Some years ago I presented some thoughts about Jake Kasdan's 2011 film Bad Teacher--the kind of mediocre comedy that made me think of the kind of material he satirized in his earlier The TV Set (a flawed film, about the long-overdone subject of Hollywood, but at its best a good deal better-crafted and wittier than this one).
Especially as the plans for a franchise fizzled, with the sequel unmade and the TV spin-off airing only a few episodes before CBS dropped it from its line-up, I have not had occasion to really think about it since. Still, running into Joe Blevins' piece for Vulture about the movie (which he regards himself as able to say something about because he, too, was a suburban Cook County junior high school teacher who had been less than ideal in the job) did seem to me to make a few interesting points about the bits of truth within the pile of nonsense that was that film, at times rather wittily. (Blevins likens his experience of teaching "to being a standup comic at an endless open mic night in Hell," which I think those who have been teachers will understand, anyone who did the job long having had an experience describable in such terms.)
Of principal importance here is his admission about how and why he ended up a teacher--a refreshing break from society's general demand that teachers be perfect models of "convenient social virtue" (devotion to the job because it is their true vocation rather than because the non-rich must do something to pay the bills), and the readiness of most teachers to at least pretend to be such. As Blevins admits, he had simply gone to college, "taken nothing particularly useful," and ended up going into education "with absolutely zero enthusiasm" for lack of other options--Blevins, in contrast with those for whom teaching is a "fallback career" (as with so many writers), having no alternative to the "Plan B." Sure enough, he proved to have "no aptitude for this work," and walked away from the job soon enough, even if less equipped than others to do so. (Blevins explains that he became an office temp.)
Here we see a number of underappreciated realities acknowledged--namely the extent to which, given the demand for teachers and the actual supply of people who really want to do the job on the existing terms rather than something else, teaching is often not a first choice of occupation for those who do it; many who end up "falling back" here find that they are not well-suited to the very demanding work, and do not get better (the needs of society as determined by those who make the decisions simply do not align with the supply of talent any more than they do with the supply of willingness); and, contrary to what many of the professional teacher-bashers ever eager to put down the nation's faculty say, those who do not really want the job and do not do the job well often take themselves off to some other occupation that they can do better before very long. It may not seem like much--but it is a far better basis for thinking about problems like the recruitment and assessment and retention of teaching faculty than the prevailing conventionalities.
Friday, April 19, 2024
A Word on Ben Affleck, Two Decades After Gigli
While the entertainment media's talking up Hollywood celebrities and then turning against them is tiresomely routine, but some examples have been especially striking.
One is the way the media turned hostile to Anne Hathaway circa 2013, because it was so abrupt and forceful and without the usual preparation.
Another is that against Ben Affleck, because of how long it went on--and because of the particular circumstances that provided a convenient point of comparison. The big moment in his case came with 2003's Gigli. It was not a good film by any means--but its badness struck me as banal, the badness of any number of crappy independent films that the critics ordinarily treat far more kindly. After that flop the press came after both Affleck, and Jennifer Lopez--and if the backlash against Lopez proved relatively short-lived, the actress and singer's career going on its way, with 2005's Monster-in-Law already becoming a hit in spite of critics' unkindness toward that movie, the hatred for Affleck endured.
Granted, that hatred did ease, but only late, and slowly. I remember, for example, how Affleck drew some positive notices for Hollywoodland (2006)--but this was only a beginning, and that over three years after the release of Gigli. Affleck's turn behind the camera helped, Affleck landing some positive notices for directing The Town (2010), and Argo (2012), but there were distinct limitations to that--of which it can seem telling that while the Academy gave Argo Best Picture, it did not even bother with a Best Director nomination for Affleck, a reminder that approval of the film translated over to him only so far. It also seemed to me to be there in the hostility to Affleck's being cast as Batman in the DC Extended Universe, and the excessive nastiness toward 2003's Daredevil. And so on and so forth.
Rather than a bump in the road it has been a major drag--one that did not prevent him from having what most would regard as a commercially and critically enviable career as director and actor on the whole, but all the same, significant, longstanding damage from a hostility that, I think, has not been helped but cannot be wholly accounted for by the messiness of his personal life. (Foolish as a good deal of his behavior has been, others are forgiven much worse all the time.) It all leaves the element of sheer media stupidity the more blatant.
One is the way the media turned hostile to Anne Hathaway circa 2013, because it was so abrupt and forceful and without the usual preparation.
Another is that against Ben Affleck, because of how long it went on--and because of the particular circumstances that provided a convenient point of comparison. The big moment in his case came with 2003's Gigli. It was not a good film by any means--but its badness struck me as banal, the badness of any number of crappy independent films that the critics ordinarily treat far more kindly. After that flop the press came after both Affleck, and Jennifer Lopez--and if the backlash against Lopez proved relatively short-lived, the actress and singer's career going on its way, with 2005's Monster-in-Law already becoming a hit in spite of critics' unkindness toward that movie, the hatred for Affleck endured.
Granted, that hatred did ease, but only late, and slowly. I remember, for example, how Affleck drew some positive notices for Hollywoodland (2006)--but this was only a beginning, and that over three years after the release of Gigli. Affleck's turn behind the camera helped, Affleck landing some positive notices for directing The Town (2010), and Argo (2012), but there were distinct limitations to that--of which it can seem telling that while the Academy gave Argo Best Picture, it did not even bother with a Best Director nomination for Affleck, a reminder that approval of the film translated over to him only so far. It also seemed to me to be there in the hostility to Affleck's being cast as Batman in the DC Extended Universe, and the excessive nastiness toward 2003's Daredevil. And so on and so forth.
Rather than a bump in the road it has been a major drag--one that did not prevent him from having what most would regard as a commercially and critically enviable career as director and actor on the whole, but all the same, significant, longstanding damage from a hostility that, I think, has not been helped but cannot be wholly accounted for by the messiness of his personal life. (Foolish as a good deal of his behavior has been, others are forgiven much worse all the time.) It all leaves the element of sheer media stupidity the more blatant.
Remembering the Extreme Stupidity of "Hathahate" on the Eve of The Idea of You
A decade ago, we were told, there was an upsurge of hatred of Anne Hathaway, which seems to be getting some attention again these days--mostly, I think, as part of the publicity for the upcoming release of her romantic comedy The Idea of You.
By the time Hathahate rolled around I had long since realized that the claqueurs of the entertainment media, in their extreme vileness, breathlessly talk up particular figures in the film industry--and then start talking them down at some point, with the presumption involved that said claqueurs are reflecting "everyone's" opinion.
Still, the attacks on Ms. Hathaway did not seem to me to conform to the usual pattern. Often the claqueurs begin the attack on the targeted figure after some big movie of theirs flops (the way, for example, the claqueurs came after Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez following the failure of Gigli). Or they make some public faux pas, however small and however much it has to be blown out of proportion. There had been nothing of the kind in her case, making the turn seem especially strained and artificial.
Considering these disgusting episodes I do not doubt that they serve particular agendas--business and personal. For instance, the Suits need someone cut down to size--maybe many someones--and they get the media to do their bidding, very easily. (Certainly I recall, and think everyone should recall, how the press dutifully played its part when the studios wanted to break the power of the auteur filmmakers of the New Hollywood era.) But even after these years I have no notion of what the agenda might have been in her case, and remember how if something must have been behind it it still felt like a totalitarian thought-control experiment--seeing just how much control they had over the entertainment news audience by seeing just how much they could turn her against Ms. Hathaway on no grounds whatsoever.
I have no idea how many people who are not part of the media actually responded to that--but the thought that any of them did is exceedingly depressing.
By the time Hathahate rolled around I had long since realized that the claqueurs of the entertainment media, in their extreme vileness, breathlessly talk up particular figures in the film industry--and then start talking them down at some point, with the presumption involved that said claqueurs are reflecting "everyone's" opinion.
Still, the attacks on Ms. Hathaway did not seem to me to conform to the usual pattern. Often the claqueurs begin the attack on the targeted figure after some big movie of theirs flops (the way, for example, the claqueurs came after Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez following the failure of Gigli). Or they make some public faux pas, however small and however much it has to be blown out of proportion. There had been nothing of the kind in her case, making the turn seem especially strained and artificial.
Considering these disgusting episodes I do not doubt that they serve particular agendas--business and personal. For instance, the Suits need someone cut down to size--maybe many someones--and they get the media to do their bidding, very easily. (Certainly I recall, and think everyone should recall, how the press dutifully played its part when the studios wanted to break the power of the auteur filmmakers of the New Hollywood era.) But even after these years I have no notion of what the agenda might have been in her case, and remember how if something must have been behind it it still felt like a totalitarian thought-control experiment--seeing just how much control they had over the entertainment news audience by seeing just how much they could turn her against Ms. Hathaway on no grounds whatsoever.
I have no idea how many people who are not part of the media actually responded to that--but the thought that any of them did is exceedingly depressing.
The Elephant in the Room During Last Year's Hollywood Labor Battles
Last year the first Hollywood double-strike (of the writers, and actors) since 1960 was big news. Some aspects of the conflict got a bit of discussion--like concern over how working writers' and actors' labors could be used to train Artificial Intelligence (AI) software which would be used to put them out of a job (quite naturally, amid the insane hyping of AI that continues to the present moment).
However, other aspects of the matter did not. Not the least of these--perhaps because fewer appreciated it then, and few still do now--is the likely contraction of the business. While in late 2022 it looked like the American box office was returning to its pre-pandemic norm (about 4 ticket sales per capita in North America, and $14 billion a year grossed domestically in today's money), after what we saw in 2023, and given what we can expect of 2024 (confirmed by what we have seen of it up to the present) what seems to be happening is its stabilizing at a well-below-pre-pandemic level (perhaps 50-70 percent of the pre-pandemic level). Meanwhile with Hollywood having a harder time in the Chinese market, and the streaming bonanza drawing to an end, all this is suggestive of a tighter market--one where profitability can only be sustained by cutting back on production.
The result is a smaller volume of business--a smaller pie--over which all concerned have been fighting, even before one gets into the "What might bes" of artificial intelligence.
However, other aspects of the matter did not. Not the least of these--perhaps because fewer appreciated it then, and few still do now--is the likely contraction of the business. While in late 2022 it looked like the American box office was returning to its pre-pandemic norm (about 4 ticket sales per capita in North America, and $14 billion a year grossed domestically in today's money), after what we saw in 2023, and given what we can expect of 2024 (confirmed by what we have seen of it up to the present) what seems to be happening is its stabilizing at a well-below-pre-pandemic level (perhaps 50-70 percent of the pre-pandemic level). Meanwhile with Hollywood having a harder time in the Chinese market, and the streaming bonanza drawing to an end, all this is suggestive of a tighter market--one where profitability can only be sustained by cutting back on production.
The result is a smaller volume of business--a smaller pie--over which all concerned have been fighting, even before one gets into the "What might bes" of artificial intelligence.
How Often Will Americans Go to the Movies From Here on Out?
The result is that it was easy to picture Americans' moviegoing falling off significantly--with potentially huge implications for the size of the American box office, their attendance coming to look like that of Germans or Japanese reducing the grosses by half, two-thirds or even more, and indeed I wondered if we could not expect this to eventually happen.
My earlier expectation was that there would be a gradual decline, but instead we had the dramatic shock of 2020--and if subsequent years saw recovery that recovery still seems only very partial. As it happened in 2023 North Americans averaged just a little over two trips to the theater per year--still going more often than the pre-pandemic (and current) norm in Germany and Japan. Considering that by that year Americans' habit of moviegoing seemed to no longer be inhibited by the pandemic, while the year had a pre-pandemic-like slate of blockbusters, it seems plausible to think of it as (flops and all) constituting a "new normal"--the box office essentially stabilized at its current level (2023's take a bit under two-thirds of the pre-pandemic level in real terms, with a little less predicted for 2024).
That being the case the question becomes whether Hollywood can adjust to a new situation where the domestic box office is, thanks to the reduction in the number of American trips to the theater, 50-70 percent of what it was just a few years ago. Thus far I see little acknowledgment of the reality, let alone plans to make accommodation for it--just box office commentators grading the box office performance of big movies on a curve in line with their duties as claqueurs.
Book Review: Craig Thomas' Winter Hawk
By 1987 Craig Thomas had been putting out his thrillers annually for a decade--by which point most genre authors working at such a pace are getting less innovative, and more likely to repeat themselves. Thomas' Winter Hawk was certainly consistent with that tendency to repetition. A second sequel to his 1977 thriller Firefox, it once again had Western intelligence officials alarmed by a Soviet aerospace breakthrough threatening the global balance of military power sending Mitchell Gant sneaking into the Soviet Union on a mission taking advantage of both his flying skills and his Russian language skills in which he is expected to escape the Soviet Union in a stolen Soviet aircraft. In its repetition of earlier themes Winter Hawk, one might add, reused elements of other non-Mitchell Gant, but still "Aubreyverse," work, specifically the plot of Thomas' earlier and less well-known novel Snow Falcon (1979), in which, just as in this book, the civilian leadership of the Soviet Union is making a historic arms control agreement with the West and a Soviet military establishment firmly opposed to the concessions the agreement entails is plotting to sabotage it with a grand display of Soviet military power--with the power struggle inside the Soviet establishment, down to the activities of the Soviet counter-spies looking to stop the subversion, comprising as great a part of the narrative as the doings of the Western agent who is the story's hero. (There even seems a parallel in the titles, both of them two-word titles which are the names of birds of prey, with the first word in their name specifically evoking the coldest season of the year.) The difference here is that the Soviet military's stroke will not occur on Earth, but in space--Thomas in this book seizing on the then-fashionable theme of the Strategic Defense Initiative a year before Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin and Dale Brown's Silver Tower with a scenario in which the Soviets plan to have in orbit a constellation of laser-armed battle stations able to completely neutralize the West's strategic capability.
The result is a much more "big picture"-oriented, and lengthy, narrative than either the original Firefox (tightly focused on Gant's sneaking into the Soviet Union to steal the titular jet in the first half, and in the second flying his stolen plane out), or the 1982 sequel Firefox Down (a combination of man-on-the-run story and salvage job)--the book at 525 pages in the original hardback edition nearly twice the length of the first (288-page) Gant novel.
Meanwhile, as might be guessed from the sheer mass of the book, the number of years which Thomas had been writing, and for that matter the precedent on his more relevant preceding works (like, besides Snow Falcon, 1981's submarine thriller Sea Leopard), the result is less than perfectly even. Like many a maturing author Thomas increasingly inclined to prolixity, and indeed became prone to overwriting, in this case to the point of producing unnecessary incidents, written up lengthily. Exemplary of this is an early episode in which the transport aircraft delivering the two Hind helicopters that Gant and his colleagues will be using in the mission (entering Soviet-controlled airspace by way of Afghanistan, they are supposed to pick up a defector with key intelligence about the Soviet military space program from a safe house outside its great complex at Baikonur) runs into trouble far short of the launch point for the mission in Pakistan. It serves no purpose plot-wise, laying no groundwork for anything that happens later, and mainly ends up dragging things out by throwing an additional obstacle in the heroes' way, one which further suffers from lacking the dramatic interest of enemy action. (One can say for it is that it helps establish how when faced with problems of that kind Gant displays considerable independence, daring, practical ingenuity, though in fairness that becomes apparent in more dramatic ways soon enough, so that again, Thomas fails to justify its inclusion.) At the same time, if some bits are unnecessary other elements that seem necessary appear to have been left out--with Thomas' relation of the Soviet side of the intrigue not so much drawing to a conclusion by the story's close as stopping after Gant's fate has been made clear. (What ever happened to KGB Colonel Dimitri Priabin after the dramatic events earlier in the book, and the two preceding it? We never find out here.) One wonders about other aspects of the continuity, too, with, even as Thomas makes heavy use of some aspects of the prior books (like Priabin and his desire for revenge against Gant), others are totally neglected. (In this Aubreyverse novel not a word is spoken about Kenneth Aubrey, or British intelligence and its role in Gant's prior missions; while we also do not hear a word about the Firefox fighter Gant risked his life to steal and the revolutionary engine, stealth and neural control technologies, let alone see a single Firefox in the air as Gant crosses through so much of Soviet airspace with the Soviet air force determinedly hunting him down.)
One may also add that Thomas' research into his subject did not seem to get much more thorough over the years. (To cite one of the more obvious failings here Thomas seems to think that helicopters carry air search radars as a matter of course, and includes them in models of helicopter where they are most certainly not installed as a matter of course--and that aircraft radars as a matter of course provide the 360 degree coverage provided by ground-based radar.) However, from the standpoint of pure reading experience it may be more important that Thomas did get better at sustaining suspenseful scenes, and writing spectacular action, as simply the distance between the first and second Firefox novels shows (the aerial battle opening the second book far outdoes anything in the first), while if Thomas can be very good with the on-the-ground part of the adventure, he also benefits from keeping Gant in the cockpit of his aircraft for as much of the adventure as possible. Those early troubles getting the helicopters into place apart, just about everything to do with this part of the story works, and works well, with, if one does not nit-pick the technical details, Thomas here second to none at bringing together technology and aerial action with a measure of literary flair--and this extending to characterization, with it mattering both that Mitchell Gant is far more compelling than the Jack Ryans and others who headline most techno-thrillers, and that in characterizing the Soviets as well Thomas by this point has come a long way from the Cold War caricature of the Soviet figures on which he earlier relied to present them as actual human beings leading human lives. The result is that while this book remains an action-adventure-oriented thriller first and foremost Thomas manages to wring some human drama out of his premise. His strength on both scores means that in spite of its shortcomings Winter Hawk actually proved to be the strongest of the three Mitchell Gant novels overall—and one of the richer and more robust works to come out of the techno-thriller genre's '80s-era boom.
The result is a much more "big picture"-oriented, and lengthy, narrative than either the original Firefox (tightly focused on Gant's sneaking into the Soviet Union to steal the titular jet in the first half, and in the second flying his stolen plane out), or the 1982 sequel Firefox Down (a combination of man-on-the-run story and salvage job)--the book at 525 pages in the original hardback edition nearly twice the length of the first (288-page) Gant novel.
Meanwhile, as might be guessed from the sheer mass of the book, the number of years which Thomas had been writing, and for that matter the precedent on his more relevant preceding works (like, besides Snow Falcon, 1981's submarine thriller Sea Leopard), the result is less than perfectly even. Like many a maturing author Thomas increasingly inclined to prolixity, and indeed became prone to overwriting, in this case to the point of producing unnecessary incidents, written up lengthily. Exemplary of this is an early episode in which the transport aircraft delivering the two Hind helicopters that Gant and his colleagues will be using in the mission (entering Soviet-controlled airspace by way of Afghanistan, they are supposed to pick up a defector with key intelligence about the Soviet military space program from a safe house outside its great complex at Baikonur) runs into trouble far short of the launch point for the mission in Pakistan. It serves no purpose plot-wise, laying no groundwork for anything that happens later, and mainly ends up dragging things out by throwing an additional obstacle in the heroes' way, one which further suffers from lacking the dramatic interest of enemy action. (One can say for it is that it helps establish how when faced with problems of that kind Gant displays considerable independence, daring, practical ingenuity, though in fairness that becomes apparent in more dramatic ways soon enough, so that again, Thomas fails to justify its inclusion.) At the same time, if some bits are unnecessary other elements that seem necessary appear to have been left out--with Thomas' relation of the Soviet side of the intrigue not so much drawing to a conclusion by the story's close as stopping after Gant's fate has been made clear. (What ever happened to KGB Colonel Dimitri Priabin after the dramatic events earlier in the book, and the two preceding it? We never find out here.) One wonders about other aspects of the continuity, too, with, even as Thomas makes heavy use of some aspects of the prior books (like Priabin and his desire for revenge against Gant), others are totally neglected. (In this Aubreyverse novel not a word is spoken about Kenneth Aubrey, or British intelligence and its role in Gant's prior missions; while we also do not hear a word about the Firefox fighter Gant risked his life to steal and the revolutionary engine, stealth and neural control technologies, let alone see a single Firefox in the air as Gant crosses through so much of Soviet airspace with the Soviet air force determinedly hunting him down.)
One may also add that Thomas' research into his subject did not seem to get much more thorough over the years. (To cite one of the more obvious failings here Thomas seems to think that helicopters carry air search radars as a matter of course, and includes them in models of helicopter where they are most certainly not installed as a matter of course--and that aircraft radars as a matter of course provide the 360 degree coverage provided by ground-based radar.) However, from the standpoint of pure reading experience it may be more important that Thomas did get better at sustaining suspenseful scenes, and writing spectacular action, as simply the distance between the first and second Firefox novels shows (the aerial battle opening the second book far outdoes anything in the first), while if Thomas can be very good with the on-the-ground part of the adventure, he also benefits from keeping Gant in the cockpit of his aircraft for as much of the adventure as possible. Those early troubles getting the helicopters into place apart, just about everything to do with this part of the story works, and works well, with, if one does not nit-pick the technical details, Thomas here second to none at bringing together technology and aerial action with a measure of literary flair--and this extending to characterization, with it mattering both that Mitchell Gant is far more compelling than the Jack Ryans and others who headline most techno-thrillers, and that in characterizing the Soviets as well Thomas by this point has come a long way from the Cold War caricature of the Soviet figures on which he earlier relied to present them as actual human beings leading human lives. The result is that while this book remains an action-adventure-oriented thriller first and foremost Thomas manages to wring some human drama out of his premise. His strength on both scores means that in spite of its shortcomings Winter Hawk actually proved to be the strongest of the three Mitchell Gant novels overall—and one of the richer and more robust works to come out of the techno-thriller genre's '80s-era boom.
A Word on Craig Thomas' Soviet Characters
Big-screen film adaptations of successful books, especially when they are major feature films of the summer blockbuster type, are famously unfaithful to their source material. However, Clint Eastwood's adaptation of Craig Thomas' novel Firefox was very faithful--with that faithfulness extending to what many might be inclined to see as the book's flaws.
Worth considering here is what the New York Times' Vincent Canby said of the movie, which is just as sayable of the book--that the film "expresses a most cavalier attitude toward the lives of its supporting characters," with all those who aid Mitchell Gant in stealing the Firefox fighter jet killed off "in such numbers, and with so little emotion, that even the screenplay seems to become selfconscious about it," Acknowledging the fact itself. Thus a Gant bewildered by the readiness of the helpers that British intelligence recruited to lay down their lives this way comes out and asks one of them what motivates them--and in the film the answer he gets is that "'It's a small thing compared to my resentment of the K.G.B..'"
All of this may have been congenial to those taking a hard-liner's view of the Cold War, but as this reviewer for the by no means radical New York Times makes clear, it was as unsatisfying dramatically as it was implausible in this more complex reality. And as it happened, Thomas' handling of his Soviet characters in his subsequent books, like the Firefox sequels, increasingly moved past the anti-Communist cliché that dominated the first book, in 1983's Firefox Down, and still more 1987's Winter Hawk. If still not the deepest, most-nuanced or well-balanced picture of Soviet life, here the Soviet Union at least appears a place where, for all the imperfections of their system, there is, just as in Gant's own less-than-perfect Clarksville, a normal, daily life, in which people have families and all their baggage, and personal affections and antipathies, which figure significantly in the elaborate intrigues that play out among the Soviet leadership (and how Gant endeavors to get back out of the Soviet Union again after having got himself into it), Thomas managing to generate some real personal tension here out of the interactions of the Soviet principals in a way novels like these rarely manage to do (the Soviet general in charge of the space-based laser program, his ruthless and ambitious subordinate, the KGB man dogging them), and the book better off for it.
Worth considering here is what the New York Times' Vincent Canby said of the movie, which is just as sayable of the book--that the film "expresses a most cavalier attitude toward the lives of its supporting characters," with all those who aid Mitchell Gant in stealing the Firefox fighter jet killed off "in such numbers, and with so little emotion, that even the screenplay seems to become selfconscious about it," Acknowledging the fact itself. Thus a Gant bewildered by the readiness of the helpers that British intelligence recruited to lay down their lives this way comes out and asks one of them what motivates them--and in the film the answer he gets is that "'It's a small thing compared to my resentment of the K.G.B..'"
All of this may have been congenial to those taking a hard-liner's view of the Cold War, but as this reviewer for the by no means radical New York Times makes clear, it was as unsatisfying dramatically as it was implausible in this more complex reality. And as it happened, Thomas' handling of his Soviet characters in his subsequent books, like the Firefox sequels, increasingly moved past the anti-Communist cliché that dominated the first book, in 1983's Firefox Down, and still more 1987's Winter Hawk. If still not the deepest, most-nuanced or well-balanced picture of Soviet life, here the Soviet Union at least appears a place where, for all the imperfections of their system, there is, just as in Gant's own less-than-perfect Clarksville, a normal, daily life, in which people have families and all their baggage, and personal affections and antipathies, which figure significantly in the elaborate intrigues that play out among the Soviet leadership (and how Gant endeavors to get back out of the Soviet Union again after having got himself into it), Thomas managing to generate some real personal tension here out of the interactions of the Soviet principals in a way novels like these rarely manage to do (the Soviet general in charge of the space-based laser program, his ruthless and ambitious subordinate, the KGB man dogging them), and the book better off for it.
A Word on Craig Thomas' Mitchell Gant
Still, those British writers were a presence on American bestseller lists for all that, with Craig Thomas no exception, and helped by the fact that he was not only ahead of most of the competition here (1977's Firefox long preceding the aviation-themed stories of Coonts and Brown and the rest, and 1981's Sea Leopard beating Clancy's Hunt for Red October to the punch by many years), but that there were ways in which he tended to outdo them. Others came in ahead of Thomas when it came to the scale and intricacy of scenario, or the scale and elaborateness of the action, or the rigor of their research and knack for blending technical detail with story, but Thomas tended to be the superior storyteller and literary craftsman, with characterization one of the areas where he showed this.
In considering that it may seem natural that Thomas was able to make his spymaster Kenneth Aubrey compelling--as an older man with a long life and career behind him, whose conditions of work in London afford him more opportunity to be "complicated" than the younger people physically engaged out in the field and so apt to have their minds on personal survival above all else. Still, Thomas also managed to make that man out in the field, Mitchell Gant, also an interesting creation.
Unsurprisingly, in spite of the qualities that permitted him to be so accomplished in the cockpit, he had a less than glamorous post-service life, working as a garage hand (seemingly just a notch above a John Rambo who, as the cinematic version announced in the first film's closing monologue, couldn't even get that job) when he was recruited back into the Air Force for service in the kind of elite unit to which his abilities were of particular value. Also unsurprisingly, he is not a natural "organization man," or always likable, Gant cynical and flippant toward everyone he deals with, both authority and less-experienced colleagues--such that it was easy indeed to picture Clint Eastwood in the role. (In fact reading the third book in the Gant series, 1987's Winter Hawk, I wondered if Eastwood's having played Gant in the 1982 film did not, consciously or unconsciously, encourage Thomas in making Gant hew more closely to the Eastwood persona, and especially Eastwood at his more sneering.)
In considering that it is worth acknowledging that there was no political criticism involved in Thomas' taking a different tack. Going by what I have read of his books Thomas appears a conventional, anti-Communist, anti-Soviet Cold War conservative, and to such a degree that in Firefox he can picture British intelligence seemingly having an easy time finding well-placed Soviets who so hate their government they are ready to lay down their lives to help some foreigners steal a fighter jet from their country (something even the reviewer for the far from radical New York Times had a hard time swallowing). In ways even more pointed the later Sea Leopard gives the impression of a man with little use for leftists, college students and intellectuals. And all the while Thomas consistently appears respectful of security state officialdom and the armed services, and on the whole well disposed to America and Americans in good, "Atlanticist" fashion.*
* As the Times' Vincent Canby explains, in the film (as in the book) "nearly everyone who assists in the planenapping is promptly bumped off"--killed "in such numbers, and with so little emotion, that even the screenplay seems to become selfconscious about it" to go by Gant's asking his helpers how they can sacrifice their lives like this (with the same sayable of the book, to which the film adaptation was faithful in this as in so many other respects).
If Artists are Conservative, Why Do We So Often Picture Them Otherwise?
Recently writing about the politics of artists I discussed Upton Sinclair's view of artists' "sensitivity" leaving them vulnerable to the propaganda of the day--and David Walsh's perhaps not dissimilar view of the artists' working methods (unconscious, intuitive, emotional, impressionistic, centered on the concrete image, as against an analytical approach), with this reinforced by "Bohemianism, individualism, egotism," were prone to leave them running behind their times politically, and indeed susceptible to reactionary agendas.
Yet our stereotypes are different, and it seems worth asking why. One possibility is that we are seeing artists through the eyes of that sort of person prone to exaggerate the political difference between themselves and anyone who disagrees with them--in this case, of the conservative who exchanges words with one mild liberal and feel themselves besieged by extreme leftists. Still another is that the aforementioned Bohemianism of artists, their flouting society's standards, etc., make them seem more leftish than they really are to people who do not inquire too deeply into their attitudes. However, there is also the possibility, or even likelihood, that those "hero" and "martyr" artists make a greater impression than the astutely career-minded artists who play it safe, producing what their patrons require of them. Certainly their life stories appear more dramatic, which may have something to do with this--but one can also argue that they make a contribution out of proportion to their numbers, a Theodore Dreiser, for example, making a far greater mark on the culture than a Booth Tarkington precisely because he challenged rather than affirmed the conventionalities of his day.
In turn one might argue that, given the way artists so often run behind the times, it may be that periods in which there is something other than orthodoxy touching on their sensitivities--in which, perhaps, there are great popular movements afoot--produce more than their share of such artists, and thus more of those who ultimately produce something that endures. Returning to the case of Dreiser, the early twentieth century which produced him (and figures such as Upton Sinclair, and Sinclair Lewis, and Jack London, and F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck) can seem such a period. By contrast the years since the Depression and World War II have been very different--with the stream of such thinning out to leave us with little but a reactionary postmodernism. The result is that where a century on Dreiser, if unloved by the literary establishment ("treated like a 'dead dog'" in Walsh's words), retains his stature as one of the century's greats a century after An American Tragedy, those who are the toast of New York today are likely to slip into the same comparative obscurity as a Tarkington.
Yet our stereotypes are different, and it seems worth asking why. One possibility is that we are seeing artists through the eyes of that sort of person prone to exaggerate the political difference between themselves and anyone who disagrees with them--in this case, of the conservative who exchanges words with one mild liberal and feel themselves besieged by extreme leftists. Still another is that the aforementioned Bohemianism of artists, their flouting society's standards, etc., make them seem more leftish than they really are to people who do not inquire too deeply into their attitudes. However, there is also the possibility, or even likelihood, that those "hero" and "martyr" artists make a greater impression than the astutely career-minded artists who play it safe, producing what their patrons require of them. Certainly their life stories appear more dramatic, which may have something to do with this--but one can also argue that they make a contribution out of proportion to their numbers, a Theodore Dreiser, for example, making a far greater mark on the culture than a Booth Tarkington precisely because he challenged rather than affirmed the conventionalities of his day.
In turn one might argue that, given the way artists so often run behind the times, it may be that periods in which there is something other than orthodoxy touching on their sensitivities--in which, perhaps, there are great popular movements afoot--produce more than their share of such artists, and thus more of those who ultimately produce something that endures. Returning to the case of Dreiser, the early twentieth century which produced him (and figures such as Upton Sinclair, and Sinclair Lewis, and Jack London, and F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck) can seem such a period. By contrast the years since the Depression and World War II have been very different--with the stream of such thinning out to leave us with little but a reactionary postmodernism. The result is that where a century on Dreiser, if unloved by the literary establishment ("treated like a 'dead dog'" in Walsh's words), retains his stature as one of the century's greats a century after An American Tragedy, those who are the toast of New York today are likely to slip into the same comparative obscurity as a Tarkington.
David Walsh on the Politics of Artists
Not long ago I cited Upton Sinclair's remarks in Mammonart about the tendency of artists toward the political right in a way extending beyond mere careerism. There was, too, the artistic "sensitivity" that made artists susceptible to the orthodoxy of the day, and the impression of grandeur the rich and powerful strive to make.
As it happens, David Walsh has had some thoughts to offer here, going beyond mere artistic "sensitivity" and the ways in which it leaves artists open to such influence. He specifically suggests that an artist's way of thinking and working, with the unconscious and intuitive, with "sense perception, immediate impressions and emotions," so central, has them thinking and feeling in images, rather than analyzing philosophically and scientifically. Besides leaving them easily propagandized, this also leaves them responsive to irrationalist, anti-rationalist and subjectivist attitudes, with the tendency reinforced by a tendency to "Bohemianism, individualism, egotism." The result has been their running behind the times intellectually--and indeed highly susceptible to reactionary influences. Hence the appeal of Friedrich Nietzsche to so many artists in the pre-World War I period, and after, who, as "wrote scathingly about bourgeois mediocrity and complacency . . . criticized religion and Christian piety and slavishness . . . stood for the 'liberation of the instincts,' spontaneity, egoism . . . intoxication," and appeared "anti-Establishment" in a way that could appeal particularly strongly to those with rebellious impulses (against bourgeois conformity, certainly), while looking more "alluring and apparently 'poetic' than looking at the difficult, often harsh, often tedious conditions of the working class."
As it happens, David Walsh has had some thoughts to offer here, going beyond mere artistic "sensitivity" and the ways in which it leaves artists open to such influence. He specifically suggests that an artist's way of thinking and working, with the unconscious and intuitive, with "sense perception, immediate impressions and emotions," so central, has them thinking and feeling in images, rather than analyzing philosophically and scientifically. Besides leaving them easily propagandized, this also leaves them responsive to irrationalist, anti-rationalist and subjectivist attitudes, with the tendency reinforced by a tendency to "Bohemianism, individualism, egotism." The result has been their running behind the times intellectually--and indeed highly susceptible to reactionary influences. Hence the appeal of Friedrich Nietzsche to so many artists in the pre-World War I period, and after, who, as "wrote scathingly about bourgeois mediocrity and complacency . . . criticized religion and Christian piety and slavishness . . . stood for the 'liberation of the instincts,' spontaneity, egoism . . . intoxication," and appeared "anti-Establishment" in a way that could appeal particularly strongly to those with rebellious impulses (against bourgeois conformity, certainly), while looking more "alluring and apparently 'poetic' than looking at the difficult, often harsh, often tedious conditions of the working class."
Are Artists Naturally Conservative? A Few Thoughts
In his extraordinary study Mammonart Upton Sinclair declared that "the path to honor and success in the arts has been through the service and glorification of the ruling classes," with this not only a matter of "entertaining them," but "teaching their subjects and slaves to stand in awe of them"; that artists more readily walk that path because their very "sensitiv[ity]" makes them even more susceptible than most to the propagandizing of authority that they in turn join in, making them creatures of "snobbery and subservience, timidity and worship of tradition," exemplified by how "[e]very little tea-party poet . . . cherishes a strong and cruel dream" such as Nietzsche, Carlyle, Kipling offer.
One thus gets an impression from this that artists are natural conservatives--quite at odds with popular images of artistic radicalism. Of course, as Sinclair makes clear exceptions abound--exceptions which commonly pay the price for not "playing the game" as demanded of them--"hero artists and martyr artists, men who have produced what they believed to be the best, in the face of obloquy, ridicule, starvation, even the dungeon and the stake."
Still, looking at popular culture, and not least Hollywood's movies, it seems to me impossible not to be struck by the relentlessness of such work in glorifying the wealthy and powerful, and validating the order that has made them so; and to think that if some artists become heroes and martyrs, this is the default mode for practitioners of the profession, or at least those which manage to get recognized as artists at all--a very different thing from the far larger set above which we can put the label "Artist."
One thus gets an impression from this that artists are natural conservatives--quite at odds with popular images of artistic radicalism. Of course, as Sinclair makes clear exceptions abound--exceptions which commonly pay the price for not "playing the game" as demanded of them--"hero artists and martyr artists, men who have produced what they believed to be the best, in the face of obloquy, ridicule, starvation, even the dungeon and the stake."
Still, looking at popular culture, and not least Hollywood's movies, it seems to me impossible not to be struck by the relentlessness of such work in glorifying the wealthy and powerful, and validating the order that has made them so; and to think that if some artists become heroes and martyrs, this is the default mode for practitioners of the profession, or at least those which manage to get recognized as artists at all--a very different thing from the far larger set above which we can put the label "Artist."
The Tomb of the Unknown Artist
Looking over the history of literature I am conscious that what I am looking over is a history of what was commissioned, completed, presented, acclaimed, copied, preserved in substance and in memory.
That foundation for literary history is not wrong when we think of literature as what people read.
However, it is more questionable when we think of it as what was written, or what writers tried to write, or of such writing as a record or reflection of the times, for which purpose that basis is a lot less complete and satisfying. Many tried to create, but due to lack of opportunity never finished what they began, or due to censorship in one form or another created and saw their works suppressed before they could make such a mark--and we can only wonder at what might have been created had the circumstances in which they worked been just a little more supportive or free.
Few acknowledge this, or the politics behind it, but to his credit Upton Sinclair does so in Mammonart. As he remarks, "our recognized and successful artists" were generally those who "served their masters gladly and freely." Those who did not "paid the penalty by a life of conflict and exile," while if those writers had the misfortune of being "poor and friendless" they did not even reach the point at which they were persecuted and exiled--or find compensation in "the gratitude of posterity." Rather "their dream-children died unborn, and were buried, along with their parents, in graves unknown," one of which may have had for an epitaph "'Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.'"
Today some of those poor and friendless are submitting their work to the slush piles, and pieces running in places like the Guardian, to their discredit, gloat over how their dream-children will be buried in unknown graves.
That foundation for literary history is not wrong when we think of literature as what people read.
However, it is more questionable when we think of it as what was written, or what writers tried to write, or of such writing as a record or reflection of the times, for which purpose that basis is a lot less complete and satisfying. Many tried to create, but due to lack of opportunity never finished what they began, or due to censorship in one form or another created and saw their works suppressed before they could make such a mark--and we can only wonder at what might have been created had the circumstances in which they worked been just a little more supportive or free.
Few acknowledge this, or the politics behind it, but to his credit Upton Sinclair does so in Mammonart. As he remarks, "our recognized and successful artists" were generally those who "served their masters gladly and freely." Those who did not "paid the penalty by a life of conflict and exile," while if those writers had the misfortune of being "poor and friendless" they did not even reach the point at which they were persecuted and exiled--or find compensation in "the gratitude of posterity." Rather "their dream-children died unborn, and were buried, along with their parents, in graves unknown," one of which may have had for an epitaph "'Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.'"
Today some of those poor and friendless are submitting their work to the slush piles, and pieces running in places like the Guardian, to their discredit, gloat over how their dream-children will be buried in unknown graves.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Is Literacy in Decline?
The claim that the young are inferior to prior age cohorts in studiousness and learning at the same point in their lives is one of the oldest and most grating clichés of the sneering aged--and I suspect has tended to be as inaccurate as it has been trite. In modern times it seems to me that the opposite has tended to be true, due to the spread of educational and cultural opportunity, and changes in curricula that I suspect have been beneficial. (If there is less study of the Classical languages there has been that much more attention to the modern ones. Certainly the teaching of history has progressed beyond the memorization of lists of kings. Etcetera, etcetera.)
Still, there is no question that in recent decades contemporary culture has been undergoing a profound transformation in which, in significant degree, audiovisual content has replaced the written words, and the screen printed media, with great consequences for the tendency to sustained, deep, reading of texts, particularly long texts. It does not seem unreasonable to think diminished use of the faculty is having its consequences--especially for those younger persons whose habits have been more fully formed in the era of the smart phone--all as, for the time being, I am unclear on just what skills they are developing in place of the old reading skills that may render them useful service in a changing world.
Still, there is no question that in recent decades contemporary culture has been undergoing a profound transformation in which, in significant degree, audiovisual content has replaced the written words, and the screen printed media, with great consequences for the tendency to sustained, deep, reading of texts, particularly long texts. It does not seem unreasonable to think diminished use of the faculty is having its consequences--especially for those younger persons whose habits have been more fully formed in the era of the smart phone--all as, for the time being, I am unclear on just what skills they are developing in place of the old reading skills that may render them useful service in a changing world.
Remembering 1998's Lost in Space
The 1998 film adaptation of Lost in Space would seem very much of its time--a feature film based on a '60s-era TV show amid the late '90s space opera boom, which even had a member of the cast of Friends trying to extend their acting career beyond their familiar on-screen persona (Matt LeBlanc an action hero!). Still, it was not very warmly received at the time by critics, while the box office gross, if not low by contemporary standards ($136 million in early 1998 dollars), was still not quite enough to justify the big budget quite evident on the screen. Opinion toward the film does not seem to have grown warmer with time (the critics' and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes are 27 and 24 percent, respectively), while a still more recent Lost in Space remake (a 2018-2021 Netflix series) has probably helped further bury the movie.
Still, even if I have not seen it in a long time I vaguely recall the film having its moments, with some bits cropping up in memory again and again. The premise of the film, as it happened, was that old sci-fi standard--the attempt to save humanity following ecological catastrophe on Earth by finding it another planetary home. Assigned to the mission Major Don West (the LeBlanc character) is initially cynical, thinking it mere corporate public relations--because "every school child" knew that "recycling technology" was going to save the Earth.
Professor John Robinson tells West that every school child had been lied to.
So does it seem when we look back on the earnestness with which people spoke once of recycling--and what we hear of it now as the ecological crisis just goes on getting worse.
Still, even if I have not seen it in a long time I vaguely recall the film having its moments, with some bits cropping up in memory again and again. The premise of the film, as it happened, was that old sci-fi standard--the attempt to save humanity following ecological catastrophe on Earth by finding it another planetary home. Assigned to the mission Major Don West (the LeBlanc character) is initially cynical, thinking it mere corporate public relations--because "every school child" knew that "recycling technology" was going to save the Earth.
Professor John Robinson tells West that every school child had been lied to.
So does it seem when we look back on the earnestness with which people spoke once of recycling--and what we hear of it now as the ecological crisis just goes on getting worse.
A Naked Gun Remake? Seriously?
Only lately did I notice that the flood of remakes and reboots nobody asked for being dumped on us by the manure truck that is contemporary Hollywood includes a remake of 1988's hit comedy The Naked Gun.
As is usually the case with Hollywood's remakes the idea completely misses the factors relevant to the original's success.
The Naked Gun, one should remember, was part of that great wave of gag-based comedy emergent in the 1960s through the work of people like Richard Lester and Charles Feldman and Woody Allen, which had a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s in the hands of people like Mel Brooks and the ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker), before entering terminal decline in the '90s, identifiable with the era of the much-maligned Jason Friedburg and Aaron Seltzer.
In those earlier, more productive years, the gag-based comedy was a new way of making a film significantly connected with and complementing the contemporaneous rise of the action movie with James Bond--the two, similarly elevating images presented at an accelerated pace above dramatic conventions, though in the case of the comedy with comedic gags rather than adrenaline-pumping "shocks" or "bumps." (Indeed, it is indicative of the closeness of the two forms that many critics looking at the first Bond movies seem to have thought they were looking at a comedy of this type.)
And just as with the action movie, filmmakers eventually exhausted this genre's possibilities. (Just as the action movie got to a point where the range of set pieces and the things that could be done in and with them was pretty well established, and there was not much to do but repeat them, and there was no going "faster" or "bigger" to any useful effect, there was only so much worth doing with this form--with even a Brooks or ZAZ in the view of most peaking early in their careers, the former with 1974's Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, ZAZ with Airplane!)
The Naked Gun was one of the most memorable of the wave's later films--but a remake seems to me exceedingly unlikely to add to anything but what we already know well, namely Hollywood's utter unhinged determination to keep giving the public the same thing over and over and over again, even as it loses money at the game.
As is usually the case with Hollywood's remakes the idea completely misses the factors relevant to the original's success.
The Naked Gun, one should remember, was part of that great wave of gag-based comedy emergent in the 1960s through the work of people like Richard Lester and Charles Feldman and Woody Allen, which had a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s in the hands of people like Mel Brooks and the ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker), before entering terminal decline in the '90s, identifiable with the era of the much-maligned Jason Friedburg and Aaron Seltzer.
The Naked Gun was one of the most memorable of the wave's later films--but a remake seems to me exceedingly unlikely to add to anything but what we already know well, namely Hollywood's utter unhinged determination to keep giving the public the same thing over and over and over again, even as it loses money at the game.
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