Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"What if ambulances were driven by clowns, with swirly red-and-black lights on top, and when the ambulance stopped, the back door opens and a paramedic in a clown suit jumps out, then another, then another, until there are 10 clowns?" -- nindiv, in talk.bizarre, 2003-09-18.

Saturday morning I was struck by the desire to hear "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" on hammered dulcimer. I haven't gotten to yet (Bill and Becky were out of town, so no hammered dulcimer at the performance Saturday evening, and later in the weekend syntonic_comma seemed to think he was too out of practice on that instrument to pull it off on a moment's notice). In particular, I keep hearing in my head -- and wanting to hear aloud -- some of the variations C.W. McCall's backup band[1] puts on that tune, and similar variations that they might do but, as far as I know, haven't. I find myself humming it in the shower, with ornaments I could play on recorder or guitar but which wouldn't sound quite right on either of those instruments.

I recall seeing in somebody's journal sometime before Christmas (I'm currently a month or so behind on my friends' pages, but I've glanced at them once in a while and hope to catch up in the first few days of the new year) a survey asking one's favourite Christmas carol. I think "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" is mine (though ask me next year and see whether my answer is the same). Even with the annoyance of seeing the comma in the wrong place (or omitted) so often in the title. And most of the reason is musical. The words count, of course -- there are several carols that I like well enough but are out of the running because the lyrics seem to "Christmas as commercial holiday" instead of religious, or because they're about nostalgia and traditions instead of being about the Christmas story itself, or because I find the lyrics just a little bit cheesy ... and I'm not counting any seasonal-but-not-Christmas-specific songs as carols at all. But of the ones not excluded because the words fail to live up to my standards, my choice comes down to music. Which ones are the most interesting to sing (without being too difficult for me), fun to play on at least one instrument that I play, and can be tinkered with and improvised on without feeling like I've destroyed them in the process? For me, for now, I'm putting "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" at the top of the list.

I keep sitting down to write a Return of the King review, not being sure where to start because there's So Much There, and putting it off a little longer. Maybe if I throw out bits and pieces at a time ...

I'm accustomed to finding directing either invisible or bad. That is, I'll get to the end of a movie and comment on how good or bad the acting was, or the writing, or how bad the directing was, but I'm not used to leaving a movie thinking, "Wow, that was awesomely directed!

With Return of the King there was good acting. There were brilliant sets and locations. The story ... well there's a reason it's as famous as it is. But as good as the acting was, I walked out thinking about the amazing job Jackson did as director.

There are lots of things Jackson did well. Here's one: as I remarked to silmaril, in the scenes with Gollum, Frodo, and Sam, Gollum was a pretty amazing and effective special effect, and he's a very distinctive character -- you've got this special effect, moving in really unusual and eye-catching ways, speaking in a distinctive and unusual style and exhibiting psychiatric issues dangerous to the other characters -- and it would be very easy for Gollum to steal the scene without meaning to. In fact, it's pretty difficult for Gollum not to become so much the focus of those scenes that the other two characters become mere stage decoration for him, or to wind up being essentially comic. But that doesn't happen. The other two characters are equal to Gollum in how "present" they are in the audience's attention, and the scenes feel balanced. Gollum is an effective character, but not a scene-stealer. A large part of this is, of course, the acting of Wood, Serkis, and Astin, but even so, I see a major dose of the director's hand in making those scenes really work to serve the story instead of letting "awareness of impressive technique" take over and making the story at that point feel like an excuse for showing off the technique. And as Silmaril commented back to me, even another great director failed that particular test recently.

That's just one bit that caught my attention when thinking about the movie a day or so later (at the time all that caught my attention was the story). There are others all over the movie. I'm not used to singing the praises of a director, but Jackson is utterly amazing.