μεταμορφώσεις

[Jeff Bernstein]

Match Point (2005) : something to think about

 

The narrative begins with the Outsider speaking to the audience—“The man who said, ‘I’d rather be lucky than good,’ saw deeply into life.”

 

This opening remark conveys to the audience that this character is knowledgeable, is an emblem of Reason. This character (apparently) knows the right way of things and is instructing us confidently.

 

The audience expects a confident story when it sits down in the auditorium, so is happy to follow a confident character knowledgeable about life at the start of the narrative. Somewhere in the mind of the audience may exist the expectation that the confident character may teach something valuable to the audience during the time of the narrative.  

 

What happens in Match Point? The clever Outsider murders, get away with it, and, as a reward, is absorbed for life into a stultifying cesspool of wealthy imbeciles. By the end he’s forevermore doomed to weigh the pros and cons of the choice he made : doomed to a lifetime of circular thinking and second-guessing about “what might have been”. What he murders is his own soul, embodied in a woman. (But a character can only come to understand such Heavy things afterwards.)

 

If the character ended there, very possibly this character didn’t know very much to begin with.

 

So is this a gigantic “oopsy” by the audience?

 

This is a major Situation for any aspiring Storyteller to think about.

 

But just now life is too short to do anything but move on. . . .

 

Encoding ambiguity into the main character from the get-go is far from easy. Why? The danger is simple to understand : the audience may quickly become mixed up. (“Who is this character?”, “Is this character a good person or a bad person?”, “I don’t understand the behaviour here.”) But if the storyteller knows what is going on, the Unconscious of the audience will allow for contradictions that might otherwise mystify and stymie the understanding. Example : audiences rooting for anti-heroes—i.e., identifying with them—while in “real life” the same honest folk populating the audience might pitchfork these same “evil” characters for their crimes.

 

Oh yes. The character Oppenheimer with the cyanide apple. . . .

[Jeff Bernstein]

Sophocles : ἐμπεπλεγμένην

 

Between the three-word structure of this metrical line :

 

Οἰδίπους

ἱκτηρίοις κλάδοισιν ἐξεστεμμένοι (3)

 

and the three-word structure of this one :

 

Ἐξάγγελος / Messenger / [Voice of Sophocles]

πλεκταῖσιν αἰώραισιν ἐμπεπλεγμένην (1264)

 

appears only one other line with a similarly reduced structure of only three words :

 

Ἰοκάστη / Jocasta

στέφη λαβούσῃ κἀπιθυμιάματα (914)

 

One assumes all three are pretty important lines in Oedipus the play.

 

Is Sophocles paying attention to detail? Does Sophocles pay attention to words the way a first-rate filmmaker organizes the geometry of the frame? One assumes “yes”.

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

Oppenheimer : “I can’t run a hamburger stand, but I can run the Manhattan project.”

 

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) : “I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city.” (10:07)

 

(Lawrence is quoting, as he reveals, “a Greek philosopher, Themistocles”. Quote possibly from Sir Francis Bacon, "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates", paragraph 1.)

[Jeff Bernstein]

Conjunction / Colossal Character Moment

 

Oppenheimer (2023) : Ernest Lawrence, the Capra character : “You’re not just self-important, you’re important!”

 

Lawrence of Arabia (1962), 50:23 : “I think you are another of these desert-loving English. . . . [like] Gordon of Khartoum.” Note the critical reaction on the face of T. E. Lawrence, as significant a silent communication as DDL’s in TWBB at 57:04–57:18.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Oppenheimer (2023) : oh my goodness

 

“We need what no man can provide. . . . We need a miracle.” Lawrence of Arabia, 51:48. Cut to 52:08, Lawrence. Guess what, world? Lawrence is the miracle.

 

Now employ AI and insert the likeness of storyteller Nolan into Lawrence’s reaction shot (52:08), in the manner of Tarantino substituting McQueen with DiCaprio :

 

Presently, Christopher Nolan is the T. E. Lawrence of Hollywood!

 

A work of art is always a miracle, so no surprise here.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Filming Personality

 

Lawrence of Arabia (1962). 53:18. Lawrence on his own, calculating strategy in the desert at night, watched by two onlookers.

 

Oppenheimer (2023) : the Strauss POV shot of the character Oppenheimer meeting with Einstein by a lake (early in the movie).

 

Both examples are of historical personalities captured in long shot, being “themselves”, and surveilled.

 

The example from Lawrence of Arabia is . . . well, unspeakable.

 

Comic flipside to this (as mentioned in its own thread) : The glimpses of the “mere man-ness” of The Master’s Lancaster Dodd (e.g., “I like Kools. Minty flavor.” 52:24).

[Jeff Bernstein]

Oppenheimer (2023) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

 

A colossal structural analogue—

 

Lawrence of Arabia, 52:23–55:07 : T. E. Lawrence calculating strategy off on his own; finally, he hits on it! Now he’s poised to enter history.

 

Oppenheimer :  the early “breakneck action” sequence (a minute or so of running time?) of the young Oppenheimer studying and solving equations on a blackboard, and smiling at the results—apparently a conceptual breakthrough! Now he’s poised to enter history.

 

—and a Celebration of Creative Thinking!

[Jeff Bernstein]

Person of God / Person as God?

 

“Lawrence, I do not think you know how you have tempted Him.”

“I [do] know.”

Lawrence of Arabia, 1:03:46

 

“I have become death, destroyer of worlds.”

Oppenheimer

 

(See Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus, ch. 22 : “One of Robert’s friends, Abraham Pais—[wtf? This is the ancient Greek word παῖς (child)]—once suggested that the quote sounded like one of Oppie’s ‘priestly exaggerations’.”

[Jeff Bernstein]

Variety triumphant!

 

“As you watch it [Coup de Chance (2023)] you can almost see Woody Allen standing off to one side, chuckling at the human folly he’s showing you.”

—a triumphant Owen Gleiberman

 

Like Sophocles in Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, who is mentioned in Match Point (2005).

[Jeff Bernstein]

On the other hand : Business as Usual in the Guardian (UK)

 

“The strong, credible performances [of Coup de Chance] . . . serve to distract from its occasional moments of implausibility.”

 

There’s nothing “implausible” in Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, though, right?

[Jeff Bernstein]

Sophocles, Oedipus : the end

 

ὦ πάτρας Θήβης ἔνοικοι, λεύσσετ᾽, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,

ὃς τὰ κλείν᾽ αἰνίγματ᾽ ᾔδει καὶ κράτιστος ἦν ἀνήρ,

οὗ τίς οὐ ζήλῳ πολιτῶν ἦν τύχαις ἐπιβλέπων,

εἰς ὅσον κλύδωνα δεινῆς συμφορᾶς ἐλήλυθεν.

ὥστε θνητὸν ὄντα κείνην τὴν τελευταίαν ἰδεῖν

ἡμέραν ἐπισκοποῦντα μηδέν᾽ ὀλβίζειν, πρὶν ἂν

τέρμα τοῦ βίου περάσῃ μηδὲν ἀλγεινὸν παθών.

 

ὦ πάτρας Θήβης—Sophocles is addressing the audience here, just as O’Neill spoke through Larry in Iceman; just as Oedipus himself addressed the audience at line 1, when he stood strong and confident and triumphant.

 

ἐλήλυθεν—see line 7. And so here at the very end, a sad echo of Oedipus’ strength—“an eerie trumpet call” (Hunter S. Thompson).

 

CHORUS / [SOPHOCLES]

O brotherhood of people, who dwell together at home,

consider Oedipus, who solved the famous puzzle,

and became mightiest of men. Once, all people looked on him

and his fortunes with envy. Now his luck has plunged him

into a terrible sea of troubles. So may none of us call ourselves

happy until we face our final day, complete our life,

and feel no further pain.

 

Thanks for the entertainment, Sophocles.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Mr. Arkadin [aka Confidential Report] (1955) by Orson Welles

 

In between shot 1 and the final shot is material apparently referenced by a whole gang of filmmakers.

 

(A) Shot 1 (2:52–3:15). Marriage of past / present / future?

Past : the cannons in the foreground recall, say, the French Revolution.

Future : the building of cold inhuman architecture in the background.

Present : the main character unites the two via his transit from the Future forward into the Past.

(Moving forward into the past is a fundamental theme of the movie—)

 

(—A theme basic to, say, well, Οἰδίπους Τύραννος.)

 

—Oppenheimer (2023) : a futural-looking Oppenheimer comes in out of the past of the old west (on horseback) to confront the present (of physicists questioning).

 

(B) The Final Shot (1:37:10). Man to Woman : “I’ll do the driving.”

 

—Phantom Thread (2017) : Woman to Man : “Let me drive for you.” (44:56)

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Cheer Up : Stanza 1 of Choral Ode 1 in Sophocles, Oedipus

 

ὦ Διὸς ἁδυεπὲς φάτι, τίς ποτε τᾶς πολυχρύσου

Πυθῶνος ἀγλαὰς ἔβας

Θήβας; ἐκτέταμαι φοβερὰν φρένα, δείματι πάλλων,

ἰήιε Δάλιε Παιάν,

ἀμφὶ σοὶ ἁζόμενος τί μοι ἢ νέον

ἢ περιτελλομέναις ὥραις πάλιν ἐξανύσεις χρέος.

εἰπέ μοι, ὦ χρυσέας τέκνον Ἐλπίδος, ἄμβροτε Φάμα.

 

Please consider the lyric :

 

ἰήιε Δάλιε Παιάν

 

is, to put it mildly, a colossally tremendous wide-open-mouthed “scream” to the Heavens. These three words are not to be translated (so to speak). This line is a sonic effect more than a transfer of thematic information. ἰήιε is a literal cry of mourning. We might slot ἰήιε into the part of speech known as “interjections”.

 

O God,

heavenly sweet-sounding voice,

why come here from your golden home

to honoured Thebes?

 

I am stretched out (on the rack of torture) long

my soul is in terror

I shake in terror!

 

ἰήιε Δάλιε Παιάν—[Ah!] Immortal Healer!

 

In holy fear I stand in awe of you.

 

I wait to hear what is owed you—

something returning with the circling years,

or something new.

 

Speak, o golden child of Greece, with your divine voice!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

Apparently so much of the gabble outside of this particular thread describes Oppenheimer as “people talking in rooms”—as if this Situation is some sort of visionary deficiency that was granted a miraculous reprieve by the whim of the world audience.

 

No. Oppenheimer is cinema. What is the 1930s, if not Hollywood Stars talking in rooms? What is first-rate world theatre but (pretty much) Characters talking in rooms? Oppenheimer is narrative, from Aeschylus through to Eugene O’Neill to now.

 

First-rate narrative is interpersonal relationships.

 

CGI not needed.

 

Incredible to have to remind of this—but we’re living among the Inhuman, and Scrooby is a Pleasant Public Service.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Denzel and the Dolly Zoom

 

The Manchurian Candidate (2004), 16:21–16:26. One of Hollywood’s greatest actors of our time is sitting watching television. Heavy personal knowledge is stirring in his brain, triggered by the TV imagery, and the dolly zoom conveys this Situation visually.

 

Due to a 2023 of full-spectrum lunacy, Scrooby, once so scrupulous about paperwork, hasn’t kept an easy-to-hand list of the various thematic uses of the Dolly Zoom in cinema. Scrooby thinks the list has now reached Use #11 or so. At some point this elephantine thread must be mined and a complete list (so to speak) compiled in one document. But for now let’s please just move on.

 

Here, the Dolly Zoom conveys :

 

1. A character’s internal disquiet

2. Stirrings of conscious memories

3. Stirrings of as-yet-Unconscious revelation

4. A character’s entrapment in a strange Situation

5. Most generally, the Dolly Zoom here generates an atmosphere of weird instability and mystification. The DZ conjures a hard-to-pinpoint unease in the audience—thereby the film syncs up audience and character : the DZ transfers Denzel Washington’s unstable interiority into an unstable visual that destabilizes the audience (Unconsciously)—it’s a DZ that the general audience shouldn’t notice as such, except via their Unconscious and intuition. At face value the DZ should be received by the audience as “just” a zoom-in—because the audience is paying attention first and foremost—if not exclusively—to the main character, and is not noticing the weird technics.

 

All these significations, in one Dolly Zoom?!

 

From the dream team of Jonathan Demme and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Virtuoso

 

First Denzel Washington is incorporated into a colossal—yet seemingly so innocuous—DZ, at 16:21–16:26.

 

At 20:17, the storytellers give Meryl Streep a line—one seemingly so innocuous, yet worthy of Sophocles : a hyper-efficient psychological double-meaning using the hyper-simple word “her”.

 

20:17. “I will do whatever is necessary to protect America from anyone who opposes her.”

 

By “her” this strong character means (first and foremost?) herself.

 

A simple line? Colossal storytelling moment?

 

The effect remarked on here—and this has been said before with respect to storyteller Demme—is no mere clever move, but expressive of character.

 

Theory : Even if the audience’s Reason absorbs the line as simple, the audience’s Unconscious and Intuition hear the Sophoclean double-speak.

[Jeff Bernstein]

ATHENA

Always, o son of Laertes, I have seen you

attempting this on your enemies—prowling

on the hunt to seize them!—to overpower them.  

And now I see you by the ships at Ajax’s hut.

You have come to the farthest edge of the order,

following his fresh-printed footsteps to determine

him here, or not here. Well I tell you he is here.

You have played the dog well; your keen track has brought you

to your reward. Just now the man happened to go

inside, his head pouring sweat, his hands all bloody

from his sword. So you don’t need to peep through the door.

Why don’t you tell me instead why you’re so eager

for him, for you may learn something from me, who knows.

 

Sophocles, Ajax, 1–13

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

Apparently one of the indelible moments for world audiences in Oppenheimer (2023) in the moment of the first expression of : “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”

 

Why—in terms of fundamental story principles—is this moment such a powerfully memorable one?

 

This one moment contains (simultaneously) the Three Storytelling “Fundamentals of Fundamentals”.

 

Contrast

 

Two lovers, yet one of the two—Jean Tatlock—is aggressive at times. This is not a lovey-dovey love scene here. Tatlock is attracted to Oppenheimer big time—her manner is simply her manner—and her manner makes for strong contrast. Isn’t the prevailing notion of lovers encapsulated in the poetic line, “If ever two were one, than surely we” (Anne Bradstreet)?—but here we have two lovers who seem, for all of their interaction, still separate—i.e., contrasting. At face value at least.

 

Conflict

 

In a love scene? Is Jean Tatlock kinda ridiculing Oppenheimer’s youthful cyanide apple, for example? Is she testing him in an aggressive manner with her request to translate Sanskrit on the fly? She is not yielding herself to him : she is testing him to discover if he can breathe at her own altitude.

 

Contradiction

 

The moment of “I am death, destroyer of worlds.” Sex and death fusing is always contradictory—yet this Situation can make perfect sense in a well-crafted narrative. The character Oppenheimer is an emblem not of destruction—at face value anyway—except in the sense of “destruction of the old way of seeing things”. Oppenheimer’s “destruction” is the positive destruction of old structures. This positive action is a “fecund destruction”. Still and all, though, the fusing of sex and death is still—no matter what, from the POV of Reason—a contradictory Situation. After all, sex leads to procreation : to a new birth. Like the work of T. S. Eliot (poetry), or James Joyce (novel) in the 1920s, the character Oppenheimer’s “Destruction” is the birth of a new way.

 

Compare all this with, for example, these two moments in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) :

 

April is the cruellest month

 

That corpse you planted last year in your garden,

Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?

 

“I am become death, destroyer of worlds”—We might rewrite the line without losing its thematic interior :

 

I have become Birth, surpasser of the old.

 

Obviously this moment in Oppenheimer is Unspeakable Perfection. And by now the Kind Reader who knows the ropes (πλεκταῖσιν, 1264) well knows what Scrooby is about to say :

 

This moment works Unconsciously on the audience.

 

The audience doesn’t need (or want!) to know how the (let’s call it) magic trick was done. The audience simply wants to enjoy it (in their way and whatever that means). Story principles, to the audience, are equivalent to girders in a skyscraper : you never see them, and most nobody will think they’re missing anything.

 

But for those who tell stories—well, all this conveyed here by friendly Scrooby is, shall we say, “pretty gosh darn” important to understand sooner rather than later.

 

Nolan knows stories. And so storyteller Nolan allows the audience’s Unconscious to let this multi-resonant moment sink in for something like thirty seconds following. Nolan is way intelligent enough to understand that this complex moment requires a duration of sinking in—whether it be the Reason considering it, or the Unconscious absorbing it (both). As with all first-rate Narrative Artists in word and music, storyteller Nolan is a virtuoso of pace.

 

Wow.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Sex in Space

GRIMWOOD INDESTRUCTIBLE (2007)

 

We floated into the Zero G Swimming Pool Room. An enormous amorphous blob of chlorinated water hung suspended and undulating as if by magic in the center of the white-tiled room. The sight made both of us giddy. I couldn’t believe it. The blob of water hung unbound by any containment wall or apparatus.

            “Hold your breath, Nathaniel darling!”

Alexis took my hand. Giggling like a schoolgirl she pushed off from the wall and together we dove into the Olympic-sized aqueous miracle. There was no buoyancy; we swam with a vigorous breast-stroke right through the space pool. I could barely believe what was happening. Growing up in Los Angeles, daily I had daydreamed of dallying by archetypal swimming pools with typically beautiful women. Now here I was, thirty years later, living the dream.

My heart thundered in my body, but that might have been the space sickness.

           We emerged out the other side of the floating water blob like two superheroes on R-and-R. With Alexis leading the way we slipped into another tunnel and shot through to a small spherical space which Alexis called the Comfort Habitat. Wall space here was padded like a mental hospital’s rubber room.

Joyfully she carried out acrobatic exercises in the weightless environment, performing somersaults and back flips to my cheerful applause. She took my hands and laughingly we danced cheek to cheek to the inner music in her head. Alexis’ fragrant closeness filled me with dizzying euphoria, all my senses filled to the brim. 

            She whispered into my ear, this woman of mystery : “Let’s get you out of this damp jumpsuit.”

            Her hazel eyes were now soft and smoky.

            I was trembling with desire yet said : “Ummm . . .”

            “For a release of tension?” Alexis smiling. “After all this time confined up here?”

            “Uhhh . . .”

            What does a man do when a beautiful, desirable woman ruins your life—then wants your body a second time?

            “It’s just us,” she whispered. “No post-coital porno rental distribution this time.”

            “Alexis . . .”

            Sometimes it’s prudent to go with the flow. So I let Alexis divest me of my garments.

            She then stripped off her own space suit with jubilance. I watched with growing expectation as she floated to a metal locker where she stored our clothes.

            If the reader should think it absurd of me to fall prey for a second time to Alexis’s charms, in my defense I answer :

            I watched her slip off her frilled pink panties.

            She floated before me, resplendent in her nudity. The twin miracles of her breasts held not a hint of sag in this weightless environment. Around her face her red hair floated like luxurious sea-fronds. She was a space mermaid, more fascinating than any celestial object. Alexis Darby was the sum total of the universal majesty. The fairest of them all.

            Note : An erotic entanglement up in outer space is a tricky physiological puzzle.

First we reached out for one another only to bounce apart and away, bouncing off the walls then coming together again, knocking together in a rough and kinky way then drawing apart again. Exasperating was all this lustful play; I wanted her tight in my arms.

Alexis pushed off from one wall and I from another and we met in the center of the room. Grappling one another we went into a spin while we kissed.

The rate of spin almost made me spew my lunch into Alexis’ mouth. Just as I began to caress her body, we broke apart.

            This coital odyssey would be a complex one.

Alexis floated back to the locker room where she retrieved top-tech mechanical equipment to manage our primal desire. She set up a system of ropes and pulleys. Cosmic coupling required colossal concentration, agility, and elbow grease. After she attached the contraption firmly to hooks in the walls, then, carefully, amorously, we bound ourselves together in an elastic harness.    

            Our two bodies joined in a docking maneuver as delicately as two spaceships mating at high speeds.

And so then we became the newest members of the three hundred mile high club.

            Alexis controlled the raunchy movement of my hips with her hands and arms operating the rope and pulley system. Wrapped in her legs, her body vibratile and hot to the touch, I gorged on her gorgeous flesh, rhapsodically content to be ensnared in her web. I felt in every nerve of my body an incredibly heightened sensitivity. For the duration of our close encounter I tingled at the edge of blacking out. Our mingled body heat hung around us like fog. I entertained the fairy tale of living happily ever after.

            Then came the simultaneous cosmic finish, and it was over.

            “Wow,” she purred. “We’re arranging for a reproduction in microgravity to study the development of an embryo in Zero G.” She reached out and tousled my hair. “I’m putting your name forward . . .”

            “Thanks.” Years later I completed a Deep Space Kama Sutra for enterprising space fornicants.

As quickly as it had begun our jolly circus for two was over. Now came the come down, the complete change of pace. That Alexis had met my exuberance with her own during our brief time together had acted as a balm on my heart. So it hurt when she extracted herself from me and floated off, once more the unobtainable woman, the woman of secrets.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Flying Free Over the City of Los Angeles

GRIMWOOD INDESTRUCTIBLE (2007)

 

Propelled by the powerful jetpack strapped to my back, I flew southeast, blazing a path between the immense meridians of the above and the below, evanescent as a shooting star. It was past eight in the evening, the sun was down. The climate of this soft, calm night was Mediterranean, hot and dry. The velocity tousled my hair and made my clothing ripple. I followed the coastline, the sonorous waves breaking far below me. Strange to relate that I actually felt less anxiety soaring through the air exposed in this way than cooped up in an aluminum airframe with its miles of wiring and riveted panels. I was a heroic traveler, on my own and in control. The goggles attached to my helmet conveyed transparent computer displays, so-called ‘symbology overlays’, including a GPS radar in the left eye and a Nearby Objects Warning System in the right. I tapped in ASTROTRON, CULVER CITY, to my sleeve computer.

       My jetpack, calculating the coordinates in seconds, moved me inland, steering itself in the direction of my destination.

       It was peaceful up here on my own among the stars. I soared over the rugged brown slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains. I crossed miles of rolling hills and thick stretches of oak trees; skirted past the northern edge of glittering Santa Barbara; then passed over the picturesque wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest. I looked down at Lake Casitas with its irregular shoreline. Along the snaky channels of the freeways cars circulated like microscopic bugs. I saw sprawling encrustations of residential housing, then districts of office buildings, and flew over the Mission San Buenaventura in downtown Ventura. With my jetpack maintaining the trajectory, I never lost my bearings while I flew through the night on my secret errand, a rogue idea in the grand scheme of things. Crackling and seething, the engine’s coruscating exhaust followed me like the tail of a comet. I approached the beachfront community of Malibu, where the beautiful people overdosed on vitamins and speedballs. A bird flew past me—it could have been a California Condor—in a near-miss which might have otherwise been a catastrophe. Then I was soaring over the fantastical vision of the densely populated topography of the city of Los Angeles. Lit up in a billion lights, the overstressed urban sprawl resembled the circuitry of a mammoth machine. Adjusting the settings of my technological chariot of the gods, I began my descent into Culver City, just south of Beverly Hills, and narrowly missed getting diced up by the rotors of a traffic helicopter. I supposed that half the city might be telephoning the cops to report a sighting of a mysterious UFO-like shape streaking across the night sky. . . .

       I broke through the smog layer at one thousand feet and made my stealthy approach over what my goggle display identified as the Astrotron Corporation. It was a fenced-in spread of something like fifteen hundred acres set a couple of miles east of the Pacific Ocean. The extensive site was chockablock with low, sprawling buildings, at least forty of them. Astrotron looked like a conventional industrial facility—except for one detail: the asphalt runway, which looked over three miles long and was discolored with scorch marks and lander marks; not even the Eryx had required a runway so monumentally long. Later I would find out that this facility wasn’t noted on any public maps.

     My ninja outfit began emitting a high-pitched beeping alarm. The computer display in my goggles warned me that I was moving through restricted airspace. The jetpack, however, had integrated radar jamming equipment, so I felt relatively safe. Descending carefully toward ground level, I took heed of the guard shacks and security checkpoints stationed at intervals along the perimeter fence. I floated past a sign set beside an access road :

 

ASTROTRON TECHNOLOGIES

A division of Polytech Corporation

RESTRICTED AREA.

NO TRESPASSING BEYOND THIS POINT.

It is unlawful to enter this area

without permission of The Shareholder.

Use of deadly force is not only authorized, it is welcomed.

 

I landed vertically, solidly on my two feet, just inside the fence. My one hundred and twenty mile trip had taken me a little under two hours. My arms were stiff, my whole body ached. I was begrimed with filth skimmed out of the smoggy sky during the journey. I dropped to my knees and unbuckled myself from the jetpack then hid the heavy machinery behind a fringe of shrubbery. Having infiltrated Astrotron, I had no time to spare. My alien presence had already been detected by the array of electronic sensor devices buried in the grounds of this ultra-secure area . . .

       Before I knew what was what, my stealthy form was caught in the aggressive glare of headlights.

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Oppenheimer (2023) phenomenon

 

The concept of the Reprieve.

 

Recall the young Oppenheimer’s (and Isidor Rabi’s) meeting with Werner Heisenberg.

 

Remember how the storyteller sets up a Situation with the word “Eat” in the train scene with the young Oppenheimer, a Situation paid off close to three hours later?

 

Here we have a similiar sort of Situation.

 

Oppenheimer and Heisenberg are eventually facing off as “mortal enemies”, whether they like it or not, during WW2.

 

Hitchcock : If the mature Heisenberg had recalled the use of the word “Manhattan” in his meeting with young Oppenheimer, and thereby recall Oppenheimer’s fondness for New Mexico, perhaps the Nazis might have sent saboteurs over to the Trinity site (τριπλαῖς, 730).  

[Jeff Bernstein]

Big Time : Nolan and the ancient Greeks

 

Is a preponderant majority of Oppenheimer (2023) scenes of facing off ? of Contrast and Conflict ?

 

This is the way of the ancient authors. Contrast and Conflict are Fundamentals of Fundamentals. The wider the contrast and the harsher the conflict—whether it be in a line exchange, or a scene, or in whatever degree of structure—the more dramatic the drama.

 

A story wondrously well-founded in ancient storytelling principles just happens to be a worldwide storytelling phenomenon?

 

Beware, friends, of the discourse attempting to define the Situation this way : “Oppenheimer is a one-off phenomenon.”

 

No way.

 

Oppenheimer (2023) is anchored in so many Fundamental Storytelling Principles—all plaited together to inspire and encourage world audiences—that storyteller Nolan has earned the right to be called Top Storyteller on Earth for now. Absolutely no question. Who is dumb enough to argue with a successful result?

 

Scrooby appeals to nuclear-powered Heidegger :

 

“The groundlessness of idle talk is no obstacle to its becoming public; instead it encourages this. Idle talk is the possibility of understanding everything without [even beginning to think responsibly about it]. If this were done, idle talk would founder; and it already guards against such a danger. Idle talk is something which anyone can rake up; it not only releases one from the task of genuinely understanding, but develops an undifferentiated kind of intelligibility, for which nothing is closed off any longer.”

(Being and Time, 1.5.35)

 

All that sounds like the comings and goings of large-scale discourses nowadays. Heidegger is warning us of this in 1927.

 

Crucially—and this is only one among many “crucials” here—the POV behind idle talk levels everything down to an equal blankness :

 

“The average everydayness of concern becomes blind to its possibilities, and tranquilizes itself with what is merely ‘actual’ [e.g., a movie poster; box-office loot].”

(1.6.41)

 

blind to its possibilities—like Οἰδίπους Τύραννος?

 

The screenplay of Oppenheimer is world literature on the screen.

 

It exists to warn us : Wake Up to the Rigged Game or your Future is Nuked for Life.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

TWBB : Micro-scale links from Big Time Genius

 

2:20:20. Eli : “Perhaps you remember Mr. Bandy?” Perhaps not the best item to remind Plainview of, considering Bandy is implicated (in Plainview’s mind) with the vile deception of his “brother” Henry (e.g., 1:48:48). Evidently, Plainview, in this scene, contracts his entire lifetime’s pain down into one nuclear reaction.

 

1:19:00. Henry says he is coming from New Mexico, which is where the entire narrative begins (6:48)—where Plainview broke his leg, and acquired his slight limp (i.e., Οἰδίπους Τύραννος). . . .

 

Sophoclean : In both cases, the past returns to haunt Plainview. And in both cases the outcome is catastrophic.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Do it to me one more time : Sophocles, Ajax

 

Right at the outset of the play, Odysseus hears the voice of Athena, Goddess of Reason, in his head, and his reply builds to this metrical line :

 

χαλκοστόμου κώδωνος ὡς Τυρσηνικῆς. (17)

 

Knowing Sophocles as we do by now, we assume that this line is Titanic in effect. To begin with, there are only four words in line 17—a visual clue.

 

ODYSSEUS

ὦ φθέγμ᾽ Ἀθάνας, φιλτάτης ἐμοὶ θεῶν,

ὡς εὐμαθές σου, κἂν ἄποπτος ᾖς ὅμως,

φώνημ᾽ ἀκούω καὶ ξυναρπάζω φρενὶ

χαλκοστόμου κώδωνος ὡς Τυρσηνικῆς.

(14–17)

 

This first sentence of Odysseus builds up to line 17, which is a rhetorical nuclear blast similar to an orchestra building up to a tutti phrase, and is also similar in its effect to this mega-lofty line belted out triumphantly at the outset of Οἰδίπους Τύραννος :

 

OEDIPUS

ὁ πᾶσι κλεινὸς Οἰδίπους καλούμενος. (8)

 “Hey everyone, I’m the awesome guy named Oedipus!”

 

Now back to Ajax :

 

χαλκοστόμου κώδωνος ὡς Τυρσηνικῆς.

[brass-mouthed] - [mouth / bell / bell sound]  - [like a] - [Tyrrhenian]

 

Odysseus is saying (quick translation) :

 

ὦ φθέγμ᾽ Ἀθάνας, φιλτάτης ἐμοὶ θεῶν,

ὡς εὐμαθές σου, κἂν ἄποπτος ᾖς ὅμως,

φώνημ᾽ ἀκούω καὶ ξυναρπάζω φρενὶ

χαλκοστόμου κώδωνος ὡς Τυρσηνικῆς.

 

O voice of Athena, most beloved of gods to me,

I understand you well, though I do not see you.

I hear with my mind and understand you

as clearly as sound from a bronze-mouthed Tyrrhenian trumpet.

 

Why would Sophocles mention the provenance of a trumpet when he’s simply communicating a cliched metaphor?

 

Let’s recall a colossally significant line from Οἰδίπους Τύραννος :

 

πλεκταῖσιν αἰώραισιν ἐμπεπλεγμένην. (1264)

 

In Οἰδίπους line 1264, Sophocles employs a cliche in a mind-bendingly new way that might give a thinker a cerebral aneurysm from the enormity of what he’s engineered.

 

Is Sophocles doing it again at the beginning of Ajax?

 

χαλκοστόμου κώδωνος ὡς Τυρσηνικῆς.

 

Apparently. Here we have another potentially mood-destroying dreary cliche—I’m sure it’s in Homer here and there (says the translator of Homer, who cannot remember). But, as usual, Sophocles takes a cliche and turns it into a Genius Move.

 

Let’s consider that curious word

 

Τυρσηνικῆς / Tyrrhenian

 

Wait! Echoes of Clarice Starling : “She's got something in her throat.” (Silence of the Lambs, 44:44)

 

Is there a word hidden inside?

 

Τυρσηνικῆς

 

What does νικῆς (from νίκη) mean?

 

Victory.

 

As in Athena Nike, the sculpture prominent on a staircase of the Louvre.

 

Hmm.

 

The bell of a trumpet is dark. We the audience are hypnotized into imagining a clear voice of Reason emerging from out of a darkness. . . . leading to Victory.

 

Indeed. In the case of the Athena-friendly life of Odysseus :

 

Reason = Victory

 

This equation fits Odysseus well. His Homeric epithet throughout the Odyssey is “πολύμητις” (many-minded, i.e. highly intelligent).

 

So at the beginning of Ajax, Odysseus is praying in his head to the goddess of wisdom to give him an edge in the coming confrontation with Ajax, the strongest active fighter in the Greek army at Troy.

 

Okay then. And that’s just the start of the thinking on this Situation. And we’re only at line 17.

 

Scrooby’s been thinking about Ajax for three or so days now . . . and he’s reached line 17.

 

What about this “darkness” . . . ? What about . . . ? What else is going on . . . ?

 

Slow and steady wins the race.

 

P.S. Do the following words resemble each other?

 

ἐκπέπληγμαι (Ajax, 33)

ἐμπεπλεγμένην (Oedipus, 1264)

 

Yes, they do.

 

Dear Kind Reader, do you think Sophocles is plaiting together something particularly special here at the outset of Ajax?

 

Perhaps something to blow our minds?

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Please, kind world, read the following as if Odysseus is talking to himself, like Travis in Taxi, and Jack in the Red Room :

 

ATHENA

Always, o son of Laertes, I have seen you

attempting this on your enemies—prowling

on the hunt to seize them!—to overpower them.  

And now I see you by the ships at Ajax’s hut.

You have come to the farthest edge of the order,

following his fresh-printed footsteps to determine

him here, or not here. Well I tell you he is here.

You have played the dog well; your keen track has brought you

to your reward. Just now the man happened to go

inside, his head pouring sweat, his hands all bloody

from his sword. So you don’t need to peep through the door.

Why don’t you tell me instead why you’re so eager

for him, for you may learn something from me, who knows.

 

And now comes Odysseus’ reply—to himself (so to speak?).

 

ODYSSEUS

O voice of Athena, most beloved of gods to me,

I understand you well, though I do not see you.

I hear with my mind and understand you

as clearly as sound from a bronze-mouthed Tyrrhenian trumpet!

 

Goddess—you know. Just now I step round a hostile man,

shield-bearing Ajax. This, not anything other,

I’ve been doing—hunting—for a long time now.

 

καὶ νῦν ἐπέγνως εὖ μ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀνδρὶ δυσμενεῖ

βάσιν κυκλοῦντ᾽, Αἴαντι τῷ σακεσφόρῳ:

κεῖνον γάρ, οὐδέν᾽ ἄλλον, ἰχνεύω πάλαι.

νυκτὸς γὰρ ἡμᾶς τῆσδε πρᾶγος ἄσκοπον

ἔχει περάνας, εἴπερ εἴργασται τάδε:

18–22

 

Items :

 

κεῖνον γάρ (20) : him (i.e., Ajax) (or : Odysseus?)

νυκτὸς γὰρ (21) : night

 

recalls the initial structure of a number of lines in Οἰδίπους Τύραννος : for example :

 

πόλις γάρ (22) : city

ὄρνιθι γὰρ (52) : bird of omen

ἐγὼ γὰρ (1371) : I

βοῶν γὰρ (1251) : cry

φοιτᾷ γὰρ (1255) : wildly

 

Kubrick Bone-Weapon Cut then double (διπλοῖς) back :

 

Why is Odysseus speaking to himself—speaking to the voice inside his head he calls Athena, Goddess of Reason—while he circles round the tent of the physically strongest man in the Greek army after Achilles? If Ajax simply sees Odysseus—or if Odysseus says one wrong word to Ajax—then Odysseus is dead. But in the Odyssey Odysseus beat the gigantic Cyclops. To do that, Odysseus used Reason.

 

So then why is Odysseus speaking to the voice inside his head he calls Athena, Goddess of Reason?

 

Odysseus is psyching himself up for the confrontation.  

 

So far :

 

1: The surface layer of the opening scene of Sophocles’ Ajax—“what is caught in the lens”—is Odysseus speaking to goddess Athena via her voice beaming into his head.

 

2 : A second layer of the scene is Odysseus appealing to Reason itself, anthropomorphising it (so to speak) as Athena, in order to gather energy before the face-off. As Odysseus’ life hangs in the balance, so Odysseus appeals to his greatest strength, in the hope it will see him through to Victory.

 

Does the kind reader think Sophocles is even remotely done?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein