Review of "The Proposition"
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: wax paper-and-comb harmonica
Well, I can't say The Proposition is an easy movie to watch. Eden Fletcher is far and away the nastiest character David has ever played. Brett Sprague may have been an amoral street punk with a jail record, but at least he wasn't a slimy maggot feeding on the decaying flesh of colonialism. David approaches the role with a certain, shall we say, relish.

Without much preamble, the action plunks the viewer down smack in the middle of a gunfight. An Irish outlaw gang, led by three brothers named Burns, have been terrorizing an outback township, and are thought to be responsible for the savage murder of a local family. As the movie begins, two of the brothers are holed up in a tin hut that is gradually being turned to Swiss cheese by an onslaught of bullets (you can hear each individual bullet rip sickeningly through the flimsy walls). The brothers, Charlie and Mikey, are captured and taken to the local lawman, Captain Stanley, who has been brought over from England by David Wenham to “civilize” the place (a la Tom Sawyer's Aunt Sally). Captain Stanley makes Charlie an offer: if he hunts down and kills the eldest brother, Arthur Burns, then Mikey will be spared. If he refuses, Mikey will be hung in nine days. Charlie is turned loose with a gun and a horse, while Mikey, bewildered and delirious, is left to languish in a jail cell.

This moral dilemma forms the core of the film, and it’s only one of many moral complexities that each character wrestles with. This isn’t a traditional Western, with black-hatted bad guys and white-hatted good guys. In fact, there really are no clear good guys. In the Hobbesian struggle for survival in the 19th century outback, traditional laws and refined customs are a luxury nobody can afford. Nick Cave revisits territory familiar from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now: the ease with which the veneer of white European civilization crumbles in the face of a wild, untameable landscape. Captain Stanley’s lace curtains, English rose garden, and roast turkey Christmas dinner (in 112-degree heat) seem like futile and misplaced gestures amidst the unforgiving, sun-baked terrain of Queensland. Intoxicated by his own power as a local landowner and string-puller, David Wenham’s character, Eden Fletcher, has mutated into something of a Colonel Kurtz (except that there’s no Martin Sheen coming to terminate him). Beneath the prim derby hat, snooty accent, and fine wool suit beats a dark, bestial heart. Under pressure from the townspeople to avenge the murders, Fletcher sees no reason to honor Stanley’s deal with Charlie Burns, and orders Mikey to be flogged with 100 lashes. It is, essentially, a death sentence, and Fletcher knows it.

The whipping scene is the most difficult, stomach-churning part of the movie, and I almost couldn’t sit through it. Mikey is dragged out of his cell, begging and crying, to a wooden crossbar in the town square. All of the townspeople turn out to watch while Eden Fletcher supervises, wearing a supercilious smirk on his face. The flogging is filmed in agonizing slow motion, intercut with delicate angelic singing by one of Arthur’s right-hand henchmen, in a technique very reminiscent of Pippin’s a cappella song during the Gondor suicide charge in Return of the King. After what seems like four hours, the bailiff stops to squeeze about half a gallon of blood out of the whip, but the joke is that the punishment is only a third of the way through. The most horrifying aspect of the scene is the sixteen billion flies that settle on the backs of the onlookers and Eden Fletcher, like vultures anticipating a kill.

In fact, the flies really should have gotten their own credit as a major presence in the film, along with the mud, the heat, and the parched landscape. The outback cinematography is stunning: stark rock ranges, ghost gums, patient and forgiving sunsets that spread across the desert sky. Out of this harsh environment, violence and casual savagery arise organically and relentlessly: Charlie gets a spear through the lung, an aborigine warrior gets his head blown apart, etc. Most of the townies sport gnarled physiognomies that attest to years of brutal labor, Saturday night knife fights, and a total lack of sunscreen.

Such is the backdrop against which various empire-building struggles are played out in miniature during the film: English vs. Irish, European vs. aborigine, man vs. nature. In the Victorian world view, aborigines are regarded as little better than animals, barely distinguishable from the ancestral Darwinian monkeys alluded to by Jellon Lamb, the bounty hunter that Charlie encounters on his way to Arthur’s lair. The centuries-old English/Irish conflict has also spilled over to the new frontier. I’m no expert on Australian colonial history, but it seems as though there are certain psychic wounds and racial memories that have not fully healed. Certainly there are obvious parallels with the “taming” of the American west, and the mythologies invented by American filmmakers to justify westward expansion. I’d be interested to know whether The Proposition struck a chord with Australian audiences, given the tendency of Howard’s Liberal government to play the race card during elections.

In summary: Lots of gore, lots of flies, lots of thought-provoking meditations on the limitations of family bonds and the underpinnings of civilization. Not a whole lot of David.

In praise of scruffiness
Now Playing: Paper (4-0-0) vs. Plastic (1-2-1)
An acquaintance called Tuesday night and asked me to submit some pieces for an art show that starts next week. "Oh, don't worry" she assured me, "it's all right that they're not framed. I know it's short notice. Just leave them in my breezeway by 3 pm on Friday".

So off I went with my scruffy, raggedy, unframed artwork, and discovered that everybody else had submitted pieces which were exquisitely framed and matted behind museum-quality glare reduction glass. Each piece was signed, with neatly typed placards bearing the title, date, and medium. They were all expertly wrapped in brown paper and bubble wrap, and packed in cardboard boxes with the artist's name and address. In comparison, my canvases suddenly looked small, untidy, and vulnerable. I leaned them against one of the boxes and fled.

This seems to be a recurring theme in my life: showing up absolutely unprepared. (see the previous Acting Audition entry). I was always the kid who showed up at the district band audition with a dented Bundy school saxophone on which half the leather keypads were eaten away by age, and a single ancient, chipped #2 reed (no-name brand), while the other kids were packing sleek golden Selmer Mark IIs and new Rico Royal reeds. My instrument was so out of date, the audition pieces contained notes for which I didn't even have keys. Dreams of being naked in class hold absolutely no terror for me.

That's why I gravitate towards artistic endeavors that are also scruffy and unpolished. David appeals to me because his performances aren't slick, they're natural and slightly rough around the edges. Like an unframed canvas. Yet, each role is backed by a lot of meticulous thought and care. He's not afraid to look ridiculous and for that, I love him dearly.

Book plug
Mood:  lucky
It's spring, again.

To mark the occasion, I bought a daffodil-scented candle. Then I took a shovel and beat the living tar out of the snow and ice on the front steps.

If any of you enjoyed the Shane Maloney series, and are looking for another laugh-out-loud read in a similar vein, I can enthusiastically recommend "Straight Man", by Richard Russo. Its protagonist, William Henry Devereaux Jr., a disheveled English professor at an obscure college in Western Pennsylvania, is Murray Whelan's academic soul mate. Within the first few pages, Devereaux gets his nose mangled by a spiral-bound notebook, is seduced by a curvaceous adjunct armed with peach pits, and threatens to execute a goose on local television. Just about every sentence in the book causes the messy flight of whatever beverage you happen to be drinking at the time.

There is a faint connection to David Wenham here...Richard Russo also wrote Empire Falls, directed by Fred Schepisi, who (rumor has it) is hoping to cast David for his next movie, Last Man Standing.

If "Straight Man" is ever filmed, David should seriously be considered for the lead role.

my brilliant acting career
Mood:  not sure
My writing teacher talked me into going to an open casting call last night at the local university, for five graduate student film productions. Why she thought I had any aptitude for acting is beyond me, but I agreed to go just for the sake of curiosity, and to get some insight into the everyday realities of the craft. I run a website about an actor, so I figured I might as well experience it for myself. Call it "method webpage administration".

When I arrived, the room was full of real actors: drama majors, standup comedians, people who'd done "the circuit" in L.A. and New York, people who'd auditioned for Empire Falls. They were all loafing in chairs eating Wendy's takeout and reading copies of the scripts annotated with highlighter and pencil notes. Everybody seemed to know one another already.

The woman in charge handed me a form to fill out. Under "ACTING EXPERIENCE" I listed "Alcott Elementary School, 2nd Grade Class Play: Elf #8". I didn't want to appear like I was bragging, so I left off my other roles as a tree, and the non-speaking part of "Other Cratchit Child" in a volunteer production of A Christmas Carol for the local nursing home when I was 11. It simply wouldn't have been fair to intimidate the others with my dazzling thespian background.

One of the hopefuls, a soft-spoken African-American guy named Luke, loaned me one of his scripts so I'd have an idea of what I was in for. I opened to the first page and read:

(INTERIOR, night. RAYETTE and BOBBY are at home in their seedy apartment. RAYETTE has just returned from her waitressing job. She is wearing a name tag. BOBBY is lying face-up on the bed.)

(RAYETTE sits onto the bed next to BOBBY, puts her arm around him, and slips her tongue into his ear.)

RAYETTE: Hey, sugar...

(BOBBY grunts.)

(RAYETTE slides her hand onto BOBBY'S crotch and starts slowly massaging it.)

RAYETTE: Got any more crystal meth for me, darlin'?

(BOBBY rolls over and throws up on the floor.)

***

At this point, I stopped reading and started to panic. Was I actually supposed to do all this stuff in the audition? Pretend to sit on a bed and grope some total stranger? Or would we just be reading the dialogue? I looked around the room, trying to decide whose ear I'd least mind sticking my tongue into.

Then my name was called, and I was handed a different script (thank God). In the hallway, I had about four seconds to glance at it. It appeared to be a dinner-table scene between three slightly drunk, angry women.

The audition room was packed with students, professors, A/V technicians, and assistants. In front of the black curtain, there were two stools, a spotlight, and a camera. I was miked up and asked to sit on one of the stools, next to an older woman named Carolyn.

The student director briefly explained the scene to us. I would be playing the part of Shirelle, a hard-bitten, rough-around-the-edges army vet who'd just been discharged from jail and come home with a giant chip on her shoulder. In other words, a female Brett Sprague. In the scene we were about to do, Shirelle and her Aunt June (played by Carolyn) were plotting to kidnap a girl and hold her for ransom.

I don't remember much about the actual scene, which is probably for the best. The people and the camera and the room kind of faded away the moment we started reading. Shirelle had an amusingly Doug-like monologue, something about how people don't care if you're an ex-con or a pervert or a "fucking pedophile", but mention you have mental problems, and they totally avoid you. I got a laugh when I read it, which was probably not the intended effect, but oh well. Carolyn was a terrific actress and it was fascinating reading the scene with her, watching her transform, and reacting to that energy. I can see where acting would be a very addictive profession, if you had any talent for it, which I positively do not.

Afterwards my writing teacher came over, gave me a hug, and said "I hope you weren't too traumatized by that." I told her if there's one thing I learned from the audition, it's that it's infinitely easier to create characters on paper than with one's body, gestures, and voice. I'd much rather be on the making-up-the-story end of the process, and let other people do the vomiting and crotch-fondling.

That said, there are some common aspects to both acting and writing: constant thought, constant observation, constant refinement. You have to be an astute student of humanity to do either one well.

The bottom line: 1) Don't look for me on Broadway anytime soon. 2) I have a new and deeply profound respect for what David Wenham does.

Does the sun rise in the west?
Mood:  bright
Okay, this was just too darn funny. Sorry, Rosie. I had to swipe this from you.

Rosie writes:

"Apparently genuine responses on an Australian website to what they considered dumb questions (well they were right....)

Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia - and I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow. (UK).
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit round watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the raidroad tracks (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles - take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia? (Sweden)
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville, and Hervey? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of?

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia (USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Aus-tra-lia is the big island in the middle fo the Pacific which doesn't.....oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is ... oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross straight after the hippo racing. Come naked.

Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia? (UK)
A: You're a British politician, right?

Q: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round (Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilisation of vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal.

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense rattlesnake serum (USA)
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled, and make good pets.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind fo bear and lives in trees (USA)
A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of gum trees and then eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking."


If I were allowed to come up with an obnoxiously dumb question for Australia, I would ask:

Do....you.......speak......english? EN - GLISH?

The grey rain curtain rolls back...and all will turn to smoggy gas refineries...
Mood:  caffeinated
Listening to my iPod the other day, I was struck by the similarity between the oboe line from the Largo movement of Dvorak's New World symphony, and the Grey Havens motif from LOTR. (Yeah, yeah, it only took me two years to notice...I'm a little slow on the musical uptake.) So then I wondered, did Howard Shore purposely do that? Did he draw on the New World theme because Frodo's ship was sailing west, and west is the traditional direction for discovering unexplored New Worlds (assuming Middle Earth has a classically European orientation)? Does that mean that when the gray rain curtain rolled back and Frodo beheld a far green country under a swift sunrise, he was actually looking at Hackensack, New Jersey?

I need to go lie down now.

Three Dollars more
Mood:  special
Now Playing: Love Will Keep Us Together (Captain & Tenille)/Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Divison)
Recently, I watched Three Dollars again with a friend, who was totally horrified and depressed by Eddie's plight. She couldn't stop talking about it afterwards. It had such a powerful effect on her, she said, because she could imagine it actually happening to her. I have to agree with her 100%. Most films are escapist and don't dwell on everyday subjects. Odds are you'll never be chased through a haunted house by a psychotic plastic doll, gunned down by the Mafia, or electrocuted by the Emperor of the Galaxy on the planet Fjxrdyl, but most of us do live in Eddie's world, whether we're aware of it or not. No matter how much of a safety net you think you have, that gnawing "what-if" anxiety is always there, percolating beneath the surface. It's not something people talk about.

I also reconsidered my earlier reaction to the film, and decided it was OK that the story ended, instead of beginning, right at the moment when the pressure on the main character was at its most extreme. The story structure is modelled more along the lines of "It's A Wonderful Life", where the protagonist looks back on his life and tries to figure out how the heck it got so screwed up. The difference is that Three Dollars doesn't have Clarence to mentor Eddie, it has Nick the homeless guy, and it ends on a much more anxious, muted note. (Although, Mr. Potter never does return Uncle Billy's $8,000, so it's not like the Jimmy Stewart movie has an entirely rosy ending either.)

Watching it a second time, I appreciated David's subtle ways of characterizing Eddie: the half-tucked, half-untucked shirt; the taking off of the watch at bedtime; the frustrated, almost violent way he pounds the locust into the coffee table with his shoe. The way the house deteriorates along with Tanya's depression. Their shared space seems to get smaller, darker, and more cluttered as the film progresses.

Mini-Oz
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: imaginary badminton




Recently, Australian Defence Force personnel deployed in Sudan discovered a mud puddle shaped like Australia. It even includes the island of Tasmania.

The mud puddle was photographed, tagged, and released onto the Internet.

Gummy Bears In Space
So, we've got nearly an entire year to go before 300 is released.... *tum te tum* While we're waiting, let's fill up this blog with some aimless chatter.

I'm a big fan of those cheesy concession-stand trailers that they show just before the previews. Watching them, you'd think computer graphics hadn't advanced beyond 1982. For some reason, they're always set in outer space. Perhaps the makers think candy bars look more majestic when floating in front of the Horsehead Nebula. Perhaps, by crushing the Andromeda Galaxy beneath a Coke, they hope to make the cup seem bigger. More value for the money. ("Try our NEW, universe-destroying 64 octillion ounce size!")

Sometimes you get to ride on a virtual rollercoaster (also located in outer space), consisting of an oversized strip of red celluloid film that zips you under, over, and around various sugary obstacles. Sometimes, you're fired upon by a warlike fleet of Raisinettes, or hurtled pell-mell through an asteroid field of popcorn. You just never know what's going to happen with these things.

Our local theater shows a concession trailer of beautiful color pictures taken from the Hubble telescope. As you contemplate the vast grandeur and starry sweep of infinite creation, you're told not to litter.

The Spartans: Cheese-stealing beard growers
Here's some interesting tidbits about a typical Spartan's journey to manhood (from the Channel 4 website):

Spartan men would neither farm nor fish, manufacture nor trade. They would simply fight. And when they weren't fighting, they would train. And when they weren't training, they would socialise with their fellow fighters rather than with their own families, to bolster the solidarity and cohesion of the phalanx.

The single-mindedness and thoroughness with which they pursued this programme was extreme, radical and typically Spartan. Being born Spartan was not enough. All male Spartans had to earn their citizenship through long years of competitive struggle, and through surviving one of the most gruelling training systems ever invented.

The first test came early. A ravine a few miles outside the centre of Sparta was known as the Apothetae – the 'Deposits'. It was also called the 'place of rejection', because newly born Spartan boys were thrown into the ravine if they were judged unfit to live.

Infanticide was common throughout ancient Greece. Unwanted babies – usually girls – were left on hillsides. Sometimes they would be placed in a basket or protective pot so that there was at least a chance of someone coming along and taking the child in.

In Sparta, things were, as ever, different. Boys rather than girls were the likeliest candidates for infanticide. The decision about whether the child lived or died was not left to the parents but was taken by the city elders. And there was no possibility of a kindly shepherd rescuing a newborn child after it had been 'placed' down here. The decision of the city elders was final, terminal and absolute.

Surviving the Apothetae was just the start for the boys. At the age of seven, they were removed from their families and placed in a training system called the agoge, which means, literally, 'rearing'. The children were treated little better than animals.

For Spartan boys, one of the classrooms of the agoge was the wild foothills of the Taygetos mountains. They were organised into 'herds' under the command of an older 'boy herd', who was responsible for discipline and punishment. Denied adequate clothing, they slept rough throughout the year – and, in winter, temperatures could drop below freezing. Kept on short rations, they were expected to steal to supplement their food. Anyone caught stealing was flogged – not for the theft itself, but for being an unskilful thief.

It was more of a trial by ordeal than an education.

One of the more famous Spartan legends concerns a young boy who allows his intestines to be gnawed away by a fox that he has stolen and concealed, rather than cry out or let the animal go. In the retelling, the story usually becomes a straightforward tale of endurance and moral toughness. Restored to its original context, however, it sounds more like a half-starved, brutalised boy dying from an excess of bone-headed obedience.

The Taygetos also provided the backdrop for one of Sparta's most controversial and disputed institutions: the krypteia or 'secret service brigade'. Membership of this was reserved for boys who had shown particular promise. Hard cases would be sent out into the wilds with basic rations and a knife. By day, they would lie low and, at night, would infiltrate the valley below, murdering any helot they caught.

Although Sparta encouraged the collective spirit, it placed a higher value on individual achievement. The boys were tested constantly – against each other and against their own limitations.

The competitive nature of the Spartan system found its most extreme expression at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia. If a boy survived his first five years in the agoge, he would go there at the age of 12 for a brutal rite of passage.

On the altar, cheeses were placed – the sort of homely nourishing foodstuff that young boys on short rations would have found irresistible. The challenge was simple: to steal as many cheeses as possible. But in front of the altar was a phalanx of ephebes – boys in their 20s – carrying whips. Their instructions were to protect the altar, showing neither mercy nor restraint.

Indoctrinated with the tenets of endurance and perseverance, and determined to excel in this public display, the 12-year-olds would brave the gauntlet again and again. Meeting the whips face on, they would have suffered the most horrific injuries. The weakest never left alive.

The sheer brutality of a system seems alien. But it's not just modern audiences who find the Spartans shocking. The philosopher Aristotle argued that they turned their children into animals, while other contemporary Greeks pictured them as bees swarming round a hive, stripped of their individuality.

It's been a popular conception of Sparta through the centuries, but one that misses an important point.

Taking part in any mass activity can be fantastically unifying. We all recognise that feeling if we're part of a Mexican wave in a football crowd, singing in a choir or joining a protest march. As individuals, we are not diminished by the crowd. We become stronger; our reach is greater; our sense of self is magnified.

That was the underlying appeal of the Spartan system as a whole: the possibility of transcending your limitations as an individual and becoming part of something bigger and better.

From the age of 12, the boys' training became, if possible, even more exacting. Reading and writing were taught 'no more than was necessary', but music and dancing were regarded as essential.

The battlefields on which hoplites clashed were once memorably described as the 'dancing floors of war'. A phalanx that was able to move together in a coordinated way made for a formidable dancing partner.

So the Spartans spent many hours perfecting what was known as 'war music', a kind of rhythmic drill in which changes in direction and pace were communicated musically. The Spartans earned the reputation for being 'the most musical and the most war-like of people'.

At the age of 20, with their training nearing completion, Spartan males faced their most crucial test: election to one of the common messes – dining clubs – where they would be expected to spend most of their time when they weren't training or fighting.

But even if you had survived the brutal apprenticeship of the agoge, entry to these exclusive gentlemen's clubs was not guaranteed. Election to a mess was by the vote of existing members. You could be blackballed if it was felt that you didn't measure up – and that would be that. You would become a failed Spartan, consigned to a living hell of exclusion and public humiliation.

If, on the other hand, you were elected, you would receive from the state a share of land and a quota of helots. You were now one of the homoioi – one of the peers, the warrior elite at the top of Sparta's hierarchy.

The common messes, which lay a mile or so from the centre of Sparta, were an essential part of the city's social engineering, intended to keep discord and civil strife at bay. Old and young mixed here, easing generational conflicts – a constant source of friction elsewhere in Greece. More importantly, rich and poor met on an equal footing, the differences between them hidden by a rigorously enforced code of 'conspicuous non-consumption'.

In egalitarian Sparta, the rule was: even if you've got it, don't flaunt it. This was applied to everything from houses to clothes, even to food. In the common messes, the dish of the day, every day, was a concoction made of boiled pigs' blood and vinegar, known as melas zomos, 'black soup'.

The joke goes that, on being told the recipe for black soup, a man from Sybaris – a city in southern Italy infamous for its luxury and gluttony – said he now understood why the Spartans were so willing to die.

Spartan frugality may have shocked their contemporaries, but to a modern audience, their diet – leaving aside the black soup – sounds nutritious and healthy. Their land was very fertile, producing figs and quinces among other fruits. It was also a rich hunting ground. Compared to the diets of their neighbours – and enemies – the Spartans' comprised a much higher proportion of meat.

Regarding facial hair:

One of Lycurgus's more pernickety rules was that the upper lip should be clean-shaven and the beard long.