Andrew's Blog, Part II

     This past weekend I went to the Cirque du Soleil showing in Cobb and once again I was impressed. I’m not really a big fan of the traditional circus, but Cirque is different. The shows are made for an older audience, and aren’t all about being loud, boisterous and comical. There is a fair degree of comedy in the shows, but the comedy is smart comedy, not senseless comedy. Cirque is also artsy. The shows are always very visually stunning. The stages have elaborate setups and the lighting always fits the mood of the presentation. And each show has a different theme and different acts, so seeing them never gets boring.

     The only complaint that I have about Cirque is that it has become so corporate. They have booths selling merchandise at every show, and the merchandise is always overpriced. I understand that it is probably a large source of income for the show, and helps to keep it running, but the premise behind Cirque is that it is unique and artwork. Art should not sell out. Artists should concentrate solely on their work because they love their work, not because they want to get rich.

     On Monday in English we listened to group blog presentations. One of the groups did their blog on sports and technology. Overall I think the group did a decent job of presenting, but I think there are some areas where they could’ve improved. At points it was a very repetitive presentation. I had the feeling that some of the members were not too prepared to present, and, as a result, did a sloppy job. They seemed nervous, and often when people get nervous they say things that they have already said. I also got the impression from this that the people repeating themselves felt like they didn’t have enough material. Another problem I had with their presentation was clarity of speaking. Some of the group members mumbled a lot or did not speak loud enough or clear enough. Because of this I didn’t know what they were talking about and would tend to zone out or get distracted. And one final thing that bothered me about their presentation: it was too long. The presentations were supposed to fit within the class period and this one ran over. I realize that it can be difficult to fit a presentation into an exact time constriction, but the audience will often lose interest or become annoyed with the presenters if it goes on for too long. Personally, I was ready to leave, and I needed to study for a physics test that I had in two hours, so I was kind of impatient.

     Their presentation had its high points as well. I believe they were well organized with an interesting and informative PowerPoint presentation. I also thought that they transitioned well between topics and I thought they balanced the amount each person spoke well. Several of the presenters seemed very well prepared and very well spoken. They also covered a wide variety of topics from golf to fantasy sports, which enhanced their credibility as sports bloggers.

     This past weekend I watched the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs. Tarantino does an excellent job of blurring the boundaries between bad and good. At the beginning of the movie Mr. White is driving Mr. Orange in a car to the warehouse. Mr. Orange is in the backseat of the car bleeding from a gunshot wound to the gut. He tells Mr. White that he’s dying, but Mr. White is able to convince him that he’ll survive. Mr. White divulges his true name to Mr. Orange and even tells him about where he is from. Later we learn that they have bonded since the beginning of planning the heist.

     Tarantino shows the two criminals as compassionate, friendly and loyal individuals. He makes them into people that anyone would want as a friend. But Mr. Orange’s reason for befriending Mr. White is not sincere. Mr. Orange is an undercover cop working to get evidence for a conviction against Joe, the gangster who organizes the entire operation. Mr. Orange is a cop; his job is to protect and serve. He is risking his life to put a known thief and murderer behind bars. This makes him traditionally a ‘good guy’, but at the same time we realize that he is deceiving Mr. White. He is using Mr. White to get closer to Joe, and in the process of doing this Mr. White will be put in jail for a long time. Mr. White is a criminal; traditionally thought of as a ‘bad guy’. Mr. White is not deceiving anyone, though. He becomes friends with Mr. Orange for purely honest reasons.

     But then Tarantino includes the character Mr. Blonde in his film. Mr. Blonde is not a good person. He is just out of jail, and Joe gives him a spot on the operation. But when a clerk at the diamond retailers sets off the silent alarm, Mr. Blonde starts killing everyone in the store. He then takes a cop hostage to get away. Mr. Blonde is a ruthless killer. Later on in the movie he is left alone in the warehouse with the cop he took hostage and Mr. Orange, who is passed out. He decides to start torturing the cop just for the enjoyment he gets out of it. He derives pleasure from being cruel and causing pain to others.

     To blur the line of good and bad even more Tarantino redefines the relationship between Mr. White and Mr. Orange. It began with Mr. Orange using Mr. White for information, but after Mr. White saves his life from Joe and gets shot in the process, he changes. This change occurs when he is lying on the floor with his head in Mr. White’s lap. He admits to Mr. White that he is in fact an undercover cop. This shows that Mr. Orange feels wrong for lying to him and wants to come clean, even if it might get him killed. His only reason for telling him is to clear his conscious of the guilt he feels about lying to him. Tarantino blurs the line between good and bad to create confusion and make his audience question their perception about the actions and behaviors of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’.

     I just watched Spike Lee’s most recent film 25th Hour and thoroughly enjoyed it. The film is about a drug dealer named Monty (Edward Norton) who gets sentenced to seven years in prison. The film focuses on his last 24 hours before he must go to prison. Monty uses this time to visit his father and friends and try to figure out who sold him out to the police.

     One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the opening scene in which Monty and one of his partners in crime Kostya are driving to a deal and Monty spots a dog in the middle of the road. They stop to examine the dog and see that it has been beaten badly. Monty thinks at first that he should shoot the dog and end its misery, but when he approaches the dog it snaps at him. Monty realizes that the dog wants to live and will fight for his life. Instead of shooting the dog he opens the trunk of his car and pulls a jacket out of it. He covers the dog with the jacket, picks him up and puts him into the trunk of his car. In the process of doing this he gets a bite on the neck from the dog.

     This scene illustrates Monty’s character excellently. First of all, just stopping for the dog is far more than the average person would even think to do. And then to approach it, find that it is beaten, have it snap at him and then decide to try to save its life gives a good perspective of Monty. This shows us that Monty is compassionate. It shows us that Monty is a warmhearted, friendly person. Also, Monty decides to save the dog after seeing it fight for it. He admires the dog and even sees himself in the dog. Monty is a survivor, just like the dog.

     This scene also draws connections to other parts of the film. At a club that he goes to with his friends he is taken into the office of the Ukrainian gangsters by Kostya. He is told there that Kostya sold him out. The head gangster gives Monty a gun and tells him to shoot Kostya. He holds the gun to Kostya’s head, but he can’t do it. Monty can’t end Kostya’s life even though Kostya betrayed him and ruined his.

     In DeLillo’s essay on 9/11 he writes that "There are 100,000 stories crisscrossing New York, Washington, and the world." His essay contains several examples and summaries of these narratives based around the events of September 11th. DeLillo uses these narratives as a way of describing how people manage to deal with the terrorists’ attacks. He writes in his essay that “We need them, even the common tools of the terrorists, to set against the massive spectacle that continues to seem unmanageable, too powerful a thing to set into our frame of practised response.” The stories help us understand the situation. They make us feel a personal connection to the events.

     Another reason for the narratives is that they make the situation real. DeLillo writes “It was bright and totalising and some of us said it was unreal. When we say a thing is unreal, we mean it is too real, a phenomenon so unaccountable and yet so bound to the power of objective fact that we can't tilt it to the slant of our perceptions.” The narratives that we all have around the attacks make it more real. They make it so that we can comprehend a situation that seems impossible, yet we know is real. Before the attacks very few people would ever believe such a thing possible, and, now, after the fact we must somehow accept the reality of the situation. We must accept our vulnerabilities.

     DeLillo uses one of his own personal narratives to strengthen his essay. He writes of his nephew Marc and his family, who live several blocks from the Towers. He presents this narrative in an interesting way. He begins the story without mentioning that Marc is his nephew. He does not reveal his relation to Marc until he finishes the story. The affect of this style is that without knowing who Marc and his family are, readers of his essay will be reminded of the stories they know. Once they realize that the story is DeLillo’s, he has proved his point that narratives are our way of dealing with the issue.