Mirrormask
Jan. 13th, 2008 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustineThe most amusing thing, to me, about the new Jensen pictures is how BORED he looks. Seriously, just look. Does that not crack you right up? Sooooo.... Boooooored.... no show to film..... no Jared to be wacky.... Just sitting here, holding a shoe so someone can take a photo of me. Booooored....
That's just the vibe I get. The second most amusing thing is the fact that my dislike for stubble and scruff is apparently completely a thing of the past, and the third thing is... well, what everybody else has already said about that last picture.
You know what amazes me? How very much he's NOT DEAN. You would never mistake them. I know this is... trivially obvious, to say the least, but seriously. It's the costuming and the grooming and the makeup and those obvious signals, and all the cues of setting and bearing and posture and just... everything. Every once in a while, I will follow an actor between roles, or see an interview, and just be shocked by it. There's this person- this Dean Winchester- and he's a joint creation of Kripke and a team of writers and costume people and makeup people and, most of all, Jensen, and he looks just exactly like Jensen Ackles but he's NOT, and you could never mistake the two.
That has been intriguing me more and more- the way JDM throws his head back when he laughs, which John Winchester never would, the way Sam Winchester and Dean Forrester both loom in a certain way when they're angry but Jared Padalecki never does, the way Priestley and Dean both scowl when they're confused. Or hell, away from SPN, the way one voice carries Benton Fraser's earnestness and Geoffrey Tenant's frustration and both their wisecracking. The way Lucius Vorenus' quiet desperation looks so much the same as Dan Vasser's despite the drastic differences in their actual actions. Or the way Agent Casey's mercenary grin is both so much the same and so very much more intelligent than Jayne Cobb's.
I... have no idea why that set of pictures prompted this ramble, and I have no point except that I know fuck-all about acting, but I think I've been drifting more and more to TV and movies at the expense of books because I am becoming more and more entranced by the skill of it, and by that strange transformation where one person simply BECOMES another, by that collaboration in character-creation that makes these characters often so much more interesting than they would be otherwise (tell me, with a straight face, that Dean Winchester would be as interesting a character if SPN were purely, say, a series of novels. Nope, not for one damn minute do I believe it). Because Dean is a fully formed, completely real, fascinating and tragic and sexy person to me, and the guy in those pictures? Bears some passing similarity, but could never be mistaken for him. That knocks me flat on my ass in awe.
Mirrormask, movie- Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is an interesting figure. He has a very distinctive style and feel and set of themes and motifs (Mirrormask is basically Coraline, plot-point for plot-point, and the themes of both are echoed in American Gods and Neverwhere). He isn't the BEST at anything- compare him to serious, erudite, literary sci-fi like Wolfe or LeGuin or Borges or Pynchon and he looks like a kindergartener. On the humor front, next to Pratchett or Adams he's a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. His art isn't good enough to get him into ranks of great artists, even genre ones. His ideas and themes have all been done before, both in fiction (American Gods could be subtitled "Just like that one Dirk Gently novel" and the ideas weren't original even then, and Mirrormask is Alice in Wonderland on crack) or in nonfiction. But he makes something truly original and uniquely his out of the gestalt. Art is an integral part of it, which is why his novels are so much weaker than his other projects. I think if I had a better appreciation of the comic artform, I would be absolutely in awe of him.
But I don't, so my opinion of Niel Gaimon pretty much stops and starts with "Wow, so that's what happens when a fantastically creative and fertile mind reads too much Campbell and Jung at a formative age."
Then again, I am what happens when a voracious and analytical mind reads too much Campbell and Jung at a formative age, so that's not nearly as much of an insult as it might sound.
Anyway, given the above sentence, it should be quite obvious that I LOVED Mirrormask. It managed to be the most visually innovative thing I've ever seen, bar nothing, while staying firmly grounded in every psychological theme that makes for great young-adult fantasy. If you want the rundown of that, Peter Sanderson at IGN did it better than I could here (read it, really, it's a good essay). Thematically it's brilliant and I could eat it up with a spoon, and visually it makes me gasp in delight. Plus, I quite like our lead actress.
The problem, of course, is that it all adds up to rather lousy storytelling. The directer gave one of the most amusingly self-aware quotes I think I've ever heard from a director, about what doing this movie taught him:
Heh. Ain't that just the truth. A movie like that just shouldn't be boring. It's just a crying shame.
That's just the vibe I get. The second most amusing thing is the fact that my dislike for stubble and scruff is apparently completely a thing of the past, and the third thing is... well, what everybody else has already said about that last picture.
You know what amazes me? How very much he's NOT DEAN. You would never mistake them. I know this is... trivially obvious, to say the least, but seriously. It's the costuming and the grooming and the makeup and those obvious signals, and all the cues of setting and bearing and posture and just... everything. Every once in a while, I will follow an actor between roles, or see an interview, and just be shocked by it. There's this person- this Dean Winchester- and he's a joint creation of Kripke and a team of writers and costume people and makeup people and, most of all, Jensen, and he looks just exactly like Jensen Ackles but he's NOT, and you could never mistake the two.
That has been intriguing me more and more- the way JDM throws his head back when he laughs, which John Winchester never would, the way Sam Winchester and Dean Forrester both loom in a certain way when they're angry but Jared Padalecki never does, the way Priestley and Dean both scowl when they're confused. Or hell, away from SPN, the way one voice carries Benton Fraser's earnestness and Geoffrey Tenant's frustration and both their wisecracking. The way Lucius Vorenus' quiet desperation looks so much the same as Dan Vasser's despite the drastic differences in their actual actions. Or the way Agent Casey's mercenary grin is both so much the same and so very much more intelligent than Jayne Cobb's.
I... have no idea why that set of pictures prompted this ramble, and I have no point except that I know fuck-all about acting, but I think I've been drifting more and more to TV and movies at the expense of books because I am becoming more and more entranced by the skill of it, and by that strange transformation where one person simply BECOMES another, by that collaboration in character-creation that makes these characters often so much more interesting than they would be otherwise (tell me, with a straight face, that Dean Winchester would be as interesting a character if SPN were purely, say, a series of novels. Nope, not for one damn minute do I believe it). Because Dean is a fully formed, completely real, fascinating and tragic and sexy person to me, and the guy in those pictures? Bears some passing similarity, but could never be mistaken for him. That knocks me flat on my ass in awe.
Mirrormask, movie- Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is an interesting figure. He has a very distinctive style and feel and set of themes and motifs (Mirrormask is basically Coraline, plot-point for plot-point, and the themes of both are echoed in American Gods and Neverwhere). He isn't the BEST at anything- compare him to serious, erudite, literary sci-fi like Wolfe or LeGuin or Borges or Pynchon and he looks like a kindergartener. On the humor front, next to Pratchett or Adams he's a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. His art isn't good enough to get him into ranks of great artists, even genre ones. His ideas and themes have all been done before, both in fiction (American Gods could be subtitled "Just like that one Dirk Gently novel" and the ideas weren't original even then, and Mirrormask is Alice in Wonderland on crack) or in nonfiction. But he makes something truly original and uniquely his out of the gestalt. Art is an integral part of it, which is why his novels are so much weaker than his other projects. I think if I had a better appreciation of the comic artform, I would be absolutely in awe of him.
But I don't, so my opinion of Niel Gaimon pretty much stops and starts with "Wow, so that's what happens when a fantastically creative and fertile mind reads too much Campbell and Jung at a formative age."
Then again, I am what happens when a voracious and analytical mind reads too much Campbell and Jung at a formative age, so that's not nearly as much of an insult as it might sound.
Anyway, given the above sentence, it should be quite obvious that I LOVED Mirrormask. It managed to be the most visually innovative thing I've ever seen, bar nothing, while staying firmly grounded in every psychological theme that makes for great young-adult fantasy. If you want the rundown of that, Peter Sanderson at IGN did it better than I could here (read it, really, it's a good essay). Thematically it's brilliant and I could eat it up with a spoon, and visually it makes me gasp in delight. Plus, I quite like our lead actress.
The problem, of course, is that it all adds up to rather lousy storytelling. The directer gave one of the most amusingly self-aware quotes I think I've ever heard from a director, about what doing this movie taught him:
Work out a snappy way of telling people what the film is about as early as possible. I had many conversations with mostly patient executives, which included liberal uses of the words ‘sort of’ and ‘feels like’ and ‘it’s analogous to’ and ‘dream logic.’ This is really not good.
MirrorMask follows a young plucky girl from a circus family as she tries to save a fantastical city from dark and dangerous forces, and in so doing wakes the Queen of Light and saves her mother’s life. Now this is not really what it’s about, but it’s dramatic and easy to follow. The film is actually about the aforementioned girl, arguing with her mother who promptly falls very ill. Then our girl, crushed by guilt and a life careening out of control, retreats to a simpler dream logic (uh oh) world of two kingdoms ruled by light and shadow queens who sort of (um...) feel like (arrrgh!) her mother.
She tries to regain control over her own life by attempting to help in this analog...erm... other world...and there’s a mask which represents...hello? Are you still there? Hello?
Heh. Ain't that just the truth. A movie like that just shouldn't be boring. It's just a crying shame.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 01:00 pm (UTC)I guess the strike is really starting to bite now.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 04:13 pm (UTC)Or both. I could go with both :)
But yeah. I'm just cracking up every time I look at those pictures. Especially the one where he's holding the tennis shoe. "I am smiling. What more do you want from me?" Because if any boy in the world knows how to wow a camera, it's Jensen, and he just can't even be arsed in these photos. I find it... amusing and endearing. Also, that particular position in the Reebok pictures makes me think far too hard about ways to make him less bored.
And yet here we are in fandom, little addicted rats who would keep pushing the "Jensen Ackles photos" button instead of the "food" button till we die. Even lame photos like those. Heh.