Archive for March, 2012

• “Napoleon,” dynamite

  Date: 2012.03.27 | Category: Movies | Response: 1

  The first silent movie I ever saw was Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush” at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Ever since, I’ve made a habit of attending silent films whenever they’re screened in cinemas, which, at least in the Bay Area, is surprisingly often. There’s a silent film festival held here every summer, the largest one in the U.S. The screenings are always packed, and the fest’s artistic director, Anita Monga, is one of the most respected people in the industry.

  So that’s probably how Oakland’s grand Paramount Theatre wound up hosting the epic restoration of Abel Gance’s 1927 “Napoleon.” The film preservationist Kevin Brownlow has dedicated much of his life (he’s now 73 years old) to this movie; he first saw scenes from it at the age of 15. Surely the four screenings of “Napoleon” held here represent the culmination of his decades of work.

  However, I have to admit I hesitated before buying a ticket. For one thing, the movie is five and a half hours long. Also, I didn’t want to wind up in the nosebleed seats, and the rear orchestra tickets I selected cost $90 each. (The top ticket price was $120.) That sounds like a lot of dough to shell out for a movie, but bear in mind that this silent film had live accompaniment by the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra, directed by the great composer Carl Davis. As challenging as it seemed to sit and watch a movie for five and a half hours, I could only imagine how difficult it must be to play music for that amount of time.

  As a fan and supporter of the Silent Film Festival through the years, I figured there was no way I could turn down the chance to see “Napoleon.” And you know what? At the end of the five and a half hours (plus two 20-minute intermissions and a 105-minute dinner break), I was actually sorry it was over. The film ends with the 27-year-old Napoleon’s first Italian campaign; Gance’s ambitious plan was to make a six-part biography of Bonaparte, but it was not to be, obviously. So we will have to content ourselves with Part One, which begins with Napoleon as a schoolboy, participating in a snowball fight; it carries through the French Revolution, the siege of Toulon, his imprisonment, courtship and marriage of Josephine, and finally, his triumph in Italy.

  The last 20 minutes or so of the film are partly what make it so expensive and difficult to exhibit. Gance filmed it in widescreen, which he accomplished by using three interlocking cameras and then showing the resulting film on three screens. He was way ahead of his time — widescreen was a rarity until the invention of Cinescope in 1953. The Paramount had to construct three separate projection booths to properly display it. When the curtain finally opened, revealing the full triptych of screens, it was a moment I don’t think anyone in the theater will ever forget. There are a couple of shots here (along with some beautiful photos of the Paramount), though of course photos can’t capture the majesty of the moving image, combined with Davis’ rousing score. When the images on the three screens were tinted with the colors of the French flag — one red, one white, one blue — the audience cheered wildly.

  It would be nice if the success of “The Artist” introduced more people to the magic of silent film. Personally, I love the realness of it — in that pre-CGI era, if you see a thousand soldiers on horseback, you know that someone actually had to wrangle a thousand men and a thousand horses, and couldn’t simply replicate them through the magic of computers. Sometimes a close-up or a scene will seem to go on way too long, because those of us in the MTV generation are used to quick cuts and rapid-fire editing, or you’ll wonder why the actors are all wearing so much eyeliner (Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean” has nothing on silent film stars). But it’s just because silent films have a style and an endearing cinematic language all their own, and it’s something that I, and many other people dwelling in the 21st century, have come to love.

  I don’t know if “Napoleon” will ever get a DVD release — there seem to be a lot of disputes going on in regards to the rights — but even if it does, nothing will ever replicate the experience of seeing it in a beautiful theater packed with movie fans. Here is a little video containing some scenes from the film, accompanied by Davis’ beautiful central theme.

• The Agony of the Mike Daisey Fan

  Date: 2012.03.17 | Category: Theater | Response: 2

  I’m a longtime fan of Mike Daisey. I’ve written about him on this blog many times; he even quoted a couple of the things I wrote over on his own blog (like my description of 2007′s “Great Men of Genius” cycle as “the theatrical event of the year”). I’ve put his shows in my best-of-the-year lists, and have recommended them to lots of people.

  So yeah, I feel extremely betrayed today after his “truthiness” scandal. I listened to the “Retraction” episode of “This American Life” all the way through, even though it was incredibly awkward and painful. It really laid bare how he lied to Ira Glass and the “TAL” team in order to get his story on the air. But while Daisey apologized for letting “TAL” present “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” as journalism, he is not sorry that he embellished the facts in the piece: “I stand by it as a theatrical work. I stand by how it makes people see and care about the situation that’s happening there. I stand by it in the theater.”

  I was going to say that Daisey’s excuses reminded me of that old Mark Twain quote, “Never let facts get in the way of a good story,” but then I was unable to find corroboration that Twain actually said that. Since this blog is not a journalistic enterprise, I guess I could probably take the same type of  license that Daisey does. Who cares if what I say is 100% factual, as long as the posts are entertaining? It’s been mentioned that David Sedaris, a frequent “TAL” contributor, reportedly fudges the truth in his tales, but to me, the difference is that the stakes are lower. Nobody really cares if Sedaris’ story of taking guitar lessons from a dwarf teacher is the God’s honest truth or not. But Daisey’s monologue had a higher purpose than merely entertaining the audience — he wanted to create change, even passing out a sheet after the show urging people to take follow-up actions, such as emailing Apple to complain about abuses at the Foxconn plant.

  Despite successful runs at Berkeley Rep and New York’s Public Theatre, Daisey was pretty much under the radar — theater is hardly, except at the loftiest Broadway levels of Andrew Lloyd Webber and ABBA, a mass art form — until “TAL” picked up his story and ran an edited version in January. I’ve been following Daisey’s blog for years, and all of a sudden, he was everywhere, becoming the go-to spokesman for the cause. When activists delivered a quarter million petitions to Apple stores urging the company to make “an ethical iPhone,” Daisey was quoted in news stories about the event. He became a frequent guest on high profile TV shows, and wrote op-eds for the New York Times web site and the New York Daily News. And while he told Glass that he worried “all the time” that the untruths in his monologue would eventually come to light, stating that “I was kind of sick about it,” he continued to use his blog to confrontationally call out tech journalists whom he felt were not sufficiently skeptical about Apple.

  “One of his weaknesses is his sanctimoniousness,” says an anonymous friend of Daisey’s, quoted in the Daily Beast. “Mike has made himself an easy target because he can’t keep his mouth shut. He got really excited about the press. He didn’t think what the consequences would be of writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times. He didn’t think about what it would mean to be quoted constantly about Apple. He just kept going.”

  Ira Glass told Daisey that he ”thought that the story was literally true seeing it in the theater… I saw your nuclear show, I thought that was completely true. I thought it was true because you were on stage saying ‘this happened to me.’ I took you at your word.” Daisey responded, “I think you can trust my word in the context of the theater.” Of course, the trouble only happened when Daisey took his story out of the context of the relative obscurity of the theater, broadcasting it onto radio, TV and in newspapers. My armchair psychologist’s point of view is that he loved commanding a higher profile, reveling in the ability to suddenly communicate with a million people at once instead of a couple hundred at a time in the theater. The average stage actor or playwright doesn’t get asked to appear on Bill Maher’s show. This was the big time.

  On “TAL,” Glass mentioned in passing a Daisey monologue I’d never heard of — “Truth,” dealing with the James Frey and J.T. LeRoy literary scandals. It only had a short off-Broadway run, but it did yield this interview that appeared on a blog back in 2006. Reading it now is revealing, to say the least. Daisey insists that “my shows aren’t designed to have messages,” something he’d obviously changed his mind on prior to working on “Agony.” “I can see parts of myself reflected in [Frey's and LeRoy creator Laura Albert's] hungers and failures… I found that the Frey and LeRoy cases make an interesting lens for looking at what our values are in regard to truth, from the personas that some feel they need to inhabit to tell stories, to the famewhoring and literary starmongering that follow, and to the cults of personality that worship experience and testimonial above transformation and synthesis in writing.”

  It will be interesting to see what happens to Daisey’s career after this scandal. His blog and Twitter feed have been uncharacteristically silent lately, and he is wrapping up a run of “Agony” at New York’s Public Theatre this weekend. According to the Wall Street Journal, he has “cut questionable sections from the monologue and added a prologue explaining the controversy.” The Public is standing by him, although a one-night-only Chicago performance (where Daisey was to have been introduced by Ira Glass — my guess is that they’re not exactly going to be BFFs from here on out) has been canceled. Considering Daisey’s penchant for mining his own life history for his shows, it wouldn’t surprise me if this incident someday turns up in a monologue. As to whether I’ll go see it… I don’t know. I still respect his talent, but I have no respect for his integrity.

  Worst of all, it’s quite likely that he’s done damage to the cause he claims to care about, the abuses of Chinese workers. (A friend of mine posted, tongue-in-cheek, that “the working conditions at all Apple factories in China must be exemplary, so guilt-free iPads for everyone!”) Glass closed the “Retraction” episode by interviewing the New York Times‘ Charles Duhigg, who has reported extensively from Shenzhen. When Glass asked him if he should “feel bad” about the working conditions in Foxconn’s factories, Duhigg replied: “Do you feel comfortable knowing that iPhones and iPads and, and other products could be manufactured in less harsh conditions, but that these harsh conditions are perpetuated because of an economy that you are supporting with your dollars?… If you made different choices, if you demanded different conditions, if you demanded that other people enjoy the same work protections that you yourself enjoy, then, then those conditions would be different overseas.” I hope that message doesn’t get lost because of Daisey’s hubris and poor judgment.

• Long Live the King

  Date: 2012.03.05 | Category: Books | Response: 0

  King Peggy is kind of like a real-life Harry Potter for grown-ups. Remember how poor Harry was living a sad and lonely life with the Dursleys when he learned that he was really an extra-special wizard, and was whisked off to Hogwarts? Well, Peggielene Bartels was a secretary in her mid-50s with an underwater mortgage on her suburban D.C. condo; her husband had left her when she proved unable to have children; and, like Harry, she was an orphan: her beloved mother had passed away.

  Bartels’ life changed when she received a phone call early one morning stating that she had been chosen King of her African village. The previous King, Peggy’s uncle, had recently died at age 92, and the village elders had to call upon the Ancestors to choose a new ruler. Out of a long list of possible regents, Peggy (the only female on the list) was the winner. Yes, in Ghana, a woman can be King; there are a few other females with that royal title, though it’s still comparatively rare.

  Like Harry, who learned that being a wizard was not without its challenges, Peggy soon realized that being King of Otuan, Ghana, was no picnic. For one thing, the village elders had been cheating the town for years, using tax money to pay for alcohol and prostitutes. Meanwhile, the town had no running water, and children had to spend several hours a day walking back and forth to carry often-filthy water to their homes. The royal palace was in a horrible state of disrepair, and there was no money to fix it up — something that had to be done before the late King could be buried in a dignified manner. Somehow, on a secretary’s salary, Peggy was expected to pay for the renovations and a lavish funeral.

  Early in her reign, Peggy met journalist Eleanor Herman at a Ghanaian embassy function; Herman was instantly captivated by her story and decided to write about the new King. She traveled to Ghana several times with Peggy, and the result is this book, which is written in the third person, so it’s more biography than memoir. Herman mentions in the afterword that she became interested in Africa after reading Alexander McCall Smith’s “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series; Ghana may be a long distance from Mma Ramotswe’s Botswana, but the traditionally built Peggy may be as close as you can come to a real-life version of Smith’s beloved heroine. She has an unstoppable desire for justice and a solid sense of right and wrong, something which immediately causes conflict with the corrupt elders in her town.

  King Peggy is living proof of the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction. There are things that happen in this book, especially the events surrounding the grand funeral Peggy eventually holds for her predecessor, that are so jaw-dropping you might dismiss them as too farfetched if they turned up in a novel.

  The book is over 300 pages long, but I couldn’t put it down — I was up ’til 1 AM finishing it, and I hope that Herman and Bartels are working on a sequel. At the moment, Bartels is still a part-time king, continuing to work as a secretary and spending a few weeks in Ghana every year. (She has some new elders watching over the town, including some powerful women, to ensure that the town’s money will never again be misspent.) The palace has been renovated, and the town finally has some fresh, clean water available for its residents, but there’s still a lot to be done. Luckily, King Peggy seems like the right woman to do it. The ancestors chose wisely.