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Culture Lust is a blog about the latest ideas stirring in the creative world, hosted by Angela Carone. As arts and culture producer for KPBS Radio's These Days, she's constantly reading, watching, hearing and evaluating the books, movies, music, articles, performers, plays, and cultural phenomena that cross her desk.

Is There An Anti-Male Conspiracy in Hollywood?

April 04, 2008 @ 03:04 pm by Angela Carone

These Days host Tom Fudge loves to talk about movies.  In fact, so does everyone on the These Days staff.  There tends to be a lot of movie discussion towards the end of the day, when the news cycle has hit a lull, or on Thursday afternoons when we have a breather (These Days doesn't have a show on Friday mornings... but you knew that because you listen EVERY DAY, right?  And then at 11am you immediately start reading Culture Lust...I must say, you're all fine, fine people).

Tom was on vacation last week and must have missed our movie conversations.  When he and his wife rented a movie from Netflix, an interesting conversation followed and Tom sent Culture Lust these thoughts on movie myths, anti-male conspiracies, and reveals that his wife wins all their arguments!

Gender, Parenting, and the Great Anti-male Hollywood Conspiracy

By Tom Fudge
 
Mythology and its many stories make us believe that certain things are true and right. This has been the case throughout human history. All that’s changed is the medium. Myth was communicated orally, then scripturally. Today it’s done cinematically.

The myth of the movie cowboy has instructed us in matters of independence and self reliance. Disney movies have influenced gender roles and our relationship with animals. In fact, I don’t think we would have an animal rights movement without Walt Disney. Several generations of Americans were traumatized by the murder of Bambi’s mother and it didn’t take long before some of them created PETA.

I was thinking of the power of Hollywood myth-making as I was watching a movie that my wife got from Netflix. It’s called Dan in Real Life.  It stars Steve Carrell and Juliette Binoche in a story where the main character is a single Dad (Carrell) with three daughters. The Dad seeks to have a romance with a woman (Binoche) who, he later learns, is dating his brother.

As I watched this movie I saw that it contained a subplot that some members of the so-called men’s movement strenuously object to. I’m referring the portrayal of the main character’s wife. “What portrayal?” you’ll be wondering if you’ve seen the movie. She’s dead, and he’s a widower. But that’s just it.

If she were alive she’d be right there caring for her kids. Death is the only thing that will pull a woman away from her children and her maternal duties. Call it the Sleepless in Seattle supposition.

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Posted In: Film | 0 Comments
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A Cognac for Cormac

February 26, 2008 @ 09:02 am by Angela Carone

These Days host Tom Fudge is a Cormac McCarthy fan and here he tells Culture Lust readers why.....

A Cognac for Cormac 
By Tom Fudge

No Country for Old Men bookI didn’t spend much time watching the Academy Awards on Sunday, but I watched enough to hear the news that No Country for Old Men won the award for best picture. I enjoyed the movie, and I’m sure the Coen brothers deserve a lot of credit for making it. But the person most responsible for that movie was the man who wrote the novel, Cormac McCarthy.

Cormac McCarthy has become my favorite writer. It’s rare to pick up a novel and be immediately blown away by the quality of the prose. But that’s what happens when you read McCarthy. And if you’ve seen the movie, No Country for Old Men, get a copy of the novel. You’ll be struck by how much the scenes in the movie owe to the book. I don’t think this happened because Joel and Ethan Coen revere McCarthy. They simply realized there was no way to improve on McCarthy’s dialogue and descriptions.

One of the first things you notice, when reading McCarthy, is that he doesn’t use quotation marks when he’s writing dialogue. Here’s one example, from No Country, in which the killer, Chigurh, interrogates the owner of a gas station. If you saw the movie, you’ll remember this scene. Chigurh hears the owner say he goes to bed at about 9:30, then he says:

I could come back then.
We’ll be closed then.
That’s all right.
Well why would you be comin back? We’ll be closed.
You said that.
Well we will.
You live in that house behind the store?
Yes I do.
You’ve lived here all your life?
The proprietor took a while to answer. This was my wife’s father’s place, he said. Originally.
You married into it.
If that’s the way you want to put it.
I don’t have some way to put it. That’s the way it is.
Well I need to close now.

I’ve often thought writing is a visual medium because you see the written words. When your eyes pass over dialogue like McCarthy’s, you’re struck by how perfectly it captures the essence of the words and the drama of the situation. His method of leaving out punctuation is one way he does that.

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Posted In: Film, Books | 0 Comments
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