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Monday, August 21, 2006
The Weekend
I had a nice weekend despite working pretty much constantly. Friday night I got a chance to have some beers and see a fun little show. It was Adam and Rob from the Nice Jenkins playing a little accoustic set at the Satellite Ballroom (their album is now available through Record Theory). It was especially fun considering how they set it up like we were all at a slumber party with a big quilt tent right in the middle of the room.
 I also saw Manderlay by Lars von Trier and hated it. I think I'm mostly pissed that he covers the ugly parts of our history from a state of complete ignorance and somehow garners critical acclaim as a result. I find his combination of shoddy camera work, dreary negativism, and absence of historic or social relevance really tiresome, both in this film and Dogville. I also just have a gut reaction that his criticism is just so damn limited because it's so European (and as a result cynical). For one, our history is ugly, but Faulkner gets it right, and this guy is just a amateur who's never even been to this country. Second, if people really are this awful, we might as well just all kill ourselves now and be done with it. Then he ends each film with a photo montage of the nastiness of the United States, either our poverty or racism whatever. Maybe it's just because he's a dirty furriner, but I'm starting to get pissed. Is this just a natural reaction to our Hollywood movies about the Holocaust? Or does he really believe that the US has the patent and copyright on evil®? If we want to really have a competition on this point, von Trier is seriously going to lose in a competition between which region of the world has committed more horrible acts if only because we're just a newer nation and haven't had the opportunity yet to do match all the horrible wrongs of the European nations, and we could probably blame a lot of our evils on inheriting them from the old country. Anyway, enough bitching. Anyone else do anything fun? |
3 Comments:
I assume that the critique of Manderlay would be that you can't really do the South justice unless you've spent a significant amount of time there (some would probably say 'born there').
On the plus side, I had my first-ever taste of cotton candy. Huzzah!
12:11 PM, August 21, 2006
Yeah, and it's not like we don't have our beautiful denunciations of the South that are so much more perceptive. von Trier just comes across as shrill and obvious about our problems when in reality the pervasive nature of our shameful history is much more insidious. A lot of elements that were in CSA, for instance, I thought were much more clever and accurate, even though that was almost slapstick comedy in its criticism of Southern racism. In Manderlay they come across a town where slavery still exists 70 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and the denouement of the film is so freaking nasty and miserable, and hopless and probably racist that it's hard to describe.
von Trier is just too clumsy, too obvious, and in the end too friggin negative. If he really feels this way about humanity why doesn't he just off himself? It's just so over the top.
I prefer the Faulknerian idiot man-child's view of the south by far.
12:45 PM, August 21, 2006
Even the slapstick of CSA came across a bit too blunt at times. There's plenty to criticize, and plenty of ways to do it, without resorting to "ha-ha, look at the racist stuff that they did back then". Plenty of Yankees buy Aunt Jemima products. Racism is alive and well throughout the country; the South just wears it on its sleeve. How else can you explain making immigration an issue in the Dakotas?
But having a Dane who's never left the Continent making fun of American racism is beyond the pale. As my Southern-raised wife says: Outsiders making fun of the South raises her ire. It's like someone making fun of your mom - you can do it, but damn if non-family does.
4:26 PM, August 21, 2006
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