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lapsedmodernistso, if there were awards for "most fucked up thing ever" the grand prize would go to "The Star Wars Holiday Special" which I had the pleasure? pain? of watching twice in the last two days.
there are simply no words to describe it. as charlie said, there is no cultural equivalent or precedent to it. so the best i can do is a free-associating impressionistic review, which is basically saying that at various point of watching it, i had many speculations about the effects of this movie (some david lynch, some suicides, etc.) but only one speculation about the cause, and that is DRUGS. i think everyone who wrote this movie was on a different kind of drug, and it's a fun game to try and figure out which sequences were penned under the influence of which substance. for example, the entire blocking (because there is no dialogue, really, just wookie howling and growling sans subtitles, for some paralingual effect of sustained (and boy, do I mean sustained) surrealism) of Chewbakka's hyperactive twitchy aggro little son same Lumpy presumably owes its existence to some sort of methamphetamine. there is a series of sequences that should flash the preepmtive caveat in neon: "BROUGHT TO YOU BY LSD," such as the tiny cirque de soleil that pops out of some piece of furniture in the Wookie household and serves to entertain Chewie's wife, who is a sort of Wookie corollary to Annie Camden on 7th Heaven because she is always doing some Wookie-housework, as well as the Imperial lieuetenant grooving to Jefferson Starship performing in a Wookie microwave. The Wookie VR porn scene (you think I am kidding, but I am not), as well as the impromptu cooking show featuring Harvey Korman in blackface AND in drag AND with four arms, were obviously conceived and executed on the kind of PCP trip they warn you about in PSAs, and the almost-ending, when the Wookies go across the sky (??) in a Life Day parade is equally evocative of Christmas Parades and the ending to Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" where DEATH leads all of the protagonists away, in a procession, across the horizon. This is followed by the coda where Carrie Fisher sings, which is obscene, but not as obscene as Bea Arthur's TORCH SONG in a cameo that could have been written by Harold Pinter on CRACK, in which she is the Valkyric owner of the Tattoine cantina, populated by "freaky" alien reglars (including what seems to be a fetus brass orchestra), in a scene that obviously required tons and tons of makeup, but still not as much (especially in the way of eyeliner) as Luke Skywalker was donning in one of his brief obligatory cameos, in which he looked even more gay that the "now-more-gay-than-ever!" cartoon C3PO. yes, there is a cartoon. little Lumpy watches it on TV, although it's not clear why he is watching a cartoon about his absentee dad in the first place, and where it fits into the chronology of the narrative. oh, wait, what am i talking about? what chronology?? what narrative??? this movie is post-dadist in how little sense it makes, and the only thought I had at the end of it (after my brain committed hari-kiri as an act of defiance) was that it would be fun to take somebody tripping on acid for the first time, who has seen Star Wars before, sit them down to watch it and tell them that they are about to watch Star Wars, and watch--one epistemological framework collapse coming up.
there are simply no words to describe it. as charlie said, there is no cultural equivalent or precedent to it. so the best i can do is a free-associating impressionistic review, which is basically saying that at various point of watching it, i had many speculations about the effects of this movie (some david lynch, some suicides, etc.) but only one speculation about the cause, and that is DRUGS. i think everyone who wrote this movie was on a different kind of drug, and it's a fun game to try and figure out which sequences were penned under the influence of which substance. for example, the entire blocking (because there is no dialogue, really, just wookie howling and growling sans subtitles, for some paralingual effect of sustained (and boy, do I mean sustained) surrealism) of Chewbakka's hyperactive twitchy aggro little son same Lumpy presumably owes its existence to some sort of methamphetamine. there is a series of sequences that should flash the preepmtive caveat in neon: "BROUGHT TO YOU BY LSD," such as the tiny cirque de soleil that pops out of some piece of furniture in the Wookie household and serves to entertain Chewie's wife, who is a sort of Wookie corollary to Annie Camden on 7th Heaven because she is always doing some Wookie-housework, as well as the Imperial lieuetenant grooving to Jefferson Starship performing in a Wookie microwave. The Wookie VR porn scene (you think I am kidding, but I am not), as well as the impromptu cooking show featuring Harvey Korman in blackface AND in drag AND with four arms, were obviously conceived and executed on the kind of PCP trip they warn you about in PSAs, and the almost-ending, when the Wookies go across the sky (??) in a Life Day parade is equally evocative of Christmas Parades and the ending to Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" where DEATH leads all of the protagonists away, in a procession, across the horizon. This is followed by the coda where Carrie Fisher sings, which is obscene, but not as obscene as Bea Arthur's TORCH SONG in a cameo that could have been written by Harold Pinter on CRACK, in which she is the Valkyric owner of the Tattoine cantina, populated by "freaky" alien reglars (including what seems to be a fetus brass orchestra), in a scene that obviously required tons and tons of makeup, but still not as much (especially in the way of eyeliner) as Luke Skywalker was donning in one of his brief obligatory cameos, in which he looked even more gay that the "now-more-gay-than-ever!" cartoon C3PO. yes, there is a cartoon. little Lumpy watches it on TV, although it's not clear why he is watching a cartoon about his absentee dad in the first place, and where it fits into the chronology of the narrative. oh, wait, what am i talking about? what chronology?? what narrative??? this movie is post-dadist in how little sense it makes, and the only thought I had at the end of it (after my brain committed hari-kiri as an act of defiance) was that it would be fun to take somebody tripping on acid for the first time, who has seen Star Wars before, sit them down to watch it and tell them that they are about to watch Star Wars, and watch--one epistemological framework collapse coming up.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-05 04:27 pm (UTC)Charlie thinks...
Date: 2003-02-06 12:21 pm (UTC)Because we'll start with the beginning, in the sense that this is the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL. A *movie* does not HAVE a Holiday special, because it is not a recurring, continuous enterprise, but a sort of special in and of itself.
Um, there's the fact that a third of the thing is in Wookie, and you can't for the life of you tell what's going on even by paying attention to their body language, and even if you could isn't this a FAMILY VENTURE rather than an avante-garde experiment with language perception? OK, then there's the fact that Life Day is just a Wookie holiday, but everybody seems to be concerned with Chewie's celebration of it. And apparently the universe is on speaking terms with Chewie's wife Mala, even though in the films, Wookies are regarded as one step above dogs by everybody but Han Solo, Wookie Fondler.
Speaking of Mala, why did they decide to have her played by Wilt Chamberlain? Because she's seriously HUGE, towering a good foot and a half over Chewbacca himself. Maybe all Wookie ladies are like this, but we wouldn't know; we don't get to meet any of Mala's girlfriends because she doesn't seem to have a life outside the home.
Are all the old fart Wookies as nasty as Itchy? Because he's awfully ugly, and it's terrifying to watch him have his LSD-soaked sexual fantasy of Diahann Caroll. Why is she his fantasy? Couldn't they have gone all the way with that and stuck her in a wookie outfit? Because he's fantasizing about another species, and isn't that WRONG?
And Art Carney's gift shop? What the fuck kind of intergalactic presents are these? "A Miniature Aquarium!" Oh hurrah! A little plastic cube with miniature fish inside! Thank you thank you THANK YOU Dad! And, for that matter, why is one of the evil empire soldiers buying/stealing presents for Life Day? Isn't that for the Wookies? Or has he got his own inter-species thang goin on?
And Life Day, by the way? Totally sucks. COMPLETELY. Because the special is so focused on expressing its horror and contempt for the totalitarian state the empire is running that it never gets into the joy of life. Life is brutal, and the state is evil.
OK, and this really makes me angry- why the hell is Harvey Korman in multiple roles? I mean, nothing against Harvey Korman, per se, and I understand putting people in multiple roles, but I don't UNDERSTAND why they put HIM in multiple roles in this thing! None of the roles make ANY SENSE! And it's not like Harvey Korman has so much charisma and star power that you're going to be totally delighted to see him in every incarnation-- I mean, he was the damned STRAIGHT MAN on the Carol Burnett show. Couldn't they at least get variety-show stalwart Tim CONWAY? And it's not like they give him multiple INTERESTING roles, just multiple weird little bits.
There's so many more questions! Why is Harvey Korman in black face? Why did the Imperial Trouper tear the head off the stuffed Bantha? Yeah, and why were they eating Bantha Stew for Life Day? Do you real have stuffed toys based on animals you eat?
Why is Bea Arthur seing a torch song to a giant rat? Why does she pour orange juice into Harvey Korman's head, and why does she insist on recounting every action in literal detail ("I am picking the jug up. I am pouring the drink. You have a drink now. I am putting the jug down.")? Why is the Tattoeine scene framed like a Margaret Mead documentary in an episode of 7th Heaven, "Portraying this culture so that we may better understand our own and feel morally uplifted and superior"?
Why the hell is Lumpy watching an animated version of his father and friends? What exactly did the Imperial Trouper think about watching Jefferson Starship singing prog-rock in the space heater? Should a holiday special really end with everybody killing an evil soldier so the family can be together? Did the directors think we were supid enough to not tell the difference between the shitty video and the stock footage from the film?
There's more, there's more, there's more....but you have to end somewhere....I mourn mankind.
Re: Charlie thinks...
Date: 2003-02-06 04:37 pm (UTC)say it ain't so
Date: 2003-02-06 06:52 pm (UTC)be afraid...be very afraid.
Date: 2003-02-07 09:57 am (UTC)Charlie thinks more
Date: 2003-02-07 11:40 am (UTC)And also, I would like to mention that I was stone-cold sober during my viewing of the special. For the first half hour or so, I kept lamenting that fact-- but really? After 45 minutes all sanity had left my brain, and sobriety or not I was just totally screwed. I left with my head spinning and had a hangover the next day.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-10 01:31 pm (UTC)