Art and Artist?

I read the below article, "Our Woody Allen Problem" a few days ago in "Psychology Today". It is interesting that others have pondered the cognitive dissonance we seem to face when we don't agree with the morality of the artist, but we are a fan of their work. I think a huge amount of latitude needs to be applied. If I was to go through all the films, novels, plays, songs, installations, sculptures, paintings, poems etc. etc. and make an assessment of the key artists involved against my own morals, ethics or even personal philosophy, there would be no one left.

This has been a problem for me since childhood. Growing up in a culture that it has often been fashionable to persecute, traditional circus, it became all-too-common to discover that some icon or other opposed what my family did for a living. Not only did I have to make a decision to either separate the individual from what they produced, but I was often at war with my tastes when a certain prejudicial or gross insult to my people suddenly appeared in a favourite programme, book or other work. 

Looking at the example presented in the Woody Allen  article - and I appreciate this isn't the entire thrust of the psychological argument -  the problem here is that the morality of the artist's life casts a troublesome shadow over the themes of his work. Indeed, this was the same issue I encountered when a gross distortion was made about my people. It ended up leading me to question the validity of a certain individual's work. Even in the realm of fantasy and fiction were they a farce?

Saving the Soul of a Movie Franchise

The Batsuit of The Dark Knight, worn by Christian Bale. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Forgive my pedantry here, but there are feature film Remakes, feature film Re-Adaptations of non-feature film material and – the subject of this article - Reboots. When I read lists of good or bad remakes I often see a mishmash of these three and yet each is quite different. Remakes are films that make a clear attempt to produce a new version of a single film. A re-adaptation, in the context of this article, describes a second or subsequent adaptation of a novel, a play, video game or some other non-feature film source material. A movie reboot occurs when an established franchise of films starts anew. The overwhelming majority of reboots will start with a remake or a re-adaption, but the motive of the producers is to refresh an established franchise anew, disregarding previous continuities. A good reboot meets the torturous task of doing justice to the core “spirit” of the original work with obvious respect whilst laying believable foundations for the rest of the series. A bad reboot does the complete opposite. Therefore, the purpose of this frivolous and unashamedly geeky article is to put forward my favourite and least favourite attempts to refresh a movie franchise. 

Of Ravens and Wolves - Tribute to Joan Aiken

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today I was reminded by a very nice doodle on Google that is the 91st birthday of the great children's novelist, Joan Aiken. Aiken was one of the staple children's authors who's work coloured a lot of my childhood upbringing in the Cotswolds. I heard her stories of Mortimer the raven on BBC's Jackanory and then again in my sixth primary school, where it seemed the majority of our reading material was illustrated by Quentin Blake! Later on, I became aware of her other work. Her Wolves Chronicles, particularly the first installment, "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase", were particularly inspirational in later ideas I would have as an adult.

When I moved back to the Cotswolds with my baby daughter, my thoughts often returned to Aiken's work, even if my eyes didn't. I found myself thinking on the worlds she created as I pushed a pram up a steep hill as winter drew near. That tinge of Gothic that touched upon most of Aiken's work put her years ahead of the trend that has shaped a lot of children's fiction, in film and literature, over the last two decades. Ahead of Phillip Pullman's steam punk and other children's alternative history authors, Aiken presented futures that touched strongly on reality. She held her hand with discipline when it came to applying fantasy elements and wove them believeable into the text. This is what makes the Wolves Chronicles so appealing.

Bride of Frankenstein - "to gods and monsters!"

With Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In honour of the 80th anniversay of "The Bride of Frankenstein" I have unearthed this short review I submitted a fair few years back.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I present to you a fine example that not only puts forward the argument that sequels can be great, but also that there were good sequels before Godfather Part II. The Bride of Frankenstein actually surpasses the original film and is perhaps one of the greatest horror movies made.

I say all this in spite of its glaring flaws as a sequel. It commits all the cardinal sins that a sequel should never do. It changes the tone of the original by introducing comedy, it retcons the ending of the original (if you have read or seen "Misery" this is an absolute no-no with die-hard fans) and unforgivably it brings in a new actress to play a leading role. If that weren't bad enough the titular character barely makes a cameo appearance. So what makes it so good?

Arrive, Park and Hand in Your Keys

“You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means… then again” - (Paraphrased from) “The Princess Bride”

The term “meet and greet”, when associated with airports, is widely accepted to mean a type of valet service for passengers who don’t want to waste time parking. Those who book this service expect to be able to drive close to the departures door and be met by a valet. The passenger then hands the keys over without a second thought in order to make his or her hasty way to the frustrating/reassuring (delete where applicable) onslaught of increasing bureaucracies and inconsistent security rituals, happy in the knowledge that their faithful mechanical steed in going into safe stabling. Upon their return, the tired passengers can then stumble through the arrivals door and be greeted by the smiling chauffer with their car. Unless the memorable scene in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” has made you paranoid about car parking attendants or you enjoy losing valuable time from your life searching huge car parks for spaces whilst worrying about missing your flight, I cannot imagine you would disagree with the virtues of such a service. It was the service we happily expected at Standstead Airport when we saw the title “Meet and Greet Parking” on the package deal we booked with “On the Beach”. However, the reality was somewhat different.

Mary Shelley's Counter-Enlightenment

For those who are unaware of one of the most famous stories in Gothic literature, I would like to introduce you to “the story of Frankenstein… I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you.” You won’t find any of these lines in the original 1818 novel, although the author once famously remarked that she had wanted to write a story that “…would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror -- one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart”. The image of Whale’s “Frankenstein” is just one example of several horror icons that have become more readily identified with their filmic representation than their source material. Colin Clive’s hysterical portrayal of Frankenstein set the “mad scientist” stereotype, which was far removed from Shelley’s original tragic Faustian version, and Boris Karloff’s simple-minded, grunting, lumbering portrayal of The Monster was even further away from the intelligent, blighted and scorned figure of Milton-esque vengeance in the novel. However, the novel has bitten back over the years since Universal did such a great job of immortalizing its own icons.  The 1980s proved to be something of a watershed in this respect and this is where we find the first publication of Maurice Hindle’s edited text. It is this influential edition of the novel, which has subsequently been reprinted in the same format several times now; I am reviewing rather than the original story.

Stumbling through the Tulips

The modern horror movie is in a pretty sorry state if this is what the kids are raving on about today. I didn’t read much into the hype. All I knew was that it wasn’t yet another “found film” or a “torture porn”, and Tiny Tim’s 1967 cover of the 1929 “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” was being a creepy interpretation. It sounded interesting enough, although I haven’t held out much for hope horror since around 2000. Barely a dozen of horror films have impressed me since then and all are rivalled by shows like “Masters of Horror” and “American Horror Story”.