• 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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