Weekend Reads: Satoshi Kon, Pixar's Afterlife, Max von Sydow, Dystopian Literature
Recommended weekend reading material for March 14, 2020.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable articles, blog posts, and reviews. I hope you’ll find they make for good weekend reading material.
First up are a pair of articles on the work of Satoshi Kon, the celebrated anime filmmaker who sadly passed away in 2010. The first article concerns 2003’s Tokyo Godfathers and its treatment of homelessness in Japanese society.
Tokyo Godfathers ultimately serves to correct perceptions common around the world of unhoused people, often derided as a “burden on society” who don’t warrant the same consideration as others; Kon’s sociopolitical critique aims to right a wrong. Leaving aside any sappy rhetoric, Kon… devises an edifying Christmas carol that doubles as a contemporary tale of humanist piety.
The second article looks at Kon’s exploration of darkness and horror in titles like Paranoia Agent and Perfect Blue.
Kon knew what made for a true, profound work of horror — how the medium is meant for us to look at the darkest parts of life. Internal trauma, toxic obsession and gripping anxiety around identity are keystone to his portfolio, and they shed light on the little horrors of our own world.
With movies like Coco, Onward, and the upcoming Soul, Pixar is asking big questions about the afterlife.
“What happened before and after our lives on Earth is something we’ve all thought about at one point in our lives, and the subject definitely gives us a lot of intriguing, meaty themes to explore,” [director Pete] Docter says. “The challenge, of course, is that no one knows without a doubt what all that entails — and some people have definite beliefs which we don’t want to accost, never mind the design challenge!”
Legendary actor Max von Sydow (The Seventh Seal, The Exorcist) died this week at the age of 90.
If ever an actor was born to inhabit the World According to Bergman, it was Mr. von Sydow. Angular and lanky at 6-foot-3, possessing a gaunt face and hooded, icy blue eyes, he not only radiated power but also registered a deep sense of Nordic angst, helping to give flesh to Bergman’s often bleak but hopeful and sometimes comic vision of the human condition in classics like “The Seventh Seal” and “The Virgin Spring.”
Here’s a collection of responses to von Sydow’s death from around Hollywood.
According to K. B. Hoyle, dystopian literature may be just the thing to read during a pandemic:
[D]ystopian writers usually take pains to show how we believe we should be caring for each other in the midst of futuristic crises. Sometimes it’s by showing man’s inhumanity to man (or woman) with the implied message of, “Go forth and do the opposite of this.” Sometimes it’s by writing protagonists who challenge the status quo to stand up for the oppressed and downtrodden. Sometimes it's by writing just how much all of humanity suffers when good people do nothing.
Not only is Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” one of pop music’s great singles, it even comes with its own urban legend.
The story goes a number of different ways. In one version, an inebriated Collins watches from afar as another man watches someone drown. In another, he’s in a boat with another person during a downpour when it capsizes, and though he swims ashore — while a random onlooker watches without offering help — his companion ends up succumbing to the current. There’s another where Collins takes revenge on a man who raped his wife, though that seems to be the result of a particularly bad telephone-game connection.
The sad story of Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous highlights the dangers of lionizing an artist’s suffering.
Death only helped validate the importance of this ‘real’ art, and hold such [figures] up — no, not in life, when they needed all of the support, love, and care we could offer — but in death, as a martyred simulacrum of wasted talent and untapped potential.
David French considers how online outrage is leading us astray.
Our public discourse is trapped in an outrage cycle. We look for tweets and comments that appear to confirm our worst fears about our opponents, and when we find an outrageous comment, we retweet it, quote it, and repeat it as “proof” that our fears were true. Here is the person who “said the quiet part out loud” or turned “subtext into text.” He’s “the left.” She’s “the right,” and with each salvo in the endless war we retreat farther and farther from the perspective we truly need.
To help celebrate International Women’s Day, my friend Seth compiled a list of 75 noteworthy comics creators who are women. Some of the creators include Ann Nocenti (Daredevil), Fumi Yoshinaga (Ooku), Hisae Iwaoka (Saturn Apartments), and Kaoru Mori (A Bride’s Story, Emma).
Earlier this month, I reviewed a true classic of alternative Christian music: Shaded Pain by Lifesavers Underground. While researching for my review, I found this in-depth interview from 2009 with Brian Doidge, who played guitar on Shaded Pain and many other L.S.U albums. Not only is it a fascinating look at the Christian music scene in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but Doidge opens up about his struggles with alcoholism. This is a must-read for fans of “Chrindie” music.
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