April 4, 2013: On the Passing of Roger Ebert
Today, I wrapped up teaching for the day and checked my phone to find multiple messages all telling me the same thing: Roger Ebert had finally succumbed to the cancer that had plagued him for so long.
It would be fair to say that his death wasn't entirely unexpected. Not two days before, Roger had posted a blog entry entitled "A Leave of Presence," in which he informed his readers that his cancer had returned, and that he would be cutting back on his writing and his online postings that had come to so define his presence in the past few years. "It means I am not going away," he wrote. "What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review."
It was the optimism and hopefulness that so defined so many of his writings, and it left many - myself among them - completely unprepared for the shock of his death two days later.
And now I find myself sitting here at night, thinking about how surprisingly hard I'm taking the death of Roger Ebert. For someone I never knew, Roger Ebert has profoundly influenced me, and it's safe to say that, without me even realizing it, he became an inspiration to me, a role model, and someone who I hoped would always be there. And the fact that he's not there anymore leaves me incredibly saddened not just for me, but for the future as well.
Unlike so many, I didn't really come to know Ebert through his television show. Of course, growing up, you couldn't help but be aware of Siskel & Ebert, but I never really spent much time watching their show. I was interested in movies, but I was young, and I treated them like most people do - as fun, but disposable, ephemera. (In fact, the biggest memory I have of Siskel and Ebert on television comes not from their own television show, but from their amazing episode of The Critic, which you can find in its entirety here. It's just another testament to the men's friendship and love for their jobs, and it doesn't hurt that it's hilariously funny.)
But as I hit my adolescence and became more interested in film as an art form, something else was happening in the world: the Internet. And as anyone who knows Roger knows, he loved technology and the way it allowed him to connect with people. And so it was that I started reading, for the first time, Ebert's reviews.
I was floored by what I read. Here was someone who never neglected the art of films or their deeper symbolism, but still seemed to find the fun and the joy of movies even all these years into his career. Here was a man that could find the good side of Speed 2: Cruise Control or The Haunting, but still find room to love movies like My Dinner with Andre or Do the Right Thing. He was a filmic omnivore, and it showed me that I could treat films with a critical eye and still love them - I didn't have to trade in a sense of joy for a "serious" approach.
Moreover, he would draw my attention to films that I might not have ever seen otherwise. It wasn't just the relative unknowns that he championed; it was his Great Movies series, or his constant references to the works of Bergman, Scorsese, Fellini, Welles, and so much more. Every time you read a review of his, you wanted to watch all the movies he mentioned just because you wanted to experience all the things he had seen. And as he continued to write, it wasn't just films - it was thanks to him that I read Cormac McCarthy for the first time, and never looked back from there.
In his reviews, he would criticize movies I loved and left me thinking about the points he made; he defended movies I couldn't see the good in and made me appreciate them in new ways. When he agreed with me, I was secretly thrilled; when he disagreed, I would sometimes be disappointed, but would find myself seeing the points in everything he wrote. And in doing all of that, he shaped the way I look at films to this day. His First Rule of Movies - "A movie is not about what it is about; it is about how it goes about it" - remains one of the best laws of criticism about any media, not just cinema, and has shaped the way I approach books, art, videogames - you name it.
But more than that, I think the thing that I most fell in love with in Ebert's reviews was his prose. The man was a craftsman of the first order. Everyone remembers him for his amazing and hilarious criticisms, and rightfully so - how can you deny the hilarity and viciousness of some of these?
Dirty Love wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent... I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is.
Mad Dog Time is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line...Mad Dog Time should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor.
Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way. ... Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive. I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies.
"The Last Song" is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote the screenplay. Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better novelist than William Shakespeare. Sparks also said his novels are like Greek Tragedies. This may actually be true. I can't check it out because, tragically, no really bad Greek tragedies have survived...To be sure, I resent the sacrilege Nicholas Sparks commits by mentioning himself in the same sentence as Cormac McCarthy. I would not even allow him to say "Hello, bookstore? This is Nicholas Sparks. Could you send over the new Cormac McCarthy novel?" He should show respect by ordering anonymously.
And that doesn't even get into the justly famous Brown Bunny debacle, or the Deuce Bigalow dustup. But as amazing as those could be, there were his positive reviews, which could absolutely soar and astonish in their thoughtfulness, insight, and profundity:
Sean Penn never tries to show Harvey Milk as a hero, and never needs to. He shows him as an ordinary man, kind, funny, flawed, shrewd, idealistic, yearning for a better world. He shows what such an ordinary man can achieve. Milk was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he rose to the occasion. So was Rosa Parks. Sometimes, at a precise moment in history, all it takes is for one person to stand up. Or sit down.
We are connected with some people and never meet others, but it could easily have happened otherwise. Looking back over a lifetime, we describe what happened as if it had a plan. To fully understand how accidental and random life is - how vast the odds are against any single event taking place - would be humbling. ... This is the kind of film that makes you feel intensely alive while you're watching it, and sends you out into the streets afterwards eager to talk deeply and urgently, to the person you are with. Whoever that happens to be.
It is strange how the romances of the teenage years retain a poignancy all through life - how a girl who turns you down when you're 16 retains an aura in your memory even long after you, and she, have ceased to be who you were then. I attended my high school reunion a couple of weeks ago and discovered, in the souvenir booklet assembled by the reunion committee, that one of the girls in my class had a crush on me all those years ago. I would have given a great deal to have had that information at the time.
Especially in its opening scenes, Ballast is "slower" and "quieter" than we usually expect. You know what? So is life, most of the time. We don't wake up and immediately start engaging with plot points. But Ballast inexorably grows and deepens and gathers power and absorbs us. I always say I hardly ever cry at sad films, but I sometimes do, just a little, at films about good people.
Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced — because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.
First and foremost, Roger Ebert was a writer. And every Friday for many years, his website was one of my first stops. I would read reviews of movies I had no intention of seeing. I would read about movies I had never heard of but wanted to see now, simply based on his description. And often, I would howl in laughter at his criticisms, or just his sly, wonderful humor that came through constantly.
More than that, though, there was his innate kindness and love of humanity - not always of individuals, but of people as a whole. You couldn't read his reviews and not get a sense of the man within, and get a sense that here was a fascinating, complex man who was constantly striving to make the most of his life. It's something that never left him. Even when cancer took his jaw away from him, he never looked back. In fact, he entered a new golden age for his writing, taking to the Internet, his blog, and Twitter to create a new voice. For most of us, the loss of our jaw would have been an insurmountable setback. For Roger, it seemed to be only a tiny bump in the road. And as he blogged and wrote, you got the sense that he was truly at peace with all of this, and still found so much of the world worth living.
It was a sense that you got if you read his memoir, Life Itself. It was a book about movies, yes, but about love, and alcoholism, and death, and cancer, and his wife, and - as the title suggests, life itself. It was a funny, thought-provoking, funny, moving piece of writing, and I finished it even more in awe of a man who had already shaped so much of the way I looked at the world.
I could go on for pages and pages about Ebert. How he changed the way I looked at film. How his writing shaped the way I try to write my reviews and much else of my life. How his worldview and his approach to other people reminded me that the world needed more people like him, and gave me an example to try to live up to. How his constant focus on human dignity and goodness left the world a genuinely better place. How his political views were always driven by his respect for others, and not in blind partisanship. But in the end, I want to leave you with this, which is from his memoir, Life Itself:
"Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
I think that Roger Ebert did contribute joy to the world. And if you doubt it, try to visit his overloaded website tonight, or watch the trends on Twitter, or read the countless pieces like this being written tonight. And that joy is going to be sadly, sadly missed in the future.
We'll miss you, Roger. I'll miss you. You were a role model and an inspiration to me, and the world is a less literate, less interesting, and just plain lesser place without you in it.
- Josh Mauthe
It would be fair to say that his death wasn't entirely unexpected. Not two days before, Roger had posted a blog entry entitled "A Leave of Presence," in which he informed his readers that his cancer had returned, and that he would be cutting back on his writing and his online postings that had come to so define his presence in the past few years. "It means I am not going away," he wrote. "What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review."
It was the optimism and hopefulness that so defined so many of his writings, and it left many - myself among them - completely unprepared for the shock of his death two days later.
And now I find myself sitting here at night, thinking about how surprisingly hard I'm taking the death of Roger Ebert. For someone I never knew, Roger Ebert has profoundly influenced me, and it's safe to say that, without me even realizing it, he became an inspiration to me, a role model, and someone who I hoped would always be there. And the fact that he's not there anymore leaves me incredibly saddened not just for me, but for the future as well.
Unlike so many, I didn't really come to know Ebert through his television show. Of course, growing up, you couldn't help but be aware of Siskel & Ebert, but I never really spent much time watching their show. I was interested in movies, but I was young, and I treated them like most people do - as fun, but disposable, ephemera. (In fact, the biggest memory I have of Siskel and Ebert on television comes not from their own television show, but from their amazing episode of The Critic, which you can find in its entirety here. It's just another testament to the men's friendship and love for their jobs, and it doesn't hurt that it's hilariously funny.)
But as I hit my adolescence and became more interested in film as an art form, something else was happening in the world: the Internet. And as anyone who knows Roger knows, he loved technology and the way it allowed him to connect with people. And so it was that I started reading, for the first time, Ebert's reviews.
I was floored by what I read. Here was someone who never neglected the art of films or their deeper symbolism, but still seemed to find the fun and the joy of movies even all these years into his career. Here was a man that could find the good side of Speed 2: Cruise Control or The Haunting, but still find room to love movies like My Dinner with Andre or Do the Right Thing. He was a filmic omnivore, and it showed me that I could treat films with a critical eye and still love them - I didn't have to trade in a sense of joy for a "serious" approach.
Moreover, he would draw my attention to films that I might not have ever seen otherwise. It wasn't just the relative unknowns that he championed; it was his Great Movies series, or his constant references to the works of Bergman, Scorsese, Fellini, Welles, and so much more. Every time you read a review of his, you wanted to watch all the movies he mentioned just because you wanted to experience all the things he had seen. And as he continued to write, it wasn't just films - it was thanks to him that I read Cormac McCarthy for the first time, and never looked back from there.
In his reviews, he would criticize movies I loved and left me thinking about the points he made; he defended movies I couldn't see the good in and made me appreciate them in new ways. When he agreed with me, I was secretly thrilled; when he disagreed, I would sometimes be disappointed, but would find myself seeing the points in everything he wrote. And in doing all of that, he shaped the way I look at films to this day. His First Rule of Movies - "A movie is not about what it is about; it is about how it goes about it" - remains one of the best laws of criticism about any media, not just cinema, and has shaped the way I approach books, art, videogames - you name it.
But more than that, I think the thing that I most fell in love with in Ebert's reviews was his prose. The man was a craftsman of the first order. Everyone remembers him for his amazing and hilarious criticisms, and rightfully so - how can you deny the hilarity and viciousness of some of these?
Dirty Love wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent... I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is.
Mad Dog Time is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line...Mad Dog Time should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor.
Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way. ... Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive. I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies.
"The Last Song" is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote the screenplay. Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better novelist than William Shakespeare. Sparks also said his novels are like Greek Tragedies. This may actually be true. I can't check it out because, tragically, no really bad Greek tragedies have survived...To be sure, I resent the sacrilege Nicholas Sparks commits by mentioning himself in the same sentence as Cormac McCarthy. I would not even allow him to say "Hello, bookstore? This is Nicholas Sparks. Could you send over the new Cormac McCarthy novel?" He should show respect by ordering anonymously.
And that doesn't even get into the justly famous Brown Bunny debacle, or the Deuce Bigalow dustup. But as amazing as those could be, there were his positive reviews, which could absolutely soar and astonish in their thoughtfulness, insight, and profundity:
Sean Penn never tries to show Harvey Milk as a hero, and never needs to. He shows him as an ordinary man, kind, funny, flawed, shrewd, idealistic, yearning for a better world. He shows what such an ordinary man can achieve. Milk was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he rose to the occasion. So was Rosa Parks. Sometimes, at a precise moment in history, all it takes is for one person to stand up. Or sit down.
We are connected with some people and never meet others, but it could easily have happened otherwise. Looking back over a lifetime, we describe what happened as if it had a plan. To fully understand how accidental and random life is - how vast the odds are against any single event taking place - would be humbling. ... This is the kind of film that makes you feel intensely alive while you're watching it, and sends you out into the streets afterwards eager to talk deeply and urgently, to the person you are with. Whoever that happens to be.
It is strange how the romances of the teenage years retain a poignancy all through life - how a girl who turns you down when you're 16 retains an aura in your memory even long after you, and she, have ceased to be who you were then. I attended my high school reunion a couple of weeks ago and discovered, in the souvenir booklet assembled by the reunion committee, that one of the girls in my class had a crush on me all those years ago. I would have given a great deal to have had that information at the time.
Especially in its opening scenes, Ballast is "slower" and "quieter" than we usually expect. You know what? So is life, most of the time. We don't wake up and immediately start engaging with plot points. But Ballast inexorably grows and deepens and gathers power and absorbs us. I always say I hardly ever cry at sad films, but I sometimes do, just a little, at films about good people.
Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced — because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.
First and foremost, Roger Ebert was a writer. And every Friday for many years, his website was one of my first stops. I would read reviews of movies I had no intention of seeing. I would read about movies I had never heard of but wanted to see now, simply based on his description. And often, I would howl in laughter at his criticisms, or just his sly, wonderful humor that came through constantly.
More than that, though, there was his innate kindness and love of humanity - not always of individuals, but of people as a whole. You couldn't read his reviews and not get a sense of the man within, and get a sense that here was a fascinating, complex man who was constantly striving to make the most of his life. It's something that never left him. Even when cancer took his jaw away from him, he never looked back. In fact, he entered a new golden age for his writing, taking to the Internet, his blog, and Twitter to create a new voice. For most of us, the loss of our jaw would have been an insurmountable setback. For Roger, it seemed to be only a tiny bump in the road. And as he blogged and wrote, you got the sense that he was truly at peace with all of this, and still found so much of the world worth living.
It was a sense that you got if you read his memoir, Life Itself. It was a book about movies, yes, but about love, and alcoholism, and death, and cancer, and his wife, and - as the title suggests, life itself. It was a funny, thought-provoking, funny, moving piece of writing, and I finished it even more in awe of a man who had already shaped so much of the way I looked at the world.
I could go on for pages and pages about Ebert. How he changed the way I looked at film. How his writing shaped the way I try to write my reviews and much else of my life. How his worldview and his approach to other people reminded me that the world needed more people like him, and gave me an example to try to live up to. How his constant focus on human dignity and goodness left the world a genuinely better place. How his political views were always driven by his respect for others, and not in blind partisanship. But in the end, I want to leave you with this, which is from his memoir, Life Itself:
"Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
I think that Roger Ebert did contribute joy to the world. And if you doubt it, try to visit his overloaded website tonight, or watch the trends on Twitter, or read the countless pieces like this being written tonight. And that joy is going to be sadly, sadly missed in the future.
We'll miss you, Roger. I'll miss you. You were a role model and an inspiration to me, and the world is a less literate, less interesting, and just plain lesser place without you in it.
- Josh Mauthe
Point/Counterpoint: Prometheus
There are few films released in the last few years that generated such a polarized response as Ridley Scott's Prometheus. A few months ago, Josh (an avid fan of the film) was contacted by Kevin Murray, a listener of the podcast that had a much different response. He suggested an email exchange to debate the merits and failings of this divisive film. If you have thoughts or would like to contribute to the debate, let us know. - Dietrich Stogner
When I first came up with this idea, I remembered reading your brief review of Prometheus on your website and wondering to myself if we had seen the same movie. You wrote about a sweeping sci-fi epic that grapples with the origin of existence and challenges the very notions of life and death. I saw that movie, too, but I saw it 18 months ago, and it was called The Tree of Life. Prometheus, to me, is an impostor to the class of intellectual Sci-Fi movies that are supposed to "Change the Way We Think About Ourselves" and is basically just another mediocre space thriller. Don't get me wrong--this is a real disappointment to me, because I am a huge fan of both Sci-Fi movies that "Change the Way We Think About Ourselves" (2001, Moon, Timecop, etc.) and a huge fan of the Alien series. So I went to see this really hoping that it was that movie, but unfortunately, it just isn't, for a whole host of reasons that I am sure we will touch on in subsequent emails.
Before we get to my many, many, criticisms of this movie, let's get two things out of the way. First, this movie, in places, looks absolutely gorgeous. The opening scene which tracks through the prehistoric Earthen landscape is mesmerizing, as is the scene where the ship, Prometheus, lands on the planet (LB 223 or something?). I loved Scott's choice to emphasize the smallness of the ship vs. the vastness of the Alien landscape. It is a visually compelling and narratively important choice, and goes a long way to establishing the fragile nature of the crew's presence on this planet. (But, on the other hand, shouldn't a $130 million film directed by Ridley Scott look gorgeous?) Second, Michael Fassbender is just acting on a different level than anyone else in the cast. The shots of him passing time by himself on the ship as the crew members are in stasis are amazing, and again, Scott sets an important tone with callbacks to 2001 and the tedium of deep space travel, the repetitive exercising, and the cold calculation and indifference of an artificial intelligence, and essentially wraps all of that into one character. I loved seeing an android with a little menace, and Fassbender strikes the perfect tone.
With all of that out of the way, let's take out the hatchet. One of the biggest problems I had with this movie was its narrative inconsistency. I feel like Ridley Scott was well on his way to making his intelligent, dare I say, operatic, film that explores deep questions about our existence, when some producer woke up and realized that no one had died yet. Perfectly understandable. Alien is, at its core, a horror franchise. Totally get it. Kill off a couple characters. They are, after all, on a forbidding planet where nearly anything could happen. Except, of course, the way they chose to introduce the violence seems to be totally divorced from you know, the actual story we are watching. For some reason, the evolutionary biologist sees an absolutely horrific, pale snakelike creature that rises out of black water and decides to play with it and pet it and insanely repeat how cute and beautiful it is, naturally setting himself up for an appalling death that begins by this baseball bat-sized alien viper literally burrowing up his arm.
Before we get to my many, many, criticisms of this movie, let's get two things out of the way. First, this movie, in places, looks absolutely gorgeous. The opening scene which tracks through the prehistoric Earthen landscape is mesmerizing, as is the scene where the ship, Prometheus, lands on the planet (LB 223 or something?). I loved Scott's choice to emphasize the smallness of the ship vs. the vastness of the Alien landscape. It is a visually compelling and narratively important choice, and goes a long way to establishing the fragile nature of the crew's presence on this planet. (But, on the other hand, shouldn't a $130 million film directed by Ridley Scott look gorgeous?) Second, Michael Fassbender is just acting on a different level than anyone else in the cast. The shots of him passing time by himself on the ship as the crew members are in stasis are amazing, and again, Scott sets an important tone with callbacks to 2001 and the tedium of deep space travel, the repetitive exercising, and the cold calculation and indifference of an artificial intelligence, and essentially wraps all of that into one character. I loved seeing an android with a little menace, and Fassbender strikes the perfect tone.
With all of that out of the way, let's take out the hatchet. One of the biggest problems I had with this movie was its narrative inconsistency. I feel like Ridley Scott was well on his way to making his intelligent, dare I say, operatic, film that explores deep questions about our existence, when some producer woke up and realized that no one had died yet. Perfectly understandable. Alien is, at its core, a horror franchise. Totally get it. Kill off a couple characters. They are, after all, on a forbidding planet where nearly anything could happen. Except, of course, the way they chose to introduce the violence seems to be totally divorced from you know, the actual story we are watching. For some reason, the evolutionary biologist sees an absolutely horrific, pale snakelike creature that rises out of black water and decides to play with it and pet it and insanely repeat how cute and beautiful it is, naturally setting himself up for an appalling death that begins by this baseball bat-sized alien viper literally burrowing up his arm.
"I feel like Ridley Scott was well on his way to making his intelligent, dare I say, operatic, film that explores deep questions about our existence, when some producer woke up and realized that no one had died yet."
The problem is that this would just never happen. Right?
I mean, I get the idea of getting back to the original Alien, semi-slasher roots. But the deaths in that movie felt contained and actually drove the story line. Here? Not at all. But it doesn't stop there. At the same time as the arm-burrowing snake attack, Fifield, the geologist and mapping expert (who is, inexplicably, lost, even though his whole like, job, is to chart the terrain inside the ship/dome that the crew is exploring) gets sprayed with something (acid for blood!) that melts his helmet and leaves him writhing in pain and, presumably, to die along with his sidekick, Idiot Biologist.
Except, he doesn’t die. Instead, he returns to the ship as what can only be described, depressingly, as a zombie. It is at this point that I realized that the producers of this movie are convinced that I am A) 14 B) incredibly stupid and C) think zombies are Awesome! Unfortunately, none of these things are true. I actually have a mature brain that asks questions like, “Why is Fifield now a zombie? Why does zombie Fifield feel compelled to slaughter everyone in the loading bay? Unfortunately, these events are simply never addressed again.
In another brief example of crazy narrative inconsistency, towards the end of the movie, Shaw has discovered that Weyland is actually on the ship (by the way, please tell me you found it just a little odd that she wanders in to their changing room, sweaty and covered in rags and blood, and literally convulsing from head to toe in pain/shock, and no one even raises an eyebrow and says anything, like maybe, "holy crap you're covered in blood and shaking violently, are you OK?") and in the course of their conversation screams at Weyland that they must leave immediately because of, you know all the horrible crap that is happening. So Weyland asks her how she can leave without knowing what the Engineers are. So in the NEXT SCENE, Janek comes in and says to Shaw basically exactly what she said to Weyland, that they need to leave, and she berates him for wanting to leave without knowing what they are?!? Did anyone edit this movie?
Ugh. I could go on, but I would love to get your extended thoughts on dumb zombie Fifeld and all of the other craziness that Prometheus offers. Some suggestions: the horrible dialogue, the surgery, Shaw's boyfriend, the Engineers...and on and on...
- Kevin Murray
I mean, I get the idea of getting back to the original Alien, semi-slasher roots. But the deaths in that movie felt contained and actually drove the story line. Here? Not at all. But it doesn't stop there. At the same time as the arm-burrowing snake attack, Fifield, the geologist and mapping expert (who is, inexplicably, lost, even though his whole like, job, is to chart the terrain inside the ship/dome that the crew is exploring) gets sprayed with something (acid for blood!) that melts his helmet and leaves him writhing in pain and, presumably, to die along with his sidekick, Idiot Biologist.
Except, he doesn’t die. Instead, he returns to the ship as what can only be described, depressingly, as a zombie. It is at this point that I realized that the producers of this movie are convinced that I am A) 14 B) incredibly stupid and C) think zombies are Awesome! Unfortunately, none of these things are true. I actually have a mature brain that asks questions like, “Why is Fifield now a zombie? Why does zombie Fifield feel compelled to slaughter everyone in the loading bay? Unfortunately, these events are simply never addressed again.
In another brief example of crazy narrative inconsistency, towards the end of the movie, Shaw has discovered that Weyland is actually on the ship (by the way, please tell me you found it just a little odd that she wanders in to their changing room, sweaty and covered in rags and blood, and literally convulsing from head to toe in pain/shock, and no one even raises an eyebrow and says anything, like maybe, "holy crap you're covered in blood and shaking violently, are you OK?") and in the course of their conversation screams at Weyland that they must leave immediately because of, you know all the horrible crap that is happening. So Weyland asks her how she can leave without knowing what the Engineers are. So in the NEXT SCENE, Janek comes in and says to Shaw basically exactly what she said to Weyland, that they need to leave, and she berates him for wanting to leave without knowing what they are?!? Did anyone edit this movie?
Ugh. I could go on, but I would love to get your extended thoughts on dumb zombie Fifeld and all of the other craziness that Prometheus offers. Some suggestions: the horrible dialogue, the surgery, Shaw's boyfriend, the Engineers...and on and on...
- Kevin Murray
Before I get to your specific comments and thoughts about Prometheus, I thought it might be helpful to set out my feelings about the movie in general. To movie, Prometheus is a story in which God exists, and He hates us. In many ways, it’s a parallel to the Garden of Eden story, in which Mankind desires knowledge, and finally attains that knowledge at the cost of angering God. In Prometheus, Mankind hungers for answers and freedom from death, but finds only horrors as a result of that quest.
With that in mind, to me, a lot of the weaknesses of the people on this quest begin to make a stronger thematic sense. This is a story about people’s essential weakness, fallibility, and corruption, and as such, it only makes sense that humanity here is inept and foolish, especially if you would imagine that we are looking at them much as the Engineers do. Humanity is weak and knows nothing of the nature of the world and universe, and falters horribly in the face of such knowledge.
Sometimes, such as the case of the foolish biologist, that can end up seeming ridiculous. From what I’m told, there’s a cut scene from the film that somewhat justifies the biologist’s actions, but to me, if it’s not in the film, it doesn’t count. I feel like we tend to read our own knowledge onto the film during that scene. Of course, we know that only death results from these organisms, but the characters in the film don’t realize this. Should the biologist be more careful and cautious? Without a doubt. But perhaps through arrogance (a running theme of the film) or simple overconfidence, he feels that the creature offers him no threat. Really, he’s hardly much different than the late Crocodile Hunter in that case, isn’t he? Are his actions stupid? Without a doubt. But I don’t find that to be a dealbreaker for the film. Rather, that plays into the general perceptions of humanity as arrogant, cavalier, and foolish, so it’s a thematic choice.
With that in mind, to me, a lot of the weaknesses of the people on this quest begin to make a stronger thematic sense. This is a story about people’s essential weakness, fallibility, and corruption, and as such, it only makes sense that humanity here is inept and foolish, especially if you would imagine that we are looking at them much as the Engineers do. Humanity is weak and knows nothing of the nature of the world and universe, and falters horribly in the face of such knowledge.
Sometimes, such as the case of the foolish biologist, that can end up seeming ridiculous. From what I’m told, there’s a cut scene from the film that somewhat justifies the biologist’s actions, but to me, if it’s not in the film, it doesn’t count. I feel like we tend to read our own knowledge onto the film during that scene. Of course, we know that only death results from these organisms, but the characters in the film don’t realize this. Should the biologist be more careful and cautious? Without a doubt. But perhaps through arrogance (a running theme of the film) or simple overconfidence, he feels that the creature offers him no threat. Really, he’s hardly much different than the late Crocodile Hunter in that case, isn’t he? Are his actions stupid? Without a doubt. But I don’t find that to be a dealbreaker for the film. Rather, that plays into the general perceptions of humanity as arrogant, cavalier, and foolish, so it’s a thematic choice.
Humanity is weak and knows nothing of the nature of the world and universe, and falters horribly in the face of such knowledge.
Fifield’s return is, to be sure, an odd moment, but it’s inexplicability is, it seems to me, intentional and not accidental. We know that the black fluid in the compound seems to alter living material in unclear ways. What it does, precisely, is never specified, so I’m okay with Fifield coming back in a somewhat zombie-fied form and attacking. Is he attacking through pure aggression and luck, or is it some part of guiding intelligence? I don’t think we’re meant to know.
See, again and again I see people attacking the film for leaving so much unclear, and oddly, that was a lot of the appeal of the film to me. I loved the ambiguities and the way it presented the audience with massive questions and then refused to give answers. That’s the nature of some quests, and I was okay with leaving them unanswered. It reminded me of many of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, where the best we can hope for is to comprehend what we are experiencing, and to presume to understand the motives of beings such as those is far beyond us. (It’s not surprising, really, that Guillermo del Toro cited Prometheus as his reason for not making At the Mountains of Madness. While I would have loved to have seen that movie, he’s right that there’s a huge amount of overlap between those two stories.)
I can’t speak to the editing of the scene you’re commenting on – when I get to my re-watch, I’ll definitely watch for it to try to tell you what I thought. But I will address the side comment about everyone’s deadpan reaction to Shaw. Why wouldn’t they react that way? For one thing, I would assume that David probably told them what was going on; for another, they literally could not care less about Shaw at this point. At this point, the nature of the mission has shifted in favor of getting Weyland the answers that he wants, and the rest of the crew is useless. The only one who displays a modicum of concern is David, of course, which plays into his fascination with Shaw over the course of the film. One of the best things about Fassbinder’s performance is the way it underlines so much of what’s going on with the movie. Much like the human characters in the film, David is acutely aware of the fact that he is a created being, but while Shaw and the others are hoping for answers that give their lives meaning, David is already aware of his creators, and finds them sorely wanting. They are foolish, selfish, petty, unimaginative, and insignificant, especially in the grand scheme of the universe. (In some ways, David reminds me of Marvin from Hitchhiker’s Guide as he complains about having an intellect that can compute the grand questions of the universe but is instead being used to make coffee.) And yet, David finds something compelling about Shaw – her dreams, her hopefulness for something more, her interest in looking beyond human creation. She is the only one he finds interesting, for whatever reason. As for Vickers and Weyland? Shaw is useless to them, and thus their concern is pretty minimal.
See, again and again I see people attacking the film for leaving so much unclear, and oddly, that was a lot of the appeal of the film to me. I loved the ambiguities and the way it presented the audience with massive questions and then refused to give answers. That’s the nature of some quests, and I was okay with leaving them unanswered. It reminded me of many of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, where the best we can hope for is to comprehend what we are experiencing, and to presume to understand the motives of beings such as those is far beyond us. (It’s not surprising, really, that Guillermo del Toro cited Prometheus as his reason for not making At the Mountains of Madness. While I would have loved to have seen that movie, he’s right that there’s a huge amount of overlap between those two stories.)
I can’t speak to the editing of the scene you’re commenting on – when I get to my re-watch, I’ll definitely watch for it to try to tell you what I thought. But I will address the side comment about everyone’s deadpan reaction to Shaw. Why wouldn’t they react that way? For one thing, I would assume that David probably told them what was going on; for another, they literally could not care less about Shaw at this point. At this point, the nature of the mission has shifted in favor of getting Weyland the answers that he wants, and the rest of the crew is useless. The only one who displays a modicum of concern is David, of course, which plays into his fascination with Shaw over the course of the film. One of the best things about Fassbinder’s performance is the way it underlines so much of what’s going on with the movie. Much like the human characters in the film, David is acutely aware of the fact that he is a created being, but while Shaw and the others are hoping for answers that give their lives meaning, David is already aware of his creators, and finds them sorely wanting. They are foolish, selfish, petty, unimaginative, and insignificant, especially in the grand scheme of the universe. (In some ways, David reminds me of Marvin from Hitchhiker’s Guide as he complains about having an intellect that can compute the grand questions of the universe but is instead being used to make coffee.) And yet, David finds something compelling about Shaw – her dreams, her hopefulness for something more, her interest in looking beyond human creation. She is the only one he finds interesting, for whatever reason. As for Vickers and Weyland? Shaw is useless to them, and thus their concern is pretty minimal.
It reminded me of many of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, where the best we can hope for is to comprehend what we are experiencing, and to presume to understand the motives of beings such as those is far beyond us.
In the closing, you mention the surgery, which I found to be one of the most effective and horrifying sequences in the film. What was wrong with it? You can get into all the themes and ideas that come as a result (really, an abortion in a film about confronting God is an amazing choice; or you can look at the way that even in the distant future, males are still given first dibs on medical breakthroughs and women have to force their way in; or, more to the main ideas of the film, the way that creators give birth to creatures with no respect or appreciation for their creators). or you can just look at the body horror of the whole thing. Is your issue with it the fact that she’s up and walking afterward? Because to me, once you’ve got a technology that automatically extracts foreign bodies and presumably does more for human recovery time, and then factor in adrenaline and fear, I’ve got no issue with Shaw being up and moving after the surgery.
I’ll wrap up with this: I won’t deny that the film has some flaws. But none of them were enough to detract from the complex themes and ideas at work. From a thematic perspective, I feel like a lot of the “foolish” choices made by the human characters make sense in terms of the bigger picture. It seems like you’re in the opposite camp. Did the film’s ideas not work for you at all? Or did you simply feel that the story used to explore them wasn’t sufficiently compelling?
- Josh Mauthe
I’ll wrap up with this: I won’t deny that the film has some flaws. But none of them were enough to detract from the complex themes and ideas at work. From a thematic perspective, I feel like a lot of the “foolish” choices made by the human characters make sense in terms of the bigger picture. It seems like you’re in the opposite camp. Did the film’s ideas not work for you at all? Or did you simply feel that the story used to explore them wasn’t sufficiently compelling?
- Josh Mauthe
Here's the thing...I really wanted this to be the deep intellectual exercise that challenged me to think about the nature of man and our relationship with God, the Universe, and Everything. I just don't think this is that movie. As I said before, it starts on this path, and in a very promising way. The gorgeous prehistoric landscapes, the mysterious hooded figure who sacrifices himself to initiate life, apparently on Earth. The introduction of David, and the arrival at the Alien outpost, all point toward the type of Fundamental Question Asking/Answering and thought-provoking you describe. I'm all about movies that challenge the audience with ideas or images that are totally unexplained or even unexplainable. 2001 is one of my favorite movies. More recently, Tree of Life, and the lesser-known but equally (in my opinion) fascinating The Fountain present the same type of existential questions with much less linearity and narrative grounding, and do so much more effectively. In fact, I think my biggest beef with this movie is that there is too much that is explained or squeezed into conventional plot structures that ends up forcing the audience to ask the kinds of questions that I presented earlier. For example, why keep having these jaunts back and forth into the Alien facility? Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be if in 2001 Dave was shuttling back and forth between his escape pod and his little neo-classical alien apartment, picking up bits of information about his hosts each time? They use an army of hamster wheels to power the floor lights! They ship the tea in from Europa!
" I'm all about movies that challenge the audience with ideas or images that are totally unexplained or even unexplainable."
It would be much more mysterious and thought-provoking if the entire movie was structured around one trek into that place, and the horrible reality it presents slowly unfolding for us and the characters. That was what was so great about the first Alien film. This place that they had landed was so shrouded, literally in fog, and figuratively in mystery, and the ship itself is a complete cipher...there is nothing explained at all, except by visuals that the audience is forced to interpret for themselves. Then they bring back Kane with some creature attached to his face, and we basically have no idea what is going on until dinnertime. I can see how mirroring that amazing effect would be difficult in this film, because the filmmakers are dealing with an audience that is intimately familiar with the franchise and the basic biology of the creatures we are likely to encounter (hint: they are probably going to enter you in some painful way, and exit you in an even more painful way). For me they did so much winking at the audience with this fact that it totally betrays the absurd notion that this is not a prequel, but a better movie would have, in my opinion, used the audience's anticipation ofAlien-y type incidents to greater effect. As presented, I feel a lot of it is wasted on the aforementioned biologist/Fifield stuff. Total nonsequitur: I had a fraternity brother in college who was also named Fifield, also redheaded (less so), and was super shady. Maybe my opinion on this is slightly affected by these ironies.
I think a lot of this boils down to a series of strange choices that individually, aren't fatal to the film, but collectively I simply couldn't ignore. I won't rehash all of the previous points of criticism, other than to ask a strangely personal but weirdly relevant question: did your wife have a C-section? Before you delete my email, hear me out. My wife has had 3 C-sections, and this must be my personal hang up, but after these procedures, she literally could not stand for something like twelve hours, much less prance about some alien planet, scaling spaceships, hauling droid carcasses (chassis?) around, etc. And I honestly believe that women watching this movie are going to have a similar reaction, that her abilities at the end of the movie are absurd. That magical technology that you mention? Staples. If we ever have kid #4 I'm going to tell her to suck it up like Noomi. Now, I concede the point that individually, these types of complaints seem like Olympic-caliber nitpicking. However, the film is full of so much of this stuff that it borders on satire. I've already mentioned Zombie Fifield, the Biologist, and the surgery, but here are some more...What is up with Vickers basically challenging the captain to sleep with her to prove that she is not an android?
I think a lot of this boils down to a series of strange choices that individually, aren't fatal to the film, but collectively I simply couldn't ignore. I won't rehash all of the previous points of criticism, other than to ask a strangely personal but weirdly relevant question: did your wife have a C-section? Before you delete my email, hear me out. My wife has had 3 C-sections, and this must be my personal hang up, but after these procedures, she literally could not stand for something like twelve hours, much less prance about some alien planet, scaling spaceships, hauling droid carcasses (chassis?) around, etc. And I honestly believe that women watching this movie are going to have a similar reaction, that her abilities at the end of the movie are absurd. That magical technology that you mention? Staples. If we ever have kid #4 I'm going to tell her to suck it up like Noomi. Now, I concede the point that individually, these types of complaints seem like Olympic-caliber nitpicking. However, the film is full of so much of this stuff that it borders on satire. I've already mentioned Zombie Fifield, the Biologist, and the surgery, but here are some more...What is up with Vickers basically challenging the captain to sleep with her to prove that she is not an android?
"I think a lot of this boils down to a series of strange choices that individually, aren't fatal to the film, but collectively I simply couldn't ignore."
I could laugh this off as banter designed to aid in character development, but the movie sort of hints that they go through with it. A) She seems 100% serious. B) He immediately follows her out of the control room (bridge? was that just a Star Trek thing? Dietrich could answer that), and C) the fact that no one is monitoring the surveillance cameras sort of plays a role in the plot...but this incident is never mentioned again, and only served to confuse me. Did the Vice President of Weyland Corp. just sleep with the captain of a ship while on mission on a dare? Do they have a relationship?? Has she done this before??? This is pretty much the only character development Vickers gets, that she may or may not randomly shag crew members, other than the hackneyed daddy issues that come up at the end of the movie. I honestly think Vickers could have been played by a teenager and it would have made literally no difference in the plot. Isn't that kind of a problem? Lastly, her death...oh boy. Honestly, Josh, I laughed out loud in the theater when this happened. As soon as the ship began to fall back from liftoff I thought to myself that there was no way that they were going to do it...and yes they did...they killed her, Wile E. Coyote-style, crushed by an enormous rolling donut. Here's the thing. When my son was 4 and we would watch Looney Tunes, he would ask me why wouldn't the coyote just run to the side? So now I ask you: why wouldn't you just run to the side? In all seriousness, I think that Charlize Theron was criminally wasted in this movie, and it was just another nail in the coffin for me.
- Kevin Murray
- Kevin Murray
I’m completely with you on some of those movies you mention; 2001 is a seminal, essential piece of science-fiction, and I’m a huge fan of The Fountain (which, like you, I find to be masterful and extremely underrated). As for Tree of Life, I respected it a lot more than I liked it; I’ve seen almost every Terence Malick film (the only one I haven’t seen yet is The New World, which is on my DVR), and I always find them more admirable than actually enjoyable, if that makes sense. But I get what you’re saying, and I like the benchmarks you’ve set for the film. (Although I’d argue that Tree of Life isn’t really science-fiction, but that’s a side point.) Have you seen much Tarkovsky? Specifically Stalker and Solaris (or Soderbergh’s solid, underrated remake that’s equally rich in terms of ideas)? I ask because I think you’d find them interesting if you like movies like the ones you mentioned.
Now, onto Prometheus and its plot structure. One of the things I most enjoyed about the film is the way it used other genres as a way of getting into its themes and ideas. You mentioned the daily jaunts, and you’re right that framing the story as one long exploration would have been a great way to immerse the viewer in the mood and horror of the place, slowly revealing the answers within. Instead, though, what Prometheus does is set itself up as a standard scientific mission. That means you take your time to explore. More importantly, it means that our scientists get their answers (such as they are) in stages. And each stage certainly indicates that they should get out while the getting is good. To get into the title for a minute, Prometheus was punished for stealing the secret of fire from the gods. Our scientists, similarly, want to understand the secrets of the gods, despite being warned again and again that this isn’t a good idea, and that the answers they get will only bring horror and death. And yet, they keep going. That makes the return journeys all the more important – they are choosing to return to that site again and again, making a conscious effort to ignore the warnings they’ve been given – which, of course, leads to their destruction.
"Prometheus was punished for stealing the secret of fire from the gods. Our scientists, similarly, want to understand the secrets of the gods, despite being warned again and again that this isn’t a good idea, and that the answers they get will only bring horror and death. And yet, they keep going."
As you’ve pointed out, Prometheus is in a weird place. It is, however you choose to term it, intimately connected to the Alien universe, so there’s no real way to recapture that sense of dread and the unknown – not entirely. And yet, I think it’s instructive to compare the way both films use genre trappings to get at something more. Alien is a horror film, sci-fi setting or no, but the way it uses its blue-collar crew turns the film into something more interesting – regular people being used as pawns by a corporation that views them as expendable. Prometheus gives us a similar setting, although with scientists instead of blue-collar workers; once again, what seems like a simple mission is complicated and ultimately destroyed by the ulterior motives that hide behind it.
I like your point that it’s not so much any one scene that bothers you, but the collective whole. That’s something I can understand, even if I don’t agree. Take the C-section/abortion scene. Yes, in fact, my wife did have a C-section, and her first delivery was so rough that we ended up in an extended hospital stay before she could walk. So I know what labor/surgery can do to a woman. But in general, I’m willing to handwave that for a science-fiction story. I mean, in a story with interstellar travel, medical diagnostic pods, suspended animation, and malevolent androids, what’s a surgery that leaves you still functioning? I just never felt like that was something that needed extra explanation, especially when you factor in the adrenalin and everything else going on. But I realize that’s a subjective thing. I remember giving a friend of mine grief during the first X-Men. There’s a scene near the end where Wolverine leaps through a set of spinning rings, and my friend scoffed in disbelief, leading me to ask “So you’re okay with dudes with claws, and women controlling the weather, and a magnetic mutant spinning the rings, but a tough jump, that’s the breaking point?” But I know what you mean. Everyone has that point where it’s just too much to buy into. For me, if you’ve got a medical pod doing surgeries and people like Weyland being kept alive, walking off a surgery is within the boundaries of that world unless explicitly stated otherwise.
"Everyone has that point where it’s just too much to buy into."
As for Vickers in love and death: the sex scene never really bothered me either. Apparently there was a scene originally planned in the first Alien that strongly implied Ripley was hooking up with Dallas; their argument (“they” being the writers/Scott) was that on a long journey like that, you would do what you could to scratch that itch. So that was fine with me – it was people hooking up because they could and it was a stress relief. It might have been a one time thing, it might be something Vickers does – but to me, it was entirely in keeping with her character. She really doesn’t care about these people, doesn’t care about anything but the mission, and uses Elba to get laid and then never mentions it again. And besides, would you really blame Idris Elba for wanting to sleep with Charlize Theron? What kind of monster are you to block a man like that?
And her much maligned death, to me, always comes to the “bravery of being out of range,” to quote Roger Waters. Yes, theoretically, you could have run to the side – although, given the size of the ship, would that really have worked? I don’t mean that as a sarcastic point, but a legitimate one. It seemed to me at that point that they were f*****d, no matter what. The ship was coming down, and run whichever way you wanted, you didn’t have the time or the speed to get out of the way. So, yes, I guess she could have run to the side. But I also think there was a pure panic instinct kicking in, and her first thought was “GET AWAY!” Logical? No, not at all. But I think that fight or flight instinct was just telling her to run, and she wasn’t really considering what to do about it.
Here’s the thing, though – I don’t really know that any of this is convincing you at all. None of these things really bothered me all that much at the time, and as I think about the movie as a whole, I still feel like it holds up thematically and tonally. I can understand how a bunch of little things can add up to ruin a movie for you, but for me, these things never even nagged at me while I was watching it; the only real exception was the overly confident biologist and the alien, and even that one didn’t bother me too much in the big scheme of things. So I guess here’s my question: what’s the line between dismissable flaw and dealbreaking flaw for you? Why do you think this movie works for me and not for you? Am I looking too much at the big picture and not the details, or are you too focused on the plotting and not the ideas? Or are we both just coming at this the wrong way, do you think?
- Josh Mauthe
While we're in the niceities section, I also highly recommend The New World. Nobody does windblown trees, wordless face-caressing, and whispered voice-over like Malick, and The New Worlddelivers in spades. Side note--I once saw a YouTube video of a guy who made a video that was basically making lunch as imagined by Michael Bay...someone definitely needs to do the same thing with Terry Malick. I haven't seen any Tarkovsky, either, but Solaris has been on my list ever since being talked up by Filmpsotting. At the risk of turning this discussion into nothing but sci-fi name dropping, as I was reading your list and thinking about what I felt Prometheus was missing in terms of a slower burn suspense-wise, I think I should mention Moon. It came out a couple years ago and hardly anyone saw it, but it's another example of what I wrote about in my last email about a film taking care to slowly ramp up the tension through a minimalist approach that lets the audience figure things out for themselves, even if they make mistakes in the process.
Well, on to Prometheus, our discussion of which I feel is winding down, and I don't have a ton more to say--much to the joy of the 8 people who might read this all the way to the end. Even though I appreciate your attempt to dutifully rebut each of my examples, clearly it's just not getting anywhere, so I won't provide you any more cannon fodder. That being said (I'm sorry, I refuse to let this go), even though you claim that Vickers couldn't have gotten away from the ship by running to the side, I ask you this--how does Shaw, who is running WITH Vickers manage to escape this unescapable rolling donut of death? She doesn't even run to the side, no, she rolls three times to the side! No amount of cajoling will ever get me to believe that it is a good idea to kill a character in this way, unless that character is an animated cat.
All that aside, you ended your last email with a really interesting question, asking me if I we were coming at this movie the wrong way, and I think the answer is that we're coming at it exactly the right way, we just happen to disagree. For you, the ambition of the story and the existential themes it tries to address were enough to drown out some of the flaws in plot, characterization, etc. even to the point where you really didn't consider them to be flaws at all. For me, I can't look past some things in the movie that seem utterly ridiculous. Sometimes, that kind of thing works well in a movie, even a serious drama. One of my favorite movies is A Clockwork Orange. Clearly, that movie is packed with random, absurd scenes, dialogue, setpieces. Why is it that I can appreciate the artistry in Kubrick's dystopian vision, but not Scott's? Is it any more absurd that Alex's gang has a fight with a rival gang where they are literally throwing each other 20 feet and making gravity-defying jump kicks than Vickers' death at the hands of a donut? The difference is that Kubrick's absurdity is intentional, meant as a statement about violence itself. The craziness in Prometheus is by accident, the result of lazy writing and probably old age. I don't enjoy feeling this way about the movie. I really wanted to like it. I really wanted to stop being punked by stupid Alien movies and feeling like a chump when I get cheated out of ten bucks every few years. Unfortunately, the last one that was any good was Alien 3. I'm sure I'll get suckered again when Epimetheus or whatever the hell they'll call this thing now comes out. I just hope this time they have a consistent vision for what they want their movie to be and they follow it.
- Kevin Murray
Dude Writes Like A Lady
by Jill Marr
Since the Bronte sisters published themselves as the Bell brothers back in the 19th century, women writers have faced a double standard in the industry. We all know that women comprise the bulk of the readers in fiction genres, however the Powers That Be in publishing are still wary of alienating men, who they believe tend to favor male authors and also, for some reason, male characters written by male authors. So despite all of the bra burning and the whole getting to vote thing, many female authors find themselves still hiding behind a male pen name.
Everyone knows that Joanne Rowling was originally told by her publisher that her series wouldn’t be as popular with boys if it was penned by a woman (for the record, my eight-year-old son could think that Harry Potter was written by a panda bear, for all he’s concerned), so she chose to write under J.K. Rowling (even though she doesn’t have a middle name) and now she’s stuck with it. The books were still popular after Rowling’s gender was revealed but it’s a chicken and egg thing—we’ll never know if her publisher was completely right. She had the audience by the time her gender was revealed and it’s getting that audience that publishers are so nervous about.
And it seems that women who write in the suspense genres are much more likely to take a nom de plume for themselves. True crime writer, Ann Rule originally wrote as Andy Stack (despite the fact that she was already a well-known name in the industry!), JA Jance uses her initials for her pen name because, early on a publisher told her that disclosing her gender would be a liability for a book about a male detective. Unfortunately, when it comes to women writing suspense, it’s not just who is writing it but who they are writing. Readers might not like it—the X writing about the Y chromosome. And who wants to alienate even one reader? Nora Roberts, despite her huge and somewhat puzzling success, decided to write as J.D. Robb when she branched out from romance to the world of detective fiction. Of course, once the secret was out fans welcomed both identities.
Everyone knows that Joanne Rowling was originally told by her publisher that her series wouldn’t be as popular with boys if it was penned by a woman (for the record, my eight-year-old son could think that Harry Potter was written by a panda bear, for all he’s concerned), so she chose to write under J.K. Rowling (even though she doesn’t have a middle name) and now she’s stuck with it. The books were still popular after Rowling’s gender was revealed but it’s a chicken and egg thing—we’ll never know if her publisher was completely right. She had the audience by the time her gender was revealed and it’s getting that audience that publishers are so nervous about.
And it seems that women who write in the suspense genres are much more likely to take a nom de plume for themselves. True crime writer, Ann Rule originally wrote as Andy Stack (despite the fact that she was already a well-known name in the industry!), JA Jance uses her initials for her pen name because, early on a publisher told her that disclosing her gender would be a liability for a book about a male detective. Unfortunately, when it comes to women writing suspense, it’s not just who is writing it but who they are writing. Readers might not like it—the X writing about the Y chromosome. And who wants to alienate even one reader? Nora Roberts, despite her huge and somewhat puzzling success, decided to write as J.D. Robb when she branched out from romance to the world of detective fiction. Of course, once the secret was out fans welcomed both identities.
Despite all of the bra burning and the whole getting to vote thing, many female authors find themselves still hiding behind a male pen name.
Though, I do find it a wee bit hypocritical that publishers don’t seem to have an issue with male writers writing female characters (except when it comes to romance and there you’re likely to find many a man hiding behind a frilly or sexy-hot chick moniker). Harlan Coben has done it with great success. One of my own authors, Robert Pobi, is currently writing a thriller called River of the Dead, featuring a wonderful, multi-layered, female cop. We have no doubt that fans will love her. And another one of my authors, Eyre Price, writes a series that originally featured two men but in the hope of getting more female readers to pick up the books, he’s woven in a strong, central female character for his next book in the series, Rock Island Rock. They have no problem writing women. Publishers have no problems either. But my experience on the other side of the coin has been quite different.
I have a talented female author (who for obvious reasons will remain nameless) who writes a series about a tough male private detective. After much research about book sales and the industry, and believe me, this woman knows her stuff, she chose to go with a gender-neutral pen name. At first I shot back with my “I am woman hear me roar” speech about double standards, how the modern reader doesn’t care and, it’s not June Cleaver’s world anymore, you know. But she was adamant. So we went with it. Two books in and the reviews are great. The books are selling well, the author is banking royalties. Readers of both sexes enjoy it and they adore that great central character (women love him, men want to be him). We even get a laugh when a reviewer will call the author a “he” every now and again. Yeah, we’ve pulled on over on you, readers. But not really, because as authors become more active in selling their books—hosting websites, doing readings, attending conferences—it’s harder and harder to hide one’s gender. Ultimately, that doesn’t matter. It’s just a matter of that reader, pulling that book off the shelf, shelling out the bucks to take it home and then spending some time with it.
The good news through all of this is that publishers, themselves, don’t seem to care who writes the book. When it comes to a quality book, as long as editors “fall in love with it” they’ll hopefully take it on. Then we’ll decide how we want to market the book and more and more the author’s back story comes into the promotion of it. Two of my suspense authors, entertainment attorney, Robert Rotstein’s legal thriller, Corrupt Practices, and real-life cop, Neal Griffin’s cop story, The Benefit of the Doubt were sold to publishers last year, in part, because both write what they know (and interestingly, both feature strong female characters). So they try hiding behind a pseudonym to promote those books. I’d like to think it would be a similar story if either of them were women. But again, my inner Helen Reddy rears her ugly head.
I have a talented female author (who for obvious reasons will remain nameless) who writes a series about a tough male private detective. After much research about book sales and the industry, and believe me, this woman knows her stuff, she chose to go with a gender-neutral pen name. At first I shot back with my “I am woman hear me roar” speech about double standards, how the modern reader doesn’t care and, it’s not June Cleaver’s world anymore, you know. But she was adamant. So we went with it. Two books in and the reviews are great. The books are selling well, the author is banking royalties. Readers of both sexes enjoy it and they adore that great central character (women love him, men want to be him). We even get a laugh when a reviewer will call the author a “he” every now and again. Yeah, we’ve pulled on over on you, readers. But not really, because as authors become more active in selling their books—hosting websites, doing readings, attending conferences—it’s harder and harder to hide one’s gender. Ultimately, that doesn’t matter. It’s just a matter of that reader, pulling that book off the shelf, shelling out the bucks to take it home and then spending some time with it.
The good news through all of this is that publishers, themselves, don’t seem to care who writes the book. When it comes to a quality book, as long as editors “fall in love with it” they’ll hopefully take it on. Then we’ll decide how we want to market the book and more and more the author’s back story comes into the promotion of it. Two of my suspense authors, entertainment attorney, Robert Rotstein’s legal thriller, Corrupt Practices, and real-life cop, Neal Griffin’s cop story, The Benefit of the Doubt were sold to publishers last year, in part, because both write what they know (and interestingly, both feature strong female characters). So they try hiding behind a pseudonym to promote those books. I’d like to think it would be a similar story if either of them were women. But again, my inner Helen Reddy rears her ugly head.
As authors become more active in selling their books—hosting websites, doing readings, attending conferences—it’s harder and harder to hide one’s gender. Ultimately, that doesn’t matter.
So times, they may be a’changin’ and I’m even hearing about female writers who are pushing back. According to a WSJ article last year, Seanan McGuire (a woman) refused to write under a masculine name (though she did write under the pen name Mira Grant, I’m guessing because her first name was somewhat unpronounceable) for her horror/zombie trilogy. The first two books were nominated for awards and the third became a best-seller.
And speaking of best-sellers, interestingly, that collection of poetry that was first published by “Ellis and Acton Bell” failed to generate a real readership back in the day. It was only when the Brontes stepped out from behind their male pen names that they found their real success. And the rest, as they say, is history.
- Jill Marr is a representative with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, and has over a decade experience working in the publishing field.
And speaking of best-sellers, interestingly, that collection of poetry that was first published by “Ellis and Acton Bell” failed to generate a real readership back in the day. It was only when the Brontes stepped out from behind their male pen names that they found their real success. And the rest, as they say, is history.
- Jill Marr is a representative with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, and has over a decade experience working in the publishing field.
2012 Book of the Year Selection
At its core, The Age of Miracles is a fusion of two things that have been done - a lot. Half of the book revolves around an apocalypse, an end of the world scenario. The other half focuses on the life of Julia, a teenage girl struggling with the same challenges and discoveries of any young woman. But while the basic ideas have been explored, they've never been touched on in such a quietly devastating and beautiful way.
Walker's apocalypse isn't the thundering roar of an asteroid or the burning flash of nuclear fire. It's a wasting disease, as the discovery that the spin of the Earth is slowing sets humanity on a slow but inevitable path towards extinction. Walker explores the ramifications of the slowing spin with the detail and broad strokes of a master author. Everything from astronomy to politics is touched upon, and we see how our perceptions of time and daylight effect us in much deeper ways than we realize.
If that was all the book had to offer, it would still be a standout title for the year. But the death of humanity is told through the eyes of Julia, a girl at the beginning of her life just as her world is at the end of its life. Julie falls in love, sees her parents tumble from their pedestal, and navigates the stormy waters of adolescence. But every moment that touches her life is blackened with the realization that with every new experience, her time and everyone else's grows short. It's a gut-wrenching story, one that genuinely moved me like few other books can. But even in the midst of the world mourning its death, there is something remarkable about Walker's storytelling. She paints a life that is full of hope, even while the setting offers none. Julia is a flawed, emotional girl, but seeing the changes and shifts in this world through her eyes allow us to see the extraordinary in each experience as things we all take for granted assume a much higher clarity and meaning. The Age of Miracles is a sad, emotional book that manages to do tell a simple story in the most vivid and memorable way possible, and stands out as the 2012 Book of the Year.
- Dietrich Stogner
Walker's apocalypse isn't the thundering roar of an asteroid or the burning flash of nuclear fire. It's a wasting disease, as the discovery that the spin of the Earth is slowing sets humanity on a slow but inevitable path towards extinction. Walker explores the ramifications of the slowing spin with the detail and broad strokes of a master author. Everything from astronomy to politics is touched upon, and we see how our perceptions of time and daylight effect us in much deeper ways than we realize.
If that was all the book had to offer, it would still be a standout title for the year. But the death of humanity is told through the eyes of Julia, a girl at the beginning of her life just as her world is at the end of its life. Julie falls in love, sees her parents tumble from their pedestal, and navigates the stormy waters of adolescence. But every moment that touches her life is blackened with the realization that with every new experience, her time and everyone else's grows short. It's a gut-wrenching story, one that genuinely moved me like few other books can. But even in the midst of the world mourning its death, there is something remarkable about Walker's storytelling. She paints a life that is full of hope, even while the setting offers none. Julia is a flawed, emotional girl, but seeing the changes and shifts in this world through her eyes allow us to see the extraordinary in each experience as things we all take for granted assume a much higher clarity and meaning. The Age of Miracles is a sad, emotional book that manages to do tell a simple story in the most vivid and memorable way possible, and stands out as the 2012 Book of the Year.
- Dietrich Stogner
It's been a very, very long time since I read To Kill a Mockingbird - maybe since I was in school myself. But teaching it to my students gave me the chance to explore the novel all over again and to remind myself just how masterful it truly is. What almost everyone remembers about the novel is the trial at the heart of it, and that's for good reason; it's still infuriating, disheartening, and effective, even all these years after the book's publication. But there's so much more to the novel; after all, the whole first half of the book is more about life in Maycomb, from the perils of the first day of school to the difficulties of navigating the complex social strata that make up the town (from middle class to the working poor to the white trash, from the whites to the blacks, from the foot-washing Baptists to the more moderate Baptists elsewhere in town). More than that, though, To Kill a Mockingbird immerses you in the perspective of a young girl who is only just beginning to understand the world, and that choice - to let Scout tell the tale, instead of the rapidly maturing Jem or the wise and thoughtful Atticus - is what really makes To Kill a Mockingbird so remarkable. Without Scout's narration, the novel could easily become any other novel about a Southern town, and the trial just another book about racism as perceived by the white folks who were almost entirely unaffected by it. But in letting Scout tell the story, it becomes a way of exploring the complexities of the world through the eyes of someone who understands none of them - and even more importantly, accepts none of them. That dramatic irony between what we know and what Scout knows makes the book even richer to explore, as we begin to realize that so much of what we take for granted flies in the face of the way we raise our children and expect them to live. If that sounds heavy-handed and moralizing, well, that's me, and not the book; in fact, To Kill a Mockingbirdsoars by telling its story without ever resorting to preaching, hectoring, or belaboring its points. Instead, it simply shows us a young girl who is forced to look at the uglier side of human nature, only to see that there may be more good in people than we think. It's a book that's rich in humanity, life, characterization, language, and so much more, and it's a tragedy that Harper Lee never wrote anything else in her life. But what could compare to such a perfect gem as this?
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I've been watching this in conjunction with teaching (and re-reading) the novel, so I've spent much of my time watching this thinking about it less as a film on its own terms and more as an adaptation of the novel. And that's a shame, because as I've rewatched it, it's reminded me of what a powerful and compelling film it really is. Sure, as an adaptation, it's pretty standard; it loses (by necessity) a lot of the character work and "slice of life" details that make the book so rich and compelling, and it expands beyond the perspective of Scout to include scenes from different perspectives, including that of Atticus himself. And yet, the film still works incredibly, even though it should just be another adaptation. Part of that, of course, is due to the acting, especially Gregory Peck's inimitable turn as Atticus Finch; if you doubt the man's power, try watching the trial scenes with a bunch of freshmen who were automatically ready to turn against the film for the crime of being in black and white, and watch how quickly they become immersed in the film, caught up in the drama, and visibly affected by the verdict when it comes. (And let me just say: it doesn't matter how many times I've seen it or read the book - "Your father's passing" still chokes me up, even when I'm about to try to teach the scene and have to leave the movie going for a minute to collect myself.) To be sure, the movie ends up feeling a bit like a Cliff's Notes version of the novel if you're watching it in conjunction with reading it. But every one of the scenes it includes, it absolutely nails, and with its strong performances, beautiful cinematography, emotional heft, and its love for Harper Lee's language, it succeeds in making the spirit of the book live wonderfully. And that goes a long way in my book.
- Josh Mauthe -