BEFORE: Last night's cult leader character was also an author, so that leads me quite neatly into a few films about authors and poets. Linking from "The Master", Philip Seymour Hoffman was also in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" with Gwyneth Paltrow (last seen in "Contagion").
THE PLOT: Story of the relationship between the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
AFTER: I'm ready to call this decade. We've had the baby boomers, Generation X, the "me" generation was in there somewhere, and my life so far has spanned from hippies to hipsters, so forgive me if I feel like I've seen it all before and things are always coming full circle. The trends I'm witnessing now are leading me toward declaring our modern times as the "Decade of Self-Indulgence".
What leads me to this conclusion, and how does one define self-indulgence anyway? Hint: you can't spell "self-indulgence" without "selfie". Umm, almost. And I'm guilty too, writing every day about the experience I had watching a film, or cursing every time I have a delicious restaurant meal and I fail to take a picture of it for my Flickr page, or sending out a tweet to alert everyone that I've just accidentally stapled my thumb (true). I realize I'm part of the problem, but the problem is bigger than me.
To learn where this all started, we have to look back through the mists of time. Early art was anonymous - we don't know the names of anyone who made a cave painting, or made Greek pottery, or wrote the first drafts of the Bible. Their work may live on, but they're lost. The focus was on the work and the work alone, and future generations were left to wonder about the artists, what were they like? What were their hopes, dreams? What were they thinking about as they set brush to canvas...er, cave?
Then we had the Renaissance, and in terms of art it seemed like maybe taking credit for one's work wasn't such a bad thing. People needed to be held accountable after all, and if someone's art or poetry displeased the King or the Church, well, people would be saving a lot of time if they knew the heretic's name, that would make it a bit easier to track them down. And eventually it became part of the process, to sign one's work - hey, if this novel is a success, maybe people might want to read another one from the same author, go figure!
Sure, it's innocent enough - and at some point someone wrote the first dedication to their muse(s) on a frontispiece, and that began a long, slow slide into self-indulgence, which eventually expresses itself in all things Kardashian. And we find ourselves asking "Who are you wearing?" on Oscar night, rather than asking "Do you even deserve to BE here?" Oscar speeches are another great example - time was when they actually consisted of names of people who helped that person in their craft, but now we get to learn all about that fact that Matthew McConnaughey is always trying to be a better man, 10 years from now. (Please don't misinterpret - if his performance in "Dallas Buyers Club" is half as good as I think it is, he totally deserves that award. But that speech was self-indulgent city from start to finish.)
Perhaps there's a fine line between taking credit and over-self-indulging, but I know it when I see it. The sports columnist who uses newspaper space to send out birthday greetings to his family members. The news staff who devote network time to congratulating a staffer who just had a baby. Baby-makers in general, who somehow feel their spawn deserve to be in the credits of a major motion-picture, just for being born. (I had to go to FILM SCHOOL and work my ass off to get my name on the screen.) The Marvel Comics assistant editor who feels the need to write a half-page personal statement about what an honor it's been, being able to bring you the last 7 issues of "Deadpool". (There are exceptions, like when uber-creator Peter David had a stroke, I felt it was completely acceptable to update the readers of "X-Factor" about his condition.)
For the most part, all of this leads me to scream at the TV set (or comic book) the following: IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU! And yet, somehow it's become about everyone who's responsible, in some small way, for bringing us our daily infotainment, and to me it's quite sad and annoying. Here's a simple rule to follow if you're working in the medium of TV news, or TV in general: get out of the way of your own story. I don't want to hear about Al Roker's lap-band surgery or Katie Couric's colonoscopy or Hoda Kotb's adopting a pet. Get out and FIND the stories, people, and don't become them. You can't be both the reporter AND the subject.
Think about Walter Cronkite - did he spend any time at all making a personal statement about how honored, truly honored he was to bring people the nightly news? Hell, no, because he was busy doing his job, and telling us that the President of the U.S. has just been shot! I admit, on the opposite end of the spectrum was Andy Rooney, who was nothing BUT self-indulgent on his "60 Minutes" reports - some nights he'd just show the audience weird gifts he got in the mail from fans that he had no use for. But since he was a cranky old man who didn't seem like he enjoyed his job one bit, he got a pass. Plus he was a war veteran, and he earned the right to annoy people.
The comic book that got me hooked on the medium was called "Secret Wars", and it was a 12-issue series starring nearly every important Marvel hero and villain, battling on an alien planet. All thriller, no filler. We didn't care who this Jim Shooter guy was, or how honored he was to be writing this epic series, because they needed every damn page to tell this incredible story. If they made this story today, there would be a 3-page explanation about the roundtable editors' meeting that was held to flesh out the story, a peek at the rough character sketches for the Beyonder, and a photo of the editor's daughter, who just started karate classes.
How does this relate to Sylvia Plath, besides the fact that in this film she was played by Gwyneth Paltrow, the poster child for self-indulgence? (NOTE: if you write a combination cook-book, beauty book and photo essay on your own bowel movements, you might be a wee bit self-indulgent. Watch out, Gwyneth, Cameron Diaz is coming on strong with HER nutrition/exercise/fashion/mental health book...)
I've never read anything written by Sylvia Plath - up until now, all I knew was that if you date a girl who had her books on the shelf, you should probably end the relationship as soon as possible. But what I learned from the film was that she was a decent poet, was married to a better poet, broke up with that man, and became an amazing poet. OK, one must suffer for one's art, I get that. But the implication is that you can't be successful UNTIL you suffer, because only then will you have something to write about, and the drive to do it well out of spite.
We also learn how truly terrible it was to be Sylvia Plath's downstairs neighbor. Yeah, that kind of makes sense. I picture her time in England as more of a Monty Python sketch, with Terry Jones dressed up as a old woman, bemoaning the fact that water's dripping into her apartment again, saying, "Eh, what, that stupid Sylvia Plath's trying to drown herself again! That's the third time this week!" and then Graham Chapman in a suit would put down his pipe and say, "Right, well, I'll go and put a stop to THAT!"
Again, please don't get me wrong, depression is a real problem, and suicide should never be seen as the answer or celebrated in any way. Because once you clear out the silly notions of heaven and past/future lives, what if, as this film suggests, you die and find out there's just "fuck all"? You can't take it back. But give it up for Sylvia Plath, who tried to kill herself several times in self-indulgent manners, and at some point, it just becomes all about following through. Today I know how my wife felt when we saw "Les Miserables" and she yelled at Anne Hathaway's character to "Hurry up and die already!"
Also starring Daniel Craig (last seen in "Cowboys & Aliens"), Blythe Danner (last seen in "Husbands and Wives"), Jared Harris (last seen in "Lincoln"), Michael Gambon (last seen in "Open Range")
RATING: 4 out of 10 Shakespeare quotes
UPDATE: After going to print, I gave my first listen today to the new album from the band Boston. This is always an eagerly anticipated event, I even re-listened to their first 3 albums in preparation. But while we're on the topic of self-indulgent, the "new" album has 11 tracks, 3 of which also appeared on their previous CD in 2002, which was titled "Corporate America", and railed against SUVs and commercialism, while promoting PETA and the vegetarian lifestyle.
Speaking of self-indulgent - what songs can possibly be so great that a band needs to release them twice, while still charging fans full price? OK, so they're re-arrangements, but we still deserve an entire album of new music. And while I'm glad you're living a healthy lifestyle, Tom Scholz, I don't want to hear you preach about it, I just want to hear some good music.
This is another example of a guy who needs to get out of his own way as an artist - he's notorious for working on Boston albums for a long time before releasing them, but I say he should have waited longer, maybe until he had a full album of new music. Get over yourself and get back in the studio. The album fell off the charts after just three weeks - could it have done better with some more new songs?
(The tie-in here is that Boston vocalist Brad Delp, like Sylvia Plath, committed suicide - but he did it by setting up two barbecue grills in his bathroom. Forget the vegetarian angle, where's the message in the liner notes about suicide prevention, or at least a message informing people not to grill burgers while taking a bath? Don't do it, kids.)
While I'm glad that bands like Boston (and Styx, and REO, and Chicago) are still touring, there seems to be a law of diminishing returns, and this ties in also with thoughts on the creative process. Listen to Boston's first two albums - seriously, every damn song is a hit. All thriller, no filler. I enjoy "Third Stage" quite a lot as well, because it plays out like a sci-fi movie in my head. Album 4, "Walk On" had some high points, but album #5, "Corporate America" showcases the band's decline into self-indulgent territory. It's sad, but sometimes a band should quit while they're ahead and not tarnish their own image.
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