Downbeat Mamet

A few days ago I wrote about the possibility of listing the movies I watch. I'm not sure that my enthusiasm at that point has continued. I may just carry on writing up movies in my journal and on here, in the blog. At least then those that hit the spot in either a negative or positive fashion will get remembered a bit better.

I watched House of Games last night. It turned up on Maori TV, which was a bit odd, although they do have a reputation for showing offbeat movies - more often foreign than English. My feeling about House of Games, which dates back to 1987 and was written and directed by David Mamet, is that this is a movie best-forgotten. Roger Ebert, who can be relied upon in general to come up with good commonsense and taste in regard to movies praises it highly. In fact there are two reviews of it by him online. He revisited it in 1999, and saw it as one of the great movies.

Um. I have to say, Mr Ebert, that in this case I'm puzzled. It's a typical Mamet movie; amoral characters, lots of nifty dialogue and a storyline that has potential. However, Mamet's direction is very stagey, the actors are often placed is quite unrealistic poses, and the star of the piece, Lindsay Crouse, exhibits almost no expression from beginning to end. Well, not quite. She smiles once, in one of the last scenes, because she's got away with murder, literally, and now also has the idea that stealing from other people is some kind of triumph. She's supposed to be a psychiatrist, but doesn't appear to have much idea what that job is actually about. And apart from the last-minute smile, Crouse goes through the role as though she's dead behind the eyes. Perhaps this was intentional. Maybe Mamet asked her to be like that.

The men in the cast are all good, particularly Joe Mantegna, and play their confidence trickster roles with ease and subtlety. Which makes it all the more odd that Crouse is so deadpan. If the story is meant to be about a woman who's really venal underneath but has been hiding it, then it makes little sense in terms of the role she plays early in the piece. If she thinks that being a confidence trickster is an acceptable job, even though she's reminded on a number of occasions that it's a criminal's job, she pays not attention. In the end you don't have much idea what goes on in her head. With the result that the scene where she murders the main male character makes little sense. Yes, she's been conned by him, but she knew who these guys were, and allowed herself to be taken in. She's no dupe, after all, and stands up to people without difficulty, most of the time, including a young patient threatening to kill himself with a gun, in her office.

Mamet seems to delight in unpleasant characters, ones we find it hard to sympathise with. (I had to switch off Glengarry Glen Ross because the Alec Baldwin character was so foul-mouthed and bullying, and because the world the salesmen inhabited was so utterly bleak.) It's as if his view of the world is focused so much on the dark side of things that he can't see the light. Incidentally, in spite of the black and white, film noir look of the poster, the film is in colour, though many scenes take place at night, with gloomy interiors. Crouse wears some of the most awful 80s costumes I've seen in a while, and her hairstyle is more masculine, somehow, than feminine. Maybe this also was intentional.

The Goodbye Chair

I've recently been sent a copy of Jo Carson-Barr's book for preschoolers, The Goodbye Chair. It's about Nicholas, who on one hand is excited that he's going back to see his preschool friends after a two-week break, but on the other is sad that his grandmother, who's been staying with the family, is going back home.

The story includes a kind of counting game, as well as couple of surprises on Nicholas' part at the end, when he shows his grandmother than he can count in Maori, and also use a little sign-language. (His Nannie has some deaf friends.) At the back of the book we're reminded that New Zealand has three official languages, English, Maori, and the New Zealand form of Sign Language.

Not to quibble about Carson-Barr's book, but apparently English has never been designated an official language here; it's a de facto official language. In spite of that many Government documents state that English is an official language. Curious!

I enjoyed the story. It's one most parents would be able to read to their children over and over (always an essential element in a children's book for me). But what adds hugely to the book are the attractive and fun illustrations by Carson-Barr's son, Simon Barr. At first reading they give an idea of the characters and their surroundings, but as you look at the pictures more closely you see there are a number of humorous additions to the story, imaginative things that Nicholas might be thinking (such as the flood caused by his Nannie's tears with its accompanying sea creatures), domestic details, and even some in-jokes that parents will appreciate, such as the train with the author's name written on it. This not only appears on the cover, but also inside the book, where the 'smoke' consists of cinema tickets.

Altogether an attractive book which should go down well with children and parents alike.

Das Boot

We caught up with the 1981 movie, Das Boot (The Boat) last night, on Maori Television - the channel that actually shows good movies, and not just re-run 'blockbuster premieres.' When I say we caught up with it, we actually missed the first twenty minutes or half an hour; I don't know exactly how long it was. But that didn't cause too much problem in following who was who and how it all fitted together. It probably would have helped to know a bit more about the characters, but ce la vie. 

This was one of Wolfgang Petersen's big hits: even though it was German-made, and shown with subtitles, it was seen worldwide. After The Neverending Story, and a TV series based on Das Boot, he went onto work in Hollywood, producing In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm and other well-known titles.

Das Boot has a somewhat meandering storyline, and a host of characters, and yet is full of tension. The big set pieces are very well done: the torpedoing of a group of freighters and being chased by a destroyer; the unexpected dive to the bottom of the sea in the Gibraltar Strait; the ending which pulls the rug from underneath our expectations. But in the midst of all these is the quiet interplay between the Captain and the various officers and sailors, the warmth and humour, the generosity and courage, the creative thinking, the strength of working together for a common cause.

It's hard to think how men in one of these U-boats could have survived the continual stress of months at sea - when two of them are due to be off-loaded for leave, the leave is abruptly cancelled. One character, Johann, who's seen nine voyages on the submarine, has a mental breakdown during one of the crises; it's surprising more of the men don't go off the deep end. The confined space is brilliantly captured: there's hardly room to turn around in some of the areas, and the ordinary sailors live and sleep in a narrow bunk room with hardly space enough for them to sit down. In a couple of scenes they're all seen lying asleep, exhausted, on the floor, curled and entwined around each other, none of them able to sleep with their legs out straight. Several times absolute quiet is required: only the Captain can see through the periscope, and even that view is limited; the rest have to wait and listen, unsure of what's going on outside their metal walls.

The cast is uniformly good, though thirty years down the track one or two of the performances seem a little too large for the cinema (maybe more so for the TV screen). And the detail in the direction is superb, quite apart from the hugely exciting moments when the camera races through the sub following one or other character desperate to fix yet another part of the sub that's come apart.

Reading the information on the Wikipedia page for the movie is very informative. Apparently the TV series used additional material that had been cut from the movie. The original release came in at 150 minutes, but the much later director's cut is another half hour longer. There are fascinating details about what the actors endured during the course of making the movie, and the way models and various versions of the sub were used (at one time the mock-up of the sub disappeared overnight; Spielberg had been given permission to use it for Raiders of the Lost Ark). It's also interesting to read that the scene in which one of the characters calls out 'Man overboard!' was unscripted: the actor who went 'overboard' had actually fallen, and broken ribs. He was also concussed, and had to be brought from hospital for some of his later scenes. There's a great deal more, for those interested.

Mr Frosty and BMX Kid

This three-minute film is well-known by now, but bears repeated viewings....best to watch it on You Tube itself for the original formatting.

It's delightful to see the combination of veteran actor, Bruce Allpress (born 1930) and James Rolleston (from Boy), plus the wondrous New Zealand scenery.   Plus a Mr Whippy (or Mr Frosty as its known in this movie), a great icecream, and 'bombs'.

Blame

Yesterday, a person I follow on Twitter drew my attention to an article by Paul Holmes that appeared in the NZ Herald on Saturday.   Holmes is ranting on about Waitangi Day and calling it repugnant and a waste of time - amongst other things.

The tweeter was appalled at Holmes' gall, and had to read the article 'three times' because he was so full of disbelief that anyone could write anything so 'racist.'    Certainly Holmes uses plenty of strong and emotive language, but I suspect he's saying what a lot of people actually think.   And are maybe too scared to say because of an invariable backlash.

I had a bit of a debate about the subject with this tweeter, and didn't really get anywhere - although at least, after an initial possibility that there might be angry words between us, we managed to maintain a reasonably respectful tone.  However, there wasn't going to be any change of mind.  What Holmes was saying was rubbish, according to this person, and basically the Maori are still being treated badly by Pakeha in New Zealand.

It seems to me we've progressed, in our history, from a state of Maori bad/Pakeha good, to Maori good/Pakeha bad.   The initial state wasn't right, but it came in a time of colonialism, and was by no means uncommon.  It took us some time to get past it.   Nevertheless, within that, there were many good things, not least the understanding by some Pakeha that the Maori people had a great deal to offer, and the understanding by some Maori that the Pakeha also had a great deal to offer.

In our present state, the Maori have turned themselves into 'victims.'   Everything that's wrong is the fault of someone else.  (When I say 'the Maori' of course I'm talking about those who want to think this way; there are plenty who don't, many of them now living in Australia!)  The problem is, when you make yourself a victim, or behave as if you are one, someone else has to become the 'oppressor', whether they like it or not.  The victim approach automatically turns the other into the person to blame for all that's wrong in their world.

I'm not saying that everything that Pakeha do is right; by no means.  Much of what those in leadership do affects everybody in the country, not just the Maori.  Much of what leadership do or has done has been opposed by the whole population, to no avail.

But continuing down our present path will not aid the country as a whole.  Somehow we've got to get to a point where we think: Maori good/Pakeha good.  Any other variation on this will just keep on leading us into a blind alley.

Items of Interest

Two articles on the same page of yesterday's Otago Daily Times caught my attention.  One from the regular column giving some history on people buried in local cemeteries.   This week it featured Otago Harbour's first pilot, the aptly named Richard Driver.  He was one of the area's earliest European residents, although when he was a young man he almost didn't survive an attack by local Maori when he and several of his fellow crew-members stepped onto what is now known as Murdering Beach.  Fortunately he was saved by Motoitoi, the daughter of Kahutia: she threw her father's cloak over Driver and soon after married him.
This is where my interest in the story rose: he had three daughters by Motoitoi, and, after she died, a son by his Maori housekeeper.  That's four children.  In 1849 he married a 17-year-old called Elizabeth Robertson.  She bore him three more children, and then seven more who were all born dead.  That's fourteen children in effect, with Elizabeth being pregnant ten times up to that point.  Once they shifted from the area they lived in, she bore him eight more children.  Thus she was pregnant eighteen times.  He was the father, to all intents and purposes, of 22 children, beating J S Bach by one.  (Though far more of Bach's children actually survived.)

He produced 15 living children - it's not surprising that the writer notes: their descendants today number many hundreds. 


The second article begins: A baby's cries are tuned to trigger a uniquely fast response from adults, research has shown.  Scientists compared volunteers' reaction times while listening to babies crying, the sounds of adults in distress, and birdsong.   Right.  We all respond quickly to birdsong.   The study's leader noted that it is almost impossible to ignore crying babies on planes and the discomfort it arouses.   Well, well, there's a finding for you.

So far this would have been all right - it's basically yet another study that tells us what we already know, but that's hardly uncommon.   Innumerable studies are done to show us that what we know is what we know.  However, the sentence that niggled me (because of the sheer lack of any scientific basis) was this: Evolution has decided that it is a good thing for us to look after our young, and there is something in the acoustic properties of babies' cries that evokes a very basic response that appears to be hardwired in ancient parts of our brains. 


I don't think 'evolution' (which is a person or thing) has ever decided to do anything.  Nor, from my understanding, do we have 'more ancient parts' in our brains.  This is literary science, the kind that tells stories about research but doesn't actually base these stories on anything factual.   It's metaphor, not science. Science is based on experiments that can be replicated not just once, but over and over.   There is no experiment that can show evolution ever 'deciding' to do something.   This is typical of the idea that pervades science: that evolution can be regarded as being responsible for anything and everything, without anyone actually showing this to be the case.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Mrs Chrissy Johnson

I find it hard to believe that a post I wrote back in 2007,  partly on the city of Boise in Idaho (where the young lady one of my sons is due to marry in January comes from, as it happens, though I didn't know that at the time); partly on a blogger called Raed who vanished off the Net for a few days and caused a global query, Where is Raed?; and partly on a previously unknown young lady called Chrissy Popadics, is still being picked up when people put the search term 'chrissy popadics' into Google.   Even today, my post comes up fourth on the Google search results. 

Now something I hadn't realised at the time is that the marriage of Chrissy Popadics and the football star, Ian Johnson is inter-racial and that apparently caused some strife, with a number of threatening letters being received by Johnson after he proposed to Popadics on television at the end of a game.   Johnson is only partly black as it turns out, although if it's anything like New Zealand, if you're partly black, you may as well be fully black.  Maori in New Zealand, however much actual Maori blood they have, are still Maori.   It's one of those oddities of life. 

The news on Chrissy Popadics, these days, seems pretty minimal, which might explain why that one post of mine keeps getting high into the search results.  Google has only just changed the way search results appear: the most recent get precedence; the oldest go down the list.   Which means that Mrs Johnson has possibly had her great moment of fame, and is living happily in obscurity once again.

More Maori-English

Last week I quoted a paragraph from Joan Metge's book, Tuamaka.

Here's another, longer quote, in which she discusses some of the wordplay that's occurred as a result of interchange between NZ English and Maori.

While it was Maori wordsmiths who coined mana-gobbling and mana-munching, Maori and non-Maori alike gleefully use these words to skewer the pretensions of those who seek to increase their own mana by eating that of others; at the same time, they approve other actions as mana-enhancing. A Maori politician describes a Waitangi Tribunal report as 'another step on the mana whenua ladder' for his people. When a Maori lecturer renames stress leave as 'mana restoration leave,' a Pakeha colleague files it away for her own future use.

I have already referred to the proliferation of different kinds of hui; recent additions to the list include ratification hui, cyber hui, 'annual general hui, commemoration hui, crime hui, queer youth hui, regional consultation hui, summer hui, workshop hui, and youth hui.' Hui-hopping, hui fatigue and 'too much hui too little dooey' may have been coined in the first place by Maori impatient of demands on their time, but they have long since passed into such general currency that it is impossible to pinpoint their origins. New variations on this theme continually surface. I chuckled over the headline 'Hui hooey' cropping up in a Business Herald article written by a Pakeha columnist. I have since heard reference to a 'hui bluey', playing on the slang term blue referring to a mistake.

Compounds of Maori and English words are used to express both approval and disdain, often to humorous effect. Describing projects and services as iwi-initiated, iwi-led and even iwi-driven generally conveys admiration, but insistence on the iwi as the only valid form of Maori organisation is mocked as iwi fundamentalism and iwi-isation by both Maori and Pakeha. The South Island iwi Ngai Tahu named its superannuation scheme IwiSaver, adapting the name of the national scheme KiwiSaver. Kaumatua flat is a widely used synonym for pensioner housing generally, but dial-a-kaumatua and rent-a-powhiri rebuke the practice of calling in elderly experts just to perfom rituals for show. A golden handshake is made at home in New Zealand as a golden koha. As Maori make creative use of new technologies, compounds such as reo-texting and reo-phobes appear in their blogs and reports, and the Maori Language Commission signs a memorandum of understanding with Air New Zealand to provide 'te reo expertise' for cabin staff.

To these examples I cannot resist adding compounds incorporating words I have not discussed here. Waka are canoes that range from 5 to 36 meters in length and are crewed by up to 80 paddlers. Knowing this, New Zealanders are wryly amused by the phrases waka jumping (to describe Members of Parliament changing party allegiance mid-term), a waka paddlepast (the prime Minister inspecting a fleet of waka at Waitangi aboard double-hulled waka Te Aurere) and a waka-themed playground planned for central Auckland. The admonition 'Catch the waka before it gets too far from the shore' is a fresh take on more than existing aphorism. Students interested in the combination of music and dance know what it is to be bitten with the haka bug or to experiment with haka boogie, and tall poppies are transmuted into tall ponga (tree ferns).

From pages 97-8. References included in the original text have been ommitted.

More Dunedin quirky places

A dog is an anti aging product that works, by which I mean that one of the great advantages of having a dog is that he/she forces you to get out in the open air. Even though our dog is small, and can race back and forth through the house at lightning speed - and thus get some exercise - he still needs to get out into real world where there are endless smells and interesting things to follow up on (don't ask) and grass under his feet, and a ball to chase across a field...and much more.

Maori Rd runs through an extensive area of bush. For years I've walked and driven this road, and quite often I've gone down the main (bitumised) track that leads from Maori Rd to MacLaggen St, but it's only since we had the dog that I've discovered that there are multitudinous other tracks in this bit of bush, and sudden open spaces with grass, and even an Oak Grove with a cairn dedicated to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her diamond jubilee.

No doubt many other Dunedinites know these places well, although so far we haven't seen another soul when we've walked on these tracks. But I've lived in the city for more than fifty years, and never realised just how walkable this place was.

It's great to discover something new about your own city after all this time. (By the way, the link up above for Maori Rd takes you to a very short video encouraging some change to the two laybys on Maori Rd, so that they don't get further damaged by hoons driving their cars over the grass. If you don't know the road, this will give a small idea of it, and the encompassing bush.)

A Hui of a time

Joan Metge's 2010 book, Tuamaka, (published in her 80th year) provides good insight into Maori language and the way many Maori words have been co-opted into everyday New Zealand speech and writing. She is careful to define how the words have shifted and expanded meanings over the last century, and to clarify how Maori speakers use them compared to how they're used in the wider community.

Occasionally this produces some humour, as for instance on page 74, where she's discussing the use of the word, 'hui', which is now used in a multitude of not necessarily appropriate settings. She quotes from the New Zealand Dictionary Centre's newsletter, NZ Words 10, from 2006 which wrote of the 'Proliferative Hui', where the word is used to mean 'meeting,' or 'gathering' or discussion'. It went on to list 24 usages, only four of which had Maori references...

"Newspaper reports, public notices, and websites reveal a 21st century widening use of hui in lieu of meeting, gathering, or discussion, by a range of organisations and groups. Many Government departments hold consultation hui. Political parties, trade unions, writers' groups, city and regional councils, Landcare and other environmental groups, the gay community, youth groups and churches hold hui of different hue. There are peace hui, blog hui, Out There hui, theological hui, communication hui, advisory hui, claimant hui, mandating hui, follow-up hui, taskforce hui, inaugural hui, regional training hui, assessment hui, annual hui, strategic review hui, trustee hui, planning hui, and regional cluster hui. There are problem gambling hui, hui-a-iwi, hui-a-tau, hui pooti, and hui topu. And a participant in a government-sponsored hui claimed that 'we suffer from hui fatigue.'

James Gibb/the vital place of women (!)

A couple of quotes from The Story of the Otago Free Church Settlement 1848 to 1948 by John Collie.  The first relates to James Gibb, a minister who came to First Church, Dunedin around the turn of the 19th-20th century.

He could work strenuously all day in conferneces and committees and then study hard up to three or four in the morning, the intensity of his zeal being the guarantee of concentration.  When ill-health did seriously threaten him in his prime he cured it partly by defying it and partly by ignoring it.  Ordered to diet, he would munch sweets whenever opportunity offered.   pg 292

Gibb lived to be 78. 

No one who has even a cursory acquaintance with the work carried on in our Maori Field will ever doubt the vital place which women missionaries must always hold there.  More men are required, but they cannot do the work of a woman.  Similarly in the foreign field - the whole work would ultimately come to a standstill without the women missionaries.   pg 278

That the statement above is true is testified to by the number of women who served as missionaries throughout the 20th century.  While they couldn't hold leadership roles in their home churches they were 'allowed' to do so almost as a matter of course in the mission fields (both in New Zealand and abroad).   I remember, when our family was in the Assembly of God Church back in the 70s that there was an insistence that the men were the ones who led the churches.   And then a missionary came to speak.  She turned out to be a little, quiet woman with nothing much remarkable about her, yet she'd been working and leading successfully in the mission field for some years.  The irony of this seemed lost on the male leadership!

Photo of James Gibb courtesy of the Presbyterian Church Archives.

Language

It's Maori Language Week, but apart from a couple of brief stints looking at the 'Greetings' section I haven't done very much. Mostly lack of time either at work or at home. (Yes, still sorting out the renovations!) However, there are plenty of ways you can work at Maori online, including the episodes of Toku Reo, from the television programme that's on every night on Maori Television

Here's the theme for this year, just for the record: "Te Reo i te Hapori - Māori Language in the Community."

On the other hand I have been reading Daniel Tammet's book, Embracing the Wider Sky, which talks a good deal about learning languages. Tammet is autistic, with Asperger's syndrome, but makes a very good case for his form of autism, in particular, being far less of a disorder than a bonus.

He's been inventing his own language since he was a child, and can learn enough of a language to speak it - within a week (!). He has a particular fondness for Icelandic languages.

On the maths side he has a theory that we are all born with mathematical ability, but because this isn't something we use as a matter of course - unlike language, which we all learn without thinking about it as children - few of us become as at ease with numbers as he is.

It's a fascinating book, and I'll probably be talking about it more in the next few posts.

The Wretched Treaty (of Waitangi)?

Maoris are assumed to be different - at least by the treatyist brigade and their hangers-on.

Maori are a sequestered, self-interested group driven by a never-ending sense of entitlement at the rest of society’s expense. Maori have more rights than other people, but no responsibilities to anyone other than themselves.

It is time this nonsense was ended and the abolition of Maori seats would be a fine first step. Not, as the professors would caution, when Maori themselves in the fullness of time conclude they are tired of unfair advantage, but as soon as it can be arranged. Apartheid, by whatever smokescreen we care disguise it, is not acceptable anymore.

That done, we could commence a real debate on the wretched treaty, which has long outlived its relevance and which, mutating like a toxic virus and sprouting principles ad nauseum, serves purely as an instrument of division. It is a zombified relic of a time long gone, and a sure sign that, as a nation, our condition is schizophrenic.

Apartheid Unacceptable (Time for Real Debate on ‘wretched treaty’) Dave Witherow – Otago Daily Times columnist, 28th Oct, 2005.
Dave in full flight, and surprisingly getting away with this without a screed of follow-up letters to the Editor.

UPDATE, 27.11.17
The piece above was written in 2005, and in 2017 Dave is still at it. His latest rant about things Maori - this time the 'overuse' of Maori language in the media - did get some angry letters to the Editor, but not so many as you'd expect perhaps.