Book/Movie Recs, as of 6/27/10
Sunday, June 27th, 2010 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
retsukoIn Books:
Night Passage, by Robert Parker: I appreciate that Parker is able to slide comfortably between dialogue and narration like it's no big thing. One tells the story better than the other, sometimes, and he's not afraid to dump whichever one isn't serving his narrative at the moment. As the hero, Jesse Stone is compelling without being anywhere near one hundred percent "good"; he's a real person with real problems. The villains are just skillful enough to be a little menacing, and the setting is ably described with a minimum of set-up. I am sad that Parker died recently, and so I will never have a chance to tell him how much I enjoy his work.
In Movies, by extension, thoughts on books:
Toy Story 3, with guest appearances by The Velveteen Rabbit: I cannot emphasize enough that, despite its G rating (and what's with that?!) and aggressive marketing campaign, this is not a movie for young children. After the film was over, in the ladies' room, I overheard at least two Moms have damage control discussions with their little ones: "Yes, there were some scary parts. And there were sad parts, too. But it was just a story, right?" Yes, it's just a story. But it's the kind of story that would have terrified me as a child. There are two ideas in this movie that are very, very scary:
1) The idea that your toys can die, either from actual physical death/destruction, or pure neglect: There is an incredibly scary sequence where the toys think they're going to die, and in the face of certain death, they join hands and paws, and wait for the inevitable. I never, ever thought this movie would go so deeply into that possibility, and I felt sorry for the little ones around us who asked their parents worriedly, "Is Buzz OK? Will Woody be alright?" But scarier still is the idea that toys could go crazy from owners' neglect, or from being replaced. The villain of this installment, Lotso Hugs Bear (eerily voiced by Ned Beatty, who was at turns the kindly grandfather, and then, seconds later, a twisted monster) has gone crazy from being replaced by another edition of himself after his beloved owner forgets him and his toy friends on a trip. (I love the little family drama that must have played out after this event; although we never see it in the story, it's very easy to imagine the tears and recriminations, and then the trip to the Toy Store, and then all is well again.) The idea that you could be replaced by an exact duplicate of yourself is pretty scary (it's Invasion of the Body Snatcher level crazy, too). But the authors of the story skillfully use it to show how Ken picks Barbie, despite Lotsa's insistence that there are thousands of other Barbie dolls: "There's only one her." Which is d'aaawwww-worthy-enough, but introduces another scary idea, which is the question of souls.
2) The question of souls: This is where The Velveteen Rabbit makes an appearance. I know this is a much-beloved children's book, but when it was read to me as a child, it deeply troubled me. (I was a very serious little kid, and books were serious things.) The idea of sickness threatening a child was scary enough by itself, but the idea that your toys had souls and that souls made them REAL was even worse. I was convinced for several years that I was responsible for my stuffed animals' well-being, physical and spiritual. My much beloved otter puppet (who, like the velveteen rabbit, had been played with and loved so much that his soft nose was almost worn off) could "die" if I lost him, or didn't reassure him that he had a real soul. "Toy Story 3" interprets this same problem with somewhat different answers: toys who get lost or replaced can lose their souls and turn evil, or they become ownerless, which is a sort of ambiguous state of existence (the movie's final judgment appears to be that this is what the toy makes of it, rather than a cut-off existence). Fortunately, the script didn't ultimately go with the "you are responsible for your toys' souls!" route, but rather that it's supposed to be a mutual coexistence between toy and child, which is a somewhat more joyous conclusion than The Velveteen Rabbit.
This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the movie; I really liked it. It's a very satisfying story, coupled with some beautiful animation. The stuffed animals' fur, in particular, looked so soft! I wanted to touch them very much. (Especially the Totoro plushie!) The worlds the characters inhabit are all richly realized and rendered, including a wonderful sequence at the beginning that's clearly meant to be part of Andy's imagination of the adventures his toys are having. (Like all good kid logic, toys that have no relevance to one another find excuses to be involved in the whole story: Buzz, Jesse, and Woody are crime-fighting allies! The Potato Heads are criminal masterminds! Little sister who's just wandered in and knocked over the elaborate tinker toy construction is a 50-foot tall, alien baby!) The final fifteen minutes or so of the movie are genuinely moving and bittersweet (hell, the final half hour is an emotional roller coaster). But I think my favorite idea of the entire film is its most subtle one, and it revolves around the question of what form love should ideally take. That's a meaty question for any movie to tackle, let alone one that's ostensibly aimed at children, and the answer (and its various permutations) is heartfelt without being maudlin or sentimental.
Night Passage, by Robert Parker: I appreciate that Parker is able to slide comfortably between dialogue and narration like it's no big thing. One tells the story better than the other, sometimes, and he's not afraid to dump whichever one isn't serving his narrative at the moment. As the hero, Jesse Stone is compelling without being anywhere near one hundred percent "good"; he's a real person with real problems. The villains are just skillful enough to be a little menacing, and the setting is ably described with a minimum of set-up. I am sad that Parker died recently, and so I will never have a chance to tell him how much I enjoy his work.
In Movies, by extension, thoughts on books:
Toy Story 3, with guest appearances by The Velveteen Rabbit: I cannot emphasize enough that, despite its G rating (and what's with that?!) and aggressive marketing campaign, this is not a movie for young children. After the film was over, in the ladies' room, I overheard at least two Moms have damage control discussions with their little ones: "Yes, there were some scary parts. And there were sad parts, too. But it was just a story, right?" Yes, it's just a story. But it's the kind of story that would have terrified me as a child. There are two ideas in this movie that are very, very scary:
1) The idea that your toys can die, either from actual physical death/destruction, or pure neglect: There is an incredibly scary sequence where the toys think they're going to die, and in the face of certain death, they join hands and paws, and wait for the inevitable. I never, ever thought this movie would go so deeply into that possibility, and I felt sorry for the little ones around us who asked their parents worriedly, "Is Buzz OK? Will Woody be alright?" But scarier still is the idea that toys could go crazy from owners' neglect, or from being replaced. The villain of this installment, Lotso Hugs Bear (eerily voiced by Ned Beatty, who was at turns the kindly grandfather, and then, seconds later, a twisted monster) has gone crazy from being replaced by another edition of himself after his beloved owner forgets him and his toy friends on a trip. (I love the little family drama that must have played out after this event; although we never see it in the story, it's very easy to imagine the tears and recriminations, and then the trip to the Toy Store, and then all is well again.) The idea that you could be replaced by an exact duplicate of yourself is pretty scary (it's Invasion of the Body Snatcher level crazy, too). But the authors of the story skillfully use it to show how Ken picks Barbie, despite Lotsa's insistence that there are thousands of other Barbie dolls: "There's only one her." Which is d'aaawwww-worthy-enough, but introduces another scary idea, which is the question of souls.
2) The question of souls: This is where The Velveteen Rabbit makes an appearance. I know this is a much-beloved children's book, but when it was read to me as a child, it deeply troubled me. (I was a very serious little kid, and books were serious things.) The idea of sickness threatening a child was scary enough by itself, but the idea that your toys had souls and that souls made them REAL was even worse. I was convinced for several years that I was responsible for my stuffed animals' well-being, physical and spiritual. My much beloved otter puppet (who, like the velveteen rabbit, had been played with and loved so much that his soft nose was almost worn off) could "die" if I lost him, or didn't reassure him that he had a real soul. "Toy Story 3" interprets this same problem with somewhat different answers: toys who get lost or replaced can lose their souls and turn evil, or they become ownerless, which is a sort of ambiguous state of existence (the movie's final judgment appears to be that this is what the toy makes of it, rather than a cut-off existence). Fortunately, the script didn't ultimately go with the "you are responsible for your toys' souls!" route, but rather that it's supposed to be a mutual coexistence between toy and child, which is a somewhat more joyous conclusion than The Velveteen Rabbit.
This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the movie; I really liked it. It's a very satisfying story, coupled with some beautiful animation. The stuffed animals' fur, in particular, looked so soft! I wanted to touch them very much. (Especially the Totoro plushie!) The worlds the characters inhabit are all richly realized and rendered, including a wonderful sequence at the beginning that's clearly meant to be part of Andy's imagination of the adventures his toys are having. (Like all good kid logic, toys that have no relevance to one another find excuses to be involved in the whole story: Buzz, Jesse, and Woody are crime-fighting allies! The Potato Heads are criminal masterminds! Little sister who's just wandered in and knocked over the elaborate tinker toy construction is a 50-foot tall, alien baby!) The final fifteen minutes or so of the movie are genuinely moving and bittersweet (hell, the final half hour is an emotional roller coaster). But I think my favorite idea of the entire film is its most subtle one, and it revolves around the question of what form love should ideally take. That's a meaty question for any movie to tackle, let alone one that's ostensibly aimed at children, and the answer (and its various permutations) is heartfelt without being maudlin or sentimental.
