Lost In Translation

A Hundred Years Of Japanese Film

I found Donald Richie’s book A Hundred Years of Japanese Film to be a very engaging overview of the Japanese film history. It is clear that Richie’s knowledge of Japanese culture informs his observation about the history and development of film. For example in the first chapter Richie discussed the importance of the benishi (or narrator) for audiences. The beneshi were active until the early 30 s because they not only commented on silent films but they also provided information about the west since many Japanese were unfamiliar with customs of the west due to the self-imposed closed country prior to the Meiji restoration. According to Richie this helps explain the Japanese affection for teachers, tour guides, sommeliers and other conduits for acquisition of new experience. He also pointed out that many short films were looped and this process led to the tradition of lengthy films and still can be seen in commercials in Japan today. I found Chapter three to one of the most interesting sections of the book, because this is where Richie discussed most of the post war masters of Japanese cinema: Ozu and Naruse, Mizoguchi and the Period Film, social issues films by Kurosawa, Kinoshita, and Ichikawa. In chapter four Richie discussed the devastating effects of TV on the film industry and the studio system. He also discussed the notion of two Japans. One is the “official” version that has Noh, tea ceremony, Mizoguchi, Ozu, late Kurosawa, along with the approved high-class virtues of fidelity and devotion. The other version is the “real” version of which the people do not behave like the ”official” version. They are seen in the films of Kawashima or Imamura and they are selfish, lusty, amoral and all of the vitality of Japan comes from their members. The sections on the Japanese New Wave filmmakers like Oshima, Yoshida, adn Shinoda is enlightening as well. In the final chapter Richie discussed the introduction of genre film in the industry due to the American influence of films. There is a natural connection between yakuza films and the mysteries and thrillers from America. He rounds up the book by discussing the documentary filmmaking scene and the rise of independent filmmaking. There is s a discussion of the new generation filmmakers with an audience abroad like Takashi Kitano, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Shinji Aoyama, and Takashi Miike, as well as the popularity of animation. It is a good overview and provides a lot of general commentary about Japan and Japanese culture.

Zeitoun

Dave Eggers has been writing fascinating nonfiction book by people who have had horrific experiences and managed to survive them with grace. The first of these books, What Is The What? Tells the story of one of Africa’s “lost boys” and his struggle for survival in and success in America. The latest, Zeitoun, tells the story of an Islamic American family’s plight during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It tells of a city caught off, guard, the generous helping spirit of one man, and the failure of institutions long after the fact of wrongly incarcerating the man and the struggle to return to normalcy after the natural disaster. Eggers tell the story with artistry and always reminds me how relatively easy I’ve had it throughout my life. I also applaud the fact that Eggers donates the profits form these books to the families and sets up foundations to help other like tem. It is a very worthwhile and altruistic thing to do. I recommend you by a copy to support this wonderful idea.

Downtown Owl

I decided to have a look at Chuck Klosterman’s first foray into fiction, Downtown Owl, recently. It is a story of a small town in North Dakota that has each chapter narrated by a different person from a 16 year old third string quarterback to a 60 something widower. It ends up being much bleaker than I would have expected from Klosterman, but it also captures his essence in the quirky interactions between people and their eccentric small town views on life. It was an entertaining look at small town life through the eyes of a variety of characters and their respective points of view. I’d read his next effort. I think I liked this more than his last book of essays, Eating The Dinosaur.

In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs

I recently finished Tobias Wolff’s first book of short stories, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs. Several of the stories were included in his most recent collection, Our Story Begins: New And Collected Stories.  I took a creative writing course in college where I first read Wolff, Carver, Dubus, and other masters of the contemporary short story, the title story was in the anthology and it is a classic. I really like Wolff’s range: he can write about academia without sounding insular, but he can also talk about high school educated hunters with equal precision. I’m a little sad that I’ve read all his books to date-they are generally excellent. I guess I’ll have to wait for the next one.

Schrader On Schrader

Schrader On Schrader is a series of interviews, essays, and other miscellaneous writing by the director interviewed and edited by Kevin Jackson. I found it to be fascinating. I am thinking about writing an academic paper on his film Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters. He started out as a film critic that was a disciple of Pauline Kael until he decided that he wanted to try his hand at writing/directing films. I enjoyed his critical essays on Sam Peckinpah and Film Noir. The main interview sections were as follows: The Screenwriter: The Yakuza to The Last Temptation of Christ (this section also includes Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Mosquito Coast), The Director: Blue Collar to The Comfort of Strangers (this section also includes American Gigolo, Cat People, Mishima, and Patty Hearst), The Intermission: Stage Plays and Other Considerations, The Screen Writer, Resumed: Manhattanville a.k.a. City Hall to Bringing Out The Dead, The Director, Resumed: Light Sleeper to Exorcist: The Beginning (this section also includes Touch, Affliction, and Auto Focus among others). This is probably a book for film enthusiasts, but I really enjoyed Schrader’s intelligent analysis of his career in film. He worked on many intriguing projects over the years and is still working on his body of work. 

NY Times Notable Books / Top Books 2009

The NY Times has it's annual list of 100 notable books and top 10. I can't say that I'm all that interested in the top 10, but there are some interesting titles on the notable list. I am planning on reading Dave Eggers Zeitoun, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch, and Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Tower Wells. 

Land Of The Blind

Land Of The Blind has some interesting aspects to it, but it is not as satisfying as Jess Walter’s debut, Over Tumbled Graves or his subsequent novel, Citizen Vince. A lot of the premise was too on the nose-too obviously taken from the headlines-dot com bubble frauds, local political races. Other aspects were too over the top, Clark becoming a millionaire and the utter helplessness and afflictions of Eli. It has the makings of a compelling mystery, but the execution seemed somewhat marred by inauthentic details piling up. However, I liked the set pieces about Clark and Eli’s youth-growing up in the East valley on the other side of Division on Empire in Spokane. I also liked the use of the historic Davenport Hotel as a story location. I liked some of the observations Walter makes about the east-west divide of the state and Seattle vs. Spokane. In particular he says that Spokanites don’t trust anyone who left town but thinks everyone that stayed must be too stupid to get out.

Best Books of the 00s

The Onion AV Club has had a series of articles rating the best entertainment of the 00s. The latest list concerns the best books. They have included fiction and nonfiction together. Here's another list from The Times which combines fiction, nonficiton, AND poetry. A literature focused website, The Millions, has their own survey of the best fiction here. Here's my Top 10 list in alphabetical order:

Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001): a fascinating page turner by one of the great stylists writing today.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (2006): a wonderful coming of age story by another master stylist, I almost considered Cloud Atlas, but some sections of it didn't work for me.

The Brief Wonderous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007): a wild ride of a coming of age novel that incorporates comics, history, and drama. 

Citizen Vince by Jess Walter (2005): local Spokane boy writes a literary crime story that takes place during the year that Carter gets elected president.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001): a compelling page turner that reflects the modern dysfunction of American families.

Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman (2001): an entertaining heavy metal memoir from a peer about pop culture and growing up in North Dakota.

The Known World by Edgar P. Jones (2003): this is an epic tale of American history.

Nixonland by Rick Perlstein (2008): the best book written about the 60s, meticulously researched and startlingly well written.

Platform by Michel Hollenbecque (2002): an assault on the preconceived notions of what it means to be alive today.

Retribution by Max Hastings (2008): another meticulously researched history book that chronicles 1944-45 in a compelling narrative.

Glamorama

I was spurred to read Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama after learning that the lead character was Victor Ward a minor character from my favorite Ellis novel The Rules of Attraction. (Also an entertaining film) It is another satire that takes the modern obsession with celebrity, brand names, and outward appearance to task. It is a condemnation of the 90s culture of the shallow, but also a horror story of sorts. I’m assuming that Ellis had to do some serious research for all the name dropping he did in that book-I feel that I am pretty culturally savvy but I missed about 20% of the references. In fact the initial setup may have been a bit too long and the novel itself seemed somewhat bloated at 500 plus pages. Ellis is one of the leading moralist in American fiction-he usually has an ax to grind and it gets done here, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as his other novels (Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction, or Lunar Park).

Paul Auster Take Down

Critic James Woods from The New Yorker has an interesting review of the new Paul Auster novel and analyzes his output to date. However, it's not so flattering. I liked The New York Trilogy and I tried to read Mr. Vertigo, but never finished it. That being said I tend to agree with most of his criticisms:  

What Auster often gets instead is the worst of both worlds: fake realism and shallow skepticism. The two weaknesses are related. Auster is a compelling storyteller, but his stories are assertions rather than persuasions. They declare themselves; they hound the next revelation. Because nothing is persuasively assembled, the inevitable postmodern disassembly leaves one largely untouched. (The disassembly is also grindingly explicit, spelled out in billboard-size type.) Presence fails to turn into significant absence, because presence was not present enough. This is the crevasse that divides Auster from novelists like José Saramago, or the Philip Roth of “The Ghost Writer.” Saramago’s realism is braced with skepticism, so his skepticism feels real. Roth’s narrative games emerge naturally from his consideration of ordinary human ironies and comedies; they do not start life as allegories about the relativity of mimesis, though they may become them. Saramago and Roth both assemble and disassemble their stories in ways that seem fundamentally grave. Auster, despite all the games, is the least ironic of contemporary writers.