The Odyssey, but not epic poetry

The question of adaptation has been an open one in culture since people began doing them in other media, as it were. Just like the fact that sex wasn't invented in 1968, this is not a 20th century or now 21st century phenomenon. The Odyssey, the epic poem ascribed to Homer, was most likely just a written rendition of what had been oral tradition for many years or even centuries before the point where he is acknowledged to have written it (~8th century BCE.) But legends of this sort have been the subject of books, plays, operas (one of my favorite moments in Amadeus refers to this quandary, when Wolfgang argues against constantly using the same, old subjects) and more recently, film and TV. No one is ever going to get it "right" because there is no "right." The best creators understand that this is their world and welcome to it and I'm assuming that's what motivated writer/director Christopher Nolan in the latest film adaptation of The Odyssey.

Now, right up front, one has to acknowledge that even in a three hour film, which this almost is, there's almost no way to reasonably encapsulate all 24 books of the original poem, so things are going to be left out. Nolan does follow some of the same narrative pattern of the poem by first introducing Odysseus (Matt Damon) already living with the nymph, Calypso (Charlize Theron) and trying to remember everything he went through after he and his followers left Troy. To his extreme credit, he also weaves in a few more elements that would likely have been excluded, such as the eating of the lotus flower causing Odysseus' lack of memory (a different adventure in the poem) and the inclusion of the Laestrygonians destroying most of the expedition; a moment that most have likely never heard of if they hadn't read the original story. I also appreciate that he weaves in actual history to the proceedings, as one of the concerns of the time is the encroachment of the Sea Peoples, who are cited in the historical record as the most likely primary cause of the collapse of much of civilization after the Bronze Age (~12th century BCE.) So there's enough here to make an epic story. But I'm not sure there's enough to make an epic film. The main theme that Nolan operates from is the actual desire of Odysseus to forget what he has done and what kind of person it makes him. In doing so, it ascribes a very modern perspective to a very old story. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, intrinsically. Again, this is Nolan's interpretation and the theme that he assigns to the protagonist is a very understandable and, indeed, laudable one. It's not at all in tune with the poem, given that Odysseus and his crew raid the Cicones, allies of the Trojans, on the first step of their journey home and promptly sack their town, slaughter all of the men and sail off with the town's money and all of their women to be slaves of one kind or another. This is how it was done in 750 BCE.

Nolan also focused more on the case of the suitors than the poem does. That story is prominent in the poem, but not to the extent that it's the focus around which the story revolves. We spent almost as much time with Telemachus (Tom Holland) and Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) as we did with Odysseus. I realize that's an attempt to not only give an emotional attachment for a modern audience to revolve around but also to give some agency to Penelope (Anne Hathaway) who otherwise has comparatively little in the poem, in contrast to other women like Calypso and Circe (Samantha Morton.) If Odysseus is not only trying to get home for 20 years but is in conflict with himself over whether he even wants to make that attempt, it's nice to know something about the people he's going home to. But that focus on the suitors also meant that some of the other stories were kind of given short shrift. The most notable is the encounter with the cyclops, Polyphemus. In the poem, Polyphemus speaks normally as he's eating Odysseus' men and Odysseus eventually gets him drunk to get him to talk to them as humans, rather than dinner. That's the point where he falls asleep and they blind him in order to escape. But the whole point of that encounter is that Polyphemus, as a host, violates Zeus' law which is supposed to be emblematic of the collapse of proper society and was a main theme of the film. Instead, it's just a cyclops who looks more like a mutant derivation than an entire race of them (the island on which they land in the poem is inhabited by many of them) and the whole episode becomes just a run-in with a monster which, again, minimizes it and denies another opportunity to point out one of the central themes of the story.

Another of those themes was the rejection of divinity. Unlike in the poem, Odysseus frequently questions any kind of faith in the gods. That walks hand in hand with the perspective of a man who rejects the 10-year-war and wholesale slaughter that he's just been a part of, because why would the gods bless something like that? The fact that Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter to make sure they had the favor of the winds is just reinforcement of that question. In that respect, I appreciate not only the central thrust of that idea but also that all of "the gods", with one exception, were left to appear as they were to the ancient Greeks: as forces of nature. "Zeus" was the crack of thunder. "Poseidon" was rough seas. Yes, "the gods" might have been there and Poseidon might have made it difficult for them to return because of what they'd done to Polyphemus (one of his many sons) but there was no way to verify that in the same way there's no way to verify the influence of any kind of divinity. That's what faith (or lack thereof) is and Odysseus was a man who had lost it, in more ways than one. The lone exception was Athena (Zendaya) who appears multiple times to simply ask the questions that bring the story along. I thought that was smart and it follows with Athena being one of the more human-approachable of the Olympians in many of the myths (the other one who has a significant role in the poem is Hermes, alas.) It's just too bad that it didn't transition from those elegant themes into the dialogue.

Straight up, the dialogue was weak. Most of it was boilerplate and overly obvious. If you had to fill the dialogue balloons of your average adventure story, these lines would've fit right in with little effort. I can't think of a single memorable line from the film, which is disappointing, especially considering the source material (i.e. epic poem.) Likewise, none of the performances really stood out to me except the two pig people: Leguizamo as the earnest pigherd and Morton as the witch who sees people for what they truly are. Given the opportunity to make Circe the villainess that many have presented her as over the centuries, Nolan stuck to the poem and made her a far more understandable and sympathetic character (She and Odysseus become lovers and live together for a year in the poem...) But, unfortunately, as with the rest, none of Morton's lines really stick out to deliver that. It was more about her ability to deliver through acting; again, to her credit. On a technical level, it's perhaps fortunate that none of the dialogue was that great, since a fair amount of it gets lost in the SFX noise. It might have been just a product of the sound system at the theater we were in, but I've heard other complaints about the sound mixing, as well. It's also notable that, despite the poem being replete with sex and sexual encounters, the film has none of that. That's not really surprising, as sex has never been a major driving force in Nolan's films and, again, this is his interpretation. It's just kind of funny to see such a major element of the poem become completely invisible.

In the end, it's a decent film that present an interesting moral quandary for its protagonist and one that I'd be willing to see again but one which I also think falls fairly short of most of Nolan's other achievements (Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception, even Oppenheimer.) I also appreciated some of the timing of it, not least the encounter with Scylla and Charybdis since we just finished our third chapter which revolves around namesakes of those legendary creatures. I wrote that story 15 years ago after first imagining my interpretations (ahem) of them 35 years ago because, of course, I'd read The Odyssey. I'd still recommend sitting down for three hours and watching the film, so that's my interpretation of it.

Just gray

There's something primal about certain media in black-and-white. Most noir films were done in the pre-color era and the tone and atmosphere of all of them suits that presentation. Bright colors just don't speak "noir"; quite literally, since it's the French word for "black" or "dark." The Glass Key wouldn't be what it is if that first dining room scene was in a nice set of peach and olive pastels that could've represented the average decor of the time. No, it needed the grays and the shadows implied by them to give the sense of menace that shrouded the politics and the maneuvering of the various characters to make the film a classic, in addition to the writing and the performances, both of which are excellent. Likewise, many comics are just suited to that more stark presentation. Quinn and Vigil's Faust just wouldn't have had the same visual impact if it was in color, since a lot of Vigil's excellent fine line work would've been washed out by color, some by the printing process and some by the failure of the human eyes to discern detail when distracted by other stimuli. This is to say nothing of the requisite blood spray in every third panel. Indeed, although we were doing all of Fifth Panel Comics' output in black-and-white because of economics (color printing was far more costly at that time), I soon decided that our presentation was better because of the lack of color and when Jeff suggested we do the Webcomic, I was still scripting while imagining everything in monochrome. (I usually still do.) That's why when I heard about Spider-Noir and that it could be watched in the old visual style of the period in which it's presented (the 1930s), I was kinda geeked about it. I mean, yet another Spider-Man production wasn't particularly thrilling, but doing it in the style of a Dashiell Hammett story sounded great. Having watched the first episode (in the lack of coloration, as intended), I have mixed feelings as yet.

I have a fondness for noir, even if some of it seems relatively staid in the succeeding decades that so much storytelling has been built upon its foundations or has tried to emulate it. Just like with jazz, I can both see and understand the underlying meaning of those stories and the style and appreciate the building blocks that they represent to a lot of more modern drama. Miller's Crossing is my favorite Coen brothers' film for more than one reason, but a primary one is that it's clearly an homage to the noir films of old, even as it retains the Coens' famed quirkiness in many of its scene changes and reaction moments. But the other reason it's a favorite is that all of the characters are fully developed people. This is, of course, a sticking point for me in all media. If you're going to tell me a story, you have to tell me a story about humans (or at least really interesting demons/aliens/whathaveyou.) If your characters are just serving the plot, rather than living their lives, a lot of the shine is going to come off your story, no matter what style or genre it happens to inhabit. That means you have to sell me on the first episode of any series with real people. Spider-Noir, unfortunately, didn't really do that.

Why can't I find any good black-and-white pics of Reilly? Should tell you a lot.

Part of it is the Nicolas Cage effect. I don't like Cage as an actor, really, because he's a capable character actor trying to do the Leading Man thing. While he was brilliant and believable as a dying drunk in Leaving Las Vegas, in all of the rest of the roles I've seen him in, he's still doing Nicolas Cage. It's the same combination of faux world-weariness and occasional jarring surprise at being in these circumstances in the first place when everyone can see said circumstances except him. Every time. This has been the same pattern since The Rock (Why am I forced to be doing this incredibly exciting thing?!) with one exception in Adaptation. Even then, half of his dual role in that film was still Mr. Put Upon Who Doesn't Understand Why Life Won't Change. And, yes, Ben Reilly is still Nicolas Cage. It's just not interesting anymore and here he has an entire role built around that perspective, as the failing PI (stereotypical) who's a retired superhero because of a tragedy and who is alternately pitied and held in contempt by everyone around him who don't understand why he can't snap out of it. Yes, a lot of noir leads are supposed to be cynical, as that's the style, but just like another of Marvel's characters, Jessica Jones, if anything Reilly is too cynical, to the point that it gets tiresome, rather than remains humorous or otherwise entertaining.

Meanwhile, we also have the intrepid reporter who knows the truth (Lamorne Morris, playing Robbie Robertson of Daily Bugle fame), the disgusted secretary who, like Cher, doesn't understand why Reilly can't pick himself up (Karen Rodriguez), the femme fatale/important client who clearly has motives beyond the central thrust of the plot (Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy, another prominent Marvel character (no spoilers!)) and the powerful crime boss whom half the city lives in fear of for one reason or another (Brendan Gleeson as the notorious Silvermane.) In the end, the only one of those who delivered an interesting performance was Gleeson and he had the least screen time. Why? Because all of them are filling stereotypes, rather than actual roles, but Gleeson adds the one thing that Cage sorely lacks in all of his leading man attempts: gravitas. Yes, he's still Brendan Gleeson, but he's not the Gleeson of In Bruges or 28 Days Later or Cold Mountain. Why? Because he can leave at least part of himself behind and inhabit the character of all of those roles, which is something that Cage has never really been able to do. Of course, that's a writer issue, too, in that all of those other roles I mentioned are stereotypes, which means there's not as much for those actors to work with and Oren Uziel may be capable at his craft but he sure isn't Martin McDonagh, Alex Garland or Anthony Minghella, respectively.

There is, of course, a little Marvel cachet with the aforementioned roles, plus the appearance of Flint Marko (the comics nerd in me immediately blinked in memory and mumbled: "Sandman?", later confirmed by the requisite fight scene) and I totally appreciate the reframing of all of said characters in the 1930s style, in which Reilly's former identity wasn't "Spider-Man" but was instead The Spider, akin to The Phantom or the original The Spider. I like all of these things because I'm a comics nerd and a noir nerd and, consequently, it would seem like this series should be right up my dark and shadowy, newspaper fluttering alley. But I'm not sure that either Cage or Uziel are the ones to make it work. I'm not bailing out immediately. I'll give it a couple more episodes to see more of Gleeson and to hopefully see Tombstone, whom I've been told is present in the series and was one of the last interesting characters I remember from the days when I was reading Spider-Man titles (the late 80s...) But it wasn't a great start (i.e. it didn't do a The Wire/Breaking Bad/Chernobyl, even if that is a very, very high bar to reach.) We've also seen the first season of Sons of Anarchy in the last few days and I haven't written anything about it because I haven't really found it worth the time. Maybe later.

Evil genius

No, it's not not another Batman post (yet.) Today it's an unfortunate, off-the-cuff writeup about the loss of one of the great actors of the modern era: Gene Hackman, who was found dead today with his wife and dog, at the age of 95.

I first remember him from his performance as Lex Luthor in the Superman films of the late 70s. Comic nerd that I was, I first objected to the idea of a Luthor with hair. But he won me over quite quickly ("Miss Teschmacherrrrr!") and then I began to see other things, like Popeye Doyle in The French Connection and Col. Jason Rhodes in Uncommon Valor and Coach Norman Dale in Hoosiers and Special Agent Rupert Anderson in Mississippi Burning. Even bit parts like Pete Van Wherry in Reds and lesser parts like Defense Secretary David Brice in No Way Out. Not all of those were great movies, but Hackman's part of all of them was almost always top tier and that's not even getting into more of the acknowledged bouts of excellence, like "Little Bill" Daggett in Unforgiven and Royal Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums. It's about as rich a career as it's possible to have in modern cinema and he was almost always one of the names that you would perk your ears up at when you heard that he was doing another project. He's been absent (retired) for much of the past two decades but his legacy will last a long time. But, oddly, the one role that stuck with me and which I still kind of enjoy more than any other is the one for which he was uncredited:

I've watched that scene I don't know how many dozens of times (I'm a lifelong Mel Brooks fan) and I still convulse with laughter every time I see it. There's no debate that Peter Boyle does his share of heavy lifting here, but it's the subtlety that Hackman brings where, as with almost all his characters, he totally sells the perspective of whomever he's inhabiting while still riding the wave of the absurdity of it all, that does it for me. Acting was fun for him and you could see him having fun in almost every role that he took. It strikes me as a life that was well-lived and is, thus, a parting that was well made.

Small hiccups before the payoff

Many modern TV series have learned the pitfalls of exposition. They've learned that it's probably a better idea to just drop your audience into a story, rather than spend a lot of dialogue scenes endlessly explaining who these people are and why they're doing what they are. Episode 1 of Lovecraft Country had a couple slower moments, like Lettie's run-in with her sister, who cited the former's indifference to other humans more prominently than you might expect from two people who know each other well. But everything still flowed nicely without stopping to give everyone the map to said country and the path our characters would be taking to get there. Come the second episode, though, it's more a case of Loocy, You Got Some 'Splainin' To Do and the rhythm of that episode "Whitey's on the Moon" suffered from it a bit.

There were a couple more complicated elements to deal with, most notably the Order of the Ancient Dawn and Tic's origins and heritage, that are apparently underpinnings of the story and which have to be explained for it to make sense to the audience (not that it always has to, as we'll see.) This differs from the first episode, in which broad, thematic elements could simply be demonstrated, without much dialogue to push them along (family, cosmic horror, earthly horror in the form of racism, etc.) That left the screenplay for episode 2 a bit heavy on the exposition, although not horribly lacking for development at the same time. I did notice about halfway through, though, that I was getting a little impatient for our heroes to get somewhere when they were already confined to the manor of the Order and then confined to their own rooms once George and Lettie could actually remember what they'd been through. In some ways, it's another metaphor for the racism of American society; first the confining of mind ("Just accept that this is the way things are.") and furthered by the confinement of body, even when the mind is free.

But the other problem is that the story itself was a bit disjointed. First, 2/3 of our party still have motivation despite no memory of what should be motivating them and they suspect Atticus of mental illness. Then, they do have memory, but are confined to strange fantasies in their rooms that have no introduction to the audience. We experience the shock and displacement in the same way they do and are left to figure out what's happening. And, in the midst of this, Christina Braithwhite attends the birthing of a dhole (or something) from a cow, declaring that "It's her first time." I'll leave you to suss out the potential innuendo of that moment. Following all of this, Montrose is discovered, but not happily, and George and Tic decide to play along with the now very disturbing events to their catastrophic end.

Despite that, all is not lost (except, you know, the house...) There is still a significant amount of character development that happens amidst the chaos. We learn, for example, that part of Lettie's detachment from other people is a childhood trauma of abandonment. We also learn, of course, that Tic's parentage may not be what he's always thought it was, as George and Montrose bicker over what that reality may be. This is on top of the fact that a pertinent historical example of slavery and the depredations suffered by those enslaved may have led to Atticus having more influence in these strange happenings than anyone first realized. Plus, there's no way to deny the emotional impact of the final scene. High marks to Jonathan Majors here, as it's really difficult to convey that kind of traumatic grief in a convincing manner and he did really well. Kudos also to Jurnee Smollett for also delivering the half-panicked, half-confused desire to comfort someone without really knowing what's appropriate at that moment. If nothing else can be said (and, obviously, there's a lot that can), the acting in the first two episodes has been top-notch.

Of the three visions, the most interesting, by far, was Tic's. While it may be another insight into Lettie's character to see her terror at potentially being assaulted in the same manner as the window displays, and it may be a reinforcement of the longing by George for an earlier time, Tic's vision brings us back to the stuff that he's constantly carrying with him. Is the Korean woman that he struggles with also the one who called him in the first episode? Is she the woman represented by Dejah Thoris from A Princess of Mars in his dreams on the bus ride home? And, if so, why was she trying to kill him?

The little details that were present in the first episode are also still evident here. George finds a copy of House on the Borderlands on the shelf, which is the one that opens the secret door. That book was cited repeatedly by HP Lovecraft as a huge influence on his own work. Also, the Order of the Ancient Dawn is an obvious stand-in for the Order of the Golden Dawn, which was a cabal of mystics in the late 19th century, including Aleister Crowley, who were trying to promote the idea of ancient sorceries and rituals as a form of enlightenment. They're often connected to the Illuminati and the Masons and other organizations, secretive and not. Layered over all of that is Gil-Scott Heron's poem, "Whitey's on the Moon", which cites the excessive behavior that American society often engages in when so much money and energy is often needed to address problems that already exist. This manifests most pointedly in Samuel Braithwhite's desire to emulate the same ceremony that his predecessor (and Tic's ancestor) attempted and which failed, but by which he's willing to destroy everything and everyone around them in its futility. Also, huge credit to the writers/showrunner for the music and pop culture elements of the show. Opening with The Jeffersons theme was excellent for this child of the 70s.

And one final, major element of the story is the discovery of the irascible Montrose, who doesn't reveal exactly why he was trapped there and shows no particular appreciation for being rescued from his state. It will be interesting to see Michael K. Williams ("Omar comin'!") in a regular role again, as I never caught Boardwalk Empire (which is something I guess I could do between episodes of Lovecraft Country...) I'm not sure quite where he fits in, tonally, given that Tic and Lettie both have plenty of direct conflict surrounding them already (aside from being, you know... Black in racist America) and George was a calming influence on a turbulent situation that won't get better with Montrose. But conflict is the essence by which stories are made, so here we go.

Next week: Holy Ghost.

Boys will be boys

Having delved into Amazon recently and found it somewhat wanting, I figured I'd continue with something a bit less random, given my history of involvement with the comic medium, and watched the first couple episodes of Garth Ennis' The Boys. I was a once a huge fan of Ennis' work. I think his original run on Hellblazer, along with Jamie Delano's which preceded him, makes up the definitive version of the character of John Constantine. But after Ennis started a run on The Punisher in the mid-90s, his work began to take on trappings of that character and a decided glee in the "hardass for the sake of being hardass", as it were. Aside from a comedic turn in the miniseries Dicks (which I freely used at one Chicago Comic-con for an attempt at some very cheap laughs with the event announcer), Ennis was mostly producing ever-bigger guns and ever-bigger pools of blood. The introspection of his earlier work was largely missing. I haven't read the comic series that Amazon's production is based on, but after two episodes of their series, I can say that not much has changed.

The premise is that superheroes exist in the 'real world' and a major corporation (Vaught) has lined up most of them as employees that they then make money from via movies, advertising, product placement, and by contracting them out to be the resident protectors of various municipalities that pay dearly to have their own pet super. The supers, of course, are as corruptible and foible-filled as any of the rest of us and are not above using their fame and the constant adulation that results from it to get whatever their petty hearts desire. The Boys are an impromptu gathering of people who've decided they've had enough of being second-class citizens and want to blow the lid off of this situation, including a willingness to blow the respective lids off of the supers in question... which, I mean... OK?

It's not a particularly original premise (cue: superhero comics rant), but not everything has to be if it's told/presented well. It's kinda trying to out-Watchmen The Watchmen, but that's the cinderblock that every "superheroes in the 'real' world" story is going to have hung around their neck, especially given the storytelling abilities of Alan Moore, which often exceed those of the people lined up to attempt the same job. Moore layers themes into his stories, often with subtle visual cues that resonate down through them. The blood drop on the Comedian's smiley face button is the classic example from The Watchmen. Ennis, being less concerned with themes and more with entertainment, instead tends to batter you about the head and shoulders with them: "THIS IS WHAT'S HAPPENING! Corporation bad! Supers bad! Mercenary killers somehow good! IT'S A QUANDARY!" There's nothing for the viewer to figure out because it's not really supposed to be figured out. You're mostly supposed to sit there and be entertained by the blood spray and the fact that famous people might be rapists, too (which in the era of #MeToo seems kind of pedestrian, if still a nod to real life.)

Karl Urban is OK as the lead (Billy Butcher), but kinda lacks the rough edges that you might expect from such a character. Every time I see him, I keep thinking: "This is the urbane Bones McCoy from the new Star Trek films trying to be a badass. And generally failing." I guess there's something to be mined from Jack Quaid's character (Hughie) and his transformation from introvert to a member of a kill team, but I haven't found it yet. In contrast, Erin Moriarty (Starlight) coming to grips with her new situation and complete disenchantment with it has been far more believable. Antony Starr as Homelander has been kind of intriguing, since he's clearly doing the 'stranger in a strange land' bit, albeit as the overeager tool of the menacing Vaught Corp. I admit to not even recognizing Elizabeth Shue (Madelyn Stillwell), which is usually a compliment to someone that has slipped so easily into her role.

But on that note, one of the aspects of the show that really stood out to me is this: These supers are all still mindblowing to everyone around them. Given that the setting indicates that they've been around for years (decades?), it's difficult to rationalize how everyone can still be so much in awe of them. Sure, people get starstruck in different ways and certainly part of the premise is to draw the contrast between how famous and wonderful and heroic these people are and what their normal, human tendencies happen to be. But you're telling me that a multi-term US Senator in tough negotiations with Vaught somehow isn't going to be aware of the paranormal means they might use to entrap/convince him? Not least because the scene was used for one of those cheap (not even) laughs about sex? These guys are going out on nightly patrols and their every move is watched and analyzed on phones and social media just like actors and athletes today and yet one guy taking a long dive off a pier is enough to leave everyone with their jaws on the floor?

Doing these 'real world' situations is always a tough line to walk. After all, it's supposed to be 'normal' and yet not normal. But that single disconcerting note kind of opens the door to my overall impression in that most of this just feels staged. Overall, these don't seem like natural characters doing things that they naturally would. They seem set up to do scenes, rather than follow a storyline; as if, in setting up this tale of ethics about the difference between larger-than-life personalities and the actual people behind them, the creative team kind of lost track of the idea of telling a story and instead are just doing those cheap laughs or playing for shock value. Given that this is the same development team (Seth Rogen, etc.) behind another adaptation of Ennis' work (Preacher), I can't say that I'm too surprised. It's not a disaster and, unlike the fairly bland Mrs. Maisel, it has enough of those rough edges (outside of Urban) to maybe watch a couple more episodes and see if it beds in a little better. But it certainly hasn't reached the level of compelling/binge TV.

Not exactly driven

In my very occasional series of "Catching up with films that all of you saw a year ago", I finally saw Baby Driver tonight. [Tangent: What can I say? I just don't see many movies these days. Tricia's not really a fan and I could go see things alone, but that's really kind of lame. Of course, if I actually had a job writing about movies, I guess I'd see a lot of things alone. So, if anyone's looking for a critic, I'll gladly suffer the travails. /tangent.]

I'm not a huge Edgar Wright fan. I appreciated certain aspects of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I also thought Ant-Man (which he wrote, but didn't direct) was one of the more entertaining Marvel films because he isolated the aspect that drives Marvel's characters into legend: They're real people. That's been a hallmark of his other films, as well. Weird stuff happens to his characters, but they still stay largely human, with all of the associated quirks, failings, and idiosyncrasies that comprise that condition. No one is human in Baby Driver, from the title character (Ansel Elgort) to his sudden girlfriend (Lily James.) They're all figments of imagination that would have a horrible time actually functioning in a society made up of humans, which we (kinda) still live in.

First off, it's an action film. I get it. There's supposed to be a lot of action, which frequently involves bullets and various loud noises. However, I think Wright went just a bit over the top here. I mean, yeah, running firefights across the city are fine, since it's an action film. But when we get to the point where cars are falling from the upper floors of parking garages and exploding in the middle of downtown Atlanta, that's where you start to lose me. First off, because cars don't really explode when they catch fire. But secondly because you're kind of losing the thread of the story for a lightshow. Lightshows don't affect the quality of the music at a concert, so they don't really need to be a part of the story, unless your story happens to be about a war where explosions are common. Take, for example, Ben Affleck's The Town. It's also a story about a high-end, efficient heist crew, including one member who wants to get out, and there are several exciting gunfights and chase scenes. But there are no explosions because gunfights are already exciting enough. There are times when both writer and director have to exercise some restraint in order to keep the focus on their story. Wright didn't do that here.

That lack of humanity had an even bigger impact on some unfortunate casting. I'm sorry, but Jon Hamm (Buddy) doing the shaved blowback look doesn't make him a criminal. It just makes him look goofy. And he's still so wooden in these kinds of roles (he was also in The Town) that it's difficult to take him seriously and not think that I'm watching Don Draper act out an extremely visceral commercial in the conference room of Sterling Cooper. Making him take it to the nth degree with a Terminator schtick (Is he really dead this time?) doesn't help, especially because said schtick (Is he really dead THIS time?) is driven by the world's most obvious death scene for Eiza Gonzalez (Monica), as a consequence of a totally unnecessary moment of bravado for a professional thief. Was that the moment we were supposed to imagine that Monica was really a badass like the men, even though her role to that point had been nothing but sex object, full stop? Because she can be a total idiot and stand in the open with a pair of long guns in front of a phalanx of cops while her husband wisely shelters behind the car?

Jamie Foxx (Bats), unfortunately, had the worst of the roles. I just have no patience for these unreasonably violent and chaotic characters that somehow still function in society long enough to not be jailed or gunned down in the street. You're telling me that this psychopath (not a sociopath, which would be believable and which Doc (Kevin Spacey) is; the two are quite different) has become a professional heist guy so reliable that someone as meticulous as Doc would hire him more than once and somehow not be aware of what a loose cannon he is? Or that anyone would choose to work with him when he repeatedly does exactly what pros don't do, which is attract attention to himself on a regular basis? Or that he wouldn't have long ago been arrested and permanently jailed because he constantly attracts attention to himself with petty crimes? Yeah... no. It's simply not believable. On top of that, you have Spacey mailing it in as hard as he possibly can. I know the man has been typecast as evil genius since The Usual Suspects (spoilers!) and the script did him no favors, but he might have allowed himself to have just a bit of personality. And how does Jon Bernthal rate third billing with a whole five minutes of screen time and a completely disposable (and forgettable, since Doc didn't hire him again) role?

But the killer is the ending. I don't know how many test audiences it went through, but all of them should never be allowed near a theater again. In what jurisdiction does multiple armed robbery, multiple grand theft auto, multiple carjacking, multiple assault with a deadly weapon, murder, and a lifetime supply of reckless driving and endangerment get you 25 years, parole in 5? And in which state do you get paroled with that list of charges on the first chance? The Hollywood happy ending is so tacked on that they didn't even bother to do any makeup for Elgort and James to show that they'd aged five years, especially in Elgort's case. That list of charges puts you in maxi and no one comes out of there with the same babyface that they went into it with. Prison ages you. So does time, in general. But it didn't matter because all of the intensity and chaos and violence of the previous hour and 50 minutes was just washed away by the gentle golden glow of a moving Hallmark card as Baby walks away with the girl. Really? This is what the whole tragedy of this kid's childhood and his alienation from society and the trauma of being roped into this heist team boils down to? Happily ever after? Yikes, man.

On the positive side, the choreography was excellent. The chase scenes, both behind the wheel and on foot, were thrilling and one of the two high points of the film. The other was the soundtrack, which is brilliant. (Attention, Guardians of the Galaxy fans: This is what a film soundtrack sounds like. Give it a listen.) I can't remember the last time I'd heard Hocus Pocus and I've been listening to Damned Damned Damned the whole time I've been writing this. I have a deep appreciation for people who share my broad taste in music, even if they're fictional characters.

But once again, I find myself on the outside looking in on this one, since like GotG, I seem to be the lone voice of disdain among my friends that have seen it. It's also sitting at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and most critics were gushing over it to the point where I'm starting to think that movie critics are like mattress critics: handsomely paid to give the best review possible to the average and routine. The New York Times even hailed it as a "NYT Critic's pick", despite this quote directly from the review: "is so good that you want it to be better and go deeper, for it to put down its guns (or at least hold them differently) and transcend its clichés and cine-quotes so it can rocket out of the genre safe box into the cosmic beyond where craft and technique transform into art".

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not "better." It's not "deep." It's completely clichèd and displays a remarkable lack of craft which would make it art. And yet it's somehow a "critic's pick"? Seriously, does anyone want a movie critic that, you know, actually watches the films? Anyone? Bueller?

How much is too much?

Birdman, the film, raises some interesting questions, which is one of the highest aspirations for any work of art, in my opinion. One of those questions, however, is whether the film is best appreciated for its significant technical merits (acting, direction, cinematography) or for its unusual and nicely layered story. The former are almost beyond reproach, although one can question the necessity for a couple of the visual allegories, like the fiery atmospheric reentry that both opens and closes the film. But questioning that usage is something that becomes central to the other questions both within the film and about it. Fair warning: There are a couple major spoilers below, so keep that in mind if you haven't seen the film yet.

A few years ago on the board we coined an abbreviation for movies, people, events, whatever that were clearly trying to say or do something and making it so obvious that the original meaning of whatever they/it were trying to express was lost. We called it TTH, for Trying Too Hard. People proffered all kinds of examples and mine was: "Most Woody Allen films, post-Annie Hall." The implication was that Allen had been Trying Too Hard to be 'Woody Allen' with most of his films, even when neither the screenplay nor the story lived up to what was the level of his acknowledged classics. I think there's room to question whether that's the case for Birdman because the film is so clearly trying to deliver a message and using the story as a vehicle for that message, as opposed to simply telling the story and letting that message be absorbed by the audience. In that sense, is Birdman trying too hard? At what point does delivering your message become condescension to your audience? Or are some people simply attuned (or hyper-sensitive) to that method while the majority aren't?

There are a couple of obvious tropes (washed up/typecast actor trying to come back by doing something different; actor having ruined the rest of his life in pursuit of something not quite defined) in the story that are made more interesting by their real-life parallels to Keaton's own career. Once he accepted the Batman films under Tim Burton, he never really managed anything else of real note in the following decades and he had been a pretty marketable talent at that point who had done the standard family films (Mr. Mom) but had also taken on other roles (Beetlejuice) that no one really expected that he could handle and had done well with them. In the film, Riggan Thompson is in similar circumstances and we're frequently given insight into his supposed genuine superpowers as allegory for what he's truly capable of and a continuing nod to the spectre of what is constantly hanging over him (or behind him) wherever he goes.

This parallel to the real world (the struggle to define that being a constant theme in Ed Norton's character, Mike Shiner) is highlighted a few more times when Thompson and his best friend/lawyer, Jake (the excellent Zach Galifinakis) argue over whom should be starring opposite Riggan when their initial choice fails. They mention Jeremy Renner, Oscar nominee, except that he's an Avenger. Riggan rolls his eyes at the TV that shows Robert Downey, Jr. in full Iron Man glory. The point is made that these are capable actors of considerable critical acclaim who are now doing exactly what Riggan did earlier in his life but whom are still receiving accolades, whereas Riggan is not. Given that Marvel Studios has something of a chokehold on Hollywood, the fact that lines are being drawn within Hollywood between films like Birdman and The Avengers makes the lines drawn in this film between "movies/celebrity" and "theater/actors" that much more stark.

But that stark line is also a possible example of hitting your audience over the head with the message, such that you're not telling a story and letting them absorb the message that it carries, but are instead delivering a message, regardless of what happens to the story. So, you're in the writers' room and you're hashing out your screenplay. At what point do you decide that you know the audience is going to "get it"? Do they need to be hit over the head with the message that Riggan is capable of these amazing things and even the hard-bitten theater critic will be won over? The coda, which was the hospital scene post-shooting, was trying to convey that the dream was still alive and that, finally, someone else was beginning to share it with Riggan. Did it need to be that hopeful or would the entire film up to that point have been sufficient, even if the film ended in the hospital with the news that Riggan was dead and not simply wearing the real, medical world version of the mask that has both marked and dogged his career for 20 years? Was that hopeful moment a "Hollywood ending" that gave (presumably) the majority of the public what they would want, ensuring that they went away enjoying the film and that they "got it"? Or could you have avoided the formulaic approach for which movies are often so derided and gone full Death of a Salesman and not been entirely sure that, firstly, the film would succeed and, secondly, people would walk away with the understanding that the goal had still been achieved and the dream was still there?

Most creative people want to expose their work to the widest possible audience. This is the appreciation factor that drives many to do what they do. Some, like Mike, are simply driven. They'll labor away in relative obscurity, convinced that their effort is pure because they're not making the compromises on behalf of the audience (whether needed or not.) But most want as many people as possible to experience their art. This is why a band like Rage Against the Machine was willing to work with a division of the corporate behemoth, Sony. They wanted people to hear their music and absorb the message that it carried. Same thing here, both within the story and without, I think. Riggan initially wanted to be in front of as large an audience as possible (and the money didn't hurt, either.) So he became, in the words of movie critic, Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan), a "celebrity" instead of an actor. The story tells us that he still had talent. It had just been swamped by the demands of the public for more explosions. By the same token, the writers of Birdman had to take into consideration that same audience. Do they stick to the seemingly tragic progression that ends with their central figure giving everything (i.e. his life) for his art or do they avoid that path and leave the audience with something closer to what they're likely expecting and which the majority will doubtlessly appreciate more? Do you entice your audience or do you condescend to them? Is it condescending to them in trying to make sure that they "get it"?

I confess to being a little disappointed in the coda in that respect. I thought the message of the film was plain and had been well delivered up to that point and the fact that Riggan could have died on-stage, while it may be something of a trope unto itself (i.e. break a leg; give everything), would have been a decent resolution to what was a farce about creation, acting, film, and life. The fact that he lived doesn't make it any less an excellent farce, but I felt it detracted slightly from what remains a great film. Riggan's daughter, Sam (Emma Stone in an uneven but still solid performance) could have realized what he had become even if she was standing over his corpse. They wouldn't have been able to continue with the essential mystery of his powers (Was it him flying or was it just a cab ride?) and that may have been another consideration in the final product. The fact that Sam talked more than once about things like Twitter and Youtube being "real power" and which Riggan eventually fully engaged, even unwittingly, with his unexpected tour through Times Square, wouldn't have been necessarily diminished by her later awareness of just what his real powers were. That said, this ending was probably the easier method of conveying that for writers, actors, and audience.

On the technical side, I thought director Alejandro González Iñárritu did a fantastic job in showing what is essentially a play on film. The "one long shot" technique was especially well done in some of the scene transitions that would have been a cut in most films but instead were presented to the audience as an opportunity for them to realize that time had passed without it being explicitly mentioned, as often happens on stage. The first appearance of Mike was a sterling example of this. Clearly, he wasn't just hanging around when Riggan had told Lesley (the always excellent Naomi Watts) to get him, but as the camera follows Riggan from backstage to THE stage, Mike appears. They kept that up through about 2/3 of the film and I was disappointed when they did finally succumb to regular time transitions by having us look up at the buildings as the sky changed colors so that it was obvious that things were moving ahead. It's a tough technique to sustain and they did a good job of it up to that point. Likewise, keeping Riggan's powers just on the edge of believability and maintaining almost constant close-ups for what was a very personal story was the right approach.

Keaton was excellent, even if he remains Michael Keaton, with his trademark hesitation and double-takes in almost every role. Norton, sticking to the "art imitating life" theme, gave us a character who resembles what Hollywood rumor has been about him for many years (difficult to work with, more intensely committed than those around him.) Despite that, he didn't steal scenes from Keaton or Watts or Stone. The cast seems to have found the right touch with each other and that always improves the final outcome. There were a couple weak spots on initial reaction and both of them had to do with the romantic attachments in the film. When Lesley is ranting about Mike to Laura (Andrea Riseborough) until Laura finally kisses her, my first thought was: "Wait. Titillation here?" But then I came to realize that they were perpetuating the trial of the actor theme in that Lesley, like all actors and most humans, just wanted to be loved ("Why do I have no self-respect?" "Oh, honey. You're an actor."), something of which Mike was largely incapable. Of course, in wanting to be loved, you want to be in front of bigger and bigger audiences. Thus, Birdman, losing touch with your art in the name of being loved or mistaking love for admiration, etc. Laura just ended up giving her what they both wanted. By the same token, I was a little put off by Sam and Mike's similar interaction, in that Sam also wanted the love that was absent from her father and Mike was trying to figure out how to love when off the stage, but it felt a little too convenient for the story at that point. By the same token, having done a few plays (way back in the day...), I can confirm that you do develop more intense interactions and relationships over a short period of time, as in most creative ventures (and politics), and the fact that people end up falling together off-stage isn't unbelievable in any sense. At those particular moments, it just felt like the timing was off, perhaps because the overall story was so personally focused around Riggan and he wasn't finding that love that was being offered. One of the most detestable aspects of modern filmmaking is the concept of a "love interest". Neither of these situations was that, but I initially reacted as if they were.

I guess the question at that point is one of truth: Which are real emotions and which aren't (which is a constant acting struggle in the first place)? Did I have that reaction because some of the acting taking place was borderline melodramatic? I don't think it was a fault of the performers or the director, but I wonder if, in their zeal to show a play on film, they were caught in the essential conflict of the two media. The stage requires emoting. You need to blow up those emotions into something that will reach the back of the room because the audience will often not be able to read the expressions on your face and need to feel what you're feeling unless you just want to be shouting all the time. That doesn't translate as well on film because the camera can be right there, with your expressive face filling all 22x52 feet of the screen in front of us. You don't need to emote as much, but you can get caught up in doing so, especially if half of your film is showing you attempting to perform on stage, where it's needed. It's a tricky balance and I think most of the people involved (veterans all) pulled it off.

But that brings us back to our original question: How much is too much? When are you Trying Too Hard to deliver your message? In the end, I think you could nitpick the film about that essential quandary and you could complain that wrapping things up in a (relatively) neat bow detracts from what the film was trying to say (i.e. it's too Hollywood.) My overriding cynicism has me thinking in that fashion, but the film was simply too good and too smart to consider it cripplingly flawed, in my opinion. Be as disdainful as you like about tropes (and I will if you won't) but I think the basic premise of the film as farce precludes a lot of the second-guessing about how much more tragic and serious it could have been. In its earnestness, I think it earns a pass on the TTH estimation, mostly because it dared to tackle a number of very basic questions and arrived at a number of very good answers, most of which the audience has to be left to itself to decide, which is the best ending to any creative work.

Choice of character

There was a post on the board a few weeks ago that sparked something in my mind because I'd considered it a number of times over the past 4 years, but after I wrote it down I filed it away to be finished later because I was (and am) currently struggling with another story. Now that I've decided I'm stuck for the evening, the question reoccurs. Said question borders on the tautological: Can you like a character better in one medium than another if the new version is done well enough? In other words, how do you separate the two? If I think Sandor Clegane is better on TV than in the books, is it because the character was actually done better or because the actor has not only lived up to my expectations for the character but has actually exceeded them? Does that make show Hound better than book Hound? Does it depend on the actor? Does it depend on the script? Does it depends on how attached you are to the character in the original medium? Furthermore, do the TV characters end up being superior in some cases simply because of the fantastic foundation upon which they rest? It's a lot easier to write someone when the original author has already done the favor of laying their groundwork for ~4500 pages. Does that make our central question moot? Is there any other reason to have the Internet other than to discuss unanswerable questions? Well, let's discuss.

Tyrion- As I noted in the episode 8 write-up, there’s a distinction that becomes much more prevalent in the characters that are written as quite canny and literate; Tyrion being one of those. In the show, we can’t read their thoughts, which deprives us of some of their eloquence. But in the books, we can’t see their reactions and facial quirks and it’s that aspect which often defines Peter Dinklage as an actor. His undeniable charm has sold Tyrion to an audience of even more millions, beyond even the fact that he gets many of the best lines. Furthermore, he’s far more good-looking than the Tyrion from the books, who was a fairly distorted dwarf with off-color hair even before he lost his nose (unlike the Margaery-pleasing scar he bears on HBO.) Those things play as they’re supposed to in the visual medium. Most humans respond more favorably to an attractive person than they do to one who falls below that common standard (there’s a lengthy discussion possible here about standards of beauty being societal or instinctive; I trend more toward the latter based on the reactions of children, but that’s going far afield right now.) However, even with Dinklage’s contributions, I think Tyrion is still a better character in the books simply because of the time and space he’s allowed to elaborate upon those inner workings that make him the character he is. If given the screen time necessary to more fully acquaint his audience with exactly who he is and the depth he has as a tragicomic figure, perhaps that would be different. This does nothing to detract from Dinklage's performance in the show and, indeed, this first choice is one of the more difficult because of the involvement of the writer. Martin has stated before that Tyrion is the character with whom he feels the most familiarity so there's little doubt that he'd be a more developed individual in the books. Furthermore, Dinklage has developed Tyrion as a different person in the show (he has not read the books) and there's plenty of argument to say that that difference is better, but not necessarily a better Tyrion.

Cersei- is absolutely a better character in the show, without question. Prior to Feast for Crows, Cersei was a device; a constant foil for a multitude of other characters. Martin wrote her with intelligence, certainly, but the personal depth took a long time to come to the fore. Lena Headey has had the opportunity to develop that depth from day one and she has excelled in doing so. She’s made Cersei into a sympathetic character for much of the audience even as she’s been utterly reviled (as intended) for the rest. Her defining moment was when Tywin informed her that she’d be marrying Loras and the cocky, evilly-gloating Cersei immediately crumbled to helpless daughter in the same fashion as her younger brother whom she’d been cackling at moments before. It’s tough to do that kind of transition as an actor. It’s tough to write it as an author and still maintain some kind of genuine reaction on the part of the majority of your audience. Headey sold it and then, even after creating that moment of sympathy, continued to be the ice queen in season 4, culminating with her self-satisfied smirk over the corpse of Oberyn Martell. I think having her wholly realized from the outset has led her to become a character of far greater complexity. You can't fault Martin for not making her a viewpoint character from the outset, as these things have a life of their own, at times, and he probably only realized that she had grown into that status as he began Feast. I realize there is some dissension out there over Headey's performance as being too sympathetic but I would urge those people to look at Cersei as a human and not simply Malificent with blonde hair.

Jaime- is an interesting question. Both versions show the transformation from elitist prig to thoughtful man and both versions use Jaime as one of the most obvious “shades of grey” examples that is one of the primary themes of the entire work. Interestingly, the show has allowed him to swing back and forth over the line at different points: the infamous rape scene next to Joffrey’s body was a significant departure from his path in the books (as the scene never took place), while his assistance in Tyrion’s escape in the book was a far more venomous scene between the brothers than the fairly heartwarming moment in the series. Overall, I’d have to say that he’s a “better” person in the show, but that assumes that you want him to be. Is he better in the show because the audience can more easily access Nikolai Coster-Waldau’s charismatic performance or is he better in the books because he’s still the grim, cynical persona arcing more toward the Hound as someone who has given up on the concept of knighthood or good people, in general? I think I’ve found him to be better in the show simply because Coster-Waldau’s rendition has been more entertaining but I’m not sure that he serves the story better than the book version (assuming that I understand Martin’s intent for the character.) Jaime in the book is still in that transformation and there's room to argue that Coster-Waldau's transition has been too complete at this point (although, again, the rape scene puts the lie to some of that.) I've become fond of Jaime as a character in the latter two books largely because he is a cynic, but I tend to favor the show version in many ways because of Coster-Waldau's sterling performance. How this guy went from a bit role in Kingdom of Heaven to this is a mystery to me, given his obvious talent, but it certainly does help to have good material to work with.

Daenerys- Daenerys, Daenerys, Daenerys… So, trying to play an innocent babe-in-the-woods who, in the books, is almost literally a child (she’s 14 when married to Drogo) and who becomes a queen with a distinct level of authoritah is a challenging prospect for any actor. I think Emilia Clarke has done a phenomenal job with the task, culminating in the Mask of Rage moment this season when she dismissed Jorah. That said, it’d be kind of difficult to do worse with the role because the book character has in many ways been something of a cipher. She’s delivering the Targaryen storyline and the depiction of Essos but hasn’t really been one of those characters whom you remember fondly for various moments (other than Dracarys.) Martin has had near-legendary problems with her storyline, which has faded out for lengthy periods of time (she has about 50 pages in Clash of Kings) and which has become difficult to move forward for fear of completely voiding the character’s consistency. There is no there there, when it comes to Daenerys. That changed to a certain degree in the latter part of Dance and we now have a clearly more interesting path for her to proceed upon, but I think the show character has had more opportunity to present Dany the person, as opposed to Dany the plot element, and I think that’s more worthwhile. However, again we're hampered here by not having access to her innermost thoughts which tends to demonstrate a bit more of her intelligence in the books in the same manner as Tyrion, so I think this is a closer call.

Jon Snow- Without question, I think the book character is better. As much as I appreciate Kit Harrington’s efforts, Jon Snow of the Page is simply far more thoughtful and deliberate than Jon Snow of the Screen, even when he was a novice at the Wall. Harrington has played him to his intended age and with all of the emotional turmoil that he endures playing out on his face. The book Snow is more guarded than that and his actions become more reasonable as a consequence. Harrington never sold me for a minute as the Wildling ex-pat. Snow in the book, even though I was in his head the whole time, put on a more believable performance for his new allies. Furthermore, Harrington plays him with a great deal more angst than the book character displays and I've carried a distaste for that particular human condition since I stopped reading the X-Men in the late 80s as a direct consequence of Claremont's overindulgence in it. While Harrington is a capable actor, I think his inexperience shows through moreso than any of the other younger people and he becomes a bit wooden in tough spots. One can argue that that actually reflects Jon Snow's personality to some degree but I think Martin has done a better job of depicting him as somewhat detached but still very human.

Bran- Likewise, I think Bran is better in the books, but this may be more of a method problem than anything done by the actor. Bran’s role is tough because a lot of what happens to him is completely beyond his control, such that he can only react, rather than act, not solely because of the magical events occurring that he doesn't understand but also because he depends on others for his survival and even mobility. In the book, we’re treated to a lot of Bran’s inner thoughts, which demonstrates more clearly how he’s adapting to the situation around him and why. We won’t ever get that in the show without an expository infodump that is bad for TV. Furthermore, the delivery problem rears its head. In prose, otherworldly things can come to life in a very reasonable manner for most people. It’s a lot easier to read about genuinely fantastical things happening and be carried along by the story than it is to see them on a screen in front of you because you don’t need a suspension of disbelief for your own imagination, which is providing the pictures as you read along. You still need that when it appears in front of you because it may not be your interpretation of how it should look and it will never look as good as it does in your mind simply because of that gulf. That makes Bran’s role more difficult on TV than it is in the books. Also, Bran's story suffers from the same problem that Dany's does, in that it's out on its own, largely unaffected by events elsewhere in the world, so it was possible for Martin to leave it for extended stretches which leaves the actors cooling their heels or engaging in relatively mundane stuff ("We're still traveling north...") that doesn't give Isaac Hempstead-Wright a great deal to work with.

Arya- Show. Show, show, show. Beyond doubt. Maisie Williams has been a revelation as Arya and is one of two characters that has so firmly embodied her role that it becomes difficult to tell whether she’s better because she’s better or better because she does the role to a level almost indistinguishable from the original character. I was not especially fond of Arya’s storyline until Storm of Swords, but I was blown away by Williams from the moment she appeared onscreen. I guess the real question will be if she can maintain that performance as the character transitions into the state in which she has become one of my favorites in the books. Interestingly, while Jaime, for example, seems to become more interesting on the show because he becomes more sympathetic, Arya wins out because she becomes less so. In both media, she becomes more brutal and less human to a degree, but the transition is far more stark in the show because it happens over a much shorter time. Furthermore, Maisie was a much more appealing person than Arya of the books, who was much more like a child who had been plucked from her home and dropped into quite dire straits. Am I saying that show Arya is better because her reactions may have been less genuinely human? I might be.

 

Sansa- Again, I think the show wins out here and really only from this most recent season. It took me a long time to warm to Sansa in the books, too, but I did eventually come to appreciate the strength that she displays as the completely powerless character that finally comes to realize how to play the game and how important she could be within it. That presence of mind is still kind of muted in the books, but she took control with a vengeance this season and had some of the greatest moments in its latter stages. Sophie Turner could easily be noted as the best actress of season 4 and making Sansa a more sympathetic character to much of the audience is part of that. It's also a total contrast to Arya, in that Sansa has become more sympathetic to me because of the very human nature of her reactions. Or is that just my more mature estimation of character than my first encounter with Sansa some 18 years ago?

Stannis- While I really appreciate Stephen Dillane’s performance as the man who insists he should be king (he was fantastic as Thomas Jefferson in HBO’s John Adams), I think Stannis has become less than what he should be in the show. In the original story, Stannis is the iron man: unassailable, unmoved, solely determined to gain what he thinks should be his. In the show, he’s far more vulnerable, which is everything Stannis is not. Granted, he’s not a perspective character, so we rarely see things from inside the eye of Stannis (i.e. Davos would not have been present while Stannis was nailing Melisandre on the Westeros table) but his reactions have also been more emotionally-driven than expected and it’s made the character not as imposing. Also granted, it’s hard as hell to be an actor and play someone who seems impervious to everything around him, so I don’t blame Dillane, but this is one area where I think that D&D may have taken it in the wrong direction.

 

Oberyn- I mention him here despite the brevity of his role because he's one of the outstanding examples of this contrast. The Red Viper was an interesting experiment in dramatic presentation. The character in the books is interesting but mostly because he was specifically designed to be so and not because he delivers an aspect of the story that's particularly deep. He’s an alpha male with a singular purpose: vengeance. The reaction of Tyrion and others to his presence makes that apparent from the moment he’s introduced. The audience is supposed to instantly understand him and, consequently, like him in the same way that they’re supposed to understand and like Omar from The Wire. In later years, many people have come to appreciate the other, deeper, more complex characters of The Wire moreso than Omar because of that depth. Same thing here. I appreciated Oberyn for fulfilling the role that he was intended for. Having said all of that, I think Pedro Pascal exceeded expectations of “coolness” for Oberyn Martell. He stole every scene that he was in and I think he improved upon the character.

Theon- Alfie Allen isn’t as smooth and arrogant as Book Theon nor is he as savaged and desperate as Book Reek. That said, he’s done a remarkable job playing the two sides of the very complex story that is Theon’s life. Still, without those extremes, I still feel like Theon has been more impactful in the book because we've been able to spend so much more time with his two halves. Oddly, though, I think that the show version has given us deeper insight into the character with small scenes like the burned letter to Robb and the clear transitions of emotion across Theon's face during the re-baptism and Reek's face when Ramsay dangles yet another temptation/threat in front of him in a fashion similar to Dinklage/Tyrion. Even with access to his inner thoughts, I feel like I understand the character better with Allen's depiction. I think that note about having the advantage of millions of words already written about these people is most prominent here. I don't think I can make a real choice.

 

Finally, we come to the Hound. I think that, like Williams, Rory McCann's depiction of his character has been so spot-on that it's difficult to separate the two. He basically is Sandor Clegane, down to telling fans to "Fuck off!". And, again, we circle back to those original quandaries: Can McCann be better because he nailed it or did he come to that natural level at which there's no point debating who is better because they both simply are?