Applied Philosophy

Jersey Girl, 2004, directed by Kevin Smith, starring Ben Affleik and Raquel Castro.

The Trotsky, 2009,  directed by Jacob Tierney, starring Jay Baruchel, Jessica Paré and Ricky Mabe.

The best characters in literature are those that get transformed. Shakespeare presented one of the best and moving transformations, from Prince Harry to King Henry V, in his trilogy: Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two and Henry V.

Kevin Smith tried to do the same in Jersey Girl by transforming a Public Relations guy, a person who lives by lying to the general public, to a spirited and dedicated public servant, but where Shakespeare was successful Kevin Smith fails: when it was time to present the beliefs of the character through a speech Kevin Smith has nothing to say.

Smith fails to deliver a modern day St. Crispin’s Day Speech because he does not believe in public works the way Shakespeare believed in English nationalism.

In Hollywood anything could be forgiven except believing in something and the failure of Smith was the failure of conviction:

An extended cut was shown at Kevin Smith’s private film festival Vulgarthon in 2005 (and was shown again at the 2006 festival). Cut scenes that featured in the extended version included a much longer extension of the Jennifer Lopez section of the movie that fleshed out the characters more, Ben Affleck’s full speech in the city hall, a longer ending, and some music changes.

—Jersey Girl, Wikipedia [my emphasis]

Either Smith failed to write a moving speech or hesitated when it was time to deliver the final cut.

Slavoj Žižek wrote a book, On Belief, which discussed the need to believe in something to change the world, he presents Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, as an  example of someone acting on his belief even though Žižek personally does not agree with the beliefs. The interested reader can read the book and evalute the arguments for himself, but I like the short judgement given by Hegel: Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion (see Weekly Lesson (2)).

Jacob Tierney,another writer-director, fails to deliver a transforming character, his protagonist has passionate beliefs  from the first until the last frame of the film. Tierney does deliver the speech, the School Sucks Speech, but prefers to let a secondary character delivers it and then have him add that he doesn’t really believe in it, but he will put deeds before beliefs.

Modern artists are unable to observe society and can only express solipsist views, I suspect that Tierney hesitated to let the protagonist of his film, i.e. his avatar, express his views in a compelling speech, but by doing so he gave the best expression for the students’ “revolt” of the sixties: young students following ideas they do not really believe in without any adult leadership, except for a few fellow travellers cheering from a safe distant. This lack of belief, of passion, explains why the students used to take exams in the morning and riot in the evening; they also put deeds before beliefs and one does not sacrifice his future for deeds alone.

This lack of belief is present in every artistic expression of modern society, from the cheapest action film to the historical epic, it seems that there are no more Bolsheviks in modern Western society.

Star Trek, 2009, directed by J. J. Abrams, starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban.

I once thought I had found a treasure trove, namely all Nebula and Hugo awards winning short stories from the seventies. Alas the seventies were incapable of producing literature that can withstand the test of time, the stories reminded me of the great scene in Minority Report when a blind Tom Cruise eats a rotten moulding sandwich and then drinks rancid milk!

Despite their unreadable state I gleaned an important insight, most of the writers imagined a future where the differences between the genders had disappeared. Those individual writers were all extrapolating the great changes of the sixties and extending their present to its absurd conclusion (they and their contemporaries thought that was profound). The fact that girls started wearing jeans and t-shirts with little make up (think of Donna from That ’70s Show) and guys had long hair and were more expressive of their feelings (think of Kelso from That ’70s Show) was interpreted by them all as all differences would disappear in the future, which is an absurd thought from empty minds.

They Ignored the natural differences between men and women; ignoring these differences is the root cause of many of the modern society most pressing problems (I touched upon this issue in my post How to Reform Schools and Educate People). They ignored the long history of humanity in favour of a handful of abnormal decades. Their most glaring mistake is their assumption that history develops in a linear fashion, when actually it is non-linear (see my post Non-linear Historical Development).

Well at least the seventies could produce some watch-able films that resisted the passage of time much better than their stories.

“Time has shown that the 1970s was the greatest period for American movies since… the 1950s. But the ’70s—known as the American Movie Renaissance—are not coming back. That fact is proven by this week’s unheralded premiere of The Yellow Handkerchief alongside Film Forum’s revival of Five Easy Pieces, the 1970 New York Film Critics Circle Best Picture winner. Both are road movies—the genre by which ’70s films most clearly revealed modern American behavior, language and habitat. But cultural examination no longer excites contemporary film culture, which is devoted to CGI escapism and indie navel-gazing. “

—Armond White [my emphasis]

The film Star Trek imagines the future as a mundane world populated by television actors (painfully wasting the talents of Eric Bana and Winona Ryder). No historical development have taken place, linear or otherwise, there is only the mundane technological fantasy development. These are not the technological visions of Verne who imagined the possibilities of existing scientific advance, but the fevered hallucination of a scientifically-ignorant television producer—the fact that many scientists adore everything Star Trek  is the best indicator that Western Science has degraded beyond salvation.

Fleet Academy is just like any American collage campus, but instead of blonds the loose girls are green skinned. Instead of leaving town, disgruntled alcoholics leave planet. Instead of some far away country, it is a far away planet that gets destroyed. Instead of saving a city, Earth gets saved. Blonde American children are destined to rule by virtue of birth, just like the Ancien Régime claimed the right to divine rule by virtue of birth, all the way to the guillotine.

None of the hope of the sixties or the triumphalism of the eighties or even the nostalgia of Deep Space Nine—a series made by the children of the fifties having both a Cold War and Western themes—is present in the latest film. No vision beyond the personal advancement of yuppies and the satisfaction of the limited imagination of juvenile males. The films itself is a mess, with cadets flying the ship, an admiral abandoning his command, Vulcans showing emotions, huge ships from the future going 25 years unnoticed, the inconsistencies and absurdities goes on and on. Of course details are not the sum of literature, but this commercial enterprise has nothing else going for it, nothing. The Enterprise—ridiculously named by Roddenberry after the Big E while given it the mission of the Beagle—is transformed into an agile fighter that lurks in the shadow of Saturn. Is that really the flagship of the Federation?

According to the barren imagination of non-person like Abrams—the son of a television producer—there is nothing to aspire to in the future, there will be no change in how people live their lives, even over centuries. He does not think space is amazing, but the stars are fantastic and his inability to see this fact is a reflection on an exhausted society that is unable to cope with change. Everything living must change, what does not change is not living. Star Trek is the rancid odour of a decaying cadaver.

Sunnyside, 1919, written and produced by Charles Chaplin

Nowadays Chaplin is chiefly remembered, apart from a voyeuristic curiosity into his personal life, for the distinct character he portrayed in many films. Chaplin’s talents, however, covered many areas including music composing & studio management. I would like to draw the attention to a Chaplin film that contains, in my opinion at least, the wisest cinematic quote. Let me set the scene:

It is Sunday morning in the village of Sunnyside-a fantastic mix of European and American motifs-where Charlie works as a farmhand in the Evergreen Hotel. The Pious Boss wakes up early to make sure that Charlie is out of bed with a good kick to the back. After a hilarious battle between the snoozing Charlie and the Pious Boss, Charlie goes on to the prepare breakfast while the Pious Boss reads from the Bible. While preparing breakfast-turned by Chaplin’s talent into comedy-Charlie manages to fill his cup with sugar lumps. The Pious Boss gets the fried egg while Charlie gets bread and ‘coffee’, noticing the latter and the half-empty sugar bowl the Pious Boss exclaims: “Sugar’s to sweeten-not to thicken.” Undeterred Charlie spreads some ‘coffee’ on his bread and continues eating.

We could forgive Charlie’s indulgence in sugar and the portrayal of piety as hypocrisy in 1919, but the times has since changed, ‘sugar’ has become the main diet and piety a forgotten concept. What could have happened to bring such a great change in only three generations?
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The Dark Knight, 2008, directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart.

In The Illusionist vs. The Prestige I wrote the following:

Nolan’s film is just a cheap trick that only impresses small children and credulous people; this is not a surprise, his first film Following and second Memento are, also, cheap tricks, the latter more so than the former. Even Batman Begins is turned into a card trick, a three villains trick. The problem is that all these tricks are done for the sake of tricks only, no inner meaning, nothing profound.

Despite my low assessment of Nolan’s talent I went to see his latest film in cinema. A large part of my motivation was to write a post about the film, but the film was such a mess that I struggled to find even a coherent element to criticise.
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Brother, directed by Takeshi Kitano, starring Takeshi Kitano and Omar Epps.

Takeshi Kitano is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, TV personality and comedian; outside of Japan he is known only through his films, his most known is HANA-BI, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1997.

There is a long tradition in Hollywood of importing talent from other countries, at one time or another directors were imported from Germany, Italy, England and The Three China’s (Mainland, Taiwan & Hong Kong); after HANA-BI’s success they wanted Japan’s latest international director, Takeshi Kitano.
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The Illusionist, 2006, directed by Neil Burger, starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell.
The Prestige, 2006, directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine and David Bowie.

Here is something I posted on an Internet forum about The Illusionist a few months ago:

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