SECONDHAND LIONS, 2003
The lighting is dim and mellow as it plays throughout the shadowy, beautifully disheveled old farm house that two ancient brothers own, and as it illuminates the hard-scrabble vistas of the rural-Texas setting where large 1950s vehicles bounce along dusty dirt roads.. In this coming-of-age saga Haley Joel Osment plays a boy left at the Texas ranch of eccentric uncles (the brothers) Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. Duvall is in his element. Michael Caine less so, The uncles regale Osment with amazing tales of their past, which include adventures in the French Foreign Legion and saving a princess from slave traders and an Arab sheik. Yearning for the old days of adventure, they acquire and intend to shoot for sport an old lion, but the decrepitude of the lion gives them pause, as does the boy’s rapport with her. The movie kept my attention throughout, although the clarity and maturity of the Osment character seemed unlikely.
DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, 2010,
This “screwball comedy” film is the American adaptation of the French film, (The Dinner of Cretins). Steve Carell is extremely convincing as an idiot-savant who is too dim to know that he’s being used as a promotional gimmick for the so-star’s corporate ambitions. He makes wonderful dioramas, with dead mice impersonating characters in famous paintings. Carell miraculously maintains the characterization of his zany but pure-hearted role. Paul Rudd is the corporate guy, and didn’t interest me as much. Perhaps due to its French inspiration, there are sex themes that push the envelope a bit. As much by what it includes as by what it leaves out, the film brings up a question about movies and monogamy. Rudd’s art-curator girlfriend is wooed by an artist with animal magnetism whom she represents. Does one have to end up with the girl, or can they both share her?
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
globe and place and how everything connects
summary
I find big things easier to comprehend than little things. Since most people (in the Western world at any rate) are just the opposite, I’m always going against the grain. I can’t find any corroboration for my view that it is very easy to correct Earth’s climate and other critical woes if we think big enough. And it’s tempting to go off in a corner and leave the world to its dealings.
Despite what astronauts say about Earth’s unity, beauty and fragility when seen from afar, policy to give meaning to that vision is absent. The awe-stricken astronauts were working at the level of sensibility and feeling, and these are never the concern of policy.
After I wrote my first blog post (“How To Do Everything,” below) I heard about the book “Endgame” by Derrick Jensen, for which the author won The Press Action Person of the Year award. Although I’m puzzled by Jensen’s radical views and by the acclaim given him, what he wrote stopped me in my tracks. Could it be that I received no corroboration for my views because there was none to be found within the broad culture?
Among the premises in Endgame :
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
I reread my post, and the main fault I now find with it is the perhaps naïve assumption that it lies within the power of government to save the planet from the dire consequences wrought by industrial civilization. Ain’t gonna happen, most likely.
But I question whether direct acts of violence against civilization (as Jensen advocates) is the answer – these will most likely happen anyway -- or whether it is feasible, as an alternate strategy, to take peaceful but subversive actions to protect and restore the planet. As an example, what if it were feasible to cover dysfunctional paving everywhere (paving that does not use the sun’s energy to do anything useful) with vegetation (a simple, non-technologic solution to climate change)? It can’t be denied that looking at Earth as a seamless orb that depends on vegetation for its survival is something that civilization has proven hopeless at doing.
During the coming year I want to investigate, to my satisfaction, how or whether the broader society, driven by a revolution in the humanities and the arts, could potentially reverse this direction. (Examining the feasibility of a worldwide survey of land-use plans is one possible way to start.)
Can what is harmful in civilization be transcended through civilization itself?
Despite what astronauts say about Earth’s unity, beauty and fragility when seen from afar, policy to give meaning to that vision is absent. The awe-stricken astronauts were working at the level of sensibility and feeling, and these are never the concern of policy.
After I wrote my first blog post (“How To Do Everything,” below) I heard about the book “Endgame” by Derrick Jensen, for which the author won The Press Action Person of the Year award. Although I’m puzzled by Jensen’s radical views and by the acclaim given him, what he wrote stopped me in my tracks. Could it be that I received no corroboration for my views because there was none to be found within the broad culture?
Among the premises in Endgame :
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
I reread my post, and the main fault I now find with it is the perhaps naïve assumption that it lies within the power of government to save the planet from the dire consequences wrought by industrial civilization. Ain’t gonna happen, most likely.
But I question whether direct acts of violence against civilization (as Jensen advocates) is the answer – these will most likely happen anyway -- or whether it is feasible, as an alternate strategy, to take peaceful but subversive actions to protect and restore the planet. As an example, what if it were feasible to cover dysfunctional paving everywhere (paving that does not use the sun’s energy to do anything useful) with vegetation (a simple, non-technologic solution to climate change)? It can’t be denied that looking at Earth as a seamless orb that depends on vegetation for its survival is something that civilization has proven hopeless at doing.
During the coming year I want to investigate, to my satisfaction, how or whether the broader society, driven by a revolution in the humanities and the arts, could potentially reverse this direction. (Examining the feasibility of a worldwide survey of land-use plans is one possible way to start.)
Can what is harmful in civilization be transcended through civilization itself?
Posts
2 comments:
Saw the 2nd-hand Lions and enjoyed the haziness of whether it was fantasy or not. Osment seems to always play kids who are much wiser and more sensitive than the adults.
Also saw the French version of the Dinner movie, years ago. A lot of word puns and slapstick. But the premise seemed very mean. Of course the victim is clueless and don't we say that "God looks out for fools".
"...enjoyed the haziness of whether it was fantasy or not."
Nice way to put it. I thought the Texas scenes were visually hazy, never thinking that there was another kind of haziness as well. :-)
Post a Comment