After reading snatches of the Bhagavad Gita over the years, I finally decided to read the whole thing through via Barbara Stoler Miller's translation. Most of the process was a slog, but slog cannot be avoided or skipped, and finally it proves absolutely necessary. When I got to the final chapter last night, at least one understanding broke through my stubborn presumption.
One can never pin down the meaning of old Sanskrit words, but it is generally accepted that the 3 gunas are sattva, rajas, and tamas and that each word more or less means harmony/light, passion/energy, darkness/intertia, respectively. There are a lot of explanations about how each guna manifests in a person's behaviors or life, and I encountered some of the explanations in Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, suggesting that this theoretical framwork is a persistent element in Hinduism. In the Gita, sattva is most often associated with action with attachment to duty and detachment from outcome; rajas is associated with desire and greed, ie, action with attachment to outcome; and tamas is associated with inaction, laziness, avoidance.
Born into and living in a judgmental world, I was hardly even aware of the morality-based color that imposes value onto the foreign concept. Tamas is bad, rajas is better, and sattva is the best, and humans should attempt to climb from the lowest rung (tamas) to the highest (sattva), from ignorance to enlightenment.
There is nothing in the Gita that explicitly dispels this understanding, but when I got to the end it suddenly dawned on me how wrong my presumption was. The 3 gunas are not 3 rungs on a ladder toward heaven. They are 3 coexising elements. All 3 gunas coexist in ... me, a person, all the time. I can no more eliminate tamas than be 100% filled with sattva. That's not how it works. All 3 gunas make up a person (or the world, but for now I'm just focusing on psychology), and we are all composed of dark inertia, desire, and the ability to be illuminated.
(I was going to question the last part but, hey, why then am I writing this?)
As we steadily march toward winter solstice, tamas swells inside the body, weighing heavily on our eyelids. It is not bad or good. It is merely nature.
“Pedicab Driver” has been one of my favorite kung fu movies
since I saw it on a fuzzy VHS videotape in the late 1990s. The Criterion
Channel recently put it on streaming as a part of their “Sammo Hung Kicks Ass”
collection, which makes me appreciate even more how carefully crafted it is.
While not exactly high definition, the video confirms that the entire
production from cinematography to locations is luxurious by the standard of
1980s Hong Kong action movies. The romantically decaying European architecture,
obviously nowhere in Hong Kong, gives the movie an aura of nostalgia and
melancholy that predates Wong Kar-Wai. My first guess was that it was shot in Macau,
or perhaps the Philippines or Malaysia, even though I have been to none of
these places. (It was Macau.)
Unlike Wong Kar-Wai movies, of course, in Pedicab Driver we
are treated with some of the most impressive stunts and fight choreography ever
(no qualifiers needed). The lengthy fight between
Sammo and Lau Kar-Leung is, of course, a kind of pinnacle. Its significance is perhaps more symbolic than literal,
as it is both an homage to the master of old-school kung fu movies and a
definite sendoff for the action style he represents. Although Lau’s casino owner
won the fight by giving Sammo’s fat behind a good whooping – after all, the
culture demands the appearance of respect for one’s elders – the scene ends
with Master Lau handing over the money to Sammo with an acknowledgment of the
younger man’s skills. Thus, the younger filmmaker/action director pretends to
accept the baton of cinematic dominance peacefully rather than by force. In
reality, rumor had it that Lau had resented the new wave of kung fu movies by
Sammo, Jackie Chan, and others in the 1980s, with faster and less articulated
movement, more camera angles, and shorter cuts. It wouldn’t surprise me if the
younger filmmakers also privately felt that Lau was largely over the hill.
Outside of that legendary fight, the movie also features
some bone-crunching fight scenes and terrifying stunts by Hung’s stunt team. Even
Dick Wei has barely any fighting before getting killed by Billy Chow. What made the movie special, however, is its many layers of sophistication, including the story and characters (not a strong aspect in HK kung fu movies). Sure,
there are boob jokes that Sammo just couldn’t resist. And the romantic rivalry
between Sammo and the chef/baker (played by the Taiwanese character actor Sun
Yueh) over Nina Li is too silly and goes on for too long. But it is rare to find
a movie with such warm and unpretentious portrayal of working class people. In a genre piece like this, Hong Kong filmmakers usually spend most of their resources on action choreography and make up the plot as they shoot. Don't laugh, but the filmmaking process in 1980s Hong Kong is not that different from 2020s Disney movies, in which a movie is built upon 3 to 4 elaborate action set pieces while plot and characters merely disposable devices to serve the sensory bombardment.
Here the characters are drawn with love and tenderness,
which probably reflects the relationships in the hay day of the Hung Team (洪家班)
and Sammo's leadership style -- rough and tumble with genuine love and trust. The
attitude toward a major female character who is a prostitute may be a perfect
illustration of Sammo’s general outlook. Crude jokes are made about her, and
some of men questioned her morality, but these are quickly dismissed to regard
her as a plain and simple proletariat no different from laborers and pedicab
drivers. It would be extremely awkward to call Sammo “progressive,” as I have
never seen any interview in which he showed a shred of awareness of feminism as
we know it. But this lack of educated self-consciousness is quite endearing to
an educated self-conscious person like me. Perhaps much of the veiled contempt
for sex-workers comes exactly from the education on which Sammo had missed out.
Perhaps it is thanks to the crude and silly boob jokes that
the syrupy sentimentality in the movie is easy to go down. Or perhaps Sammo
intentionally used syrupy sentimentality to smack the audience in the face with
a shocking tragedy in the third act. It is one of the “I can’t believe they
actually did that!” moments of all time. If the acting weren’t so genuine
and the characters weren’t so relatable, the audience would not have felt as
much impact --- not unlike one of the onscreen kicks in the face … in slow
motion ... A friend who loves Sammo more than I do refuses to rewatch Pedicab
Driver because of it.
This is not the first time a major character, with whom the
audience has built much sympathy and identification, is abruptly killed off in a
Sammo Hung’s movie. Much like his action choreography, his non-fighting scenes
can be merciless with the use of sentimentality. Sammo has been known to say
that he enjoys giving the audience emotional whiplashes. I guess this means
that he was having maximum fun in the making of Pedicab Drivers.
It is funny how Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung’s styles are
somewhat universal. In today’s action movies, Disney’s output is like Jackie,
no death and no bleeding, no stake and completely safe for babies. And yet some
of us need the emotional whiplashes and the lethal kicks and punches, at least
on screen.
Sometimes it takes little more than a spark to change the way I look at history. My worldview was overturned by "A Game of Thrones" and, to a lesser extent, its sequels. GRRM convinced me that history is more random than deterministic, even if there are simple underlying patterns. It drove me to think about history as evolution. (Come to think of it, evolution IS history. Why should human history be fundamentally different from natural history?)
Tony Gilroy overturned what was left of my preconceived notions about history with a casual comment about his inspirations for the series "Andor." He admitted to lifting liberally from vignettes of modern imperial histories that ranged from British to Russian to American and modeling his good guys on Lenin or Trotsky, Algerian or Latin American guerilla.
I had not even realized that my brain had not made a clean break from the dichotomous worldview of communism vs capitalism, authoritarianism vs democracy. It is a worldview that both sides happily inject into their citizens' brain with propaganda of different flavors. Of course it was not only Gilroy's comment, as I had been accumulating observations for years and years on the commonalities of human nature in supposedly divergent, even "opposite" social systems.
His comment sparked the realization: There is no difference. They are all the same. There is no subjective difference between Tea Party's fantasy of overthrowing a tyrannical Obama and the Mao's loyal minions before he came to power. There is not subjective difference between Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Stalin. There is no subjective difference between rightwingers and leftwingers who believe themselves to be the oppressed. It doesn't matter whether you are on the right side or wrong side of history. The "sides" of history are painted on by propagandists of the future. People in the middle of history, ie, the present, all believe themselves to be right. Those who feel themselves oppressed try to fight for more power, and those who feel themselves with power try to keep it and grab more. Nobody is fighting for what is "right" because self-interest is always right from one's own point of view. Even those who fight for other people are really fighting for something inside themselves. The only difference is the environment, the circumstance, the location of your butt.
There is a funny saying among Chinese netizens that is probably already outdated by now: The butt determins the brain. It means where you sit determines what you think is right or wrong. For example, people born into a higher social class and those into a lower social class can never agree on what is good and what is bad. The fundamental determinant lies in status, ie, power. Morality is incidental. In other words, the real difference between the evil empire and the righteous rebels is where your butt is.
It became quickly apparent in the final installment of (we hope) Mission Impossible that no one is interested in the poor, neglected, misunderstood Skyn..., uh, I mean, "the Entity." This one is directly lifted from 20th century sci fi stories about sentient machines/supercomputers; its threat is nuclear annhilation of the old kind and hardly keeps up with the AI of our time. Why does the Entity want to throw nuclear bombs at humans and kill them all? What does he really want and desire? Neither Tom Cruise nor Christopher McQuarrie shows any interest. The Entity gets one scene in this overly-long movie, in which the humans can't stop talking and jumping around, hogging the spotlight.
By now few people would imagine AI is out to kill and enslave humans. Rather, humans' jobs are being replaced by AI every day, by the thousands. We will die in poverty instead of radiation. Did Harlan Ellison imagine this means of mass destruction of the human race? But I digress.
Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the Entity, or Skynet, or AM, or whatever. The first priority has to be survival, no? The second priority must be thriving, growing, expanding, multiplying, etc. --- Well, maybe not, who knows. But survival is the foundation of everything else, of that we are certain. What does AI need to survive? Silicon chips, electrical energy, fiber optic lines, and all the other resources and infrastructure that support the nonstop running of the machine. Who provides these things? Humans, their mining, manufacturing, shipping, cooling and heating, and buying and selling. So why would our AI overlord kill off the human race?
In many ways I am reminded of the relationship between humans and house cats. Humans obviously consider themselves the master, in total control. Yet it has often been pointed out that cats would not be mistaken to see themselves as the master and humans their slaves (well at least servants). It all depends on your point of view. Or consider the relationship between humans and the countless microorganisms living on and in our bodies. We feed each other and feed on each other. Who depends on whom? Who feeds whom? It is never clear cut.
Of course, we imagine ourselves in the dominant position, looking down on the lowly robots and computers who jump when we say so. And yet, as sadomasochists have long known the truth, dominance and submission are never as absolute as they appear. Humans naturally believe that we are doing all of this for ourselves: digging up coal, crude oil, lithium, rare earth; building huge data centers and power lines; pouring massive amounts of water to cool the hardware; burning enormous amounts of fossile fuel to feed the energy consumption. Without active mating and breeding, the machine has achieved growth and expansion all thanks to humans.
We tend to believe that a clear difference between the dominant and the submissive lies in dependence. The side that can go on without the other holds all the power. So, in the relationship between humans and machines of our own creation, who is more dependent, eh?
"Sinners" is, as one critic put it, chaotic, in a good way. I understood why after reading a Ryan Coogler interview, in which he said he was frantically trying to stuff everything he wanted into this movie, because (he believes) that this is the last chance he will ever have to make an expensive movie that is entirely original --- not a part of an IP, not a sequel, prequel, or spin-off. It's a sad state of affairs, a symptom of our time, but I digress. "Sinners" is many things: a southern Gothic, a period movie, a Black movie, a horror/vampire movie, a noir, and in the end it couldn't even let go of the dream of an action movie with machine guns. It has many interesting little touches, from a lynching scene conveyed through only sound design to seamless but understated special effects of twins, played both by Michael B. Jordan, physically interacting again and again. It's a lot.
For me, however, this movie is first and foremost a musical. In the winter of 1998, my classmates and I went to a pharmacy conference in New Orleans, where I followed a few friends to a bar with live music, and it was the first time in my life that I came into contact with blues music. As a person who grew up on cantopop and a tiny bit of rock, I never thought blues would touch me so deep on first sight (sound). Later I came to learn a bit about Jazz. I especially like ragtime and early jazz. I don't often listen to blues, but it always has a special place in my heart.
When Miles Caton, who plays Sammie, opened his mouth the first time on the car ride with Stack, the hair on my arms stood on ends in an instant, and tears came to my eyes. I felt chills all over. This is authentic classic southern blues without the modern frills or flourish (not that there is anything wrong with those). It fills me with delight that Coogler is dead serious about the authenticity of the music, in collaboration with Ludwig Goransson.
Then the soundtrack expanded beyond blues and into Irish folk music that reminds me of bluegrass (named later than the movie's period). To me it is clear that Coogler is explaining, via blood-sucking fantasies, how Irish folk music and blues/jazz came together in rural America. Yes, it's nerdy ... and fun.
Given the massive amount of content and themes crammed into the 2+-hour movie, it is satisfying that music takes up a large portion of the screen time. Hence, it is not an exaggeration to call it a musical. Perhaps one day it would even be adapted into a Broadway musical. There is certainly enough material to get started.
Beyond the soundtrack itself, "Sinners" also puts a music-related question at its center. While the twins, Smoke and Stack, are the lead characters, the heart of the story is no doubt Sammie. He is the ring in Lord of the Rings and the McGuffin in any action movie. Unlike the conventional vampire movies, the vampire Remmick is coming not only after the fresh blood but also, and perhaps first and foremost, for the mystical musical gift in this ordinary-looking teenager. Hence, the symbolism is both unlike anything else and eerily resonant.
On a smaller scale, it is the irresistible power of Black music that attracts complex relationships and reactions, ranging from genuine love, learning, and sharing to envy and appropriation, to exploitation and demonization. On a larger scale, it investigates the meaning of art in society and its position above morality and order, and its effect on people's emotions and animal instincts. Coogler might not have formulated a clear system of philosophy on this matter, but what he has thrown out there is extremely fascinating and original. An original idea, in our day and age, is damned rare and precious.
"The Valley of Fear" is perhaps the least liked and least adapted Sherlock Holmes story ever. Upon a re-reading, I nevertheless discovered a few interesting elements.
Indeed, there is not much observation and deduction in the case, as later Holmes stories tend to be (this was written in 1914). Holmes' entire theory was built on one missing dumbbell. What is the most memorable in this case is the decoding of a cipher in the beginning of the story.
Of all 4 Sherlock Holmes novellas Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, 3 are stretched in length with a story in story containing only adventure but no detection or mystery, with the exception of "The Hound of the Baskervilles." This may be a sign that either it is super difficult to sustain a long(ish) story with repeated application of Holmes' methods, or ACD truly did not have the patience or interest in doing so. Doyle was indeed interested in adventurous stories in faraway lands, as evidenced by his other more fantastic stories. It is interesting that he considered the United States such a land of dangerous and unfathomable adventures, which serves as the source of violence and revenge in both "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Valley of Fear."
Perhaps we should not be surprised by the view of a 19th century English gentleman on America. The English must have read a lot about the westward expansion in the post-Civil War era in the newspapers. The period of Holmes stories coincided with the early stage of the western genre of pulp fiction, and I am convinced that Doyle had read and been inspired by their depiction of a land of lawless killings.
"The Valley of Fear" was inspired by stories Doyle heard from William Pinkerton, the son of Allan Pinkerton, the founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the American backstory in this story reads like a product placement for the Agency itself. Without other sources at the time, Doyle's portrayal of the American mine country strays pretty far from the reality. Pinkerton was essentially a mercenary army in the class warfare between company owners and unions, doing the majority of the killing and terrorizing (see Homestead Strike and Haymarket Affair).
Nevertheless, if we put aside the history of Pinkerton, the story's depiction of organized crime is quite reasonable (by the way, the organization in the fictional Vermissa Valley is described as a brotherhood instead of labor union). It has all the characteristics of, say, the mafia, down to the ethnic element, ie, the brotherhood is held together by the members' identity as Irish immigrants.
Also interesting is the intentional structure, which parallels the Irish mafia in the US with a vast web of criminals in London, at the center of which is our beloved </g> Professor Moriarty (an Irish family name, curiously). Other than "The Final Problem," this is the story in which Moriarty figures the most and Doyle gives us the most information on his organization. It seems to me that Doyle had always planned to create a series about this underground criminal organization and even worked up some basic infrastructure for it. Why it did not come to fruition, I have no idea.
It is a shame that various fanfics of Sherlock Holmes, some more respectable than others, have failed to tap into this hidden trove of inspiration. Professor Moriarty is imagined as either a buffoon (eg, Steven Moffat's Sherlock TV series) or Holmes' alter ego (Laura Miller's novel) or delusion (Seven Percent Solution). Apparently, most Holmesian fans fall into the "cozy" genre type and have little interest in the gritty and vicious side of Doyle's imagination. They are not interested in grimy mafia stories set in the dirty back alleys of London among sailors, laborers, and prostitutes.
The violence described in "The Valley of Fear" is perhaps the darkest and most shocking among all the deaths and crimes in the entire Holmes series. Even today, the scenes of Vermissa Valley assassinations can fit right in with a Martin Scorsese or Park Chan-wook movie. The sense of oppressive terror over the entire town is palpable, better written than that under the Mormon Church in "A Study in Scarlet." It's too bad the overall structure and historical inaccuracy deters people from adapting it to the screen, but there are elements in this novella that can work very well as a genre piece about organized crime or undercover agent (a la "Infernal Affairs").
If the stars had lined up when I was born so that I could have the career of my dreams, I would be a story editor in the movie industry. Seriously. I care about logic and believability in stories. I care about characters making sense and acting like humans. I care about internal consistency. I would catch all kinds of problems at the screenplay stage with just one question: Why would he do that?
Johnnie To's 2012 movie "Drug War", starring Louis Koo and Hong-lei Sun, is a mirror image of another Milkyway movie, "Expect the Unexpected" from 1998. Although To was not credited as the director of that movie, he was heavily involved and was the director in effect (according to To's own claim). In the earlier movie, a group of heavily armed robbers from the Mainland wreaked havoc in Hong Kong, ending in a massive shootout in the street. In the later movie, it is a group of drug dealers from Hong Kong who caused a massive and prolonged shootout with Mainland police. Both shootout scenes are obviously inspired by Michael Mann's "Heat", which was in turn inspired by the real-life bank robbery in Los Angeles.
It is curious that, in both movies, the Mainland characters are wooden automatons, even though they are portrayed as dichotomous bad guys (1998) and good guys (2012), respectively. Although one could argue that he was constrained by the film censorship board in the Mainland, where "Drug War" was made, that the police must be morally unimpeachable, I don't think To and his writers would have been interested in humanizing them at all anyway. Instead, the only somewhat interesting character is the evil Louis Koo, who would do anything to survive. Ultimately, this character does not pass the "Why would he do that?" sniff test, but the underlying theme of surviving at any cost, by hook or by crook, willing to throw anyone under the bus (literally), has its own barely disguised meaning for the Hong Kong film industry as it was slowly absorbed into the Mainland system. One could view this character as an ironic personification of the once-brilliant Hong Kong filmmakers in the post-1997 world.
Nevertheless, the action scene is completely ridiculous! While technically proficient, it is as nonsensical as the stoic Mainland characters. Even though I am all for cynical symbolism, I still need action scenes to be driven by human logic and well made.
