Another Week Ends: Yancey on AA, Whit Stillman, Dawn Treader and Ron Swanson

1. A great little interview with evangelical author Philip Yancey on CNN about his new book What Good Is God?, in which he responds to one of our all-time favorite questions, i.e: What can churches learn from AA?

Yancey: Two lessons stand out sharply to me: radical honesty and radical dependence. Alcoholics Anonymous members can spot a fraud, hypocrite, or liar the minute he or she walks in the door. They know the only path to healing begins with a frank self-assessment of failure.

When we go to church we like to look good and gain the respect of others. A married couple may fight all the way to church, but when they pull into the parking lot they’re all smiles, “We’re just fine, Mrs. Jones, how about you?” You’d never get away with that at AA.

AA also forces each person to admit their dependence on God (or at least a Higher Power) and on each other. Most AA members freely admit they could never make it on their own. People of faith believe that, too, yet how many of us practice it as passionately as those in a twelve-step group?

FYI: From now until the end of the month, our publication "Grace in Addiction: What the Church Can Learn from Alcoholics Anonymous" is now discounted by 25% over at Magcloud!

2. "Why the World Still Needs Whit Stillman" at The Atlantic sums up the Stillman charm nicely (I for one am counting the minutes til Damsels!):
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A Few From Whit Stillman

In anticipation of our upcoming interview with writer-producer-director Whit Stillman(!), check out the "Five Essential Books For the Bass Weejun Set" that he compiled for Salon.com in 2000. Of particular note is number three, Leo Tolstoy's Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. Stillman writes,

Tolstoy's autobiographical first fiction beautifully chronicles the mysterious past of earliest memories, how we are loved or not and struggle to gain acceptance socially without making too miserable fools of ourselves -- life "comme il faut." An actual count, which in his day was considered nearly as good as becoming a member of Skull and Bones, Tolstoy dated widely in his youth and then became the protagonist of his own religion -- fascinating stuff for hymn-addled ex-Calvinists.

Note: I'm currently making my way through Tolstoy's Resurrection - also highly recommended.

2. And then there's the lengthy interview he did with Psychology Today back in 1998. Read the whole thing if you have time, as it pays dividends. For our purposes, the most pertinent section might be:

PT: In your film [The Last Days Of Disco], among the characters who are psychologically interesting without being cases, none is more compelling than Charlotte. She's lovely on the outside, not so lovely on the inside. She is everyone's worst nightmare of a female or of a friend, saying things under the guise of friendship that really, truly undermine a person.

WS: In a way, it's also a critique of the idea that if people recognize a bad trait or problem behavior in themselves and are aware of it and talk about it and apologize for it, then they have solved the problem. In fact, Charlotte is always very aware of her downside and confesses to it, and yet she does not change at all. It's the idea that talking about things corrects them--when it doesn't. Being aware of some problem or some bad behavior doesn't correct that bad behavior.

3. If that's not enough to whet your appetite, take a listen to one of the Stillman-inspired disco re-edits from JAZ's I Played Sports, "Weejun Dancer":

Opening Dialogue from Whit Stillman's Metropolitan

What better way to kick off Conference week than with some of the greatest opening lines in film history?! Metropolitan is Whit Stillman's first film (and many think his best - it's my third favorite), and even from its opening scene, it is clear that a remarkably fresh voice had arrived on the American cinema scene, one with a very distinct comedic sensibility. There really is no other movie like it, at least if you don't count Stillman's other two films, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco. Taken as a trilogy, I consider them the finest "comedies of manners" ever made. The script received a surprise Oscar nomination back in 1990 and finally came out on Criterion Collection DVD a couple years ago.

INT. FOWLER LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
Sally Fowler's afterparty is in progress. In the foreground CHARLIE BLACK is seen in profile close-up talking to some person or persons o.s.; as the frame widens we see that his primary audience is the highly attractive CYNTHIA MCLEAN, although the group as a whole listens too.

CHARLIE: Of course there's a God. We all basically know there is.

CYNTHIA: I know no such thing.

CHARLIE: Of course you do. When you think to yourself - and most of our waking life is taken up thinking to ourselves - you must have that feeling that your thoughts aren't entirely wasted, that in some sense they are being heard. Rationally, they aren't; you're entirely alone. Even the people to whom we are closest can have no idea of what is going on in our minds. But we aren't devastated by loneliness because, at a hardly conscious level, we don't accept that we're entirely alone. I think this sensation of being silently listened to with total comprehension - something you never find in real life - represents our innate belief in a supreme being, some all-comprehending intelligence.

CYNTHIA: That seems awfully subjective.

CHARLIE: Of course it is. That's just my point. We all subjectively know God exists. Then, usually in adolescence, we decide that that's silly. Still later -

[Cuts away to a quick scene of two young ladies talking about a young man, and then rejoins the conversation.]

CYNTHIA: I don't see what that has to do with proving God exists.

CHARLIE: What is shows is that a kind of belief is innate in all of us. At some point most of us lose that, after which it can only be regained by a conscious act of faith.

CYNTHIA: And you've experienced that?

CHARLIE: No, I haven't... I hope to someday.

[The scene in question begins at 3min 25sec.]

I mean, who starts a movie like that?! Especially a comedy... But it goes on from there and the humor grows. I promise if you stick with it and listen/watch carefully, you'll see that there is a LOT more going on than a bunch of preppies talking in a room. Stillman is a true hero.

Books On Film - Whit Stillman

A couple of weeks ago, one of my favorite filmmakers, Whit Stillman, published an annotated list of "Five Essential Books About Hollywood". Hearing anything from Stillman these days is a treat/rarity, even more so when it has to do with film, so I thought it was worth sharing. Numbers 3-5 struck me as particularly interesting. They are:

3. When the Shooting Stops . . . the Cutting Begins, By Ralph Rosenblum and Robert Karen. Viking, 1979

The dourest of men, Ralph Rosenblum was the editorial genius behind many of the great modern film comedies, including the first films of Woody Allen, Herb Gardiner and Mel Brooks. Rosenblum's account of the editing-room transformation of "The Producers," "Take the Money and Run" and "Annie Hall" is a film education in itself and a counterweight to the usual debate over the primacy of either script or direction. Rosenblum's bête noire is the cult of the film director. In his memoir only three directors -- Allen, Gardiner and Sidney Lumet (the first two also writers and so more tolerably "auteurs") -- come off well. "The myth that the director is the sole creator of his film is a burden on almost everyone in the movie business, including the director," he and co-author Robert Karen write. Particularly revealing is Rosenblum's description of how the beautiful ending to "Annie Hall" -- when Allen, as Alvy Singer, muses on the absurdity and necessity of romantic love -- was concocted in a taxi and recorded in a sound booth barely an hour before a key audience screening.

4. Between Flops, By James Curtis. Harcourt, 1982

Film directors are generally duds as biographical subjects, but the great exception is Preston Sturges. As James Curtis relates in "Between Flops," Sturges was a wastrel of an inventor and man about many towns when he wrote his first play out of pique at an actress girlfriend. His second play, "Strictly Dishonorable" (his reply to a young woman who questioned his intentions), became a major Broadway hit of the 1920s. Later, as a screenwriter at Paramount, he found a sympathetic studio executive in William LeBaron. Sturges offered to sell the studio his script for "The Great McGinty" for a dollar -- he was then getting upwards of $30,000 -- if they would allow him to direct it. The result was one of the great winning streaks in film comedy, including such classics as "The Lady Eve" and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek." But LeBaron was followed as production head by songwriter-producer B.G. "Buddy" DeSylva -- "a small, abrasive Italian with a production sense limited primarily to musicals," Curtis writes -- who proceeded to drive out the studio's most valuable asset.

5. Hitchcock, By François Truffaut. Simon & Schuster, 1967

The encounter between the Anglo-American master of one movie generation and the Continental leader of another became film history's most remarkable dialogue. Both men propagate the "visual fallacy" in filmmaking, the overvaluing as "cinematic" the purely visual, while giving short shrift to the aural -- sound, music and dialogue. But a great film could have been made of their exchanges alone. "I saw 'Spellbound' again recently and I must admit that I didn't care very much for the scenario," Truffaut comments. "Well, it's just another manhunt story wrapped up in pseudo-psychoanalysis," Hitchcock replies. The back-and-forth continues, until Truffaut says: "I hope you won't be offended, but I must say I found the picture something of a disappointment." "Not at all," the master responds, taking control: "The whole thing's too complicated, and I found the explanations toward the end very confusing."

I'm especially excited to read that last one. I vaguely recall seeing a copy on my father's bookshelf when I was a kid... And though I've tried to get into Preston Sturges a couple times - mainly because everyone says Stillman is so influenced by him - I've never gotten hooked. Maybe "Sullivan's Travels" isn't the place to start? Or maybe Sturges was one of those directors whose work never quite measured up to the force of their personality and charm (a la Werner Herzog)?

Whit Stillman in First Things

A terrific and very lengthy profile of Mbird-fave filmmaker Whit Stillman over at First Things, which includes the incredible news that Damsels in Distress, his first feature in over a decade, has finished shooting! The article abounds with priceless soundbites, a few being:

“I remember being very young, and there were greasers, people who were very Elvis Presley-ish, and rock-’n’-roll juvenile delinquents, and these were people who I assumed would just disappear, and they were something that was really unappealing and not constructive and kind of awful. But then, rather than going away, they became completely dominant and then metamorphosed into something even worse. It gives me a lot of energy and a point of view, and I have a lot of material to work with. I think sometimes it’s the things you don’t like that give you inspiration.”

Stillman says that what he aspires to do in his films is to create a world where people dissenting from what he believes is the “bad dominant culture” can exist and maintain their point of view. When someone doesn’t like one of his films, Stillman theorizes it’s because he or she feels attacked. “They like to put themselves up by judging the film in a contemptuous way,” he says. He hesitates and then adds, “Or maybe the film is judging them in a contemptuous way.”

Another Week Ends: Religious Scientists, The Man Who Loved Children, Whit Stillman, Charles Grodin and Andy Griffith

Greetings from VA! It's taken a week or so, but we're just about set up down here in our new home.

1. Last week The Washington Post reviewed Elaine Ecklund's new book Science Vs Religion: What Scientist Really Think, which polls the beliefs of over 1700 scientists at America's most elite research universities. The findings are of interest:

These surveys and 275 lengthy follow-up interviews reveal that scientists often practice a closeted faith. They worry how their peers would react to learning about their religious views. Fully half of these top scientists are religious. Only five of the 275 interviewees actively oppose religion. Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves "spiritual." 

2. Over at the NY Times, novelist Jonathan Franzen makes a convincing case for Christina Stead's 1940 novel The Man Who Loved Children as canon. The essay also proves an opportunity for Franzen, a mockingbird favorite, to air some thoughts on the so-called "decline" of the novel:

"Telling the story of [...] inner life is what novels, and only novels, are for. Or used to be, at least. Because haven’t we left this stuff behind us? High-mindedly domineering males? Children as accessories to their parents’ narcissism? The nuclear family as a free-for-all of psychic abuse? We’re tired of the war between the sexes and the war between the generations, because these wars are so ugly, and who wants to look into the mirror of a novel and see such ugliness? How much better about ourselves we’ll feel when we stop speaking our embarrassing private family languages! The absence of literary swans seems like a small price to pay for a world in which ugly ducklings grow up to be big ugly ducks whom we can then agree to call beautiful."

3. In the clearly-there's-a-God department, this week the news broke that after more than a decade of silence, director Whit Stillman officially has a new project underway! At least, casting has begun for "Damsels In Distress," a comedy described by Stillman as "ultra-low budget." Needless to say, we could not be more excited. Be sure to read the full cast breakdown, as there are some priceless Stillman-isms buried in there.

According to Open Casting, the storyline, "centers on a group of college girls who take in a new student and teach her their own misguided ways of helping people. Lily, a new student at Seven Oaks University, winds up filling in with a dynamic and highly individualistic group of girls, addicted to the elegance of the past: Heather, Violet and Rose all volunteer at the campus Suicide Prevention Center, convinced that musical dance, sharp clothes and good hygiene — the Dior perfume “Diorissimo” is their trademark — can all contribute to staving off the inevitable self-destructive impulses that follow hard on the heels of failed college romances. Despite their sophisticated talk and savvy use of perfume, the girls are plagued by Cupid’s arrows and must adjust their psyches to the onset of amour."
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David Sedaris on Air Travel & Whit Stillman on Shakespeare

A priceless quote from Sedaris' characteristically hilarious "Standing By" in this week's New Yorker (ht BE):

"We're forever blaming the airline industry for turning us into monsters: it's the fault of the ticket agents, the baggage handlers, the slowpokes at the newsstands and the fast food restaurants. But what if this is truly who we are, and the airport's just a forum that allows us to be our real selves, not just hateful but gloriously so?"

Very much in tune with that brilliant scene toward the end of Whit Stillman's Last Days of Disco:

Glenn Miller-based Religious Ceremonies: A Clip From Whit Stillman's Barcelona

Reason number 1001 to love the films of Whit Stillman - if this doesn't convert you, nothing will:

Purchase Barcelona here.  Then write Criterion an email petitioning for a deluxe version.  And then pray that a new film would materialize soon.

History Is Made At Night - An Interview with Filmmaker Whit Stillman

Good Times! - Whit Stillman’s The Last Days Of Disco makes its long-awaited DVD debut this Tuesday 8/25 in an exquisite edition from the Criterion Collection. The final (and some might say finest) entry in his “doomed bourgeois in love” trilogy, Disco received nowhere near its proper due when it was released in 1998, getting swallowed up instead by a media-fabricated “disco revival” (an especially tragic fate for a film that’s not really about disco) and left to wallow unreleased while studios bickered over the rights.

A supremely touching and frequently hilarious story about young professionals coping with love and work in NYC in the very early 80s, the term “romantic comedy” would almost apply, if that label didn’t carry all the associations it carries these days. Very few stones are left unturned: identity, romance, free will, advertising, the importance of group social life – it’s all here. Not to mention the most inspired discussion of Lady And The Tramp ever committed to film (once Stillman’s sense of humor grabs you – and it doesn’t grab everyone – you will never turn back).

Watching it again, one realizes how much Disco represents the culmination of Stillman’s style: the inimitable dialogue, the superb ensemble acting, the use of music, the endearing snottiness of Chris Eigeman, the astounding eye/ear for detail, etc. Call me a super-fan, but I cannot think of another movie of the same era that manages to pull off being both tasteful and honest, humane and ironic, smart and emotionally accessible. I can certainly think of a number that have knocked it off.

The good news is, this release actually does the film justice! Criterion have knocked it out of the park once again – surprise, surprise - presenting Disco with the same care, precision and charm that Stillman brought to the film itself. The transfer is gorgeous and the extra features are a revelation. Of course, for our purposes, it should be noted that this movie features not one but two Protestant hymns (“Amazing Grace” and “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”). As in all of Stillman’s films, religion hovers around the edges, bubbling up sympathetically in moments of crisis but never in the hysterical or patronizing way that lesser directors employ it. I had the opportunity to speak with Whit recently about Disco, biographies, church and a number of other subjects.


It’s been ten years since The Last Days of Disco. What happened when it was first released?

An interesting thing. We were released by Gramercy pictures and it was a bit of an uncomfortable situation. In theory Gramercy had the right profile for this kind of film, but they were kind of collapsing and didn’t have much money. The fellow who was going to distribute it came in, and said, ‘I think we should change the title. It’s not really about disco, and people are going to be disappointed if they come in thinking that.’ We were just shocked. We felt like the title was the best thing we had going for us. And then later I saw all the grief we got from journalists about the disco era and this and that – all the focus on this one really unimportant detail. The film is about the characters and the story. It’s about New York, it’s about apartments, it’s about jobs. Not this journalistic obsession with disco. So when the executive said we should change the title, I thought he was crazy. But in retrospect, he was probably right. And for foreign releases we thought a lot about using the original sub-title, “History Is Made At Night”, which I think would have been a good title, as it was a great 30’s film directed by Frank Borzage and had an approach and romanticism that we really admired.

It seemed like a real mistake that everything about the film was being related to a style of music. That wasn’t the heart of the film. Then later, someone told me that that same distributor wanted to change the title of every film he gets. A compulsive title-changer, and often to very bad titles. In any case, when the film came out in the States, we didn’t really do what we had to do as far as connecting to an audience. It seemed like it was a hit in the big cities and then didn’t pan out in its full distribution.

It’s a very detailed movie, the kind that benefits greatly from repeated viewings. I would guess that you would be pretty excited about a DVD release after all these years. It seems that of your three films it gets the shortest shrift.

It’s really surprising what a difference it makes. I thought the film was pretty well available on TV and lately it’s been available in other ways. But it’s great having a DVD come out. And associated with that there’s been these screenings. [Important: come join us on 8/27 for a special screening at Lincoln Center. Or 9/1 at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY! Whit will be on hand at both events.]

It must have been heartbreaking to lose those scenes with Jimmy stealing Des’ secret diary/Last Testament [included as deleted scenes on the DVD].

At the time we were under the gun in the editing room, so to lose anything was just, ‘hallelujah, we lost something'.

I remember reading the wonderful “novelization” of the film [that you wrote] and Jimmy Steinway's line about Brutus in the final cab ride made much more sense to me in the context of those scenes. Seeing it on screen was really great. I love that Des is eating cereal. It rings very true. Can we expect any more novels from you?

Yes, I think so. At a certain point, it becomes impossible to make films and you have to head in another way.

As one of the special features on the DVD, you read the epilogue from the novelization, “The Moon Worshipers”. What made you choose that chapter over the “Cocktails at Petrossian” one [which narrates a reunion of the characters 17 years after the events of the film]?

We had already done the “Petrossian” chapter for audible.com. And when we read through it, there was a lot of performance of different characters, and I found it awkward in my own voice to quote Jimmy, to quote Des, to have their dialogue. It seemed better to have the Jimmy voice as a monologue in his account in that final chapter.

The bias against advertising executives that is depicted in the film, I thought it was funny in the commentary when you confirmed that it was true (Mad Men notwithstanding). Where does that come from?

There are two aspects. I had a friend who was this cool guy, very stylish and fashionable. He had a good friend who was doing the party design at Studio 54, so he was completely on the inside. As a result, he had that experience of being called upon constantly by the ad agency he worked for to get out-of-town clients into the club. There were people like that, who had some angle for getting folks into the club; they were popular but it became a worrisome obligation for them.

Another aspect of the advertising thing, which we get into a bit in Barcelona, was that I had one friend who was in advertising and really was interested in it. He’d quote all sorts of things: Rosser Reeves, Unique Selling Proposition - what’s the USP for this product? - a lot of Jimmy Steinway is based on his experience. I had another friend who had the experience of getting jobs out in Dallas or Atlanta and came to realize that once your career is out of New York, it’s very hard to come back. Which was part of the idea for Jimmy Steinway’s trajectory. Would you have preferred to have the Cocktails at Petrossian chapter [on the DVD] rather than the final one?

Personally I prefer the one you chose, the final one – mainly because I find the stuff about Hungarian Calvinism so funny and touching. But I do think people would be curious about that interaction between Des and Jimmy.

I think the chapter that we read has more serious content. It’s more serious stuff.

I’ve looked and looked and there’s no book named The Lean Years: Hungarian Calvinism in Crisis [referenced a number of times in the novelization], is there?

There is and I own it. I was really obsessed with that book. I found the idea of Calvinism in Hungary so fascinating. There’s a whole neighborhood in New York, the Yorkville area, which has a real eastern European feeling and was very anti-Communist. I kept seeing that book in windows and I finally did buy it. I just found it so evocative. Even though only the cover was in English and the rest was in Hungarian.

I also prefer the final chapter for that priceless line, “I’m sure there are some cute Huguenot girls out there”.

When I was in France I had sort of an experience of that. I love those French Protestant churches. They’re really great. There’s such an austere, lovely feeling in those churches. And I knew socially from Harvard some French Protestants and found it interesting how they would almost invariably marry American, Canadian or German Protestant women. They would never find those cute Huguenot girls.

Jansenism was one of my father’s obsessions when I was growing up, and as kids he would drag us to all these Huguenot churches when we were on vacation. The nostalgia of seeing something that has ended – is it a stretch to say there’s a similar thing with the disco era?

When we are younger we’re overwhelmed by nostalgia but as you get older you actually become less subject to it. And I think the idea of things dying and ending and all that, when you’re younger you see it just in sad ways – but then you come to see it as part of the process of dying and renewal and good things come out of that. I hate it when people think they should cater to and play along with whatever is trendy and dominant. They’re sycophants without realizing that things that are trendy and dominant are ephemeral too. Max Beerbohm had a wonderful remark, “It distresses me, this failure to keep pace with the leaders of thought, as they pass into oblivion”. And it’s so true.

The Last Days of Disco depicts young people trying to form their identities in some way. Some are forming them based on things that are trendy/silly and some on things that are more substantial. Do you think New York exaggerates or amplifies that identity search?

I remember coming back to the city and seeing how people were interacting socially, and it was a really poisonous atmosphere. It’s well illustrated in a movie set in LA, Swingers - maybe it’s a Los Angeles/New York phenomenon - where there’s all these things about how a guy couldn’t call a girl immediately, that he had to wait three days. And if a guy called a girl, she couldn’t call him right back, etc. My gosh, that’s poisonous for people getting to know each other in the right way.



What are your current influences? What are you watching now that you’d recommend?

I think if you’re working in one area, it’s good to be influenced by another area. If you’re making movies, you shouldn’t be looking at other movies for inspiration. Unless it’s movies from a radically different era or epoch or country.

The great influence is the great things in the world. The most appealing thing to read is good biography, and I think you always should avoid going by subject as opposed to quality of treatment. So if there’s a book written about a subject that you’re interested in, but it’s written by an author whose understanding is flawed, it’s better to avoid that and go to the good book written about something of some value, though it may not be precisely your interest. It’s a little like when you go to university, do you take the courses you’re interested in or do you find the great teachers and follow their courses? I would go with the great teachers.

So if you can ever find something that is a great author on a great subject, then you’ve struck gold. Boswell’s life of Johnson would be that. Johnson was so profound and so great, so perceptive, so devout. And he’s so wrong-headed in a very funny, enlightening way. He could be contentious of Americans in a very bigoted way, and yet we can get energy and stimulation out of that. You can get it from Evelyn Waugh too. All of his dislike of Americans and contempt and all his prejudices are all part of the amusing parcel. We can enjoy his deprecation as much as some moron’s praise.

What is your favorite Evelyn Waugh?

My favorites would be Scoop and Put Our More Flags. The maximum of his very silly stuff. I like Brideshead and Sword of Honour a lot too.

Any more biographies to recommend?

Robert Conquest’s life of Stalin. People should also look at the big biography of Mao that came out in the last five years. It’s impossible to read that book straight through, it’s just too appalling. But it completely demystifies the cult of Mao. It’s important to know how inhuman they were in their evil. I think so often people try to put their violence in the context of their ideology, when I think you really have to put their ideology in the context of their violence. The violence is there and comes first. The hatefulness is there and the violence comes out of it.

The casting of Disco is so incredibly perfect. How important is that to you in making a movie?

It’s absolutely terrifying. You can spend years on something and get it pretty close to where it should be and then you can throw it all away by having the wrong cast. And it was one of the great things about working in the old independent film business, that your people were not so well known and their contracts were pretty open and it was kind of under the radar so there could be recasting and changes without people getting hurt. Without it hurting people’s reputations. We actually had a major recasting early on in the shoot (it’s obliquely mentioned in the commentary). The freedom you have for recasting and changing things in independent film is very important. If something doesn’t work you can make a change. Which we did in both Metropolitan and Disco.

I read an article that you wrote for the Wall Street Journal a while back where you talk about church-going and focus on the services of the late Dr. Maurice Boyd [ed. note: read it now!]. Care to comment?

A lot of us discovered Dr. Boyd at the 5th Ave Presbyterian Church [in NYC] and loved him and the services he conducted. His orders of worship were immaculate. He kept refining the services, making them better and better. And he’d say that it was the first time that he’d had things just as they should be. I remember when I interviewed him for the “Suffering Sundays” piece about the pain we go through on many Sundays when we have go to a church that we don’t really like, and we have to put up with it. And the difference in finding someone who both is eloquent and insightful, with a completely uplifting sermon and service. I asked him why there was no sign of peace, and he said, “I find it embarrassing and awkward, I leave it out”. He was really pretty scathing about it. And I just find that so true. I find it false and embarrassing. There’s so many things in churches now which are so much the opposite of where we should be. He had the courage completely to do it exactly the right way.

That’s very, very rare.

And he paid a price for it. It was wonderful while it was happening. I think he retired in 2007. And it’s really a shame that there are some people who are really very good and have great things to say, but will be surrounded by a service of worship that’s so mediocre and off-putting.

So that you want to come in late to avoid the awkwardness and leave early to avoid it again.

The traditional service we’ve been handed down is so beautiful and so wonderful. And the fact that people think they have to dumb it down or corn it up, it’s so disrespectful.

Last two questions. Is there any hope for Barcelona on Criterion?

There’s a lot of hope. The more noise we can make the better. They’re negotiating with Warners. It’d be great because then we could have the boxed set.

Is there anything you can tell me about upcoming projects? I keep hearing about Jamaican Gospel churches? Do you have any comment?

Well, that’s the one that I hope will happen. But there’s another one that’s in pretty good shape too. I need to get a website up so we can collect money from would-be investors. I think it’s really important to develop a network of investors in the right kind of independent film. They can do very well as investors and we can make some really good films. We shouldn’t go through the industry. It’s much better to do it yourself.

A Few Quick Mid-Week Links: Dylan, Holcomb, Stillman and Ebert

1. Bob Dylan has just announced his first ever Christmas album! The full tracklisting has yet to be revealed, but it has already been reported that "Christmas In The Heart" will feature at least one sacred tune, his version of Phillip Brooks' "O Little Town Of Bethlehem". It hits stores on October 13th and will benefit the charitable organization Feeding America.

2. Our very own Justin Holcomb, now of Mars Hill Church out in Seattle, posted an inspiring little anecdote of grace over at Common Grounds Online entitled "The Inverted World Of Grace". I like to think of it as his tribute to the best show on tv right now, Friday Night Lights.

3. As a follow-up to our recent interview, check out the piece on Whit Stillman over at Slate, "When Preppies Became Yuppies". Reminder: The Lincoln Center screening of The Last Days Of Disco happens tomorrow!

4. Finally, a remarkable story of addiction and recovery, from the least expected of sources, film critic Roger Ebert. I especially recommend the final portion, where he defends AA from its critics(!).

The Last Days Of Disco (1998)

So with all this talk of a new Whit Stillman movie on the horizon, I decided to give The Last Days Of Disco an umpteenth viewing last night. It's a real shame that Last Days isn't more readily available, as I think it's his best [we're fortunate enough to own the super-rare DVD that came out for a couple months in the late 90s]. And the novelization that Stillman wrote afterward - how often does that happen?! - is a serious work in its own right, though also sadly out of print. Both the film and the book are chock-full of memorable dialogue, two examples of which I've transcribed here:

"'There is something depressing about [the Disney movie The Lady and The Tramp],' Josh answered, defending Alice's comment from the other side of the booth, 'and it's not really about dogs; except for some superficial bow-wow stuff at the start, the dogs all represent human types--which is where it gets into real trouble. Lady, the ostensible protagonist, is a fluffy blond cocker spaniel with absolutely nothing on her brain. She's great-looking but--let's be honest--incredibly insipid.' [...]

'Tramp, the love interest,' he continued, 'is a smarmy braggart of the most obnoxious kind--an oily jailbird out for a piece of tail, or whatever he can get--'

'Oh come on,' Charlotte said.

'No. He's a self-confessed chicken thief and all-around sleezeball. [...] What's the function of a film of this kind? Essentially it's a primer on love and marriage directed at very young people--imprinting on their little psyches the idea that smooth-talking delinquents recently escaped from the local pound are a good match for nice girls from sheltered homes. When in ten years the icky human version of Tramp shows up around the house, their hormones will be racing and no one'll understand why--films like this program women to adore jerks--"

'Gahd, you're nuts,' Des interrupted.

Josh glanced at him, clearly vexed; his voice was growing a little strained. 'The only sympathetic character, the little Scottie who's so concerned about Lady, is mocked as old-fashioned and irrelevant and shunted off to the side.' [...]

'Isn't the whole point that Tramp changes?' Des argued. 'Okay, maybe in the past he stole chickens, ran around without a license, and was not always sincere with members of the opposite sex. But through his love for Lady--and the beneficent influence of fatherhood and matrimony--he changes and becomes a valued member of that, you know, rather idyllic... household,' he concluded, rather moved.

'I don't think people really change that way,' Josh said: 'We can change our context, but we can't change ourselves.'"
(pg. 229-230)
-----------------------
"'Do you know the Shakespearean admonition 'To thine own self be true'?' [Des] asked.

I nodded, of course.

'It's premised,' he said, 'on the idea that 'thine own self' is something pretty good, 'being true' to which is 'commendable.' What if 'thine own self' is not so good? What if it's 'pretty bad'? Wouldn't it be better not to be true to thine own self in that case? You see, that's my situation.'"
(pg. 299)
----------------------
And finally, as a tribute to my brother John, here's the speech from the end of the movie:

4.75 Links 4 The Weekend

1. Earlier this winter, many of us went bonkers for the recent video-game documentary King Of Kong. I don't know how we missed it but a writer for Harpers spent 5 years with the infamous Billy Mitchell (he-of-perfect-pacman-and-mullet-fame) and published a fascinating and rather touching write-up this past summer. A few choice quotes:

"'[Playing the perfect game of Pac-Man] is like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon,' [Billy] told reporters afterward. 'No matter how many people accomplish the feat, it will always be Armstrong who will be remembered for doing it first. And, best of all, it was an American.'"

"'Pac-Man set the tone for my business, my family, my relationships, everything,' [Billy] says. 'Since I perfected Pac-Man, I've become obsessed with perfecting everything else.'"

What's that thing that starts with an "L" and rhymes with "saw" again?! To read the whole thing, click here. And for the record, I would really love to give Walter Day a hug.

2. Some great news for the Whit Stillman fans out there: his long out-of-print third film The Last Days Of Disco is now available to watch for free on hulu! It's my second favorite of his "trilogy" - I've posted on it not once but twice - and proves once and for all that Stillman makes America's finest foreign films. Sample dialogue:

DES: "'Do you know the Shakespearean admonition 'To thine own self be true'?' [Jimmy nods.] 'It's premised on the idea that 'thine own self' is something pretty good, 'being true' to which is 'commendable.' What if 'thine own self' is not so good? What if it's 'pretty bad'? Wouldn't it be better not to be true to thine own self in that case? You see, that's my situation.'"

3. I have long been a fan of Noel Murray over at The A/V Club. His First Quarter Report echoes my feelings about recent pop-culture so exactly that I almost feel violated. In short: LOST feels like a different show this season (in a good way), Friday Night Lights is enjoying something close to perfection right now, the Battlestar finale paid off (for a BSG laugh, click here), Top Chef petered out toward the end, Dollhouse is heating up, Breaking Bad keeps getting better, Coraline and Duplicity are the only memorable movies of the past three months, Neko Case rocks, Springsteen's latest flounders and "Unknown Caller" is the true musical standout of No Line On The Horizon [note: he's a little unfair to U2]. I guess HBO was off-limits, otherwise he would've mentioned how phenomenal the recent season of Big Love was.

4. Some interesting and potentially sympathetic stuff being said over at theresurgence.com.

4a. Fascinating review in The New Yorker of a new book about the family dynamics that shaped Ludwig Wittgenstein. Enormously gifted and enormously neurotic/troubled - who would've thought?! Quick quote: "When they believed that an important principle was at stake—which, for them, was often—the Wittgensteins were not inclined to be nice." I was also unaware that Wittgenstein had been so influenced by Tolstoy's "The Gospel In Brief."

4b. A great round-up of Christian allegory in recent sci-fi, over at City Journal of all places.

4c. A new EP from High Street Hymns - Love's Redeeming Work Is Done! For those of you that were digging "By Thy Mercy" at the conference, the credit belongs solely to them (and Alex Mejias). Order your copy today. It's also available on itunes.

Links, Whit, Jarvis, Wes, Axl

1. I've finally revamped the links section. There are a bunch of new ones, so be sure to check them all out. Of special note: contemporary sacred music doesn't get any better than High Street Hymns. And Caroline Henley's Buy Or Don't Buy never fails to amuse.

2. IFC just published an interview with Whit Stillman where he discusses some of his new projects. Last year I got to read a copy of the Dancing Mood script (a love story shot mainly in Jamaican gospel churches...!), and I really, really hope it gets made. Even better, his debut film Metropolitan is now available for free on hulu. One of my alltime favorites and an absolute must-see.

3. Jarvis Cocker is writing songs for Wes Anderson's upcoming (stop-motion!) adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr Fox. I can die happy.

4. Finally, it has been confirmed that a bonafide new Guns N Roses track called "Shackler's Revenge" will appear in the video game Rock Band 2, to be released in late September. I know, I know - we've been burned before (3/6/06, etc). But something tells me this may be the real deal.

Another Week Ends: Whit's Voice, Predestination, & the (prog) Nicene Creed

1. A Fine Resource: Mockingbird friend Shawn Smith, has written a wonderful little series (on his blog) about Predestination, surveying some classic interpretations of the matter (including Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and others, though no Pascal). You might read them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6

Remember the nice words from Article 17 of the wonderful 39: "...the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons..."

2. There's a fresh interview with Mockingbird fave, Whit Stillman, up on the Village Voice site: here!

3. For fans of the "Emerging/Missional" Church: In 1978, in an attempt to show young people that Christianity is not uncool, the Austrian prog group Eela Craig, recorded their own version of a liturgical Roman Catholic mass. Here is their version of the Nicene Creed. Christian pop culture does not get more awesome than this:


4. Thornton Wilder quote of the week: "All love is overestimation."

Weds Afternoon Rock N Roll: Belle & Sebastian Go To Church

The party line with Belle & Sebastian is that they peaked early with If You're Feeling Sinister ("Go off and see a minister"). That record may be tad monotonous but it's still utterly charming and very much deserving of its stature as a modern classic. Yet I feel that their true masterpiece is 2006's The Life Pursuit - also one of the top-ten albums of the last decade, period. The songwriting is uniformly inspired, the production downright exciting, without jettisoning any of the lyrical bite that we've all come to love so much. More importantly, for our purposes, it is an ultra-rare example of Christianity successfully integrated into indie pop-art.

Stuart Murdoch, the band's primary singer and songwriter, has made no secret of his churchgoing ways (he even teaches Sunday school in a Protestant parish), yet nowhere has he incorporated that fact into his band's music as seamlessly as he does on The Life Pursuit. True, a couple of the early B&S songs prominently feature clergy ("The State That I'm In" etc), and 2003's Dear Catastrophe Waitress even boasts a slice of proto-Christian pop in "If You Find Yourself Caught in Love." But those references carried an undeniable shock-value component - church imagery reinforcing the whole quaint Scottish twee-thing. On The Life Pursuit, Murdoch treats church almost as a matter of course - yes, he goes to church, doesn't everybody?! The references are simply there; they don't attract attention themselves. Christianity (and church) is portrayed as an almost unspoken factor in the everyday lives of real people, one that is in turns pathetic and profound, but a factor nonetheless. In other words, his references ring true. Take for instance the lead-off track, "Act Of The Apostle":
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Another Week Ends: Grace & Cutting, Depression & Recession, David Foster Wallace, Burned-Over Generations, Greg McElroy, Supernatural, Arcade Fire

1. Continuing this past month's unexpected foray into gender-related topics (i.e. here, here, here and here), Christianity Today published a doozie of an article earlier this week on its Her.meneutics site, "The Gospel of Grace for Women Who Self-Injure". A couple lines from the conclusion (ht DB):

I’m not surprised that self-punishing behaviors occur among Christians. And this is not to blame the church. For legalism — and I would argue that this is what these behaviors are at their core — comes in guises both religious and secular. The desire to control the destiny of a few moments, if not our lives, is a fact of the human condition. But it is a fact that directly opposes the gospel of grace. 

Also female-related, from Medical News Daily (aka Captain Obvious: The Journal) is "Mean Girls and Queen Bees: Females Under Threat of Social Exclusion Respond by Excluding Others First".

2. On the male side of things, and following-up the Man-Child post, Time reports on the impact the recession appears to be having on rates of depression among men, challenging the accepted finding that the condition is more prevalent among ladies, ht TB.

3. Speaking of men and depression, it's been a big week for David Foster Wallace. The New Yorker published an excerpt of his new book The Pale King, "Backbone". To compare the published version with the version he read publicly a few years prior, go here. I also came across a terrific discussion/defense of his fiction by Rebekah Frumkin on The Common Review, entitled "Our Psychic Living Room", which includes a variation of one of our favorite quotes from the man himself via a 1996 interview (ht CR):

The sadness that [Infinite Jest] is about, and that I was going through [when I wrote it], was a real American type of sadness. I was white, upper-middle-class, obscenely well-educated, had had way more career success than I could have legitimately hoped for and was sort of adrift. A lot of my friends were the same way. Some of them were deeply into drugs, others were unbelievable workaholics. Some were going to singles bars every night. You could see it played out in 20 different ways, but it’s the same thing. . . . I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values.

4. By way of self-promotion, Modern Reformation just published "Compassion, Creativity and Connecting with a Burned-Over Generation" by yours truly, which outlines some of the thinking behind Mockingbird, in case you were curious. I'm proud to say I was able to sneak Axl Rose, Michael Jackson, Whit Stillman, Oscar Wilde, Stuart Murdoch, and David Foster Wallace into the party. UPDATE: Mod Ref has been kind enough to unlock the article, so it's now available in its entirety on their site, for free! For more Reformation goodness, be sure to check out their considerably more tricked-out sister site, The White Horse Inn, and then head over to New Reformation Press to hear Rod Rosenbladt's stunning new must-hear sermon "Christianity in Five Verses." It's raining Reformation!
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Eleven Or So Entertainments Worth Looking Forward To This Year

As snow continues to pound the East Coast and seasonal affective disorder hits full stride, I thought we could all use a reminder of what the rest of 2011 promises, pop culture-wise:

1. Damsels in Distress. Hallelujah, hallelujah, a new Whit Stillman film at last! If this were the only thing happening this year, it'd be enough.

2. The Pale King. David Foster Wallace's unfinished final novel hits the stands April 15th. Mindfulness and taxes sound like a powerful brew. 

3. The Muppets. (11/23). For the first time since The Muppet Christmas Carol, it would appear that Kermit and company are in the hands of folks that not only understand them, but can do them justice. When the powers behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Flight of the Conchords combine...

4. Britpop Revival. This summer brings reunion tours from both Blur and Pulp, as well the full slate of overdue Suede reissues that Brett Anderson just announced. And we may even see the first post-Oasis project from Noel Gallagher. God-willing, Pulp may even deign to visit these shores. God-willing.

5. Living in the Material World. Martin Scorsese's long-awaited George Harrison documentary. The soundtrack could very well mean treasures galore from the as-of-yet unpilfered Harrison archives. The advent of Scorsese's first children's film, Hugo Cabret, is nothing to sneeze at either.

6. The Cabin in The Woods. Joss Whedon - who some of us consider an unfallen man, creatively speaking - brings us "the horror movie to end all horror movies" (his words). We should pray that MGM's financial woes don't delay the film any further. Because The Avengers is still a ways off.

7. Tree of Life. (5/27/11). The Gospel According to Terrence Malick.

8. Angles - The Strokes. (3/22). Those three records of theirs sound better and better with each year of their silence. It will be a welcome return.

9. Game of Thrones. (4/17). Fantasy finally gets the HBO treatment. Epic... meet epic.

10. New U2 Project. They've been hinting at four different releases, all of which sound potentially awesome. Yes, even Spiderman.

11. Precinct 17. If anyone can deliver on the "Harry Potter for Grown Ups" teaser, it's BSG writer/producer Ronald Moore. 

Other: Tarsem's The Immortals (11/11), Nick Lowe's Labor of Lust reissue (3/15), Elbow's Build a Rocket Boys! (3/15), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (7/15), Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Book Of Mormon musical (3/24), untitled Jeff Lynne solo record, The Spierig Brothers' The Power of the Dark Crystal, Breaking Bad's 4th Season (July sometime), Kurt Busiek's Batman: Creature of the Night and The Witchlands, and of course... whatever obligatory posthumous MJ they throw at us.

I'm sure there's tons I'm missing, especially of the non inner-child variety. What are you looking forward to?