Answering his own question, Mirror critic David Edwards, linked on the front of Drudge in a classic bit of unintended adverising, seems capable of understanding what is happening in V For Vendetta… but still doesn’t seem to want to get it.
“But what are badly needed are tension and much more of an insight into what a horrific place England has become to ramp up the threatening atmosphere. Instead, the totalitarian state doesn
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Just got back from seeing it. I think I (and the audience I was with) was expecting a more actiony, less talky movie than we got, which will probably hurt next weekend’s box office.
In general I liked it but didn’t love it…I’ll take Brazil as the ultimate fascist-government movie.
You have to really want to see anti-Catholic messages in it to find any. There’s one stereotypical perverted (Anglican) priest and the everpresent cross of Lorraine which I still believe was chosen to make for a Nazi-esque symbol.
Oh yeah, and Dave…the Wachowkis’ last movie featured an apocalyptic attack on the last remnants of humanity by thousands of killer robots…and it was quite boring. This movie, not as much, but still pretty chatty.
Yeah, caught V last night at a packed Arclight. It’s very well made but, as j-mac mentioned, there is an expectation of action that just didn’t deliver (making it more akin to Dark City than The Matrix). The whole “free your mind, you fools” thing felt a little Michael Moore (didn’t Keanu & Co. free our minds enough back in 1999?) and whatever evil threat John Hurt stood for in the story (fascism, complaceny) had no real urgency to it — thus seeing V’s plan come to fruition at the end never has an impact.
Is it shallow of me to think that the preachy, heavy-handed Wachowski mumbo jumbo plays REALLY heavy-handed without guns going off every 20 minutes or so?
Are people really loving this movie?
Well, I’ll take Brazil over V too… speaking of “duh.” And Clockwork Orange too.
Part of the problem was that John Hurt didn’t really stand for any particular threat…just sort of an implied ‘he’s on a huge TV and yelling so he must be bad’ iconography.
The ending and the big flashback in the middle were thrilling, though.
Oh, another problem I had with the mvie had to do with Stephen Fry’s character…
(SPOILER)
I think we should all know that in a regime where complacency is one of the government’s leading tools, letting the media mock the establishment is an effective way of letting off steam and preventing bigger outbreaks of discontent. Therefore, having the govt. aggressively crack down on Fry wasn’t as strong as it could have been if, instead, they had merely coopted him somehow.
Yeah, the key scene in The Matrix for me was when Weaving delivers the “stench of humanity” speech to Fishburn. At that point we understand that to the machines too, this war has become personal. And with this balance of motivation on both sides, the overall conflict takes on a more urgent tone.
In V the filmmakers don’t pay John Hurt this same respect… they assume the audience wouldn’t ask the same complicated questions about him that they’re supposed to ask of themselves. Like V himself, the villain comes off more as an idea than a character, more of a lecture than drama.
Again, the film is far from the failure of the Matrix sequels (the story is blessedly not trying to do 50 things a once), but the manner in which the W. Boys couple truth with violence has always been a little jarring for me.
“I think we should all know that in a regime where complacency is one of the government’s leading tools, letting the media mock the establishment is an effective way of letting off steam and preventing bigger outbreaks of discontent. ”
What regimes would you be referring to?
The fascist/communist regimes on the planet now never allow for mocking of the government. I’m thinking China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran etc.
In truly fascist/comminist states it is the fear and silence that keeps people complacent. The fear of speaking out…the fear of telling the truth.
What regimes were you thinking of?
Well the USA, obviously, you coy one, you.
I don’t think V for Vendetta is going to play in Cuba or North Korea anytime soon.
Ahhhh,
I like the thought of David Letterman being a proto fascist prop for a neo-dogmatic state.
I always thought that there was something sleep inducing about the recurring numerical chants of the Top Ten List.
Let me clarify to head off Nicol’s objections: I don’t think V is a movie that speaks to the oppression of people in the countries you listed above. It’s not expansive or wide-ranging enough for that in my opinion. I think it’s a movie that was pretty specifically designed to be about America, for Americans, and this rhetorical specificity is one of the reasons why it falls short, for me.
To be fair, Brazil, brilliant as it is, is somewhat limited to the totalitarian government models of European fascism and communism.
Oh, you got to it first.
I wouldn’t say Letterman…I was thinking more of Leno.
I actually agree with everything you just said.
Is that a first?
See, I’m not trying to be a jerk. Not all the time.