A Gentle Fuss

Maureen O'Brien of Maria Lectrix has devised a simple and excellent tune to which Chesterton's matchless epic, "Lepanto," may be sung, and sings it commendably in a downloadable mp3. It's apparently been out there for almost two years, now, judging by the date on which it seems to have been posted, so I'm sort of ashamed not to have discovered it 'til now (thanks to the ACS blog).

The recording is clear and unaccompanied, though she does bang out a useful rhythm somehow, likely on a desk or tabletop. There are a few slips, on her part (it is a ten minute song with few moments for rest, after all), but they are few and far between, serving more to highlight the scope of her general success otherwise rather than to distract therefrom.

The poem is marvelous. If you're reading this, you probably already know that. If you don't already know it, find out today. You will not likely be sorry.

I've started work on the Wordpress blog, as promised. I even have a name picked out and everything. Hurrah. It should be up and ready to go in fairly short order (later this week, possibly), but I'm still back and forth on whether or not I should import this blog's contents to that one in an attempt to keep a sort of continuity to the thing. It's likely that I'll just keep the old stuff here, for the time being, only making new pages over there for posts that have been especially popular or contentious or substantial.

One of the neater merits of Wordpress is its function as a host for standard web pages as well as blog posts. This will make relevant semantic archiving somewhat easier, quite apart from the use of category tags. You'll see why once it gets set up.

Anyway, more to report as it becomes newsworthy.

So, the summer being here and the bulk of my work being completed, some return to regular posting is in order. I'm not yet entirely sure what that will entail, but it will entail something.

I'll get back into the swing of it soon enough, but for the time being there are a number of things that should be happening in the next week or two.

1. New name, look, host, address

I was sick of the name of this blog about eight minutes after I chose it. Minor anecdotes about Thomas Hardy aren't the best mine for effective blog names, for one thing, and the one I chose in particular is especially deficient. What it lacks in manliness (and it lacks much) it makes up for with complete opacity of meaning. Not my finest hour.

So, that will be changing, along with the rest of it. I'll probably move the whole operation over to Wordpress, which has some neat features with which I've been experimenting. The most noticeable results of this will be the (probable) lack of an image header, and the complete absence of imprudently-crafted white links on a grey background. I mean, I could probably still figure out a way to make them that awkward, but I'd rather just learn my lesson and settle for black on white (or whatever).

2. Something of a new focus

I don't know exactly what this means yet, either, but I've been wanting to make a change. Any focus at all would likely be an improvement, really, because it's easier to build a readership - particularly one that wants to comment - when you cater to a specific set of topics rather than sputtering all over the place. This will probably go in one of two directions, the first being a limited set of things discussed from a variety of perspectives, and the second being a great many things discussed from only one. An example of the first approach would be the old Chesterton and Friends blog, which will post about pretty much anything, good or bad, as long as it has to do with Chesterton or his somewhat extended circle. An example of the second would be something like Mark Shea's blog, wherein that author brings his genial popery to bear on everything under the sun.

Whatever happens, I'll try to have a bit more about religion and comic books, anyway. Those are two reasons I started this blog in the first place, and both of them sort of fell by the wayside a little as things progressed. A greatly expanded library of media reviews will also be attempted.

3. The Ballad of the White Horse

One topic that is sure to come up is the epic poem named above. Chesterton's lengthy 1911 ballad concerning the victory of Alfred the Great over the Danes at Ethandune is a great favourite of mine, but more than that, as far as blogging is concerned, it is also the subject of my Masters research, and I've spent the last eight months - and will spend the next two or three, too - examining the poem's origins and reception.

I've uncovered some interesting stuff, though the degree to which it will prove interesting to the reader will vary from case to case. This will likely serve as content, occasionally, when I find it worthwhile to think something through by writing about it in a popular rather than an academic manner.

That's about it, for the moment. I don't have any real posts to make just now, so I'll leave it at this. Further bulletins as events warrant, but I'll be sure to post more later anyway. Any comments, questions or suggestions (for a new blog name, especially) would be appreciated.

Due to loads of freaking work still to be done, my planned return to regularly-scheduled blogging will continue to be put off for a little while yet. Tomorrow will see me conduct a three-hour seminar on Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, a book of unspeakable excellence, and next week demands the completion of two papers for classes that are concluding; one on Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World (precise topic not yet known), the other, happily, on the annotative function of blogs.

So, back to work.

The first teaser poster for The Dark Knight, hitting theaters in July of 2008, is now available for viewing as had previously been announced. Behold:


(Click for larger version)

That's the ticket. That's very much the ticket.

The first trailer, which is said to be more of a lengthy excerpt (like five or six minutes), is scheduled to be attached to I Am Legend, opening in just over a week. A likely description of that trailer (for those are so into this sort of thing that reading a description of a trailer for a film that won't come out for another seven months is worthwhile) can be found here.

Part and parcel of my gradual return to blogging is my return to weekly posting at Chesterton and Friends.

This week's post regards a brief and pleasant moment of interaction between a poem by G.K. Chesterton and a passage from the Holy Father's latest encyclical, Spe Salvi. You'll have to click through to see what that sudden alignment entails.

As promised (threatened), I have compiled a list of anything in the film that could even dubiously be tied to religion in some way. It has proven to be of some use at Insight Scoop. Hopefully others will be able to find some merit to it as well.

What follows is a summary of the religious and/or spiritual content of the film. It contains what some might consider spoilers, and is presented mostly without judgment. Such appraisals should be made at the reader's discretion, not mine.

First, let us consider the Magisterium. Apart from its cartoonish and unambiguous villainy, its features are thus:

1. The name, about which much has been said.

2. One of its regional offices (in Norway, or nearby) has, painted on its exterior, icons of an Eastern style. However, no symbols are associated with the Magisterium apart from an ornate letter M. That is, no symbolic examples of the organization's ethos or origins are displayed.

3. It is concerned greatly with "heresy," and the suppression of same. The Magisterium equates heresy with "freethinking;" other characters equate heresy with truth. The penalty for heresy is evidently death.

4. It wants to suppress some scientific research so that "centuries of teaching" are not overthrown; however, it conducts research of its own in other areas, though in cruel and inhumane ways.

5. Its agents, at least at one level of the hierarchy, are called "friars."

6. Its agents declare that the Magisterium has universal authority; no mention is made of where this authority comes from or why, even to attack such claims.

7. Some of the guards at the Magisterium's seat of power, evidently in London, wear caps reminiscent of those worn by fascist soldiers during the Spanish civil war; see the recent 'Pan's Labyrinth' for examples of this. The caps are strange-looking and distinctive.

8. Except for the the highest echelons of the Magisterium's hierarchy, there is nothing especially clerical about its agents' appearance, and even then its leaders are clad in generic robes and finery rather than specifically clerical garb.

9. It is conducting experiments aimed towards separating children from their souls. Why the Magisterium wants to do this is never convincingly explained, though much reference is made to "the dust," which is evidently some sort of remnant of the Fall that took place in the film's world's distant past. This, too, is hardly explained, and, given both of these elements' importance to the thrust of the story, the functional silence regarding their significance is irritating. In any event, it is suggested (vaguely) that separating children from their souls may be the way to keep them from the effects of the Fall; one evil and untrustworthy character describes the process as "just a little cut." An evocation of covenantal circumcision seems possible.

10. There is no sense whatever of the interior life of the Magisterium. It does nothing beyond pursuing the protagonist and being infamous. We have no idea what's at the heart of it, what its origins are, what the basis of its claimed authority is, what its actual place in the world is, etc. There is no mention of God, even in passing. Nobody prays. Nobody preaches. One of the friars says "mirabile dictu" at one point, but that's about it. In broad terms it is suggested (mostly sarcastically or by characters who are clearly editorializing in some way, for good or ill) that the Magisterium exists alternately to take care of those who don't know how to take care of themselves, or to tell everyone what to do.

11. It is suggested near the end of the film that the Magisterium is gearing up to somehow thwart free will.

As for the rest of the film:

1. The human soul is externalized in the form of an animal companion called a "daemon." These animals can talk, their well-being is tied to that of their host (each feels blows delivered to the other, for example), and they can interact with the world around them in the manner of regular animals. They can also fight each other, with grave results to their hosts.

2. The soul dissipates and vanishes on death; this process is depicted through the daemon bursting into flames and disintegrating. While this does not necessarily demand that the soul is obliviated, it is certainly strongly suggested.

3. Children's daemons can change shape (the protagonist's switches between a cat, a bird, and other types of animals as the forms become tactically useful), but adults' can not. This is dimly connected to both the dust and the Fall, but in ways never even slightly explained.

4. A character named Lord Azrael posits the existence of other universes and hopes to travel to one; this is considered heretical.

5. The Fall that is vaguely alluded-to evidently took place because someone defied Authority (the word is uttered in such a manner that there is little doubt of it being capitalized). As with the Magisterium, no hint is given as to who did the defying, why, when, etc.

6. There is a renegade priest, a friend of the forces fighting the Magisterium. Whether he is or was a part of that Magisterium is never mentioned, nor whether he is perhaps a cleric in some competing organization. He does seem to have a vow of celibacy, however. He performs no priestly or even vaguely religious functions whatever. He and the chief witch (see below) were once lovers.

7. The protagonist seems proud of the fact that she skips her metaphysics class, or at least is obstinate in seeing it as unimportant.

8. A university refuses to negate "centuries of tolerance and free inquiry" by bowing to the Magisterium's demands that Azrael's world-hopping expedition be shut down.

9. An academic declares that "the secrets at the heart of things elude scholars and--authorities." The light pause before "authorities" is likely meant to evoke the Magisterium's claimed authority.

10. There are witches in the form of pale flying ladies in flowing dresses who fire off arrows with considerable skill. Their apparent leader is a figure of great wisdom and strength who hints at a prophecy concerning the protagonist. They have daemons as well, but theirs are not bound to them in the same manner as are those of the human characters, and may roam about as they will.

11. There is a race of talking, armoured bears, and their lack of daemons of their own is a matter of some significance. Whether they lack souls in general or only external ones is not mentioned. The tyrannical usurper bear king wants a daemon desperately, but does not say that he wants a soul. For what that's worth.

12. A cowboy in an airship (it's that kind of film) declares, when informed that the protagonist is destined to be the deciding factor in the war to come, that he "ain't heard rumour o' any war." This is more allusive than strictly religious, but there it is.

This, then, is the substance of it. The film is fitfully exciting (a battle between two bears is especially excellent), well-acted and lush in its visuals. That said, though, it is largely very dull and insensible, marred heavily by too many plot points contingent upon information that likely won't be revealed until much later, and the elements described above may be of an abundance and type likely to give a Christian viewer pause.

UPDATE: A point-by-point look at specifically religious elements of the film is available here.

Further update: Welcome to those coming from The Daily Eudemon.

An advanced screening of the film was available in town today. It's not often that I can beat the mainstream, particularly with a film (even one I didn't especially want to see), so here we are.

The following contains spoilers.

Inasmuch as I have tried to keep abreast of the more significant developments in Epic Children's Literature (stopping short of Eragon, which I cannot imagine any force on earth inducing me to read or watch), Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy has more or less passed me by. I remember, dimly, hearing about it several years ago from a bunch of people I was working with at an online magazine, but their descriptions of it did not entice. Further summaries heard in recent days have done nothing to change that, and, having seen this film, I feel confident in saying that I'm pretty much settled against ever reading them.

The Golden Compass is not a particularly good film, but it is not especially bad, either. Its major narrative defects are mostly the result of it being the first in a projected trilogy, so elements that defy explanation (though the thrust of the story demands them) are often annoyingly abundant. Many of the characters are after something called "dust," for various reasons, but none of those reasons are convincing, and some are clearly lies. Indeed, nobody seems to know much about it. I'm sure it will be developed later in the trilogy, but for the moment it is nothing more than an irritation. Much good can come of films centered around a MacGuffin like this (see Pulp Fiction or Ronin), but The Golden Compass isn't a good enough film to have earned the right to do it.

More on this shortly, though. The general story of the film is this: a precocious young girl (aren't they all?), Lyra Bellacqua, is drawn into a web of adventure and intrigue when she discovers that her uncle, the mysterious Lord Azrael, is planning to go looking for this dust in a bid to use it, it seems, to forge a path to one of the many other universes that he believes can be found. It is worth noting at this point that dust is not ever convincingly described with regard to its origins, function or significance, so the importance of the whole affair must simply be accepted uncritically. In any event, Lord A's experiments are viewed with suspicious hostility by the Magisterium, a cartoonishly-evil ruling authority bent on suppressing heresy and free thought (their words). More on them later.

All of this kicks off the adventures and intrigue alluded to above, seeing Lyra join up with a band of marauding gypsies (called Gyptians in the film's world), a cowboy in an airship, some helpful witches, and a talking, armour-wearing bear. Along the way there are dangerous things happening, and unexplained things happening, and other things happening besides. Through it all they are pursued by the forces of the Magisterium and the enigmatic Mrs. Coulter, who can not be trusted and who is, I regret, the source of pretty much all of the film's expository information regarding the forces evidently motivating its characters.

So, that's what's going on. How does it work?

The Good:

1. The film's world has as one of its foundational elements the feature of the human soul being externalized in the form of an animal companion, of some sort, called a "daemon." These animals can interact with the world in much the same way as a regular animal could, though they have the added advantage of being able to talk. This is a delightful conceit, and the daemons are largely both well-rendered and well-used.

2. There are two excellent action sequences, one for its brutal and lyric intensity, the other for its variety and impressive finality. The first is a thrilling brawl between two enormous, talking, armour-wearing bears, and the fight is as good as it is for reasons that I can only assume are largely beyond both Pullman and the film's producers. It's certainly a great fight, of course, but it is made all the more poignant and marvelous by the questions about kingship and honour that it raises (nowhere else in the film are these issues considered). The moral of the fight seems to be that the wrath of the true king is great and terrible; with this we may wholeheartedly agree. It just seems odd for this to come out in a film so determined to throw authority of any kind into disrepute. This sequence is also notable for a surprising moment of "gore:" while most of the fight has just been the bears beating on each other with the occasional bite or clawing (with no blood), it concludes with the good bear (whose Norwegian name I dare not hope to render properly) suddenly slashes his foe's jaw from his skull, sinks his teeth into the throat, snaps the neck and hurls the lifeless pretender to the ground. It's pretty shocking, at least given the tone of the fight beforehand.

The second battle is the one that comes near the film's conclusion, in which the strange Arctic Tartars who are evidently the Magisterium's private army do battle with all of the "good" characters and factions introduced so far in the film, including arrow-slinging witches and Gyptians with warhammers and so on. Though it's not nearly as good as anything out of The Lord of the Rings films, or even The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the film is pretty unflinching in the deaths of those who die. It's the exterior souls that do it; as a man falls, his daemon bursts into flames and vanishes. There's no doubt what's going on here, whereas in many examples of Children's Epics in film the enemy is more or less just knocked down and forgotten about. This impresses me.

3. Various locales are beautifully realized; most notably Oxford and the Arctic wastes.

The Bad:

1. The abundant instances of unexplained behaviour being vital to the plot. The lust for dust has already been mentioned, but there are other (possibly related) things as well. A key element to the plot is Lyra's effort to shut down a Magisterium laboratory the purpose of which is to separate children from their daemons. Why the Magisterium would want to do this is never adequately explained, though it is presumably of critical importance. The Magisterium, in addition, is apparently supported in all things by various races of Arctic dwellers, some modelled on Tartars, some on Turks, though again, why this should be the case is glossed over.

2. A film of this sort should be exciting, but it really isn't. A great deal of it is actually rather boring, and, with the exception of the few moments mentioned above, the action and tension that it does try to inject is fairly typical and humdrum.

3. The Magisterium itself is a pointless farce. No effort at all is expended to describe what its motivations are, or what it even actually does. They have authority, it is said, but no hint is provided as to its source or function. If the point is that their authority is false, and this almost certainly is the point, someone should say why this is so. Apart from this, anyhow, the Magisterium's agents suffer from the cartoonishness mentioned above. They are simply and unambiguously Bad, and that's all there is to it.

4. The presence of the Golden Compass itself is irritating and dumb. Its function is that it "tells the truth," but the film takes this as a shorthand for "predicts the future" and "knows everything." It's deus ex machina at an almost literal level (or would be, if not for Pullman's atheism), and the enormous number of times it is used is simply unacceptable. Worse still, each use is accompanied by the same shimmering, zooming special effects, giving the viewer brief and useless glimpses of what Lyra is supposedly envisioning. Too much. Much too much.

5. The score is fairly boring and unmemorable. It's not hard to be otherwise.

Finally, there should be a word about the religious angle. There has been an effort at a boycott among certain Christian critics and their supporters, after the fashion of actions taken against The Da Vinci Code, among other things. Philip Pullman's famously atheistic and antagonistic stance on pretty much everything is at the heart of this reaction, and the books' content and messages seem to bear this out. His Dark Materials is a preachy, petulant and largely unoriginal attack on The Church in particular and Christianity in general. Of this there can be no doubt.

The film version has been watered down, however. There are specifically religious elements to the Magisterium's conduct and tropes (most notably its name and its stance against "heresy"), but they are so poorly developed as villains, or even as characters, that it's hard to take much offense at it. There are subtleties that perceptive viewers will detect and rightly condemn, but on the whole there's nothing in the film more pronounced than the general anti-clerical, anti-religious air that floats around among the general public. This is very likely to change with the next two installments, which are, I am told, overwhelmingly more explicit in their direction. We shall see. As it stands, though, The Golden Compass is as not especially vicious in this sense, though I would not recommend it to Christian viewers in any event (or, really, to anyone). I'll be writing about the religious elements of the film in greater depth later, though, so keep an eye out.

The bottom line, then: 6/10, with a caution to those who are weary of attacks on authority, or on religion, and to those with small children for whom seeing other small children menaced, evildoers slain, or a (admittedly evil) bear being killed in a bear-like way, would be frightening. Even if all of this applies to you, I can conceive of few reasons why this would be worth seeing.