Culture Briefs

Pay attention I

“I’ve been a lifelong heavy reader, and I’ve particularly loved the great 19th century novelists: Austen, Dickens, Trollope, Dostoyevsky, Collins, Mrs. Gaskell, Thackeray, Tolstoy. Their books take some time. Not long before my illness I re-read with great pleasure all the Barsetshire novels of Trollope, which stand at the center of Victorian literature like a great fictional Stonehenge.

“Adjusting to the loss of speech, I turned with eagerness to the Internet, where we all speak in the same way. I began this blog, and started the practice of sometimes replying to comments not so much to be a nice guy, but because it was a way to have a conversation. I was told about Twitter. I vowed I would never be a Twit, and now I am one. At this moment I have nearly 156,000 Followers. …

“But how is my reading of long 19th century novels coming along? Not very well. Sometime late last year I began Dombey and Son, one of the few Dickens novels I’d never read. I was delighted. I think I tweeted a link to the first pages and urged people to share my joy. Then … I dunno … I got swept up. Sundance, the Oscars, Ebertfest, deadlines. Tweeting. Blogging. Surfing.”

— Roger Ebert, writing on “The quest for frisson” on May 29 at his eponymous Chicago Sun-Times journal

Pay attention II

“In the 14 years before Bela Tarrs 1994 magnum opus ’Satantango’ became available on DVD, it had a reputation among hardcore cinephiles as the Mount Everest of modern cinema. At seven hours and 15 minutes, the film created obvious problems for even the most austere arthouse distributors — and thats before factoring in the seven-to-10-minute takes, the spare black-and-white photography, and a 12-part structure in which time continually doubles back on itself. (And the cat torture. And the owl. And Tarrs unsparing view on the avarice, stupidity, and sloth of mankind. Etc.)

“So with oxygen tanks in tow, the intrepid few huddled in film festivals and repertory houses whenever it passed through their city, and spent the bulk of their waking hours climbing the hill together. In a film culture thats been dispersed — and in some ways diminished — by the DVD age, when everyone consumes movies at separate times and in separate pods, Satantango offered a rare communal experience, where cultists had no choice but to take the journey together.”

— Scott Tobias, writing on “The New Cult Canon: Satantango,” on May 27 at the Onion AV Club

Pay attention III

“Over and over again, elements are added to the story [in ’Agora’] that are not in the source material: the destruction of the library, the stoning of the Jews in the theatre, Cyril condemning Hypatia’s teaching because she is a woman, the heliocentric ’breakthrough’ and Hypatia’s supposed irreligiousity. And each of these invented elements serves to emphasise the idea that she was a freethinking innovator who was murdered because her learning threatened fundamentalist bigots. The fact that [director Alejandro] Amenabar needs to rest this emphasis on things he has made up and mixed into the real story demonstrates how baseless this interpretation is.

“It may be baseless, but it’s receiving a predictably enthusiastic reception by many critics and moviegoers. One IMDB reviewer certainly got the message, writing a glowing review entitled ’Atheists of the all the world unite!’ Another notes ’Amenabar made a statement before the screening that if the Alexandria library had not been destroyed, we might have landed on Mars already.’ … These comments are typical. These viewers accepted all the invented pseudo historical additions to the story without question and happily swallowed the sermon they rest on.

“Several blog posts and articles have attempted to counter these distortions of history. … All these writers are, however, Christians. … I know from my encounters with true believers in The Da Vinci Code that their Christianity will mean these attempts will be generally rejected or ignored — people like to cling to myths that confirm their ideas. Which means, rather ironically, this film exposes who are the true fundamentalists in this picture.”

— Tim O’Neill, writing on “Hypatia and ’Agora’ Redux,” on May 30 at his blog “Armarium Magnum”