Below all those asterisks down there, I'm going to be spoiler-rich, to the point of ruining the movie for anyone who hasn't yet seen it. So here's my one-sentence, spoiler-free assessment for those who wonder if they should drop $10+ on a ticket: Into Darkness is not without flaws and doesn't quite rise to the level of distilled awesome that the 2009 Reboot accomplished, but its engaging plot, heaps of witty dialogue, lovely special effects, nice helping of memorable moments, and near-perfect characterizations of Kirk and Spock make it a worthy sequel, an excellent addition to the Trek franchise, and a must-see in the theater. Go see this movie. (I will mention here that I saw the movie in 2D and so can't comment on whether the 3D is used to good effect or is worth extra monies. I still can't bring myself to pay extra to watch something in 3D, which I have never liked and which gives me a headache. I know, I know. "It's better now." I just can't.)
Okay. Saying it again. The following is rife with spoilers--it's more of a fan-happy analysis than a traditional "Ought I See This?" review. If you haven't seen Into Darkness yet and have any intention of doing so, go away and come back after you've caught the film. Spoilers start after the starfield. You have been warned.
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I was wary of Into Darkness. I loved the 2009 Reboot. Loved. It. I loved the horrible-wonderful opening sequence which wrecked me thoroughly ten minutes in. I loved the casting. I loved the story. I loved the new-but-the-same, slightly edgy characterizations of my beloved Enterprise crew. I loved the dialogue, I loved the banter, I loved the ridiculous humor. I loved the shiny ship interiors and the brewery-like engineering deck. I even loved the stupid lens flares. From the moment the credits rolled, I wanted more-more-more.
But then I started thinking about more. Could they do this again? How much of what was so awesome about the Reboot was its rebooty-ness, was the fact that we were getting to see these characters afresh for the first time ever, was the fun of seeing the Trek universe re-imagined? Would that translate to a sequel? And what of the rumor that started flying that the villain in the sequel would be Khan? Surely that would wreck it, I thought. You can't retell that story with a young cast. The Wrath of Khan is so much a story of middle-age, of reckoning up with your past decisions, of personal obsessive revenge born of past intimate conflict. You can't do that with a twenty-seven-year-old Kirk.
Well, the villain in Into Darkness is Khan (played to psychotic perfection by CumberKhan Smauglock, I mean, Benedict Cumberbatch, who, as far as I can see, can do no wrong), and it works, mostly. It works because they haven't tried to remake The Wrath of Khan--they've simply snipped out Khan's basic situation (scary-ass superhuman cyrogenically frozen and rocketed into space who is super-pissed at how he and his found-family have been treated) and built a whole new story around it. It only mostly works because the ins-and-outs of the plot's backstory are a little murky, but that is not a problem that stems from the inclusion of Khan himself. I leave final judgement on the plot construction until I've seen the movie at least one more time, but after one viewing I've got some questions.
What, exactly, was Admiral Marcus up to? Was he simply trying to start a war with the Klingons? Why? What have the Klingon's done to anyone? We get a little speech from Marcus about how they've been menacing about, but we haven't actually seen any of that. Wouldn't the Romulans have been a better choice for that, given the events of the Reboot? It would be unfair, since Nero was not acting on behalf of the Romulans and was from the future anyway, but the movie trys to set Marcus up as the dude who over-responds to acts of terroism and loses sight of his own values in the process. Wouldn't that work better if we had direct knowledge of the things he was reacting to? And what part were Khan and company meant to play in his plot against the Klingons? At one point I thought when Kirk shot the torpedoes carrying Khan's people at Kronos Marcus meant for the Khanites to wreck so much havoc on the Klingons that the Klingons would no longer be a threat. But later it appeared that he just meant it to be a provoking act that could not be traced to Starfleet and that would force the Klingons to react, thus sparking the war Marcus wanted while making it look like the Klingons actually started it. This seems the most likely, but I still don't have the grasp on what Marcus wanted and why he wanted it that I think we need for the plot to sit square with the audience. There was very little sense, either, of the rest of Starfleet (and Federation?) leadership dragging its feet about responding to the Klingon threat and of Marcus reacting to that. Surely his little temper tantrum wasn't happening in a political vacuum?
And about that temper tantrum. It takes the form of a massive base on Jupiter where he's building a gigantic, purely militaristic vessel (in violation of Starfleet's stated mission--exploration and peacekeeping). Are we supposed to understand that this is a secret? Or that people know about it but don't know what it really is? I don't buy that you can hide a massive secret base in the Sol System in Trek-universe--there's too much coming and going (and sensors). So, is there wide-spread corruption in Starfleet? If not, how is Marcus accomplishing the building of this base and this ship? Who are all those other people on his ship? Where are the repercussions when Kirk and company get back to Earth? Where are the questions, the inquiries, the paranoia? "Thanks for ferreting out that rogue admiral, his giant secret base, hugenormous warship, and network of lackeys, Jimmy. No wuckies here, so take our flagship and disappear into deep space for five years while we just cross our fingers there aren't more wackadoodles with big ol' ships who might try to start a war." Really? And Kirk just takes his coveted five-year mission and gets the hell out without stopping to try to tie up the Marcus loose ends or sort out if Section 31 is real, what it's about, or if it's a threat? Again, I need to see the movie again--perhaps these things are more clear than they appear on the first viewing, but this is the kind of stuff that makes me say the movie isn't quite as good as the Reboot was, or as good as it could have been.
But, for the most part, I really didn't care that much about those plot wobbles--they certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie as it was unfolding--because it turns out they can do it again. The fun of the Reboot, the witty dialogue, the humor, and the spot-on characterizations--it's all here again in Into Darkness and is every bit as good. I will quibble that Bones was muttering around the edges of Kirk and Spock's tight-knit command structure and friendship a bit more than he ought to be, but the character arcs here were all Kirk-and-Spock, so I'll be forgiving on that one, especially since Bones did have some great lines despite not being as much a part of the classic triumvirate dynamic as he was in The Original Series. I'll further quibble that some characters (Uhura, Chekov) were given things to do for the sake of setting up humorous situations or moments of character interactions rather than because there was any internal logic suggesting they ought to take on those roles. (The Chief Engineer quits so you put your teenaged navigator into his role? What, there aren't, like, forty guys down in engineering who have seniority, higher rank, and more experience than Chekov, even if he is a genius and has been shadowing Scotty? Come on.) While these moments did kind of irritate me in the moment, they also didn't really detract from my overall enjoyment of the film. When you get the humor, the banter, and the characters as right as they did, I'm willing to forgive a lot of these kinds of little infelicities.
And now for the bit that made the movie for me: Kirk and Spock and their friendship. J.J. Abrams et al. get Spock and they get Kirk-and-Spock. Spock's story is about his struggle to be true to both his Vulcan and his Human sides, and that struggle almost always plays out in his interactions with his friends. How do you be a friend to a human, for whom friendship inherently entails emotional availability, while remaining true to unemotional Vulcan ways? If you are not just one or the other but both is it right to allow one half to take over? Or is the denial of the other half an unhealthy betrayal of who you really are? The exploration of this struggle in TOS was always about Spock's relationship with Kirk (though other characters--Bones, for one--played a large part in it as well), and I love (love) how they have made this struggle part of the story arc for Into Darkness and kept it about Kirk and Spock even while keeping Uhura in the mix as Spock's girlfriend. Spock's failure truly to understand why Kirk saved his life at the volcano even though it violated their most important rule, his failure to understand why it's important to feel even negative emotions, and his subsequent epiphany about friendship and what it means were brilliantly portrayed and are classic, classic Trek themes. All the points ever for making this emotional discovery a major part of the story arc for Into Darkness and all the more points for the astonishing, surprising, brilliant, magnificent reversal of the unforgettable, quintessential Wrath of Khan scene where Spock declares his friendship for Kirk in his last moments after sacrificing himself to save the ship. All my hats off to everyone involved in the crafting of this movie for figuring out not only how to get an homage to this moment that everybody knows into this movie but also how to make it a the-same-but-different emotional climax of this movie on its own terms. Spock admitting that he's completely failing to keep himself from feeling as Jim dies? I can't even. Just. *flails* (As an aside here: it's very interesting to me that Spock gets to this moment so much earlier in this rebooted universe than he did in the original universe. Remember all the times Spock wasn't as good a friend as he should have been in TOS? ("The City on the Edge of Forever," anyone?) Or kind of stumbled around trying something that maybe wasn't the best move? ("Requiem for Methuselah" comes to mind.) What is it going to mean for Spock that he's had this moment so much earlier and as an epiphany rather than through a slow realization over many years? Will he be happier? Will he never get to a point where he wants to try Kohlinar? Will he springboard off this moment into a relationship with Uhura that really, really works? Will they have a passel of little Spuhuras? Is Kirk going to have a little David with Carol Marcus and name Spock godfather? Oh, the possibilites are endless. More films, please. Or a TV show with this cast? A girl can dream.)
In addition to loving the hell out of the character development there, Into Darkness gets bonus points from me for three reasons. First, letting Uhura be badass. She's still not as badass as the dudes running around the Enterprise (she's not jumping into volcanoes or sacrificing herself for the ship), but she stands up for herself, calls Kirk out for underutilizing her skills as an officer, and faces down a band of angry Klingons on her onesies--and she can do all this because she's smart and capable, not because she's pretty or because she's in a relationship with the first officer or because she's friends with the captain. Smart and capable. And as much as I can't get fully behind sending her down into the fray when Spock was fighting Khan (because tactically she is not the best choice), it's still another chance to see her take on a traditionally male action (unflinching, repeated violence in a military setting) without any quibbling about whether she can do it. And that is cool. Second, showing us men who embody traditional maleness (they are protective, aggressive, good leaders, skilled fighters, and demonstrate (apparent) sexual prowess) and who also weep unabashedly, unashamedly, and without comment. The scene where Pike died was especially brilliant--Kirk doesn't just grit his teeth, clench his fists, and go off hell-bent on revenge. He weeps. And it is not a failing, not a moment where he just couldn't keep it together, not an excusable lapse because the cause was sufficient. It's just a natural reaction to his loss. More of this kind of portrayal of masculinity, please. Thank you. Third, for being an action movie whose kickass action hero (Spock) is played by an openly gay actor. We need to see this just as we need to see openly gay male athletes in major sports. Slowly, slowly, we may be inching toward the vision of inclusion, equality, and respect Roddenberry tried to show us. Carry on, Trek. Carry on.
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Friday, March 9, 2012
Why I Can't Watch Horror Movies
Recently M and I tried to watch The League of Gentlemen. I say we "tried" to watch it not because it isn't good but rather because it does what it does so well that M and I are so discomfited by its blend of comedy, tragedy, and horror that we can hardly stand to watch. At the end of episode two, M picked up the remote and said, "Well? Carry on? Or no?"
"Uuuhh," I said, the very picture of eloquence. "It's like I want to know, but I don't want to see."
That is how I often feel about horror, or at least about horror that professes to have something to it other than being just a fright-fest or a bloodbath. Things like Psycho and The Shining hold a certain fascination for me, though I will not watch them, while the Saw films, for instance, do not interest me in the slightest. About Psycho, I think maybe I would like to know, provided I do not have to see. I do not even want to know when it comes to Saw.
Because, you see, I am missing whatever gene or synaptic pathway or cultural proclivity it is that makes so many people like horror movies. I have heard the theories: that they release tensions. That they allow us to experience fears safely. Sounds good, I guess. I can buy that this is true for some people. I can even understand a certain amount of gleeful delight in the gruesome. But here's the thing: I don't like to be scared. I don't like anticipating being scared. I don't like the moment the scare happens. And I really don't like trying to fall asleep the night after the scare when I can't get the scary image out of my head. Horror movies don't release any tension for me; they create new tensions, tensions that pop into my mind unlooked for in the night, days, weeks, sometimes years, later. A friend and I mainlined the first season of Supernatural on DVD a few years ago. I was wary of the effect all those ghosts and monsters and demons would have on me, but there was so much good stuff going on there aside from the horror and I wanted to know. I should have known better. I still have nightmares.
Part of the problem is that I respond to the wrong bits. Or that I respond to the right bits wrongly. An early scene in The League of Gentlemen sees a young hiker wander into a shop in the village of Royston Vasey and there be accosted by the shop owners' xenophobia and general creepy wackiness. And the scene is hilarious. (Two catch phrases stemming from this scene--"Are you local?" and "Don't touch the precious things!"--have become part of our household lexicon, despite our giving up on the show.) But the scene ends ominously, and we discover later that the shop owners have killed the hiker and burned his body. (My brain insists that they've also eaten him, but I don't think there's actually anything in the episode to suggest this). Aside from being fairly well creeped out by this revelation (I think that was probably intended), I'm also let down that a character who was introduced early and seemed important has been dispensed with so summarily. I was settling in with him, dammit! I was preparing to get to know him, and now he's just gone. This sort of reaction I am not at all sure was intended. And it is this desire to see the show do things I do not think the show has any interest in doing that disinclines me toward watching it, more than the creepiness. I am uneasy that I will become invested in characters who will never see resolution, that I will see things that require a catharsis that the show will never offer. This is almost certainly an unfair judgement of a show of which I have seen only two episodes, but the fear of these outcomes is enough to make me wary of watching any more.
"Uuuhh," I said, the very picture of eloquence. "It's like I want to know, but I don't want to see."
That is how I often feel about horror, or at least about horror that professes to have something to it other than being just a fright-fest or a bloodbath. Things like Psycho and The Shining hold a certain fascination for me, though I will not watch them, while the Saw films, for instance, do not interest me in the slightest. About Psycho, I think maybe I would like to know, provided I do not have to see. I do not even want to know when it comes to Saw.
Because, you see, I am missing whatever gene or synaptic pathway or cultural proclivity it is that makes so many people like horror movies. I have heard the theories: that they release tensions. That they allow us to experience fears safely. Sounds good, I guess. I can buy that this is true for some people. I can even understand a certain amount of gleeful delight in the gruesome. But here's the thing: I don't like to be scared. I don't like anticipating being scared. I don't like the moment the scare happens. And I really don't like trying to fall asleep the night after the scare when I can't get the scary image out of my head. Horror movies don't release any tension for me; they create new tensions, tensions that pop into my mind unlooked for in the night, days, weeks, sometimes years, later. A friend and I mainlined the first season of Supernatural on DVD a few years ago. I was wary of the effect all those ghosts and monsters and demons would have on me, but there was so much good stuff going on there aside from the horror and I wanted to know. I should have known better. I still have nightmares.
Part of the problem is that I respond to the wrong bits. Or that I respond to the right bits wrongly. An early scene in The League of Gentlemen sees a young hiker wander into a shop in the village of Royston Vasey and there be accosted by the shop owners' xenophobia and general creepy wackiness. And the scene is hilarious. (Two catch phrases stemming from this scene--"Are you local?" and "Don't touch the precious things!"--have become part of our household lexicon, despite our giving up on the show.) But the scene ends ominously, and we discover later that the shop owners have killed the hiker and burned his body. (My brain insists that they've also eaten him, but I don't think there's actually anything in the episode to suggest this). Aside from being fairly well creeped out by this revelation (I think that was probably intended), I'm also let down that a character who was introduced early and seemed important has been dispensed with so summarily. I was settling in with him, dammit! I was preparing to get to know him, and now he's just gone. This sort of reaction I am not at all sure was intended. And it is this desire to see the show do things I do not think the show has any interest in doing that disinclines me toward watching it, more than the creepiness. I am uneasy that I will become invested in characters who will never see resolution, that I will see things that require a catharsis that the show will never offer. This is almost certainly an unfair judgement of a show of which I have seen only two episodes, but the fear of these outcomes is enough to make me wary of watching any more.
Something we have been successfully watching is Northern Exposure, which the Netflix sleeve for The League of Gentlemen (un)helpfully compares to LoG. (Who writes those Netflix sleeves anyway? They seem always to be comically wrong or hopelessly inane.) If I squint, I can see a vague kinship between the two (both involve an isolated town with zany local residents who have unusual attitudes toward the macabre, and both are comedic), but their tones are so resoundingly different. While watching The League of Gentlemen, I began to feel like I could lose my grip on reality at any moment, and that if I did, I would find myself in a dark chaos, perhaps in the company of an evil clown. Northern Exposure often provides the same sense of reality coming unglued, but with NE I feel that if I were to let it, what I would find would be enlightenment, or perhaps the face of God.
I suppose the bottom line is that if I'm going to be led into darkness, I want to be able to trust that I'm going to be led out again. And because so much of the method of horror involves violating trust (a horror film is always trying to "get ya," by making you jump, by making you scream, by grossing you out), I just can't find a way to enjoy movies which employ it. But I can't help feeling, sometimes, that I'm missing out on some really cool things because of it.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Three Books
The 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells's The Time Machine captivated me pretty thoroughly when I was a kid. I can't remember now how old I was when I first saw it, but I'd guess it was after I first got heavily into Star Trek (around eleven) but before I discovered Robert Heinlein (about fifteen). Everything about the movie--its determinedly Victorian setting, its dashing but quiet hero, its crazy but elegant design for the time machine, the perfectly coifed hair of the Eloi--fascinated me. Much of the television and film I watched as a child inspired me to dream about entering the worlds portrayed--to serve on the Enterprise, to hitch a ride on the Millennium Falcon, to play tricks on unsuspecting adults with an identical twin, to escape a cruel orphanage and wander the streets of London--these were all fantasies I had, games I played in my childhood. But The Time Machine inspired no such games. I was content simply to observe. Except in one moment, except during one line: "Only, which three books would you have taken?"
The Time Traveler, called "George" in the film, has returned from the future, moved his time machine to a location which will be more favorable in the future, and left again. George's friend David, finally believing George's story of time travel, puzzles over what he may have taken back to the future with him. The housekeeper declares that nothing is missing . . . "except three books!" She can't name which ones (she must have been a singularly incurious creature not to have noticed over years of dusting those shelves which three books ought to have been in those gaps), and David says it doesn't really matter what they were. But, he asks her, a twinkle in his Victorian eye, "which three books would you have taken?”
Which three books, indeed. David's line is both an answer and a question. It's an answer to "What does one use to (re)build a civilization?" Books! Of course. But assuming your time machine isn't big enough to pack along the contents of the British Library, you're going to have to choose. I've thought about this line often since I first saw the movie, and it became one of those family quotables:
Mom: Don't forget to pack something to read for the trip!
Sprout: (with Victorian twinkle) Ah, but which three books?
I never wanted to hop in the time machine with George. The Eloi were stupid, and George seemed taken with Weena (for reasons which escape me, despite her perfectly coiffed hair), which would have frustrated my little adolescent heart. Besides which, everybody knows that if you get your paws on a time machine, you go back, not forward. Silly George. But that question pulled me in, made me want to participate. It seemed like a challenge, somehow: Okay, Little Miss Likes-to-Read. Which three books would you take. Hmm? Sometimes I was content just to hold the question in my mind, other times I liked to outline the ways you might deduce what George himself had taken. But I rarely got down to answering the question, as put to me.
I often distract myself from the question of what I would take by playing with that puzzle of what George did take. Impossible to know, really, though there are some clues (albeit not super helpful ones). The gaps on George's shelf limit the size of the books. (They limit it fairly ridiculously, actually. Any three books that slotted into those gaps could hardly have been more than pamphlets.) There's also the consideration that George's three books were next to one another on the shelf. (A cinematic shorthand, this, probably, but still, there it is.) How does a turn-of-the century quiet, but heroic, English gentleman arrange his books, anyway? By subject? Author? Chronologically? Some combination of these? And how lucky for him that the three books happened to rest (nearly) side-by-side within his system, and on a shelf so conveniently at eye level. Fabulous forward thinking, George.
Then, of course, there's limiting one's choices to what had been published and made available to quiet, heroic, English George in January of 1900. Sadly, The Lord of the Rings is right out. And what did George read? And not just read, but purchase for his very own? Science, surely. And him being educated and gentlemanly and English and turn-of-the-century-y, probably literature and history and maths. Probably well-read, our George.
But all this "what would George take?" avoids the stinker, the put-it-on-the-liner: Which three books would you take? Putting aside the flummery of concentrating too hard on the trivial particulars of George's choice (next to each other on the shelves, size of the gap, and so on), there are a few questions I think one must ask oneself if one is really to try to answer David's twinkly question. First, who are the books for? You (shall we upgrade you to "The Time Traveler? Let's shall.), or the Eloi? If for the Eloi, The Time Traveler (Trav, for short) is probably looking for some basic primary instruction books. "See Jane Run" and "Math Made Easy," that sort of thing. The Eloi have a long way to go, and while it might be tempting to hand them Two Treatises of Government and pray, they surely aren't ready for the deep end just yet. (We'll ignore, shall we, as the film does, the astronomical odds against Trav and the Eloi speaking, after the passage of 800,801 years, a mutually comprehensible language.)
Or are the books for Trav? I think the books are for Trav. If it were me (and that's the point of this exercise, non?), and I'm limited to three books (which, Trav oughtn't be. Shouldn't Trav be able to make infinite trips back in time and ferry forward all the books he'd like? Or stop somewhere in the future and benefit from books with a greater accumulation of knowledge behind them? But the film seems to assume "no," so we'll keep the limit: three.), I wouldn't waste my space on books whose usefulness is short-lived. What would Trav do when the Eloi graduate first grade? No, I'd take books for me and rely on being able to teach the Eloi the basics without the help of primers. So, the books are for Trav.
Are they books to entertain and sustain Trav amongst the bovine Eloi he hopes to reanimate and educate? Or are they books Trav hopes will help him build a civilization? It's tempting to say that survival is what's important here; don't waste space on books that don't focus on the practical. But can Trav really leave the accumulation of centuries of art and literature behind? And what of the Eloi's spirit? If Trav can teach them to feed and clothe and govern themselves, but they learn nothing of love and kindness and treachery and courage and pain and compassion, has he really saved them? No, I think it has to be a combination of both--the practical and the artful. Trav must not only teach the Eloi how to sustain life, but also how to live.
What Trav needs to know to help the Eloi build a civilization can be divided into four categories, I think: agriculture, medicine, government, and art. The Eloi have been provided for by the Morlocks for so long that they have lost all knowledge of how to care for themselves. They must learn to find or produce their own food and clothing. The Eloi had become apathetic under Morlock-rule and wouldn't have cared about treating the sick or caring for the injured. But Trav has reawakened the glimmerings of compassion in them, and they may now want to help each other overcome pain and illness and injury (and childbirth--oh, Trav. Have fun.) With their spirits awakened and their oppressors vanquished, they will have to learn to keep peace and make decisions among themselves. And their minds and hearts must be cultivated if the effort put into all the rest is to be worth anything.
Four categories, only three books. Trav might want to leave behind any representation of art on the strength of the argument that as the Eloi develop their own civilization, they will develop their own art. After all, civilizations before them did. This is probably true, and will almost certainly happen regardless of Trav's bringing them some representation of art from the past. (In fact, if the Eloi don't develop their own art, Trav has probably failed.) But if Trav were interested in letting the Eloi develop on their own, with no connection to any culture of the past, he might as well stay at home in 1900 and carry on tinkering in his laboratory. The premise defeats the argument. And even if the Eloi can get along without some art, Trav probably can't.
Unless Trav is a master farmer and a medical professional, he probably needs a book each on agriculture and medicine. Even if he has expertise in one of these fields, they seem too important to go galivanting hundreds of thousands of years into the future a-civilizing without some reference books. That leaves government to leave behind. Assuming Trav is not an absolute dolt, he ought to be able to help the Eloi set up and understand some basic governing principles on his own: Decide on the rules. Decide how to and who does enforce the rules. Decide how to decide who decides on the rules and how to enforce them. Any kid who ever had a tree-house could do it. (It's not as if the Eloi have the population, weaponry, or know-how to destroy themselves and everything around them if they mess it up. Yet.) And if things get too out of hand, Trav can always name himself Interim Grande Poobah of the Rules I Just Made Up until he thinks the Eloi have matured enough to handle it on their own. (You sure you wouldn't rather stay home with a cozy fire and a cuppa, Trav?)
Trav's three books, therefore, are a book on agriculture, a book on medicine, and a book of art. But, still, which three books? I won't limit myself to books available to George in 1900, as doing so wouldn't get at the question of what I would take (and I think it likely that 1900 would have offered up similar books to George). My three books would be (drum-roll?) The Riverside Shakespeare, The AMA Family Medical Guide, and The Homesteading Handbook. If I can take only one book to represent art, a Shakespeare collection seems a good bet--perhaps it doesn't have everything, but it's got damn near. Tragedy, comedy, drama, poetry, betrayal, love, loss, horror, elation. Bonus: it's good to read aloud. You can't, simply cannot, pick one book that makes up for leaving all the others behind, but the oeuvre of Billy Shakes is about as good a salve for that wound as there is. The Family Medical Guide and The Homesteading Handbook, taken together, will offer some practical advice on small-scale farming; child-birth; herbal medicine; emergency first aid for bleeding, broken bones, fever. They will also provide a lot of information that will be useless in a place with no electricity, hospitals, or modern equipment, but that's a-civilizing for ya. The movie's end makes George's springing off to save humanity from its apathetic self a heroic gesture, one which looks pretty in a Victorian sitting room as night and snow begin to fall. But bringing up the Eloi will be a back-breaking, desperate, wrenching task, full of screams and dirt and death and blood, but these books might, might, help Trav avoid a few tragic mistakes.
My real answer to "which three books?" is probably "None." If I'm honest, I probably wouldn't go back to help the Eloi. That's why The Time Machine didn't much inspire childish games for me, why I never got around to really answering the question. Because answering "which three books?" feels a lot less twinkly than asking it. It's a philosophical question, and the only possible answer is desperately practical. George wasn't going on an adventure. He was going to try to snatch humanity from the clutches of a doom of its own making. Bless you, George, for trying. David knew. He knew what George was in for, knew how unlikely he was to succeed (despite his twinkling). Which three books will save us? That's what he was asking. Only, which three books?
*Pictures credits:
(uncredited photos are my own)
Film Excerpt
The Time Traveler
Weena
Portrait of a Lady
"Only, which three books would you have taken?"
The Time Traveler, called "George" in the film, has returned from the future, moved his time machine to a location which will be more favorable in the future, and left again. George's friend David, finally believing George's story of time travel, puzzles over what he may have taken back to the future with him. The housekeeper declares that nothing is missing . . . "except three books!" She can't name which ones (she must have been a singularly incurious creature not to have noticed over years of dusting those shelves which three books ought to have been in those gaps), and David says it doesn't really matter what they were. But, he asks her, a twinkle in his Victorian eye, "which three books would you have taken?”
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Which three books, indeed. David's line is both an answer and a question. It's an answer to "What does one use to (re)build a civilization?" Books! Of course. But assuming your time machine isn't big enough to pack along the contents of the British Library, you're going to have to choose. I've thought about this line often since I first saw the movie, and it became one of those family quotables:
Mom: Don't forget to pack something to read for the trip!
Sprout: (with Victorian twinkle) Ah, but which three books?
I never wanted to hop in the time machine with George. The Eloi were stupid, and George seemed taken with Weena (for reasons which escape me, despite her perfectly coiffed hair), which would have frustrated my little adolescent heart. Besides which, everybody knows that if you get your paws on a time machine, you go back, not forward. Silly George. But that question pulled me in, made me want to participate. It seemed like a challenge, somehow: Okay, Little Miss Likes-to-Read. Which three books would you take. Hmm? Sometimes I was content just to hold the question in my mind, other times I liked to outline the ways you might deduce what George himself had taken. But I rarely got down to answering the question, as put to me.
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| Perfectly coiffed. |
I often distract myself from the question of what I would take by playing with that puzzle of what George did take. Impossible to know, really, though there are some clues (albeit not super helpful ones). The gaps on George's shelf limit the size of the books. (They limit it fairly ridiculously, actually. Any three books that slotted into those gaps could hardly have been more than pamphlets.) There's also the consideration that George's three books were next to one another on the shelf. (A cinematic shorthand, this, probably, but still, there it is.) How does a turn-of-the century quiet, but heroic, English gentleman arrange his books, anyway? By subject? Author? Chronologically? Some combination of these? And how lucky for him that the three books happened to rest (nearly) side-by-side within his system, and on a shelf so conveniently at eye level. Fabulous forward thinking, George.
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| Three books, next to one another, at eye level, from my shelves. Probably not George's books. |
Then, of course, there's limiting one's choices to what had been published and made available to quiet, heroic, English George in January of 1900. Sadly, The Lord of the Rings is right out. And what did George read? And not just read, but purchase for his very own? Science, surely. And him being educated and gentlemanly and English and turn-of-the-century-y, probably literature and history and maths. Probably well-read, our George.
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| A possiblity. Poor Eloi. |
But all this "what would George take?" avoids the stinker, the put-it-on-the-liner: Which three books would you take? Putting aside the flummery of concentrating too hard on the trivial particulars of George's choice (next to each other on the shelves, size of the gap, and so on), there are a few questions I think one must ask oneself if one is really to try to answer David's twinkly question. First, who are the books for? You (shall we upgrade you to "The Time Traveler? Let's shall.), or the Eloi? If for the Eloi, The Time Traveler (Trav, for short) is probably looking for some basic primary instruction books. "See Jane Run" and "Math Made Easy," that sort of thing. The Eloi have a long way to go, and while it might be tempting to hand them Two Treatises of Government and pray, they surely aren't ready for the deep end just yet. (We'll ignore, shall we, as the film does, the astronomical odds against Trav and the Eloi speaking, after the passage of 800,801 years, a mutually comprehensible language.)
Or are the books for Trav? I think the books are for Trav. If it were me (and that's the point of this exercise, non?), and I'm limited to three books (which, Trav oughtn't be. Shouldn't Trav be able to make infinite trips back in time and ferry forward all the books he'd like? Or stop somewhere in the future and benefit from books with a greater accumulation of knowledge behind them? But the film seems to assume "no," so we'll keep the limit: three.), I wouldn't waste my space on books whose usefulness is short-lived. What would Trav do when the Eloi graduate first grade? No, I'd take books for me and rely on being able to teach the Eloi the basics without the help of primers. So, the books are for Trav.
Are they books to entertain and sustain Trav amongst the bovine Eloi he hopes to reanimate and educate? Or are they books Trav hopes will help him build a civilization? It's tempting to say that survival is what's important here; don't waste space on books that don't focus on the practical. But can Trav really leave the accumulation of centuries of art and literature behind? And what of the Eloi's spirit? If Trav can teach them to feed and clothe and govern themselves, but they learn nothing of love and kindness and treachery and courage and pain and compassion, has he really saved them? No, I think it has to be a combination of both--the practical and the artful. Trav must not only teach the Eloi how to sustain life, but also how to live.
What Trav needs to know to help the Eloi build a civilization can be divided into four categories, I think: agriculture, medicine, government, and art. The Eloi have been provided for by the Morlocks for so long that they have lost all knowledge of how to care for themselves. They must learn to find or produce their own food and clothing. The Eloi had become apathetic under Morlock-rule and wouldn't have cared about treating the sick or caring for the injured. But Trav has reawakened the glimmerings of compassion in them, and they may now want to help each other overcome pain and illness and injury (and childbirth--oh, Trav. Have fun.) With their spirits awakened and their oppressors vanquished, they will have to learn to keep peace and make decisions among themselves. And their minds and hearts must be cultivated if the effort put into all the rest is to be worth anything.
Four categories, only three books. Trav might want to leave behind any representation of art on the strength of the argument that as the Eloi develop their own civilization, they will develop their own art. After all, civilizations before them did. This is probably true, and will almost certainly happen regardless of Trav's bringing them some representation of art from the past. (In fact, if the Eloi don't develop their own art, Trav has probably failed.) But if Trav were interested in letting the Eloi develop on their own, with no connection to any culture of the past, he might as well stay at home in 1900 and carry on tinkering in his laboratory. The premise defeats the argument. And even if the Eloi can get along without some art, Trav probably can't.
Unless Trav is a master farmer and a medical professional, he probably needs a book each on agriculture and medicine. Even if he has expertise in one of these fields, they seem too important to go galivanting hundreds of thousands of years into the future a-civilizing without some reference books. That leaves government to leave behind. Assuming Trav is not an absolute dolt, he ought to be able to help the Eloi set up and understand some basic governing principles on his own: Decide on the rules. Decide how to and who does enforce the rules. Decide how to decide who decides on the rules and how to enforce them. Any kid who ever had a tree-house could do it. (It's not as if the Eloi have the population, weaponry, or know-how to destroy themselves and everything around them if they mess it up. Yet.) And if things get too out of hand, Trav can always name himself Interim Grande Poobah of the Rules I Just Made Up until he thinks the Eloi have matured enough to handle it on their own. (You sure you wouldn't rather stay home with a cozy fire and a cuppa, Trav?)
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| A cozy cuppa. |
Trav's three books, therefore, are a book on agriculture, a book on medicine, and a book of art. But, still, which three books? I won't limit myself to books available to George in 1900, as doing so wouldn't get at the question of what I would take (and I think it likely that 1900 would have offered up similar books to George). My three books would be (drum-roll?) The Riverside Shakespeare, The AMA Family Medical Guide, and The Homesteading Handbook. If I can take only one book to represent art, a Shakespeare collection seems a good bet--perhaps it doesn't have everything, but it's got damn near. Tragedy, comedy, drama, poetry, betrayal, love, loss, horror, elation. Bonus: it's good to read aloud. You can't, simply cannot, pick one book that makes up for leaving all the others behind, but the oeuvre of Billy Shakes is about as good a salve for that wound as there is. The Family Medical Guide and The Homesteading Handbook, taken together, will offer some practical advice on small-scale farming; child-birth; herbal medicine; emergency first aid for bleeding, broken bones, fever. They will also provide a lot of information that will be useless in a place with no electricity, hospitals, or modern equipment, but that's a-civilizing for ya. The movie's end makes George's springing off to save humanity from its apathetic self a heroic gesture, one which looks pretty in a Victorian sitting room as night and snow begin to fall. But bringing up the Eloi will be a back-breaking, desperate, wrenching task, full of screams and dirt and death and blood, but these books might, might, help Trav avoid a few tragic mistakes.
My real answer to "which three books?" is probably "None." If I'm honest, I probably wouldn't go back to help the Eloi. That's why The Time Machine didn't much inspire childish games for me, why I never got around to really answering the question. Because answering "which three books?" feels a lot less twinkly than asking it. It's a philosophical question, and the only possible answer is desperately practical. George wasn't going on an adventure. He was going to try to snatch humanity from the clutches of a doom of its own making. Bless you, George, for trying. David knew. He knew what George was in for, knew how unlikely he was to succeed (despite his twinkling). Which three books will save us? That's what he was asking. Only, which three books?
*Pictures credits:
(uncredited photos are my own)
Film Excerpt
The Time Traveler
Weena
Portrait of a Lady
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