Will Hacksaw Ridge be Enough to Redeem Mel Gibson?

A complete list of the offensive and controversial remarks made by actor and director Mel Gibson would undoubtedly take up several posts, not to mention containing more censor stars than the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Racist, anti-Semitic and downright nasty comments have been captured on film and tape, creating an inescapable offensive against any apologies or reconciliations the star may try to make.

From a stable family life and successful career which included the Mad Max trilogy and Oscar-winning Braveheart, Gibson's downfall took several years of substance abuse and religious tirades to deteriorate both his personal life and film career. Disgraced, and with the abuse of his partner caught on tape, not even the success of The Passion of the Christ could redeem him. A four-year break and the lacklustre reception of thriller Edge of Darkness did little to raise his stature, despite journalist Alison Weiner calling for the end of his "blacklisting" by Hollywood execs.

However, a new film, directed by Gibson, has been quietly gaining strong reviews and plenty of interest, raising the question of whether Gibson can finally be redeemed. Hollywood second chances have been popular in the last few years, with the flagging reputations of Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Affleck both enjoying astronomical comebacks with the help of rehabilitation and superhero blockbusters. Hacksaw Ridge, as well as being tipped for an excellent awards season, is also predicted to do the same for its director. Grisly and harrowing, it tells the story of a World War II Pacifist who attempts to navigate the conflict without harming anyone. While perhaps not suggesting that Gibson is a reformed man apologetic for his past actions, it certainly proves that he is still a striking director or performance, capable of that difficult feat of making films which will please both audiences, critics and Hollywood bosses alike. That will certainly be enough for the money-driven, business minds of the film industry. But will it enough for disillusioned fans and cynical critics? Only time will tell.

The Origins of Conflict in Game of Thrones

For those who are familiar with Game of Thrones or its book series, it would appear that war, strife and conflict is the default setting for those unfortunate enough to live in Westeros. In fact, if you said it was part of their DNA, you might not be far off.

The past, and specifically one's personal and family history, is a constant preoccupation for the characters of Game of Thrones. Every person of note is preceded by their father's or grandfather's name and reputation, and immediately judged upon it. A single act earns a nickname or curse which remains for the individual's whole life, regardless of what happens for the rest of it. The people of Westeros have long memories. This creates a suffocating bubble of retrospective guilt, inescapable prejudice and mistakes handed down through the generations. This is exacerbated in the series by the lack of flashbacks - everyone is obsessed with the past, but we may never experience it in the present, so never achieve closure or a sense of what really happened. Subsequently, the many traumatic and hideous actions experienced by the characters constantly remain to haunt them, creating tensions and fear in the present.

These feelings of difference and alienation also stem from a far more ancient source; the evolutionary ancestors of the families. Though only mentioned occasionally within the series, there are distinct ancestral peoples from which the current inhabitants of Westeros are descended.

Families from the North of Westeros, such as the Starks, as well as wildlings, speak of themselves as having the blood of the First Men - the original human inhabitants of Westeros. Many Northerners and wildlings still retain the ancient traditions and religions of these people, and pride themselves thus on having a stronger connection to their roots and past. The Lannisters are known as descendants of the Andals, a race more advanced and Aryan-looking than the First Men, who they largely defeated. The Andals are credited with bringing medieval chivalry, iron tools and the present language to Westeros, and remain the dominant racial type on the continent. The third and final root civilisation are the Rhoynar, a small group of people from the south of Westeros, who give the Martells of Dorne their unique culture and typically more Mediterranean appearance. Finally the Targaryens, descended from the magical Valyrian people and the survivors of the mysterious Doom of Valyria. It is this ancestry which gives the Targaryens their unique appearance and ability to control magic and dragons.

It is in this way that, despite years of interbreeding, the people of Westeros still feel clear, deep boundaries between each other. Their ancestries, both familial and genetic, though hardly relevant, create inescapable cultural and religious differences which stand at the root of many of the conflicts within the story. Thus it would seem that rivalry and war is inevitable in Westeros, as long as the characters continue to live in the past and hold onto old grudges.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Preview Screening

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies offers exactly what the title promises, but little more. It is the familiar Regency England of Jane Austen’s world: balls, etiquette, chivalry, but with the added issue of rotting corpses which stalk the countryside. Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel of the same name takes the famous romance of feisty Elizabeth Bennet and moody Mr Darcy and places it in a world at the mercy of an insidious zombie outbreak. Life goes on for the aristocracy with romance, marriage and gossip, but young ladies are taught to hide knives in their corsets and stockings, while gentlemen must keep a musket on hand at all times.

This admittedly bizarre concept has given rise to a similarly ridiculous film, but one which at least harbours no illusions about being a serious literary adaptation. The scenes which use the differences between the original Pride and Prejudice and the horror reimagining subtly make up the most effective, amusing parts of the film. For example, an early sequence in which the Bennet sisters chatter excitedly about an upcoming ball while polishing their weapons at the same time is subversive and slick. Another interesting aspect of the social differences of the era is also created. Those who can afford it receive zombie combat training in Japan, while those who cannot settle for lessons in China. The charming young cast includes Lily James, Bella Heathcote and Jack Huston, who elevate the production with likeable performances. The stand out role, however, goes to Matt Smith, whose bumbling and awkward Mr Collins steals every scene he is in with hilarious physical comedy and improvised one-liners which brought the house down several times.

Despite these commendable aspects, however, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is never sure what mood to create, and tonal missteps in both romantic and action scenes lose their effectiveness accordingly. The bloody fight scenes are not translated well to a period setting, and appear muddled and over the top. Fans of Grahame-Smith’s novel will be satisfied, but Austen herself will be turning in her grave - which would ironically make her a zombie.

My recently published essay on gender performativity in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' and Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop can be found on page 57 of this journal:

Love is Everlasting... Wider Reading 15: Les Misérables

I dreamed a dream of blogs gone by, so went up to my castle on a cloud, sat at an empty chair at an empty table, looked down and saw red and black. So I decided to do a Les Misérables post. Victor Hugo began writing Les Misérables twenty years before its eventual publication in 1862, when he was still in exile. His goals in writing the novel were as lofty as the reputation it has subsequently acquired; it is primarily a great humanitarian work which encourages compassion and hope in the face of adversity and injustice. It is also, however, a historical novel of great scope and analysis, and it provides a detailed vision of nineteenth-century French politics and society. In publishing it, Hugo hoped it would provide inspiration for a more democratic future, for France and for the world.

Les Misérables employs Hugo’s style of imaginative realism and is set in an artificially created human hell which emphasizes the major predicaments of the nineteenth century. Many of the major characters in the novel symbolize one of these predicaments. Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, and the voicelessness and injustice of the legal system of the time. His hunter, policeman Javert, is the overzealous authority who forget their real duties in the fever of the chase. Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and the predicament of those who are judged unfairly. Finally, Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness, but she also represents hope, the only real hope for life and love in the entire novel.

Hugo makes the contrast between good and evil transparently clear through visual imagery, referring to the men in terms of light and dark. The Bishop of Digne, M. Myriel, who trusts in and hopes for other people, operates in light, whereas the mistrustful Valjean operates under cover of darkness. The tension between light and dark reaches a peak when Valjean stops to look at Myriel before stealing his silver. As Valjean plans his theft, the clouds darken the sky; he then sees Myriel’s face in a beam of moonlight. Finally, we see Valjean standing in the shadows while he breaks into the cabinet of silver. In this description, Hugo uses pathetic fallacy. As Valjean contemplates stealing the silver, the sky is dark, as if it were frowning upon the crime he is about to commit. Once Valjean approaches Myriel, however, everything becomes light, as if Myriel were radiating purity and goodness. By using this technique of pathetic fallacy, Hugo is able to pass judgment on his characters and their actions without ever breaking the narrative voice.

Many types of love are explored within Les Misérables. It is implied that Valjean is in love with Fantine, risking his life to rescue and protect her and her daughter. Both of them have strong parental love for Cosette, who seems to elicit this emotion from many people who meet her. Later in the novel, a young revolutionary named Marius falls in love with her, and the two begin a secret relationship which must be hidden from Valjean. Marius in fact is so besotted with Cosette that he is blind to the feelings of Eponine, who has loved him for many years without his notice

Les Miserables - Quotations

Love is Unlucky... Wider Reading 13: Anna Karenina

All good blogs are alike; every bad blog is bad in its own way, though I hope Tolstoy would have liked this one. Almost every aspect of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s life is incorporated into Anna Karenina; the loss of his mother at a young age, his social awkwardness, antimilitaristic sentiments, his courtship of his wife, contact with peasants, and his overwhelming awareness of the power of death. This novel, his second most famous after War and Peace, is often viewed as the turning point in Tolstoy’s career, the point at which he shifted away from fiction and toward faith. The tug-of-war between these two forces helps create the rich portrait of Anna, whom Tolstoy both disapproves of and loves.

The novel explores the rich tapestry of mankind’s capacity for love, set against the opulent backdrop of the twilight of the Russian Empire. Despite the elegant settings, danger lurks and around every corner is the constant reminder that this powerful, precarious world is soon to drop. An impoverished train worker is killed; a privileged man who has seen the crisis coming leaves his duties to work with the commoners. The novel, however, centres on the lives and loves of families inhabiting the high societies of St Petersburg and Moscow. Anna is the wife of the respected but dull Minister Karenin. What love she lacks in her marriage she lavishes on her only son, Seryozha, and later her affair with handsome cavalry officer Count Vronsky. Meanwhile Anna’s brother, Oblonsky, is experiencing marriage troubles of his own. Dissatisfied with his wife’s fading attractiveness, he has been caught with the governess and must repent his infidelity. His wife’s young sister Kitty, at the same time, has her heart broken by Vronsky as he chooses Anna over her, but finds happiness in her friend and suitor, Levin.

In his depiction of Anna’s appearance at the train station during her first meeting with Vronsky, Tolstoy emphasizes Anna’s spiritual rather than physical attributes. This method of characterizing her is important, for it reinforces from the very beginning that although Tolstoy may harshly condemn adultery on an abstract level, he does not portray Anna as a passion-crazed vixen—as popular novels of the time often represented the straying wife. The parallel structure of Anna’s and Levin’s story lines was one of Tolstoy’s strokes of genius in composing Anna Karenina. Their stories begin on very different notes: Anna finds love with Vronsky just at the moment when Levin loses love with Kitty. Anna’s decision to act on her feelings brings her thrills and excitement, whereas Levin’s decision brings him dejection and depression. Both Anna and Levin seek truth in their personal relationships, unwilling to settle for anything less. Anna discovers that she would prefer to suffer with her true love rather than continue to lead a life of lies and deceit with a man she does not love. Her = unconventional actions are prompted by a desire not for rebellion for its own sake but for absolute sincerity in her emotional life. Similarly, Levin, after Kitty’s rebuff, does not go after the next girl on his list but resigns himself to eternal bachelorhood and withdraws to the country. Like Anna, Levin wants all or nothing in love.

Anna Karenina - Quotations

Love is Russian... Wider Reading 10: Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago is an epic, a romance, and a history. In the course of Yuri’s life, the modern history of Russia is revealed. He is born under czarist rule but lives through World War I, the Revolution, and the Civil War. He begins life as the member of a wealthy family, but is reduced to poverty by his father’s alcoholism. He remains a member of the intelligentsia, and he focuses his attention on questions of philosophy and religion. The revolution changes the face of Russian society, and he finds that his family history and his status as a doctor make him suspicious to the people who come to power. Yuri seems destined for a tragic end, and, ultimately, his life is characterized by brief moments of happiness surrounded by periods of darkness. He finds all of his convictions challenged, and is torn from all of the people he loves. After his death, Yuri leaves behind children born to three different women, all destined for different fates: exile is possible, poverty is probable, but uncertainty is certain.

Boris Pasternak’s epic tale about the effects of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath was not permitted publication in the Soviet Union until 1987. One of the results of its release in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it, or risk leaving his beloved Russia forever. The book quickly became an international best-seller. Doctor Yuri Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks. The poetry he composes constitutes some of the most beautiful writing in the novel.

The first image of the novel - Yura crying over his mother's grave--creates a sense of morbid expectation. The further knowledge of his father's lost fortune, revealed by the scene in the train, adds suspense. This is compounded by several shifts in time and location that occur. Pasternak draws the story line of Misha into the novel by describing his boredom and irritability, together with his dissatisfaction at being Jewish. When the man who kills himself is revealed to be Zhivago, the realization is both a means of integrating the different story lines and establishing the time flow of the novel. It is clear that Zhivago had a story to tell and that it was closely linked to the lives of Yura and his mother, though he has not seen them for some time. Early on, Pasternak establishes a sense of things unravelling backward through time, by revealing details about the past as the action of the novel marches forward.

Doctor Zhivago - Quotations

Love is Enduring... Wider Reading 9: Birdsong

Birdsong is the story of Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman who arrives in Amiens, France in 1910. After a passionate love affair with his married landlady that goes terribly wrong, he leaves only to return four years later to fight in the Great War. Over the course of the novel he suffers a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself. Entwined with his story are numerous heartrending tales of others affected by the fever sweeping Europe: from Michael Weir, his best friend, Jack Firebrace, whose tender heart becomes his undoing, Jeanne, a woman of endless kindness and patience, to the 1970s and the story of Elizabeth, who discovers her grandfather's tale through his letters, diaries, and the stories of those who were close to him. Set before and during World War One, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale.

The novel defies modern convention by exclusively employing the omniscient narrator to tell its harrowing story. Penetrating into the deepest thoughts, pasts and even, in some cases, futures of every single character, it seems unnervingly invasive, but becomes an all-encompassing narratorial rubric to complement perfectly the difficult subject matter. Birdong is indeed difficult; it is a World War One novel with an explicit focus on trench warfare - that most horrifying and unimaginable of all wartime terrors. While the public consciousness may have a vague notion of the sheer horror, a true understanding remains forever ungraspable to the individual.

Birdsong has a tripartite plot structure, beginning with a long pre-war love story. Faulks’ intentions in doing this are obvious and multiple: put simply, this section serves to humanize the characters we are soon to see committing horrific acts of brutal killing and to drive home to the reader what’s at stake. There’s also more than a little dramatic irony. The reader knows what is coming, and is powerless to warn the characters. Stylistically this is also the most colourful part of the book. The writing here is metaphor-heavy, plentiful with adjectives and parenthetic digressions. The second section offers the ‘meat’ of the novel. A jump-cut to mid-war trench life carries with it a drastic change in Faulks’ linguistic register. The synaesthesia of sex is replaced with that of war: now there’s blood, iron, mud and agony. There’re no more metaphors, few adjectives, many more concrete nouns and a focus on active verbs. The contrast with the first part of the book is abrasive and sudden – here there is no artificiality of language. The third and weakest part of the novel is another jump-cut, but this time to a modern-day setting. The characters and events that occupy this part of the novel seem extremely dull and muted, creating a sharp contrast to the horror, and excitement and bravery, of war.

Birdsong - Quotations

Love is a Journey... Wider Reading 6: Song of Achilles

Greece - in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfil his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.

Despite its fame, the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is one that has puzzled scholars and readers for hundreds of years. It is hard to make a character like Achilles, who drags his enemy's body around the beseiged Troy several times a day sympathetic - especially to modern eyes. This is the writers challenge in this novel, and for the most part she succeeds convincingly by taking his story back to its roots, and imagining the development of Achilles' relationship with his beloved Patroclus. Using the latter's gentle narrative voice, Miller deftly paints the picture of a boy, and later a man, in love, and the way in which he is stunned and grateful for that love being returned.

Although not explicitly stated in Homer's epic "The Iliad," some accounts have placed the two men, always depicted at least as close friends, in a homosexual relationship and it is on this that the novel rests. Its strengths lie not so much in evoking the passionate love story, although the writer does so elegantly, but in creating an almost distressingly real setting in the 'age of Heroes' - despite the matter-of-fact intervention of gods and the lauding of values that seem alien to modern eyes. The argument between Achilles and Agamemnon evolves from a petty spat between raging warlords into an inevitable clash of personalities driven by prophecy, love and loss.

Love is Dangerous... Wider Reading 4: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

"The business of the novelist," author Thomas Hardy once wrote, "is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things, and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things." It is the latter Hardy captures in one of his best and most well-known novels, and equals even the likes of Charles Dickens in his ability to move the reader on behalf of those who society and history have discounted. Tess, a milkmaid, is scarred by her encounter with her calculating, usurping "cousin," and is a heroine without wealth or position. Despite this, her story has a heart-breaking pity within it that reveals the universal condition of people and society in the late 19th century.

The action of the novel is largely confined to the rural back lanes and fields of Wessex - the fictional corner of south-west England made so brilliantly real by Hardy - a technique employed by the author to demonstrate how actions have far-reaching consequences, even if they only affect a small number of people. However, the skill of the writer means that the reader is left with such an exact impression of rural life in the late 19th century, that the whole of society can be found in the one place.

Love is the dominant theme in "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," and is the driving force behind most of the tragic events within. The desire that Alec D'Urberville feels for Tess is the main reason for his attack, and her hatred of him because of this is partly what drove her to murder. Contrastingly, the love that Angel Clare and Tess feel for each other is the conventional, romantic kind, which makes it all the more tragic when they are separated because of his prejudices.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Quotations

Love is Forbidden... Wider Reading 2: Lolita

"You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style" opines Humbert Humbert, erstwhile college professor, aesthete and tortured romantic. Establishing him as one of the greatest writers in the English language, Lolita is Vladimir Nabokov's impossibly funny and rapturously beautiful story of Humbert's total, catastrophic obsession with twelve-year-old Lolita Haze. At once prim and predatory, Humbert will stop at nothing in his frenzy to possess his "nymphet," first marrying her mother and then embarking with Lolita on a journey across the American landscape, through roadside diners and five-dollar-a-night motels. A once sublime and awful, cruel and irresistible, Lolita is a triumphant masterpiece of twentieth century literature.

"Lolita" has often been described as "the only convincing love story of the twentieth century." Although the novel was banned on publication on the grounds that it was pornographic, Lolita is most definitely a story about love, not lust. Indeed, many types of love are explored within the novel, and all are experienced by one man. While Humbert's love for Lolita borders on the obsessive, it is also unrequited, despite the duo's spending upwards of three years together. The emphasis on "forbidden" love is questionable, however, as the taboo element of the novel changes with the time in which it is read.

As I mentioned before, most contemporary readers dismissed the novel as too explicit and shocking, with a level of public outrage not seen since "Lady Chatterley's Lover." However, to the modern twenty-first century reader, the actual words and scenes within the novel itself are fairly harmless, compared with the level of candidness now popular in fiction. The subject matter, however, remains just as shocking in its dealing with underage sex and paedophilia, though this is up to the opinions of the reader.

I personally find the novel both appalling and enlightening, and it is one of my favourite books. The sophisticated language used by Nabokov is untouchable, and exactly mirrors the conflict of the protagonist.

Lolita - Quotations

Love is Unattainable... Wider Reading 1: Frankenstein

Begun when the author was only eighteen and conceived from a nightmare, Frankenstein is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818. The novel has thus seared its way into the public imagination, while firmly establishing itself as one of the pioneering works of modern science fiction.

When thinking of love, Frankenstein is not a novel which immediately springs to mind. However, love, or rather the absence and fight for it, is in fact a prevalent theme within the novel, and was strongly influenced by the author's own passionate relationship with her husband, Percy Shelley. The monster longs for love, as Mary did. In the frozen Alpine wastelands, he demands that Victor create him a bride. Frankenstein, at first, refuses to make his creation a mate, fearful that they might breed, or unite and attack. However, with the fate of his remaining friends and family hanging in the balance at the monster's whim, he concedes, but eventually destroys the female.

Here we see an example of Frankenstein's monster being robbed of a chance of love, an event which happens continually throughout the novel. Due to his ugly appearance, he cannot have a relationship with another human, and thus cannot have children. He also has no friends, as most hate and fear him on sight. Additionally, when the monster’s expectation of acceptance and love from a family he has been watching is upset by their violent reaction to him, he represses his instinct to injure his attackers. This is because in that moment, despite being physically assaulted, the monster still feels love towards them. Victor Frankenstein, on the other hand, has every chance of love, with a large, close family and his affectionate fiancée, Elizabeth. The creature would also have loved him as a father, had he given him a chance. He throws each of these opportunities away, through his own foolishness, neglect, and mistreatment of his creation.

Frankenstein - Quotations