THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/29/02 -- Vol. 21, No. 22
Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
Alchemy (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
SOLARIS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
DIE ANOTHER DAY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
AIKI (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE BOOK OF SPLENDOR)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Alchemy (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Last week I was talking about alchemy and how it fits into
fantasy works. One thing that we see in fiction and fantasy is
that alchemists are very, very rarely portrayed positively.
Alchemy is rarely distinguished from black magic. Let's take a
closer look at what alchemy actually is.
There are really two different derivations for the word
"alchemy." Most commonly it is thought to mean "the study from
Egypt." Egypt was indeed an origin of many of the ideas of
alchemy. "Kheme" was the ancient name of the land of Egypt.
The words might be Al Kheme. However a similar word from
ancient Greek means pouring and infusion. Either could be the
real origin of the word "alchemy," and modern scholars are
undecided. The study, really the materials science of its day,
has its root in both ancient Egypt and ancient China, and though
we associate it with Medieval Europe was studied in many
civilizations.
So what was alchemy? It was as close as the Middle Ages could
come to a science of chemistry. One could almost call it proto-
chemistry. There were many philosophical systems competing in
the Middle Ages. Those endorsed by Church leaders had the force
of law. Most of these church leaders' talents lay not in
scientific reasoning and they almost universally had agendas to
further the interests of their Church or of themselves within
the Church. When you try to fit science to your ideology the
result is not good. Look how long the Soviet Union taught
Lysenkoism. But Lysenko made out better than Galileo.
Our stereotype of the alchemist as the charlatan claiming to be
looking for chemical formula to turn lead into gold is not
entirely fair. In fact, it probably is not fair at all. The
alchemist is not so much a charlatan as someone whose
understanding of nature has been dictated and corrupted by
Church politics and by his own strange ideas and, yes, by
selfish ends. Within those constraints he is trying to get
practical and profitable results from his experimentation. The
alchemist had what we might think of as a very modern problem of
attracting investors. This was probably more Church officials
or rich patrons, the people who were the venture capitalists of
the Middle Ages. The alchemist probably had to paint his work
in an optimistic light that would grab investors' imaginations.
It was probably conceivable to the minds at the time that by
chemical means cheap materials could be combined to make gold.
We, after all, turn chemicals into valuable substances all the
time. The alchemist was more a well-intentioned victim of his
contemporary belief systems than a charlatan.
Standard claims and suggestions as to what might have been
possible with alchemy included the ability to make homunculi, to
turn common materials into gold, and to create elixirs of
immortality. Homunculi are small humans made from available
materials like human sperm. The "Philosopher's Stone" was not
necessarily a stone. It was whatever the hidden ingredient was
that was needed to turn lead into gold. Probably if another
substance was needed for some other really valuable
transformation, that too would have been called a "Philosopher's
Stone."
No alchemist ever succeeded in turning a base metal into gold,
though some might have used a little stage magic to make it
appear they did. Nobody ever did it in the field of chemistry.
It was not until the 19th century that we had sufficient
knowledge of the nature of matter to know that they never would
have been able to do it. We know now that gold is an element
and that combining chemicals is just not going to do it.
Chemical processes preserve atoms of elements. One needs
nuclear processes to change one element to another.
Alchemists were not charlatans and were not deluded. For the
most part they were people with a curiosity about nature and a
desire to experiment. That alone seems to imply that they were
fairly intelligent. Their lack of success was due in large part
to an understandable ignorance and to an inability to network
and share positive results. They certainly do not deserve the
negative image they have in literature and films. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: SOLARIS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: An alien planet gives George Clooney a perfect
facsimile of the wife he lost on earth in SOLARIS. The second
adaptation of the novel by Stanislaw Lem is much shorter than
the Tarkovsky version and only a bit lighter, which is to say
not very light at all. The philosophical film has some engaging
ideas, but viewers expecting romantic sci-fi will probably be
disappointed and perhaps even bored. This is dense,
introspective, and intelligent science fiction as distinguished
from entertainment. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to +4)
Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem is famous for his
whimsical stories. His best known work, however, is his 1961
novel SOLARIS, a serious exploration of ideas going back to Ray
Bradbury's 1948 short story "Mars is Heaven." In 1972 Russian
director Andrei Tarkovsky adapted the SOLARIS into a classic if
somewhat ponderous film of the same title. Now Steven
Soderbergh has written and directed his own version. It should
be noted that of the book and the two film versions, no two are
much alike. However, similar to the first film, the new version
is slow and contemplative, but it is considerably shorter to get
to many of the same ideas. Soderbergh has produced a film that
is abstract and considers some complex philosophical questions.
Like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY much (and especially the last part)
is open to interpretation. Unfortunately on top of a film
complex enough already Soderbergh has added some 2001-like
stylistic touches. The film was already difficult enough to
interpret.
About a century in the future Chris Kelvin (played by George
Clooney) lives alone thinking of the past and blaming himself
for the events leading to his beloved wife's death. He is
pulled out of his funk by a message from Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur)
an old friend on a space station circling the distant alien
world Solaris. The message seems to imply that there is some
sort of a strange problem there, but that Kelvin himself would
be perfect to come and investigate the problem. Being there
would help the mission and it would help Kelvin. Kelvin learns
attempts have already been made to bring back the crew, but the
crew is not cooperating. Kelvin travels to the station only to
find that Gibarian has committed suicide and the only two
surviving crew members are acting very peculiarly. Snow (Jeremy
Davies) seems to have become an incoherent schizophrenic whose
speeches are full of paradoxes. Gordon (Viola Davis) seems to
want to hide in her sleeping cabin. Snow will not explain what
is going on, telling Kelvin, "Until it starts happening to you
there no point in discussing it." Bewildered, Kelvin goes to
sleep in his cabin and awakes to find his dead wife Rheya
(Natascha McElhone) somehow there, alive and well. She is a
facsimile created from his memories, but does she have a life of
her own? The story proceeds in three worlds: one world is
Solaris Station, one is Earth in flashback, and the third is the
world of Kelvin's dreams.
SOLARIS looks like it was filmed on a small budget, well-spent.
Scenes aboard the Solaris Station, as filmed by Peter Andrews,
seem to feature two looks. We have dark scenes in which the
shadowed half of actors blends into the background. We also
have pans across impressive expanses of shipscape with lots of
round ports. These look a lot like they were inspired by
certain Michael Whelan book covers like the one for DISTANT
STARS. Scenes of the planet, shot from orbit, seem to paint it
in hues of pink and blue pastel. These are the only colorful
scenes in the film, but there is not much variety. The
planetary effects would have been impressive in the 1950s or
1960s, but this film is not trying to impress the viewer with
its visual effects and leaves them at the only adequate state.
Scenes set on Earth seem to feature mostly dark rooms and
constantly rain-soaked sidewalks as if something unmentioned has
upset the balance of the weather. The future Earth is a cold
world with listless people. This is yet another film that
assumes unimaginatively that Nehru jackets, or something like
them, will come back into style and will be the fashion of the
future.
SOLARIS is a very dense science fiction film, and one that
requires a great deal of thought and perhaps multiple watchings.
I rate SOLARIS a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4
to +4 scale. Rheya's favorite poem, and she was the kind of
person who has a favorite poem, is never fully identified in the
film and we get only snatches of quotes. It is:
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Dylan Thomas
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: DIE ANOTHER DAY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: After a really promising first hour this Bond film
falls back on its silly comic book style. Eventually the weight
of all the silliness in the second hour drags the film down in
spite of the good beginning. Still, the first hour is the
freshest thing that has happened to the series in a while, even
if it is wasted later in the film. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1 (-4
to +4)
DIE ANOTHER DAY seems in large part to be an experiment for the
Bond series. Much of it seems rushed and uneven. It starts
stupid, turns smart for an entire hour, and then loses the magic
and turns stupid again. The producers at Eon Productions and
director Lee Tomahori seem to have recognized that the most
successful series in film history needs some serious innovation
to survive.
At least in the first hour the originality is there. The first
new idea comes in the famous gun-barrel logo which has opened
each of the nineteen Eon James Bond films with a touch of class
and style. This time it has been goosed up with what was
intended to be a new CGI thrill. It did not need it and it
cheapens the effect. The first story sequence also has a sort
of foolish idea for a surprise, Bond arriving at a mission via
surfboard. Cute but daft. If we wanted to see a surfer we
could have seen a beach party film. But then the film gets
better when in this first mission inside North Korea Bond gets
himself into some serious trouble. Not the James Bond breed of
trouble with a quick and easy escape, but the kind of thing that
happens to real world spies captured in enemy territory. It
adds a sobering touch of reality that the series has not had
before. Intercut with the credit sequence are scenes showing
that Bond is indeed in trouble he cannot get out of and is not
having a very good time of it. North Korea is not the sort of
scenic tourist destination which is so often the setting of his
missions. The writing in the first hour is at worst on a level
with the Fleming books and some is better.
Then the new-found intelligence is squandered. In the second
hour we find that Bond has his super-skills and his super-luck
back. He is fighting a super-villain who has a sort of frozen
ice palace appropriately enough built in Iceland. Somehow this
building is constructed of ice and yet it maintains a
comfortable temperature inside, nobody's breath freezes, and
there is no dripping water. To this fairy-tale castle comes
James Bond with a magic invisible car. We are back in James
Bond Fantasyland. The dark tone of the first part of the film
is replaced with a lighter than air plot.
This script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade is a mismatched set
of styles that noisily goes haywire. One almost feels that one
person wrote the front end and the other wrote the back end.
The whole concept of who and what the villain is is a pile of
absurdities. Though it is not really used in the film we are
told that the villain never needs to sleep. Also pointlessly
added to the absurdity is Q's own version of the Star Trek
Holodeck. In this film there is an escalation in the number of
sexual double entendres but they seem less and less funny. The
old Sean Connery subtle Bond wit has been replaced by a sequence
of Playboy party jokes. So much has changed that there seems to
be a real effort to tie the current films with the older ones.
Much of the David Arnold score as well as the script seems to
quote the classic Bond films. We see at least two pieces of
equipment from THUNDERBALL. One interesting touch, the real
book FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS OF THE WEST INDIES by real life
ornithologist James Bond, is worked into the plot. Ian Fleming
borrowed the author's name when he wrote the first Bond book.
Visually, this is one of the least interesting Bond films.
Director of Photography David Tattersall seems to have filmed
the film with fancy stylistic camera moves that call attention
to themselves but do not help the storytelling. All the Korean
action is in dim light. A lot of effects are too obviously
digital which takes a lot of the fun out of them. Too often in
a chase a shot is set up to make the car look flashy, a likely
sign of a product placement. This film has been rumored to be
financed on the product placements alone.
The acting is sufficient, but not exciting. Pierce Brosnan is
starting to grow into the role of James Bond and certainly looks
better than he did driving a tank in GOLDENEYE. Halle Berry
plays a mysterious female agent that Bond first sees rising from
the sea in a scene borrowed from Ursula Andress in DR. NO.
Madonna, who sings the title song, also has a small role at a
fencing school. It is not a flashy role and she (somewhat
surprisingly) plays it like a disciplined actress rather than a
celebrity.
There is enough for the Bond fan to like and enough for a critic
to dislike in this film. There is somewhat of a departure for
the Bond series, but not always a prudent or intelligent one. I
rate DIE ANOTHER DAY 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4
to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: AIKI (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Based on a true story, a Japanese prize-fighter becomes
a paraplegic in a traffic accident. With no reason to live, he
plumbs the depths of despair and strikes out at the world. Then
he discovers Aikido martial arts, finds reasons to live, and
once again becomes a champion. This is sort of an Aikido BORN
ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to +4)
Haruhiko Kato, who starred in the supremely weird horror film
PULSE, plays Taichi. As the film opens Taichi is a boxer, and
fighting is the one thing that gives his life some meaning.
After a successful match he gives his girlfriend a ride on his
motor scooter when a careless driver hits him. Taichi awakes to
find that he will never walk again. The uninsured driver who
hit him commits suicide rather than face the consequences of his
own irresponsibility. We see some harrowing operation scenes of
just what must be done to Taichi's body to simply to keep him
alive. This leaves Taichi with no prospects and very little to
live for. His world gets very small, as just getting to the
next room is a nearly impossible feat. Just getting through the
day unassisted even without leaving his apartment is more than
he can hope for. He learns to use a wheelchair, but it does him
little good as he bitterly withdraws from the world. He
verbally abuses his sister, the only person willing to care for
him.
After many months he improves to the point where he can go out
on the street with his wheelchair. A small time criminal
befriends Taichi. Then he makes a second friend, an enigmatic
temple maiden with a somewhat secret past. She introduces him
to another friend, a master of the martial art of Aiki. This
man is willing to take even a man in a wheelchair on as a
student. Even from a wheelchair, Taichi learns the art of
Aikido.
Daisuke Tengan, who also directed, based his script on the true
story of a paraplegic, once a boxer, who became a champion of
Aikido. In a lot of ways this story is quite similar to BORN ON
THE FOURTH OF JULY. In case of that film it is the anti-war
movement that gives an embittered paraplegic back his life, in
the other it is martial arts. Aikido emphasizes a tranquil and
affirmative mind-set and the accepting of one's opponent. In
this case, of course, the opponent takes many forms, though the
same attitude and philosophy applies.
The story follows a rather obvious arch from the beginning. The
production is generally good and the acting seems reasonably
well done. (It generally is harder to judge acting in a
language the viewer does not understand). The subtitles are
occasionally hard to read in the print I saw. I would rate AIKI
a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
My primary reading was Frances Sherwood's THE BOOK OF SPLENDOR, a
book set in 17th century Prague and centering around Rabbi Loew,
John Dee, alchemy, and the golem. If this sounds a lot like Lisa
Goldstein's THE ALCHEMIST'S DOOR (which I read a couple of weeks
ago), all I can say is that apparently when it's time to golem,
we golem. The Sherwood was published in July and the Goldstein
in August, so it's unlikely either was copying the other. (Perhaps
both were inspired by Michael Chabon's THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF
KAVALIER & CLAY, or Pete Hamill's SNOW IN AUGUST.) However, what
is interesting is that the Sherwood is positioned as a mainstream
literary novel, while the Goldstein is marketed as fantasy, even
though they are really very similar. And I enjoyed them both and
recommend them. And I just finished re-reading Ted Chiang's
"Seventy-Two Letters." Is it possible that just as there was an
amazing explosion of alternate history stories a few years ago,
there will be a burst of golem stories now? [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Hypertext is more significant to society than
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