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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 06/22/01 -- Vol. 19, No. 51
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@avaya.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@avaya.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@avaya.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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. In the weeks to come we will be making some transitions in the
club. The MT VOID will be coming to you from a new e-mail address.
What is this all about? Well, people who work for Lucent or Avaya
will know that the companies are changing a great deal. We need to
put the MT VOID on more stable ground. We will be shifting
operations off-company. Hopefully this will not mean an
interruption in service.
We expect to start sending the MT VOID to people using the
egroups.com mtvoid mailing list starting July 6. There will
probably be a test mailing next week to see if all the addresses
listed work.
If you are reading this on Evelyn's web page and want to subscribe,
go to http://www.egroups.com and follow the instructions, or
contact Evelyn (evelyn.leeper@excite.com).
One thing we cannot move off company is the science fiction club
library. We are left with a collection of science fiction books
some of which Bell Laboratories funded for its employees many years
ago, but most of which were donations by members. Who owns the
library now is not clear. It might be best made a charitable
contribution. We need suggestions. What would club members want
us to do? [-mrl]
===================================================================
2. In the film THE WAR OF THE WORLDS they tell you it is taking
place in a pleasant summer season and about how Mars is at its
nearest point. I think that though the Martian year is about two
Earth years long (and exactly one Martian year) the two really are
at their nearest points to each other every dozen years or so.
Well, today starts a pleasant summer season and right now Mars is
at its nearest point. Keep an eye out for falling stars. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3 Several years ago I used to go to the Readercon Science Fiction
conventions. I stopped going for a reason that came down to a
matter of principle. The idea of this convention is that it was to
be an exhilarating look at the greatness of literary science
fiction. It was sort of a Dead Poets Society of science fiction.
However, from the beginning that is not what it turned out to be at
all. While it was a very positive convention during the day, at
night it would shed that image and take on a very different aspect,
one that was actually kind of ugly. The high point of the weakened
was the Kirk Poland Bad Prose Contest. The point of this event was
to take passages from science works and to have a good laugh at how
poorly they were written and what bad prose they are. Never mind
the fact they were quoting the passages out of context. People who
would never laugh at their own children for being awkward in spite
of trying their best seem to get perverse pleasure from laughing at
well-meaning authors who do the same. (And it is amazing how many
fans, when they find out I object to the Kirk Poland defend it by
saying that it is so much fun. I don't think anybody denies that
mean-spirited games can be enjoyable. I wonder how they would feel
about Polish jokes.)
I started a movement among my friends, including the hard-willed
Evelyn who otherwise would have enjoyed Readercon, to oppose the
literary snobbism that had quickly become the hallmark of this
convention. And in successive years things got worse. The people
who ran Readercon started also venting their personal prejudices on
cinema as being not literary enough and not really being literature
at all while at the same time ironically lauding virtues of the
rock music which they said "had words and hence was literature."
This for me was the final straw. I told Evelyn that I would go to
no more of these conventions I thought would be better called
Hypocricons devoted to the framers' tastes and their literary
snobbery. She could go; I would just stay home. She chose to be
merely a supporting member.
One of my memories from one of the few Readercons that I attended
was a talk by Samuel Delany, one of the authors who was smiled
upon. He was giving a talk he called "An Introduction to Semiotics
and Deconstructionism." It sounded interesting and while I had
heard a little about semiotics, I really did not know what it was
all about. I went expecting to learn something. And I did; though
it was not what I expected.
I choose to give Delany the benefit of the doubt and interpret that
hour as his subtle joke at his audience's expense. It may have
even been his own comment on the literary snobbery of Readercon and
if so I applaud him. But what he gave was a lecture
incomprehensible from first sentence to last. This from a master
wordsmith in a lecture he called "an introduction." I believe his
intention was to overwhelm the uninitiated. In any case that was
certainly the effect. No physicist giving an introduction to
quantum physics would have been so obscure.
My interpretation at the time was that semiotics was indeed
unintelligible by intention. That some professor in the English
department at some school, I thought, attended a lecture on quantum
physics or perhaps algebraic topology and realized that it was
incomprehensible to him. She or he realized that her/his own
department's literary analyses of MOBY DICK were nowhere nearly as
complex or obscure and decided it reflected badly. Hence semiotics
was added to the lexicon of literary analysis.
I have since gone to other sources to get my introduction to
semiotics. I find it is not the obscure subject that Delany made
it. I propose to try to do what the great Samuel Delany
intentionally or not failed to do. I am going to try to explain
semiotics and deconstructionism without making it confusing and
obscure. And if I fail at least I can point out that better
writers than I have failed at the same task. But we shall see. I
start next week. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: While SHREK, still playing in
theaters, mocks the old Disney traditions,
ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE pays respectful
homage to old Disney films while telling a
story like H. Rider Haggard on steroids. A
legendary book leads a mismatched expedition to
find the mythical city still alive, though just
barely, deep beneath the waves of the ocean. A
little heavy on the mysticism and the fighting,
this animated film is not a bad choice
adventure fans. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2
(-4 to +4)
In the late 1800s there was still a lot of the world that was terra
incognita. Much of the map had still to be filled in and adventure
stories were being written about fabulous finds of ancient cities
still alive in the far corners of the world. The greatest of these
stories, in my opinion at least, was H. Rider Haggard's SHE, filmed
in multiple silent versions and at least two sound versions. Other
authors who have written lost race stories include Edgar Rice
Burroughs, Ian Cameron, and A. Merritt. What science fiction is to
many branches of science and alternate history is to the study of
history, lost race stories are to archeology. They are the stories
of the imaginative dreams of every archeologist. (For those
interested in the lost race genre I can recommend the web site
http://www.violetbooks.com/lostrace-check-guide.html.)
The current film starts at a breakneck pace as a huge wave rushes
foreword to engulf the advanced island-civilization of Atlantis and
some strange flying machines racing it to try to save the island.
Meanwhile there is something strange and mystical happening on the
island, but not so powerful that it saves the island from sinking
below the waves.
Flash forward to 1910 or so. Exploration runs in the family for
Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox). Thatch's grandfather
searched for the lost city of Atlantis. Milo has his own ideas as
to where the city can be found. His dedication and energy applied
to this goal has won him a reputation of being a little demented on
the subject. Then an enigmatic millionaire has his own plan to
find Atlantis with the help of an ancient book thought to be lost
but found by Milo's grandfather. A new expedition will search for
the city and its mysterious power source. The expedition will be
led by Commander Lyle Tiberius Rourke (James Garner) and begin with
a descent to the ocean floor in a fabulous submarine.
The base story by Bryce and Jackie Zabel leaves room for some
spectacular action scenes with an undeniable excitement. The film
seems to be an H. Rider Haggard adventure in concentrated form.
The story moves faster and has more action than Haggard would have
given it, but the spirit is there. One thing that does seem a
little out of place: most lost race stories were told in a serious
tone. Because of the subject matter the stories were rarely told
with much humor. There is a lot of Disney-style comedy and weird
international characters on the expedition. (Is the character of
Moliere based on the character of the same name in the ZBS's Ruby
series? There are definite similarities.) The writers make the
usual politically correct choice for the presence and ethnicity of
the villain. The script in the end feels a little top-heavy with
fighting and mysticism. Some may long for the subtlety of some of
the writers of years past, but overall the film does have its
moments.
To some extent ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE is an experiment. First
it is a PG cartoon, unusual for Disney. The whimsical nature and
the less realistic animation techniques seem less likely choices
for the subject matter. The style might go better with a humorous
animal story. Further toward the end of the film a lot of what is
happening is not carefully explained and is left to the viewer's
interpretation. The film does have some breathtaking images of the
city Atlantis and especially of the great submarine seen all too
briefly in the first part of the film. The submarine seems like a
cross between Disney's Nautilus and the interior of an airship.
Real submarines don't look like this, but they ought to.
Once again we have an all-star cast of voices in an animated film
where their familiarity can be only a distraction. We have Michael
J. Fox in the lead. We also have James Garner, Jim Verney (who
died in February of 2000), Claudia Christian, Don Novello (who on
frequently played the comedic Father Guido Sarducci), John Mahoney,
and Leonard Nimoy as the King of Atlantis. While far from ideal,
Atlantis is a good adventure film with at least some of the
nostalgic feel of classic exploration films. I rate it a 7 on the
0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
5. Here is a recap and more from Lax Madapaty's top ten list
10. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1967)
09. THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961)
08. THE GODFATHER (1972)
07. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER (1968)
06. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
05. SPARTACUS (1960):
This film is about a rebellious Thracian slave hero who gave the
mighty Roman Empire a runaround in 73 B.C., led an army of
gladiators against the Roman legions, and in the process, came
heartbreakingly close to defying an empire and win freedom. What
makes the film a notch above LAWRENCE is the fact that it deals
with values that are universal to humankind whereas LAWRENCE is
more of a one-man-show. In giving due credit to Dalton Trumbo's
literate script, producer Kirk Douglas defied the Hollywood
blacklist, a bold and unprecedented move. The film has several
memorable scenes most notably the one where Spartacus shouts, "I am
not an animal" from inside a cage when a woman is thrown at him;
his reply, "No more than I was afraid to be born" when asked,
"Spartacus, are you afraid to die?"; his observation, "And maybe
there's no peace in this world, for us or for anyone else, I don't
know. But I do know that, as long as we live, we must remain true
to ourselves" and the final scene where many gladiators including
Spartacus are crucified along the road to Rome and his wife Varinia
tells him while holding their child that he is born free. This film
also gets my vote for the greatest ensemble cast ever assembled for
a film. Acting heavyweights such as Charles Laughton, Laurence
Olivier and Peter Ustinov are pitted against Kirk Douglas, Tony
Curtis, Jean Simmons and John Gavin. Commenting on the $12 million
budget (a lot of money in those days), Kirk Douglas said that if
the film was a thrilling spectacle (which it more than was!), the
money was a drop in the bucket and if not, it was too much! Most of
the money went into authentically recreating Rome in a studio
backlot in Hollywood. The results are better than the recent CGI
epic GLADIATOR. Yet another remarkable aspect of the film is the
Alex North score. North reportedly studied the script several
times and ran the film 18 times start to finish before even
committing a single note of music on paper! Aside from assembling
a huge 87-piece orchestra to conduct his rousing themes, he also
augmented the score with several rare and unconventional
instruments. They include the sarrousophone, a wind instrument, the
Kythara, a plucked Roman instrument much like the lyre, the
dulcimer which is really German in origin, an Israeli recorder, a
Chinese oboe, a Yugoslav flute and a strange electronic instrument
called the Ondioline. The result is one of the five great scores of
motion pictures.
04. JING KE CI QIN WANG (1999):
Also know as THE EMPEROR AND THE ASSASSIN, this Mandarin language
film by Chen Kaige (TEMPTRESS MOON, FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE), the
talented young filmmaker from China, is stunning in virtually every
frame of the 161 minute duration. Set in the 3rd Century B.C., the
film depicts the struggle of Ying Zheng (Li Xuejien), ruler of the
Qin dynasty, to unify the 7 provinces that make up most of modern
China into one magnificent and peaceful kingdom, free from barbaric
invasions from the north. Assisting him in his quest is his
childhood sweetheart Lady Zhao (Gong Li) who is impressed by his
seemingly noble convictions. Zheng's quest is predominantly
dictated by an ancestral decree that is complicated by the fact
that he is really a bastard child and hence not a real descendent
of the Qin kingdom. Nevertheless, by employing various tactics
including surviving an assassination attempt (in what is really a
ploy to find an excuse to attack the kingdom of Yan), Zheng finally
manages to succeed. But for his success, Zheng pays a terrible and
ultimate price. In the process of realizing what started off as an
honorable quest, Zheng's methods become increasingly brutal.
Constantly in struggle with himself and his methods throughout his
quest, Zheng starts slowly losing every one around him. His mother
has an affair with the Marquis out of loneliness and has two
children by him. They are all brutally murdered when the Marquis
tries to stage a coup to overthrow Zheng. His father has to kill
himself (right in front of his own son) to prevent tarnishing
Zheng's claim as a descendent of Qin. Even the one person close to
him, Lady Zhao deserts him after a particularly brutal assault on
Yan where thousands of children are buried alive at the orders of
Zheng. At the very end, as Zheng stands alone on the bridge that he
constructed in memory of the sweet times he had with Lady Zhao as a
child (he used to play by a similar bridge on a river back when
they were poor but happy), he comes to a tragic realization - that
he has lost himself. Every scene in the film is emotionally
powerful, grandiose, superbly acted and visually stunning. The
film is also blessed with an evocative musical score by Zhao
Jiping, with an unforgettable main theme. At the very end of the
film, we come to know that in spite of all the efforts of Zheng,
his rule lasted only 15 years after the unification. Still, Zheng
was responsible for creating what is today one of the largest and
most powerful countries in the world. His legacy lives on for all
of us to admire and appreciate in the form of the Great Wall of
China and the awe-inspiring Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian, China.
03. HEY RAM! (2000):
The Partition of India in 1947 is one of the biggest catastrophes
in the history of the world. It led to a massive loss of lives and
forced many to evacuate their lands. East and West Punjab, North
West Frontier Province, North India and Sind were engulfed in an
orgy of violence for months. Mammoth migrations of Muslims from
India and Hindus from Pakistan took place, shattering both
communities down to their core. Nearly, 5,00,000 people died in
the holocaust and 55,00,000 people were forced to migrate from
their abodes. This is the largest exodus in the history of
humankind. It is this painful chapter in Indian history that serves
as a backdrop for this sad, intense, personal and honest film by
Kamal Haasan, one of the most talented actors of the Indian film
industry. More than 95% of Indian films are unbearable, with
randomly placed song-and-dance sequences that simply don't make any
sense. HEY RAM! was financed only under the condition that there
be a certain number of songs in the film. Fortunately most of them
(except one or two) make sense in the overall context of the film
and hence don't really distract from what the film has to say. It
is the story of an archeologist Saket Ram (played by Kamal Haasan,
who also wrote and directed the film) who is irreversibly
transformed into a killer while caught in the Hindu-Muslim riots in
Calcutta that preceded Partition in undivided India. When his wife
is brutally raped and killed by Muslims, Saket Ram goes around
killing Muslims in a fit of rage. In time, he goes down South to
his native state in search of peace and remarries, but ghosts of
the past keep haunting him. A misguided Saket Ram joins a group of
Hindu extremists that intend to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi whom
they hold responsible for the partition and the painful effects it
had on the people. In crafting the film, Kamal displays an
unprecedented intelligence and a deep understanding of Indian
history and translates his vision into a powerful motion picture.
Uncommonly, both the female lead characters in the film are well-
educated, cultured and intelligent. In addition, Kamal challenges
the viewers by prominently featuring no less than seven Indian
languages in the dialogue. Good and bad people are shown among both
Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi himself is more realistically portrayed
than in Attenborough's GANDHI. Interestingly, the role is played by
one of the great actors of Indian cinema, Naseeruddin Shah who
happens to be a Muslim. However, prosthetics have transformed him
so much that I didn't realize this until the end credits rolled.
The film score is yet another surprising aspect of this film.
Composed and conducted by India's musical maestro Ilaiya Raja, who
is as well versed with Indian Classical as with Western Classical
music. As an Indian, it is difficult for me to be unbiased about a
touchy and personal subject matter the film deals with. However,
this is an experiment with truth that no Westerner should miss.
01.(A tie for first place.) BLADE RUNNER, The Director's Cut
(1982):
I have always maintained that Cinema is essentially a visual
medium. Sound in Cinema came thirty years after the Lumiere
Brothers filmed workers walking out of a factory and showed it to
the public. But it is the sight that really distinguishes the
medium. Given this, surprisingly few directors have exploited the
visual nature of Cinema to the maximum. Fritz Lang, Orson Welles,
Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, David Lean, Peter
Greenaway and the Coen Brothers have all realized the criticality
of visuals in films. However, Ridley Scott has consistently
provided us with unique and dazzling visuals right from his first
feature THE DUELLISTS up until his last one, HANNIBAL. It is BLADE
RUNNER that towers above every film every made in its complex
visuals and stunning production design. A breakthrough in film
making much like METROPOLIS, 2001 and the recent DARK CITY, BLADE
RUNNER has been an enduring influence on film visuals - especially
science fiction films like the recent PHANTOM MENACE. The homage
to 40's Film Noir is a nice touch. But what makes this a great film
is the poignant story of five dying Replicants - genetically
engineered humanoids - who return to Earth in search of longevity.
Deckard (Harrison Ford), Blade Runner par excellence, is asked to
hunt down these Replicants and terminate them. In the process, he
discovers a profound truth - that the so-called Replicants turn out
to be more human than even human beings. The script by David
Peoples and Hampton Fancher, based on a short story by Phillip K.
Dick, goes beyond questioning the existential dilemma we all face
at one time or the other in life. It questions the very nature of
humanity and what it is that makes us human. Even in Rachel
(played by Sean Young), there is a certain poignancy in discovering
that all that she has in her mind - her memories - are just made up
and not real. The fact that she is not human and doesn't know how
long she will survive (again, a dilemma even humans face!) does not
deter her from having an open-ended love affair with Deckard who
may or may not be a Replicant himself. Another remarkable aspect
of the film is Vangelis' stunning film score in the vein of his New
Age albums. Here he not only creates a dense layer of sounds to
accompany Scott's masterful visuals, but also extrapolates the
unknown from the unknown, much like the visuals. In the film, one
sees familiar billboards selling familiar products but in an
entirely unfamiliar setting. In the score, there are touches of
Jazz to the New Age music, again, blending the familiar with the
unfamiliar. My favorite moment in Cinema occurs towards the end,
when Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) saves Deckard on a rain-washed
rooftop and says, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams
glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments
will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die". Even as
he is dying, Roy must have realized the beauty of life and decided
to save a life, even if it is that of his hunter.
01. VERTIGO (1958):
This is the other film that is deeply affecting, almost
metaphysical in its effect. Only an established master of the
medium such as Hitchcock could have made such a daring and tragic
film with mainstream actors for a big Hollywood studio. The film
opened to mixed reviews and public reaction. Frankly, I think at
that time, people didn't really know what to make out of this
unconventional crime drama cum dark romantic fantasy. Our hero,
Scottie (James Stewart) is hardly a conventional hero, an
acrophobic retired detective obsessed by a strange, beautiful and
suicidal woman (Kim Novac) he is hired to tail. What follows after
her apparent suicide is a complex psychological drama that is
dreamily shot by Hitch and beautifully photographed (chiefly in San
Francisco) by Robert Burks in Vista Vision. Right from the stirring
main titles by Saul Bass (who also did SPARTACUS) to the eerie,
menacing score by musical genius Bernard Herrmann, the film sucks
the viewer into a labyrinth of unsettling and haunting situations.
In fact, Herrmann tells the whole story of the film in his main
title cue, combining dissonance, harmony in minor scales and a
certain monotony and repetition that hint at the film's central
themes of obsession, fear, longing and passion. Many consider this
film to be the director's portrayal of his own fears and obsession,
his masterpiece. There is such depth to the film that it is one of
the most widely discussed and analyzed in film history. For
instance, there is this Fibonacci spiral motif (an integral part of
chaos theory) that runs throughout, hinting at attempts by the lead
characters to bring some sort of an order to the chaotic events
unfolding around them. Madeline is shown in multiple reflections
and repetitions. Reputed playwright Maxwell Anderson was brought in
to do a first draft of the script based on the French novel d'Entre
les Morts (From Among the Dead, the working title for the film).
Reportedly, Anderson's work was so incoherent - his title for the
film was "Listen Darkling" - that Hitch got Samuel Taylor to do the
job. Hitch created his vertigo effects for the audience by
inventing a new technique - the camera pull back while at the same
time zooming in. This film gets better and better with each
viewing. A special mention to Robert Harris and James Katz for
lovingly restoring three of my favorite films - VERTIGO, SPARTACUS
and LAWRENCE. [-lm]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@avaya.com
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
-- Oscar Wilde