The Soul of a Mann

I never saw a single episode of Michael Mann's recent Los Angeles-based TV series, Robbery Homicide Division. Apparently no-one else did, either: it couldn’t even finish its first season. Which is a shame, because L.A. seems to bring out the best in Mann.

His movies are remembered for their visual flair, which he developed episode by episode in Miami Vice. But an exercise in visual style can only generate so much passion, in the viewer and in the purveyor, and Mann's focus continually penetrates the surface of his shiny vehicles. From Manhunter, to The Last of the Mohicans, to the flashily misconceived Ali, Mann has probed the issue of loyalty with depth and subtlety. People are always sacrificing some aspect of their deepest being to gain something, be it love, money, their dreams. What, Mann keeps asking, are they losing, and what are they gaining?

This is the underlying concern of all Michael Mann's movies, but his L.A. thrillers, Heat and now Collateral, could almost pass for extended Socratic dialogues. Dressed in designer clothes you can't afford. In a nightclub you'll never get access to. Playing cool music you wish you'd discovered. And shooting these really cool guns. In other words, ripping entertainment with value.

Heat was a dynamic exploration of the conflict between Catholic and Protestant, setting up Robert DeNiro as an outlaw whose devotion to Catholic values of family, fairness, and compromise are tested to the point of ruination by the Protestant ("Method-ist") Al Pacino. Pacino's cop willingly sacrifices everything - family, compassion, love - to his dogmatic creed. When Pacino finally bags DeNiro, we get the sense that without villains, this man has nothing, either inside himself or outside. Heat has a place in my top ten favorites, and would probably have garnered Mann the same respect Scorsese gets out of critical habit, had Mann only lingered more operatically on his characters’ anguish.

Mann’s seemingly unforgivable impulse is to entertain. Collateral doesn't dig quite as deeply as Heat, but it has an unmistakable intelligence, and is every bit as compelling to watch. It should be hailed as this summer's best thriller.

Let's get Tom Cruise out of the way, first: much has been made of his playing the bad guy for a change, as if this were his riskiest venture to date. Nothing could be further from the truth; despite his stature, Cruise is a commanding figure who’s done his best work bringing a sympathetic undercurrent to characters with a natural preening arrogance.

Also: wears sunglasses well.

The real discovery in this movie is Jamie Foxx, a towering, muscular actor who possesses an easy charm. Foxx is required to work against type, and portray a gentle character, a taxi-driver named Max, who is surely the antithesis of Foxx, Cruise, Mann and no doubt every male in Hollywood: a quiet and meticulous worker, compulsively adverse to the slightest risk. The movie opens with Max driving a gorgeous attorney (Jada Pinkett Smith) downtown. He converses with her, and gradually, cautiously charms her. The sexual chemistry between the two becomes unmistakable, but the ride concludes with Max incapable of taking the logical next step of proposing another meeting – she has to return to the cab and offer him her business card. When pressed, Max admits he has dreams that are larger than the cab he’s driving. At this point, anyone who’s taken a taxi in L.A. expects the obvious - he’s written a movie, he takes acting classes – but, no: Max dreams of establishing his own taxi service to a tourist locale. This man does not belong in Hollywood.

Of course, his next rider is Mr. Hollywood himself, an immaculately dressed and coifed killer named Vincent (Cruise). Spouting nonsensical, self-regarding jargon, Vincent is a nihilistic tour-de-force, commanding and even charming a loyalty from Max that Max knows will not be reciprocated at the end of the ride. Vincent asks Max if he likes Jazz. Of course Max prefers classical music, not because of its subtlety, grandeur or depth of emotion, but because of its predictability. Vincent is Jazz. His improvisation is breathtaking; his execution(s), brilliant. For much of the movie we’re transfixed and thrilled as Vincent dispatches various nasty-looking, anonymous victims. It’s when he goes to work on the people we know that things get uncomfortable.

As the movie progresses toward its inevitable confrontation, Max gradually, painfully learns how to merge risk-taking with some cautious improvisation of his own – surely a metaphor for those of us trying to navigate a post-Enron work environment, one which seems geared to reward the treacherous and treasonous. Vincent’s final rallying cry is, “I do this for a living!” – a creed that has no value outside of the ironic. It’s the diminutive Max who locates what’s worth living, and dying, for.

Might We Re-Direct Your Attention From Nicholson Baker To ... Ladies And Gentlemen, Mr. Leon Wieseltier!

You could say that Nicholson Baker, the only fiction writer I know of who’s had a novel sent up on Saturday Night Live, has a knack for attracting the spotlight, but you'd be doing "understatement" a disservice. Still, there aren't many avenues left for novelists seeking fame and fortune, and even controversy is an increasingly fickle route - just ask Brett Easton Ellis. But where Ellis's humorless, workmanlike prose fails to lift his subject from the gutter, Baker's prosaic mastery does just the opposite. Baker might ham-fistedly seize the spotlight with his subject matter, like a kid taking a barrel over Niagara Falls, but he finesses it with spectacular prose that defies gravity. He doesn't just survive the plunge; he swims back to the top and takes a bow.

I haven't yet read his latest novel, Checkpoint, but here's another understatement: the premise of listening to a protagonist justify and outline his plot to assassinate George W. Bush makes me a little uneasy. Is this the level to which the interaction of politics and literature has descended? Thankfully, we have Leon Wieseltier's review of the book, and the controversy, for The New York Times Book Review. Registered users of the NYT website can read it here. I highly recommend it.

A Few Short Reviews

Movies

Spider-Man 2
Taking The Wife out to the movies is a rare experience, given the age of our children and our "remote country lifestyle," so when we do make a night of it, we work hard to agree on the movie. We figured we had one shot at a summer movie on the big screen, and threw our lot in with Spidey.

It was a good choice. Thrills, chills, suspense and spectacle - the best of the superhero sequels even managed to bring a tear to my eye during its more poignant moments. Director Sam Raimi devotes the majority of the movie to the travails of Spider-Man's alter-ego, Peter Parker. Thanks to Toby McGuire's comic timing and well-honed moony-eyed shtick, it quickly becomes clear why Spider-Man is the most compelling superhero from an extremely large herd: Parker is a genuinely sympathetic shmuck, whose insecure personality never entirely disappears when he muscles up and puts on the union suit. Contrast this with the Batman/Bruce Wayne split, or Superman/Clark Kent: Batman's utility belt has more personality than Bruce Wayne, while the illegal Alien Kent is more compelling than the invincible Superman. Marvel Comics reconfigured the equation, got it right, and set it out in bold type on the cover of every issue: "Peter Parker Is: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN." Amen to that.

Videos
The Station Agent is not to be missed: a poignant reminder that sometimes it's the annoying people in your life who keep you sane. Speaking of which...

Books
The Princess & The Whiskheads: A Fable by Russell Smith. What are we to do with this Smith guy? On the one hand, his day-gig with The Globe & Mail sets him up as the secular fool - delivering stentorian proclamations to his fellow victims of fashion; earnestly treading water in the hip-chic vortexes of Toronto the Good, then toweling off to deliver the temperature of the water to The Nation At Large. On the other hand, this callow knob furrows into the corner booth of an Italian café the rest of us haven't yet discovered, unfolds his iMac and bangs out peerless, spot-on fiction. How Insensitive, Noise, and Young Men are all solid, good reads, which find Russell impressively channeling different muses, from Waugh to Cheever, while adding a soupcon of personality that leaves you wondering if you aren't finally seeing a bit of the Real Smith at last.

But on the other hand again, he writes and publishes a weird and wankerish little book like TP&TW. For the first 50 pages, the set-up is lushly surreal, not unlike Jeffrey Ford's divine Dali-of-the-Pulps, The Physiognomy. Then things quickly get didactic, as The Moral Of The Story is delivered with heavy-handed earnestness and aristocratic good will. Smith can still be forgiven, for three reasons: the hardcover is a cheap find in most remainder bins, the book is mercifully short, and two of the seven woodcuts by Wesley W. Bates have a pleasant, shadowy eroticism. A thoughtless consumer could almost be excused for razoring out and framing these exceptions, but you won't catch me advocating such a barbaric practice.

A House On The River, by Nessa Rapoport. This is a terrific little memoir. Rapoport is a New Yorker, 40, with child, taking a houseboat with other family members to a Canadian locale that triggers vivid childhood memories. She measures the distance between her adolescent yearnings and the adult reality, and cautiously assesses the journey ahead, including mortality - her own, and that of loved ones. A beguiling and poignant read, perfect for the closing days of summer.

The Spiritual Health of Nation States

When they said, "repent"
I wonder what they meant

The Future, Leonard Cohen


I am indebted to the Chronicle of Higher Education and its sister site, Arts & Letters Daily, for articulating and exploring Evolutionary-Biology. Evo-bio attempts to account for concepts like aesthetics, spirituality and religion, are (at least at these sites) thoughtful and precise, debatable and provocative. Articles like this one are typical, giving a biological and psychological rationale for the development of religion, and accounting for characteristic similarities in the different world religions. And even though I am existentially at odds with my evo-bio contemporaries, I type the following, in the hope that, from the shallows of my naiveté and superstition, I can perhaps return the favor of illumination and encouragement in some small way.

I am a North American mortal: the recent alerts add to my already anxious state, and the noxious quality of global chatter does little to soothe me. The other weekend, our family met with some friends from Hong Kong, who were cottaging at Lake Huron. Over the prototypical cottage meal of burgers and beer, we were told of how, following 9/11, Chinese Internet chat-rooms were filled with anti-American rhetoric. The Chinese government finally shut down these sites, thinking censorship was the fastest way to deal with the scourge of hatred toward its largest trade partner. Unfortunately the bile rose elsewhere - i.e., the street - so the sites were back up within a week. My friend said the next step the Chinese government took was, essentially, a propaganda blitz attempting to evoke empathy for the stricken Americans. Chinese citizens, who had for generations been subjected to "Yankee Running Dog" rhetoric, reacted with understandable surprise and confusion. My friend couldn't comment on the effectiveness of the blitz, but he was quick to say that Chinese ideas involving nation states are of necessity in constant flux.

Shortly after that conversation, I read this piece by Sasha Abramsky, who notes that anti-Americanism is now commonly expressed among the Western World's literati, in terms that are emotionally charged and inflammatory, if not always articulate or rational. Abramsky laments the declining global currency of the "idea" of America; an idea that almost singularly crossed cultures and inspired entire generations.

It seems to me, after reading Abramsky, that this "Ideal America" is a concept in line with religious concepts, particularly as evo-bio types parse them. Most secular citizens are committed to some idea larger than the individual. In the case of the Ideal America, the individual is duly required to pony up a degree of faith, sacrifice, legal observance and allegiance. To call this Ideal America a god would legitimately raise the hackles of monotheists (and I don't make the analogy to be scandalous), but a wholly secular citizen might, after some qualification, shrug and concur.

Journalist Michael Kelly once clipped that Americans had lost sight of something every 12 year old in Bosnia knows: that there are some things worth killing and dying for. Abramsky despairs, as do I, at witnessing a growing tide of people who have taken Kelly's sentiment to heart, and are committed to killing and dying in an effort to bring down both the reality and the idea of America. But if the idea of America is to regain its moral value, I think it could benefit from grafting a few other religious commitments: namely, repentance and atonement.

At this point, even I, the descendent of a long line of pulpit-pounders, involuntarily shudder. And who wouldn't cringe at pulling these angry words out of the carnie revival tent? "Repent" has been recklessly flung about, its currency cheaply spent among a shifting populace of superficial pietists who are happiest when they're miserable. But I think there is still some coin to be found here; anyone who has invested seriously in a marriage could frankly admit that words like repentance and atonement, however archaic, still have heft and value. Adamant insistence on one's own rectitude is often the short path to disaster. Humility is still the virtue in shortest supply, not only in myself and others, but also in our nation states.

In my childhood, the common environment for this sort of soul-seeking required "every eye closed, every head bowed." The reality, at least with me, was every hackle raised, every mandible clenched. So let's take a deep breath, step back from the emotional tangle of our current environment, and look at an incident that still manages to achieve some consensus: Vietnam. If the majority of Americans can concede that Vietnam was, to put it gently, "regrettable," can our nation state not muster up the moral courage to seek some measure of atonement with the Vietnamese? Starting with re-opened trade relations seems like a win-win no-brainer - a small step, that I would hope might lead to something more significant: say, committing ourselves and our resources to addressing the effects of chemical and biological warfare on succeeding generations of Vietnamese children. As a republic, we decry any ideology or system that willfully inflicts harm on innocents - any step we take to redress our own history of these offences would be significant.

In my day I've eaten some crow - I expect to eat more once this gets posted. It's not pleasant, but it's been good for me, so I would, perhaps foolishly, encourage our nation, the "real" America, to strive for the Ideal America: to humbly seek atonement. This would surely restore some global currency to the Ideal America. It might even buy the real America a few cautious friends, and some much needed time.

Just Rock On By ....

The summer I graduated, 1983, I worked in a furniture factory. I made decent money for my slouch-shouldered efforts, and frugally socked away most of it for my post-secondary education (the shape of which was yet to be determined). I was so frugal, in fact, that I chose not to spend $34 to see The Police on their Synchronicity tour. The morning after they played, I came to work and faced a proletariat populace clad in Synchronicity muscle shirts. Again and again that day I was told what an incredible show I'd missed.

I shrugged it off. "There'll be another album, another tour," I said. "I'll catch them next time around."

I can't remember if the group managed to stay intact for the tour's duration. All I know is: I missed my chance.

This became a habit. Def Leppard clothed my co-workers in a yet another swath of fabric: the inverted Union Jack. This was certainly my brand of music at the time, but I had already allocated seven dollars for the album, and chose to rock out at home with the headphones on. Months later, their drummer lost an arm and the band slid into obscurity. Judas Priest rolled into town with their enormous Iron Gods set-pieces, and Rob Halford on a Harley. Then Halford left, some kid named "The Ripper" hired on, and the band was demoted to the bar scene. David Lee Roth and Van Halen stopped by on their 1984 tour ("Full moon tonight - should be a crazy concert!" chortled one DJ); as ever, I checked the balance of my bank account and elected to stay home. As fate would have it, when I finally considered myself flush enough to attend rock concerts, the ultimate indulgence came forth and presented itself: the inaugural Lollapalooza tour, with its loud parade of delirious freaks. Definitely my demographic, but by then I was experiencing a sort of aural exhaustion. My musical diet had shifted to jazz, peppered with a bit of classical and world beat samplings. And so the audience enjoyed Jane's Addiction minus the pleasure of my company.

My recollection of these "misses" isn't bitter enough to qualify as genuine regret (and frankly, the list is a bit embarrassing), but I do sometimes wonder if my adolescence wasn't characterized by a level of self-denial that was perhaps a touch too rigorous. And so I now find myself at that stage in life where the yearly sell-out appearance of The Rolling Stones actually makes an inchoate sort of sense. I can just barely recall a day when Their Satanic Majesties were still considered "dangerous." Hard to believe, I know. But if, as Dylan once said, "Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace," then I suppose he's equally capable of donning the guise of toothless self-parody.

Shortly before his murder, John Lennon commented that a Beatles reunion was an act of futility, because the issue wasn't really about getting the Beatles to make music again; what people were really asking for was a return to 1965, to be 16 again, and that just wasn't possible. Were we to catch Sir Mick in one of his more candid moments, he might beg to differ. And Lennon was just being disingenuous: what he was really saying was you weren't ever going to catch him taking part in a nostalgia act.

Is nostalgia the ultimate fate of all rock & roll? To what degree can the adolescent rock vehicle support maturity? These questions come to mind after seeing Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster. It's an engaging flick due simply to the novelty of watching a group of men in their 30s clumsily taking their first steps out of adolescence. On the downside, the movie is about 40 minutes too long, and the process of getting the band to create their "mature" album (with the mature title of St. Anger) is at times tedious and pointlessly convoluted. But the film completely immerses the viewer in a "behind-the-scenes" perspective that reveals a startling ordinariness rock audiences rarely guess at; I found it all compelling entertainment.

Getting back to my missed concerts, there are two reasons why I don't harbor any regrets. By now I've attended enough concerts to realize that 99.9% of them are a mediocre experience: the sound is lousy, usually you have to fight to get a good view, and when the band is on the verge of breaking up, they aren't having any fun, either. But more than that, by some miracle I managed to catch that .1% of magic: Jason & The Scorchers at the El Mocombo, an act which one NME critic said was one of the three most incredible performances he'd ever seen.

Come to think of it, I caught the Scorchers when they were fresh into their clean & sober period. Their music had always dealt with sin & salvation, but in their early days they made it clear they were well on the losing side of the equation. That personal reckoning fuelled their performances, giving them an unforgettable energy. When they sobered up, their final two albums came with a substantial shift in perspective, and though the Scorchers got tighter and played with more clarity, their urgency quickly faded. The band is now history. A few solo projects have seen the light of day - frontman Jason Ringenberg's most recent is a children's album.

It all gives me considerable pause, and Metallica fans - and band members – should take note: the future beckons.

Alcohol and "Flow"

"Walker Percy said it was because of the re-entry problem. You spend all day embedded in your fictional world, well, how do you return to Earth? To return to actuality, a lot of writers have a couple of drinks, sometimes more. But it's a law of diminishing returns. If you don't moderate, you have to quit, and that's the sad story." Jim Harrison, interviewed for The Globe & Mail by Rebecca Caldwell.

For the past two weeks, I've mulled over this analysis of the writer's relationship with alcohol. It's the first time I've heard "re-entry" named as a source of writer’s anxiety. "Writer's Block" is the more common bogeyman, and numerous writers frankly admit that a little lubrication gets the ball rolling quite nicely, thank you. Extreme practitioners of this school of thought (call it the Bukowski/Burroughs/Rimbaud model, if you like) ascribe to the notion that even if alcohol finally ruins the most prodigious talents, it's worth the risk if it somehow facilitates the early production of The Next Great Novel. It's the prerogative of youth to studiously ignore Harrison's words regarding the law of diminishing returns, but one hopes they can at least pay some heed to William Styron, who claimed it was fine if you wrote drunk, so long as you were sober when you edited.

This mode has never posed much of a temptation for me: the few times I've put pen to paper while under the influence have yielded some spectacularly embarrassing results, usually in the form of sentimental prose that lurches toward the maudlin. This business of using alcohol to soften re-entry, however, resonates with me. I've written some fiction - a novel and a few dozen short stories sit restively in the drawer - and can attest with Anne Lamott that the worst aspect of writing is everything that surrounds it. Distractions, getting started, finishing, editing and publishing (admittedly the latter aspect is to date something of a rarity) can induce considerable misery, but these dark specters disappear entirely, along with every other concern, when the words flow. In fact, "Flow" is the term psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi uses to describe this state of consciousness, a condition he portrays as both desirable and productive.

I can see his point, but perhaps my level of emotional maturity hasn't yet grown to better accommodate "flow." It is an undeniable thrill to be in "flow," but like any high, it leaves you with a rough ride back to earth. I do my best to regularly allocate a specific period of "flow time," but good luck trying to pull me out of it when the kids return from school, demanding afternoon snacks and help with their homework.

I think Harrison is right to point out that moderation is finally, for those of us who reside in the Land of Plenty, the challenge of our life. We can enter "flow" any number of ways: writing fiction or writing code, reading, cooking, playing basketball, tending to business - you name it. And it's a delightful state of mind to be in, but I question whether it contributes as much to a person's character as Csikszentmihalyi claims. For better or worse, our "character" is what responds to impertinent interruptions, and it requires a head that is moderately clear of intoxicants.

Promissory Note

My apologies for being so quiet lately. The summer got off to a roaring start, thanks to my friend's Surprisingly Tasteful & Intimate Greek Wedding in la belle Province. The event was certainly a delight, as was my first(!) exposure to Montreal.

I hope to nail down some thoughts and impressions in a few days, but at the moment my life remains abuzz as we set about properly celebrating the 50th anniversary of my wife's parents. Please stay tuned: words to come on Saturday.