You've Not Seen Ansel Adams Until You Go to Salem

Reflection at Mono Lake. If this doesn't thrill you here, see it in person and get back to me!

Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge

Peabody Essex Museum

Salem, MA through October 8

Yes, I know--Ansel Adams. Been there. Done that. No reason to see an exhibit of his work, right? Wrong! And wrong in more ways that you can even imagine until you stand amidst the hundreds of watery glories on display at Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum  (PEM).

Ansel Adams might be the most popular American photographer in history. (Is there anyone who has not seen one of his shots of Yosemite Park’s Half Dome?)  Reproductions of his works show up in textbooks, in documentaries, in poster shops, and on college dorm rooms all over the country. He is, in short, a person whose work we think we know. Confounding our expectations is among the many joys of the PEM show. 

We mainly think of Adams as stolid and earthbound, a bit like Half Dome itself. The PEM exhibit concentrates on images of water, those that flow, spray, crash, dribble, roar, tumble, terrify, pacify, and reflect. Among the exhibit’s surprises are images made by Adams (1902-84) when he was a mere lad of 14 and, yes he had a keen eye even then. As the story is often told, though, young Adams confined himself to soft focus, painterly images until he co-founded f/64 in 1933, a group that foreswore gauzy, romantic imagery and embraced sharp focused photography that documented reality rather than fantasy. As the tale continues, f/64–named for the smallest stop on a camera lens, one that yields the greatest sharpness–decided to leave symbolism to painters. In truth, this yarn is only half right; Adams and his cohorts did leave soft focus in the dustbin, but Adams, at least, never gave up the notion that a photograph could be imbued with spiritualism, or that shooting what was (literally) there was devoid of mystery. Nor did he ever stop being a painter of light. Check out “Reflections at Mono Lake” (1948), which is a black and white version of what Claude Monet might have done with a camera. Or gaze upon images such as “Grass and Pool” (1938), “Grass, Water, and Sun” (1948), or “Submerged Trees, Slide Lake” (1965). Each looks as if they could be prints of Japanese calligraphy. Adams may have photographed what he saw, but abstract art doesn’t get any more ambiguous than “Foam” (1960), or his’ 1940 “Surf Sequence.”

We are accustomed to thinking of Adams as a California photographer, but the PEM exhibit also exposes us to shots taken in places such as Alaska, Hawaii, and Cape Cod. (The latter have a forlorn quality evocative of Edward Hopper.) But the best thing of all about the Adams exhibit is seeing the photos as they were meant to be seen–as direct photographic prints. That may sound obvious, but aren’t most of us more familiar with reproductions of Adams’ work? I was stunned by the clarity and detail of the PEM exhibit. Reproductions smooth and obliterate details such as reflection, grain, shadow, and texture. In black and white photography, though, how an artist uses these things is often the very essence of what makes a great image as opposed to a so-so offering. Adams was famously obsessive in the darkroom, often working days to obtain a single image. Seeing the prints reveals his hard work but, more importantly, it reveals levels of detail and majesty that no reproduction can show. I’m sure I am among the many who bought the exhibition catalog, took it home, and felt a letdown when images on the wall over which I gasped looked merely ordinary on the page. (There are other reasons to buy the catalog, including Phillip Prodger’s insightful and well-titled essay “Sharp as a Tack, Mysterious as the Universe.”) Therein lies the best reason to see this show–unless you’ve seen the prints, you’ve not really experienced Ansel Adams.

The PEM show closes October 8, about the time Salem’s ghoul industry cranks up. If you’ve been contemplating some witch hunting, avoid the crowds and go before October 8. You can assuage your guilt over wallowing in pop culture trash with a dollop of high art.  

Rocky Mountain Die: More Senseless Gun Murders

And Aurora surprises us, why, exactly? 

What’s left to say? James Holmes walks into an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater armed for Armageddon and blows away a dozen people and wounds 59 others. Tragic? Of course it is, and my heart goes out to the victims and their families. Surprising? Not in the least. In fact, I predicted it–on this blog no less. Back in 2011, when Gabby Giffords and her aides were shot, I remarked that such incidents were inevitable because Americans think the Second Amendment is more sacred than the sanctity of human life. I said it when the Virginia Tech murders occurred in 2009, and I said it after the tragedy at Columbine in 1999. (It’s located just 20 miles from Aurora, by the way.) I said it again when Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, a pipsqueak who thought a gun made him a man.

I’m sure the rightwing nut jobs will try to tell us that fewer would have died in Aurora if the patrons were all packing pistols. They’ll drag out all the nostrums, such as “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” “Guns cause crime like flies cause garbage,” and “An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.” These look good on t-shirts, but it’s gauche to wear them to funerals. How about this one for a new slogan: “The N.R.A. Murdered More Americans Than Osama bin-Laden.” Catchy, eh? And true as well. Because the NRA lines politicians’ pockets and because they propagandize a naïve citizenry into thinking guns make them safer, each year more than 11,000 Americans die from gun violence–that’s more than 3 ½ bin Ladens per year, folks. But we already know and ignore these statistics, and others such as the overwhelming evidence that murder rates are highest in states where guns are most easily obtained, and that individuals are more likely to be killed in an attempted crime if they brandish a firearm. But we don’t want to hear any of this, so maybe we should applaud James Holmes for helping us reach our national murder target faster (word play intentional).

Look–here’s a guy, Holmes, who in fewer than 60 days, purchased an AR-15 assault rifle, two Glock pistols, a 12-guage shotgun, six thousand rounds of ammo, and enough chemicals and explosives to restage Bhopal, and nobody was suspicious. Why? Because it was all legal; Holmes had no criminal record, so to raise any questions would be, according to the NRA, a dangerous intrusion of civil rights on the part of the Evil Government. (For the record, Evil Government officials, AKA/the police, generally fatally wound around 400 people a year. What a bunch of amateurs!) The Aurora massacre raises the same damn questions asked (and ignored) before: Why does any American need an assault rifle? (Up yours, collectors!) How is it an intrusion of rights to limit the number of rounds a gun can fire without reloading? Why can’t we place strict limits on sales of ammunition? (The NRA even opposes technology that would allow ammunition to be traced to its purchaser.) Why is the Second Amendment more sacred than the 18^th (Prohibition), which was repealed? Yada, yada, yada….   Same questions, same funerals, same tears, same bewildered shock, same inaction….

I’ve not been following Aurora carefully–it’s like a syndicated TV show whose episodes I’ve seen so often I can recite the plot and dialogue from memory. And it will air again, and again, and again. All because we allow a terrorist organization in our midst, the NRA, to pose as a public service organization and sandbag sane political policy (gun control). All because we really don’t give a damn about Aurora, Trayvon Martin, Gabby Giffords’ aides, Virginia Tech, or Columbine. Harsh? I don’t think so. If we really cared, wouldn’t we have done something more than dry our tears and move on? 

American Banks: Parochial Thinking in a Global Economy

But do U.S. banks even know the rest of the world exists? 

The evidence of the global economy is all around us. All of our electronics are made abroad, as is nearly every stitch of clothing we wear. You name it– knickknacks, mowers, appliances, kayaks, bicycles–and chances are good it’s not labeled “Made in the USA.” We eat sea bass from Chile, olive oil from Italy, cheese from Switzerland, and egg rolls from China, then wash it down with beer from Mexico and coffee from Vietnam. If it makes you sick, your stomach x-ray will be read in India. Looking for a car with the most American-made parts? Try a Toyota Camry! Go to work and your boss tells you that you have to work harder in order to be more competitive in the global market.

Yep. It’s a global marketplace out there, which makes you wonder why American banks seem not to have gotten the memo. Two recent examples: Try to buy some Euros, Yuan, or British pounds at your local bank. If you live in a major city such as New York or Chicago you can probably find one, but all the banks here in Western Massachusetts told me the same thing: they would need to “order” foreign money. That little “service” costs far more than using my ATM card and withdrawing it in the countries I visited.

Okay, a minor thing perhaps. But try this one. I am the organizer for a yearly academic conference. We don’t accept credit cards or other rip-off services (like PayPal, the TicketMaster of credit transfers) because their fees are too high. (I’ll be damned if I’ll pay banks more than my annual stipend for the “convenience” of allowing others to deposit money into their accounts.) We operate on a cash, check, or money order basis. Until recently, that is. Now I have to tell those who don’t live in the United States that their checks and money orders must be issued by a U.S. bank. I recently had to return a money order to a young man in Canada because–and you can’t make this up–Canadian routing numbers only have eight digits and U.S. banks require nine!

Wait a minute! Have banks never heard of NAFTA? This is Canada, for heaven’s sake, as in our number one trading partner. As in that place north of us with the world’s longest unprotected border. As in an economy that’s outperforming our own. Exchange is a rather basic economic concept and these experiences made me wonder how American banks expects to compete in the global marketplace if they can’t even handle a money order. A personal check I can understand. It would cost the bank something (substantially less than they charge) to process a bad check, but a money order is cash under a different name. It’s akin to old-style travelers’ checks in that they’ve already been purchased, so there’s no fear that the money isn’t there. And we’re also talking an electronic transfer of funds. How hard is it to enter an eight-digit routing code into a computer? I went on line and found dozens of software packages available for any bank (apparently all in the U.S as the sites are all in English) dealing in foreign currency, transfers, and–ahem!-–money orders.

And really, shouldn’t all banks be dealing in foreign exchange in an economy in which goods, services, and workers move across borders? It made me think. Maybe the U.S. is so concerned about Mexican migrant laborers because they are stamped with the wrong routing code.

The Kid with a Bike: Excellent Portrait, Weak Story

THE KID WITH A BIKE (Le gamin au vélo) 2011

Directed and written by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Les Films du Fleuve, 87 mins. PG-13

* * *

There are long sequences in The Kid with the Bike in which we see the namesake character peddling furiously across Liėge, Belgium. We theorize that he’s searching for the back-story of the adults in this story.

That sounds more negative than is intended. This is an excellent character study of a distressed 12-year-old boy named Cyril (Thomas Doret). The problem is that we never learn much about anybody’s motives but his. We meet Cyril in a state-run boarding school where he’d ended up–we don’t know how–because his father has abandoned him. Cyril, not surprisingly, refuses to believe his father would do such a thing, and escapes from his minders to find his dad and his treasured black bicycle. He’s not hard to find and is easily tracked down at the empty, torn-wallpaper apartment where he once lived with his father and recently deceased grandmother.

Then the logic begins to weave toward the “say what?” end of the spectrum.  Cyril bolts from his guardians one final time and ducks into a clinic in an attempt to elude them. When he’s found, he clamps onto one of the patients, an attractive young hairdresser named Samantha (Cécile de France) and must be pried loose from her body. Such an event would shake most of us to the core, but when Cyril begs Samantha to let him live with her on the weekends, she agrees to consider his request. A few days later she shows up at his school having bought his bicycle from the man to whom his father sold it before leaving town. Thus is launched what will strike most viewers as a highly improbable foster family situation.

Doret is terrific as Cyril–the perfect blend of sullenness, impulsiveness, and deep seated hurt that one would expect from a traumatized preadolescent. His face is etched with his warring emotions–on one hand he’s on the verge of uncontrollable weeping; on the other he’s ready to strike out in fury from the incomprehensible rage that roils within. We understand perfectly why we wants Samantha to care for him, but is more attracted to the town’s local bad boy, Wes,  (Egon DiMateo) who recruits young boys to do his criminal dirty work. We also easily grasp the symbolism of Cyril’s bike–his ticket to freedom to be sure, but also a Zen-like escape into physical and mental oblivion on which he peddles away his anguish.

Like many stylish European films, this one allows the camera to linger on objects, faces, and scenes far longer than most American directors would dare. Those raised on f/x and non-stop action will find the pacing languid and will long for something “to happen.” Things do happen, but they take their time. That’s appropriate for the film’s subject: a probe of young Cyril’s psyche. What is far more problematic is the Dardenne brothers’ thin development of everybody else that populates this film. We meet Cyril’s father, for instance, but we never learn why he abandoned his son or why he thought that was socially acceptable. Nor is Cyril’s mother even mentioned. Much more perplexing is Samantha. De France does a great job with the character and she needs to, as she’s given nothing to explain her motives. Why would she take in such a damaged kid? Is she a liberal do-gooder? A repressed social worker? A sucker for a sob story? Does the kid strike some sublimated maternal instinct? Would that the other characters have half the depth of Cyril.

I’m sure that the Dardennes purposely left these issues vague so that we’d concentrate on Cyril. We do, but the experience feels oddly empty in the end. The Kid with a Bike garnered quite a few film festival prizes and won the coveted Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2011. We would suggest, though, that it was often nominated but seldom victorious because it is, in the end, a classic “small” film.  As a touching profile of a wounded young boy it’s first rate. Just don’t expect path breaking filmmaking, a gripping narrative, or a lesson in logic. 

Pina A Mixed Blessing on Film

 PINA (2011)

Directed by Wim Wenders

Nieue Road, 103 mins. PG

In English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Croatian (with subtitles)

* * *

The challenge of making a documentary of an iconic figure within a small specialty is always the same. Does one aim the film at aficionados, or toward a general audience? The Pina of Wim Wenders’ latest film is dancer/ choreographer Pina Bausch. She offered still another challenge; Bausch (1940-2009) was dying when Wenders, a fan of her work, took on the project. By necessity, the project became, in Wenders’ words, a film about and for Pina.

If you are a modern dance fan, you will not need to be convinced to see this film; you already know Pina Bausch as a challenging, experimental, and creative spirit. But how does this film play for those who know little about modern dance, or those such as yours truly, who has just passing familiarity? I had never heard of her at all until about four years ago, and had never seen any of her work until it appeared on the movie screen. (I would add that the cinema was sold out, so Bausch obviously had quite a few fans!) The answer is that Wenders did some very interesting things, but non-fans are likely to share my view that the film is a mix of fascination and repetitiveness.

Since Bausch couldn’t offer much, Wenders focused on her dance company, many of whom had been with her for decades. Wenders uses two devices, the first being an opening sequence that is where mime-meets-dance. A parade of gesturing dancers takes us through the seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter, and those gesticulations reoccur throughout the film. Get the metaphor? The second technique is modified from A Chorus Line. Remember the confessionals in which each member of the troupe explains why he or she became a dancer? Wenders does something similar, though all we see are expressive faces beneath which we hear their voiceovers. Needless to say, we also see quite a few dance sequences, some of which we are supposed to recognize as classic, but one must be intimately familiar with Bausch’s repertoire to make those connections.

The film is stylish and some of the dances are spectacular, sensual, and poignant; others are clever and/or humorous. Needless to say, each of the dancers is masterful. Particularly fascinating are the pieces in which Bausch explodes our expectations of what dance is and where it should appear, as in sequences in which the urban landscape (monorails, intersections, sidewalks, gravel pits, abandoned factories) become the stage. These works blur the bpundry between guerilla theater and dance. There are also amazing pieces using on-stage water, but because Wenders doesn’t give us a lot of background we don’t really know if Bausch pioneered this, or simply riffed off others. (Water on stage isn’t all that unusual any more.)

Bausch assembled an international troupe, but whether her work is universal is an open question. As a novice and outsider, I was equally thrilled and bored by the film. Bausch definitely repeated herself, and she also dabbled in the sort of introspective choreography that sounds better as an artist’s statement than it works on the stage. I confess to having little patience for contact improv or works in which dancers dreamingly meander across our line of vision, and Bausch did a lot of that. This, of course, is a matter of taste and preference; if this is your cup of tea, fine. As a film, though, I’d say this one works about half the time. It may be that Wenders, who also wrote the screenplay, was simply too close to his subject to think beyond his camera and how the things that inspired him might look to those without insider knowledge. Unless you already know, Wenders’ film will probably strike you as impressionistic rather than revealing. --Rob Weir

PS--A 3-D version of the film is in select theaters, but mine wasn’t one of them, so I cannot comment on whether that enhances or detracts from the visuals. 

Don't Vote for Mitt or Trust Best Buy

Indulge me in a story that explains why I’ll never vote for Mitt Romney or trust Best Buy. Back when I taught public high school I had an eighth-grade kid whom I watched take the paper from a (much brighter) student and copy answers onto his own exam. When I confronted him, he remarked, “I didn’t no nuthin…” “Really?” I asked. “You didn’t just take Randy’s paper off his desk?” “Nope,” said he. “Dude! I just watched you do it.” “No, you didn’t” he insisted, even as I held Randy’s paper aloft. He continued to hold onto his lie, even as I explained to him that his major accomplishment was to make one problem (cheating) into two (+ lying), and then a third (+ calling me a liar). His arrogance led to a fourth and fifth—a trip to the principal’s office and a parent/teacher conference.

Moral of the story: If you do something you regret, have the courage to own up to it and never compound your woes by lying about it. We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t, so I’m not making a plea for sainthood, but I will appeal to Socrates and what philosophers call “virtue ethics.” Back in my high school teaching days I took (for fun no less!) an ethics course at St. Michael’s College from a wise and kind man named Peter Tumulty. We read (among others) Socrates, who insisted that it’s never virtuous to do something that you know is wrong. Professor Tumulty took us through opposing viewpoints and exceptions, but he held no truck with branches of modern thought known as “situational ethics” and “moral relativism.” One might, Professor Tumulty insisted, be able to argue that a lie is necessary if it prevented a greater evil, but one should never deceive oneself into thinking that made lying ethical or virtuous; above all, one should never confuse lying in pursuit of self-interest with virtue.

This is why I wouldn’t consider voting for Romney; he is, in my estimation, a person of low moral character who is short on honor and virtue. He reminds me a lot of my naughty, haughty eighth-grader. To say he’s no Socrates doesn’t even begin to get at it. If I might hazard an off-color analogy, Mitt’s like a with his pants to his knees man and a hooker in the back seat who insists the two of them were just doing a tick check. Mitt can spin it from here to Salt Lake City, but Obama’s healthcare plan is Romney’s plan—the very one in place here in Massachusetts where I live. (Disclosure: I’m a single-payer supporter who’d gladly socialize healthcare, but as private plans go, the Massachusetts system is about as good as these get.) Now comes the revelation that Romney left Bain—it should have been spelled Bane—Capital in 2002, not 1999 as he’s been insisting for the past 13 years. Romney continues to lie about this even though the paper trail is clear. It’s not some smear tactic by his political enemies; the evidence—much of in his own words and those of his wife—is overwhelming. Gee, Mitt, how did those papers end up on your desk? I suppose some hypothetical Randy must have planted them there.

Mitt can spin it like an eighth-grader, but the bottom line is that he’s lying and his motive is pure self-interest. His spin is unethical, lacks virtue, and is without honor. I can almost hear the anti-Obama crowd chant, “All politicians lie and Obama lies worse.” And this would be a defense of what exactly? If I know anything from observing politics it is that it never ends well when a politician lies. Ask Bill Clinton. Or Larry Craig. Or Newt Gingrich. Or Henry Hyde. Or Eliot Spitzer. Or Richard Nixon. Or even (conservative saint) Ronald Reagan. (Iran Contra didn’t end so well, did it?) Maybe Obama does lie, but thus far no one has caught him with his pants to his knees. (If someone does, he should be held accountable.)

 

My problem with the all-politicians-lie argument brings me to Best Buy. Americans have become too comfortable allowing lies told in naked self interest to go forth without question or accountability. A recent Best Buy flyer came with this assertion that all of its Apple products were “on sale.” Except… that’s a big deception. Apple discounts only for educators, military personnel, and employees. An Airbook, iPhone, or iPad is supposed to cost the same everywhere unless the item is discontinued, the store is in liquidation, the retailer strikes a sweetheart deal with Apple, or the merchant is violating an agreement with Apple. The latter two scenarios happen, but neither was the case with Best Buy; it merely advertised Apple’s own promotions as if they were uniquely its own. In truth, you’ll get the same deal whether you buy at the Apple Store, Best Buy, or Shifty Mitt’s Fly-By-Night Electronics. In other words, Best Buy became Best Lie out of self-interest. Just like Mitt Romney. And that’s a good reason to avoid them both. If you lie to me before I’ve even purchased the product, why should I believe you’d honor your warranty?      

Moonrise Kingdom: They Hype Surpasses the Product

MOONRISE KINGDOM (2012)

Directed by Wes Anderson

Focus Films, PG-13, 94 mins.

* * 1/2 

 

Everyone keeps waiting for director Wes Anderson to make his masterpiece. He already has–Rushmore (1998). That explains why he’s been remaking it ever since. Just as surely as a Fox News broadcast will contain a screed against “Obamacare,” a Woody Allen film will center on a hopeless neurotic played by the director (or a surrogate), and a John Irving novel will contain a bear, Vienna, and wrestling, so do all Wes Anderson films have standard elements. These include:

·      A main character (either a child or a perpetual adolescent) that is odd and misunderstood.

·      A period of trial in which the protagonist is ridiculed and presumed mentally damaged.

·      The revelation that the outcast is actually quirky, but brilliant.

·      A central dilemma that children resolve by outwitting stupid adults. A host of secondary characters whose motives and behaviors are inexplicable and improbable.

·      Bill Murray playing a droll but ineffectual character.

Some critics have hailed Moonrise Kingdom as the film we’ve been waiting for Anderson to make, but from where I sit there’s not reason to cast aside his unofficial nickname: “Mess” Anderson. Those who have been charmed by Moonrise Kingdom do have one point in their favor–it has a coherent narrative that carries us from start to finish rather than the helter-skelter randomness that made some of his other efforts feel like a Saturday Night Live sketch that got carried away. This time the setting is 1965 and we get two brilliant-but-misunderstood misfits, the pre-Goth Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) and an orphaned geek scout Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman). Both kids are as out of place among their peers as Mormons in a beer tent, and each is either ignored by adults and peers or endlessly harassed by them. Naturally, they gravitate to each other.

 The setting is an isolated New England island with few permanent residents, though Suzy’s family–three oblivious brothers and la-de-da parents played by Murray and Frances McDormand–is among them. Not much happens on an island with no paved roads and a smattering of adults only slightly brighter than fireflies, though everyone is smart enough to know that Laura Bishop (the frumpy McDormand) is having it off with Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the island’s dimwitted chief of police. The island’s only other excitement occurs in the summer, when it is inundated by Khaki Scouts holding their encampment there, and on several adjacent islands. Unbeknown to the adults–who never seem to know much of anything–Suzy and Sam have previously met and have, for a year, been plotting to run away with each other once Sam’s Khaki Scout encampment convenes. When Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) and Walt Bishop (Murray) discover their charges are missing, they, the scouts, Sharp, and others set off to track them down before an impending hurricane lashes the island. Sam proves a better scout and cartographer than his pursuers, so he and Suzy get some time alone in twelve-year-old paradise before their quarry hones in on them. Once that happens, the film turns into a bizarre caper film that rapidly adds cameo characters of uncertain motives to the cast: Cousin Ben, a Milo Minderbinder for scouts (played by Jason Schwartzman, who starred in Rushmore), Head Scout Master Commander Pierce (Harvey Keitel, who thinks he’s playing a WWII RAF officer), and an angular, icy woman called Social Services (Tilda Swinton) who doesn’t necessarily have Sam’s best interests in mind. I not sure anyone knows who or what Bob Balaban is playing; he simply appears on occasion, makes a remark that plugs a plot hole, and disappears.

The film has its charms, and both Hayward and Gilman are terrific. The humor is offbeat and unexpected, but mostly in its small details. (There aren’t many laugh-out-loud moments.) And, yes, its narrative is way tighter than Anderson meanderings such as Darjeeling Limited (2007) or The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), though the latter is much funnier. (Darjeeling, on the other hand, is certainly among the worst films of the 21^st century.) To be frank, though, Anderson’s coherence is ham-handed. He telegraphs everything and, just in case you don’t get it, his camera lingers on everything prefigured for so long that even the intellectually halt and lame will proclaim “Doh!” I wanted to love this film, but the best I can offer is “meh.” I’m still waiting for Anderson to live up to the promise shown in Rushmore and suspect he may be like Quentin Tarantino before he made Kill Bill–in desperate need of changing his entire focus before he becomes a parody of himself.--Rob Weir