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.

     For my research paper I plan to discuss how each of the movies I am writing on stress a return to an emphasis on individual human accomplishment over the accomplishments of technology. I plan to include most of the material in this blogpost in my final paper. This return is used to signify the power of heart and emotion against the cold efficiency of the machines and technology. Each of the movies has a “chosen one” figure. This “chosen one” leads humanity to victory over the oppression from technology.

     In Terminator II the chosen one is John Connor, future leader of the human rebellion against man. In the movie John Connor is only a boy. A machine from the future called a Terminator is sent back in time to protect John Connor from another machine sent by the machines called a T-1000. The Terminator’s sole purpose is to protect John Connor so that he may stay alive to lead a rebellion in the future. John Connor is an almost Christ-like figure. He is prophesized as the savior of mankind and his initials are JC.

     The Matrix has a figure similar to John Connor. This figure is Neo. During the day he goes by Thomas A. Anderson, and he works at a respectable computer company from 9 to 5. But when he gets home he becomes the famous computer hacker Neo. He is dissatisfied with his life and looking for the answer to the question “what is the Matrix?” Neo is also searching for Morpheus. Morpheus is one of the most famous hackers in the world. Neo believes that Morpheus will have the answer. It is Morpheus who ends up finding Neo, though. Morpheus tells Neo that he is trapped inside the Matrix. He tells Neo what the Matrix is and that he has the ability to escape. Neo, of course, chooses to escape the Matrix. Once outside the Matrix, Neo begins his training. An assortment of fighting styles is downloaded directly into his brain.

     The figure in Equilibrium is John Preston. Preston is a member of the elite Grammaton Cleric police force. It is his job to find and eliminate “Sense Offenders”. Sense offenders are any people that are found to be experiencing emotion or feelings of any kind. Preston is gifted. He is recognized by the highest authorities as one of the best Clerics to ever live. One day he misses his dosage of Prozium and suddenly starts feeling emotions. This single lapse from a perfect record causes him to rethink his life. He stops taking Prozium indefinitely, and starts sympathizing with “Sense Offenders”. He remains a Cleric, and tries to hide the fact that he is feeling emotions. Preston falls in love with a woman that he himself had arrested, and who is sentenced to death. Preston manages to contact a leader of the rebellion, and plans to overthrow the government in place.

     In class on Monday we discussed for a short while how professors can find ways of expressing their superiority. I mentioned a Chemistry teacher who had a hierarchical rule that students must see three people (A fellow student, their TA, and the head TA) before going to see him. I want to discuss this further in this blog entry. I cannot link to his webpage, not because I am scared he will find out, but because it was a class website for the Fall Semester and it was on WebCT, which makes users log in and once logged in, only shows courses that they are currently taking.

     On this website the professor had a clever little image that looked something like this: C₃B₄Me. This is read as “C Three B Four Me”. Behind this clever mock element is a shining example of academic hierarchy and superiority. The professor has created a hierarchy that makes it almost impossible to ever come in contact with him if you are a student in his class. The possibility that all three of the people he has his students contact before contacting him will not know the answer is very slim. I can understand that he does not want to be overwhelmed with questions that could be easily answered by someone else, but at the same time he gives off the impression that he is far more important than his students and that he does not want to help them or be bothered by them. There are also many professors who not only answer questions for students but also encourage students to ask questions. The professor almost elevates himself to a God-like status, requiring mere mortal freshman to pass through three trials before being allowed to face the Almighty.

     I don’t mean to completely bash this professor for I have heard that he is an excellent teacher and very funny, but I do feel that his “see three before me” slogan is absurd. If he limited it to encouraging students to talking to their TA’s first I wouldn’t have so much beef with him, but he must lay down the law for all, and that is where I have a problem.

     I was looking around on the library database and I found a source that I think will be helpful towards my research paper. The article was written by A. Samuel Kimball and is titled “Not Begetting the Future: Technological Autochthony, Sexual Reproduction, and the Mythic Structure of The Matrix.” In this article, Kimball relates The Matrix to “the myth of the hero”. He points out that Neo follows the same path as mythical heroes. First he receives a “call to action” from Morpheus, then he has a “hard journey” into a place similar to hell, which is the matrix, and in the end he wins the treasure, which for Neo is Trinity. The journey gives Neo wisdom and the ability to lead a revolution against the machines. The machines are the films version of the mythical monster that all heroes must battle at some point in their journey, and they must overcome this monster, which Neo does when he defeats Agent Smith.

     This article is similar to an article I found by Goldman. Goldman notices that modern popular films portray technology negatively and Kimball notices that The Matrix portrays the machines as a modern version of the mythical monster.