Blog – Page 14 – EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Scott Pilgrim Vs The Movies

It had stunning reviews, gob-smacking word of mouth, an ad campaign that was arguably more expensive than the film. So why, then, did Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World open low and drop further in it’s first two weekends at the box-office? Why did I, a long-time fan, walk out at the end of it feeling a little hollow, a little underwhelmed?

The answer lies in my immediate first response after seeing the movie. I wanted to go home and read the books again. I wanted to remind myself of the things that the film had chopped out, or compressed, or glossed over. Once again, I realised, Hollywood had done what it always does to comics. The adaptation process had pulled the spine out of the story.

Scott Pilgrim is a six-book series that tells the story of the lovelorn hipster of the title, and his struggles to win the girl who has been skating through his dreams. It’s a wry, funny and frantic tale that sucks in video game, manga and anime references and squelches them together in a lo-fi zine-centric aesthetic. It’s cartoony, it’s typesetting is (perhaps deliberately) wonky, it’s all black and white. The fact that it’s packaged in the small-footprint form of most of the manga we see in this country only helps to strengthen these references.

It doesn’t rush things, either. The books are by their very nature episodic, as comics should be, and time passes in a natural, relaxed way. The group that Scott is a part of hang out, go to gigs and parties, and fumble their way through life. Everyone makes mistakes. They fall in and out of relationships. A major character comes out. We’re privy to six months in the life of Scott, Wallace, Steven, Kim, Young Neil, Stacy and Julie, and you end up involved in all their troubles and joys.

All of this subtlety is lost in the film. It becomes a one-note Battle-Of-The-Bands with added Streetfighter gloss. The sense that we’re seeing things through Scott’s eyes and that he’s not the most reliable narrator is wiped away in favour of a clean clear line of character progression. He often has to be reminded about how horrible he has been to the women in his life, or about how events simply didn’t pan out in the way he remembers them. This isn’t to say that he doesn’t learn and grow in the course of the story. But there’s more to it than grabbing a power-up and suddenly not just Getting A Life. He gets hurt and has to grow up.

Then there are the fights. They’re the engine of the tale. They keep things moving. But in the film, they become kind of the whole point, and they take up more and more of the running time. This is never the case in the books. The fights are a necessary part of the story, but they never overwhelm the comedy, pathos and drama that goes on around them. Unfortunately the film structures the whole film around the fights, to the detriment of a lot of really cool character-based humour.

A note on the characters. Over on MovieBrit, WDW has described the women in the film as “angels or stalkers”, which I think is a little unfair. It negates Stacey’s role as advisor, Kim Pine’s place as the coolest kid in the room AND lynchpin of Sex Bob-omb, and Envy and Roxy, equally wounded by our hero and heroine. Again, there’s lots more going on around Scott and his precious little life than we’ve been permitted to see in the film.

I think I knew going into the film how I would feel afterwards. It’s a fun movie, with a lot to recommend, and I’d hate to think that I’m talking you out of going to see the film, Readership. Because you should. It works in it’s own right, and some of the visual invention that Edgar Wright layers onto the screen works really well. I’d love to see more panel and subtitle commentary appearing in films.

But to my mind Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a Cliff Notes version of a much richer and more complex story, and I hope that it’ll encourage the curious to pick up the books. You owe it to yourselves to get the full story.

I’m a mobile writer, which means I don’t have a dedicated place where I go to work. I always smile at the photography series in the Indie that shows off writer’s spaces. The places they have made for themselves where they can create a masterpiece in comfort. There’s a lot of book-lined studies in there. It’s all very cosy.

If I were ever to have that honour, I’d have to show the photographer onto the 06:56 to London Paddington and get him to take a snap of a window seat. Lord knows, I’d love a place like Roald Dahl’s shed, or Neil Gaiman’s library, but that just don’t suit the way I do things. Maybe I should try a stint of writing in the summerhouse.

Writing on a train is the best way I know of getting some no-distraction work done. I can’t connect to the internet. I deliberately use a small, light netbook that doesn’t have too many fancies, but does have a good keyboard I can happily abuse. There’s power on the train, and access to coffee, which is really all I need to at least get a handle on the writing task of the day. I’m an early bird when it comes to this particular task, which means I can get a half-hours work done at the day’s creative peak.

A mobile writer needs a sturdy bag. It’s the office, essentially. It should be able to withstand all the rigours of a daily commute, while being light and small enough to be easily portable. When I began my rambling life, I carried my 13″ Blackbook in a solid, heavy Redline bookbag that was built to withstand a low-yield nuclear strike, but very nearly twisted my spine out of true whenever I picked it up. That was a lesson learned. Only carry what you really need, not everything you think you might.

If you’re interested in the sort of thing I lug around, allow me to point you at TLC’s new photo blog. She’s taken shots of our two bags, which are strangely accurate portraits, and interesting insights into our inner workings.

Pen To Paper

I have a thing for stationery. Being both a cartoonist and a writer, this shouldn’t be a surprise, but sometimes I amaze myself. I am the sort of person that will wander round Staples or WH Smiths with a slightly glazed look on my face, fingering the markers. There are several art shops within five minutes walk of work that are under a self-imposed embargo. I’d blow my pay packet, and creep out the staff if I went in as often as I wanted.

My obsession with stationery comes from it’s potential. Every pen I buy, every pencil set has the possibility locked inside to become a piece of art, or a story, or a comic. It’s just a case of finding the right pen, the correct pencil, the absolutely perfect block of paper. Once I have that, everything will be perfect, and I can make my masterpiece.

Problem is, I don’t draw half as often as I used to. I’m out of practice, and it shows every time I put pencil to paper. “Bloody stupid pencil” thinks I. “Not letting me draw properly. It keeps going blunt. I need one of those cool Japanese self-sharpening ones.” And so the cycle begins all over again.

I know, I know. The bad craftsman always blames his blahdiblahdiblah. The implement isn’t the problem. I am. While I am endlessly patient and productive when it comes to my writing (for which I can probably thank NanoWrimo, a discipline that actually gave me the habit. Seriously, I’m twitchy and irritable if I don’t write something every day, even if it’s only Twitteration) drawing is a different matter. If it’s not perfect out of the gate, then I lose interest fast. Drawing is much tougher than writing. It’s slower and much more work intensive, and requires a different work ethic.

ellerby — One of the most accurate renditions of the "joys of cartooning ever. Clicky for the full strip.

Put it like this. I’m writing this post on a rattling train bouncing through the Home Counties, and it’s no problem. If I were to try drawing something in the same setting, I’d end up with a page full of jolty scribble. I can’t slot drawing into my daily life in the way I have with my writing. In a connected note, cartoonist Marc Ellerby has just wound up his excellent autobio strip Ellerbisms, partially because it became too tough. It was taking up too much of his time. I can sympathise, and can only bow to his efforts. I wish I could hammer out quality work on an almost daily basis in the way he does. I understand the effort that goes into seemingly effortless cartooning, and that’s partially why I’ve almost given up.

However, never say never again, as I believe Sean Connery once said just before he gave up completely. I still carry notebook, pencil and pens with me, and still scribble when the urge lands on me. And I still indulge in the occasional purchase. Bizarrely, if I’m having a bad day nothing cheers me up more than getting a pack of pens and a notebook. It soothes me in ways I can’t really explain. I love manga-style brush pens, and very nearly squeed myself at the announcement of the Sharpie Liquid Pencil. Imma get me somma them sweet thangs.

And yes, ok, I did spend a very enjoyable couple of hours browsing around the subject of tactical pens yesterday. These are great. They’re designed for the Special Forces wannabe that demands MOAR from his writing implement. It needs to write in all conditions, upside down, underwater, and double as an offensive weapon. Which is why they’re all made of aircraft grade aluminium and have spikes on the end for jabbing into nerve clusters. Or eyes. My personal favourite? The Uzi Tactical Pen. Yes, the Israeli spray-gun makers now make a pen. Look at the crenellations on that bugger. Some of the commenters call it a “DNA collector” with a dry humour you don’t often see on these kind of sites. Grind that into the back of someone’s hand and watch them not thank you for it. Owie.

More on this coming up from an unexpected direction, Readership. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to look for a notebook that’ll double as a life raft.

***UPDATED*** after TLC pointed out that I was extolling the virtues of being motionless rather than office supplies. What a doofus.

What We Did On Our Holidays: Coasting

I finally got around to cutting together the last of the films I shot while on hols in June. It’s the record of a day’s run around the North Norfolk coast. If you imagine East Anglia looking like an ear, we did the top curve. The weather was wildly changeable, but when the sun came out it was quietly lovely. Wells at low tide is always fun, as grounded boats are scattered across the estuary. And the seafood is great.

The Missing Bit

The announcement yesterday from Jeremy Hunt that the UK Film Council is to be abolished came as one heck of a shock. After a couple of appalled, sweary outbursts on Facebook and Twitter, I had a nose at the Wikipedia entry and had a bit of a think about what it is and what it does.

Film-makers like Michael Booth don’t seem too bothered. In fact, he and many others are looking on it as good news. Another X&HTeam-mate, Nick Scott, has also pointed out that his major source of funding isn’t the Film Council. It’s Full Tilt Poker. Both these gentlemen have found innovative ways to get their films funded and out to their audiences that don’t include an agency they viewed as bloated, corrupt, and in Michael’s case a shill for US interests.

It’s true that for the kind of film makers that I count as friends, the end of the Film Council can be met with a cautious cheer. Accusations of cronyism and snobbery have been rife since the council was formed ten years ago. You’re fine as long as you want to make a certain kind of film, with a certain approach. Let’s look at the kind of films that have benefitted from Film Council funding over the past decade.

Continue reading The Missing Bit

The Girl Everyone Wants

It’s taken me a while, so my apologies for being late to the party. But I think I’ve finally figured it out. I’ve realised that the Twilight Saga is a work of utter genius.

Now, I understand your misgivings, Readership. Lord knows, I shared them for long enough. A visit to the third and most recent instalment of the series, Eclipse (documented with neat charm by the wise and lovely WDW here) was tantamount to torture for me. I was the only male of voting age in the cinema. The smirk from the attendant on taking my ticket should have been warning enough. The phrase “enjoy the film” have never been uttered with less sincerity.

We left the cinema with screaming headaches and jaws agape. In the pub afterwards (because trying to make sense of the film sober at that point was a task equal to knitting with live squids) we worked round and round the problem, before coming to the conclusion that many many people had arrived at way before us.

The Twilight films are utter shit. They don’t work as romance, as horror, as drama. They don’t properly work as films. They’re prime examples of a money-grab, where a franchise with a popular following is flung onto the screen with little care and attention. The fans will go and see it regardless, as long as there’s plenty of close-ups of the stars smouldering. Or topless. Preferably both.

I travelled home, swearing that this would be the last time I went to see a film on a dare, or under the assumption that it would be entertainingly bad.

And then, gods help me, I started thinking about it some more. Admittedly, I hadn’t stopped drinking. This probably contributed to my relaxed state of mind. And it led to an epiphany. I realised the essential point to the Twilight films.

The reason that the drama is so wooden, the acting so minimal, is that we are supposed to see through it. The Twilight films are Brechtian, concealing a deeper truth behind the faux-“thrills” on screen. The actors are not playing roles, they’re archetypes. They’re symbols. They may as well (and probably should) be carrying around placards stating their intentions. We’re not supposed to believe that the Cullens are actually vampires, for heaven’s sake. That’s why all the vampiric tropes have been stripped away. No fangs. No fear of daylight.

No. The Twilight films are about greed, and how desire for a single object can destroy a carefully balanced system. It’s a treatise on economics, and a telling satire on our culture and the focus on wanting what the other guy has.

Consider. There are two families living in an isolated location, who have come to a fragile piece after centuries of enmity. They stay away from each other, and the balance is maintained.

Then an object enters this system, that the scions of both families decide that they want. It could be a car. It could be a nice jacket. In the case of the Twilight saga, it happens to be a girl. It really doesn’t matter. Bella Swan is not a character in the accepted sense of the word. She’s the equivalent of Helen of Troy. She exists simply to be fought over. In true cinematic terms, she’s a maguffin. She’s the thing that everyone in the film is chasing after for their own purposes, and therefore helps to move things along. The boys, Haircut and Six-Pack, want her without really knowing why. There certainly seems to be no sexual attraction visible. Kisses are exchanged to drive the other guy mad, not as an expression of desire.

Meanwhile the villains of the piece, Redhead and CreepyGirl, want her as a weakness they can use to exploit the others. If they can have her, or at least prevent Haircut and Six-Pack from having her, then they have won. Possession of the Object of Desire is all. Everything else is subsumed into that simple, primal urge. All focus is on the fragile, Pantene-haired creature whose expression never changes.

It would be easy to compare her porcelain features to a mask, which would then strengthen the arguments towards Twilight becoming a modern form of Greek tragedy. But this would be a mistake. There is real heart and emotion at the core of Greek drama. No. what we have here is more akin to a cool scientific procedure. Elements are set adrift in a hermetically sealed environment (very little takes place outside Forks, and the forests that close it off from the world outside) to interact weakly with each other. The words “love”, “need”, and “desire” are used but there is never any sense that the elements using them understand their meaning. The only term that makes any sense in this context is “want”. Everyone wants Bella, but they wouldn’t know what to do with her if they got her. Having her is not the point. It’s the wanting that matters.

It’s this understanding of the illogical and destructive power of greed that makes the Twilight Saga such a clever and rewarding piece of art. It’s completely fascinating, and I’m saddened that it’s taken me this long to cotton onto the ideas that make the film tick. Fancy me thinking it was just a godawful soul-less teen franchise. I really should know better.

I can’t wait to see what happens in Breaking Dawn…

Friday Fiction: I’ll be Your Mirror

A little squib that was written and didn’t make the cut for The Campaign For Real Fear. It addresses the way we all spend so much time looking at ourselves these days – and what if one day we look and something else is looking back. It’s a common enough horror meme, I guess, but by mixing it up with ideas of infection, invasion and zombification, hopefully I’ve come up with something fresh.

Note: a horror story. Which is why it’s tucked behind a More tag.

Continue reading Friday Fiction: I’ll be Your Mirror

What I Did On My Holidays Pt 1.

While I was away, I was taking video of some of our adventures in Norfolk, and I’d like to share some of them with you, oh Readership.

First up, a record of a day spent at Pensthorpe Nature Reserve. It’s best known as the home of BBC Springwatch, but it’s a cracking day out at any time of year. We were lucky and timed our visit with the arrival of the 2010 batch of chicks. This led to an amusing standoff between us and a particularly protective goose on a narrow stretch of path. The goose won, that’s all I’m saying.

We were also lucky enough to spot Packham and Humble in the wild!

A Curious Entertainment

I’ve heard a lot about “The World Cup” over the last few weeks, and it sounds like a bit of a hoot, so I thought I’d give it a go last night, especially as our national team were playing. They seem like a fine bunch of lads according to the papers, upstanding, moral and intelligent.

And do you, know, I enjoyed it. It’s a much more subtle game than I had anticipated, and it took me a while to figure out the gameplay and scoring. Here’s my understanding of it – please do let me know if I’ve got anything wrong.

There are two teams of ten men, and two stewards or “goal keepers”, whose job is to tend to a wooden frame with a net strung across it. The purpose of the game is to get a ball close to the net without it going in – if there is a danger of this happening, then the “goal keepers” are on hand to save the day. These two gentlemen, resplendent in purple and yellow, did sterling service, and the unqualified disaster of the ball touching the net remained unfulfilled.

To make the job more difficult for the players, the ball itself seems to be under some form of radio control, perhaps directed by the flag-wielding opposition lined up around the arena. Certainly, the players seemed to have problems in controlling the ball, and seemed to be forever tripping over it or missing it entirely.

The game ended in a perfect nothing to nothing score, with which everyone must have been very pleased. The game seems to be an enactment of the quest for nirvana, or nothingness, a struggle that ends with a greater understanding of the void in which we all must toil. The ongoing musical accompaniment by a troupe of trumpeters added a further meditative air to proceedings.

It was, on the whole, a most relaxing and thoughtful way to spend a couple of hours. It makes a refreshing change from the game it most resembled, “foot ball”, with much less emphasis on the Western bias towards competitiveness and “winning”.

Hiatus

I’m in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere. It’s just me, TLC, lotsa beer and food and books and a thin whisper of a phone signal. Barely enough to let me blog on the phone. So updates will be short and intermittent until we can get back onto a wi-fi network at the weekend. Meantime, I’m using the time usefully, working on the third draft of a script, starting to dig into a rewrite of Pirates, and making another of my minute-long shorts. Keep an eye on the Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute word on my doings, including my attempt to work through every Norfolk-brewed beer. Which believe me, is going to be a tough prospect as there are at least sixty available. Craft brewing up here is undergoing a renaissance, which is good news for me and bad news for my liver.
See you when I get back.

Category: Blog