Lost In Translation

Fukutoshin Subway Line

This month will see the opening of Tokyo's newest subway line.  Here's an article from Metropolis about it:

More than 80 years after Tokyo’s first subway line opened between Asakusa and Ueno, the last major underground railway debuts as Tokyo Metro unveils the Fukutoshin line on June 14. First planned back in 1985, the Fukutoshin will travel 8.9 kilometers from Ikebukuro to Shibuya, with six stations in between. It connects with the Tobu Tojo, Seibu Yurakucho and Seibu Ikebukuro lines, and through service is planned with the Tokyu Toyoko line at Shibuya for 2012, completing a broad rail network linking southwestern Saitama with central Tokyo and Yokohama. 

Being promoted under the dubious slogan of “Subways that harmonize with towns and are loved by people along the line,” the Fukutoshin (the name means “subcenter”) is the ninth subway line to be operated by Tokyo Metro Co Ltd, which currently carries 5.9 million passengers a day along 195.1 kilometers of track via 179 stations. By comparison, the city’s other subway system, the metropolitan government-run Toei network, transports 2.03 million passengers daily and has 109 kilometers of track and 106 stations on its four lines.  

Behind The Paper Screen: Hinkaku

Sawa Kurotani examines the "hinkaku" boom going on in Japan at the moment in her column for The Daily Yomiuri:

Hinkaku, the "nobility or dignity that is felt in a person or a thing" (my translation of the definition in the Daijisen Japanese Dictionary), has become a buzzword in Japan in the past couple of years. Although the dictionary definition sounds straightforward enough, hinkaku is a slippery concept.

First of all, hinkaku is socially relative. That is, actions and characteristics that are considered "noble," "classy" or "respectable" differ according to one's station and what is expected of that particular social position. Furthermore, the definition of classiness widely varies from culture to culture and one historical era to another. Therefore there is no one universal model of hinkaku that applies to everyone.

Secondly, hinkaku is all about the perception of others who observe and pass judgment. These "others" are usually not an identifiable group of people, but something more generalized and harder to pinpoint, often recognized as "public opinion" or "common sense." This perception of hinkaku may, furthermore, be manipulated. For example, a person can increase their hinkaku by wearing items of clothing that are considered "classy" or by joining an organization with a good reputation. In turn, an organization can raise its respectability by recruiting members with recognized hinkaku. Advertisements frequently associate their products with celebrities to generate a sense of classiness.

The recent barrage of hinkaku puts forward different standards of hinkaku for nations and corporations, women and men, children, company presidents, sumo champions and so on. However, there is one critical commonality among them: the reference to the idealized past at the core of hinkaku.

David Sedaris on Smoking In Japan

Here's Sedaris on the Daily Show.

Joy Division

Joy Division, the documentary by Jon Savage, is a good companion piece to Control, which is essentially the fictionalized version of the same story. It has all the talking heads of people who were relevant to the rise and fall of Joy Division as well as live performances and various other artifacts.  I was surprised to see that several scenes that I thought were embellished from the film were actual occurrences, like the time that Bernard Summer hypnotized Ian Curtis to see if he had experienced any previous lives for example. The film is a more artistic rendering of the same story, but both examples are compelling in their own rights.  However, I would have to say that the documentary is probably more for serious fans, whereas the film version can be appreciated for the cinematography and dramatized aspect of the short, intense life of Ian Curtis.

What I'm Reading: 6/5/2008

There is an interesting discussion of conservative politics going on at Slate by Sean Wilentz, author for The Age of Reagan, and Tim Naftali, author of George H. W. Bush.

Matt Gross, The NY Times' Frugal Traveler, continues his Grand Tour of Europe every Thursday, this week in Southern France.

I also always enjoy listening to The Cultural Gabfest at Slate.

On a related note, I've enjoyed Salon's Critics Picks, the May 31st edition inspired me to see the documentary film, Joy Division.

Dangerous Liaisons

I originally picked up Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos De Laclos because I had enjoyed the film version based on the play by Christopher Hampton starring Glenn Close and john Malcovic. Then earlier this year I read Milan Kundera’s book of essays, The Curtain, in which he praised the novel, so I felt it was time to read it.  It was a fascinating novel written as a series of letters, which was an effective way of letting the story unfold. De Laclos was masterly in subtly reveal the characters intentions and motivations through the letters, but at times it was a bit of drudgery to get through all of the subterfuge as well. But also challenging, in that you had to remember who the people were that were being addressed and remember what they had written to other people previously.  I plan to re-watch the film soon and note the differences between the respective works. 

Sydney Pollock R.I.P.

I must admit that I was a fan of the director and his acting.  His performance in Woody Allen's Husband and Wives stays was masterly and I think because of it, it is one of Woody's best post-Annie hall films. His films always struck me as well made and interesting, Absence of Malice was one that I used in class when I taught journalism, Tootsie, a classic comedy deserves another look, Three Days of the Condor is a classic thriller, and so on...Slate's Dana Stevens gives hims  a good send off:

Sydney Pollack's best movies tended to share this polemical element, the crossing of swords between evenly matched equals. Take, for example, an early scene in Tootsie where Pollack, playing Dustin Hoffman's beleaguered agent George Fields, gravely informs his client that "no one will work with you." Hoffman's character, the unemployable Michael Dorsey, truly is (as Fields believes) an insufferable pain in the ass, and also (as Dorsey himself insists) a brilliant actor who deserves the role of a lifetime. (The fact that Hoffman and Pollack famously butted heads during the filming of Tootsie, with Hoffman wanting to play the character for broader farce than Pollack would allow, no doubt adds to the dialogue's satisfying crackle.) "The essence to me of all good drama is argument. I can't say that either side is a thousand percent right," Pollack once said. In another interview, he elaborated: "Even if it's a thriller or a comedy, it's always a love story for me and that's what I concentrate on, because the love stories are my surrogates for the argument; two people in conflict that see life differently."

In The iPod: Death Cab For Cutie, Old 97s, Robert Forster

Death cab For Cutie’s new release Narrow Stairs seems a bit more bombastic than usual. However, I think there’s enough of their signature sound that it will please longtime fans.  “I Will Posses Your Heart” is almost a 9-minute jam.  But my favorite tracks are the catchy “No Sunlight”, the heart wrenching “You Can Do Better Than Me,” and “Cath…”

 Another longtime favorite band, The Old 97s has also put out another new release, Blame It On Gravity.  Unfortunately, while The Old 97s can still create some memorable lines and rockin melodies they are well past their creative apex that was seen in Too Far To Care.  Some standouts include “The Color Of A Lonely Heart Is Blue,”   “Dance With Me,” “The Easy Way,” and “This Beautiful Thing.”

I wasn’t a fan of The Go Betweens, but had heard good things about them. Their former lead singer Robert Forster does a decent version of “Tower Of Song” on I’m Your Fan (A Tribute To Leonard Cohen).  Like Cohen, he has a very distinctive voice. Salon recommended his solo album The Evangelist and I have been enjoying it thus far.  I particularly like “The Evangelist,” and “If It Rains.”

The New Cult Canon: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

The AV Club has lauded another worthy addition to it's New Cult Canon: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I really enjoyed this Shane black film due to the great dialogue and great execution by Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, etc...besides you can't go wrong with a hardboiled murder mystery:

Arriving after he had disappeared from the scene for nearly a decade, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is pure, unfiltered Shane Black. It's his directorial debut, and it's a minor revelation. I use the word "minor" not to diminish his achievement, exactly, but to say that the film is basically a show-offy writer's exercise, a feature-length riff on hard-boiled crime fiction, formulaic buddy pictures, and the surreal vapidity of Hollywood. It's all throat-clearing and no opera, sputtering forward in fits and starts, winding through the most loveable shaggy-dog plot this side of The Big Lebowski. A cynic might call it Black's monument to his own cleverness; a fan like myself would call it the same thing, but with a sweeter inflection.

Heading a cast loaded with long-in-the-tooth stars from Black's heyday, Robert Downey Jr. makes an ideal conduit for the smug, hyperkinetic dialogue, which doesn't wait around after laugh lines for viewers to catch up. (Hence the film's high rewatch value, and its mushrooming cult status.) He plays the knockabout hero and voiceover narrator, Harry Lockhart, and when the storytelling gets a little bumpy, he breaks the fourth wall and admonishes the audience: "I don't see another narrator, so pipe down." 

***

Above all, the film is a celebration of language, often to the point where it indulges in hilariously wonky word-splicing, like when Harry and Perry have a fight about the proper use of an adverb. Fifty years ago, Black would have been right at home penning scripts for post-war noirs and gritty B-pictures, where stylized dialogue was more than just a means to connect one giant action setpiece to another. Until Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, his words were effectively buried in the big-budget obscenities of the day; here, he finally got the chance to express himself fully, but Warner Brothers quietly shuffled the film into theaters as if it were an embarrassment. (This in spite of mostly very kind reviews.) There are enough memorable lines to stock the lion's share of blockbusters made during Black's self-imposed hiatus. A few favorites:

"She's been fucked more times than she's had hot meals."

"Go. Sleep badly. If you have any questions, hesitate to call."

"I think you wouldn't know where to feed yourself if you didn't flap your mouth so much."

"Did your dad love you?" "Well, he used to beat me in Morse code, so it's possible, but he never said the words."

And so on. Watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang prompts wishes that Hollywood still had screenwriters talented enough to use explosion-filled trash as a means for personal expression. More improbably, it also prompts nostalgia for the glory days of the buddy comedy, which can really zing when the right actors bounce the right dialogue off each other. Not every project allows writers to examine the clichés they're generating—in that way and others, the film is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Black, and one he's earned—but we're now in an age where the cost of making movies is obscene, yet prominent, highly paid screenwriters with Black's abilities are nonexistent.

Chinau Achebe

There's a tribute to Chinau Achebe and his great novel, Things Fall Apart, in the New Yorker.  I've read also a book of his essays, Hopes and Impediments, as well and find him to be an intriguing critic as well as an accomplished novelist. Here's an excerpt:

The myth holds another lesson as well—one that has been fundamental to the career of Achebe, who has been called “the patriarch of the African novel.” There is danger in relying on someone else to speak for you: you can trust that your message will be communicated accurately only if you speak with your own voice. With his masterpiece, “Things Fall Apart,” one of the first works of fiction to present African village life from an African perspective, Achebe began the literary reclamation of his country’s history from generations of colonial writers. Published fifty years ago—a new edition has just appeared, from Anchor ($10.95)—it has been translated into fifty languages and has sold more than ten million copies.