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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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