The Adventures of Tintin:

A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

When Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel twenty years after finishing his Genesis masterpiece on the ceiling — a masterpiece which astonished everyone and caused Raphael to go back to his School of Athens to paint Michelangelo in as the morose Thinker in the foreground — he painted The Last Judgement on the wall behind the altar, and the resulting work ignited a storm of criticism about the painting’s Mannerist merits. It was generally conceded to be a recognizable masterpiece, but it was  not received with anything like the warmth and enthusiasm of the ceiling fresco from twenty years earlier. Personally, I find it stiff, badly organized and full of awkwardly drawn figures and rather unimaginative depictions of the resurrection of the dead at the end of Time. But then, by 1534, Michelangelo was getting on in his years.

I feel a similar way about Steven Spielberg’s Adventures of Tintin. It is recognizably by the same hand who directed Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Indiana Jones movies many years ago, back in the 1980s — and the John Williams score even deliberately alludes to his earlier music for those films — but I am afraid that the spark has gone out of Spielberg’s fire, and it’s not something I’m sure he is ever going to get back again. It’s not a bad movie, by any stretch of the imagination, and it is certainly a better film than his recent Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. But the story, which suffers from a complete lack of imagination, is filled with predictable set pieces and even whole scenes stolen from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I kept hoping for something fresh and new from this aging Hollywood master, but what I got instead was a collection of recycled images from his older films.

Part of the problem is that the ecology of Hollywood is no longer favorable for the taking of risks: movie theater attendance is at an all-time low due to competition from Netflix and the Internet generally, and as a result, Hollywood is only interested in putting out movies that are a “sure thing.” Hence, the current crop of miserable sequels like Mission Impossible IV and Men in Black III. Hollywood movies, in addition, have been petrifying for years into a fixed body of conventions and stock formulae that are reheated in one lousy movie after the next. And so, even an Old Master of the caliber of Spielberg is stuck working within the limits of a disintegrating studio system — a system which, back in the early 1970s, was suffering from a similar period of decline with the collapse of the old studio system which Lucas, Spielberg and the film school generation helped reinvent by bringing a totally fresh and utterly non-cynical approach to movie-making. For about the past decade or so, however, the Masters have stopped taking risks and instead, they have fallen back on making movies that attempt to capture a sense of nostalgia for the great days of their earlier work in the 1970s and 80s: hence, the Star Wars prequels, Avatar and Spielberg’s recent movies. Even War Horse, which I haven’t seen yet, looks like a rerun of Empire of the Sun.

In the final days of the work of Jackson Pollock, when he was losing his abilities as a great artist, he refused to simply continue making “Jackson Pollock paintings.” He had already done those with the drip paintings, and he kept trying to push on into fresh territory with new attempts like his black and white series, but nobody wanted them. And though his final attempts were largely failures, at least he refused to quit taking risks, and gave up only when he realized the risks just weren’t paying off, and either he would have to go back to making “Jackson Pollock paintings” or else hang it up as an artist. Few artists with any merit, faced with such a choice, would have continued living, either.

The Adventures of Tintin, I’m sorry to say, is precisely a “Steven Spielberg movie” that perpetuates his own formulas, cliches and conventions that he himself pioneered many years ago. Now he has become a prisoner of the very system that he helped to reform and the sad thing about Tintin is that he doesn’t even seem to by trying to escape from that prison, the way Pollock squirmed and writhed in his final days.

Maybe it’s the money. Having too much of it, as is well known, can create complacency and self-satisfied smugness that is a very difficult type of entropy to reverse. Civilizations, on a similar principle — Rome being the charismatic example — fall apart when they decide they’ve achieved all that they’re interested in achieving.

I suppose Tintin kept me entertained for two hours, but it never surprised me and it never tried to challenge my expectations for what a Spielberg movie should be all about. And even worse, the cardinal sin committed by the film is a lackluster climax with an abrupt ending that sets things up for the sequel, but leaves you walking away feeling cheated.

Spielberg is very possibly the most powerful man in Hollywood: unlike the other Old Masters, he is in a position in which he is not creatively compromised by a lack of funding and so, in theory anyway, he could make any movie about any subject he wanted. It’s too bad that he has to settle for repeating himself, instead of looking for fresh challenges and new material.

Immortals, Mythology and Metaphysics

A Review by Benton Rooks

“…Myth remains the proper language of metaphysics.” –Ananda K. Coomaraswamy[i]

There are three essential layers and functions for any mythology: social, psychological and metaphysical /spiritual. The dualistic social function varies significantly from culture to culture—myths have often been used by the media, Church and the State as tactics of control to subdue the “masses”—but they are also educational tools for illustrating how mere mortals can achieve spiritual perfection or immortality through divine acts. A myth, then, cannot always be said to be false, at least not metaphysically, and therefore it may in fact be more true than some of the mythical narratives our consciousness weaves for us in the day-to-day routines we often find ourselves hopelessly trapped in.

While Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung had much to say about the psychological importance and function of myths and archetypes, the metaphysical aspects, i.e. how mythology illustrates fundamental spiritual truths through ritual, story and symbol—is more clearly illustrated by scholars such as Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, René Guénon, John David Ebert, Charles Upton and Frithjof Schuon[ii].  Ebert’s book Celluloid Heroes and Mechanical Dragons is particularly instructive for understanding director Tarsem Singh’s intent for Immortals, as Ebert claims that film is a perfect medium for conveying (albeit in a fragmented visual fashion) the rich grandeur of lore and wisdom found in world mythology for the post-literary digital age, and all without having to pick up a single book!

Indeed, Tarsem Singh’s latest film Immortals proves to be one of the most explicit films in recent memory to be inspired directly by mythology—not just in terms of thematic content, but also within the film structure itself. Singh’s self-conscious, postmodern sword and sandal Hero’s journey[iii] contains a circular narrative that ends cyclically—with a beautifully surreal vision of the Titans and the Gods suspended in the sky of endless epic battle. It is a visual that recalls the scenery of the astral plane[iv], when wars of unimaginable scale occur between divine deities on inner spiritual planes. Moreover, this scene illustrates Singh’s ability to retain a truly cyclical form of storytelling common to the mythology of the Greek, Indian, Norse and Egyptian traditions. Paradoxically, this last vision nearly renders senseless all that we have previously seen of Theseus’s heroic struggle against the evil King Hyperion. By admitting the war of the Gods and Titans as truly eternal—an inner spiritual reality that only the Immortals seem to understand—the inner details of the film’s plot take on cosmic proportions in the grand vision of Immortals’ narrative logic. We realize that small mortal acts will do nothing to stop the inevitable fate which only the Gods have knowledge of.

Singh’s deceptively high gloss film utilizes Greek mythology as its jumping-off point, and while it has plenty of faults (namely, a lack of genuine character development and distinct emotional resonance for its characters) it nonetheless almost consciously forces the viewer to re-consider the larger than life archetypes on a cosmic scale—rendering each character’s individuality weightless against the looming weight of the original Greek myth. This last scene also highlights the central function of the war of the Titans and the Gods in mythological traditions the world over. For the war of the Gods and the Titans signifies a reconciliation of two contrasting dualistic principles, the light and the dark constantly consume one another until there is nothing left but non-duality or freedom from all contrasting opposites, and even all notions of mind, time and space that the Spirit does not need when it is free from the constraints of the body and mind, when it is fully naked and free to bathe in the divine light. As Coomaraswamy says:

“The Devas and Asuras, Angels and Titans, powers of Light and powers of Darkness in the Rig Veda [Rg Veda Samhitâ], although distinct and opposite in operation, are in essence consubstantial, their distinction being a matter not of essence but of orientation, revolution, or transformation, as indicated by such express statements as ‘The Serpents are the Suns’ in PB [Pancavimsa Brâhmana’]’ Thus Hermes can write: “By the friendship of contraries, and the blending of things unlike, the fire of heaven has been changed into light, which is shed on all below by the working of the Sun.” (Coomaraswamy, 1935, p. 1)

On the surface, Immortals is an incredibly violent film, but underlying the sleek CGI bloodbath is an account of how any true Hero attains spiritual immortality through symbolic violence. True to the original Greek myth, Theseus must slay the minotaur in the Cretan Labyrinth (the latter of which is a symbol for maya or the illusory world of the senses and the limitations of the material plane as it is depicted in Hindu myth) in order to finally secure a climactic victory and sacrificial death over the scheming King Hyperion, who is expertly played by Mickey Rourke, easily stealing the show in terms of raw performance power in the film.

Like any other dragon slaying myths—such as the Norse Volsunga Saga, where Sigurd needs to slay a dragon in order to learn the essential language of the birds  (the art of spiritual flight)—the slaying of the minotaur by Theseus signifies the conscious cessation of all unconscious, bestial and/or evil tendencies within ourselves[v]. The minotaur is a mythological monster not unlike the demon goat Baphomet, who is a symbol of the gratification of the lower animal desires that may obstruct the way to Nirvana, where no other desire save primordial union with the Divine Source may exist. Indeed, in most Eastern religions desire is seen to be the force that binds the soul to the endless cycles of birth and death, just as Theseus would be bound to a mortal death if he had not risen to the challenge and trusted the wisdom of the Gods.

Thus, Theseus, just like Heracles and a host of other divine Heroes and Demi-Gods, is not made immortal until he is alchemically transmuted in a symbolic and otherworldly act of heroism. This is solidified for the viewer when we understand that he actually has to physically die in his sacrificial slaying of King Hyperion in order to be miraculously saved from death by the interdimensional Gods (who appear as transcendent beams of light and whisk his body away to the otherworld) to be reborn again as an Immortal who fights endlessly against the evil marble skinned Titans (here closely aligned with demons or Jinn) in the eternal space of the inner astral sky. The goal of Theseus’ journey is hammered home when we realize that his death means nothing in terms of the overall logic and progress of the narrative: the Titans (with the help of King Hyperion) still manage to physically kill some of the Gods and free themselves permanently from their imprisonment in time and matter, even though they are temporarily buried in a mountain destroyed by Zeus after the death of Theseus.

Indeed, just as the visual zaniness of Singh’s painterly CGI threatens to swallow the actors’ performances in the film, so too do the acts of the mortals and Titans seem to be swallowed by the all-knowing Gods, who seem to purposely test Theseus on the physical plane to see how much pain he is able to endure before his Soul may rest in eternal light and join the ranks of the Immortals. For the Gods love to make puppets out of mortals in the sands of time, as all of it is but a play to them, a mere film of endless sensual illusions, at least to those like the Gods who would forever transcend time and mind in favor of dedication to the higher purposes of divine service.

References

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., & Coomaraswamy, R. P. (2004). The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Bloomington, Ind.: World Wisdom.

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol., 55, no. 4, New Haven, Conn., 1935.

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Indra and Namuci. Speculum.” 19.1 (1944): 104-125. JSTOR. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.

Ebert, J. D. (2005). Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons. Christchurch, New Zealand: Cybereditions.

Guénon, R. Symbols of Sacred Science (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis.

Schuon, F. (1965). Light on the Ancient Worlds. London: Perennial Books.

Upton, C. (2008). Folk Metaphysics: Mystical Meanings in Traditional Folk Songs and Spirituals. San Rafael, CA: Sophia Perennis.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes:

A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an entertaining, if not particularly inventive, prequel to the Planet of the Apes franchise. And when I say that the film is not inventive I mean that it unfolds in exactly the way the viewer anticipates that it will. Hence: a genetically engineered virus that is designed to reverse Alzeheimer’s is tested out on chimps but has the side effect of increasing their intelligence, whereas the virus is lethal to human beings. The apes go crazy, break out, take over civilization and the virus begins to spread throughout the human population. Just like the trailer shows us. No surprises. The writing is competent, but a little bland and not particularly imaginative. Read the rest of this entry »

Sucker Punch: A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

In my book Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons, I compared the development of Hollywood cinema in the 1970s and 80s with the achievement of the High Renaissance at the moment when, with artists like Leonardo, Botticelli, Raphael et. al., Western oil painting hit the apogee of its arc. The stylistic idiosyncrasies of these Renaissance artists had the effect of breaking these artists out from the anonymous guilds which had hitherto characterized Western art as a series of schools or nationalistic developments: there is, for example, a “Northern Renaissance” style that is clearly and discernibly different from the “Southern Renaissance” style; there is a Florentine style that differs markedly from the Venetian school. But the level of mastery and competence attained by Titian or Giorgione had the effect of creating the cult of the artist as a genius, as a sort of school unto himself. In my film book, I suggested that something very similar took place in cinema with the rise of such great creative artists as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, Woody Allen, etc. They were preceded, of course, by the French auteurs, but only just barely. There had never been anything like these directors before, and there hasn’t, I’m sad to say, been anything like them ever since. Read the rest of this entry »

The Adjustment Bureau:

A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

On the surface, The Adjustment Bureau appears to be yet another film about the Western myth of the Individual’s battle against Fate, a standard rehearsal of how, with the development and differentiation of the Self and free will, Western civilization identified itself with the myth of the solar hero who conquers the beasts and monsters of the zodiac of the night sky which, ever since the birth of astrology at the hand of the Sumerians, had determined his fate for millenia. The West — and this includes the Biblical Near East — rejected this astro-determinism and put in its place figures like Beowulf and Siegfried, men who chased away the monsters of the night sky and paved a path toward the dawn of human Reason and Enlightenment. Read the rest of this entry »

Super 8: A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

Hollywood movies are in trouble.

Just like the cliche of the graying middle ager with the beer belly who regales his bored listeners with tales of his former high school glories as a football superstar, so now we have, with J.J. Abrams’s Super 8 the celluloid equivalent of the wash up living on faded memories of yesterday. Indeed, most of the movies being made nowadays, from superhero movies to the average sci-fi flick, are living off of cannibalized images, themes and stories from the golden era of the 1970s and 1980s when Hollywood movies were actually achieving something that had never been done before. Read the rest of this entry »

Anti-Christ: A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

Though this film was released in Denmark in May of 2009 and is therefore not technically recent, I just watched it for the first time on Netflix streaming video on demand and must say that it requires discourse. In an age of Hollywood formulas and computer generated celluloid video games, watching this film actually surprised me by reminding me that film, in the hands of a real artist, actually is a real art form. I had forgotten that. The film is made with the same sensibilities which attend European avant-garde art: the paintings of Gottfried Helnwein, let’s say, or the blackboard drawings of Rudolf Steiner; the photography of Gerhard Richter or the installations of Joseph Beuys. If the world of Euro-avant-garde art repels you, you might as well forget about the movie and also skip this review. This film wasn’t made for the little old lady in Dubuque. Its imagery is frank, and often brutal, and sometimes gives us scenes that thus far we are only accustomed to seeing in porn. Charlotte Gainsbourg, for instance, is shown, in one scene, masturbating: not pretending to, like Natalie Portman in Black Swan, but actually doing so on camera. And Willem Defoe’s penis is a sight you may as well get accustomed to here. Read the rest of this entry »

Source Code: A Movie Review

by John Lobell

[Spoiler alert] In my comment posted after Ebert’s review on this site of Inception, I wrote: “Notice that we have been getting a lot of movies with a non-linear, layered time, and notice that (most) audiences are totally comfortable with these movies.” I then went on to briefly discuss Groundhog Day, 50 First Dates, Memento, the Terminator movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Lake House. I could have added the Matrix movies, 12 Monkeys, Vanilla Sky, and The Adjustment Bureau. Read the rest of this entry »

My Top 20 Films Since 1992

by John David Ebert

After watching Quentin Tarantino’s list on You Tube and then realizing that absolutely none of his films overlap with my own list, I’ve decided, just for fun, to post that list here, with brief discussions of each film.

Here they are, then, in order by release date:

1. Ed Wood (1994) This is my favorite Tim Burton film, his funniest and also Johnny Depp’s best performance. The sheer, maniacal insanity of the film, its evident love of filmmaking, and the persistence of Wood’s vision mark it as a classic. Fans of Forrest J. Ackerman’s (now defunct) magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland will know exactly what I’m talking about. Read the rest of this entry »

True Grit: A Movie Review

by John David Ebert

In this etching by Picasso entitled “The Blind Minotaur,” we are presented with the image of an enfeebled and sightless Minotaur who is being led about by a young girl carrying a dove. The Minotaur — in other words, a gruff old monster — can no longer see and so he requires the young girl as an extension of his nervous system, for she can see things which he no longer has the ability to see. She completes the missing components of his psyche.

Read the rest of this entry »