Ken’s Blog

Even at a very classy conference such at FMX, there are some delighfully cheesy moments. One occurred this evening, as we were all gathering for the speakers’ dinner.

The conference organizers had arranged a marvelously weird photo-op for us. On a red carpet, in front of a big “FMX” sign, were local actors dressed as Captain America, Wolverine, and other fantasy figures out of popular culture.

The concept was that speakers on their way into the dinner could have their photo taken in the company of these esteemed fictional personages. I loved the idea, yet something about it seemed a little off. But what?

Then I had it. I turned to a colleague and said “That’s not the real Wolverine. That’s only somebody paying Wolverine.”

I suddenly realized that my colleague was just staring at me, and I realized the absurdity of what I had just said. “You know,” I added, “I can’t figure out what’s weirder — that scene on the red carpet or the thing I just told you.”

My friend Chris Landreth, the great computer animator, has pointed out that facial expressions in film acting do not follow obvious rules. Of course there is the Kuleshov effect (you could look it up), but it goes beyond that.

Chris has shown, for example, still frames from Citizen Kane, at a moment when Orson Welles’ character is flying into a murderous rage, and just about to trash a room. If you look at his face, Welles’ expression in that scene, counter to naive intuition, is completely serene.

The theory that Chris puts forward is that in fact John Foster Kane has, at that moment, accepted that he will now act out his deepest anger and need for destruction, and so he is actually in a state of acceptance and balance. It is part of Welles’ genius that he understood this, and underplayed the moment the way he did, rather than giving in to a fit of florid overacting.

Thinking about this now, I am curious to know what other movie scenes have this property? What moments from films portray a character in a state of extreme emotion, but where in fact the actor’s expression appears perfectly calm and serene?

I t’s possible that having a madman in the Whitehouse just itching to start a war has affected the sense of humor of my friends and myself.

Today I will be traveling on a flight to Europe to attend the wonderful FMX conference in Stuttgart. A friend texted to wish me a safe flight.

Well actually, what she texted was: “Safe travels, don’t die.”

I promptly texted back: “Excellent advice! If I neglect to follow it, I will do my best to let you know.”

In Congress they swung at the fences
And gave $120 million in expenses
For guy who’s très rich
Because life is a bitch
And this country’s lost hold of its senses.

When I was six years old, my brother and I would spend hours playing with toy dinosaurs. We could go an entire day, happily making up stories about the T-Rex and Brontosaurus.

We would accompany our little plastic friends as they went on adventures, quarreled and fought, had romances. We were never bored.

When I became older I lost the ability to do this. I now look at those little plastic dinosaurs with fond nostalgia, knowing I can no longer bring them to life with such careless ease.

Now I create computer graphic worlds, implement algorithms, direct projects, script screenplays of lab demos. I have developed so many adult skills that I never had as a child.

Yet I wonder, perhaps all of this creative energy, all of the work of writers, artists, song writers, filmmakers, playwrights, the vast outpouring of culture itself, is actually a kind of compensatory energy.

We all remember, somewhere in the back of our minds, the effortless creativity of our earliest years, and in our hearts we know that we will never again regain those superpowers. So we use our adult minds to construct a simulacrum.

Maybe that is what really drives all of the cultural work we do, all of the planning, creating, inventing. Perhaps it is a kind of prosthesis, the nearest we can come to the magic of our lost childhood.

I love the question posed by Adrian in his comment on my post the other day: How much does the beauty of a sentence depend on its meaning, and how much is purely a function of rhythm and cadence?

Suppose, for example, we retained only the rhythm and rhyme of some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, but changed the words. Would they still be beautiful?

He rests on Mars, but never felt marooned.
Could that be Jagger I see performing?
The weighty moth is best to touch.
Ensnare your brides in starch!
How cool is Portal III?

I’m assuming you can deduce the corresponding originals, all taken from the Bard’s plays. Perhaps you can also contribute a few examples of your own. 🙂

Sometimes you notice analogies between things that at first seem very disparate. For example, on many long running TV shows, there is a character who is the backbone of the show. The personality of this character is generally more or less predictable and on the nose.

And then there is another character who weaves around this first character in a way that is quirkier and less predictable. Somehow, for reasons you don’t completely understand, you find you can’t take your eyes off of this other character.

This supposedly secondary character is in some ways more important than the titular central character, because he or she represents the dynamic arc, the evidence of travel, the long journey that the audience has been invited to take.

With that in mind, I present the following analogy:

Don Draper is to Peggy Olson as Buffy Summers is to Spike.

I imagine you can think of others.

There is something wonderfully free about the films of Jonathan Demme, who sadly passed away this week. His movies are very different from each other, yet there is a clear theme running through all of them.

It is a theme of soaring spirit. Whether you are watching David Byrne dancing in a big suit, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington taking on mindless hate, Michelle Pfeiffer struggling for personal freedom in the tackiest world imaginable, or Anthony Hopkins playing an improbably likable monster, you know you are witnessing something special, something wondrously full of life.

After having been a fan of Demme’s work for decades, I finally had the honor of meeting him just a few months ago at a screening at Lincoln Center of his last film. He was very frail — the cancer that would do him in was already quite advanced — but his eyes were still bright and full of delight.

We geeked out together about cinema for a while (of course), and then I invited him to come to our Future Reality Lab to experience shared virtual reality. His eyes lit up, and he said he would love to.

I told him that I was sure he would think of things to do with this new medium that we would never have dreamt of. I am still quite sure I was right about that, but alas, time was not on our side.

Since yesterday’s post was particularly rhythmic, I thought I would take a moment to appreciate the great rhythmic sentences. Sort of the “greatest hits” of beautiful sentences.

We talk about great movies, great plays, great novels. But sometimes a single sentence can stand on its own as a classic for the ages, not merely for its meaning, but also for its cadence.

The very rhythm of some sentences has the power to transport me into another world. That such a thing is possible is a wonderful non-linear quality of our human brain and how it processes language.

Not surprisingly, I find the sentences embedded in poetry to be especially beautiful, but prose sometimes makes the list as well. Some personal favorites of mine: “I dwell in possibility;” “April is the cruelest month;” “Consider the lobster;”, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

Since I am a native English speaker, I am not properly equipped to evaluate sentences in other languages. But even I can appreciate the beauty of a sentence like “Où sont les neiges d’antan?”

I’m not sure it’s proper to play favorites, but at the moment my favorite English language sentence, for sheer rhythmic elegance, is one that was penned more than 420 years ago: “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”

When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
That’s amore

When you’re bit on the heel
By an undersea eel
That’s a moray

When it’s Povich you see
With a show on TV
That’s a Maury

When a thin shaft of light
Hits Othello stage right
That’s a Moor ray

When you make cool designs
From two sets of thin lines
That’s a moiré

When your whole native tribe
Has a New Zealand vibe
That’s Maori

When true love’s in the air
Up in Trois-Rivières
That’s amour, eh?