From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #109 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, June 27 2001 Volume 03 : Number 109 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/owlcreek ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/scriptsite ["Donald G. Keller" ] o/gormenghast ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: o/gormenghast ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/scriptsite ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 12:53:53 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/owlcreek Allen: The reason I didn't mention "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" was that it didn't cross my mind. So I'm grateful you brought it up. I know the story, of course (I saw the short film in school as well, and don't remember its origin either), and you're dead on correct that it uses the exact same story-mechanism as the =Dark Angel= final--a closer match, even, than between "Forever" on =Buffy= and "The Monkey's Paw." In fact, if I ever have reason to re-use what I said about =Dark Angel=, I'll have to carpenter in a reference to the Bierce. *sigh* I think you all will just have to think of me as wearing a big sign around my neck reading I'M BEING REALLY PIGHEADED ABOUT THIS. More than a month after the broadcast, I =still= haven't watched "The Gift" again (in fact I just lent out my tape), and I'm still cranky about the whole thing, when I think about it at all. My vehemence surprises me, too. Allen, you lay out the whole situation very neatly, and offer me a very graceful way out of the situation. But it still won't do, I'm afraid. It's difficult to convey to others the way one's own mind works, especially the processing that occurs unconsciously. But I can say that I'm not really "symbolic-and-emotional-analogy-guy": the patterns, analogies, and parallels I discern are clear-cut in my mind and as logical as a mathematical equation. (When I open a Levi-Strauss book and look at his diagrams and tables I recognize the mode of thought.) And I reject the ones that don't work as firmly as I embrace the ones that do. Yes, it's true, Joss Whedon did lay some groundwork for the resolution of the finale: the blood-sister scene at the end of "Blood Ties," Spike's statement in "The Gift" in particular. That helped, a little. It would have helped a little more if he had taken up a subtextual megaphone and shouted something along the lines of "DAWN IS MADE FROM BUFFY'S SUBSTANCE. KIND OF LIKE ADAM AND EVE. DOPPLEGANGERS. OK, CLONES. THEY'RE EXACTLY THE SAME." Which he didn't. So I'm entitled to assume that Buffy and Dawn, being sisters, have =very similar= (but not identical) blood. But even that wouldn't have been enough for me. Try this thought-experiment. Let's suppose that Dawn was around in the 3rd season, and that similar statements about blood in general and Summers blood in particular had been made (as they easily could have been). And that Dawn had a crush on Angel instead of Spike (who was barely around that season). Now let's suppose that, when Buffy fails to corral Faith, Dawn sneaks into the sickroom and feeds herself to Angel. She dies of bloodloss, and Angel is cured. Summers blood, after all. Would you have found that to be a satisfying conclusion? I sure wouldn't have. To me that's =exactly= the same scenario (in logic-of-symbols terms) as "The Gift," only with Buffy's and Dawn's roles reversed. It wasn't Buffy's blood (Summers blood) that was the cure; it was Slayer blood. Thus Faith's blood would have been an appropriate substitute...=and Dawn's would not have been=. And I think it's equally true that it's not Dawn's blood (Summers blood) that is the important element in the portal-opening ritual; Dawn-Summers-Buffy's-sister is just the human envelope for the Key, and it's the Key that is the important element. Buffy is =only= Dawn's sister: =she's not the Key=. Just as Dawn is not the Slayer. Nonequivalent. (Just as the nameless human Angel kills in "Becoming" fails to trigger the ritual of Acathla. It had to be =Angel's blood=.) I'm still trying to construct this as a more formal argument, but there's the crux of it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 12:56:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/scriptsite Allen mentions in passing that website with the =Buffy= shooting scripts on it; I had already been pointed there by Micole. It was (he said jokingly) a Very Evil thing for her to do, because I spent an entire evening (and a few hours on subsequent days) poring through things, including the "Faith tetralogy" from the 4th season, "Hush," "Restless," and a couple episodes from the 5th and 2nd seasons. Also of interest on the site (which Micole pointed out to me) was the audition scene for Glory: it's not a scene that occurs in any episode, but it's absolutely typical of her (she's abusing a minion), supplying all the "beats" the actor would need to hit to play the character well. Most interesting. There's also the script for the original pilot (which I haven't read), plus early drafts of stuff, including "Bad Girls" and Buffy's dream from "Restless." Fascinating differences, of course. At one place it's mentioned that the first volume of the 2nd season scripts (through "Halloween") is due to be released soon. This is a good thing. As I had discovered on reading the published shooting scripts for the 1st season, many scripts run a little longer than the finished film, and have small bits that got cut at the last minute. Always fun to see. Just for one, in "The Weight of the World," they cut a scene while Anya is babysitting Tara, where Anya turns on the TV and there's a nature special on rabbits showing--and Anya freaks. And of course bits in the stage directions can be very interesting. I was quite amused by the following, at the beginning of Act III of "This Year's Girl": "And we're back. Buffy and Faith stand face-to-face. Willow looks around, stunned. UC Sunnydale students flow past in both directions, oblivious to the fact that King Kong and Godzilla are squared off in their midst." (Wonder which one is which.) Naturally, I went through the scripts for the various dream sequences I'd spent so much time on. I didn't find much to budge my basic interpretations, though I did find it intriguing that in the stage directions for Faith's 3rd dream in "This Year's Girl" it is revealed that we are supposed to hear the sounds of a fight between Buffy and Faith in the grave; on my tape I'm not sure I can hear anything past the thunderstorm that is starting up, so I fear that idea was not really adequately conveyed. Also quite fascinating were two significant cuts from the dream that opens "Hush." I spent some time before discussing a couple cuts from Maggie's opening lecture (which was reproduced in the 2nd =Watcher's Guide=), but these are even more significant, potentially. The first is after Buffy has reclined on the table and Riley has approached her for the demonstration. The following short speech was cut: MAGGIE (to the class) A kiss is just a kiss, I believe the line goes. The rest comes from you. Which is resonant, but not absolutely clear in significance. It does goes along with the idea that the surface topic of the dream is Buffy and Riley not having kissed yet. Also, I'd always heard Riley's important line as beginning "When I kiss you," but it's actually "=If= I kiss you." Not sure it makes a big difference, except the idea that kissing is still provisional. Lastly, there's this. Buffy hears the chanting spirit girl, and gets up to seek her out: "Riley watches her go, smiles as he whispers to himself. RILEY Along came a spider..." !!! Little Miss Muffet? Curds and whey? Makes me wonder, again, whether the spirit-girl has any connection with Dawn (who did not yet exist). It also underlines Riley as (within the dream, anyway) a nemesis-figure: remember that he turns into a Gentleman at the end. And remember his antagonism towards Buffy in "Restless" (which is even clearer in the draft). Incidentally, watching the final filmed version of "Hush" very carefully against the shooting script, it looks like all of this cut stuff was filmed; there are clear but unobtrusive film cuts at every point where material was omitted. The unaware would never know the difference. Fun stuff. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 12:58:03 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: o/gormenghast I don't know what the schedule is elsewhere in the country, but the New York PBS station is running the British miniseries =Gormeghast= this Wednesday and Thursday 9 p.m., 2 hours each night. It's based on Mervyn Peake's classic trilogy (=Titus Groan=, =Gormenghast=, and the very different =Titus Alone=, which does not figure in the adaptation; the whole lot is currently in print in one large trade paperback) written in the 1940s; like other fantasists of the first half of the century (Dunsany, Eddison, Cabell, Tolkien), Peake was an original. Written in a rich, complex, old-fashioned (but not archaic) style, the trilogy has a bit of the Gothic about it (the huge, and hugely ancient, castle where most of the story takes place), as well as Dickens (a tremendous number of extremely eccentric characters), and no supernatural element to speak of. Wonderful stuff; and while it hasn't had the influence that Tolkien has had, a number of British fantasy writers like Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison are deeply indebted to Peake. I know that David has seen it already (the advantage of British relatives), because he wrote a long review of it; I invite him, if he wishes, to make a shorter comment here. My impression (from David and elsewhere) is that it's an excellent adaptation, and myself, I'm really looking forward to it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 11:11:19 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: o/gormenghast I second Donald's recommendation of the Gormenghast adaptation, and encourage anybody who's read the books, and especially anybody who hasn't but thinks they might like to some day, to watch it. It'll give you a taste, and a fairly accurate one, in only four hours of what took me literally months - enthralled months, but months - to read the first time. The adaptation of the plot is reasonably complete and faithful, giving due weight to multiple strands, and failing only in allowing the importance of Steerpike to emerge too early, and perhaps in emphasizing the political aspects of his motivation. The screenwriters added in more gortesquery and obscenity than Peake wrote, but it's in keeping with a current adaptation of his style. The acting ranges from adequate to exceptional: the aunts Cora and Clarice, and Professor Bellgrove (Stephen Fry), are the best. By the way, the actors playing Irma Prunesquallor and Mr. Swelter will be appearing as the horrible step-parents in the Harry Potter film. The biggest problem with the adaptation is simply the necessity of cramming all this into four hours. From the viewpoint of a long-time reader, the entire story dashes along in a zippy fast-forward. Peake is slow and massive: like a Mahler symphony in size and scale (and also in the juxtaposition of deep and somber with manic and grotesque). The two books covered in this series total 1000 pages in the standard edition: at four hours, that's roughly four pages a minute. Too fast! Where the adaptation succeeds brilliantly, however, is in set design and costume. Gormenghast is not a sedate Renaissance estate, as some would have had it. It's an anachronism (the lesson of the third book, not covered here, but which fact Titus realizes earlier), it's musty and dusty, and it's a riot of mixed periods. Costume design here ranges from medieval court dress to World War II Home Guard, and everything in between, and that's exactly right. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 11:11:25 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/scriptsite At 09:56 AM 6/26/2001 , DGK wrote: >As I had discovered on reading the published shooting scripts for the 1st >season, many scripts run a little longer than the finished film, and have >small bits that got cut at the last minute. I've gathered from the comments on such matters in the Watchers' Guide books that such cuts are usually made for time, but it ain't always necessarily so. >Naturally, I went through the scripts for the various dream sequences I'd >spent so much time on. I didn't find much to budge my basic >interpretations, though I did find it intriguing that in the stage >directions for Faith's 3rd dream in "This Year's Girl" it is revealed that >we are supposed to hear the sounds of a fight between Buffy and Faith in >the grave; on my tape I'm not sure I can hear anything past the >thunderstorm that is starting up, so I fear that idea was not really >adequately conveyed. In particular this sort of thing. It's entirely possible, as far as I can see from here, that the sounds were cut because of a last-minute artistic decision that was not reflected in the shooting script. >"Riley watches her go, smiles as he whispers to himself. > > RILEY > Along came a spider..." > >!!! Little Miss Muffet? Curds and whey? Makes me wonder, again, whether >the spirit-girl has any connection with Dawn (who did not yet exist). It >also underlines Riley as (within the dream, anyway) a nemesis-figure: >remember that he turns into a Gentleman at the end. And remember his >antagonism towards Buffy in "Restless" (which is even clearer in the >draft). What I like especially about this is that Riley's antagonism is never followed through on. The sad ending of his & Buffy's romance has no real relevance to that. As with some of the other great dreams on this show (Buffy's dream of drowning after Faith kills the Mayor's aide is an example), prophetic dreams tell you something about reality but they don't have a neat one-to-one relationship with them - and some of their contents can be misleading or entirely false. Tolkien knew this also. >And I think it's equally true that it's not Dawn's blood (Summers blood) >that is the important element in the portal-opening ritual; >Dawn-Summers-Buffy's-sister is just the human envelope for the Key, and >it's the Key that is the important element. Buffy is =only= Dawn's sister: >=she's not the Key=. Just as Dawn is not the Slayer. Nonequivalent. > >I'm still trying to construct this as a more formal argument, but there's >the crux of it. What do you need to construct this more formally for? That sums up the problem quite effectively. I'm with you all the way here. By the standards we've come to expect, this scene was really sloppily envisaged. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #109 *****************************