What Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky Said To Me

"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around." --Sofia

In 2001 Cameron Crowe created an incredible film. Why some movies resonate with us and others fail to connect, I'm not sure. In part, the masterpieces simply have no hollow notes. The director somehow brings out stellar performances from his cast and makes no compromises along the way. It helps, of course, to have a magical script, and the film Vanilla Sky explodes with layers of meaning that go deep to make it a very special film.

I can think of three reasons this film has been panned by a segment of the public. One is that Tom Cruise is the star, and for this reason alone it might be dismissed by some. This is an incredible performance, however, and can’t be so easily dismissed. A second reason is that the film is a remake in English of a Spanish version of the same story, starring the same Penelope Cruz. Who cares? I did not see the Spanish version. I saw this one. The third? Some people just didn't get it. Complicated, cerebral, perhaps a bit labyrinthine, but from the start I was on board, holding on to Ariadne's thread.

The film is complicated, and requires a measure of work on the part of the viewer. If you have to see it twice to see that the continuity is there, maybe that is OK. The film hangs together and is not a manipulation with a twist ending. Yes, the ending twists, but it's a logical extension of the story.

For me, the scene in the middle where Tom Cruise is dancing in a nightclub with the mask on the back of his head is so fabulously conceived for its symbolic value, as Cruise become Janus, the Roman mythological figure with two faces. Janus was the god of gates or doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. In this film, though we know it not, the scene telegraphs the pivotal transition for David Aames, who has been tragically disfigured as a result of his own choices. Sometimes, you can learn from the past but can’t change it.

I'm not certain what it is that so resonates with me about this film. In part, it may be the philosophical questions it raises about who we are, and the life we would live if we could truly live our dreams. At its root it asks this fundamental existential question: “What if everything you think is real… isn’t?"

It is interesting, too, that the Cruz character is named Sofia, the Greek word for wisdom. The symbols, the erudite references throughout, the layers of complexity may be simply too much for a typical audience immersed in pop entertainment values. Am I being too sentimental to be properly critical? At least one poll rated this as one of the worst films of all time.

On its most basic level, Vanilla Sky presents the philosophical conundrum of the “brain in the vat.” What is reality when it’s all in your head? And what’s wrong with a perfect fantasy, even if we are nothing more than a disembodied brain hooked up to wires, stimuli and altered perceptions? The story line ultimately brings Tom Cruise to a place where he must choose whether he wants to live in reality or his perfect fantasy, which for the time being has gone awry. Perhaps this, more than anything, is what speaks to me, because many people prefer their fantasies to the harder challenges of reality. How would you choose?

Here are some comments from a review at imdb.com. For me its kudos to Cameron Crowe for a true achievement, and a great follow-up shot to his wonderful surprise, Almost Famous.

Director Cameron Crowe has crafted and delivered much more than just another film with this one; far more than a movie, `Vanilla Sky' is a vision realized. Beginning with the first images that appear on screen, he presents a visually stunning experience that is both viscerally and cerebrally affecting. It's a mind-twisting mystery that will swallow you up and sweep you away; emotionally, it's a rush-- and it may leave you exhausted, because it requires some effort to stay with it. But it's worth it.

As to the performances here, those who can't get past the mind-set of Tom Cruise as Maverick in `Top Gun,' or his Ethan Hunt in `Mission Impossible,' or those who perceive him only as a `movie star' rather than an actor, are going to have to think again in light of his work here. Because as David Aames, Cruise gives the best performance of his career, one that should check any doubts as to his ability as an actor at the door. He's made some interesting career choices the past few years, with films like `Magnolia' and `Eyes Wide Shut' merely warm-ups for the very real and complex character he creates here. And give him credit, too, for taking on a role that dispels any sense of vanity; this is Cruise as you've never seen him before. `Jerry Maguire' earned him an Oscar nomination, and this one should, also-- as well as the admiration and acclaim of his peers. Cruise is not just good in this movie, he is remarkable.

Penelope Cruz (Sofia) turns in an outstanding, if not exceptional performance as well, as the woman of David's dreams. There's an alluring innocence she brings to this role that works well for her character and makes her forthcoming and accessible,... Crowe knows how to get the best out of his actors, and he certainly did with Cruz.

* * * * 

"I want to live a real life... I don't want to dream any longer."--David Aames

* * * * 

Life goes on all around you. Open your eyes.

Pictures at an Exhibition -- Plus a Poem About Creation

For those unaware that I have been painting and drawing since I was a wee tyke, I thought I might share a a dozen images from my Many Faces of Ennyman art blog. 

The Old Viking (ink on paper)

Youth (brush and ink on paper)

John and Yoko (brush and ink on wrapping paper)

Studio photo w/Tom Cruise in foreground

Woman with hair blowin' in the wind (ink on paper)

First Nations (abstract)

Lord of the Flies

An Englishwoman

Gust the Greek (ink on paper)

Circle of Life (oil on acetate, 1974)

Embems of Power (mixed media)

Abe

The Heavens (mixed media)

ALWAYS BE CREATING

An A-B-Cederian Poem

 

Always
Be
Creating,
Daily.

Everyone finds
Freedom this way.
Getting in touch with
Heart, spirit and soul
It lifts,
Jolts and energizes,

Kicks you in the butt,
Lets you know you have to
Move forward.

No
One can
Pretend because
Quietly that voice within
Reads you the riot act,
Summons you
To live
Up to your better self.

Very well, it’s time to
Wake up. It’s

Xciting when
You see the light and escape this
Zoo.

17 July 2020

Valkyrie

Last week I saw the film Valkyrie for the first time. The 2008 film starring Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg got panned by the critics, or at best mixed reviews, and may not have achieved the wider audience it deserved as a result.

I found the film, essentially about the plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler, worth seeing because it answered a question that has niggled in my head nearly two decades. Why were 5,000-7,000 people arrested by the Gestapo when one man carried a bomb into the Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia? The answer is, because the people who plotted Hitler's assassination were not just trying to eliminate der Fuhrer, but had also laid out a comprehensive plan for taking control of the nation and setting up a new government.

The film centers on Claus von Stauffenberg, a colonel who came home from the North African front not only missing a hand and some fingers, but with a new resolve to end the madness. The war was lost, yet the fighting went on. Upon his return to Germany, his access to Hitler made him valuable to the other conspirators who understood fully the risks involved in this most dangerous game.

Unlike SPOILER ALERT the fairy tale "happy ending" in Inglourious Basterds, where Hitler is successfully eliminated, we know at the outset the plot will fail. Despite that knowledge, the tension remains palpable throughout, a true achievement for director Bryan Singer who previously gave us The Usual Suspects and Superman Returns.

There is some really great dialogue in the film as the conspirators wrestle with their personal justifications and fears as regards taking the next action. Each one understands that if the plot fails, they are all dead men. In other words, the movie uses the incident as a metaphor for our own life decisions. Most of us live pretty cushy lives and are not in these kinds of circumstances where we must put everything we love and own on the line. If and when the time comes, a film like this might speak to you in an even more profound way.

Recommended.

Nietzsche’s Concept of Eternal Recurrence

"This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you-all in the same succession and sequence-even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a grain of dust." ~Friedrich Nietzsche

“Do you remember what you told me once? That every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.” ~ Tom Cruise as David Aames, Vanilla Sky

Some people consider Friedrich Nietzsche one of the most exciting philosophers of all time. Certainly his ideas have been influential and his writing dramatic. And whatever your take on his point of view, the themes he addresses are provoking enough to give us something to gnaw on and make us think. And in the end, to some extent, maybe that was all he intended in a world where people generally just went about their business and accepted the values of the culture they were immersed in.

The quote above addresses one of his original constructs, the idea of life being an eternal recurrence. Christian teaching is not alone in giving weight to the decisions of this life by indicating their significance with regard to eternal outcomes. Nietzsche, on the other hand, chooses to suggest our decisions in this life have weight because how we choose to live today will be replayed over and over again unto eternity.

It’s a very unusual perspective in some respects, a variant on reincarnation, which also has us returning indefinitely, but in differing capacities. Scholars have argued whether the idea is meant as a serious conjecture or a concept to make us more thoughtful about our behavior here and now.

I would suggest that Nietzsche’s sole intent with this concept of eternal recurrence was to get us plugged in to the significance of our acts. His was a brilliant mind, but as far as I am aware he does not offer a supporting argument for the notion proposed. It is a certainty that he understood that even if we ourselves were recurring, our circumstances would not be, for times change, culture changes, history is unfolding all around us.

This theme of eternal recurrence is echoed in Cameron Crowe’s film Vanilla Sky. Once one grasps the film’s premise, the viewer is like Theseus following Ariadne’s thread to find his way through the labyrinth. In the film, David Aames is unaware that he is experiencing this “eternal recurrence”, but only knows that something is terribly wrong. The climactic scene on the rooftop brings a number of historically significant philosophical questions to the surface.

Of Nietzsche, we know that his ideas went on to influence innumerable existential philosophers and lay the groundwork for postmodern explorers. He lived passionately, a philosopher whose roots were less grounded in reason (the dominant theme of the Rennaissance and modern rationalism) and drawn more from the Dionysian, the experiential and the irrational.

While living in Italy, Nietzsche had a nervous breakdown while witnessing a man beating a horse. Embracing the horse, whose suffering was more than he could bear, Nietzsche fell apart and spent the last ten years of his life in a broken state.

Nietzsche’s writings are challenging to put your mind around in part because he did not believe it necessary to have a systematic, rational viewpoint. More than once he declares his distrust of systematizers. In this regard he may have foreshadowed the postmodernists who do not find it necessary to be altogether consistent in their own views. He may have even suggested that atttempts to be consistent are a waste of time.

What matters, he asserted, is not getting everything figured out, but experiencing our lives as fully as possible and becoming all we’re meant to be. “The present moment is all, so let us make the best use of it and of ourselves.” With that I would agree; the truth is true wherever it is found.

The two photos on this page are of the house where Nietzche lived in Turin, at via Carlo Albierto 6, when he had his nervous breakdown and of the plaque stating that Nietzsche lived there. In 1861Turin was the first capital of united Italy. The capital later moved to Florence and ultimately to Rome.

I painted the portrait featuring Nietzsche’s famous mustache, above right, this past weekend.

Southwest Sorrows: Making Memories on Old Route 66

We left Albuquerque yesterday morning with the aim of driving West across Old Route 66 to Holbrook, inspired in part by the 2006 Pixar movie Cars. Lightning McQueen is a NASCAR-type racer who awakens from being a self-centered jerk to thinking of others. The Tom Cruise films Rain Man and A Few Good Men come to mind. But the story beneath the story is his side adventure in a forgotten town on Route 66 called Radiator Springs.

Route 66 used to run from Chicago to the Santa Monica pier. It a a highway with a history, popularized by TV shows, films and all the memories that have been recorded in hearts and minds of those who have travelled it. The bloom is off the rose as they say. The towns which dotted this old highway once thrived commercially, creating wealth for many and sustainable incomes for many more. Then the superhighways came, and all these routes have been relegated to back roads.

The same probably happened everywhere, to a greater or lesser degree. Destinations are what it is all about on a superhighway. The places in between become a mist.

Christopher, here at Joe & Aggie's where I am writing this entry, says that Radiator Springs is based on the section of Route 66 from Gallup to the east and Winslow to the west. We're here in the WigWam at Holbrook, a town with a history.

But the trip left us with mixed feelings. The vastness of the high plains is incredible, but must have been exceedingly tiring for the families and early settlers who had to cross this land in Conestoga wagon trains less than two centuries ago. Barren desert stretches far as eye can see.

And we did not anticipate the poverty we saw along the way. Much of Old Route 66 crosses through reservation lands in New Mexico and Arizona. A sign asked us not to take pictures on the rez. I can see why. The dilapidated and abandoned homes, trailers, buildings could not have been a source of pride for these peoples.

We were also struck by the innumerable souvenir shops selling Indian Pottery and miscellaneous Native American goods which seemed the same in every one. We stopped at one near midday which appeared to have had no business yet. A woman turned on some music when we unexpectedly walked in.

The Navajo reservations cover 27-thousand square miles of territory here in the Southwest, about the size of West Virginia with a population of more than 300,000. But where are the jobs? What do the people do? Unemployment is an estimated 50 percent, I have heard. Poverty numbers are abstract, but the images vivid, and depressing.

The Petrified Forest National Park, encompassing the Painted Desert, is recommended to anyone passing through these parts. The petrified trees hail from the Triassic Period, whenever that was. There are no trees in site today, and many of the ones lying here look like large Tootsie Rolls that someone cut up into bit sized logs. The scenes in this park are amazing. The abundance of petroglyphs indicated to me that the natives here two thousand years ago were fascinated with the region as well.

My grandparents drove out west in the Fifties on this route and I remember Grandma being impressed with what they saw here. Kudos to Teddy Roosevelt for preserving these splendors by creating National Parks.

For the record, Gallup was also a depressing town. Hard to envision its former glory. Holbrook is cute, has some character, but feels lost in time.

VACATION PICTURE OF THE DAY

Vanilla Sky

"Open your eyes." So begins the adventure that is Vanilla Sky.

In 2001 Cameron Crowe created an incredible film. Now why it is that some movies resonate with us and others fail to connect, I am not sure. In part, the masterpieces simply have no hollow notes. The director somehow brings out stellar performances from his cast and makes no compromises along the way. It helps, of course, to have a magical script, and the film Vanilla Sky explodes with layers of meaning that go deep to make it a very special film.

I can think of two reasons this film has been panned by a segment of the public. One is that Tom Cruise is the star, and for this reason alone it might be dismissed by some. This is an incredible performance, however, and can’t be so easily dismissed. A second reason is that the film is a remake in English of a Spanish version of the same story, starring the same Penelope Cruz. Who cares? I did not see the Spanish version. I saw this one.

The film is complicated, and requires a measure of work on the part of the viewer. If you have to see it twice to see that the continuity is there, maybe that is OK. The film hangs together and is not a manipulation with a twist ending. Yes, the ending twists, but is a logical extension of the story.

For me, the scene in the middle where Tom Cruise is dancing with the mask on the back of his head is so fabulously conceived for its symbolic value, for Cruise become Janus, the Roman mythological figure with two faces. Janus was the god of gates or doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. In this film, though we know it not, the scene telegraphs the pivotal transition for David Aames, who has been tragically disfigured as a result of his own choices. Sometimes, you can learn from the past but can’t change it.

I am not certain what it is that so resonates with me about this film. In part, it may be the philosophical questions it raises about who we are, and the life we would live if we could truly live our dreams. Or maybe, it is simply the identification with the profoundly tragic thing that happened to this man, the pain he inflicted on his friends, the grief he must have experienced.

It is interesting, too, that the Cruz character is named Sofia, the Greek word for wisdom. The symbols, the erudite references throughout, the layers of complexity may be simply too much for a typical audience given to pop entertainment values. Or maybe I am too sentimental to be properly critical, since at least one poll rated this one of the worst films of all time.

On its most basic level, Vanilla Sky presents the philosophical conundrum of the “brain in the vat.” What is reality when it’s all in your head? And what’s wrong with a perfect fantasy, even if we are nothing more than a disembodied brain hooked up to wires, stimuli and altered perceptions? The story line ultimately brings Tom Cruise to a place where he must choose whether he wants to live in reality or his perfect fantasy. Perhaps this, more than anything, is what speaks to me, because many people prefer their fantasies to the harder challenges of reality. How would you choose?

Here are some comments from a review at IMDB. For me its kudos to Cameron Crowe for a true achievement, and a great follow-up shot to his wonderful surprise, Almost Famous.

Director Cameron Crowe has crafted and delivered much more than just another film with this one; far more than a movie, `Vanilla Sky' is a vision realized. Beginning with the first images that appear on screen, he presents a visually stunning experience that is both viscerally and cerebrally affecting. It's a mind-twisting mystery that will swallow you up and sweep you away; emotionally, it's a rush-- and it may leave you exhausted, because it requires some effort to stay with it. But it's worth it.

As to the performances here, those who can't get past the mind-set of Tom Cruise as Maverick in `Top Gun,' or his Ethan Hunt in `Mission Impossible,' or those who perceive him only as a `movie star' rather than an actor, are going to have to think again in light of his work here. Because as David Aames, Cruise gives the best performance of his career, one that should check any doubts as to his ability as an actor at the door. He's made some interesting career choices the past few years, with films like `Magnolia' and `Eyes Wide Shut' merely warm-ups for the very real and complex character he creates here. And give him credit, too, for taking on a role that dispels any sense of vanity; this is Cruise as you've never seen him before. `Jerry Maguire' earned him an Oscar nomination, and this one should, also-- as well as the admiration and acclaim of his peers. Cruise is not just good in this movie, he is remarkable.

Penelope Cruz turns in an outstanding, if not exceptional performance, as well, as Sofia, the woman of David's dreams. There's an alluring innocence she brings to this role that works well for her character and makes her forthcoming and accessible,... Crowe knows how to get the best out of his actors, and he certainly did with Cruz.