(no subject)

Taking today off as a bit of a me day - done quite the slew of socializing this weekend, which I won't bore you with. I know I just scan or skip completely journal entries that do nothing but list social bits. Honestly, we only care about that which we can relate to directly, don't we?

( Review more or less of Common Rotation )

I also seem to be watching a lot of bio-pic's lately, which amuses me greatly considering I'm not overly fond of bio-pics.

Saw Kevin Spacey's pic on Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea last night. Similar approach to De-Lovely the pic staring Kevin Kline about the songwriter whose name embarrassingly enough escapes me. Spacey wrote, directed, stared, sang and danced in the picture. And his approach was that Bobby Darin was directing and filming the story of his own life. Interesting approach. And it is an entertaining film - Kevin Spacey can really sing and dance. And sounds a lot like Bobby Darin (for those who've never heard of Bobby Darin - Darin was a singer and songwriter during the 1960s who patterned himself after Frank Sinatra. He is best known for his rendition of "Mack The Knife", which he won a Grammy for, and for writing the songs "Beyond the Sea", "Splish Splash" (that anyone whose ever watched Happy Days probably knows). In his lifetime he wrote over 163 songs. And next to Sammy Davis Jr. was considered the best Night Club entertainer ever. His other claim to fame was he married Sandra Dee. ) The problem with the film? You don't like Bobby very much. He comes across as a self-absorbed arrogant ass who only cares about his career and what would further it. His wooing of Sandra Dee - seems to be more to further his career than because he actually cares about her, which leaves one to wonder, why in the hell did she fall for him and why is she still in love with him - long after his death? Spacey doesn't show us why. And that's the problem. The film comes across at times as little too self-indulgent on the part of the director - and the self-indulgence hurts the flow of the story, hurts our ability to get inside Darin and why people cared about him. To be honest this is a problem I have with most bio-pics, the director/filmmaker is a tad too self-indulgent - too into their subject matter, so that instead of showing us this person's life the way they might show us the life of a fictional made-up character such as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or the stuttering villian in Usual Suspects, we get either an idealized or negative tribute to them. They tell not show.

The best bio-pic of the bunch, may still be Finding Neverland - whose subject is not so much James M. Barrie, as it is the creative process or how a writer finds his or her story. The movie Ray is certainly the most emotional of the musical bio-pics, and like Beyond The Sea, it does show us a negative view of its subject matter - but it is also almost too by-the-numbers in how it is told. De-Lovely is the most innovative - literally turning the story into a musical, and instead of telling it chronologically or linearally - telling it through out-of-sequence emotional tid-bits, as if the character is literally experiencing the moments that influenced his path and who he is, whether he wants to or not, on his death bed. Beyond the Sea falls somewhere between Ray and Delovely - like Delovey, the approach to the subject matter is new and innovative, but unlike Ray, we feel distanced from Darin, don't feel the urge to know him or revisit his music. Ray on the other hand, allows one to see why people loved Ray Charles, even though he was almost impossible to live with, and makes you want to go out and buy his music. I certainly did. Beyond the Sea, well, you love the songs, you appreciate their artistry, but they are like so many other pop hits - they lack the emotional resonance, the thing you can relate to at that emotional level, that makes you want to come back for more. The film is somewhat the same way - it lacks some of the emotional resonance that Ray had. Yet in both films - the subject is shown to be arrogant, nasty to the people who love them the most, and difficult to live with. But in Ray - you are shown enough of the other side, to appreciate why his wife loved him, not so much with Bobby, whose wife feels at times more like a beautiful trophy that he carries around for show.

That said - there is one line in Beyond the Sea that is quite apt and has stuck with me: "People hear what they see." Which is demonstrated in the movie, when Bobby attempts to go the protest/anti-war song route towards the end of his career. He learns that he can sing the new songs - but he has to do them in the tux, with the orchestra, as the night-club singer, not in the hippie look. Demonstrating that it is, as Simon Colwell said in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, about packaging. But so is the movie, theater, book, and art world - it's how you market the material to the audience that gets them to look at it. Your work could be brilliant, but if you don't market it right - you're completely lost. By the same token - it could truly suck but if you find a great marketing person to market it to the right audience - you could be making millions. Whether the work lasts on the other hand - has to do with quality. Whether it is seen or listened to - marketing. Something to keep in mind, as I continue to work on my own writing.

The Kite Runner

Today I finished The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the book my parents foisted on me during my visit with them over Memorial Day Weekend.

Not quite what I expected. It is a popular book though, while reading it in the laundramat the other day - an elderly woman, heavey-set, face a map of wrinkles, hair white and soft as cotton, and spectacles, stated matter-of-factly to her friend - "she's reading one of my favorite books."

I glanced up from the paragraph that I'd escaped inside of, like a turtle poking its head briefly out of its shell, saying who me? "You're reading my favorite book," the woman said, "The Kite Runner - I had heart palpatations all the way through it. My friend who borrowed it from me - was literally sobbing by the end of it, it affected her that deeply."

We had a brief discussion about the writer, whom she assumed was from Afghanistan and who wrote in his native tongue. In reality he's an American Afghani, whose family lives here. He like many of us had written numerous stories in his The Kite Runner had originally been a short story that he'd submitted to a literary magazine/journal as well as to a writer's workshop - he'd been advised to turn it into a novel - expand on it. He did so. And it got picked up - partly because 9/11 happened. Prior to 9/11 - people weren't sure what to do with his story. After it - he got some guidance from editors on how to change it and make it work. Suffice it to say, the lady in the laundramat did not want to hear all this - she preferred her own version of the writer - ie. the idea that it was autobiographical in some way. It's not, but therein lies its magic, the feeling you have that it is. (Oh as an aside - I know all this about the writer, because my mother researched him for her book club and told me all about him prior to giving me the book.) Some families discuss sports, mine discusses books and the writing process.

The Kite Runner is the story of two boys growing up in Afghanistan. One is well-to-do. Wealthy. Privileged. The other is poor, servant boy. The two are friends, yet their friendship has numerous obstacles to it - that cause the two to part. It's difficult to describe the story without spoiling major plot-points. For me it was the tale of how one can unwittingly turn on one's friend out of jealousy and fear - and how that affects you, how you deal with it. How one handles bone crushing guilt? How one redeems oneself? And also, far more gripping to me at least, how we deal with our past - the past that haunts our dreams, the one that we dearly miss and ach to return to - the past of youth, because memory being what it is, that past always appears to be better than it actually was, better than the today that is, and then there's past that haunts our nightmares, the one that we want to forget, that we yearn to fix but cannot, the one that if we have a conscience, haunts it, and we hate ourselves for just a little. That I believe is what lies at the crux of this story. Handling those complex emotions and the choices one makes regarding them.

Before deciding to read the book - I did what I always do - I read the first paragraph and flipped to the center at random and read a paragraph. Here's the first one:

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years."

The story sets itself up right off the bat to be one about handling a difficult past. It's also about a journey both internal and external - the next paragraph mentions that the protagonist is called to go back to his native land, a war torn country, to redeem himself for something he did long ago.

The story does have a few flaws - narrative short cuts or coincidences that I'm not sure worked for me, I felt they were almost too convienent, but then I admit I'm more aware of these things then most people are at the moment. None of these flaws are fatal however, nor do they detract from the story. You may not even notice them. My mother certainly didn't nor did the woman in the laundramat. Just my overly critical eye. The author uses them to wrap the story up in a neat bow, make it circle in on itself, so that the boy's past ironically echoes the man's present. Only problem is it's almost too neat and the irony comes across as a bit forced and not quite as subtle as it should. The author attempts to push aside the neatness of the coincidences by literally stating at one point something to the effect that -"Afghanistan is a small country and it's perfectly logical for all this to happen here while in the US or elsewhere it might seem a tad circumspect." I'm not sure I buy this, which is why I didn't cry at the end of the novel, although I did tear up a bit.

What the novel did accomplish for me, was taking me inside a culture and world that I was not completely aware of. It starts in 1975, just a few years prior to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, up through September 2001 - all from a native Afghani's point of view. Unless you're a news hound/information junkie (which I'm not), you're probably not aware of what was going on in the country during these years - this book makes you aware of it, on an emotional level.

The author also does a splendid job of depicting a difficult and realistic friendship - better I think than Lethem did in Fortress of Solitude. Shows through the metaphor of kite running how joyous and incredibly painful friendship at that age can be as well as why the pitfalls of it are inevitable. Friendship, all friendships much like kite running - involve cutting one's skin again and again against the string.

One of the better and more memorable books that I've read this year.