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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 7/16/99 -- Vol. 18, No. 3
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The Denver Area Science Fiction
Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of every month at
Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
===================================================================
1. Announcing an event!!!!
We will be showing the History Channel's one-hour documentary, "The
Truth about Science Fiction" in Holmdel in room 1J-672 at noon on
Wednesday, July 21. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. It seems that the MT VOID has been more controversial of late.
In one issue I discussed both the war in Kosovo and the new Walt
Disney TARZAN. The former could turn into a whole series of
articles going back and forth for all the discussion it started.
That is tempting just to have something to talk about here, but do
not think it would be interesting for all the readers. So I had
one article commenting on the response to the Kosovo article. I
will have one article revisiting the TARZAN review. One thing that
people have picked up on, and that perhaps I should have been more
clear about, is my complaint that the Disney films always make the
villain repulsive-looking and the hero attractive. A number of
different people have sprouted up claiming that I was wrong about
that and that Disney has been having attractive villains for a long
time. Examples they give are TARZAN and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. I
disagree that that is what is happening.
The artists at Disney have a good deal more control over the
characters they create than people give them credit for. They can
give a character features frequently considered to be attractive,
and exaggerate them making the character unctuous and repulsive
rather than good-looking. They also can take a deformed frame,
such as Quasimodo's in THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and make him
attractive in spite of his deformity. If you give the character
large eyes the character will seem innocent. There actually is a
good reason for this. Eyes don't grow much during a lifetime so
babies have very big eyes compared to the size of their faces. A
character with big eyes is more attractive, probably because it
triggers some sort of protective instinct that Nature gave us to
take care of babies. Give a character big eyes and a pleasant
mouth expression and the character will look likable and pleasant
in spite of any deformity. The Beast in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was
not really ugly either. He just had animal features.
There are other tricks to take what might at first seem like
handsome features and make them revolting. Withhold the tricks to
make a character attractive and exaggerate the features and the
character becomes ugly, in spite of what superficially should be
handsome features. This probably goes back to PETER PAN. Captain
Hook has a hook, but otherwise his features are stylish and manly.
He has that long, curly hair, but that frequently is supposed to be
in vogue for men. But his mouth is twisted into a cruel expression
so that the audience does not like his looks and his actions then
become secondary. The viewer takes an immediate disliking to him
because of his looks and that first impression turns out to be
true.
Now to demonstrate this, a question for people who have seen
TARZAN. Suppose one year ago you had been given mug shots of the
major characters who were going to be in Tarzan. Without being
told what the movie was to be you would be you were asked to pick
out the bad guy, would you have had any problems picking out (the
character you would later know as) Clayton as the bad guy? I think
I could have picked him out easily. That was the point I was
making. And the same is true of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Gaston and
Clayton, though superficially given so-called manly features are
nonetheless intentionally drawn to be repulsive. They are not
always intended to be ugly in the world of the Disney story.
Notice that Gaston has a string of rather superficial female
admirers. But in our world we do not like their looks. And Disney
always falls back on making characters whose looks we do not like
bad characters. The popular are not always good in a Disney film,
but those who really are attractive are always good. Those who are
unattractive to the viewer are always evil. That is not always
true in their live-action films. For example, the rather ugly
blacksmith in THE JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN turns out to be something
of a hero. But the Disney animations, which are aimed to take in a
younger audience drive home this association that if you do not
like a person's looks they are probably bad. I would really like
to see a Disney animation where the innocent-looking, character who
looks like someone you would want to be friends with is really the
nasty and the basically repulsive-looking character is really a
nice guy inside. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. THE SPARROW by Mary Doria Russell (1996, Villard HC, 405pp,
$23.00), ISBN 0-679-45150-1) (a book review by Joe Karpierz):
At this time of the year, you know that I've been reviewing the
current crop of Best Novel Hugo nominees. And those of you who
keep track of such things know that there's only one left--THE
CHILDREN OF GOD by Mary Doria Russell. In talking to two or three
people, I found out that THE CHILDREN OF GOD is a follow up novel
to Russell's first novel, THE SPARROW. I also found out that THE
SPARROW is a terrific novel. I'm also told that THE CHILDREN OF
GOD is pretty good, too. All I can think is "Great. If I want to
do this right, I'd better read THE SPARROW. And THE CHILDREN OF
GOD is yet another Hugo nominee that can't stand on its own."
So, I read THE SPARROW.
Will someone *please* tell me how this novel managed not to make
the Hugo nominee list two years ago? For that matter, tell me how
it didn't win the Best Novel Hugo.
THE SPARROW is one of the best novels I've read in the last few
years. On the surface, it's a First Contact story. We have
detected radio signals from the Alpha Centauri system--not just
radio signals, but songs. And the songs are beautiful. So, a
secret expedition is sent by the Jesuits to Alpha Centauri to make
First Contact and learn about the civilization that makes the
beautiful music. But it is more than just a First Contact story,
as we eventually find out.
The main character is Emilio Sandoz, Jesuit priest and expert
linguist. He is revered by his fellow crew members as well as
people back on earth. However, he takes sole blame for the
inevitable failure of the mission, as he returns home to earth
alone, the last survivor of the expedition, physically,
spiritually, and mentally maimed by his experiences on the planet
Rakhat.
While THE SPARROW is indeed the story of Sandoz and the rest of the
crew, it is more than that. It is the story of a journey in faith,
the faith that Sandoz has in God. It is the story of how that
faith is tested, and, needless to say, shattered. While that last
sentence may be a tad bit of a spoiler, let me say that the story
is in the telling.
What makes THE SPARROW so compelling is its characters. We come to
learn a great deal about the crew of the expedition, how they came
to be who they are and where they are today. We learn a great deal
about the Jesuits on the committee who are charged with finding out
just what happened on Rakhat. We see all the characters as real
human beings, who love and hate, live and die, just like the real
human beings you and I know in our every day lives. We can
sympathize with the way they act and feel--it's very easy to do so.
Most powerful is the reaction of the Jesuits as they learn the
truth about what happened on Rakhat - while you can certainly label
one or two of them jerks for the way they treat Sandoz throughout
the novel, you can certainly feel for them as you see them react to
and recoil from the truth.
Russell also creates a very believable and consistent alien society
on Rakhat--one that makes sense. There are aliens that we also
come to like and dislike as we arrive at an understanding of their
society and motivations.
I really can't say heap much more praise on this novel. The
unfortunate thing is that The Children of God has a tough act to
follow--I suspect that it's nowhere near as good as THE SPARROW.
But if it's only half as good, it will still be a decent novel.
[-jak]
===================================================================
4. The answer to Joe's question above ("Will someone *please* tell
me how this novel managed not to make the Hugo nominee list two
years ago?") is that it wasn't marketed as science fiction and
wasn't from one of the familiar sources of science fiction (e.g.,
Tor, St. Martin's), and since it was a first novel no one noticed
it. Just about everyone I know who had read it before the
nominations nominated it, but that wasn't a big enough group. [-
ecl]
===================================================================
5. THE RED VIOLIN (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: More intricately plotted than the
viewer at first expects, THE RED VIOLIN tells
the history in episodes of a (fictional)
legendary violin. This is a film that gets
better as it goes along and presents the viewer
with several interesting puzzles. The
classical music that goes with the story is a
definite plus. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2
(-4 to +4)
There are several different ways to write an anthology film, a film
made up of several episodes. Some films manage to have the whole
be greater than the sum of the parts. One that does rise well
above the parts is this history of the Red Violin, a violin of
astounding acoustical properties. Francois Girard, who directed,
co-authored the screenplay with Don McKellar, who appears as a
scientific violin expert. The two Canadian filmmakers previously
worked together on THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD. While
it is not true that each episode stands on its own as a good story,
the combined film is actually quite well-written. The story is set
at the Montreal auction of the violin and then flashes back over
the history of the violin and its travels from Italy to Montreal.
ITALY: We have the greatest violinmaker of his day Nicolo Bussotti
(played by Carlo Cecchi) of Cremona, Italy, creating a masterpiece
of a violin to coincide with the birth of his first child. ITALY
and AUSTRIA: A young boy Kaspar Weiss (Christoph Koncz) with a
Mozart-like brilliance for music is taken from his home in Northern
Italy and taken to Vienna where he will find that his greatest
impediments are not in competition but in himself. AUSTRIA and
ENGLAND: A band of gypsies plays the great violin for years without
ever knowing its true value. ENGLAND: The Red Violin inspires a
scoundrel (Jason Flemyng as Frederick Pope) to make great music,
but Pope does not realize how dependent on it he becomes. CHINA:
The political orthodoxy of the Cultural Revolution teaches a cadre
the price of fanaticism and forces her to choose between love of
the violin and her loyalty to the fanatic new brand of politics
sweeping China. MONTREAL: An auction house prepares for a public
sale of musical instruments acquired from the Chinese government.
Contrary to expectation the film is at its most interesting when it
gets to the 20th Century. We have seen other films like THE BLUE
KITE tell us how China allowed political fanaticism to impoverish
and destroy the country, but this film makes the same point much
more succinctly and at the same time plaintively. In the Montreal
segment we get a tantalizing look at 20th century analysis of a
17th century musical instrument, from acoustics to chemical and
even biological analysis. In addition the final segment answers
several previously unanswered questions and fits some apparently
disconnected pieces together. We get a much better understanding
of the Red Violin, what makes it unique, and why is it red?
Don McKellar seems to be becoming as ubiquitous in Canadian film as
Denholm Elliot used to be in British film. At the 1998 Toronto
International Film Festival (where I could not get into THE RED
VIOLIN) he seemed to be associated with one film after another.
Here he writes, directs, and acts. Top billing goes to Samuel L.
Jackson, whose role does not become important until the final
segment of the film. There are few familiar actors to stretch the
budget, but there is some nice location scenery. But what is
really enjoyable, as one might suspect in a film about a great
violin, is that the film has some really excellent violin music.
In short, people who are pleased with the current vogue to have
arthouse films on the theme of behind the scenes looks at how
classical music gets created, films like SHINE and HILARY AND
JACKIE, films with potent samples of good music, should find THE
RED VIOLIN an entertaining entry. I give it an 8 on the 0 to 10
scale and a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. (Historical note: all
characters, musical instruments, and events are fictional.) [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Ever consider what [dogs] must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the
most amazing haul -- chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!
-- Anne Tyler