Rorschach’s Journal. March 10th, 2009:
Went to see Watchmen couple days ago. Latest showing, Saturday night … not many people in theater. Suppose not many people can handle it. People turn away, hide from truth. And truth is this: film isn’t very good.
Will say positive things, however.
Alternative “master plan” used in film maybe better than one in novel -- at least tighter narratively. Seems more natural, more seamless for cinema.
Some actors good. Jeffrey Dean Morgan engaging as Comedian. Patrick Wilson dead ringer for sad-sack Nite Owl, though strangely somewhat more confident than comics version. Jackie Earle Haley good, and commendable for taking risk of acting behind mask for almost all of movie, but had always “heard” Rorschach as more stoic when reading. More raspy than growling. Still, minor complaint, chalk up to interpretation.
Title montage with Bob Dylan song playing over march of history completely fascinating. Use of pop music in general very good: Hendrix’s version of “All Along The Watchtower,” “The Sounds of Silence” … when Juspeczyk sees Dreiberg in restaurant as “99 Luftballoons” plays, couldn’t help but smile. Even most cinematic comic cannot replicate influence of music on scene, so was interesting to experience familiar story with addition of songs.
Less happy with score: too melodramatic, too big, too much. In fact, whole film is like that, and that is biggest problem. Seems like director Zack Snyder loved plot and themes of novel, but not tone. Wanted to make movie of Watchmen and wanted to make “badass” superhero movie, and thought he could do both at same time.
Novel is violent, but ... subdued. Physical conflicts not epic, graceful battles like in most superhero comics. Instead: short, brutal, unpleasant. Other hand, film’s fights extremely stylized. Visually stimulating, but working at cross purposes to supposed realism of film. Also: in novel, Veidt takes out Nite Owl and Rorschach easily, with little fuss, almost looking bored; in movie, choreographed martial arts fight breaks out. Veidt’s imposing superiority feels diminished.
Acting also too much sometimes. Feels theatrical. Actors seem to be directed to act like they’re in superhero blockbuster, not drama where people just happen to wear funny costumes. Veidt is worst. In novel, Veidt is genial, charismatic, warm; in film, sinister and superior, almost as aloof as Dr. Manhattan. Matthew Goode soaks every line in gravitas, whereas Ozymandias of novel casual at all times. Famous “I did it thirty-five minutes ago” is big emotional moment in movie, but a more horrifying shock in novel because said off-handedly, like paid bills or got milk from store.
Also, felt novel’s satire of superheroes not strong enough in film. In film, superheroes are cool, wear sculpted costumes, pose and look intimidating. In novel, superheroes are awkward, paunchy belly in skintight costume (movie is one of few times spandex outfits would work on film, to highlight how silly costumes would look in real life). In novel, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre discuss mundane, embarrassing problems of having to go to bathroom in suit; in movie, too busy fighting criminals in slow motion.
Whole problem right there: Moore’s thesis is superheroes, even ones looking and sounding “normal” as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, would be maladjusted, dangerous to society and themselves. Snyder doesn't understand or doesn't care. Wants superheroes in his movie to look cool. Moore subverts superhero clichés, Snyder embraces. Moore’s superheroes reasonably realistic, Snyder’s just darker.
Could be if had not read book, would think movie is simply interesting, straightforward superhero movie with cool action sequences -- just more violent, more political than Spider-Man. Possibly unfair to hold movie to novel’s standards. But when director tries to be so faithful to source material, director invites comparisons.
This is my review. Have not read every blogger’s reviews; do not know if writing in Rorschach pastiche has been done, old hat. Even if so, no apologies. Never compromise.
r
Showing posts with label watchmen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label watchmen. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Reader Interaction and the Finale of Watchmen
With the movie version of Watchmen that comics fans are alternately looking forward to and dreading (often at the same time, it seems) coming out today, the blogosphere is full of people offering their two cents about the original Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons work. So why should I be any bloody different?
I think Watchmen is brilliant, but in some ways time has not been kind to it. Many of the ways that Moore undermines superhero genre conventions have been picked up by the mainstream; the sex, lies, and moral ambiguity that were subversive when Moore introduced them can now be found in a Justice League comic. Even some of the then-novel narrative tricks seem a little cute and forced now (“Wow, she says ‘I’m feeling kinda empty,’ and the panel’s a shot of Dr. Manhattan standing in an empty studio!”)
But there is one narrative element (or "nifty trick") in Watchmen I personally have never seen done so well in comics or any other storytelling medium, and that’s the way Moore teases the reader with having to choose a side in the ethical dilemma he poses in the book. It’s a brilliant bit of an author forging reader-fiction interaction, but it’s a great deal subtler than Grant Morrison having Animal Man yell “I can see you!” at the reader, and I never see anybody talk about it.
Okay, I’m going to really really SPOIL the ending here with words and visual aids, so if you’ve not read the book, don’t read on blah blah balh. Here’s Monday’s Sideburns if you missed it, and I am reasonably sure there are no Watchmen spoilers here.
(WE ALL LOVE TO LEAVE SPOILER SPACE IT IS A CONSIDERATE THING TO DO)
Still with us? Then let’s begin.
The super short version of Ozymandias’ master plan up to page 20 of issue #12: Veidt faked an alien attack on New York that murdered three million people, thus scaring the United States and the Soviet Union into a truce and ending the threat of nuclear conflict.
Silk Spectre gives the somewhat predictable and superheroic “You can’t get away with that” remark, to which Ozymadias replies:
Narratively, he’s talking to Silk Spectre, but look at it again. She’s not in the panel, and Ozymandias is facing the “camera” -- he’s talking to you, man. Moore is asking the reader to make a decision: by keeping quiet, you condone Ozymandias’ “final solution” (and it should be mentioned, since Veidt is going to spearhead the rebuilding process, he stands to make untold billions as well set himself up as, essentially, the shadow ruler of this new world), but if you turn him in, you invite nuclear war and the annihilation of all human life.
It’s an uncomfortable, unpleasant choice, even to have to impose on a fictional world, and it’s sprung on you very suddenly. Therefore, it’s something of a relief when that choice is made for you:
Rorschach, of course, refuses, but it’s still three against one. This is the first tease: Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are the characters the reader identifies with as the most normal or sympathetic, or possibly even most genuinely "heroic," so we are invited to believe the right choice has been made. Whew!
After this, Moore teases the reader a few more times. Rorschach threatens to reveal Veidt’s master plan to the world, but Dr. Manhattan zaps him. Manhattan’s parting shot to Veidt is a cryptic “Nothing ever ends,” but you can dismiss that as more of his clinically detached observations -- yeah, okay, atoms and particles keep moving and the Earth keeps turning and the universe is slouching toward entropy. Whatever.
So the story marches on and you get some closure with Nite Owl and both Silk Spectres, and then you see the new New York:
Looks pretty nice, doesn’t it? A lot nicer than a nuclear wasteland would, and look -- we’ve got a US/USSR accord and that really positive-looking Millennium ad. Of course if you look closely, you see the graffiti that says “One in eight go mad” with the “eight” crossed out and replaced with a “3”. In another panel is a newspaper headline: “N.Y. survivors reveal nightmares under hypnosis” and a comic called Tales from the Morgue -- a suddenly death-obsessed culture? Still, the alternative is everybody dies (isn’t it?) and Nite Owl and Silk Spectre said this was okay.
Then, that final page.
We saw earlier (#10) that Rorschach had mailed his journal implicating Adrian Veidt to the right-wing newspaper The New Frontiersman:
And this is paid off in the finale of the book:
Alan Moore, you son of a gun.
He’d lulled you into a false sense of security with the clean-looking NYC, the optimism, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre’s endorsement, and now he pulls it all away from you. Did you really think it would be that easy? Did you think some superheroes were going to answer this nice and tidy for you? No, Moore is going to force you to choose. He puts you in Seymour’s position (I almost think this is some kind of mean-spirited comment on the appearance of a stereotypical comics fan; oh, Alan Moore, just like Elvis Costello you want to bite the hand that feeds you, don't you?), and where Moore earlier posed the question through Veidt, now he does so through Hector Godfrey: “I’m asking you to take responsibility for once in your miserable life ... I leave it entirely in your hands.”
So you have to choose. You have to write your own little fan-fiction ending in your head.
You can have Seymour pick Rorschach’s journal and run the allegations inside it. Maybe no one believes it, maybe Veidt is brought to justice but the accord endures -- or maybe America and Russia go right for the launch buttons.
Alternatively, Seymour grabs one of the others, The New Frontiersman runs a letter about how the moon landing was faked, and they burn the journal as promised earlier. Peace endures.
There is, of course, the third alternative. Which is you don’t choose, you don’t finish the story in your head. You just let that hand hang in the air, the new version of the minute hand on the nuclear doomsday clock, stalemated inches away from disaster.
Waiting for the end of the world.
I think Watchmen is brilliant, but in some ways time has not been kind to it. Many of the ways that Moore undermines superhero genre conventions have been picked up by the mainstream; the sex, lies, and moral ambiguity that were subversive when Moore introduced them can now be found in a Justice League comic. Even some of the then-novel narrative tricks seem a little cute and forced now (“Wow, she says ‘I’m feeling kinda empty,’ and the panel’s a shot of Dr. Manhattan standing in an empty studio!”)
But there is one narrative element (or "nifty trick") in Watchmen I personally have never seen done so well in comics or any other storytelling medium, and that’s the way Moore teases the reader with having to choose a side in the ethical dilemma he poses in the book. It’s a brilliant bit of an author forging reader-fiction interaction, but it’s a great deal subtler than Grant Morrison having Animal Man yell “I can see you!” at the reader, and I never see anybody talk about it.
Okay, I’m going to really really SPOIL the ending here with words and visual aids, so if you’ve not read the book, don’t read on blah blah balh. Here’s Monday’s Sideburns if you missed it, and I am reasonably sure there are no Watchmen spoilers here.
(WE ALL LOVE TO LEAVE SPOILER SPACE IT IS A CONSIDERATE THING TO DO)
Still with us? Then let’s begin.
The super short version of Ozymandias’ master plan up to page 20 of issue #12: Veidt faked an alien attack on New York that murdered three million people, thus scaring the United States and the Soviet Union into a truce and ending the threat of nuclear conflict.
Silk Spectre gives the somewhat predictable and superheroic “You can’t get away with that” remark, to which Ozymadias replies:
Narratively, he’s talking to Silk Spectre, but look at it again. She’s not in the panel, and Ozymandias is facing the “camera” -- he’s talking to you, man. Moore is asking the reader to make a decision: by keeping quiet, you condone Ozymandias’ “final solution” (and it should be mentioned, since Veidt is going to spearhead the rebuilding process, he stands to make untold billions as well set himself up as, essentially, the shadow ruler of this new world), but if you turn him in, you invite nuclear war and the annihilation of all human life.
It’s an uncomfortable, unpleasant choice, even to have to impose on a fictional world, and it’s sprung on you very suddenly. Therefore, it’s something of a relief when that choice is made for you:
Rorschach, of course, refuses, but it’s still three against one. This is the first tease: Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are the characters the reader identifies with as the most normal or sympathetic, or possibly even most genuinely "heroic," so we are invited to believe the right choice has been made. Whew!
After this, Moore teases the reader a few more times. Rorschach threatens to reveal Veidt’s master plan to the world, but Dr. Manhattan zaps him. Manhattan’s parting shot to Veidt is a cryptic “Nothing ever ends,” but you can dismiss that as more of his clinically detached observations -- yeah, okay, atoms and particles keep moving and the Earth keeps turning and the universe is slouching toward entropy. Whatever.
So the story marches on and you get some closure with Nite Owl and both Silk Spectres, and then you see the new New York:
Looks pretty nice, doesn’t it? A lot nicer than a nuclear wasteland would, and look -- we’ve got a US/USSR accord and that really positive-looking Millennium ad. Of course if you look closely, you see the graffiti that says “One in eight go mad” with the “eight” crossed out and replaced with a “3”. In another panel is a newspaper headline: “N.Y. survivors reveal nightmares under hypnosis” and a comic called Tales from the Morgue -- a suddenly death-obsessed culture? Still, the alternative is everybody dies (isn’t it?) and Nite Owl and Silk Spectre said this was okay.
Then, that final page.
We saw earlier (#10) that Rorschach had mailed his journal implicating Adrian Veidt to the right-wing newspaper The New Frontiersman:
And this is paid off in the finale of the book:
Alan Moore, you son of a gun.
He’d lulled you into a false sense of security with the clean-looking NYC, the optimism, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre’s endorsement, and now he pulls it all away from you. Did you really think it would be that easy? Did you think some superheroes were going to answer this nice and tidy for you? No, Moore is going to force you to choose. He puts you in Seymour’s position (I almost think this is some kind of mean-spirited comment on the appearance of a stereotypical comics fan; oh, Alan Moore, just like Elvis Costello you want to bite the hand that feeds you, don't you?), and where Moore earlier posed the question through Veidt, now he does so through Hector Godfrey: “I’m asking you to take responsibility for once in your miserable life ... I leave it entirely in your hands.”
So you have to choose. You have to write your own little fan-fiction ending in your head.
You can have Seymour pick Rorschach’s journal and run the allegations inside it. Maybe no one believes it, maybe Veidt is brought to justice but the accord endures -- or maybe America and Russia go right for the launch buttons.
Alternatively, Seymour grabs one of the others, The New Frontiersman runs a letter about how the moon landing was faked, and they burn the journal as promised earlier. Peace endures.
There is, of course, the third alternative. Which is you don’t choose, you don’t finish the story in your head. You just let that hand hang in the air, the new version of the minute hand on the nuclear doomsday clock, stalemated inches away from disaster.
Waiting for the end of the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)