Quick Notes Towards A Greater Understanding of the Underlying Philosophy of "Greatest Movie Character Lists"

On a message board, I saw a post mentioning that "Empire Magazine" had put together a list of the hundred greatest movie characters of all time.  I scanned the list, and it was as laughable as one might expect- Indiana Jones at number one, Heath Ledger's Joker at two, Forrest Gump in the top ten while Travis Bickle languished at 27.  Obviously, this is one of those deals that is too ridiculous to take seriously.  But it got me to thinking about the metaphysics of such a list- how if you get to really thinking seriously about this inane endeavour, it might drive you crazy.  

First of all, we have to throw out the central question- what does "greatest" even mean?- it's way too objective to approach here.  It's some kind of a combination of most complex, most memorable, best written and best performed, but we'll leave it at that.  No, instead we have to begin with the question of what is a film character.  Sure, it seems self-evident.  It's a character in a film.  But what about characters who did not originate on the screen?

If you had a poll on the greatest fictional character of all time, from any medium, you'd likely find a consensus pointing to Hamlet.  In fact, if you made a top ten list, it's likely that Shakespeare would take up a lot of that real estate.  Sure, Odysseus, Leopold Bloom, Don Quixote and Captain Ahab all might sneak in, but you'd expect to see Lear and Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth and Rosalind and Falstaff and Iago monopolizing the list.  So, wouldn't it follow that since all of these characters have been portrayed in films (although off the top of my head, I can't remember an As You Like It movie), that these same characters should dominate a similar list of film characters?  I'd be surprised if they did, because no one thinks of them as film characters.  So, does that mean that these lists have an unwritten rule about characters from plays and novels?  No, because I'd be surprised if any list was missing James Bond or Don Corleone or Hannibal Lecter, all of whom were in novels before movies.  So how does this bit of cognitive dissonance work?   I suppose it comes down to how memorable the character was in the book versus the film- when you bring up James Bond, everyone thinks of Sean Connery, but if you mention Jay Gatsby, who thinks of Robert Redford?  This is an imperfect answer, but it seems like the best that thirty minutes of distracted meditation can produce.

There's also the question of "real people".  Nixon, for example, is an incredibly interesting person, and the Stone picture about him was pretty good.  But I'd be surprised if he made such a list.  But if, say, T.E. Lawrence or Jake LaMotta made the list, I wouldn't be surprised, and not just because those two examples I chose are among the most memorable performances in the history of the cinema.  Again, I think it comes down to how people think about these people.  If you mentiond Lawrence, I can imagine what Peter O'Toole looked like in the movie, but I probably couldn't pick the real Lawrence out of a lineup.  So even though Muhammad  Ali is arguably a greater "real" "character" than LaMotta, and Will Smith was pretty good in the movie, I believe people consider LaMotta to be a film character in a way that they can't with Ali, even if this is a slightly bullshit comparison because of just how goddamned great DeNiro is in Raging Bull.  But I think you might see my point.

For the record, my top five list would probably include some combination of:

Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane)

Rick Blaine (Casablanca)

Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver)

Ethan Edwards (The Searchers)

and, I don't know, John Huston in Chinatown.  I can't remember the name of his character.

This Month's eMusic Downloads (September)

The Beach Boys- Good Timin'.  Live in England in 1980 with the real line-up for one of the last times.  

The Hold Steady- Boys and Girls in America.  I realize that everyone is in love with the band at the moment, but goddamn are they great.  Now if they could only manage to not schedule their shows opposite Murs.  

The Hold Steady- "Teenage Liberation"

P.O.S.- "All Along The Watchtower".  Kind of a hip-hop Dylan cover, but the Rhymesayers MC wrote new lyrics for his version of the Dylan standard.

The Kinks- Muswell Hillbillies.  Wikipedia describes this 1971 album as being about "the frustrations and stress of modern life".  This makes it stand out among the Kinks catalogue how?

Rick Danko- "Blind Willie McTell".  One of the Band's lead singers covering one of Dylan's absolute greatest songs live.

Murs- Varsity Blues

The 3MG's- Gypsy's Luck.  More Murs, in preparation for his show at the Cradle in November

Ian Dury- New Boots and Panties!- We need more rock stars with Polio.  Who are also awesome. And how great was the Stiff label?  Besides Ian, you have Elvis Costello, The Damned, Nick Lowe, Madness, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Wreckless Eric and the Pogues.  

The High Llamas- Gideon Gaye.  If I wind up disliking one album from this set, I'm guessing this will be it.  I was reading about them in a book I picked up called The Rock Snob's Dictionary, and thought I'd give it a chance.

On September 10, 2001, I had two things to do the next day.  I failed on both counts.  The first thing I was supposed to do was turn in a paper about a Hawthorne short story ("My Kinsman Major Molineux", for those keeping score at home), and my failure to go to class and hand in the paper had everything to do with procrastination and oversleeping.  My other task that day was to hit Schoolkids Records and buy the new Bob Dylan album, "Love and Theft".  I didn't accomplish this because after my roommate woke me up that afternoon I wound up watching CNN for the rest of the day.  

I actually don't remember when I wound up finally buying the Dylan album.  I think it was that same week, because I remember agreeing with David Menconi's piece about the album from the Sunday News & Observer. 

But that's not what I've been thinking about over the last day or so, even when I think about music and 9/11.  What I've been fascinated with is that Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's original release date was also September 11th, 2001, but the Reprise label's refusal to release the album (this is a whole other story) wound up pushing it's official release back to 2002, although the band, in an effort to stop piracy of the MP3s, began streaming the album online on 9/18/2001.  

If Reprise hadn't been such dicks about an "unreleasable album" (that went on to sell about half a million copies, despite Wilco generally being absent from radio that isn't prefixed by the word "college"), and the album had come out on 9/11, I can't help but wonder if Menconi's piece from that first Sunday paper after the attacks wouldn't have been about this album.  Despite being finished before the attacks, the album seems to have echoes of 9/11 throughout- from the cover picture of two towers in Marina City, Chicago, which bear a passing resemblance to the Trade Centers, to songs with titles like "War on War" and "Ashes of American Flags", to the lines in "Jesus Etc" about "Tall buildings shake/voices escape singing sad sad songs" and "Voices whine/Skyscrapers are scraping together/Your voice is smoking/Last cigarettes are all you can get/Turning your orbit around".

Fun With the New iTunes

So, at the moment I have a very favorable view of Apple, since my computer turned out to still be under warranty and I got a new wireless card for free.  Full of good cheer and in possession of my computer, I thought I'd try out the new version of iTunes, which added a potentially interesting new feature called "Genius".  "Genius" sends Apple an anonymous list of all of your songs and playlists, and then, when you click on an individual song, it creates a new playlist for you based on that song.  I've been playing with it, and the results seem to be pretty decent, albeit predictable and somewhat repetitive (although hopefully that will change when more playlists are added to the Big Brother database).  So, in the spirit of fucking around before I go to sleep, I thought I'd try out five of my favorite songs and see what songs Steve Jobs thinks will complement them.  Even though I've put up unfortunately long lists of songs here before, I'll limit my results to the first five suggestions, as then someone might actually get to the labels at the end of the post.

The Coup- "Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada Last Night"

1. Living Legends- "After Hours (Extended Euro Mix)"

2. Brother Ali- "Self Taught" (Great call, but that might be from one of my playlists)

3. The Roots- "Criminal"

4. Little Brother- "Good Clothes"

5. Black Star- "Astronomy (8th Light)

The Hold Steady- "Constructive Summer" (I can't stop listening to this fucking song.  It's awesome and the Hold Steady are becoming one of my favorites.  They're playing in Raleigh in November, on the same day that Murs is playing the Cradle, which is creating an agonizing dilemma for me.)

1. Beck- "Orphans"

2. Wilco- "Impossible Germany"

3. Spoon- "Finer Feelings"

4. Nick Lowe- "I Trained Her To Love Me"

5. Guided By Voices- "I Am A Scientist"

I'm not too impressed by these.  I have plenty of songs by acts like Springsteen and the Clash who have much more in common with The Hold Steady than Wilco or Beck or recent Nick Lowe.  

Bob Dylan- "Shelter From The Storm" (Live version from Hard Rain)

1. The Band- The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"

2. Bruce Springsteen- "Thunder Road"

3. The Rolling Stones- "Midnight Rambler"

4. Warren Zevon- "Lawyers, Guns and Money"

5. David Bowie- "Rebel Rebel"

Again, I'm not blown away here.  It almost seems like they chose five songs upstanding classic rock songs at random to go with Dylan, particularly the final three.  

Otis Redding- "Cigarettes and Coffee"

1. The Marvelettes- "Please Mr. Postman"

2. Aretha Franklin- "Soul Serenade"

3. Sam and Dave- "Hold On! I'm Comin'"

4. The Supremes- "Come See About Me"

5. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes- "If You Don't Know Me By Now"

Oh come on, "Please Mr. Postman"?  You're just choosing R&B and Soul songs at random, aren't you?

Tom Waits- "Clap Hands"

1. The Velvet Underground- "Beginning To See The Light"

2. Neil Young- "Mr. Soul" (Unplugged)

3. Wilco- "Hotel Arizona"

4. Pavement- "Summer Babe [Winter Version]"

5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- "Red Right Hand"

A little better.  Not sure about the Wilco song here, and I'd have chosen a different Neil song, but we're showing a little bit of improvement.

The most obvious issue for the "Genius" gadget is daring to make the leap from one genre to another within one playlist.  The problem is so ridiculous that when I tried a Howlin' Wolf song, I got a playlist of 25 songs, all of them either Robert Johnson or Howlin' Wolf (which reminds me that I really need to load my other Blues cds onto the computer).  If the music supercomputer can learn how to do that, then this might actually be pretty cool.  

Let the Mediocrity Resume

I got my laptop back from the Apple store today, and it seems like my internet problem has been fixed, and I can return to failing to do as much as I'd like with this blog.  

That is all.

Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes

So I finally finished reading The Iluminatus! Trilogy, (it's a long book).  It's clear to me that the two writers, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson are very clever and well-read individuals, and that they are good writers, without ever really approaching the level of great writers, even by the standards of "genre fiction"  (The book is classified as sci-fi, but that's not really appropriate.  It's more like "slightly psychedelic conspiracy metafiction", but most bookstores are still stubbornly refusing to include that section).  The ideas in the book are fascinating, and the range of allusions and references are impressive, but when I see that the cover boasts "0ver 100,00 copies sold" over thirty or so years, I think that's about right.  It's kind of like an article Chuck Klosterman wrote where he argued that My Bloody Valentine is one of the most perfectly rated groups in music history (as opposed to being overrated or underrated).  It's hard to imagine more than 100 thousand or so people enjoying the book, but of the 100 thousand who do read the book, most of them probably love it.  

Now I'm embarking on something I've been meaning to do for some time- re-reading Ulysses.   I started it last night, and I just finished the first section (the three prologue sections, following Stephen Dedalus around).  The first time around, I didn't actually finish the book (I suppose after I finish this, I should go back and actually finish reading Gravity's Rainbow) but I have confidence that this time I'll get through the whole thing.  I'll let anyone who accidentally arrived here know how it goes.

You No Longer Have Any Excuses

If you haven't seen Night of the Hunter, it has been added to the website Hulu.com, where you can watch it for free on your computer.  This movie is one of the true weird masterpieces of American cinema, featuring Robert Mitchum giving one of the most memorable performances ever captured on film.  A few years ago, I wrote a twenty page paper about the movie for a horror film class.  We were only asked for 8-10 pages.  That should tell you how strongly I feel about this film.  

This Month's eMusic Downloads (August)

-Steve Earle- "Way Down In The Hole".  The theme for the fifth season of The Wire, which I've been watching.  McNulty has lost his damned mind.  

-Steve Earle- Live from Austin City Limits.  In addition to doing the theme for the show, Earle has a recurring part as Bubbles' AA sponsor.  Somehow, this meant that I'm a fan of his music.

-The Hold Steady- Stay Positive.  I keep hearing about how this is the kind of underground/alt rock album that I should be listening to.  So I will.   

- The Cool Kids- The Bake Sale.  They were good live at Rock The Bells, before I had to leave to see De La Soul, so I'm guessing I'll like this.  Keith liked it.

- Joan Baez- "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".  Remember that scene in Don't Look Back where Dylan schools Donovan on how to play this song?  That was so awesome.  From a 2004 live show.

- George Carlin- What Am I Doing In New Jersey?.  I'm all about George Carlin albums that are divided into five or less tracks.  

- Johnny Cash- "Time of the Preacher"

- Whiskeytown- "Faithless Street".  These songs are both from the same compilation, called No Depression.  

- Neutral Milk Hotel- Everything Is EP.  I sometimes think about starting a religion based around Jeff Mangum's teachings.  Then I remember I already did this with Chipper Jones, and to do it twice would be silly.

- Bob Mould- Body of Song.  Bob Mould is a great man.  I'll tell you why.  Besides being part of Husker Du, and Sugar, Mould lived out one of his non-musical dreams by getting a job writing for professional wrestling in the late 90s when he took a break from the music industry.  That in and of itself is awesome.  Unfortunately, the man who gave us the Zen Arcade album was punished by getting a job with WCW while they were in the middle of the most spectacular self-destruction that fake sports have ever seen.  He was fully aware of how terribly wrong his dream went, and managed to get out alive.  I've heard a few interviews with him about his time in hell, and he managed to maintain his sanity, and return to the world of music, which is somehow less destructive than pro wrestling.  This man is a hero.  I can't quite explain why, other than what I just said.  

- Roger McGuinn- "Sugar Baby".  The song "Sugar Baby", which I associate with the great Dock Boggs, is awesome.  It's like secret wisdom or something.  

- Richive Havens- "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".  I loved how Dylan emphasized the bit about "Yonder stands your orphan with his gun/Crying like a fire in the sun" when he was schooling Donovan (who was being referred to as the "Scottish Dylan", which was terribly unfair to Donovan) on how to play this song.  

- Big Country- "In A Big Country" Live.  Shut up.  I like the song, but not enough to pay a dollar for the studio version.  

- The Sound- Thunder Up.  I'm trying to remember how this wound up on my "Save For Later List".  I think they were compared with Echo & The Bunnymen, and I somehow decided that I needed this.

-Little Brother- ...And Justus For All.  A commercial version of a mixtape that was released on the internet last year (I believe it was last year).   

Also, a few weeks ago, my mother and stepfather went on a road trip, and wanted the new David Sedaris audiobook to listen to on the way.  So, I decided that the cheapest way to get this product legally would be to sign up for an eMusic account, and try the free trial for their audiobook service.  This meant that, for the price of one month's subscription to the site, they would get the David Sedaris book, and at half the cost of iTunes.  And as a happy byproduct, I would get a bunch of MP3s from eMusic.  The albums I got are as follows:

-Petra Haden- The Who Sell Out.  A complete cover of one of my third or fourth favorite Who album.  This is brilliant and strange and wonderful.  

- The Pixies- Bossanova.

- The Pixies- Trompe le Monde.

- The Pixies- The Pixies. Also called "The Purple Tape", the band's 1987 demo.

- Spoon- Kill The Moonlight.

- Robyn Hitchcock- Robyn Sings.  An album of Dylan covers.  

So, good times.  And essentially honest, I think, since eMusic did get paid for 30 downloads in addition to the fifty free trial demos, and the free audiobook download.  Essentially honest, yeah.