The Stranger

I like to read books and articles Existentialism because it is the branch of philosophy that makes the most sense to me. The idea of man having the rightful power to control the world is one that (for a lack of a better word) empowers me. At the same time though, Existentialism laments the fall of man and the absurdity of our existence, it laments our discarding of the idea of God ("the murderers of murderers" - Nietzsche) which was suppose to give us dignity. Hence the examples of the two world wars were seen to be indicators of the fall of man from a species of dignity (made in the image of God) to barbaric cannibals that feast on the blood of the weaker brother.

The book The Stranger by Albert Camus reflects on the absurdity of our existence and the events that play out in our lives that may imprison or liberate us. The book follows a man that is hermit-like in his existence in that he never leaves his second floor apartment as the first section of the book presents him as a highly critical person that denigrates and insults the "vermin" of people below him. It wasn't until a young lady that he fancies invites him out to the beach that we see the man being truly tossed into the "absurdity" of his existence. Camus gives his readers a series of events that include a random "murder", a conversation with a priest, and a climatic showdown between religion (order) and Existentialism (anarchy/randomness/absurdity) that depict the wavering, but stubborn ground of Existential followers.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the tenants of the modern Western world as Existentialism has permeated into understanding of history, economics, and even religion itself. The Stranger presents itself as a sort of manifesto for anyone interested in Existentialist thought.

Siddhartha

Everyone has a point of awakening and most usually it that moment of enlightenment is brought on by a movie, picture, music piece, talk with a significant other. My moment of awakening came as as result of reading Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha.

I can't help but say that I can still vividly remember my first reading of that book. I remember where I was, what I felt, what I did immediately after reading that scene where Siddhartha too was having his moment of enlightenment in the water.

The symbolism of water - the giver and taker of life, the one stable entity in a changing world - has deeply inspired me in my poetry and musical compositions. Other Hesse works like Demian, which run along the same theme as Siddhartha, have their moments, but nothing can surpass the moment of teenage wonderment that Siddhartha brought for me.

Se7en

I remember seeing this movie on a dark fall night - the lights were turned off, the room was silent, it was me and the couch I was on, and the large TV that was projecting the film. No one else was in the room, heck I even think I was home alone that night.

I was recommended that film by a cinema blog that listed the best movies of the 90's. Se7en was coincidently seventh on their list, as was Shawshank Redeption and The Usual Suspects among others (all of them were also on the coffee table that was between me and the TV that was showing Se7en). I had a field day at the video rental store earlier that day. In hopes in re-educating myself to be a film connoisseur, I mean one has to watch the best to know what good art is, right?

I watched Se7en and was horrified by Kevin Spacey's character, amazed at Fincher's eye for detail in creating the murderer's apartment - mise-en-scene -  (e.g.: the neon cross directly above the single bed, the dirty bathtub that was developing the pictures of the very detectives who were trying to catch him, and terrified by the various depictions of the Seven Deadly Sins (the Lust killing, though never visually shown, is one that I regrettably imagine every time I think of the film).

The film has everything going for it - heady themes (these people were killing themselves and at times harming others, how come its such a big deal that I'm [the murderer] accelerating their deaths?), great acting, and awesome soundtrack made by NIN.

Fincher sometimes gets lampooned because his movies are just so depressing (e.g.: Zodiac, Fight Club, etc.), but this "depressing" ending is absolutely justified as it sets up one of the greatest cinematic twists of that decade - the 6th Sense has nothing on this grand finale in Se7en. After watching The Social Network last night, it cemented within me the greatness of Fincher's directorial films. Like Se7en, Social Network plays into a theme of a person's want to create art and at the same time disregards all matters of civility and law to the point where that creation consumes the creator.

There Will Be Blood

This 2007 film is one that displays itself to be a masterful display of a man's descent into evil. The title of the film by itself beckons a sort of Draconian-Old Testament God reference that when taken by itself, signals madness and destruction.

The story follows Daniel Plainview, an oil-well producer, as he buys land to extract the oil underneath. In a southern Californian town, in which he's trying to purchase land from its inhabitants, him and his son meet the local pastor and that's where the crux of the conflict will develop from.

As the title is a Old Testament reference, the movie is filled with allusions to the Christian faith (e.g.: baptisms, sacrifice, speaking in tongues, blood of Jesus, etc.) that play into the tension between Plainview and the pastor. With the blood in the title as an integral part of the film, the viewers see the competition between the three types of blood (family, oil, Jesus' blood/Christian faith) - in the end only one of the types of blood can win.

It goes without saying that Daniel Day Lewis' performance is nothing short of amazing - his winning of the Best Actor award at that year's Oscars was absolutely justified. His performance is reminiscent of Orson Welles in Citizen Kane as a man that's possessed by a desire and will stop at nothing to achieve that goal, even if that means to disregard one's own family and sanity.

The Fountain

The Fountain (2006), by Darren Aronofsky, ranks as one of my favorite films ever. Not because of its story structure, execution, special effects, hell, not even for its characters, but because the movie was so ambitious in trying to present three interwoven story lines that dealt with a purely human question - in the presence of death, can love and life transcend time?

Although the movie only received a 51% rating from rottentomatoes.com and a 7.6/10 from imdb.com, the film is a deeply personal one that allowed for me to think about these heady concepts - love, life, death, the afterlife, eternity, etc. - in a visually pleasing way.

The constant use of black and white stills (snow on soil, dalmation-like tiling on the floor, white stars in the night sky) and the image of light at the end of dark tunnels speaks to the metaphor of near-death experiences and the processes/feelings that come out of those experiences.

Darren Aronofsky said that the film is more of an experience than a story. I think he's very correct way in stating that because the movie is presented in a non-linear way as the three story lines contain the same people, but differing time periods (love transcending time).

Go see the film. If not for it's mature take on Mayan, Christian, and Eastern afterlife philosophy, then for its amazing visuals. Remember, this is a movie to experience. Take from it what you can from the first watch and later, watch it a second time to grasp more of its heady concepts.

Maurice Ravel's "Daphne et Chloe"

Ravel's composition, "Daphne et Chloe," is one of the most beautiful pieces that I've ever heard.
It's construction is a three scened ballet fit within one act. Although originally it was suppose to be a ballet with a musical score, the music has long outlived the ballet as the piece is usually performed solely as an orchestral score.

The piece's reference to nature, "sunrise," brings a new perspective the sounds of nature that people like Messiaen and Stravinsky did.

check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrOJcEHXYWM for a video of one of the pieces.

Watchmen: Alan Moore and David Gibbons

I have never read any comics until I picked up "Watchmen."

After hearing all the hype - about that graphic was the most important comic of all time, about how the ideas in that book espouse truths and insights in modern western society that before then have not been spoken of - I just had to give it a shot.

Aesthetically, the Watchmen novel is a book within a book, within another book (Watchmen --> Under The Hood --> Tales of the Black Freighter). All this combines into an interweaving story that illustrates the vigilantes of old and new with the Black Freighter serving as an allegory to the bigger Watchmen universe.

A lot can be talked of how Gibbons' artistic renderings of Moore's plot is just as important as the story itself. Gibbons' use of color and shadow to depict the destruction of New York, his imagination that led him to create Dr. Manhattan's creation on the moon show the true marriage of pictures and text. But as time as an issue, I will focus more on the literal themes of Watchmen that Moore espouses.

The story starts off with the death of a once powerful superhero which signals the end of the hero era. This theme is reminiscent of Nietzsche's "Jesus on the Cross" in which the moment of crucifixion starts the rise of post-modernity/nihilism. The death of the superhero in the Watchmen starts off a wave of an anti-superhero sentiment that spreads across America - the rise of post-modernity, the rise of the ego/individual that negates the powers of the almighty, or in the case of the Watchmen, rejects the eyes of the watchers.

Moore's take on the concept of peace is one that can only be brought through a mutual enemy. The novel is set in the Cold War period in which the world is at a stand-off between two nuclear powers that are prepared to play a zero-sum game. To deter those two countries from destroying one another and in result annihilate the world, another superhero creates an enemy that's out of this world in hopes that the two opposing Cold War states would bind together to destroy the alien enemy.

Read the book before you watch the movie. For a genre that's always placated as one that's for kids and teenagers, Watchmen is definitely a graphic novel for adults with its heady themes and gruesome images.