The Rittenhouse Coincidence

Here’s another one for the books. When things like this happen, I have to wonder, is there a conspiracy of coincidences?

Last night I saw the movie The Martian. I liked it, but this post is not about potatoes and slingshots (you’ll have to see the movie). It’s about what happened later, in a sequence of events leading up to tonight.

After the movie last night, I did some of the usual post-movie internet surfing and landed on the odd story of Tallulah Bankhead. Her best film performance, it was said, was in the under-rated Alfred Hitchcock film Lifeboat. So I read about Lifeboat. The story for the film was written by John Steinbeck. The film was released in 1944.

So tonight I thought I’d see if I can rent Lifeboat through my cable service. Turns out I can. I watched the trailer. In the brief clip viewers are meant to notice that the guy who’s appointed himself in charge is a “Mr. Rittenhouse.” One guy remarks to another, with sarcasm, that he should call Mr Rittenhouse “Rit.” Not too remarkable. So far.

As often happens, I clicked some more, looking for other classic movies. In less than a minute I came across the Randolph Scott movie Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend. This caught my attention because it features Scott and two other actors I like: James Garner (of “The Rockford Files”) and Angie Dickinson (you know, “Police Woman”).

 

So I played the two-minute trailer for Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend.

The clip doesn’t reveal much of the story line. Randolph Scott is Captain Buck Devlin, recently mustered out of the cavalry. Sgt. John Maitland (played by James Garner) appears to be his sidekick. Devlin rides out of a small town heading west, with plans to return. Maitland stays behind for the time being.

After Devlin leaves, Maitland is seen managing some sort of transaction with the townspeople—swapping trinkets and such for weapons and ammo, it appears. A minor character steps up to the table where this is happening. He’s familiar to Sgt. Maitland. His name? “Mr. Rittenhouse.”

What are the chances that within two minutes of each other, I’d see brief clips of two completely unrelated movies, where in both a “Mr. Rittenhouse” is addressed by another character?

Maybe I have a name, finally, for the kinds of coincidences I sometimes write about here: “The Rittenhouse Coincidence.”

Will the Movie “13 Hours” Undermine Hillary Clinton’s Credibility about Benghazi?

In less than ten days the movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” will be released. There’s chatter that this will lend credence to the already credible claim that Hillary Clinton is not an admirably honest person.

Still, you have to ask, “Who should you believe? A former First Lady, New York Senator, and Secretary of State, or three guys named Tonto, Tig, and Oz?”

***

The movie’s website and movie trailer: http://www.thirteenhoursmovie.com/

IMDb description: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4172430/

Reading Up on Argentina, Birthplace of Pope Francis

With the Pope’s visit to the U.S. this week, now is a good time to add a few choice items to your reading list.

Pope Francis is from Argentina, a country in crisis. That includes economic crisis. For background to the history of capitalism and free enterprise in Argentina, have a look at The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism, by Paul H. Lewis. Argentina once boasted a vital economy. Today it struggles under a regime that has frittered away the capital of a storied nation and crippled economic opportunity among the rank and file. Lewis documents the history of this condition and explains the unique story of economic decline in Argentina. In the same vein is Vito Tanzi’s informed on-the-ground account in Argentina: An Economic Chronicle—How One of the Richest Countries in the World Lost Its Wealth. Tanzi, an Italian, spent three decades working in various roles for the International Monetary Fund.

For those seeking a travelogue, Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia is the celebrated gold standard. Condé Nast, a travel journal, ranks it among “The 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time”. The London newspaper Telegraph includes it among “The 20 Best Travel Books of All Time”. William Dalrymple, writing for The Guardian, proclaims it his favorite book in the category of travel literature. He judges that it is probably the most influential travelogue since World War II.

Many have forgotten, or never knew, that Nazi war criminals found safe have in Argentina under Juan Perón. Uki Goñi narrates this story in his book The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina. He documents collaboration between Perón and the Vatican. Kenneth Maxwell reviews the book in the journal Foreign Affairs. For a fuller description and evaluation of Goñi, see Richard Gott’s review in The Guardian. Gott doesn’t dispute the evidence of Catholic collusion.

Altogether incidentally, one of my favorite films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford (1969), recalls the demise of these affable ruffians in a hail of bullets while hiding out in Argentina.

Note: All links are to Kindle editions at Amazon.com

Poll: 2012 Oscar Nominations

The 2012 Oscar Nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced earlier this week. Here are the nominees for Best Picture, with links to their official websites, are:

• The Artist
• The Descendent
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
• The Help
• Hugo
• Midnight in Paris
• Moneyball
• The Tree of Life
• War Horse

Here are two polls: (A) Which film do you think will win the award for Best Picture? and (B) which film do you think should win the award for Best Picture? You can add detail in support of your answer in the comment box for this post.

My Oscar Picks

Oscar Nominations are in. Here are my picks for seven categories.

• Best Picture: “True Grit” (runner-up: “Inception”)

• Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, for “True Grit” (runner-up: Colin Firth, for “The King’s Speech“)

• Best Actress: no opinion

• Best Supporting Actor: Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech” (runner-up: Christian Bale, for “The Fighter”)

• Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, for “The Fighter” (runner-up: Hailee Steinfeld, for “True Grit”)

• Film Editing: “The Fighter”

• Special Effects: “Inception”

What are your picks?

Trailer for the Movie “Shields”

A short trailer for the movie Shields, featuring my daughter Erin Geivett, has just been released on the director’s Facebook page. This is Erin’s debut in a live-action role. Hope you enjoy!

Shields, the Movie

The Serious Business of Lying and the Enterprise of Fiction

Image via Wikipedia

Ursula Le Guin objects to the idea that science fiction is predictive. In 1976, she wrote:

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying.

— Ursula K. Le Guin, Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness

Lying, you might say, is serious business. Even when it comes to fiction, when we like to be lied to. But why do we like to be lied to, those of us who read fiction and pay good money to see movies?

There’s a clue in the title of John Dufresne’s guide to writing fiction: The Lie That Tells a Truth. Fiction and film, at their best, package important truths in a tissue of lies. Some of these truths we already know before our fictive experience of them. Others we learn, if we trust the lies, when fiction happens to us. And often it is our capacity to trust the lie that makes us vulnerable to truths.

Some will protest that the novelist and the screenwriter do not lie. After all, we know “it’s only a story.” But since when has this stopped us from believing what we know isn’t so? Isn’t Le Guin onto something when she says,

In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane—bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren’t there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napolean. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.

And in the thick of our believing, we don’t want to be reminded that “it’s only a story.” We’re like the lad whose grandfather reads to him in the movie The Princess Bride. He’s not as ambivalent as he pretends. And neither are we. If it’s a really good story.

Avatar DVD Release

Avatar is now available on DVD—at Amazon.

Related post: What Is the Movie Avatar About?

Land of the Free Film Premiere

The film Land of the Free premieres Thursday, May 27, in Whittier, California.

I’m a big fan of this movie. Of course, how could I not be? Erin Geivett, my daughter, co-stars in the film. This is her debut as a lead actress.

And Then There Were None: A Film Discussion Guide

And Then There Were None (USA, 1945), directed by René Clair, is the original film adaptation of the famed Agatha Christie novel. The novel is the best-selling mystery thriller of all time and one of the top 10 best-sellers among all books in English. The film is popular, too, on IMDb and Amazon.

Discussion Guide:

Joyeux Noël: A Film Discussion Guide

Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas) (France, 2005); directed by Christian Carion

In an earlier post, I recommended the film Joyeux Noël. The DVD of this wonderful foreign film can be viewed with English subtitles. Here are the discussion questions I’ve used recently in my course on Faith, Film and Philosophy:

1. Many film critics, even some who give it high marks, say this film is “sentimental.” What do you think they mean by that? What evidence could be cited in support of the claim that the film is sentimental?
2. Audebert, the French Lieutenant, draws something he’s seen on the wall of his quarters. What does he draw? Why does he draw this? Does this have any significance for the film as a whole? Explain your answer.
3. Is it reasonable to the think of the alarm clock as a character in the film? Explain the role(s) played by this clock throughout the film.

Eating Movies Like Popcorn

Ray Bradbury, named by Marie Arana “America’s one-man fantasy factory,” wrote,

I was a child of movies. My mother ate them like popcorn.

In 1964, Bradbury called cinema “a science fiction device.” He was talking about all cinema. So, naturally, he wished to see film adaptations of his stories. His best-known successes are Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.

At Barnes & Noble one day, I crossed paths with the book The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work. Opening the book at random to page 76, I went to the bottom of the page and read the last sentence:

If you wait long enough, I learned, and stuff your eyeballs with shapes, sizes and colors, the gumball machine to your skull lends you gifts at the drop of a pen.

Favorite Christmas Movie for 2009

I know, it’s January 2, 2010. But within the past few days I watched a movie that ranks as one of the best—maybe the best—Christmas movie I’ve seen. It’s the foreign film called Joyeux Noël (translated, “Merry Christmas”).

The setting is Christmas Eve, 1914, on the battlefield, with French, Scottish, and German battalions hunkered down in their respective trenches. Conditions are grim. But something very special happens.

Plotting, casting, cinematography, soundtrack are all good. But crucial to the success of this film is that the story it tells is true.

The film is realistic down to the language and accents. The French Lieutenant speaks French, the German Lieutenant speaks German, and (most challenging of the three?) the Scottish Lieutenant speaks English, but the way they do in Scotland. There are no subtitles in the digital version I viewed. But to me, this was a major plus.

First Lines: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

Laurence Sterne’s ironical work of fiction, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, was first published in 1759. It baffled and intrigued Sterne’s contemporaries. You may feel the same way after reading the opening sentence:

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions that were then uppermost;—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded that I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the reader is likely to see me.

Come again?

Speculative Fiction by and for Christians

Twitter led me to a blog called My Friend Amy, where there’s an interesting take on speculative fiction in today’s “Faith ‘n Fiction Saturdays” category. The post addresses several questions:

1. What is speculative fiction?
2. What is “Christian speculative fiction”?
3. What are the standards for high quality Christian speculative fiction?

This short post got me thinking about these and related questions. The result is a longer post sketching some of my thoughts about the general topic.

What Is Speculative about ‘Speculative Fiction’?

My Friend Amy quotes Wikipedia for an answer to this question:

Speculative fiction is a fiction genre speculating about worlds that are unlike the real world in various important ways. In these contexts, it generally overlaps one or more of the following: science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history. (Click here for the complete Wikipedia entry for “Speculative fiction.)

The term is of relatively recent vintage. It doesn’t appear in any of the three handbooks I consult for such things:

• Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, 4th edition published in 1996. A new edition was published in 2008, and no doubt includes novel entries (no pun intended).
• The Reader’s Companion to World Literature, 2nd edition published in 1984. This edition was updated in 2002. Of the three books listed here, this is the best value—very affordable and reliable, with excellent coverage of authors, titles, literary movements, historical periods, terms and phrases.
• Kathleen Morner and Ralph Rausch, From Absurd to Zeitgeist: The Compact Guide to Literary Terms (1997). I believe this book is out of print, but I see that (at the time of this post) one copy is in stock at Powell’s Books.

I once read an essay on speculative fiction that developed a convincing account of the form. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the author or where I came across the item. But I do remember thinking then that “speculative fiction” is an apt label for fiction that explores counterfactuals—ways things might have been but weren’t, or ways things might yet be but won’t. [FN: For more about counterfactuals at this website, “Run Lola Run—A Discussion Guide.”]

The interesting examples of counterfactuals are worlds very close to this, the actual world. “What if, instead of X happening at time t, something else that could easily have happened, Y, had happened at t? How would things have turned out then?” (One serious philosophical problem with speculation of this sort is that the sequel to any counterfactual at time t—the succession of events following Y, for example—may itself vary in numerous counterfactual ways. There may be many ways things might have turned out if Y had happened rather than X at t. And it’s puzzling to think that there is just one way things would have turned out in such a counterfactual setup. But I digress.)

The better fictional depictions of counterexamples would be at least minimally ‘literary.’ And they would explore themes of enduring human interest.

Could a Christian author write speculative fiction? Of course. The author at My Friend Amy’s blog alludes to several. The most obvious examples are ones that are most obviously ‘Christian.’ They broadcast a Christian message so overtly that it cannot be missed. For example, as noted in the blog post over at My Friend Amy, much Christian fiction depicts battles in the spirit world between angels and demons and the role of intercessory prayer by humans caught in the conflict. This kind of speculative fiction will appeal mostly to Christian readers, and then only to a certain kind of Christian reader. They don’t appeal to My Friend Amy for example. [FN: Some Christians, you may be surprised to hear, would argue that many such specimens of fiction are not properly Christian.]

C. S. Lewis and Others

It is interesting to me that C. S. Lewis is not mentioned. In addition to his cherished Narnia series of fantasy novels, Lewis wrote a very sophisticated series of three novels in what might be called the category of ‘space fiction.’ These are Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Lewis wrote with subtlty and grace. It’s well-known that he wrote from a Christian worldview. But these novels do not ‘preach.’

Lewis also wrote The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. These must surely count as paradigm cases of ‘speculative fiction.’ Next time you read them, consider this question: “What sort of ‘what-if’ question is Lewis endeavoring to answer in this book?”

I think that’s the question to put to any book if you want to be sure it counts as ‘speculative fiction.’ This opens the way for ostensive definition of the term. That is, it facilitates understanding of the term ‘speculative fiction’ by pointing to clear cases of it. Two examples that come immediately to mind are Shikasta, by Doris Lessing (1979), and The Children of Men, by P. D. James (1992).

It’s interesting to consider these examples in connection with questions raised by My Friend Amy. My view is that speculative fiction is a particularly congenial form for writing from a distinctive worldview, be it Christian or otherwise. It is congenial in part because it permits experimentation with the implications of a worldview without wearing that worldview on its sleeve. Doris Lessing and P. D. James both write with religious sensibilities—Lessing with the perspective of Sufism, James with a Christian worldview. [FN: Lessing was once offered the honorific title of “Dame” by Queen  of England. Lessing declined the honor. James was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991.] The guiding perspective in each case, though often discernible, is subtly layered into the narrative. This is akin to what the great authors Flannery O’Connor and Graham Greene accomplished in their more ‘realist fiction.’ [FN: See for example, and the short stories of Flannery O’Connor, and The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene.]

For many readers of this post, the film adaptation of The Children of Men will be better known than the book. While watching the first few scenes, I thought about how this darkly apocalyptic film might render the religious component of the human condition when humanity is faced with extinction. My guess was that it would represent society as completely secular, and that any portrayal of religious people would characterize them as the kind who stand on street corners warning passersby of imminent divine judgment, in a tone that betrays their conviction that ‘none who hear will convert, and it’s just as well anyway, since they deserve to go to hell.’ That pretty much is how religion was ‘treated’ in the film.

That last statement needs qualification. What I should say is that religion, imagined under the conditions described in the film, is presented a certain way. This may be a commentary on how religion is manifest in the world today. But it’s pretty striking that no one I would call a ‘serious believer’ shows up in the movie. I imagine they don’t exist, or, if they do, they are marginally significant to the storyline. But then what would account for their nonexistence? Or what would explain their insignificance to the unfolding story? It is precisely the apocalyptic character of the story that makes their absence conspicuous. And that is interesting.

So a film or a novel may have something to say about religion even when it makes no direct reference to anything explicitly religious.

Vampires

The Amy post also asks whether fiction featuring vampires might be a venue for developing Christian themes. I’ve thought about this myself. That would be an excellent question for Anne Rice, the bestselling author of vampire fiction, and an adult convert to Christianity. Books in her newer series based on the gospel narratives has not been quite as successful as Interview with the Vampire. They are, to be sure, friendly presentations of the life and influence of Jesus. I suspect they have generated a new set of fans.

Susan Howatch

Another contemporary author known for her Christian worldview is Susan Howatch. Also a bestselling author (and British), Howatch composes stories with a realist cast. They take place in our world, you might say. See, for example, her acclaimed series beginning with the novel Glittering Images. One of her best is The High Flyer, which can be recommended to any reader with a taste for literary fiction set in the contemporary context.

* * *

A blog permits the expression of random thoughts during idle moments. I’ve exploited that opportunity here. As often happens, the flood of thoughts swelled to the point of necessary expression because of a bit of reading. This time I happened to be reading another blogger who reads.

Thank you, Amy my friend—whoever you are.

Related Posts by Doug Geivett:

• Eating Movies Like Popcorn
• Now Reading “Little, Big,” by John Crowley
• Living Too Fast with Books
• More Christmas Reading
• Michael Dirda on “The Knowledge Most Worth Having”