Stolen from Bro'

This is a note my brother wrote and I found it really interesting so I'm stealing it:

 I understand the logic behind Free Market Ideology. Although I am far from being an apologist for capitalism, it makes sense to me that business should prosper in a competitive environment – striving as it does to produce goods/services of low cost and high quality – and that the consumer, acting as judge in deciding upon which goods/services to spend his/her money, benefits as a direct consequence of this. The profit-motive, in modern society, is what drives organizations to improve efficiency, increase quality and drive down costs, and its effectiveness in doing so results in better quality of life and more freedom of choice.

 

I do not, however, accept the premise that all human activity is and should be motivated by profit, especially given that the profit-motive has a tendency to degenerate into greed. Even the most ardent capitalists are willing to make certain exceptions in their quest for a Free Market. How, for example, can healthcare be reconciled with this model? No cost-reducing measures should ever affect the quality of healthcare, nor should those unable to pay the maximum (in insurance premiums or tax) ever be subjected to anything less than their more wealthy counterparts.

 

In the pre-Obama era in the United States, people who had paid health insurance premiums, consistently and over a long period of time, were victim to a series of legal ‘tricks’ designed by health-insurance companies to minimize their costs and increase their profits (i.e. those refused coverage on account of ‘pre-existing conditions’). The health of our fellow human beings was at risk because of Free Market Ideology.

 

And to be frank, I think there are few among us who would deny that, in such cases, human beings are and should be motivated by ideals other than self-improvement. Certain universal services are funded by high-earning taxpayers, not because it is in their interest but because their culture and the society in which they live make certain moral demands of them which, even if they want to, they cannot ignore.

 

I am not writing to argue in favour of a set of universal services; this has been done already by people far more competent than I am. I am looking to increase the profile of capitalist abuse in another area entirely unsuited to Free Market Ideology: charity. More than anything else, people’s willingness to donate money to those less fortunate than they are is evidence that compassion and empathy, among others, are human characteristics that fly in the face of self-interest, and are therefore anomalies in the capitalist Free Market model.

 

At this point, I must draw attention to one caveat. Those who believe that charitable donors are paying for a ‘service’ that alleviates their conscience can stop reading here. The assumption has its own internal logic, but it could only be promoted by a cold-hearted cynic and the type of person for whom I have no time.

 

Those, on the other hand, who believe that the vast majority of the world’s population have a significant selfless streak within them must agree that our charitable instincts are admirable, and must be preserved and protected. These are the traits that make us human – these are the feelings that make life worth living – these are the ideals to which we would like our children to aspire. They are and have always been in direct conflict with the self-seeking forces of capitalist enterprise. Do I keep £10 to improve my life even further, or do I donate it to someone who needs it more than I do?

 

So let us separate charity and NGO work, once and for all, from the capitalist machine. The personal generosity of one individual should never translate into another’s extreme wealth. Nobody should be allowed to take advantage – as a capitalist would, for personal gain – of the charitable instincts of the human population. Those instincts should be harnessed only and entirely for the sake of the poor, the vulnerable, the sick, the disadvantaged and those who genuinely need help.

 

Take (RED), for example. (RED) is a brand which is marketed to corporations including Apple, Armani, Gap, Converse, Dell, Hallmark, Microsoft, American Express, and Starbucks, as a means by which they can make themselves even more wealthy than they already are. When the (RED) brand is attached to a product, it makes the product more desirable and so increases demand for that product. This is achieved by publicizing the fact that 50% of the profits for each product sold will be donated to charity.

 

So, in one possible scenario, Gap pays a sizeable fee to (RED), whose shareholders and employees consequently become wealthier. A consumer buys a (RED) product from Gap for £120 which he/she would not otherwise have bought, motivated mainly by a sincere wish to improve the livelihoods of those suffering from HIV/AIDS in Africa. The product cost £50 to produce, so Gap find themselves £35 better off and – as a spin-off of this transaction – £35 is donated to The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

 

It is true that The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria is enabled, through this process, to do incredible work for those affected by disease in disadvantaged parts of the world. It is true, also, that this is a direct result of the charitable instincts of the consumer who bought the GAP product in the first place. Is it really so different from a direct donation?

 

Under the circumstances, it is, because the shareholders and employees of both Gap and (RED) have increased their personal wealth in this transaction, and they have done so by abusing the charitable instincts of the consumer.

 

Let us, for the sake of argument, consider an alternative scenario, where the consumer spends £55 on a non-(RED) equivalent product at another store and donates £35 directly to The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In this scenario, the NGO has received just as much as it would have done under the (RED) scheme, but the consumer has saved £30, some of which may subsequently be donated to charity.

 

Gap is a company that makes profits from commercial activities, and in the extent to which it is able to do so fairly, by producing quality products at reasonable costs, it is welcome to all the profits it receives. It should not, however, be receiving funds from a consumer whose priorities, with regard to clothing, did not necessarily lie in the purchase of a Gap product. If it does so, it is essentially using poverty and disease as a marketing tool. The consumer has no idea what percentage of his money will finally be directed to the charitable cause. There is no transparency.

 

Another brief example, which makes my blood boil, is that of NGO employees in developing countries. I worked for an NGO in Africa that was funded by the U.S. taxpayer and essentially functioned as a consultancy firm: providing advisory services to rural entrepreneurs for free. The model was a good one, but the allocation of charitable donations was appalling.

 

The company’s consultants were among the most educated, entrepreneurial and successful individuals in the country in question, and some of them were paid six-figure sums, annually, in U.S. dollars. They were not allowed to involve themselves in business directly, as this would have been interpreted as a conflict of interests. Instead, they became ‘consultants’, advising people less capable than they were, to do things they would have been more qualified to do themselves.

 

It is no secret that a career in the NGO sector is considered by many in the developing world, especially Africa, as unparalleled insofar as salaries and career development are concerned. It is also acknowledged by many specialists that these NGOs compete unfairly with the private sector by offering phenomenal salaries drawn from the comparatively boundless resources of the developed world, to the detriment of young businesses and entrepreneurial initiatives in the developing world.

 

Not only is there a ‘brain-drain’ in the relevant countries – whereby talented individuals are taken out of the supposedly ‘free’ job market – but talent is also harnessed for ends that are not necessarily compatible with the business interests  of the economy at large. By ill-advisedly hauling the profit-motive – a private-sector tool – into the NGO sector, business suffers a brain-drain and is also subject to increased interference from entities that are ideologically motivated, as all NGOs are.

 

In short, if an individual wants to work for an organization that owes its existence to the selflessness of charitable donors, he/she should align his/her own objectives accordingly. Money and individual gain should not be motives. Salaries should be sufficiently generous to allow that individual to live a dignified life, free of the constraints of poverty, but not excessive.

 

On the other hand, if the individual is motivated by self-interest and the prospect of wealth, prosperity, luxury, social status and the like, he/she should use his/her ambitions to promote business and entrepreneurialism in his/her country. He/she will be doing as much, if not more, for the economic development of poor nations as any well-intentioned NGO.

 

I believe that it is possible to extrapolate, from these examples, that seeking to improve one’s life, beyond a basic and dignified standard of living, by making profits directly or indirectly derived from charity, is to take unfair advantage of human generosity and/or human misery. There is a relationship between a donor and a recipient of charity that cannot be defined within the confines of a Free Market Ideology, or even of capitalism in general. Profit-making individuals and corporations should not make incursions on that relationship but rather, we should all foster its purity and attempt to make it as streamlined and efficient as possible.

 

Free Market Ideology is a useful tool, but it is not all-encompassing and it is not perfect. Charity is one area to which it should not stray

I'm also currently listening to Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks

Gosford Park

The whodunit aspect of the film was the weakest element with Stephen Fry's cartoon character feeling completely out of place. It shows an ordinary period drama but from a different perspective. Now when watching some other period drama I'm going to be thinking what the servants are doing. There were a huge quantity of characters and remembering all their names was a struggle. Whilst some of the characters potential were only half realized the tone and and setting of the film were perfect. 

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

In an attempt to post more I have a notepad in which every film I watch I will write a side. This notepad is tiny so it won't take much effort and will allow me to write where ever I am. So for my first film 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God'

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

This is a hugely ambitious film but is put together in a very rough way usual to a Werner Herzog film. The contrast of huge budget and an artist with free reign is really odd. The freedom results in a genuinely unique vision but leaves the film with a few strange "mistakes". Klaus Kinski is a truly terrifying actor. The pace is very slow in the film but that isn't necessarily a bad thing more than just a choice from the director. Bleak indeed.

Akira Kurosawa

I started this post and then my computer spazzed and it was so frustrating I haven't posted anything in ages. So here we go, take two.

Ran is the last important film in Akira Kurosawa's career and also one of the greatest. It is an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'King Lear', a very significant choice. Kurosawa was pretty much ridiculed his entire life for being too Western by the Japanese public. They were going through a wee bit of an identity crisis after WWII because of the American occupation and expected the self indulgent conformity that Ozu provided. Now to deny the fact that Kurosawa was not western at all is to ignore the man himself, he admitted he had influences from Ford but so did the Western genre have influences from him. The western and the Samurai film are ironically similar with their themes of justice, honour and warfare.

Seven Samurai has been remade into a western so is perhaps the most ideal of his films to choose as an example. Kurosawa deliberately sets his characters up with western conventions; Katsushiro meets a girl, wins a war but then does not 'get the girl' because of his ties to the samurai. Kurosawa does something similar with Ran, he chooses a quintessentially western texts and modifies it to Feudal Japan. The film is made through it's distinctions not it's similarities. 

I'm off to write an essay about the homeric links between the Aeneid and the Illiad. -_-'

Inception

I'm a lazy bum I admit it so that's why I haven't been blogging regularly. Inception deserves to be an exception from my laziness.

I have seen Inception twice now to try grasp the complexities of the plot. Leaving the cinema upon first viewing I was in shock and awe, the greatest film ever, or so I thought. I said that I wouldn't rate it until I saw it a second time and truly understood it. I left the cinema the second time and was no less deterred from it's apparent greatness. Through a series of unfortunate events I was left having to take a 3 hour walk on my own and, I regret to say, this is where it started unravelling.

This is somewhat uncharacteristic because I scold people all the time for being pedants, nit pickers and shit heads but what I'm going to do is list all of the inconsistencies and plot holes which I discovered. I have already ravaged forums, interviews and blogs looking for answers for my questions but couldn't find any. Now, you might call me a hypocrite but you can see that Nolan is obsessed with the "tick-tock logistics" and that is the subject of the film (as opposed to the philosophical substance of dreams.) I have no qualms with him choosing that approach but if I doesn't add up it shouldn't exist.

1. Mal and Cobb have been stuck in Limbo for 50 years, you have seen them when they're elderly so we know people age (as well as Saito) but when they're on the train track about to leave Limbo they are young. Why?

2. Why is Saito so old in Limbo? He wasn't there for that long...

3. To leave limbo you have to realise you are in a dream, Saito did this by a totem, Mal did this through Inception. Why didn't they go the more direct route of Limbo brining their totems with them, seems a lot easier then the synchronised kicks and the time limit.

4. What is Limbo exactly? Mal and Cobb weren't in a sedated state but got there anyway by going to dream from a dream from a dream so really they should have just been able to kill themselves to wake up, they weren't "stuck" there.

5. They said Limbo was "pure, infinite subconscious" AND "nothing." Which? Cobb said "you can't control your subconscious" but they were able to build buildings from it, just like an architect. It was established that's not how it works.

6. Things from the dream above have a direct effect on the dreams on the second level as shown by the gravity shifts. Another example would be when Fischer is being resuscitated lightning appears in Limbo. So why then, when 0 gravity takes hold of level 2 (Hotel) it doesn't then go to level 3 (snow)?

7. They missed the first kick, before the van hits the water. Everyone but Arthur misses it because they are in level 3, Arthur feels the kick but doesn't ride it. Why?

8. They missed the first kick which was all synchronised through music, how would they synchronise the second kick? They wouldn't have know the exact time it would have taken between bridge and water and then been able to work out what note that would have been in the music.

9. This isn't really a plot hole but... I don't really see my subconscious in my dreams being a bunch of milling people, I want my subconscious to be the driving force. Pah.

10. Another thing that isn't really a plot hole just a gripe. The debate about the ending, is it a dream or not? The children are wearing the exact same clothes, the top doesn't fall. On the other hand there is a strong implication that he remembers how he got there, the immigration control the VERY undream-like lighting. I just want to say that it isn't Nolan's job to give fodder for BOTH sides, he just presents something and WE argue over it. That's just wrong.

I might update this post because I know I haven't written everything. My problem isn't that it tries to be a puzzle, Memento was a puzzle and I loved it, but I doesn't amount to anything. There is no question as to what is reality and what isn't, at least the Matrix gave a good attempt, there is not even a mention to it until the last few seconds (and a few hints for second time viewing.) Memento was a puzzle but for one, it made sense and secondly it allowed the audience to feel what it's like to have short-term memory loss, or as close as possible. I'm going to flat out say that Inception has nothing in it that resembles dreams. I love you Nolan but Tim Burton should have made this movie not you.

Spirited Away

A little bit of background goes a long way when looking at the legend that is Hayao Miyazaki. There are a few constants when looking through his collection of works; the themes of the nature, materialism and childhood. As I did with Sunshine I suppose I will just go through them individually.

Animation at the time of Spirited Away had a very clear distinction between east and west. Companies were no longer contented in the money they were earning from making films for children, the focus was to get a larger audience. Shrek was released roughly the same time and took what we considered to be a revolutionary step, it's split haired humour was purposely designed to have a hidden meaning that would fly over the heads of children. This had been the direction most western animated films have been taking since then, excluding the oh-so-fantastic Pixar.

This direction is one that is patronising to children and I consider not in good taste. Hayao Miyazaki and Pixar decide to tackle universal problems such as age (UP + Howl's Moving Castle) and the environment (Princess Mononoke + WALL-E) a sign of respect to people of all ages. A quote from Miyazaki states who his target demographic was 'For the people who used to be 10 years old, and the people who are going to be 10 years old.'

But ANYWAY, enough about childhood outside the film more about childhood INSIDE the film. Firstly, a popular technique in children films is in viewing the story from the perspective of a child. The beauty comes in the amount of faith Miyazaki puts in his character, it being the viewpoint of a 10 year old Japanese child coming from a very interesting period in Japanese history only adds to the interest.

The first scene is one of countless fairy-tales, a wrong turn into the realm of spirits. The first spiritual clues are the grinning shinto figures. To an elderly Japanese person these are benign, however, when seeing it through the eye's of Sen they are just creepy looking. We enter through a shinto gateway, pass through a dark tunnel, all the usual symbols for going into a different world. If you have seen many studio Ghibli films you'll note that they take place in very distinct locations; Kiki's Delivery Service being an idealised western city etc. etc. Japan is clearly the setting of Spirited Away. This has very strong cultural significance with the Japanese, as since the occupation of Japan by America it had undergone a certain 'cultural cleansing.' Younger generations were unfamiliar with their heritage and traditions, clearly symbolised by Sen's oblivion to her surroundings. The shinto spirits are viewed by her as being monsters, the bath house is seen as exotic wonder as opposed nostalgic beauty. Miyazaki's intended purpose was to revitalise and spark interest from the younger generations in Japan to the richness of their traditions. It is ironic that as a western viewer we are very much in the position of a Japanese child.

Jesus, that was a long paragraph.

We are ultimately in a child's world I think it would be difficult for a western creator to stick faithfully to that decision. Miyazaki's choice in doing so would be the main critical targets of many. By that I mean if you look at the story it is fragmented and incoherent (BUT NOT IN A BAD WAY.) Sen goes to the bathhouse, her parents are turned into pigs, she finds work, looses her name, befriends no face, has to save a stink spirit, no face runs rampant in the bath house, falls in love with Haku, befriends Yubaba's identical twin, has to stop No Face, goes to Zenibaba to save Haku from dying, Haku remembers his name, saves her parents, goes home. Do you get what I'm saying? I'm not even including the bird thing that follows her round or the gigantic baby/mouse. It is like a breathless child trying to retell a story. We are kept at Chihiro's level never knowing what comes next. Magic for the sake of magic, why does it have to have an explanation?

We are in a child's world so we have to follow a child's laws. Her parents were greedy so they turned into pigs, it's oh so reminiscent of Aesop's fables. A quote from spider-man a.k.a. Kamaji 'if you do not work you'll be turned into soot,' like something a parent would say to their children. Perhaps the biggest childhood conceit is when she falls in love with Haku a mystical power propels the plot onwards, 'story is a greater force than gravity.' The topsy-turvy logic follows closely, when Chihiro finds herself in this new world and repeats 'it's all a dream' she slowly fades away. I digress, to the next paragraph!

To keep us so attached to the character Miyazaki employs a technique of the quintessential anime face he has been trademarked for. Chihiro has an androgynous face which we are able to relate to. She is not particularly developed as a character but serves her purpose exquisitely. Remember, it is not a character study it's the basking in Japan's former glory.

Ok, so I was going to talk about the other two themes but this is going on WAY to long. Once again I apologise for typos and grammatical errors.

Japan

As so far as these blogs go, I pick a theme and then talk about it through a particular movie. i.e. talk about sci-fi through Sunshine, Westerns through A Few Dollars More and formulas through Seven. Now, if I said I had a speciality when it comes to film it would be Japanese cinema. So, I thought I might talk about Japan through a string of blogs.

The quintessential Japanese films would be the anime, Spirited Away in this case, the ultra-violent mind-fuck, Battle Royale, and the samurai film, Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Ran. Should I do this introduction as a separate blog or part of the first film? Yeh, separate blog. Makes it look like I've done more...