Braid – again

An incidental post, partially written simply because I have been away enjoying the marvellous, wonderful calm of the English countryside this past week. Whilst other countries may boast more spectacular vistas, more photogenic countryside or more things to do than strap on a pair of walking boots and tramp across soil, rocks and grass, none can compare to the marvellous sense of life one gains from England. I’ll write more on it some other time, when I have consolidated my admiration into something phraseable.

Just now, I completed Braid, the marvellous little indie title that I was fawning over a few weeks ago. The ending was, I have to admit, riveting in an entirely nonsensical way. Reading through a fascinating analysis here, I’ve reinforced my ideas that Braid both demands and deserves the title of Art. To link together an entire theme into the game mechanic is a marvel: the main character is desperate to make up for past mistakes, so the game is a platformer – circumnavigating dangers – whilst rewinding time to correct mistakes you’ve made. I could not have developed something so clever and concise myself, but then again I am no games designer. I am a games writer, and am somewhat mercenary about that – I’ve been driven into games writing out of a sense of apathy about the diabolical standards of writing in almost every game ever released not made by Tim Schafer. But, again, a subject for another time.

Gomorrah

Gangster films are an art in themselves: anyone who knows more than the basics about films and film can tell you that. It’s not intended to be a shattering revelation. Nevertheless, it does mean something around which filmmakers and their audience need to tread more carefully than otherwise: a unique set of rules and regulations, and tighter scrutiny. Action movies or Dramatic movies can get away with vague, generalised nitpicks – and they are also less likely to be held up top the light and compared with whatever was Bruce Willis’s finest work, or Aliens. Gangster movies, on the other hand, like Westerns, face first of all a decidedly finicky audience, who have come to the cinema expecting to see something rather than awaiting blissful surprise, and secondly the inevitable comparison to The Godfather (if the film is cerebral and deals with organisation) or Goodfellas (if it is gritty and has no orchestral music whatsoever). On the other hand, I’m no connoisseur in the genre – I merely look for a good game. A pity, then, that either way I have would up disappointed.

Gomorrah arrived in London over a week ago and I had intended to see it ever since I read the reviews, written by reviewers who appeared to have had simultaneous epiphanies whilst watching. It came so highly recommended that Solomon himself would have been delighted to have it seated at his table and I remember in particular one reviewer claiming that if enough people saw it, it could replace The Godfather as the premium example of mafia life as depicted filmically. To which I can only now reply: ‘I do hope not.’ The Godfather may be unrealistic, unfairly idyllic, to concentrated on class and family to really convey the true callous nature of mafia life, but at least it made for a watchable movie.

Gomorrah is a film with its priorities wrong. The first scene is set in a tanning salon and I loved it: middle-aged Italian men, the arrogance dripping off them as tangibly as the sweat, viewing their bodies as the prizes of their labour. The whirring hum of the tanning machines gave a threatening atmosphere to the proceedings (an ironic choice of words, given pretty much nothing was happening), and one man even managed to make getting a manicure seem dangerous. Then, half of them are shot where they stand by the other half in a taut snapping of bullets and I thought ‘Yes. We are looking at another slick, stylish, fascinating portrait of gangster life.’ Unfortunately, I was wrong. We weren’t. We were looking at a deceptive opening to a film which seemed to expect us to care about it without giving us any reason to.

In a nutshell, Gomorrah is about the Camorra, effectively the Italian mafia. It is renowned for being more violent and less organised than its American or Chinese equivalents. The film follows the unlinked stories of various personages all linked to the mob: a pair of lethally stupid teenagers; a young, impressionistic boy who seems to lack personality; a tailor with a large order to complete; a money carrier working on the estate where most of the events take place; and a few others. To be honest, nobody was particularly memorable and I couldn’t care about anyone owing to them all being completely unlikeable. A first failing: the film evidently wants us to sympathise with some characters and dislike others but they all fall into the same category of ‘Unlikeable Italian bloke, possibly called Giovanni’. (I am not being xenophobic; there are at least six people called Vincenzo in the cast list and many names are commonplace.) The pace is sluggish, often spending far too much time on trivialities, and the camera wavers about during the scene as if either it doesn’t know what it is looking for or it assumes the audience will want to see everything and therefore tries to include it all at one time or another. In reality, it just seems the former, which isn’t a good impression to make.

I know what Gomorrah is trying to do: it is trying to be a snapshot into the lives of those living under the wing of the mafia, but even there it falls down. It’s trying to be representative – fair enough; City of God pulled it off – and yet by confining the characters followed to only a few, and mostly of no consequence, it makes the film feel irregular and unconvincing. There is only one point in the entire film where I get the idea of just what it is like living in such a place, which is poor when the film is actually genuine – shot on location, nice; real-life gangsters hired for some of the roles, lovely. I’ve no quarrel with the acting but I do with the characters, and the director (Matteo Garrone, never helmed anything which made an impact outside of Europe before) appears to have missed something at film school: to care about a character, they have to be interesting. Otherwise you just want them to stop taking up space on the screen. There is precisely one interesting character in Gomorrah, the tailor, and he has about one eighth of the film to himself. A shame. Everyone else is dull, and for a film relying so much on the force of its population this is worrying.

The other problem is location. In setting most of the film around a single estate, Garrone tries to make it feel representative. Unfortunately, I live in London and I know all about sink estates, where once one crosses the grassy border they are unsure of ever coming out again. Shootings in estates are no novelty, so the idea that amped-up young men, high on arrogance and bravado, might shoot each other hardly strikes me as endemic. I found it much more easy to imagine such problems limited only to the flats in question and the rest of the city harmless as any other. Therefore, the majority of the film had no impact whatsoever as I could brush it off as irrelevant. Take us away from that estate and one would expect the problem to cease existing but again it is all too social: scenes taking place between only a few people, in bedrooms or on the beach, the same faces returning all the time. This is not an example of a pervasive all-powerful criminal fraternity, this is a group of old men with too much power and some sub-prime real estate. There’s no web of power, no influence, and there should be. At the end of the film, pre-credits, a number of facts about the Camorra are shown, including how many people they have killed and how much dumping of radioactive waste they are killing the countryside with. Upon leaving the cinema, I wondered why on earth that information hadn’t been provided at the beginning. It would have allowed a welcome contextualising of what I was seeing, rather than the aimless meandering I felt it was.

What we have, then, is a film where the direction remains locked up tightly in the mind of the director. There was a lot of potential – good locations, fine acting, a definite sense of gritty realism aided by the sensible lack of soundtrack – but it was negated by the apathy felt by both the characters and myself. For a film such as this to work it must be sure of itself: is it a gangster thriller, or a docudrama? It advertised itself as the former, and it wasn’t. Instead, we had what should have been a controlled and focused example of expose filmmaking resulting as a messy, nihilistic mess, where the continual callousness and arrogance of the players left you deadened and dispassionate. There is no point in watching this film expecting entertainment. My advice? Watch half of it one day, and then the other half the next, and view it as a performed documentary. That way, you will still care enough to be engaged. What I can applaud, however, is how well it showed the dehumanising effect of mafia life. It managed to bore even me.

Love

Not that kind of love, unfortunately. I feel i am hardly broad-thinking enough for a post on that subject. perhaps when I am older, and more experienced. No, this is a quick peek at Love, the game I mentioned yesterday and one I have happily been following. The debut trailer has recently been released, and for a display of pre-alpha footage it looks remarkably impressive. What Love reminds me of is a game like Darwinia or Ico - a project with the specific aim in mind of putting off as high a percentage of its potential audience as possible. By distilling them, it gains the appreciation it seeks, and therefore attains whatever cult status its tribe deem worthy. Such games are rare – they have to be – but if i were to slight it for overambition or auterism I would be doing myself a disservice. (How would I have lasted the past four days without Braid, I wonder?) I can’t claim to know any more of the title than what i have read on Kotaku and wherever they link to, but for a game expected in 2010 such dripping of information are to be expected.

Braid

Okay, Braid. I mean, Braid. I mean, damn.

I suppose it’s time for a revelation: the only thing I’m any good at critiquing effectively is film. For some reason, I just can’t get under the skin of literature, art or music. Those, I fail at, and fail miserably. The best I could do, I suppose, would be along the lines of a book report such as those completed and handed in by primary school pupils. It would be higher-quality than those, I hope, with the kind of insight a child of eleven would miss but an well-read man of eighteen would notice. However, the two would be worth about the same when it came down to how much they were worth. As I’ve made as clear as necessary, a review needs to spark some debate, needs to teach the audience something they would not necessarily see otherwise. A though I had not stumbled across when actually writing my Critiquing essays was this: A reader should find cause to return to a review after they have seen the object in question. It should raise points and then implicitly invite the audience’s opinion on the points raised. It’s practically a duty. Otherwise, where is the point of keeping the review after you have seen the film? And something I’ve noticed when it comes to the best reviews is that they become intrinsically linked to the film. I cannot think of Revenge of the Sith or Sex and the City without bringing to mind Anthony Lane’s thoughts on the subject, and nor can I remember Mass Effect without Edge Magazine’s brilliant dissection of why it wasn’t quite perfect.

Anyway. A final thought on reviewing before I actually get down to a review. Well, not strictly a review, more a simple discussion, a brief analysis on an incomplete subject. There are two reasons for this: one, the game in question, Braid, I have not yet completed and am not likely to anytime soon, given the wonderful difficulty of the game. Two, anyone who claims to be able to sum up Braid, with all its dimensions and complexities hiding behind a veil of deceptive simplicity, is a fool. Braid cannot be encapsulated so easily.

By way of introduction, Braid is a 2D platform/puzzle game (emphasis on the ‘puzzle’ there, as the platforming element is so deliberately simple that anybody and their grandparents could complete that aspect) released on the Xbox 360 Marketplace to universal acclaim and not high enough sales figures. Gaming sites such as Penny Arcade and Zero Punctuation have berated the general public enough on the subject, and Braid has turned into something of a slow boiler: a game whose sales figures never top the board but perennially stays on there, its reputation keeping it afloat. Metacritic has decided it is in the top ten 360 games yet released and its creator is likely to give a keynote address on how to make short cheap games good at next year’s Game Developer’s Conference. Not bad for a game which cost $180,000 (as compared to Metal Gear Solid 4’s $20,000,000-odd) and had a development team who could share a single bed (hypothetically; I’m not saying they did). Braid, in short, is a game worthy of the attention of just about anyone who believes in gaming as an art form in its infancy, and I’m so ‘with’ that movement I may as well be its drummer boy. Braid, alongside Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and Portal, is one of the most compelling examples of recent years that gaming can be more than a mere skills-challenging diversion and instead be something which gets under your skin and makes you think differently. After all, it’s you doing things. It shouldn’t be an impossible goal for a game to cause you to become emotionally vested. While this may not be Braid’s aim – the story, fascinatingly and cynically  philosophical as it is, is entirely separate from the gameplay – it doesn’t stop the attachment being there.

Braid takes time-manipulation mechanics – its ‘thing’; every game must have a ‘thing’ beyond the obligatories – and, ironically, simplifies them. Prince of Persia only did half the job, if this is to be counted. It’s strength is that every puzzle, nearly all of them bordering on undoable given the amount of lateral thinking not merely required but demanded with a gauntleted fist slammed down upon the table, can be solved with the powers you have at the start. Braid is not progressive, but it teaches the player to be, as harder puzzles are thrown into the mix with extra complications added at every turn. Still, you use the same powers you have always had to progress, which displays a level design of such imagination it nearly tops Super Mario Galaxy, a game whose levels I believed impassable. You are the one who advances, not your character. You are the one who learns to think through the game’s barriers, to align your thoughts and read it in a way you never would have expected necessary, toddling through the first few stages. The graphics are handpainted - handpainted - and instantly place themselves next to Team Fortress 2 and as-yet-unreleased Korean MMO Love in challenging for the title of Most Beautiful Game Ever Released, and the score is simply perfect. There isn’t a better word for it. For a game about a man running along rewinding time and collecting puzzle pieces, a lot depends on the score, and Braid has, several times, almost made me tear up. Which isn’t something I’m used to doing. This game is art, and anyone who insists on denying that simply hasn’t played it. I can tell you that for a certainty.

Once I’ve completed the game (and am a little more awake) I plan to take the story and its presentation apart and see how it works as an example of a video game narrative. It’s more intelligent than your average game story, and at this early stage (I’ve only read through about half of it) it seems oddly unnerving, as though you know you’ll be tripped up before the end. Braid is too smart to be a simple ’save-the-princess’ escapade. There’s something at work, and given I have it on good authority that Braid’s ending is revelatory, I have something to look forward to.

 

Emma

This is the 1996 version of Emma, which I saw yesterday and felt it deserved a good, comprehensive review.

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And so, we return to the idyllic English countryside for another round of drawing-room politics in the company of Jane Austen and her ever-wonderful gallery of characters. 1996 was an interesting year for Austen, not least because any Austen adaptation – or any English period piece whatsoever – had to compete with Andrew Davies’ Pride and Prejudice, a brilliantly engrossing selection of character studies which presented the word with a wet-shirted Mr Darcy and therefore a heartthrob to unite womankind a full decade before Gregory House. Also in 1996 we had Clueless, with Alicia Silverstone – back when she was in the same league as Reese Witherspoon – heading up an alarmingly-effective relocating of Emma in a modern American high school and proving that Austen’s ability for characterisation was noteworthy enough to be more than a mere product of its time. Now we have the real deal: a white-dresses, fireplaced, bonnetted English feature film starring an American and an Australian. Personally, I’m not one to whine about the cultural standards of casting so long and the eventual performance is up to standard – this scenario was repeated last year with Becoming Jane, where Miss Austen herself was portrayed with an idealistic yet wry friendliness by Anne Hathaway which I can’t honestly have declared passable by any actress solely on the grounds that said second actress would be English – and here, the American (Gwyneth Paltrow) is near-perfect, and certainly game.

Now, I’ve never read Emma – it’s on my to-do list – but this, if anything, puts me at an advantage. Every review I’ve read of this film thus far, even Anthony Lane’s, had been hung up on the irregularities between book and film and how it, as an adaptation, could be improved. I’m in no position to do that, and therefore can view it as a film alone. The first scene of the film is a wedding, and there is no time wasted in informing us that Emma (Gwyneth Paltrow) was instrumental in the formation of this marriage as a matchmaker. It is the best way to introduce someone: a display of the main facet of their personality, without coming to the conclusion just yet as to whether is is a positive point or a character flaw, and we will be able to make our own minds up on the subject soon enough. Moving through a succession of drawing rooms, green fields and leafy paths (and I will swear that at least nine-tenths of the film takes place in one of these three settings) we see Emma as a mischievous, meddling figure – or, as I preferred to term her, an Machiavellian egotist, though I will probably be killed by a vigilante mob of young female book club members if any of them ever get around to reading this. She runs the film (she has to, given the camera is always on her) as she runs around the sunny countryside doing whatever she pleases in whatever manner she wants, blest as she has been by such a pliable best friend, Miss Harriet Smith (Toni Collette, deciding to play the role as a blushing collection of toothy giggles and losing our sympathy in the process). Emma plots the further marriages of Miss Smith, gets into a few escapades of her own and, inevitably, it all winds up the sunny Austen way: happily, with a marriage or two. Not complicated. Not taxing. The film, seeming to bear this mind, goes out of its way to avoid either of those.

What struck me right from the first scene and even more strongly as the film went on was the fact that it does not feel of its time. Its quick, witty dialogue and relaxed camerawork – often staying in a single fixed position – results in this not feeling like Austen so much as Oscar Wilde. I felt a definite sense of it being pre-planned, which characterises much of Wilde’s work: dialogue has a clear beginning and end point, and the lines after which the audience is meant to laugh are clearly defined. More than anything it reminded me of a Berkoff theatre production minus the threat and obscenity: movement is deliberate and almost choreographed, and while that might suit the stage perfectly, an elegant period piece is not the place for exaggerated movements, even if meant to emphasise the humour. Much of the film does also seem desperate to modernise itself, to make itself feel contemporary – if it was because the director (Douglas McGraith, whom I had never heard of before and had no desire to seek out his back catalogue after) felt threatened by Clueless he deserves a slap – but it goes about it the wrong way, with its theatrical pouting and heavy sighs. To modernise a classic novel (and to mess around with the chronology of this review somewhat) one must envision the setting with as many flaws as our current system, in the same way Ridley Scott did with Blade Runner to such revelatory effect. Two years later, Andrew Davies’ Vanity Fair (a BBC adaptation) showed exactly how to do this and since then other period pieces (such as Joe Wright’s 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice) have adopted this. Emma shows why it was necessary: McGraith’s vision of Austen’s England is nothing but cosy and lush and happy – almost a utopia of middle England. It can absorb any quarrel or upset and come out smiling, even when you’re not entirely sure how. In such a world Emma can get away with what she does. In any other, she’d be eaten alive.

The other factor of a period piece which one looks at in detail when it comes to a period film such as this is the cast, and it is serviceable yet forgettable. The problem is that there’s precious little to do for so many of them except to simply play foils to Emma’s impulsive meanderings. Characters aren’t notable, they don’t stick in your mind. The exceptions are Paltrow herself and a few others. Paltrow can certainly play Emma, chirping out the lines with spirit and always playing along with the intended tone of the scene, but the problem comes from her doing what is required rather than having thought the character through. She misses motivation: I assume she had Emma explained to her as a girl who likes to play Cupid and thought that that was enough, but while you see her enjoyment in her role you’re never precisely sure what drives her to do it. I would describe her as Machiavellian because of her actions, but she does not strike me as a plotting person. On the other hand, she has certainly recreated Emma’s emotional core and balanced it perfectly: her Emma can be on top of everything but still be shamed. In the pivotal scene – and the only one where I felt any genuine emotional shock – she screws up her face like a petulant schoolgirl, about ready to stamp her foot. It is infinitely more effective than a slow, silent tear trickling down her cheek because, arguably the only time in the running, it grounds the film in reality and has it shaken by a blow which could not be calmly deflected. The deliverer of the only council which penetrates Emma’s confident countenance comes from Mr Knightley (Jeremy Northam), a character whose every word I agreed with throughout the entirety of the film. He is immune to her smirks and knows her well enough to not be distracted, and it doesn’t hurt that his lines border on Shakespeare. “Vanity working on a weak mind produces every kind of mischief”, he tells her, when it is quite possible no-one else would dare to. He is unamused, and refreshingly so. Other figures include Ewan McGregor as Mr Churchill, sol endearingly miscast it is impossible to not warm to him (McGregor, for all his widely demonstrated talent, is not and will never be a period actor), and Juliet Stevenson as the pushy, self-flattering Mrs Elton. Now, I like Juliet Stevenson, because she’s always struck me as being able to play the kind of strong female character that no man could find off-putting, but she has always been at her most effective when allowed to shoot strong, sceptical glares at everyone and anyone, communicating through glances – she has the eyebrows for it. Here, she is simply given too much to say. Without enough chance to step back, purse her lips and make somebody in the room feel very small indeed, I got the constant feeling that she was being wasted.

Emma is a film impossible to take offence to, and also one you cannot fail to be entertained by. There’s life in it: idyllic and unnatural, but sprightly and inviting. You feel uplifted after seeing it (no doubt aided by the only truly faultless part of the film, the wonderful score) and will walk for the rest of the day with a spring in your step and Gwyneth Paltrow’s fast, clear voice in your head. This film is certainly worth watching, and goodness knows there are more things to complain about in other period adaptations than the fact that Highbury seems to have been lifted squarely off a greetings card; not least the recent and highly dangerous trend of BBC dramas filled with actors who look incredibly modern and made-up to the hilt. No, Emma stays consistent and in the same place, even if it is a place which never existed. If you are new to Jane Austen, this film won’t make you understand why she and her work are so revered, but you may also have an inkling to read the book, in which case you can find out for yourself the quality of the original. It’s something I plan to do shortly. And you’re never left, after the film has closed, with a feeling of being wronged; sometimes you get that, as though a poor point in a film has left a bad taste in your mouth. Innocent, pleasant and eminently watchable. Jane Austen may have intended something with a little more bite, but I don’t think she’d have been offended by this.

A quick recommendation.

Okay, under normal circumstances I wouldn’t do this, but this person knows how to review films. He’s a pleasure to read.

A critical post, part three.

So I’ve already declared somewhat on what Critics might best want to focus on, as well as where the line in the sand is drawn regarding a Critic and just someone offering an opinion. Now, well, I believe a differentiation needs to be made. A distillation, one could say. Even when one has worked out who are the Critics, we still need to answer the most important question of them all: why on earth should I listen to this person? And this, well, this is where it gets personal.

However, not personal so much in the ‘I hate this writer and I hope his family burns to death’ sense. That’s not conducive to a proper view of the subject (not even if the self-important pomp refuses to accept that Fight Club is, in fact, brilliant, and not self-pity for aggrieved children of the nineties). It’s getting down to differentiating individual reviewers, and this can be described as an almost noble cause given it shows the utmost respect for reviewers as individual with their own likes, dislikes, feelings and insanities regarding whatever their chosen subject happens to be. It is also a massive aid when assigning blame, something which is utterly magical if you really want to start a slanging match. I’ll get on to that later.

Part one of this blogged symposium dealt with what, ideally, Critics should address (on the subject of film because that’s my subject, though much of it is universal).  Let’s run with that. I’m not going to turn this into a list of who to listen to and who not to because more than either of the other two this subject is entirely personal, and giving a comprehensive list of who to avoid would defeat the whole purpose of naming my blog a ‘Proposal’. But pare the subject down: what does one want from a review? The two factors are ‘to inform’ and ‘to entertain’ (’to criticise’ is a category for with one use, and I hate categories like that), and the skill of reviewing is finding something of a balance. We have the stereotypical ‘checklist’ approach, which is too inform-heavy; reading Empire magazine today I noticed an awful lot of this and it has the reviews reading almost like plot summaries. This doesn’t help the reader. Apart from anything, the reviewer is telling them things they will find out for themselves when they actually go to see the film: spoilers come in more shapes and forms than merely revealing the twist. These reviews feel like an incomplete journey planner, a satnav system which takes you three quarters of the way and then leaves you to work out the rest of the route. this might work when you need to find your way across town but it doesn’t work for a film, because it assumes that everything worth watching in a film occurs within the final section, and one can’t make that claim of the medium because it is completely wrong. As an example, the vast majority of Saving Private Ryan reviews I’ve read have had me banging my fist on the table because they’ve mentioned the brilliant few seconds where a bullet pings off a soldier’s helmet, he removes it with an astounded, elated smile, and you know how that particular scene ends. Why would you mention something like that in a review? Some films contain gems, sparkling little treasures which you are entranced by and take delight in. It’s like the pencil trick in The Dark Knight, or Tom Cruise’s role in Tropic Thunder: unexpected pleasures. And a reviewer who ruins these cannot be forgiven because he has absolutely no clue about what the audience require. He thinks that a review is a collection of facts with a (not even necessarily linked) opinion tacked on the end, and everything is fair game provided the ‘final twist’ (if the film has one) is left to secrecy. And you can’t really avoid these. Identifying which critics to avoid is trial and error, which is a shame, but after a while one identifys the right ones.

And these, well, these people you listen to, for the simple reason that they know how to judge a review. Take the film as a whole: does it achieve its aims? Is there anything noteworthy? How does it make the audience feel? Is it worth any attention? And then look a bit deeper: the themes, the influences, the shake-ups. How does it use film? And, of course, make it entertaining. Make it a conversation with the reader; don’t alienate them, but talk directly to them, why they should/should not take an interest in your subject, be it anything from antiques to restaurants. To pull out an example of someone other than Anthony Lane, I’ll take Yahtzee, the game critic who has more or less redefined ‘internet phenomenon’ with his Zero Punctuation reviews which can basically be described as irreverently faulting games for thing you probably would have noticed but never complained about had you played it before watching the review. While being absolutely mind-drainingly hilarious, which I think is the impulse attraction. And being very yellow. I can’t sum up Zero Punctuation in such a meagre set of sentences as I love it too much, but it’s strength is in never bothering with traditional review spiel and simply working to death the gameplay and story modes. He takes delight in isolating the pointless, always views things in the context of the genre (something I view as essential) and has no problem with using the most inventive metaphors to get the point across. Example: in explaining how the emo characterisation ruined the otherwise-excellent Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, he declared: “Never stick your dick in a pudding. It can still be good pudding and you can spend all day explaining that to people but nobody’s going to want to eat it because you stuck your dick in it!” There’s a piercing mentality to such reviews as these, in being able to simply give the points straightforwardly and in an entertaining way.

It should be adopted. Don’t listen to hype. Reward what needs rewarding. If you want to give something the benefit of the doubt, do so, and if one aspect ruined the entire experience for you, say so. And whatever you say, make sure it is backed up logically. Life isn’t balanced and neither should reflections on life be so. Very few Critics manage this, but people such as Yahtzee, Anthony Lane and Jerry Holkins manage it with aplomb. I suppose it’s a matter of searching them out, really: reviewers who, after you’ve seen the film or played the game or listened to the album or whatever, you think, ‘Yeah, I can see why they said that.’ Then we have a Critic who manages to open the minds on his or her readers. It’s a tricky subject, criticism, but some are well worth listening to because they do genuinely know what they are talking about and they don’t patronise their audience – they make them think.

And a final note? If reviewing, never be afraid to use the word ‘boring’. Something can be boring just the same as it can be funny, provided there’s a reason, and the phrase ‘”Boring” is a word used by boring people’ is simply wrong. That phrase implies that one must be interested in anything, which negates the whole beauty of human preference. Keep an open mind, certainly, try to like things. It does one well. But never feel as though finding something boring, if you’ve given it a chance, makes you small-minded. Because it doesn’t. The problem there is the filmmaker’s, and pretending something is interesting when its not benefits absolutely no-one.

A hospitable post.

The third of my Critic essays will arrive after I’m fully-awake again. For the moment, I need to write this post so that I’ve a record of the past two days which have been an absolute nightmare but will have a very positive effect on my life. I’m unsure as to how many of these one gets during their life but I’m willing to bet it’s not a phenomenal amount, and therefore they’re worth noting.

For at least the past seven years my nose, which up until yesterday was Roman, arched and bent to the right, has caused me severe breathing problems. Namely, I could only breathe out of one nostril, and then only about three-quarters of the time. To be perfectly honest I hadn’t noticed it until roughly three months ago, but given my gap year has now started properly (namely, I no longer have a CELTA course sucking my soul out through my ear) myself and my mother decided we could get the whole problem fixed and, at the same time, have some cosmetic improvements to my nose made. Namely: straightening it and removing the Romanic bump, which would not be hugely complicated procedures and would certainly make the entire sensor more aesthetically pleasing. Combine that with a procedure called a septoplasty which would clear up my blocked nasal passages as well as the removal of some cartilage pressing against one of the inferior turbines (two bags of air, one in each nostril, which contract and expand to share the work of breathing between the two orifices) in order to free up that airhole. A straightforward operation for a rhinosurgeon at the top of his field.

Through no fault of his, these past 36 hours have been hellish. Arriving at the hospital, acquainting myself with the room, paperwork, anaesthetic, fine. Perfect. Dapper. Then it went downhill like a minecart in a 1920’s silent slapstick comedy, starting with the fact that my nose basically exited the operating theatre a mangled, misshapen mess; if I’d been a celebrity – a well-known albeit tacky one – I’d have been on the cover of every red-logo tabloid in the nation with ‘Botched Nose Job’ arrowed at my face. Because cartilage is elastic, unless every stitch holds the entire septum pings back into place plus taking whatever new links it has to the skin through the stitches with it. We wind up with what I wound up with: a nose slanted upwards with two irregular nostrils. Combine that with a priceless rarity which I managed to get as well: a nosebleed verging on a haemorrhage, necessitating changes of padding every thirty minutes while my nostrils become clogged with blood and mucus. Combine that with agonising pain and painkillers which kick in half an hour too late. The reason for all this, why it didn’t work the first time, was because apparently I must have, while coming round, slapped at my nose and dislodged the stitches – which seems perfectly reasonable, given I remember pressing my nose a few times as it was encased in plaster, which I wasn’t expecting. The other problem was that the cartilage in my nose was so badly damaged beyond the surgeon’s expectations that he physically didn’t have a lot to work with by the time he’d cut the useless parts out, resulting in, yes, more complications.

So I went back to my room (thank heaven for small mercies, at least: insurance covered it, so we could afford to go private) to wait it out. Thankfully - thankfully - both the surgeon and the anaesthetist, once they saw what a state my nose had worked itself into and what obvious discomfort I was in, were prepared to take my nose apart at 10:00pm and rebuild it then and there. Mum had been livid with them all afternoon as she’d thought they had deliberately carved my nose into it’s mangled shape and decided that was satisfactory; nothing could have been further from the truth, as was evident from the surgeon’s reserved yet obviously displeased reaction at how his handiwork had come apart.

So I was knocked out, more work was done, and I spent an enjoyable night cresting the after-effects of the anaesthetic (which I have now decided is the most beautiful substance ever created by humans). However, bearing in mind that my nose had now been broken twice and was held in place by a heavy piece of plaster, I’m already in pain and then the padding to absorb the blood needs to be removed or I’m not going to be able to breathe. Painkillers were administered too late. Two enormous tampon-like cylindrical pads were wrenched out of both nostrils (they had been forced in right around my nasal cavity, and were each fifteen centimetres long) at the same time. Again, for reiteration, dragged out of a broken nose. It was, without a doubt, the most painful thing I have ever experienced, and all hyperbole has been left at the door. While I can’t say it compared to childbirth or a ruptured bowel of whatever else hits a full Ten on the pain scale, I can’t imagine a more futile agony. At least giving birth is rewarded by the knowledge of your child waiting for you on the other side of this new dimension of pain. With this, is was just blanket pain which served no purpose except to make my life almost unbearable until the painkillers finally kicked in half an hour later, at which point I could start speaking again. I understood then why the surgeon hadn’t wanted to use the earlier; I’d been confused, as they are very effective, but such pain should not be expected except in exceptional circumstances, which mine apparently counted as.

The thing is . . . my nose is now perfect. The only bit of it I can see is the tip and nostrils, and those are even and straight and at a good angle. If those are fine, then obviously the rest of it – under the cast – will be fine as well, especially as it’s being kept in place. I can’t breathe through it yet as it’s still clogged up with blood but a few days and it will have clotted. By the end of the month my nose will be more attractive than it was and much better-functioning. It’s just a shame I’ve had to go through such a painful, convoluted process to get here.

 

P.S. This post was written while Gene was doped up to the gills on painkillers, so if he repeats himself or blurs any facts he is very sorry indeed.

A critical post, part two.

Can’t let the subject die. Hell, I’m a critic. It would be unfair of me to let the subject die.   

When someone critics something, they place themselves in an interesting position. Simply by offering up their opinion they enter a new state of being: one who has voiced themselves and has therefore categorised themself. Their thoughts on the subject at hand have now been cemented in the minds of those around them. One could bring up the inherently true old phrase ‘Actions speak louder than words’ and shout it at me whilst I continue on my line of reasoning regarding the sheer weight someone’s words carry, except it can’t be applied in this situation. Short of blowing up a film studio or marching into Parliament to shout down a bill ready in the wings to be passed, critics in whatever station must limit themselves to their eloquence. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that, we understand. As is my opinion on most walks of life: it is better to be limited, because then you learn to explore all possible possibilities with what you have in front of you. And for one to be a critic worthy of the attention of the audience, one must certainly learn to do their best with the tools at their disposal. Therefore, a separation must be made: how does one distinguish between a critic and a Critic?

As has been said, both earlier on here and in the previous post on the subject, it stems from the ability to look deeper into a piece of art and unearth something notable. All a critic has to do is plonk down an opinion on a given matter, and this becomes a criticism by definition. But then, hundreds of things are things by definition that I would accept only with a sense of satire surrounding proceedings, like accepting a plateful of mashed raw carrots and broccoli as food. Technically, it’s food – and it might even be good for you (which it is), but you’re never going to eat it because, frankly, you’ve got better things to do, better things to sample. A review which doesn’t bother to explore is like this: it’s still edible, and some people might like it, but it’s never going to be noteworthy, and, from as possible an objective stand point as one can reach on this subject, there will always be better. In the grand scheme of things it can be ignored. One could argue that at a push someone would happy consume a plate of mashed-up raw carrots and broccoli but that stems from biological necessity rather than any particular desire to do so. Reviewers don’t even have that. No-one needs to read what they write. If someone doesn’t like a particular article, it matters not how much blood has been wept in the creation of it, because they will put it aside and it will be erased from their minds.

So, while a critic is consigned to a shrunken audience, a Critic must dress up his work. At must be both eloquent yet engaging, able to capture the imagination and remain lodged in there like the smell of a class-borne banquet. Except, of course, this is not all dressing. It must combine the best of nouvelle cuisine and hearty, home-made fare (or whatever the polarities are today).  There must be something indelible about them, because otherwise one might as well stop any person in the street and ask them for an unnecessary, most-likely-uninformed declaration. So it needs to be stylish and gripping, yet contain some sort of content which made it worth reading. Which is, well, which is where one can narrow down the Critics.

It’s almost unfair, when one takes a step back. The simple requirement that, in order to be a Critic, one must be a good writer. Take (once again) Anthony Lane. He may be the best film critic working at the moment – albeit he does sometimes embody the archetypal ‘film snob’, brushing off anything irreverent and giving undue heed to anything worthy – but he would be brilliant in any fundamentally subjective field because he’s such a good writer. A political commentary, a short story, an advertisement for ladies’ deodorant: the man could make anything interesting. And that’s shared with many other Critics – the guiding, smirking prose washing over the subject matter and laying it bare, grafting it down to the bones, and letting the audience see all there is to be seen. Writing is, after all, an art form. So one might ask: “What Darwinian system are you forming wherein only those with a talent for prose can Critique and expect to have notice taken of them?” To which I would reply: good writing is not so elusive as it is easy to make out. In the same way that if one loves a subject at school they almost instantly improve in it, if one loves a topic for analysis their musings on the subject would automatically make worthy reading material. Because that’s the other thing that defines a Critic: the genuine feeling behind every paragraph. The head and the heart have been combined; not in a sentimental, sappy way, but showing that what the writer is writing he has though about deeply, mused upon, and is now ready to have it cemented in type. If anything, this should actually take priority over any verbal dexterity – you can be a good writer whilst still being a hopeless Critic. Writing from something thought over and enjoyed, however, is open and all-encompassing, especially if measured. A calm, thoughtful, logical, genuine dissection of something the writer clearly cares about: tell me a time when one of these has been less than worth your time.

If one writes, they have an automatic duty to their readers – otherwise, they degenerate into auteurs, writing for themselves and beneath the contempt of everyone else the moment they try to advertise. That duty is fluid, depending on the subject and the context. Voicing your opinion brings its own set: whether it is your intention or not, you’ll be judged as a Critic, and you’ll be expected to show you are worth noticing. People enjoy criticising critics, after all; it makes them feel more assured of themselves, the smug knowledge that the person declaring them to be in the wrong might actually be themself in the wrong.

 

I’ve enjoyed this, so far. There’s still plenty to be mulled over, so I believe a third post on the subject to round it off is in order. Possibly one the big question: why should one listen to Critics anyway. Let’s see if I can make sense of a thoroughly unanswerable question.

A critical post, part one.

As a preliminary note, this entry is not, in fact, designed to be critical of anyone or anything. Except perhaps myself. And a few other people, but it’ll all be very out-in-the-open and clear that if I want to tear into someone, I will. And because I won’t, I don’t want to.

I was wondering on critics and criticism today, and after a while my thoughts honed in on the crux of the matter: just how seriously does one take critics? I mean, are they not people more fortunate than you, in that they are paid for giving opinions which surely are of no more merit or value than your own? It’s inconsiderate. It’s absurd. In the realm of the subjective, how can one person be right, because that would mean, in simple terms, than another could be wrong. Critics appear to be arrogant by design, for it is only when thinking yourself right, rather than in favour of something, that one transverses the bounds of opinion and enters the objective, where he or she is free to comment on the undeniable state of whatever they are viewing: ‘good’, ‘not good’; ‘important’, ‘unimportant’. States of being, delivered with a finality which seems undeniable. Which one might describe as a masterly illusion, given the subject matter which critics view is never, by definition, set in stone. Fluid and interchangeable are the words generally used to describe reactions to art, film, music, games, food and everything else which I like to simply call ‘art’ because I see film as the modern equivalent to Fine Art. (Or, at least, good films are.) But then, in the course of the day, we have people espousing their opinions on these very things and making a concise living out of them. If it seems anything, it simply seems unfair, and unavoidable.

I’m a critic myself, though in the democratic sense. I’m not paid for my work, nor am I writing to any real end. I don’t have any inherent bias, and I’m not under any obligation to write for anyone except myself. My reviews are never informative; they were once described by a friend of mine as more analyses than reviews as if the person had not yet seen the film they would not have a clue about what I was saying. That comment was given about a year ago and therefore my reviews are slightly more encompassing, but I still write for myself and, well, I’ve seen the film. There’s no reason for me to explain it again. (This is likely to change, however, now that I’m writing them for two other people as well.) But there was a line brought up in a recent article on Jezebel which stated that in reading a review you learn much more about the critic him (or perhaps her) self. Mine are generally in this category: you read them, you learn about me and my outlook on life. The wouldn’t be classified with reviews from Empire magazine, they’d be classed with postings from the Empire blog. It’s what I do, it’s what I’m comfortable with. It’s highly and unashamedly opinionated, and never attempts to tell the audience otherwise. And this is where I feel we can draw the line with professional critics. And I think it’s indicated by the stars.

The favourite for critics is to have stars at the end of every review, generally out of five. Almost universally these reviews consist of three things: one, a plot summary; two, reasons why no-one should watch or enjoy the film; and three, a summary for everyone on too tight a schedule to read the entire review. These are boring. Seriously, how much love can you take when all the writer is doing, as far as the audience is concerned, is ticking boxes off a list with one hand whilst typing with the other. It’s almost obnoxious in its lack of passion; films are meant to stir us, to make us feel different coming out from what we did when going in, and any competent review/er should have exactly the same effect. And yet they don’t, and they never will so long as they feel as though they are being factory-produced to a grasping editor’s standard. And yet this here leads on to another, considerable, problem: how does one combine giving reviewers the freedom they ought to have with some sort of concentration, as everything within a magazine should have some restraints on it. And here’s where the other sort of critiquing comes in.

Exemplified by such titans of the movie scene as the impassable Anthony Lane, these reviews are naked. They are full-on. They refuse to limit themselves within the confines of inherent bias and a need to please someone. They tell the audience what they thought and why. They do not tell the audience to believe this without question, nor to they state they have the last word. This is quite different to persuading the audience one way or another (reviews, after all, must contain an element of recommendation), nor does it forbid the sheer denouncing of a film if the writer feels justified – heaven knows these critics do that all the time. It simply means bearing in mind the subjectivity of critics and therefore taking them in a different direction. None of the two-star-or-three-star nonsense blighting so much film journalism. No here’s-the-plot-here’s-the-acting-here’s-the-script-I’ve-run-out-of-things-to-say tedium. With this mindset one can dig deeper, eke out the hidden themes and interesting comments the films makes and, most importantly, what any given film brings to cinema. How can/will it affect the medium? Critics such as Anthony Lane, David Edelstein and Anthony Quinn pull this off with an enviable aplomb, able to take apart a film and scan it for anything of note with the precision of a Harley Street surgeon. I see genius at work when I read their writings.

So here we come to a partition of Criticism. Above anything else, a review should be focused. It should not feel like a lecture to the audience, nor should it feel like one throwing out random, disjointed, unlinked opinions like someone trapped inside a postal sorter, throwing envelopes at pigeonholes with accuracy but no pattern. A review should not tell the audience what they should think but what they are likely to think, and if not that it should inform them of what they will not think, thereby broadening there minds to some smaller degree. A review should be prioritised: not just what the work in question does but what the sum of its parts contributes to. What does it all mean? What is the effect on the viewer? Does it do anything of note, and if not, why not? What holds it back? All these factors contribute to the review being just as much a work of art as what it addresses, as reviews should be. After all, reviewing something implies the reflection, the meditation upon it, and anyone who is familiar with the works of Marcus Aurelius will know that meditations can certainly attain the status of ‘art’. Simply telling people in inadequate. You need to dig a little bit deeper.

This is a subject I will refer back to in the future, as it is certainly something I bear strong feelings towards and have spent a lot of time thinking over. Maybe my next one will be what qualifies someone to be a critic in lieu of actual genuine qualifications. It’ll sleep on it.