Gunga Din

Bolstering Big Hollywood as the go-to online spot for real writing about movies, Schizoid Mann’s manly and surprisingly “otherly” (no spoilers please) piece on Gunga Din is one of the best posts in the site’s short life. Very little of value about movies has been written or presented in the mass print or electronic dinosaur media for decades, decades i tell you, and that includes the Oscar broadcasts. (and excepting Robert Osborne on Turner Classics.) So if you’re interested in film and all manner of topics surrounding the art and the business of it you’ll want to give it a look.

“Kali!”

We watched Gunga Din here at the Shears Compound just a few months ago as a matter of fact; exposed Lance, Leo and Escella to it, or tried to anyway, and Mrs. Shears enjoyed it as well. This continued a family tradition of appreciation for the work. I remember my Ma and old late Paw loved the film, and the reason I remember is I have a clear echo of them in the 1960s pointing out that Sam Jaffe, who play Gunga played Dr. Zorba, hospital boss of neurotic TV neurosurgeon Ben Casey.

So hopefully they’ll pass it on to their offspring, to watch in whatever format story-telling will take further down the century. Maybe they’ll absorb it through their skin. The Movie Patch. Whatever. Gunga Din will be there because it’s just good storytelling.

Some people can’t watch those old films. They mock the stagey speech and sneer at the image quality. They’ve been raised, and conditioned, on color and the (supposed) naturalistic speech patterns of modern film/TV. But one of the facets I like best about films from before the 70s is that they speak the lines clearly, so that you can understand what the hell they are saying. This must have lent discipline to the writing, since the writer knows in the back of his mind that the lines he transfers to the actors mouths will be heard. Write lines for modern hacktors like Sean Penn and you know he will not only change them, but you might not even be able to decipher what he changed them to, since mumbling is what passes for acting now. When screening modern film/TV, on average once per viewing, and often more often,  we have to pause and go back to see what was said. Sometimes we even have to turn on the subtitles, for an American film!

Maybe improved sound is the reason. The audio technology from the infancy and adolescence of the talkies may have required more enunciation; and so the actors didn’t have to worry about modulation or their vocal instrument, they just spoke the lines, had some personality and looked great, something everyone in this film managed — even poor, brave Gunga.

Here’s the second in a series of anti-clichè posts by James Hudnall. The site is only political if you think that Hollywood consciously ignoring the taste of at least (At least! Yes, a conservative estimate. Eh hem.) 50 percent of the ticket-buying public is politics and not some wacky marketing strategy. The cost of staking out any exclusionary political position is quite high. We think it’s just bad business. Really some smart stockholder legal eagle will use all the accumulated evidence that these huge mega-corporations (see Hudnall’s ironic clichè #1 too.) that fund mainstream film are consciously not giving full value and make a killing.

We would like to see these clichès erased on general principle, doesn’t matter who identifies them. Our pet clichè? Ever notice that nearly all villains these days must be straight white males…who smoke.

We don’t watch much TV. We gave that Amsterdam a try for two episodes. Eh. (We were glad to see the Indian shaman save our hero by waving smoldering tobacco leaves over him, but the plots just did not grab us.) We are not anti-TV by any stretch. Give us a Seinfeld and we’ll stick for nine years. (And it was not about nothing, either. It was about the burdens inflicted and hurdles erected by friends and relations. Mm hm. You can check me on that if you like. Watch any episode with that theme in mind then come right back here. Go ahead. I’ll wait….See what I mean?)

Anyway a co-worker recommended that Life on Mars to us a few months back. Mrs. Shears and I looked at an episode online, down in the smoking lounge. Sure enough, the first show of any kind we watch in months. The bad guys? Straight white males, smokers. The guest villain was Robert Klein on that show. He was extorting the hero’s mom, trying to sign her up to his team of hookers. He and his henchman smoked cigars. Ostentatiously, I might add. Made a point of offering one to the hero. Of course he turned it down. He was from the future, after all.

Clichè confirmed. First try. We never watched it again to see how consistent this was. It had many other things wrong with it. For one, Harvey Keitel was a waste of a ratings lure. He never phones it but it was clear he should have had the lead. He could have easily. Much more interesting show if he did. But no, gotta have that young guy, no matter how bad he is. What about Keitel’s streetwise character? Was he corrupt or not in that episode? Yes. He was. For a while he was.  But later on, no. He wasn’t. It’s one thing to be ambiguous, but it’s another to be unclear. Near as we could figure it he was corrupt, and he was trying to lure the hero into being corrupt. Then all of a sudden he wasn’t, and then it wasn’t OK to be corrupt. Boy was Robert Klein surprised. Can’t say the same for the audience. Character arc? It is to laugh.

Plus they didn’t even use the Bowie song. And oh yes, the premise was ridiculous, with no attempt at all to address the well-known issues of time travel and its cunundrums. Just throw in the 70s references, pretty much at random.

We’d post some more about the horrific remake of Planet of the Apes we saw on DVD last night but it would just depress us. Mark Wahlberg in the Charlton Heston role? Tsk. If anything symbolizes how low the culture has been debased that would about sum it up. Forget about all the lame-o political bludgeons in it.

So have a look at Big Hollywood, whatever your leanings. You’ll get a whole different perspective on the business than you’re used to.