Things I liked in July 2022

8Elvis Presley, Baz Luhrmann*

It’s difficult to think of any Fast and Furious film without the hard cuts and frenetic racing. And similarly no Tarkovsky would be complete without a haunting and meditative long take. This is a strategy to teach the audience how to watch the film. Every film has to invent a new visual language to tell its story, just like a writer has to carve out a foreign language in their mother tongue. A director could just use standard film grammar, long established by Hollywood. Wide establishing shots, followed by mediums to set the scene, then close ups in a shot/reverse shot sequence as the actors say their lines. Of course, that would be boring.

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I’m glad this film chose something different instead. This film is extravagant, over the top, schizophrenic (find the right word here). The camera is gymnastic: It pans and rotates, tracks from extreme wide to extreme close. The editing is frenetic, energetic, fun. It’s totally a Baz Luhrmann film.

And what could be more appropriate for the subject? When you think of Elvis you think of excess: Excessive talent, excessive charisma, excessive appetite.

It’s nice to see Tom Hanks as a bad guy. And Austin Butler in the title role absolutely embodies Elvis.

The story is told from the perspective of Elvis’ long time financial abuser, Colnel Tom, and humanises him a little in the process. The film follows Elvis from brith to death, and has all the problems that biopics normally have: which is a lack of focus, and a long third act. Saying that, the sheer bombast and energy of the film more than make up for the faults of the medium.

Howard’s End, E. M. Forester.

This is a slow moving river of a novel. It’s sort of like reading a pleasant summer’s day somewhere in the rolling hills of southern England. Perfect to amble with through the hot month.

Like a lot of English novels, it’s about property (our national obsession), hypocrisy, marriage, manners, and who shall inherit England.

There’s not much to add to the voluminous literature on this book. It’s deservedly a classic. But a writer can learn something: your characters don’t exist individually, but in relation to each other. Broadly the plot, such as it it, follows three families: the cultured, but ditzy and passionate Schlegels, the hard-nosed and uncompromising Wilcoxes, and the tragic Basts. Central to the plot is a marriage between Henry Wilcox and Margret Schlegel (who becomes Henry’s second wife). They are foils for each other, Henry always using people, but making sound investments, Margret (and her sister Helen) always misjudging their investments, yet trying to help others.

Initially, I hated this nook. I didn’t get what the fuss was about. The Schlegel’s seemed dumb and annoying and the Wilcoxes monstrous. But then, like being pulled into a deep current on a river, I couldn’t stop reading. I realised that this was the point: the characters weren’t just ciphers for lager societal commentary. Instead they’re annoyingly human, and never quite do what they’re supposed to do (or what they want to do).

Cherish Farrah

Another lesson from this novel: have an unreliable narrator be aware that something is going on in the background, but be incapable of articulating it, until it’s too late. In this case, it’s because the narrator (Farrah) is a teenager, and lacks the maturity to understand what’s going on. There’s a lot to like about the novel, not least it’s thematic flourishes at the end, but I wasn’t the reader for it, not least because I found Farrah really annoying (but then again, she’s a teenager).

Hollow Knight, Team Cherry

Have you ever felt that the party — civilisation — is already over, and that you’re just left scrabbling amongst the ashes? And that there are frustratingly few clues as to what happened, why it’s all this way, and what’s going to happen next?

We’ll then you’ll love playing a game where you’re a bug, exploring a fallen kingdom go bugs, looking for the answers to the central mystery: what happened? And what now?

The game is moslt marred by it’s difficulty: it’s probably not for casuals like me. The Mantis Lords, in particular, are a real treat.