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Some
of the following appeared in a newsletter—the response,
from underground film maker Ethan Wilson (eg, the
short film “Jerry Lewitsky Plays God”), and my response
to him, hasn’t been published before. Ethan gave
me permission to reprint his email—one of the more
stunning emails I’ve received.
What’s
subversive? If you write a manifesto and pass it
around to anarchists, you’re preaching to the converted,
you’re singing to the choir, you’re wasting your
time. If you make a movie like Fight Club and distribute
it through a major studio, and then in video at
Blockbuster, and on HBO, oh yes even if it’s not
a hit, it’s subversive. And it’s not alone. This
is what I want to say here today: SOMETHING IS IN
THE AIR.
Something
is happening. Something more than a trend—more like
a media expression of metaphysical angst. It was
happening in 12 Monkeys; it was in The Matrix; it
was in the movie PI; it was in American Beauty and,
you probably missed this one but it was, a little
while ago, in a really tight fearless British movie
called How To Get Ahead In Advertising. Is it millenial
nerves? I don’t think so. It’s being fed up, for
real. When I was a kid there was a terrifying cartoon
about a greedy little boy who goes to hell where
he is fed endless ice creams and candies over and
over until he nearly explodes and then they give
him some more; then there’s Mr Creosote in that
Monty Python movie—“It’s just a little mint, sir…”
And he does explode. We’re that kid; we’re Mr Creosote;
we’re Edward Norton in Fight Club…Now hear this:
all the movies mentioned above are really about
how we’re sick of our own mindless, stupidly overgrown,
top-heavy, corporation-shackled, toxified, greedy,
self centered, overpopulated, media saturated, disposable-culture,
center-less compass-less civilization.
We’re
in a state of sleep-deprived dreaminess (while ironically
in a kind of sleep, a zombie trance, the whole time)
like Edward Norton’s character – we’re not deprived
of sleep, we’re deprived of rest. We’re deprived
of stopping. Of something like the “stop exercise”
a la Sufi mystical tradition…A movie about a guy
(two guys?) who create a “fight Club” where guys
beat the crap out of each other bareknuckled so
they can feel real again. So they can find their
center again. So they can wake up. And it spreads
and it becomes a revolutionary movement—it has the
flavor of the Discordians and the Burning Man people
of San Francisco, with the hilarious acts of media
sabotage they get up to. Hilarious? This brutal
hyperintense movie funny? Sometimes painfully funny?
Is the last act of the film believable? Shit, no.
Does it matter? NO.
It’s
fucking with you right from the start—it’s daring
you to notice it’s a movie all along. It doesn’t
care; it wants you to question the media continuum;
question your cultural assumptions. Its structure
and concerns and even some of its speeches are remarkably
like AMERICAN BEAUTY: People suddenly wrenching
free, insisting on speaking to be heard, not just
talking till the other person’s turn. It’s about
consumerism—about realizing we’re sheep, we’re trained
for this life so we can sustain the power structure;
that we’re living in a community that we have not
built, as in former times, but that has, for a while
now, been imposed on us. The metaphor is even more
starkly played out in The Matrix where people literally
find that in their sleep they’re power sources for
a society run by robots. The same message: Wake
up and shake off the shackles—and the wires. Only,
we don’t know how we’re going to get free once we
wake up. The movies can’t tell us that. They can
only tell us to wake up. It’s in the air.
ETHAN’S
EMAIL:
“So
I saw FIGHT CLUB last night. I walked away very
disturbed. "Good,"you're probably saying! Allow
me to elaborate, FIGHT CLUB was my life 4 yearsago,
a bit of an exaggeration...perhaps. I was working
at a...let's just say avery cheap company that had
rodent problems but will otherwise remain nameless.I
was Lucille Ball, trying to wrap candies and chocolates
in the factory conveyor belt of life. I was climbing
the long, meaningless, corporate ladder and not
even making the money to buy my IKEA furniture.
My God, I wasn't able to define myself by my material
possessions! But I had a title which allowed me
the opportunity to coin myself "one of the privileged
few." I was at the company, I was told, that had
10 people lined up behind me ready to take my job
at a moments notice. I was Edward Norton, in need
of my Brad Pitt. And then, I found him or it, in
the form of an ass kicking, Chinese street fighting
martial art, brought all the way from China by the
great grand master, turned loan-shark, Jimmy H.
Woo. I had found Kung Fu San Soo. I spent 7 years
of my life getting the shit beat out of me by convicts,cops,
feds, low-lifes, and mentally impaired individuals,
many of whom I still call "friends." I too wanted
to feel "real" again. I wanted to unite mental pain
with true physical pain. I was enraged, angry, pissed
off, and needed an outlet -- and so did they. I
remember saying that I just wanted to climb into
a decompression chamber and scream at the top of
my lungs and punch concrete walls. I had found my
fight club and earned the title of black belt. But,
I was still angry, and found that unless I was given
my Kung Fu fix, I would take my aggression home
with me...literally. No need to worry John, I have
calmed down significantly since then and have let
go a lot of my anger. Fight Club is an honest movie
about real rage. I know because I walked out of
that movie theater with all those old demons and
the desire to bash someone's skull in. Yes, it lit
me up like a fire cracker and made me want to initiate
my own anarchist doctrine.
I
then decided to see a nice, peaceful movie to calm
myself down. I went to go see Scorsese's, Bringing
Out The Dead. John, it is in the air! This movie
was even more depressing WITH THE SAME THEME: Nicholas
Cage's growing rage and hostility at the futility
and worthlessness of saving peoples life's in New
York's desolate crack infested wasteland. The similarities
are staggering, including the amorphous hospital
that Cage takes his dying patients to compared with
Fincher's TRW corporate headquarters that Edward
Norton "downs" in the final shot.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH,
I was so full of rage and hate -- it would have
taken a bazooka to knock me out. I was like "fuck
this world, these institutions, advertising, consumerism,
future embetterment, peace, love, prosperity and
joy -- fuck life!" I felt like an ant, a meaningless
organism feeding offan even bigger molecule -- earth.
One big...or little -- nothing. And then, my Brazilian
girlfriend said something that suddenly shifted
my perspective. She asked me why all these films
(and why did I) decide to take such negative and
sinister out-looks at life? A simple concept I scoffed,
but you know what? She was right. Yes, these films
incite me to violence, to "rage against the machine,"
but without any constructive alternatives. Not anarchist
doctrine? Then what is it? I'll tell you what it
is. Fight Club is a cop out.It's an incredible stylistic/schizophrenic
nothing. It's a fart floating away in the breeze.
This is why people don't want to see it, not because
of the violence. As my dad says, "violence is fucking
EASY!" Positive thinking combined with positive
action leadership is truly BEAUTIFUL, and much,
much TOUGHER." AND , beautiful doesn't have to be
predictable. Contrary to your opinion myfriend,
I believe movies can tell us whatever the movie
maker wants to tell us. So Fincher and Scorsese
have pointed out the wound -- I identified with
that wound. Now what? How about some sort of....message?
Maybe something that I might be able to borrow from
and maybe, just maybe, alter my thinking insome
sort of constructive manner?”
John
Shirley response to Ethan:
It's
possible your emotions are getting in the way of
seeing the artistic significance of the film--and
the philosophical significance. Pointing out that
we're all asleep, that there is too much overlooked
suffering, that we're sunk much deeper in "The Matrix"
of consumer culture than we realized is very important
to do. It is a significant contribution in itself.
And look what an effect the film had on you! Could
that be bad film making? Maybe it's up to other
film makers to make a statement about what can be
done constructively. But you have to wake a person
up before they can go about their business in the
waking world.
Copyright
© 1999 John Shirley All Rights Reserved
John
Shirley is the award winning author of Black Butterflies,
Wetbones, "Really Really Really Really Weird Stories",
and Eclipse, among many others. Eclipse, the first
book of his cyberpunk trilogy, has just been reissued,
revised and updated, by Babbage Press, www.babbagepress.com
Check
out the official authorized John Shirley Website
at: www.darkecho.com/johnshirley
Is
violence just a cop out? Do you agree with Shirley’s
response to Ethan? Say
it here...
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