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by Theodore Roszak
In a word (or two or three):snuff film anyone?
From Mr. Hipster:
This was one of those books that sounded
endlessly entertaining in its description, but started to pale
when reading user comments. Despite some less than enthusiastic
feedback, and a somewhat daunting page count for a summer read,
I pressed forth and hit the wham-o button on Amazon. This sat
on my shelves with some slimmer, lighter fare, but I knew eventually
its turn in the queue would come around. By the time I finally
acquiesced and hefted the thing from its home, I only had a vague
recollection that some nudnik or other had said the plot lost
focus in several instances and went spinning off into the miasma
of book-ish film theory and tales of grandeur. A sense of dread
descended as I cracked the spine--I had read enough pretentious
film theory in college to send me into convulsions whenever anyone
even whispers the dreaded terms ''experimental,'' '' mise en scene,''
or '' chiaroscuro.'' Afterall there are only films you can see
or read about that involve fusing melted colorforms to the celluloid
or using Barbie dolls to act out the story of Karen Carpenter
(which is about as subtle as a Scottish accent). The book turned
out to be a lot more than that. Roszak, a film studies professor
himself, has his film professor lead character narrate the tale
in the form of a memoir, talking about his trials and tribulations
to write his definitive thesis on film director Max Castle. His
story actually starts right before his first introduction to the
director's work and continues on through what we can only assume
is the conclusion of the very memoirs we are reading. As it turns
out his journey in researching Max Castle was much more interesting
than the story of Max Castle himself. Roszak takes the plot above
and beyond the intriguing mind of a forgotten b-movie director
and into the realm of The DaVinci Code. Having never
read that book, I'm merely making an assumption, but there are
deeper studies of a group called the Cathars, Oculus Dei, the
Templars, and secrets of the Catholic church. This is all discussed
within the framework of film, but at some point movies fade into
the background, and it is the apocalyptic messages of a religious
order that take over. The movies are merely a vehicle to the masses
in which to imprint their message that life is literally hell
on earth. As our protagonist, Jonathan, gets deeper and deeper
into his research, it starts affecting him in negative ways, robbing
him of anything sunny or any kind of libido. The movies are obviously
having the correct affect. Oddly enough the book itself had a
similar affect, kind of bringing a pall over everything. I did
find myself thinking about it a lot, and looked forward to reading
it every night and morning. My fears about it being scattered
were waylaid by Roszak's apparent mastery of his subject matter.
And while I'm still up in the air about the ending, it does provide
a multitude of possibilities and kind of leaves you to draw your
own conclusion--which is always fun. Despite being somewhat academic
and quite odd in parts, I really enjoyed the thing, and figure
through shear will of originality that it'll stay with me for
a long time to come.
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