FSF Magazine, February 2007

by Spilogale Authors

  "Then we bury him, and then you get on with your life."

  "We need to plan a funeral,” said Linda.

  "Now don't be afraid to call if you need anything,” said Sarah as they entered the house. “Really. Anything at all."

  "Anything?"

  "Absolutely. Whatever you need."

  "Can I stay with you?” asked Linda.

  "Stay with me?"

  Linda nodded.

  "At my house?"

  "For a while. At least a day or two. Longer if I could."

  "You really need to get back on your feet,” said Sarah. “This is your home and it doesn't do any good to run from it. This is your place."

  "My place,” said Linda. She stood over the spot where Larry had lain. Now that he was gone, the room seemed much more open, almost cavernous.

  Sarah joined her. “Is this it?” she asked.

  "He fell right here next to the coffee table,” replied Linda.

  "They really are quite efficient. The enforcement program is run so well."

  "It is,” agreed Linda, noticing that even the blood had been cleaned up. All that remained was a small stain, barely noticeable, no worse than the tea spill on the other side of the room. But Linda would get all the stains out, the blood, the tea, everything. After all, Miracle Madness was on its way.

  "I can stay for a bit,” said Sarah, turning on the television. She folded onto the couch, pried her shoes off, and clicked through channels looking for the television version of Phil's Follies.

  "Stay for as long as you can,” said Linda. “I'll be with you in a moment. After I change.” The lavender dress was beginning to weigh on her.

  In her bedroom, Linda slipped off her high heels and set them in her closet. She then pulled off her dress and hung it neatly on a padded hanger. She lay down on her bed, closed her eyes, and folded her hands over her face. She exhaled, bathing her eyes and nose in the warmth of her own breath. She opened her mouth and made a guttural sound that echoed off her cupped hands.

  She rolled onto her stomach, grabbed her stuffed cat, Sally, and pulled her close. She wanted to be a cat. No, a ferret, she would rather be a ferret. Linda slid off the bed and crouched on her hands and knees, almost feral. She could sleep here. She could sleep on the carpet once it was clean. That would be soon; Miracle Madness was coming.

  "When clean isn't clean enough,” she moaned.

  Linda reached under the bed and felt around blindly. She pulled out a shoe box adorned with a lavender bow—a beautiful bow she had tied nine months earlier. She loved tying bows and she was proud of this one, bold and perfectly proportioned. Lavender—she loved lavender. Linda untied the bow and carefully slid the ribbon off the box. She opened the box, pulled out a red card and a small revolver, and finally cried for the first time that night.

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  Films: In a Dark and Rainy City of Lights by Kathi Maio

  This should probably be a very embarrassing confession, but I am awfully foggy about the differences between comic books and graphic novels. Oh, I understand that there are few similarities between say, the latest fictional Archie adventure to hit the newsstand and the hardbound memoirs of Marjane Satrapi. (Just as wholesome Riverdale is a far cry and half a world away from revolutionary Tehran.) But there are plenty of instances where the differences between the various drawn-and-written literary forms are much harder to distinguish. And if you throw in Asian (now morphing internationally) manga, it becomes even more baffling.

  The film industry doesn't always know what to call this stuff, either. But they know that they want to exploit the material, the themes, and even the looks of graphic fiction and autobiography.

  The most jealously courted and most often produced screen adaptations still come from the comic book tradition of the superhero. There have been scores of these movies. And it has been interesting to see popular culture Zeitgeist reflected in the ever-changing portrayal of old standbys like Batman and Superman over the decades. It is also interesting to see how very different more recent “superhero” creations—like Mike Mignola's Hellboy, who made it onto the big screen in an under-viewed but quite good adaptation written and directed by Guillermo del Toro—are from the older and more cleanly heroic tights-wearing wonders.

  Feature-length adaptations of comic books have (despite the technical FX challenges) primarily consisted of live-action moviemaking. And even the less cartoonish graphic fiction and memoirs of authors like Daniel Clowes (see Terry Zwigoff's wonderful film version of Ghost World from 2001) and Harvey Pekar (see Berman and Pulcini's equally fabulous adaptation of American Splendor from 2003) have almost entirely relied on live-action photography.

  Sensitive direction combined with the complex performances of talented actors (like Ghost World's Thora Birch and American Splendor's Paul Giamatti) add real depth to minimalist drawn and inked storytelling, allowing a coming-of-age dramedy like Ghost World or a dyspeptic wallow-in-middle-age dramedy like American Splendor to work well as motion pictures, and not just simply as comic book adaptations.

  However, when a film consists of photographing living actors as they populate a set director's physical environment, then for good or ill, the vivid, vital, and sometimes harsh impact of the original graphic work is essentially lost. In one sense, it doesn't matter that Spidey and Ghost World's Enid began as drawn figures, because the film adaptations they live in retain no real connection to their illustrated (you call it comic book, I call it graphic novel) source material.

  In the last couple of years, as amazing advances have been made in the field of computer and video FX, some filmmakers have accepted the challenge to create a movie that retains a real graphic novel sensibility while still fully utilizing the nuanced performances of live actors.

  The most successful to date is Robert Rodriguez's 2005 hyper-violent noir Sin City (co-helmed by Frank Miller, the man who created the original comics). I don't want to talk about it at length, since it is not really sf or fantasy. But I want to take a minute to acknowledge the brilliant job Mr. Rodriguez (Spy Kids) did in fully utilizing the voice, body, and facial performances of a first-rate cast (including Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, and an astonishingly good Mickey Rourke), while still washing out almost all of their flesh tones and almost all of the varied colors in their digitally created and/or CGI-enhanced sets.

  This noir world is one of black, white, and gray—with just an occasional splash of color. We may momentarily see the blue of a young woman's eye, the red satin of a prostitute's heart-shaped bed, or the putrid yellow flesh of a living-dead pedophilic serial killer. But in most scenes, we see black, white, and gray. This truly is a graphic novel come to life, and as such is incredibly well done. Beautiful, even. If only the story weren't so gruesomely and extravagantly violent.

  To say that the content of Sin City is not really my taste is an understatement of huge proportions. And yet I could not take my gaze off the screen as I watched it. The intersecting comic book plots worked, and the stereotyped tough guy and whore heroes were oddly affecting characters. The film even boasts touches of wonderfully ghoulish humor (notably in Rourke's man-beast avenger's joie de assassinat and the cautionary commentary provided by a corpse played by Benicio Del Toro).

  Sin City melds the graphic novel and the live-action film in a way that honors the strengths of both. I wish I could say the same for a more recent feature from France called Renaissance.

  A dystopic crime procedural set in Paris in 2054, Renaissance was created by filming live actors using a mocap (motion capture) process similar to that used in 2004's woeful kiddie flick Polar Express, and then superimposing the actors onto an imagined futuristic multi-level Parisian landscape, all while converting color and texture into a stark, striking black and white “animated” movie.

  As an experiment in marrying motion to a very painterly b&w two-tone storyboard, Renaissance is a breathtaking achievement. Sadly, as a full-length film with an involving plot and compelling characters,
it fails completely.

  Director Christian Volckman and producer Aton Soumache, working with a young technical wizard named Marc Miance (who was in turn working with scores of techies and animators on 300 workstations and 200 render servers provided by IBM), set about to push 3D animation forward. This they did. But it is clear after just a few minutes of Renaissance that the creative team behind the movie were so hung up on the visual wow factor, that they lost sight of the fact that they were trying to tell a story, too.

  The screenplay by Mathieu Delaporte, Alexandre de la Patellire, Patrick Raynal, and Jean-Bernard Pouy, is an amalgam of every Hollywood noir movie French film students ever pored over, plus bits and pieces of Metropolis, Blade Runner, and countless other sf movies. Unfortunately, the end result has little cohesion, and even less character development.

  To be fair, part of the problem is probably lost-in-translation syndrome. From what I can tell, the motion-captured actors ended up altered into graphic characters that were later voiced by yet another set of actors. On top of that, the secondary French voice actors have been replaced (in the U.S. release from Miramax) with mostly British actors like Daniel Craig, Romola Garai, Catherine McCormack, Ian Holm, and Jonathan Pryce.

  Combine the issue of twice-removed acting with the nuance-killing, slightly abstracting (not to mention distracting) black and white animation technique used, and you begin to wonder whether a film like this is simply a no-win proposition. Perhaps it isn't simply the fault of an inept director and his writers—the people we are trained to blame—that this work leaves a final impression of being dull, flat, and never quite fleshed out. The flesh here is, after all, merely expanses of white with splashes of black to complete the picture.

  Maybe the dazzling visual conceit that will inspire potential viewers to seek out this film is the very thing that dooms it to failure.

  But no, that's letting the folks behind this movie off way too easy. There were solvable problems in Renaissance that were just not addressed by the filmmakers. And most of these issues stem from the trite storyline. The setup is hackneyed, but not completely without promise. A hard-bitten police detective named Karas is assigned the case of a missing young female scientist named Ilona Tasuiev. The company she works for, a monolithic power called Avalon, wants her back, pronto. It seems that her latest research might be on the verge of discovering the secret to eternal life.

  The billboards for the company, touting its slogan of “Health, Beauty, Longevity” are repeatedly shown throughout the movie. And we quickly get a sense that the corporation is not above thuggery and even murder. But we never learn what the company is really about, or what it means to the lives of Parisians. Does Avalon have the populace in thrall? What does it sell them? Who are the Parisians of 2054—specifically the ones, like the missing Ilona's older sister, Bislane, who people the sketchy plot and interact with Karas?

  The movie makes no attempt to answer any of these questions. And I was surprised to read in the production notes for the film that in 2054 Paris “the borders have been sealed.” If this fact is presented or discussed in any way in the film, then I guess I must have dozed off. Which is possible.

  The film is a great opportunity completely squandered. Renaissance could have given us a real alternative and a refreshingly European view of the future. I would have welcomed that. Hollywood has a tendency to see the future (dystopic or not) as completely American. So much so that American sf disaster films have a penchant for blowing Paris to smithereens just for fun. (Shades of “the big one” Randy Newman advised us to drop on Paree more than thirty years back.)

  Renaissance needed to go past its basic, banal mystery plot to explore the future society it supposedly has created for us. It should have also set aside its Gallic ennui long enough to enliven its characters with a bit of personality, and perhaps even a soupon of wit. And, at the very least, it should have pondered the philosophical issues that would greet the scientific discovery of eternal life.

  There is one character in the film who is actually the embodiment of this immortality research, but the film never even lets him speak to us...or to any of the characters, for that matter. A silent, wizened Yoda of a character wandering menacingly (pathetically?) through some of the final scenes, he is just another blown character opportunity in the sketchy plot of a very, very disappointing film.

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  Fool by John Morressy

  When John Morressy died last March, we were fortunate to have a few stories by him in inventory. “Fool,” sadly, is the last of them (though we're still hoping some gems will turn up in his papers). It's a poignant and potent fantasy narrated by one of our favorite characters to pass through these pages recently.

  By the way, readers should know we have a fine appreciation of John Morressy's work on our Website. Dave Truesdale has begun writing “Off on a Tangent” for us every month. Check it out on the “Departments” page; the December column takes a long look at the Morressy legacy.

  "Niccolo comes!"

  At the cry, revelers crammed with food and sodden with wine cease their gobbling and swilling. They forget their eager lusts and roar with delight when I hobble in, darting in sudden lunges from side to side, wheeling round and round to afford every guest a look at my form and my features and my lopsided gait. Niccolo the fool is the climax of every feast.

  Mixed with the shrieks of laughter are cries of horror and disgust. A sensitive few shrink from the sight of me and avert their eyes. I have caused women to faint; and some men, as well, to the delight of their companions.

  Such is my welcome, and I glory in it. I was born to be a fool, and I am a master of my calling. And I am something more. Oh, yes, I am much more.

  Had I been a shade less hideous, just a trifle less misshapen and ill-made, the midwife would have seen to it that I did not survive to shame my family. But I was plucked from the womb so magnificently ugly, so repellent to the eye, that she held me up by my crooked legs and cried, “Here's gold!"

  That old woman was wise in the world's ways. She knew that there were many who would pay well for a fool who so looked his part. I needed no shaping hand to suit me for the motley, no fortunate accident or contorting sickness. I was born fully malformed.

  I offended not merely the eye, but the ear as well. When I gave my first cry, the first of many, all those in hearing winced and shuddered, covered their ears, and declared that the devil himself had stuck his snout into our hovel to announce my birth. And perhaps he had. Perhaps he had.

  My parents did not accept the midwife's estimate of my value. Whether they were too impatient, too needy, or simply eager to be free of the sight of me, I cannot say. Whatever the reason, they sold me while I was still a child, not for gold or even silver but for copper, and very little of that. I never saw my family again, to their great relief, I am sure. Certainly to mine.

  My value has increased considerably since that day. I have refined my natural gifts and mastered a variety of useful skills. Now I am well rewarded for my work, and my work is varied. I am not always paid to amuse.

  I remember little of my early years except the beatings. They were administered as guides to conduct and aids to my instruction, and served to me with greater regularity than my meals. My appearance and my clumsiness made me a handy object for the exercise of my first master's household, where I held a place below the lowliest servant. The beatings ended only when I was sold into the household of a bishop.

  He was shocked to learn that I had never been baptized, and horrified when I told him the reason. My parents were simple pious folk who believed in a Heaven of eternal beauty and serenity. Such a place, they explained to my former master as they accepted his coins, could hold no room for such a thing as I, and so they never brought me to the baptismal font.

  Or did they fear that I would taint the water?

  I entered the bishop's palace on the feast of Saint Nicholas, and was christened with that good saint's name. The bishop was a godly
man, severe toward himself but kindly to all others, a man too good for this rats’ nest of a world men scrabble in. He delivered me from a cruel master and strove to teach me a different way of life. In the bishop's residence I was not an animal to be beaten into docile obedience, worked to death, and then tossed on a dunghill. To the bishop, my outward form did not matter. I was not a possession but the good man's brother in Christ, a child of God with a soul to be saved. I believe he actually saw a kind of beauty in me—a feat achieved by only one person since that time, and that person mad. I have never attempted it myself.

  In the bishop's palace I learned that “God” was a word to be spoken in reverence, not in rage. I learned to read and write, and how to conduct myself in the presence of my betters. The palace was a far more desirable place to live than the barnyard, and I strove to be a model pupil. The good bishop also taught me the tenets of the faith and instructed me in morals. In those areas, though I was careful to give the required responses and display the expected piety in his presence, my progress was somewhat limited.

  All in all, the bishop did his best to prepare me for the next world. Unknown to him, I was learning of the attractions of this one, and I was unwilling to depart from it without enjoying a goodly share of them.

  In his palace, besides the scholars and the devout, the bishop had men and women with a wide range of worldly experience. He had in his employ some who had been thieves, prostitutes, and murderers. He was aware of their past transgressions, but believed them to be committed to a new life of repentance and atonement. In this he was deceived.

  The bishop looked at men and women and saw them as they might be. I saw them as they were. The thieves, prostitutes, and murderers, too, became my teachers, and prepared me well for life this side of the grave. They taught me that we have always time to repent, should we be so inclined, but our time for pleasure and profit is short. We must make the most of our talents, and if opportunities do not come to us, we must create them.