This week’s Escapist is talking about constructive criticism. Yahtzee himself chimed in on criticism on one point:
Criticism is a powerful force for good. Nothing ever improves without coming to terms with its flaws. Without critics telling us what’s stupid and what isn’t, we’d all be wearing boulders for hats and drinking down hot ebola soup for tea. – Zero Punctuation: Overlord 2
I could make all sort of analogies for criticism. There’s the bonsai tree example, the fat on a steak visual, the sanding of a bat to remove its splinters for a nice clean hit; I could go on. But suffice it to say that the best criticism is one that sees what a work is going for and points out the flaws so that the crux of the work can be improved while things that don’t work can be discarded.
Declaring something to be absolute crap is a great way to appear critical and level up on the Internet, so that’s what some critics will go for. This should not, however, deter the creative mind from letting criticism getting in the way of creating something. Even if said criticism is coming from that selfsame mind.
Even if you’re not looking at your art as a means of income, and it’s just something you do for fun, critics shouldn’t deter you from trying to create something if you’ve the mind to try it. However, some criticism is meant to be constructive, while other criticism becomes destructive very quickly. There’s a world of difference between “This sketch needs work,” and “Your art is horrible and will never improve.”
It comes down to a difference in mentality. Some people want to cultivate dreams in this world, to help bring a new vision to life. This requires a lot of effort, though, more than some people are willing to put into a creative endeavor, and it can be a scary thing. Like the man said, there will always be mediocrity out there, people who can’t deal with the extra percentage of effort some put into what makes them passionate. That, I feel, is where a lot of destructive criticism comes from. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, you can’t be afraid to put your work out there. Good criticism will help your work get better, and bad criticism can pretty much be ignored. Just like there is such a thing as good & bad writing or good & bad film-making, there’s good & bad criticism.
The Gospels in most standard Bibles – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – talk a great deal about the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there are about thirty years of his life missing from those narratives. A question asked by many (including myself) is: what happened during those thirty years? How did they help shape the Son of God’s ministry? Christopher Moore, an author and humorist I’d rank with Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, attempts to answer that question with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.
Levi bar Adelphus, who is called Biff, is raised from the dead by the archangel Raziel to write a new Gospel. Kept under house arrest – or rather hotel arrest, as they’re staying at a Hyatt in St. Louis – until he finishes, Biff sets his mind on the task of recounting his journeys with his best friend, Yeshua bar Jehovah of Nazareth. Josh & Biff both work for Biff’s father as boys, and take turns courting the irrepressible Mary of Magdala – Maggie, for short. When an angel appears to Josh and tells him he needs to find his destiny, the two embark on a journey across the continent in search of answers.
In addition to making an attempt at shedding light on one of the most influential men in history, Lamb also takes a fascinating look at some of the other faiths and philosophies in the world, such as the teachings of Confucius, the tenants of Buddhism and some of Hinduism’s darker sides. There are a pile of references to everything from the world being round to evolution, and a great deal of it is done with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I don’t know if I’ve ever even heard of an elephant doing yoga before I read this book.
This is a very funny book. If you’re reading it in public, especially in a library or a study hall, you are very likely to disturb others. I lost track of the number of times I burst out laughing reading it. As I said, Christopher Moore’s work is of a high caliber of satire and humor. This was my first time reading one of his books, and I know I’ll be reading more after this. I also know I’ll be reading Lamb again because, as a Christian, I’ll admit I got a great deal out of it.
I know there are people out there who consider any reference to Christ in literature outside of the Bible to be blasphemous or false or something like that. They might think that portraying Him in any way other than fearful reverence dilutes the power of His message. Christopher Moore proves thoroughly and completely that this is not the case. The notion is that a divine and omnipotent intelligence alien to our own responsible for the creation of the universe incarnated as a normal human child to experience the range and depth of the human experience without the bias of an omniscient point of view. Lamb shows the confusion, determination, delight and humanity of Joshua, treating him with respect throughout the work. His desire for understanding and compassion is balanced very well against Biff, who acts as a sarcastic and realist foil for the Messiah. It could be said that Biff shows us what it’s really like to have a “personal relationship” with Christ, in that sometimes Biff gets smacked a bit hard, and sometimes Biff yells at Josh for one reason or another. It’s a friendship, a very deep and human bond, and I think this review is going a bit more serious than I intended so here’s a picture of a bunny.
Apparently Josh liked bunnies. Anyway, Lamb is a great book, on many levels. It’s funny, interesting, powerful and tender. It never disrespects its source material, has a lot of good research behind it and just tries to answer a few questions that might nag anybody who looks on the life of Christ with their brain engaged. Questions like “What was Jesus like as a young man?” and “What if Jesus knew kung fu?”
So with Citizen in the Wilds now in the revision process, I thought it might behoove me to take a look at some other fantasy literature, maybe examine what works and what doesn’t. Since most of what I’m doing involves the defiance of most fantasy conventions, I’m curious if anything I’m aiming at hasn’t already been hit on the mark by another, more prominent writer.
For example, floating cities aren’t anything new. Look no further than Dalaran in World of Warcraft. However, I don’t know how often the ‘ruling power’ in a given land has been one ruled by mages and defined by the use of magic – ‘magocracy’ is the term I’ve used previously. Everybody has elves in their stories, and most of the time they’re dying out, but I’m curious as to how often they’re shown as very upset at this state of affairs, rather than quietly accepting their fate and loading up on ships to sail into the West.
That said, I own most of Tolkein’s works, a full set of Narnia, and somewhere in this mess are my copies of A Wrinkle In Time, a collection of Conan stories and even Eragon. I’ve taken Tigana out of the library before and would do so again, mostly because I didn’t finish it before returning it. What else would you recommend me to read, oh wise Internets?
I spent a little extra time at the office last night printing out Citizen in the Wilds. Technically it’s now in its second draft, as I rewrote the first three paragraphs before printing. I think the opening is a bit stronger, now. The plan is to do a little revising and editing on the first chapter or two today, and transcribe those change into a Google document tomorrow. If you want an invite, let me know. The more the merrier.
In addition I’m looking to enter Blizzard’s fiction contest. They want a short work of fiction between 2.5k and 7.5k words in length. I’m shooting for the middle, around 4500. It has to be set in the universes of Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo. In the interest of staying original, and veering away from self-insertion by channeling one of my Warcraft characters (which might actually be against the rules of the contest, to boot) I’ll be writing a story set in Starcraft’s worlds. Tentative title is The Haunting of Pridewater. Should make for an interesting sci-fi “war is hell” yarn.
So that’ll be my day, Internets. How’s yours shaping up? How are folks doing at Origins? Anybody else excited for the US/Ghana match his afternoon?
Among other things, The Departed hammers home the lesson of not judging a book by its cover. For a long time, I considered Leonardo DiCaprio an actor that got by on looks rather than talent. Mostly this was due to how unimpressed I was by the acting in general in Titanic. That happened in a period in his career that saw him in the midst of what the media called ‘Leo-mania’. There’s a reason his Wikipedia page doesn’t even mention The Beach except in passing. However, Leo hooked up with some guy named Martin and they started making movies together. I mention this because The Departed is the first film in which I found myself liking Leo as an actor and got the impression that he was just as disenchanted with ‘Leo-mania’ as I was. Against the stone of Scorsese, DiCapro sharpened himself and has definitely gotten back his edge.
The Departed, set in Boston, follows Leo as Billy Costigan, a very smart young man enrolled in the Police Academy with ties to organized crime, and Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan, a guy from South Boston groomed from a young age by Irish mobster Frank Costello to become a mole within the State Police. Billy is selected to go deep undercover, does time in jail and ends up joining Costello’s crew. What emerges from this setup is a tense game of cat-and-mouse, or perhaps ‘rat-against-rat’, as each of these men move into and out of each other’s lives in their disparate goals: Sullivan to further his career by any means necessary, and Costigan to bring Costello to justice.
Look no further than The Departed to see a director using everything at his disposal in a judicious and brilliant way to bring a story to life. Martin Scorsese is one of the most successful and influential of the ‘movie brats’, a label he shares with Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg. He shares with his cinematic brethren a unique style and a penchant for focusing on what was once considered a ‘low’ form of cinema – crime drama. While his resume includes interesting but no less powerful departures from this, such as Cape Fear and The Aviator, but when most people think Scorsese, they think Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, Casino and Gangs of New York. The Departed is classic Scorsese, steeped in his style and themes, even if it takes place in Boston instead of his usual New York.
“Feels like something’s missing. Like the Empire State Building. Or a decent pizza joint.”
The city of Boston is almost a character in and of itself in this movie. The neighborhoods, ancestry and even accents come into play now and again. It’s been tempting to do this review in a Bostonian accent, but I’d probably butcher it pretty horribly and I don’t wanna antagonize Red Sox fans. Anyway, Scorsese captures the essence of a town that’s unashamed of its heritage, proud of its people both good and bad, fully invested in being the best it can be and imbuing her people with that same energy, that same impetus. It’s this energy that permeates The Departed and brings out the best in its cast.
I mentioned Leo in the intro because, as I said, he’s very likable in this movie. Many of his actions as one of Frank’s guys are not very nice, but this is a man driven to do what he feels is necessary to get his job done. His dedication is admirable and the stress it places on him is telling. He’s exceedingly, painfully human. So to is Matt Damon, and while his stiffness might be partially due to his acting in general, it could also be attributed to his character’s discomfort around people in true authority and fear of being found out. One of the best decisions Scorsese made, however, was in letting Jack Nicholson off of his leash. As Frank Costello, Jack needs to portray a smart, charismatic and completely unpredictable man used to both the trappings and abuse of power. Scorsese let Nicholson improvise a lot of his scenes, to the point where even Leo didn’t know what to expect of him.
However, if you were to look up “scene-stealing” in the dictionary, don’t be surprised if you see the face of Mark Wahlberg. Never has the phrase “jerk with a heart of gold” so accurately described a character as it does his Staff Sergeant Dignam. Verbally abusive, quick to anger and uninterested in making friends, Dignam is still every bit as dedicated to justice as Costigan and, if you follow his arc all the way through to the end of the film, shows his true colors as a man who forges deep bonds with those he works with in undercover policing. He looks up to Martin Sheen’s Captain Queenan and sees Costigan as something of a protege, a fellow warrior in the trenches. He’s not afraid to pull punches with Billy but he’ll have the man’s back one hundred and ten percent when anybody else even mentions coming close to him. Couple this complexity with authentic Bostonian bluster and charm as well as Wahlberg’s own surprising screen presence and you have what Tropers would call an “Ensemble Darkhorse,” a somewhat minor character who will run away with your total allegiance if you’re not careful.
All of these characters are woven into an excellently paced story. The Departed is a remake on a Hong Kong crime thriller called Internal Affairs, but as I mentioned, this film of Scorsese’s becomes so steeped in Boston that it’s likely a different animal entirely. I haven’t seen Internal Affairs myself, but comparing the two would probably be an interesting exercise, and I’d have to watch this film again, gee darn. If there was any doubt in your mind that this is a superlative film, look at the accolades it’s won. If nothing else, it finally won Scorsese an Academy Award as a director, along with itself winning for Best Picture of 2006, and earning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker and writer William Monahan Oscars as well. Scorsese is quoted as saying that this film won after being nominated so many times, not because he deserved it after a lifetime of cinematic achievement, but because The Departed was “the first movie I’ve done with a plot.”
Yes, that’s Alec Baldwin in there. Did I mention this cast is excellent?
In summary, The Departed is one of those rare films that delivers on every level possible. It may seem like a by-the-numbers crime drama at first to some, but with the richness of its characters, the invasive nature of the setting, the canny directing and taut writing, it quickly shows itself to stand on its own. There’s a weight of realism to this story, no particular performance tears us away from being immersed in it and Scorsese’s directing never breaks pace to keep us a part of it. If I were asked on the street to briefly deliver a recommendation for The Departed, I’d have to paraphrase Movie Bob once again: “You hafta ask?? It’s Scorsese! Getcher ass on Netflix and get this movie!”
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
