classic, Gothic horror piece to be exact, Johan is an artist and acrazed, he sees personifications of his guilts and traumas throughout his life, embodied in old ladies, royalty and little boys by the sea on an island that he and his pregnant wife are staying, he is obsessed with a past love and seems to never have gotten over her, his guilt and or his obsession about her seems to come to climax with a humiliating scene of him in drag being exposed, the Bird-Man was intense, his hallucinations come to life, and leaves the wife to question the idea of being so close to your lover as to be incorporated with his/her traumas, the question being, if that had not happened, would she have been better equipped to help him when embroiled within his madness? questions of division in love and the idea of both being ever so close, being detrimental in this case, empowering the idea of independence IN dependence, having space as Gibran hath said, a critique of marriage as one union, melded in romance, a romantic view, could be deadly in madness

And last but not least, The Madness of King George (1994)

2010: The Year of Harry Potter...closing thoughts? Or just the beginnings?...

Although its not true that this is the end, for I have yet to divulge and ingest the addendum books: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard (along with a "Prequel" which is online and from what I understand not too long)...yes seems like so long ago (and compared to those whom stuck with the series, this is laughable) that in January of 2010 I started my/the first Harry Potter book, and ended the last in November 2010 (reread the ending several chapters or so again in early January for I read them aloud to share with Jamie before the grand release of the film: Deathly Hallows Part One) there were spacings in-between, especially between Order of Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince for I needed to gather a copy of Prince) so what was Potter all about to me? What overall themes did I notice, witness, were moved by? what were the significances? Will return to this in more depth, reading more analysis but for now, my own imaginings will do...

The Harry Potter series has at its core the theme of death and all that surrounds it, the living with, the experiencing of, the conquering of, the fear of (embodied in the character of Voldemort, Harry as the main to experience it, in different forms and ways, ultimately overcoming his fear, ie: Voldemort) it is significant to say that the series starts out with a double murder (Potter's parents, or at least is told of/mentioned) and the orphaned child is left to live in a world alone in life, not ever knowing, living out of a broom closet being almost handmaiden to his "family" his mother's sister's family the Dursleys, in remote allusion to Cinderella there, in that he is poorly mistreated in favor of some stepsisters, in Potter, his cousin Dudley Dursley...it is a great tale, epic in size and proportion, intricately detailed world, set in our own, but with a genius stroke of a hidden world within it, of magic and wizards and witches and monsters and spells and wands...yet within this world are characters that could be found in our "regular" world and culture, seemingly the same...

Ron and Hermione, Harry and Albus, Hagrid and McGonagall, all are familiar to us in their personalities and traits, albeit some are great wizards and witches, some of them happen to be giants, or half-breeds, or centaurs...we love them because they are familiar and so close, yes J.K. Rowling uses tropes and stereotypes and cliches and typicals, yet, it is in the way she uses them, and frames them to make them her own, in her own universe, which makes it unique...which brings in the idea of trope usage as a way to further the genre, of whatever it is one is discussing, using cliches in cliches form, in a generic standard, gets one nowhere but where one has been before, but to meld these tropes into something new and improved, that seems to be the way of progress? "Progress"? the furthering of the "Line"? the line so many want to cross, to push, but fail? Rowling made her own universe, not easy to do, and it seemed to natural to her I am sure, so natural to us as readers and viewers, it only made sense that Hogwarts was a boarding school in the traditional UK sense, but it was so fantastic to us, almost real, Rowling made it a place of comfort and joy, a place of growth and pain, and the center of much of the action in this series, we returned to it every year, every book (except the last), just as Harry did...Hagrid was a half-bred giant with a Scottish accent and a personality to boot, a little dim-witted but lovable and a loyal friend all the same, Albus (meaning white in Latin btw, as in the white wizard, homage to Gandalf I am sure) was the wizard who bestowed upon the hero gifts and training all the way to almost the end, when he must set himself aside, in death or otherwise, as prescribed in Campbell's hero's journey, or monomyth, and was a wise and deepend soul, to lead Harry, to advise him, so that he may move on to finish his quest, a la Obi Wan, Gandalf, and Virgil(?)...

And her world is so original yet familiar, the traditional families as represented by the Weasleys, Mr. and Mrs. and the newlyweds Bill and LeFleur, where the man works and the woman is a homemaker, takes care of kids, cleans, cooks, etc. and this could be critiqued, yet there is no absence of strong female characters in these stories, ie: McGonagall, Hermione, (although twisted) Bellatrix, Luna, Ginny and even Molly Weasley herself stepped up to face Bellatrix, and it is only then we witness Molly's true power as a witch, something she had hid from the reader due to the lack of urgency for her strengths to be shown...the school itself as mentioned above with Hogwarts, the fight between (as Rowling has put it) what is right, and what is easy, which is, as far as my understanding goes, a unique and profound take on notions of what is "good" and "evil", what I've always liked about the four houses in Hogwarts, was the representation of Slytherin (seen superficially as the House where from so many go on to become "evil") yet as characterized in the book early on, they are the ones who are ambitious, and have a taste for power, which could be seen in a more positive light, yet, at the same time, is so tantalizing to choose those paths that would lead to "evil" deeds and wrong, Rowling I think successfully blurs the line between good/evil in a constructive way, as in life, it is never quite so simple as black and white, that life is met and experienced in more of gray tones than anything...that Draco, after all his musings and characterizations, was never truly evil, although seemingly predisposed to be such, that even Severus Snape, who we had ambiguous feelings about after he killed Albus, and was not sure where his loyalties lay, (even though I could not believe that he had betrayed Albus, given their fights on Hogwarts grounds in Half-Blood, it just didn't seem to add up that he would be back loyal to Voldemort, I just didn't know how it could have played out, and must admit that I did give up on him towards middle of Deathly Hallows, come to find out, OH!) that after all he had shown, that he could have been loyal all along, the most two dimensional it seems, would be Voldemort, who was a caricature anyways, much like Sauron and Darth Vader, (yet Lucas tried to further his story with the god forsaken prequels, but to no avail, sometimes the two-dimensionality works better for a character and works to make them more profound) yet, Voldemort was not without his history and development, and is miles away in comparison to Lucas' treatment of Anakin's development...but Slytherin seems, in the end, not all lost to the whims of "Easy" and "Power-hungry" for example, Slughorn was on the side of "right" to the end, although he was one who helped (albeit unknowingly) Voldemort (at time Tom Riddle) to pursue further the ideas of Horcrux creation, he did feel remorse for his actions, although no one could blame him, twas all in the name of academic curiosity at the time it seemed to him...he felt so much guilt in fact, he was a hindrance instead of help until Harry, under the guise and direction of Felix Felicis, could draw it out of him, with the help of his mother's memory of course...all is not what it seems...see below...

I have seen analysts describe within the Potter books the element of "not everything is as it seems" and while this seemed perfunctory and cliche at the time, now seems legitimate now, after having read the books, mystery is a large part of the Potter series, and very much drives the plot along in most books, if not all of them, and the characters and plot-lines are both at the mercy of the whims of mystery...

Perhaps the art of creation is the taking of tropes and cliches and making them unique, for there seems to be, at least we are preached to as artists today, that nothing is original ever, and ever amen...and while this may seem a daunting task, tis not originality that an artist should strive, it should be the movement of an artist's audience which should drive him more, for the pursuit of originality in its own sense is only selfish in the end, and a troubadour's song lost to the ears of a supposed audience, never to be heard yet perhaps appreciated in scholarly lore (???) And Rowling does just this, with monomyth as her guide he builds an elaborate world around a growing boy, through his teenage years, so profound, so turbulent, so chaotic and painful, and what a great time to center this story of death? around the age when we all feel a sense of immortality, of selfishness, whereas Harry feels this pride, he is hardly ever arrogant, humble to the last, which is probably indebted to Albus' plan of leaving him with the Dursleys in his formative years, to instill in him a sense of humility based on such nominal but in either case mental/emotional abuse...was not enough to scar him for life, yet enough to wish and hope for more, never in a state of complacence, he was a strong soul who went with what was dealt, until that fateful day that he received his first piece of mail ever, delivered to him by owl nonetheless...

That that little boy went on to face death, and in him, and for everyone else in symbol, the face of it, is so perfectly laced within this tale of a growing teenage boy, fraught with lessons, and scowling professors, and female interludes, and friendship squabbles, all the things that a normal, everyday teenager faces, yet wrapped up within this story of old, this larger, more transcendent story of life and death, love and the battles we face...Shakespearean in league, in scope, with the idea of the everyday wrought within the timeless, that there are scopes of teenie angst followed by tales of kidnappings and torture and the threat that all is lost, (which come to think of it, reflects the teenage sense of drama, so overwhelming, everything is so life or death!...)

In terms of technique, very interesting to note that she scaled her work to reflect the age of the characters, ie Harry, for example her use of vocabulary, her grammar and sentence structure, all became more advanced as Harry got older, along with the plotlines and scope of the overarching story, simpler at first, very intricate and convoluted by the end, wrapped up very nicely by the last chapters of Deathly Hallows...tidy it seems, too tidy in a way, all or most characters being revisited by the end, them all being there for the last fight, losing some of the most integral characters by the end, but just prices to pay in such times...Fred was lost, but at the cost of losing a twin, not a severe lost, for we have a carbon copy of him named George, its only their dynamic betwixt them that we lose, the twins, the Gemini of the Potter universe...anyways I cannot discern whether Rowling intended for this advancement to happen with her writing style, that she had planned this form the first, or if it just happened as she became herself a professional writer and had more time, and more of a niche, to be able to write in a vein, in a voice that she had found uniquely hers, this I cannot tell, perhaps she has commented on this, have not read up on it, I mean she has been writing stories since she was six (?), so writing has become second nature to her, the telling of a story in prose, maybe her skills (of course they had to have) improved over the course of these 7 books, I mean, how could they not? to write 7-800 page books, and then being well-received, your technique would definitely flourish a bit, would it not?

The character's relationships feel real, feel warm and inviting, and how she interconnected them all is a testament to her creative genius, her ability to connect (period) is a testament and a hallmark of her creative genius as well, the way her sinewy plotlines shape and twist and converge and diverge all leading to a grand climax is superb, her flawless pacing helps to move the story along as well, rushing or slowing, giving time to breathe, to run, to lose sight of, to laugh, to cry, every emotion seems to be represented here in these books, in this series, Harry feeling the brunt of them for he is growing up, growing through not only in physicals, but in emotionals and mentals as well, spirituals in a sense for he deals with the deaths of so many dear to him, and ultimately faces it alone, himself, to be redeemed as a Christ figure in a way, his cross beared for so long against his forehead, that mark of that meant so much to so many, a symbol of life over death, tis truly a cross symbol, just as the resurrection is symbolized with the cross for it is where he died, born again yes in the cave, and yes the death cult of Christianity uses the cross instead, focusing on where he died, as his sacrifice is paramount to the meaning behind it all, yet it is ultimately his resurrection, his life over death which has been instilled as miraculous, and Harry's is no lesser...Harry came back from the dead, in novel form, came back to destroy symbolic death forever amongst his people, those who in a way worshiped him, his deeds, his scar, his deeds in which he could never take full credit for, not that he felt he deserved it (and maybe if grown in the magical world he migh'tve been different) yet his humility kept him from such tantalizingly selfish thoughts and attitudes, his betrayal of the Slytherin House as his true home, but come to find out, twas only the death within him that lurked, the piece of Voldemort that was still attached from that fateful day, that day that he overcame death with the help of his sacrificial mother, and her love, Voldemort spat on love, something he didn't understand, which came in the end to finish him, his ignorance of its power, and Harry's unusual luck or fate or whatever have you...he defeated death twice in his life, something rare and magical about that, miraculours if you will, Jesus didn't even do that (hehe) yet the point was that he faced it as Jesus did on the cross, yet Harry did have those he cared about in spirit with him at he walk, who was with Jesus to his walk to Calvary? (is this correct?) Harry accepted it and walked up to the face of it, to sacrifice himself for those he loved, to die for those he loved, ot does seem to me, that sacrifice is one of the most profound of human emotions (yes felt in emotions) and acts that can be experienced, and resonates deeply within the human psyche, as does death as does love...as with life and death, there is sacrifice

And so it seems there is another Christ story amongst us, did not recognize it before until now, but it no less aggravates me as would a lesser story, the use of such cliche, for there is no doubting the resonating power of Jesus' time on the cross, his teachings and what he died for, in so many permutations before and after the phenomenon of Christianity hit the world, this is but the latest and most profound, and so readable and accessible to all age groups, for the "growing up"/ bildungsroman story saga of Harry Potter relates to us all, as does the primordial themes that Rowling uses as her central focus throughout the series, tied ever so tightly and integrally within her made up universe of Expelliarmus and Nox, Every Flavor Beans and games of Exploding Snap, Holly wands and Phoenix songs, friendships that last a lifetime, memories that last forever, this is the world of Harry Potter, a world that thankfully does not end, and can start whenever one picks up any one of the books, for a ride is set to take you into this most cherished world, as Harry Potter and Hermione and Ron all set themselves up on high beside the greatest characters and heroes of literary legend, Harry stands amongst them all in myth and in lore, as the Boy Who Lived...

And there is more! Harry's notions of family, and what family means and stands for, he has had many models of "family" from the Dursleys, to his godfather Sirius (who was closer to being an uncle than anything he had as one), to the Weasleys, who, for their part, gave him the most traditional family setup, Molly being his "second mother" in senses, cooking for him, making him sweaters, treating him as one of her own, much like many mothers do whose sons have best friends...but Harry has had many models, more than most, and never could for an instant, take what family meant for granted, it was always in shift, for if they were alive, they were then dead, and the model again shifted, the Weasleys were great, he loved them all, and although never mentioned, they were not really his blood family, and in his own private way, yearned for, for this would treat him closer to his parents who he missed so much...