On Motives and Masking

After reading Orson Scott Card's treatise on Where the Wild Things Are, which basically branched into another critique of art cinema, I'm prompted to ask:

Can depth exist in a film beyond that which is spelled out and apparent? Are the only motives that a story is allowed to include the ones that are opened in front of you? Card's quibbles on the film are pretty clear:

[I]t's an art film -- which means that it is deliberately strange and unexplained. Things happen, but the writers and director go to some pains to conceal motive and reaction.

Oddly enough, the decision not to explain what's happening is usually regarded as a way to make a film "deep," but the opposite is the truth. When we are given no clue to the real motivations and intentions of characters, we have no choice but to settle for the most obvious -- the cultural cliches.

Orson Scott Card has made a highly successful, respectful career out of writing stories with very human characters who constantly explain (either through internal monologue or conversations with other characters) what they are feeling, exactly why everything is happening the way that it is and why they are doing what they are doing. And he's done this for the most part without sacrificing depth or meaning. But this is by no means the only way to create.

Movies don't have the benefit of pages of internal monologue, and real life has ambiguity. You can't always read somebody's emotions, and people often behave in odd, unpredictable ways that even they don't fully understand. Art cinema is clearly influenced by much of modern thought - that which recognizes and even relishes some ambiguity in daily life. It's also been the only modern "genre" to really incorporate ambience successfully, something that we've lost as a society in our slam-bang thrillers and blah dramas. In his musical and literary tastes Card definitely leans toward traditional forms - traditional singers and stories - over later, more postmodern stuff that learned to incorporate the dissonance and ambiguity we see in real life to great effect.

Is writing a film with deliberate structural engineering designed to underscore something really that bad? Surely there's room for films with subtle elements you can't grasp immediately, and the existence of such is not necessarily a blaring klaxon designed to alert us to pretension or hackery. Even as a lover of straightforward stories some of my favorite films have been exceedingly dry affairs with a lot of subtext, with things both intended and unintended to think about after the film ends and catch on subsequent viewings. (It took me ages to realize the irony of No Country For Old Men's Anton Chigurh getting into a sudden car accident, and it blew my mind. It was a deliberately contradictory element and I loved the implications.)

I've always defined "art" as that resonant feeling you get when you appreciate something but can't necessarily verbalize exactly why. I love that feeling, as I also love straightforward stories. I kind of wish that more people could learn to appreciate well-engineered experiences without impugning the motives of those who created them.

Comparisons

A slightly inappropriate comparison from Orson Scott Card's recent review of Narnia Xtreme: The Allegorical Adventures of Prince Caspian:

How good is Prince Caspian, the second installment in the series of films adapted from C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia?

For the second movie in a series to improve on the first is rare enough, but it's been done before -- Godfather II, for instance. (Emphasis added.)

Though I doubt Narnia 2: Adventures With Aslan is anything but worthy cinema, I must admire the mind of one whose mind is invariably driven toward Coppola's masterwork when considering the flick. Wouldn't something more apt and recent have sufficed - something like Toy Story 2? Maybe that's not even appropriate: at least Toy Story doesn't require you to read the book first just to know what the heck is going on.

Card goes on to list some "bad" sequels: Speed, Rocky, Die Hard and Beverly Hills Cop. At least he got something right. The rest of this post (following the three dashes) is facetious and can probably be skipped without ill consequence. It's a better example of the consequences of night blogging than anything else.

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Other potential names for the film:

N2rnia: Funtime Adventures in Mountaintown

Christian or Christina?

Narnia 2: Fully Electric Boogaloo

There is a Scratch-n-Sniff at the End of This Movie

Lion-Worshiping Pagans Indirectly Promote Jesus

Hobbits With Morals

And finally:

The New Adventures of Goofus and Gallant

OSC Rants on J.K. Rowling's Copyfight

Orson Scott Card is a practical novelist, whose stories are usually character-driven to the end and bear the marks of a fantastic storyteller. Perhaps it's merely the benefit of being subject to an editor, but Card's books rarely seem slapdash or sloppy.

As a casual writer, Card's maturity varies. He's written some great political analyses, but he's also written columns making snap judgements of those who disagree with him or dismissed films for irrational reasons.

But his comments last week regarding J.K. Rowling's lawsuit against RDR Books, publishers of the upcoming Harry Potter Lexicon, cross the line of all good taste and fairness.

The story so far: The Harry Potter Lexicon has existed in online form for quite some time, as an encyclopedia of sorts to the Harry Potter series. Rowling has remarked on the site's accuracy and detail in the past, even using the site for reference while writing her books. She called the site her "natural home", and it's even possible that much of the timeline for the later books was cribbed from the Lexicon's research.

Recently, the site planned to expand its reach through publisher RDR Books by publishing a book containing most of the information on the site, titled (drumroll please) The Harry Potter Lexicon. Now, this sort of thing is protected under Fair Use and copyright laws protecting the publishing of annotated scholarly works, no different than thousands of other such guides published every year as companions to a wide variety of material. Provided that the books are sourced properly and do not contain large passages of the author's original material, everything's fine and dandy.

But not to J.K. Rowling. She's been gearing to publish an HP Encyclopedia of her own (an awesome prospect for fans of the series, to say the least), and felt oppressed by the release of this new book. Her opinion of the Lexicon changed dramatically until she finally threw a Ron Weasley-sized tantrum, regretting having ever said anything positive about the website. All of this culminated in a lawsuit filed last October, still ongoing. As the copyfight wages on, Rowling feels that her creativity has been "crushed" and wonders if she will have the heart to release her own encyclopedia.

But she's twisting the legal system to get her own way. RDR Books has all the rights to publish their book, and J.K. has the right to release her own encyclopedia. With her additional rights as author, she can even include new material or embellish upon existing material beyond what is included in the books. RDR's "scholarly work" is limited to direct referential information from the series - the extent protected by law.

It's fairly clear that Rowling is acting emotionally and holds the Potter universe close to her heart. But it would be a pity if her encyclopedia never gets released because she doesn't understand copyright law; it's plain that the quality of her book would blow the Lexicon out of the water and the resulting sales would speak for itself. Why bother getting the government involved, especially when you have no legal case?

Back to Orson Scott Card. In a new article posted on his site, he says he feels that that Rowling stole the plot for her novels from Card's own Ender's Game (wherein he merely generalizes the storylines of both series until they appear to match), then brings up past accusations of plagiarism levied against Rowling by other writers. Of course, all of these accusations (including Card's) are merely examples of appropriation of ideas, perfectly fine under copyright law provided that the usage is sufficiently indirect.

It's true, as Card says, that "authors borrow words from each other"; creativity does not exist in a vacuum. And it's true that Rowling is letting her emotions get in the way of the legal rights of a book publisher and some very devoted Harry Potter fans. But Card really steps over the line when he resorts to unhinged personal attacks:

"Talent does not excuse Rowling's ingratitude, her vanity, her greed, her bullying of the little guy, and her pathetic claims of emotional distress."

And, toward the end:

It's like her stupid, self-serving claim that Dumbledore was gay. She wants credit for being very up-to-date and politically correct -- but she didn't have the guts to put that supposed "fact" into the actual novels, knowing that it might hurt sales.

What a pretentious, puffed-up coward. When I have a gay character in my fiction, I say so right in the book. I don't wait until after it has had all its initial sales to mention it.

Rowling has now shown herself to lack a brain, a heart and courage. Clearly, she needs to visit Oz.

This overblown reaction is surprising; Card's been a fan of the series in the past, joining the ranks of authors like Stephen King in celebrating it as far more than mere childrens' fiction. He even wrote a neat, lengthy analysis of the character of Severus Snape prior to the release of the final book. Why the sudden change? Card plainly has a bone to pick with Rowling, and it's up to the rest of us to figure out just what on earth has him so darn angry and sensitive. It can't just be the gay Dumbledore issue. Could it be?

Why The "Reverend Wright" Controversy is a Sham

Orson Scott Card has proven himself adept at debating the subject of immigration, but his column on the recent Obama/Reverend Wright controversy may top even that. It's a succinct (and typically-lengthy) answer to those still harping on this issue:

"The real issue is: Should we be suspicious of Obama because of Wright's teachings?

Obama has made it plain that he rejects Wright's racially divisive teachings. But he is tied to Reverend Wright by bonds of friendship that transcend doctrines.

They are friends. Reverent Wright and Obama worked together trying to make life better for poor blacks in Chicago. Wright was part of Obama's spiritual awakening and of his search for an identity as a black man. Obama hardly knew his father. Wright took on some of that role in his life.

It's not as if Wright has been accused of a crime other than saying things that make white people mad. I'm a white person. It makes me mad. So what? Wright's not running for president; if he were, I wouldn't vote for him.

Here is my question to those who think Obama should have broken off his friendship with Wright over Wright's offensive statements:

Do you want as President the kind of person who would deny and abandon his closest friends in order to win that political office?"

Orson Scott Card: Answers About Obama

Orson Scott Card Reviews Everything

I don't know if you all know this, but Orson Scott Card has a quaint little website where you find out more about him than you ever needed to know. This week he reviewed dish racks and finger bandages, but it doesn't stop there! Read his review where he calls Martin Lawrence "such a good comic", or argues for privacy laws preventing personal movies from being put on YouTube without permission.

But I'm just having a little fun (some would say being unfair). There are also many, many things to read on the site that aren't inane. This from the guy who linked to video after video of Elmo dolls burning and exploding a week back.

Immigration Part 2: Immigration and the Election

I've mentioned immigration before on my blog, but Orson Scott Card's recent comments on immigration and the upcoming election have really, really caught my eye. In a recent post on his WorldWatch column, Card smartly skewers this year's candidates for their stances and ties the whole thing into the future of American politics. I've neglected Card's politics in the past due to a perceived naivete on his movie reviews, but I may have been mistaken.

I won't post highlights here because the column needs to be read in its entirety:

Please Don't Throw Away This Election

OSC Book Covers

As long as I'm on the subject of Orson Scott Card, I'm going to point out how terrible the covers of some of the foreign editions of his books are. Check out the pudgy German kid on the German edition of "Ender's Shadow":

Save some room for later, Augustus liebchen.

What about the puzzling Narnia-style cover for the Spanish Portuguese edition of "Speaker For the Dead". Simplifies things a bit?




The Japanese cover for "Lost Boys" is just. . . puzzling. It's kind of endearing, though - is this sort of thing commonplace? It's definitely uniquely Japanese.

One of the most wrenching, personal novels

of all time has become a Doraemon episode.

This isn't a foreign edition, but I'd like to point out the horror of the Young Adult printing of Ender's Game.

For Mega Man, it's not a game anymore.

In other news, they've given the audiobook edition the Star Wars treatment:

This should be the poster for the Ender films in 2017 when they finally get around to releasing them. And I would make my casting choices according to the poster: Ender played by Christopher Lee, Han Qin-Jao played by a very sleepy Bjork, and the Hive Queen motion-captured by Andy Serkis, as always.


Note: I apologize for the inconsistent formatting on this post. I'm still getting a hang of this whole "HTML" thing.