time travel (or not)
From
septimus_millenicom@q.com@21:1/5 to
All on Sun Feb 21 16:51:22 2016
Art is by definition time travel; the events presented
are at a temporal removal from the spectator/audience.
Time-travel machines in science fiction merely create
a doubled sense of illusion. There are great time
travel films, of course, _La Jetee_ and _Je t'aime
je t'aime_ among the best. But really poignant stories
have been told just by superpositioning past and present,
which cinema does amazingly well with its tricks and
make-believe.
I was keenly reminded of this after reading Tom Stoppard's
_Indian Ink_, originally a radio play written between
_Arcadia_ and _The Invention of Love_. All three involve
superpositing past and present on the same scene, with
character from two eras sharing the stage. The three
could be grouped as "The Unrequited Love Trilogy." (The
yearnings are untraditional: heterosexual but between
a pre-teen and her tutor; interracial; homosexual.)
This unofficial trilogy is followed by the _Coast of
Utopia_ trio of plays; they are Stoppard's mature, most
emotional, and finest work, and Stoppard really deserved
a Nobel Prize for them. I have often wondered why stage
plays have not been turned into films more often. All
three of these are remarkably cinematic.
Films like Neil Jordan's _Byzantium_ and Stephen Gyllenhaul's
_Waterland_ (an absolutely amazing adaptation; Gullenhaul
has never been able to capture the lightning in the bottle
the same way since) feature actors looking upon their
younger self in the same frame. Someone must have made
a list of films which use this devastating cinematic device.
Speaking of time-travel sci-fi, let's not forget the
_Dune_ miniseries, especially the second (Dune Messiah
+ Children of Dune), where the ability to tell the
future is a very prominent plot element. Like in the
Tom Cruise-Emily Blunt film _Edge of Tomorrow_, the
ability to tell the future is also the ability to alter
it. On the grand stage of deciding the course of
humanity in _Dune_, however, there proves to be no
good futures to choose from; all choices are tragic.
Paul Muad'Did, the epic hero in the original novel,
is compelled to let the religious jihad he has unleashed
to claim the throne run its course, resulting in
uncounted attrocities in his name and the depopulation
of entire planets. In the end he is spent, completely
compromised, wanders blind into the desert, while his
sister, the precocious heroine of _Dune_, succumbs to
possession and madness. _Dune_ is a stunning creation,
but without its sequels it would not have been a tenth
as powerful. The _Dune_ miniseries on the scifi channel
benefits from good casting in lead roles (Saskia Reeves
must be born to play Lady Jessica, and William Hurt is
marvelous as Duke Leto). The sequel miniseries is less
fortunate (Jessica has to be recast, and the actress
who plays the critical role of Chani can't act if her
life depends on it.) Still, it is faithful to the
tragic grandeur of Frank Herbert's books, which is a
lot more than can be said about the David Lynch version.
Watching the documentary _Jodorowsky's Dune_ on a
plane, I'm really glad the crazy Chilean didn't get
to make his film -- it would have butchered the novel
and turned it into a Hippie bliss-out.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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