Thanks to the tireless efforts of my dear friend (and Sarasota Film Festival roomie), the über-talented Colin Panetta, The Back Row Manifesto has a new look! I am really grateful to Colin for doing these banners for me; I think they look great. I am also enjoying my lame stab at an appropriate color scheme as well…
Thanks again, Colin!
It has been a summer of reading for me, both high (I have just started reading Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of An Island which, to this point, blends sex and humor in an unsettlingly enjoyable way) and low (Theodore Roszak’s terrificly fun ode to the dangers of obsessive cinephilia, Flicker) with a couple of film biographies thrown in for fun (as previously mentioned, Marshall Fine’s walk down Cassavetes lane Accidental Genius and Michael Bamberger’s unintentionally sidesplitting cautionary tale The Man Who Heard Voices) and constant dips in and out of Phillip Lopate’s fine collection of American Movie Critics. Throw in a constant parade of The New Yorker magazines (has there been a better chronicler of the failures of The Bush Administration than Seymour Hersh?) , and I have been spending a lot of time with my nose between the pages.
As an avid reader, only one story has been grabbing my attention these past few days; I was shocked to see the recent admission by author Günter Grass (whose novel The Tin Drum is a personal touchstone, as both a work of literature and a and a famously banned film), that he served in the German Waffen SS during World War II. I know a few things about the Waffen SS, an elite paramilitary group that reached a membership of 900,000 soliders who were engaged in activities from field combat to the brutal crushing of the Warsaw Uprising and guarding the prisoners in concentration camps. During the post-war Nuremberg Trials, the Waffen SS was labeled a criminal organization and its leaders were prosecuted as war criminals. Grass, after a lifetime of pacificism and humanism, now admits to having served in the 10th SS Panzer Division “Frundsberg”, a Waffen SS tank divison, after being drafted in 1944 as a 17 year old.
While no one has accused Grass of war crimes, it is a startling revelation inasmuch as Grass has often been an impassioned advocate for national reconciliation with Germany’s troubled political and military past. The outrage over his deception ranges from a demand from former Polish leader Lech Walesa that Grass give up his honorary Polish Citizenship to the sad (and admittedly cynical) realization that this 11th-hour admission has been perfectly timed with the release of his new autobiography Peeling The Onion, which reportedly details his participation in the war.
Peter Pan Meets Cassandra In Hell: Oskar Matzerath (David Bennett) keeps time in Volker Schlöndorff’s film adaptation of Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum
Ultimately, this revelation recasts the man’s life’s work in a deep shadow; Is he the ultimate hypocrite, a liar seeking personal absolution by establishing moral authority against his own secret activities, or can his art transcend these revelations? Will readers of The Tin Drum see the story of a boy’s refusal to grow up as a profound expression of the absurdity of war and life under facism, or will the book be re-interpreted as an empty fairy tale written by a man who sought to bury his own dark secret? This is no ordinary work of art, but a Nobel Prize winning novel (adapted into a 1979 Palm D’Or and Oscar winning film) that indicts the very activity in which Grass himself was guilty of participating.
This is an interesting moment to read the book and watch the film again, and I plan on giving it another go very soon. Perhaps there is a part of me that is not so surprised to hear the news, a part that understands that, in order to create a world as vivid as the Danzig of The Tin Drum one has to understand, deeply and with an obvious complicity, the conflict that exists in all men between the power of regret (which is giving Grass the benefit of the doubt) and a transcendent imagination of the self as a more complicated person than our actions would suggest. I don’t mean to sound like a Grass apologist, because I don’t have a clue as to the depth of his actions or his regrets, but I do know that regardless of Grass’ actions, a novel (and film) like The Tin Drum will probably continue to hold a place near and dear to me. There is always a chasm between a work of art and the person who created it, and in this case, we have a chance to confront it while the man is here to answer to his mistakes. I am interested in both Peeling The Onion and The Tin Drum, in seeing how lies, complicity and regret were molded into an important expression of humanism. How will the work stand up? Who will Grass the man become to us, his readership? Can art redeem the man? Is it enough?
Blog Crush 2006
“It’s when you love somebody, and they don’t love you, and you do something about it”—Todd Solondz’s Storytelling
When you have a crush, it can be a very hard thing… Just ask Samantha.
Do you have a blog crush? Do something about it.
In recent conversations, I discovered that several of my friends have on-line crushes. How to capitalize? While my blog gets insane teenage soccer fans and violent conservatives replying to me, my friend and fellow blogger Michael Tully has created a cult of personality that is hard to fathom. And so, we decided to do something about it. For the first time ever, Boredom At Its Boredest and The Back Row Manifesto join forces to present an evening of film and revelry to wash away your online blues. Step away from the monitor and come celebrate with us, our friends and 2006 Rooftop Films filmmakers Alex Karpovsy (The Hole Story) and Todd Rohal (The Guatemalan Handshake), as we go to the movies, grab drinks and create general mayhem. It will be a great time, and you can confess your online crushes in our Blog Crush Guest Book. Results will be posted on both blogs in the aftermath of the party.
Blog Crush 2006
Thursday, June 15th 2006
The Movie:
The Hole Story directed by Alex Karpovsky
8:00pm
$8
Rooftop Films, OPEN ROAD PARK
East Village, Manhattan
The Blog Crush After-Party:
11:00pm
Presented by Boredom At Its Boredest AND The Back Row Manifesto
151
151 Rivington, New York, NY USA
Have a blog crush? Use the comments below to let them know and come drink away your loneliness!
As some of you may know, aside from cinema, my primary passion is English football (specifically, Liverpool FC). Months ago, my two passions collided (sort of) when I posted a review of Lexi Alexander’s Green Street Holligans, a film I liked quite a bit but which, I argued, seemed to fetishize hooligan violence:
“The film is by no means a call to arms or an incitement, but I have to admit, walking out of the theater, my chest was puffed up and I was full of adrenaline; I felt almost invincible. Only when I put the violence in its proper context was I able to see that the film was more than just an entertaining couple of hours in the lives and deaths of the football gangs, it was a celebration of the mob.”
Anyone want proof of my theory? Despite a clunky date formatting issue, the comments section on this review continues to draw posts from people all over the world. Who knew the power of the Google search? Click here to enjoy the fruits of the First Amendment!
Yeesh… Good ol’ West Ham…
Wow, I just dug through my archive, and lo and behold, today is the one year birthday of The Back Row Manifesto! 365 days ago today, the good folks at indieWIRE made the troubling, misguided decision to allow me to join their blogging community. Thanks guys!
I have really enjoyed this experience so far. It’s a wonderful thing to have a place to post all of your thoughts, to be a part of a community of people writing about the things they care about the most. As the independent creative community continues to fight to express an alternative idea of what is stimulating, interesting and beautiful in the world, it is a priviledge to be able to present my thoughts, to showcase and support the things that I love, and to exchange connections and links with those who are creating a networked conversation on-line.
Thanks for all of the comments, links, and for taking the time to read this blog. I am looking forward to another year…
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