THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/06/02 -- Vol. 21, No. 10
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
Some Observations on the Western film (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
A Heap o' History (book reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Some Observations on the Western film (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Last week I was discussing the Western genre in literature and
film. In specific I was talking about how one of the
characteristics of the earlier Westerns was a clear delineation
between good and evil. Heroes were brave, tall, strong, and
always stood up for the common people. Frequently they would be
based on real people. Wyatt Earp or Buffalo Bill Cody were heroes
of the popular magazines and later films and television. The
negative part of these people's history was conveniently ignored.
It was a long time before moral ambiguity was introduced to the
Western film and when it was it was not without some resistance.
An example of the resistance to the moral ambiguity was the
reaction to Fred Zinneman's HIGH NOON. This was a film that said
that it took more than one strong man to fight evil, it takes the
entire community. (Or perhaps it takes a village?). It suggested
that if the common people were not willing to stand up to evil,
maybe they were not worth the hero's efforts on their behalf. If
the community is unwilling to cooperate and take risks, it is
unworthy of being saved. Howard Hawks rejected that pessimistic
viewpoint and responded with RIO BRAVO. That film recreates the
situation of HIGH NOON, but then it says no, if a man is strong
enough in his principles he can oppose evil by himself. Hawks's
stalwart hero is, of course, John Wayne. The John Wayne character
in RIO BRAVO refuses the help of the community and showing no sign
of fear he defeats the villain all by himself. Okay, with the
help of a drunk and a kid. But they are not the reason he wins.
He is successful because that is how the script is written. It is
always good to have the scriptwriter on your side. In their films
together Hawks styles John Wayne as the American Siegfried, able
to accomplish miracles because he knows no fear.
The "strong men forged in a hostile and tough environment" theme
is common in many cultures. In Russian literature one might find
it in Gogol's THE COSSACK CHIEF (a.k.a. TARAS BULBA). Germany had
its "Mountain Films" made between the wars and which gave a start
to the career of Leni Riefenstall. It even shows up in Edgar Rice
Burroughs's Tarzan books. In China it is THE WATER MARGIN with
its 104 righteous outlaws. But few of these have gained much
international acceptance. With the power of the American film
industry the Western film has gone all over the world.
Europe has sometimes resented this power, but it should be
remembered that in the years when the Western film became popular
internationally, in large part the 1940s and 1950s, the American
film industry really was an international film industry due to the
tireless efforts of one Mr. A. Hitler. Much of the American film
industry in those years was the European film industry. Are
Westerns directed by Fritz Lang really products of a film industry
that is just American?
The Western has gone a long way to form the European perception of
the American people. In spite of the fact that the US was founded
by and in large part constituted of Europeans it is seen as the
young culture of the Western. Coming from older cultures and
using that to fuel a chauvinistic impulse they have perhaps
exaggerated the influence of the Western on American thinking.
How often in their editorials and political cartoons concerning
the United States does the imagery of Westerns come up? American
Presidents are represented as Western law men. Our policy has
been perceived as taken from the morally unambiguous black and
white Westerns. In spite of the decline of the Western film in
production numbers, the Western is still very much with us.
Next week I will list my particular choice of the best five
Western films. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A Heap o' History (book reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Continuing with short reviews, I here talk about books with some
basis in history. Three are fiction, the rest non-fiction.
The more approachable (and perhaps more relevant) of the fiction
books is Bao Ninh's "The Sorrow of War". This is the story of the
Vietnam War from the point of view of a North Vietnamese soldier
(who would have called it the American War). Ironically, this
book is on the one hand banned in Vietnam, and on the other
available in English translation in bootleg editions from every
bookseller on the streets (though not in the bookstores). Just as
the great World War I novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front", was
written by someone on the other side (Erich Maria Remarque), so
this is considered by many to be the great Vietnam War novel. Of
course, one major difference is that the first was written by
someone on the losing side, and the second was not. But both can
be considered "anti-war" novels--and indeed, it is rare to find a
pro-war novel, no matter what the politics. In any case, both are
worth reading by Americans, if only to remind the reader that the
enemy is also human. (The work that achieves this for World War
II is "Das Boot", oddly enough. I suspect that a book written
from the German point of view would give the reader too much time
to stop and pause and overlay external knowledge of the Nazis onto
it.)
Another novel oddly connected with war, or at least revolution, is
Tom Petsinis's "The French Mathematician", a novel about the
unlikely main character of Evariste Galois. Galois was killed at
age twenty in a duel over a woman which may or may not have been
set up as a way to assassinate him for his political views. As
might be expected, however, Petsinis spends more time on the
politics than on the mathematics.
I also read a couple of real biographies, David McCullough's "John
Adams" and Elizabeth Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Bronte". The
former is probably more accurate, but not as interesting. Gaskell
apparently went to great lengths to avoid offending any one--even
a negative description of one of Bronte's early employers was
toned down in a later edition. But maybe because I've heard a lot
about Adams everywhere, and less about Charlotte Bronte.
We went to the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho this past
June. Reading on this trip included Lewis & Clark's journals (the
three-volume set from Dover, which I think is Coues's work based
on Biddle), "Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American
Northwest" by John Logan Allen, "Out West" by Dayton Duncan, and
"Great Plains" by Ian Frazier. "Out West" is Duncan's recounting
of his following the trail of Lewis and Clark in the 1980s (though
in a Volkswagen bus rather than a boat), so I read that in
parallel with the journals. I bought the Allen in Cody, Wyoming,
so had to read a bunch in that to catch up to where I was in the
first two. When we returned I also read Stephen Ambrose's book
about Lewis, "Undaunted Courage". If you're not going to bury
yourself in all of these, I'd suggest Duncan's "Out West" as a
good mix of historical and modern.
I also read George Armstrong Custer's "My Life on the Plains" and
Douglas D. Scott et al's "They Died with Custer" (a forensic
analysis of Custer's troops. Ancient sites were covered in Url
Lanham's "The Bone Hunters". Stephen G. Bloom's "Postville" and
the documentary from it were why we visited Postville in the first
place. See my log for details, but briefly: Postville was a
small, 100% white, 100% Christian town until the 1980s, when a
large group of Hasidic Jews from New York bought the abandoned
abattoir and turned it into the country's largest kosher
slaughterhouse. As if the Postvillians weren't taken aback by the
Hasidim, the Hasidim also brought in a lot of immigrant (Eastern
European and Mexican) labor to work there. Difficulties ensued.
And finally, I read the fictional "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman,
a fantasy novel taking place largely in the Midwest (The House on
the Rock; Cairo, Illinois; and so on, including Mount Rushmore),
which is part of what we drove through.
Having been to a panel on Nevil Shute at a convention last year, I
read his "Slide Rule". This is the autobiographical story of his
work in the early British aeronautics industry, and is
fascinating. I would certainly recommend it to science fiction
fans and/or techies.
Of more current political interest would be Karen Armstrong's
"Holy War" (a history of the holy wars and crusades in the Middle
East and Europe through the years. Though she seems to have a
slight pro-Palestinian bias regarding the current state of
affairs, I thought on the whole she did a reasonable job of laying
out the views of both sides and the historical events that shaped
those views. Her other book I read was "The Battle for God",
about religious fundamentalism, and is also relevant.
Howard Jacobson's "Roots Schmoots" is about his search for his
Jewish roots, though he seems to have taken a very long time to
actually get to them. I found the sections on Lithuania and
Tombstone (I told you it was roundabout!) the most interesting,
probably because we had visited those places.
And finally, of interest to book lovers would be John Maxwell
Hamilton's "Casanova Was a Book Lover". It is not, however,
primarily about the love of books (which might be considered to be
the topic of the first 55 pages), but of the marketing and selling
of them (which is pretty much the topic of the remaining 224).
Along the way Hamilton analyzes the Presidents' writing skills,
how to deal with book theft, and etiquette at book signings. At
this point a recommendation is superfluous: either the description
wants to make you read this, in which case you'll probably enjoy
it, or it doesn't, in which case you probably wouldn't. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
There is nothing more agreeable in life than to
make peace with the establishment and nothing
more corrupting.
-- Alan John Percivale Taylor
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