by Edward Champion

Wrapping Things Up

Okay, folks, after about seventeen or so films (and manifold shorts) in two weeks, I’m officially finished with the New York Film Festival. I have seen two films devoid of dialogue (save a handful of lines). I have seen a ten-minute long take of a sheep giving birth. I have watched actors lose considerable weight for the sake of their art. I have witnessed Jonathan Rosenbaum’s eloquence stand out on an overcrowded panel. And I’ve written close to 15,000 words on all this.

So I think it’s safe to say that I’ve fulfilled my obligations to world cinema, that I’ve been a “good” cultural reporter. But I am now in need of a messy grindhouse flick and some bourbon to stabilize the artsy images and subtitles I have taken in during the last two weeks. The situation has become so severe that I am now having strange dreams with subtitles. I think that’s a sign that I’ve had enough world cinema for now. Which is not to say that I won’t be crawling back to the artsy IV drip in a few weeks.

There are a few more interviews and a few more reviews forthcoming pertaining to the New York Film Festival. But I should be shifting back to literary matters, as well as delving into a few other subjects. Thanks to all for participating in this crazed journalistic experiment! We march ever onwards!

by Edward Champion

Unanticipated Communiques from 2000

I have learned through Rachel Sklar via Twitter that Google, celebrating its 10th anniversary of collecting private data from individuals to sell advertising, has permitted users to search through the Google index as it existed in 2001. I performed numerous search experiments on several fascinating names and terms, revealing fascinating results, before turning the algorithm on myself, where several frightening emails that I had sent to my longtime pal, Tom Working, were uncovered. There was a specific purpose to “Jimmy.” But revealing this purpose causes one to lose sight of the interpretive possibilities within these deranged e-epistles. So here they are:

Date: Tuesday, September 5, 2000
Subject: enter “the Wolfe”

Dear Mr. Working,

Dawn Wells has expressed disapproval at being associated with such a subversive cadre. This has not stopped her from being trapped on the island with the other Survivors. She’ll join our complex love menagerie and we’ll get in a carnal quintet before December. The ink is fresh and the paper is as disposable as a Joel Schumacher film.

Jimmy remains silent with the Washington office for three main reasons – (1) He is hard at work lobbying Congress to declare November 17 as a national holiday in his honor (this works in well with the production start date); (2) he was held up at the Smithsonian, mistaken for a rare elk species that resides in the Amazon jungle (and accidentally stuffed by several underpaid attendants); and (3) all he wanted was a Pepsi.

My safety is intact. I have lathered my body in baby seal oil and I have tested my flesh for flammability. Aside from burning my left eyebrow, I’m okay. And I anticipate applying the Zippo to my right eyebrow with the desired mixed results.

Which brings me to the issue of the Westcoast Six. I know that they’re into this whole comic book fanboy business. But their obsession with kryptonite has got to stop. I’ve called Marty Bernstein in Colorado and he’s flying in tomorrow with a lead box (codename – Pandora) that should settle the matter in a day. This should satisfy the money people for now.

How Jimmy will take this is anyone’s guess. I’ve been concerned that his pancreas will give out before the shoot. But I’ve ushered Jimmy into several free clinics for a second opinion. This is a tricky matter, given his traumatic experience in Washington.

And don’t worry about the Arizona market. We’re licensing Smell-O-Rama from John Waters for this production. Waters himself has expressed minor interest in the project. But he insists that we set the movie in Baltimore. I’ve convinced Waters that we will feature at least three shots of dogshit. He seems content with channeling Divine from the grave.

As you know, this represents considerable snowballing on my part.

“Wolfe” Habernathy sounds like a strong last-minute contender. I am, however, worried about his special requests. Six gallons of Vaseline every hour is a hard thing to come by. But if Habernathy wants it, I’ll just have to tell the Arizona and Colorado people that we just have to hang tough and provide it.

And I’ve got Ron Howard on board. He won’t be directing, but he’ll be appearing full frontal. Our test market scores indicate that a Jimmy-Ron Howard-Tipper Gore three-way will do extremely well in the Flagstaff market. Now I realize that this is an election year. But Tipper’s agent has expressed interest in becoming involved, if only to atone for the scathing censorship campaigning in the ’80’s. I’ve been perfectly honest about the circumstances. But who am I to argue? She wants to do it, if only to secure the smut bloc in Gore’s direction.

Bernstein, however, wants more. He talks deliriously of double-penetration. Can you ask the Wolfe just what kind of film we’re making here? Because the way Marty’s talking, I don’t think we’ll get the PG-13 rating.

I’ve taken care of the AOL problem. Steve Case wants a tie-in deal with the project and that should secure the capital. Never mind that the film takes place in the Middle Ages. But I have William Goldman busy doing rewrites and I’m sure we’ll figure something out.

Date: saturday, September 9, 2000
Subject: jimmy’s seen to that.

Dear Mr. Working,

Well, it seems that we’ll have to recruit Ms. R. to inspire Jimmy to get in touch with his dog side. Since Jimmy seems to be fond of flagellation, I would suggest that he be repeatedly punched by her and conditioned to enjoy the fetishistic side of violence. We will keep Ms. R. at a distance and, for her protection, allow her to be in Jimmy’s presence for no more than ten minutes at a time, with several National Guard officers poised to shoot Jimmy’s kneecaps in the event that he gets “a little crazy”.

Ms. R. stands to make a killing off of this. The contract intends to split the profit as follows…

Publisher overhead 25 percent
Tom 20 percent
Ed 20 percent
Ms. R. 20 percent
Jimmy 3 percent
The SPCA 11 percent
Florence Henderson 1 percent

I trust that you will agree that the deal is fair. And I wouldn’t worry about the literary angle. Joyce Carol Oates has been commissioned to write the review for the New York Times Book Review and she has expressed to me her admiration for Jimmy’s work.

The bodies, as you know, are a figment of Jimmy’s imagination. Jimmy would understand this, if only he had found a partner for his game of Tic Tac Toe. Sadly, the money people could not provide him with said partner.

Wink Martindale has expressed some interest in having Jimmy on as his first contestant for the new revival of Tic Tac Dough. But sadly, Wink wants to write the foreword of the book. He has tentatively titled his 2,000 word foreword – “I Never Understood My Adam’s Apple.” But sales reports indicate that we would lose 23 percent of the gross should this foreword be included. I’ve been on the phone with the Mark Goodson people trying to find another game show tie-in.

Date: Thursday, September 14 2000
Subject: a shocking development

Dear Mr. Working,

We here at the Walt Disney Corporation have recently learned of your plan (with your two associates, one Edward Champion and a man who is identified only as “Jimmy”) to cast one of our enduring characters, Mary Poppins, in a licentious light. We have also been informed of your attempts to contact Julie Andrews and involve her in this sordid offering.

Please be informed that we have muzzled Julie Andrews and provided her with all the penises that she could possibly desire for the next ten years. Accordingly, she has no interest in your project.

Concerning your use of our trademark character, I have one word to communicate to you – Stop.

While we admire your associative latitude with our creations (for they are, after all, OUR creations and not those of the overworked animators whose vocal chords have been conveniently cut), please understand that we will pursue your two-bit operation with every legal power we have under our wing.

However, your descent into porn comes at a time in which our corporation is considering pursuing similar markets, in much the same manner that we opened up our Touchstone film division to R-rated entertainment in the 1980’s.

Under the aegis of our newly created film division, Pound Politely Pictures, we would like to involve your associate, Jimmy, in Disney’s first multi-million dollar digital video porn feature. While we appreciate the input of you and Mr. Champion, we have come to realize that this Jimmy character is more sexually desirable to our demographic than the two of you put together.

In the spirit of compromise, we intend to throw loose women your way. Please keep in mind, however, that these women have serviced our lonely animators in the past and you may find that they malfunction upon climax.

Again, I request that you refrain from the “Mary Pophercherry” project and consider the benefits that our robots… er… women can offer you.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sid Disney III
Executive Intern

P.S. Concerning the microwave, it is our hope that you can provide one.

by Edward Champion

NYFF: Waltz with Bashir (2008)

[This is the thirteenth part in an open series of reports from the New York Film Festival.]

About a week ago, fearing that all of the films were turning my mass into flabby mush, I walked two brisk miles in twenty minutes to take in Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, my fourth film of the day. The movie had been described to me by one critic, who purportedly writes for a newspaper, as “a little fiesta” — a qualification that I certainly quibbled with at the time. I’m not sure that a movie depicting the trauma of war and memory can be accurately identified as a “little fiesta.” Certainly, the real-life figures drawn from the Israeli Army do interpret a break between battles as a “little fiesta,” even if they do not precisely use these two specific words. It is true that these soldiers toil in homemade banana leaf huts on the beach and frolic about just before their comrades get shot in their head. But to suggest that these activities represent a “little fiesta” is, I suspect, missing the point just a mite. I’d like to think that the critic in question was having me on, but when I questioned him about specific points in Israel’s history, he had no knowledge of events that went down in 1967.

A professional animator informed me that he had disliked the film because of its gimmick and what he characterized as “amateurish” animation, but this same gentleman had gone bananas over Shuga, a film that I did not care for very much. But it should be observed that the device of a journalist-like protagonist (here, Folman) who questions various people about the meaning of some hazy memory has its roots in Citizen Kane and numerous personal documentaries. I don’t think that Waltz with Bashir is a documentary exactly. It’s more of a recreated narrative with the appearance of an objective pursuit. Something akin to a memoir played out for the camera. Certainly the animation technique, of which more anon, lives up to this notion of reconstruction. If it is not technically successful, then it is certainly viscerally successful.

But I was determined to make up my own mind. My initial reaction after the screening was somewhat ecstatic. But now that it has been a week since I’ve seen Waltz with Bashir, I see the film with slightly different eyes. This is a film that stacks its deck just a bit too heavily. War is bad, and it doesn’t matter what side you’re on. But this predictable rush to condemn war leaves little for the audience to make up their own minds. Paths of Glory is one of the best antiwar films in cinema, but it was Kubrick’s visual genius and his insistence on wiggle room for the audience that made the film work. Waltz with Bashir offers no comparative anthill. It offers more of a sideways glance for a topic that requires thinking in twenty dimensions and more time than you have for rumination. (As Tom Bissell noted in his underrated memoir, The Father of All Things, Vietnam is a subject that one can easily devote a lifetime to.) Waltz is, however, very good about clarifying something just as troubling: more than two decades later, it cannot be stated with any certainty that war memories match up to the reality. (Come to think of it, this is likewise a subject broached by Bissell, and Waltz with Bashir and The Father of All Things might make an intriguing book/movie double bill, or perhaps “two little fiestas” for critics who cloak their ignorance in uninformed mirth.)

The reality itself is the 1982 Lebanon War, and Folman was directly involved. He fought in the Isreali Army and, now in middle age, he retains a memory of naked young men emerging out of the water before a ruined city. Some key friends figure into this fugue: the long-haired Carmi Cna’an, the teenager who everybody figured would succeed in any science, now living in Amsterdam and fiercely protective of his privacy; Shmuel Frenkel, who has taken up vigorous physical exercise and maintains a bald pate; and Israeli war correspondent Ron Ben-Yeshai, who telephoned then-Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon about the massacres at Sabra and Shatila and was given a peremptory answer to back off.

What is quite interesting about Waltz with Bashir is its production method. Folman tracked down the people who haunted his memories, interviewed them, and then styled an animated narrative around these efforts. He even managed to persuade these people to reproduce their voices for the film. (Only a handful of Folman’s subjects declined.)

Each figure appears flat, representing a clear demarcation along a particular focal point. At times, it’s akin to watching a Flash animation or something involving cardboard cutouts from a pre-digital time. Folman’s team has added layers of smoke and reflections atop this basic approach.

Folman also has respect for his subjects’ wishes. When Carmi Cna’an declares that Folman can draw him as he is talking about war, he requests that Folman not include his son. Sure enough, the camera drifts away from the house as Carmi Cna’an engages in this paternal pastime.

But while the testimony that Folman unravels from his subjects certainly inhabits a feel of a bygone time — an atmosphere enhanced by a decent soundtrack and dutiful pop cultural juxtaposition — Folman fumbles a bit on memory’s false starts. Folman’s best friend and shrink, Ori Sivan, brings up a psychological experiment. When subjects were given photographs containing one false element, they believed that the false element was part of the memory. While Folman has exonerated himself somewhat by presenting this caveat to those seeking truth, he nevertheless remains very determined to align his memories to the film’s final moment: a live-action video clip depicting Sabra and Shatila’s aftermath. And while this footage is heartbreaking, with injustices that made me quite angry, I’m not sure if it is entirely fair to corral the film’s theme of ever-shifting memory to this harder reality. If anything, this piecemeal clip presents additional questions about the relationship between documentation and memory that were better pursued in Standard Operating Procedure. This conclusive curveball not only undermines Folman’s thesis and stubs out the strengths of his early emphases, but I suspect that this eleventh-hour departure was why the critic offered me a diabolical conclusion about war being “a little fiesta.”