Letters to the Editor
kenkapkk
Published Letters: 131 Editor's Choice: 13
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Larger context
[Read the article: "Beowulf" vs. "The Lord of the Rings"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I haven't seen the movie, doubt I will, but as a storyteller who is obsessed with the idea of meaningful narrative, I think Kamiya is, in focusing specifically with this film, addressing a larger problem that had been endemic with Hollywood for years.
One can argue convincingly that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were personally responsible for the destruction of intelligence and maturity in mainstream American cinema. This destruction could not have happened without the prevalence of the darker strain of greed and shallowness that runs through the underbelly of the American collective psyche. Thus H.L. Mencken could observe, "no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people".
When "Star Wars', a callow and third rate recycled attempt at using mythological motifs bolstered by phenomenal special effects and half a first movie of some imagination, became a cultural icon (revealing the fifth grade mentality of much of the population), and "Raiders of the Lost Ark", a slightly more mature attempt to elevate "B" movies to "A" movie status (the avowed aim of both directors) succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations, the idea that anything besides ever increasing special effects sans character, imagination, texture, ambiguity to drive sales was all but assured.
In the avalanche of horrific dreck since then ("Independence Day" anyone?), it was rare to find an action or big screen movie director who actually could integrate his effects to story. Ironically, when Lucas left the direction of "The Empire strikes Back" to another, the film emerged as the only satisfying tale of the mess the "auteur" inflicted on the world. One can count on few fingers the films that have been able to merge the two, "Aliens" by Cameron, The first "Matrix", of course LOTR, a few others, decimating the space for intelligent filmmaking and leaving it to foreign films or independents.
"Troy", for God's sake, was made with the entire mythological framework removed. When a film like "Million Dollar Baby" is hailed as tremendous filmmaking, you know how low we have sunk.
American's inability at present to grapple with myth in particular, with subtext, with complexity, with POETRY in mass culture is reflective of the nation's inabilty to grasp these same elements in its political and cultural life. Thus a George Bush and single minded fundamentalism could flourish in such an era.
It is doubly ironic that Cable Television has been the one oasis where this intelligence has not been eradicated. The once "Great Wasteland" has been transposed, from HBO's great series to "Battlestar Galactica." Even NBC's "Heroes" has a greater grasp on the nuance of myth and imagination integrated into reality than anything in the movies, including "Spiderman"-which wasn't half bad at first.
So I applaud the essence of what Kamiya is after, for as I have been saying, it extrapolates into a general condemnation of the inability of this society to delve beneath the most shallow of surfaces. Much has been made here recently of Thomas Friedman and other's capitulation (still) to a deeply sad weddedness to some adolescent idea of what strength, power, and virility is composed of. Myths are not just of the past, we carry our own, often erroneous ones, with us and act on them, much to the tragedy for ourselves and others. To say there is no relationship to the enormous misguided vision of these people in media, who supposedly represent the "Best and Brightest" and the absolute inability of most major filmmakers to have the capacity to deeply represent an ancient (or almost ANY) story with some degree of authenticity is to not understand the landscape.