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It is often difficult to review other critics' literary work. Much like
motion pictures and media, it is predominantly a subjective medium, and
therefore, one person's interpretation would be vastly different from that of another.
It all depends on what you extract from the process. As a reflection,
essayists relish this fodder; as entertainment, they drown. Can critics
enjoy films instead of draw contrasting thoughts -- or do they just delight
in the ambiguous stories that require continual debate? This is why
theorists and essayists often validate their content and opinion with
support materials leveraged as credibility. I got the sense that, with
Castaways of the Image Planet: Movies, Show Business, Public
Spectacle, Geoffrey O'Brien relishes his superior knowledge of film
theory, television and print, so much so that he languidly holds onto words
like a pregnant, unmotivated pause. In between, he peppers his reasoning
with tidbits of Hollywood lore, interviews, and other works that provide
insight on the subject.
I often ask myself why authors who pen the history of mass media never
themselves find the slightest interest in its construction, but rather trace
the origin of its path. It is an interesting dilemma on the part of the
author to draw from other texts or interviews to discover the intentions of
the filmmaker. And if an answer does not provide itself, it comes in the
form of comparisons. They instantly draw two thoughts together and bend
their ideas to suit the needs of their point. O'Brien's approach is that of
a theorist, or someone who draws from the image media, predominantly cinema,
and who catalogues them into subject matter, then draws conclusions and
contrasts. The problem with this approach is the fact that O'Brien often negates the
technology, which frequently goes hand in hand. Where is the mention of Gregg
Toland, the cinematographer, in his writings about Orson Welles? Surely the
camera work was every bit of Welles' claim to fame as the story. Imagine
Charles Foster Kane in Xanadu without the deep focus shots. I digress --
and perhaps it wasn't the point of the essay -- but it seems Welles felt
Toland's contribution deserved equal screen billing to his own (interesting
note: O'Brien does mention Dick Pope, cinematographer for Topsy-Turvy).
Furthermore, how can one judge a man's ego simply on his body of cinema he
has created, or from other biographies? Is this just the conjecture of
other theorists building a grand assumption? Much like in the game of
"telephone", facts tend to warp themselves to the receiver and then spread
virally. They become fantasy tales and urban myths rather than truths.
What I do give O'Brien credit for is his thorough journey through eclectic
media choices -- in particular, movie genres. I am impressed at his broad
scope of cinema. He strikes me as a rabid film enthusiast who can draw
examples of films that most of the general population are not exposed to.
For a student of film itching to know some show business backstory, I feel
this is invaluable.
However, O'Brien loses sight of the audience towards which he directs most of his essays. His highly intellectual bantering is
nothing short of lectures about an entertainment medium reduced to a dense
opaque field manual. Sure, I would like to believe that the majority of
those studying his text want to be enlightened via the examination of
cinema, but what I ultimately walk away from is a preachy, cascading textbook:
a droning mass of vocabulary terms chucked in your face, daring you to prove
him wrong. Take his examination of Marlon Brando in "Brando: Pro and
Con-Man"; the title alone elicits a polarized character. O'Brien paints Brando
as a brute, unapologetic to directors or actors he has worked with. It is
an uncouth caricature of the alpha-male based on recollections from Brando's
own "sort-of-autobiography". I fail to see the author's opinions placed on
a distinct point. The essay is stretched thin with a smattering of Brando
that -- although understandable, due to Brando's own complexity --
ends up providing insight that repeats to bewilderment.
More infuriating is a sense of snobbery toward modern Hollywood pictures; O'Brien often generalizes their contribution as slapstick and brash. Case
in point: his essay "A Kinder, Gentler Perversity" compacts the life of one
of history's worst film directors, Ed Wood, into how he was known to the
actors to Tim Burton's interpretation. He focuses much of this essay on Wood's
eccentricities, both in perception and in the portrayal by Johnny
Depp. Moreover, although O'Brien draws similarities to Wood's affection to
his entourage of the bizarre to Burton's own, he glosses over the true
sincerity that Wood and Burton inject into their films. What is absent is
a mention of the passion for the cinema that eventually consumed Wood's
life. True Ed Wood fans do not need to look forward to
inspiration rather than ridicule.
O'Brien's collection of essays is literary work directed towards scholars
who pursue a higher degree of comprehension of culture. The broad audience
that soaks in media daily, whether it be television, print ads, billboards or
books, do so as recreation or as casual spectators. O'Brien distills the
intelligence of cinema, a medium that has turned its back on literature, by
means of audience provocation. We go to movies and watch television for
escapism. As Preston Sturgis discovered, people just want to laugh.
However, in O'Brien's defense, his writing challenges the average viewer to
subscribe to some thought in what is present on our plates. The choice that
he volunteers: our society can continue to be effortless viewers, or we can
enrich our intake of information. O'Brien writes to inspire his own muse,
something he mentions in the introduction. Unfortunately, the degree of concentration required to soak in all his concepts is lost to the lull of
the images that flicker.
-- Thomas Kuo, cinematographer, dwells in the void known as Sherman Oaks, CA and is in production to shoot The Targets with Michael Madsen, Mark Hicks and Jaymee Ong this summer.
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About the Publisher:
Counterpoint Press publishes serious literary work, with an emphasis on
natural history, science, philosophy and contemporary thought, history, art,
poetry, and fiction. In the short time Counterpoint Press has been
publishing, its authors have received many awards, including the
PEN/Faulkner Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Bollingen
Poetry Prize, the T.S. Eliot Award, the PEN Translation Prize, the Bay Area
Book Reviewers Award, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Los Angeles Times, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Harold
Morton Landon Prize from the Academy of American Poets.
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