July 2, 2009
My Grandfather's Column (and bonus discussion)
Good
I ended my article last month by saying that one of the marks of a Christian was supposed to be that he or she lived a “good” life. So what do we mean by “good”? The best definition I know is that whatever fulfills the purpose for which anything exists is good. A good car is one that won't let you down, will be economical, have a reasonable turn of speed and be comfortable for both driver and passengers. No doubt you could add further marks of the good car. A good meal is one which satisfies the eater, is nourishing and free of any harmful ingredients.
It gets a bit more complicated when we turn to things like a good picture. Opinions are bound to differ as to what is or is not good in the artistic realm; but I think it's still true that a good picture fulfils the purpose for which it was created, whether it's a photo, a drawing or a painting. It's even harder to reach a sure decision when we turn to morality. A good man, in my book, is one who fulfils the purpose for which he was created, or if you don't believe he was created it would still mean one who fulfils the purpose for which he exists. The new problem here is that some people doubt whether there is any purpose in our existence. In which case the whole idea of our goodness is meaningless.
The traditional Christian teaching, which I strongly support is that man was made to know, love and serve God on earth and enjoy him for ever in heaven.
--Peter Graham
This induced a rebuttal from one of our regular commenters here, Tony Graham. It's worth repeating:
Everything hinges on the interpretation of purpose. Taking the term "good" into the area of art, you enter an area of great ambiguity. "A good picture fulfills the purpose for which it was created" : this appears to imply a totally subjective criterion for what constitutes a "good" picture. (The creator is - at least initially - the only one who knows their purpose). In many cases, art called wonderful or "good" by many, will by judged by the creator to have fallen far short of their purpose.Doubting the purpose of life seems a most understandable reaction to many of the circumstances/values that people both grow up in and see in the world. I think the recognition of this pressure to nihilism is vital to anyone seeking to i9nfluence the way society develops.
"Man was made to know, love and serve God on earth and enjoy him for ever in heaven".
Your statement reads like classical Greek to the great majority of non-theists. The enjoyment of this deity "in heaven" - "for ever" repeats a variety of mantra which is opaque. Are you enjoying him in heaven now, for example, as the bounty of your garden overflows? Or are you using heaven as a descriptor for the afterlife ? My understanding is that many Christians would continue to understand it in this way - a belief which significantly influences and confuses the debate about purpose.
I think man has a purpose. I believe striving to live a good life, looking at the lives one judges good, and questioning one's life is fundamental. "God" seems to carry so much baggage as to be wedged behind the turnstiles for many people - and so this baggage or these associations become a barrier to communication rather than a way in.
And in turn a grandfather's follow-up:
Thank you very much for your thoughtful response. I do have a bit of a
problem in that I know many who read my stuff are not Christians or
theists at all BUT until such time as my editors locally cease to want
it I have to write primarily for the benefit of our parishioners, who of
course include many who see things quite differently from how I do and
yet expect me to produce what I described some time back as an
individual liberal Christian point of view.. They all know that in a
sense I am a spokesperson for the Church since I am an ordained priest
of the Church of England..
So to your message: I accept that taking my interpretation of "good"
into the realm of art does have problems, which I'd not thought much
about. However I still think it's quite a useful way of thinking even
in matters of aesthetics. A work of art generally considered wonderful
but judged by its creator to be far short of what he hoped for can still
be called good in my terms because its creator is pursuing more than one
purpose. I know that when I paint a picture it is primarily for the joy
I get out of the actual creation but I also hope it may be judged a
worth while work and am pleased when people say they think it's "good".
My experience tells me that I am a poor judge of what other people will
think about any work of mine. I may think I've produced a mess but if
others say it's great, I'll accept that it may be good even though it
did not satisfy me.
Doubting the purpose of life is indeed an understandable thing but that
idea is ambiguous too. It can mean doubting what the purpose is while
conceding that there probably is some purpose behind it all; or it can
mean doubting whether there is any purpose whatsoever or indeed feeling
sure that life is purposeless. Your own declared purpose looks good to
me but I'm not sure how well it would work for someone who grew up among
truly nihilistic or plainly bad people.
"Man was made to know, love and serve God on earth and enjoy him for
ever in heaven" is of course a classical statement though not Greek to
those who have any theology, by which I mean people who claim to believe
in God. It will certainly mean different things to different people,
who might nevertheless sign up to it. As far as I personally am
concerned heaven is relationship with God, which is meant to begin in
this life but will not end with our physical death; and of course it's
meant to be enjoyed rather than just be accepted or striven for. It's
also vital to note that if we claim to love God we must also love our
fellow human beings (and ourselves) and if we wish to serve God that
will primarily mean serving our fellow men and women too.
I'm sad that "God" carries so much baggage for you and many others. One
of my subsidiary aims in life is to relieve people of the weight of
unnecessary stuff they've got tied up with belief in God.
Posted by LYT at 3:20 PM [Link] [Backtalkers(0)] [Message Board]
June 29, 2009
Photos from last day of NO REGRETS shoot
Nothing particularly spoileriffic here.
Except that master criminal Lex Luthor has apparently come out of hiding...
Alfred Hitchcock is back from the dead...
The makers of SAW guest-directed a scene...
And here's a chick...
[please note: the captions above are JOKES and not reflective of the actual movie in any way. Sorry I have to spell that out, but trust me, I do.]
Posted by LYT at 7:22 PM [Link] [Backtalkers(1)] [Message Board]
June 26, 2009
Man on the Moon
Michael Jackson's MOONWALKER was the first theatrical movie I ever walked out of. It was also the first movie I ever saw Joe Pesci in, playing villain Frankie "Mr. Big" Lideo, a riff on Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo. And in some ways it was ahead of its time -- Jackson turns into a robot that then transforms into a spaceship, just like a certain toy line.
I never bought a Michael Jackson album. For every song of his I liked, there was one I didn't. Closest I got was when he narrated the LP storybook for E.T. Now, for those of you young 'uns, this was a quirk of my childhood era...before VCRs were affordable for everyone, kids would have record albums on which someone would read the story of a film, augmented with sound clips from that film. For E.T., the narrator was Jackson. I wanted my dad to buy it for me one time but he wouldn't.
But it's unavoidable...Jackson was an icon of an era. In the mid-80s, when I came of age pop-culturally, the music scene was all about Jackson, Madonna, Boy George, and Prince. I gravitated towards Prince. Madonna has surprisingly aged the best; though her music is arguably the shallowest, she has consistently reinvented herself. Boy George self-destructed a bit; Prince, while not as famous as he once was, seems to have found an equlibirum.
Jackson died today. And it's a shame that many of us will remember him primarily as a skinny, surgery-addicted freak with a cloudy reputation. But Elvis died as a fat pill-popping freak, and yet ultimately the memory that remains is of him at his best. So shall it ultimately be with Michael.
Michael made a trade-off to be famous that I think cost him very personally. I suspect he knew that to be the biggest pop star in the world and be black, he had to neutralize his own blackness and strip it of the stereotypical sexual threat that was the undercurrent of a lot of racism. He pulled it off -- even as he sang about possibly knocking up Billie Jean, nobody suspected he'd be capable of such a thing.
I still don't believe he was a child molester, but I do think he was in some ways sheltered and hopelessly naive, not realizing that things which seem innocent as kids are creepy when involving grown men with kids. Abused and pushed into the spotlight from a very young age, he overcompensated with a "Neverland" where he would never be forced to grow up against his will.
Michael Jackson music video premieres used to be major events, from Thriller constantly topping MTV's charts to the Scorsese-directed extended cut of Bad, the John Singleton-directed Remember the Time, and Black or White, whose director I don't recall, but at the time it was a huge deal that Bart Simpson and Macaulay Culkin were in it, and it had morphing effects. Also a bizarre sequence where Jackson smashes a car and grabs his crotch, which was immediately apologized for the next day and never aired again...once more as if apologizing for anything that could be perceived negatively as "blackness."
But I'm not black. Can't really speak to that.
In time, even the songs of his I didn't like have grown on me. I suspect that will be true for many.
This, though, will always be his best, I think...
I confess, I was curious to see his proposed Edgar Allen Poe movie that never happened.
Posted by LYT at 2:15 AM [Link] [Backtalkers(8)] [Message Board]
June 24, 2009
Arguably cheesy, but also a great consolation in recent times of trial
Posted by LYT at 3:08 AM [Link] [Backtalkers(1)] [Message Board]
June 23, 2009
THE ROOM to get big-budget Hollywood prequel, apparently
"I never bit her! Iss naht true! Iss bullshit, I never bit her! I did NAHHHHT. Oh hi Edward!"
(in case you're a Twilight fan coming here by accident, click below the jump for an explanation)
Posted by LYT at 1:42 AM [Link] [Backtalkers(4)] [Message Board]
June 22, 2009
The Big Summer Sequel...
I can hardly wait to see this.
Posted by LYT at 3:18 PM [Link] [Backtalkers(0)] [Message Board]
June 20, 2009
While I make movies, controversy erupts
Just over two years ago, I wrote this piece for the LA Weekly. You might want to take a look at it again before reading further.
Then, the other day, James Rainey, subject of the piece, wrote an article critical of the LA Weekly's news direction under Jill Stewart...the editor who assigned me to write that article about him. But he didn't mention that he was the subject of such a piece.
Frequent LA Times critic Patterico got on top of this.
Jill responded with some very positive words about me:
It's hard to imagine that James wrote this attack without being bothered by
a piece we at the Weekly wrote about James and his frequent use of blind
sources while covering his bosses. I am the editor who assigned and edited
the piece about James Rainey by Luke Y. Thompson. Luke's report on Jim was a
classic Weekly story, assigned and edited by me, tough but factual, and
filled with excellent sourcing.
Then Patterico asked me for a comment, and I gave him one.
All of this is quite amusing because I've basically given up writing news stories since my parting of ways with OC Weekly.
But I've earned some kudos from right-leaning friends who regularly read Patterico, and probably some demerits from folks like Marc Cooper, whom I still like and respect, and hope to drink with again.
Meanwhile, two movie shoots this weekend, and an ongoing film festival.
Posted by LYT at 9:11 PM [Link] [Backtalkers(2)] [Message Board]