Dean Stockwell's Kim and the New Childhood

I recently read Kim by Rudyard Kipling for a bookclub and really enjoyed it. I then watched the 1950 film with Dean Stockwell and Errol Flynn.

The movie is fairly good. It was "filmed on location." This means that a bunch of outdoor shots were filmed in India; everything else was done on a sound-stage.

But the movie does has a nice authentic feel to it (I was worried that it would be like The Ten Commandments, which I enjoy watching but which is hokey in the extreme: just watch Joshua organizing the Israelites in his best "Are we ready, boys and girls?" camp counselor manner.)

Kim is surprisingly straightforward and non-hokey, sticking closely to the book up until the last twenty minutes.

At which point it suddenly takes a nose-dive into . . . I don't know. I don't know what they were trying to do. I don't think they knew what they were trying to do.

I have a theory. Up until the last twenty minutes, the film focuses on Kim, played perfectly by Dean Stockwell. At fourteen, Stockwell has the compact, dark exuberance that Kipling ascribes to Kim.

But he isn't quite old enough to play Kim at seventeen (this is a pity; if Stockwell had been only a year older, he could have played both Kim's younger and older self with little difficulty). Consequently, the action from the book is squeezed from approximately five years into 1-1/2. Kim is still a child when he goes to hunt the Russian spies.

Kipling wouldn't have a problem with this. In the book, he continually emphasizes that Kim's controllers want to mold but not break him. They release him from his "English" studies as quickly as possible. They want him educated (and loyal), not disciplined to be a rigid, unimaginative, British officer.

This dovetails very nicely with Kipling's beliefs regarding India. He supported the British Empire, but he believed (correctly) that it was badly managed. He believed, for example, that the British administrators in India should NOT be upperclass boys trained in England with no real knowledge of the country or ability to work with the native people. His book Stalky & Co. is basically about the type of boys who should be sent to administer India. Stalky, specifically, is a Kim proto-type.

So Kipling has Kim released from the British system as quickly as possible. He had little to no trouble sending this boy back into a dangerous environment. In fact, he implies that Kim was safer when he was younger and more savvy. Educate him any further, and he'll be too stupid to survive.

This idea was not something that 1950 America could readily stomach. The idea of "childhood" as a pure time of innocence had been growing since the Victorian era; post-WWII, middle-class American parents didn't want their kids being trained to play the "Great Game." They wanted them in college, learning to be businessmen and therapists and school-teachers.

Subsequently, the end of the film Kim turns into a film about Errol Flynn--Errol Flynn must go rescue Kim who has recklessly decided to play "the game" at too young an age. At the very end of the film, it is heavily implied that Kim will go back to school and once he graduates, he won't need to be a spy since all wars will be over.

In fact, there's an interesting contrast (which the writers of the script presented but didn't know what to do with) between the "old school" swashbuckling Flynn, who gets a kick out of killing his enemies, and the "new school" Kim, who gets squeamish out of watching people die.

This is not completely out of keeping with the book. Over the course of the book, Kim develops a more complex understanding of morality than he starts out with. This is necessary since Kim is cocky almost to the point of arrogance; he is only reined in by his mentor, the extremely pacifistic lama. At the end of the book, the lama--who has obviously been worrying over Kim's participation in "the game"--has a vision which comforts him with the belief that Kim will be able to act as a spy without losing his soul. (At the end of the film, the confused script-writers have the lama die. They obviously couldn't make up their minds whether to be pro-War or pro-pacifism. All they knew is children should have cozy lives.)

In the book, the lama's influence keeps Kim from turning into a little sociopath with no moral sense or direction except the desire to outwit people. In the film, the implication is that the lama represents a nice New Agey way to think for boys who won't have to go to war anymore.

Wishful, post-WII thinking. And, considering the instant inception of the Cold War, rather naive. But Kim is a child and, as a child, he must be protected!

And the infantilization begins.

The one major factor in the film's favor is Dean Stockwell. It is impossible for a late-20th century product like me not to associate Dean Stockwell-the-child with Dean Stockwell-the-adult. (Especially since at age 14, Stockwell already had that borderline look of amused insolence down pat.) I see Kim and I think . . . Al! From Quantum Leap. And they aren't that different. Kim has that Buddhist edge. But the kindness masked by insouciance coupled with incredible energy is pure Kim/Al. And Stockwell does it very well.

So, Kim didn't grow up to be a businessman. He grew up to work in a top-secret laboratory doing science experiments that result in time-altering adventures.

The latter really is much more likely.

Time Travel Returns

After a one week vacation, the Mike-Kate Video Club has returned to reviewing time travel movies and shows--this week, Back to the Future!

Next week--Stargate!!

How Scarecrow & Mrs. King is Like Bones

I confess I'm a Scarecrow & Mrs. King fan. I was a fan when a youngster, and I still find the show completely viewable.

Granted, the plot is a bit same-old/same-old (which spy will they chase this week?!). And the dialog is nothing extraordinary (this is still 80's television when shows with whiplash dialog like Barney Miller were still considered somewhat unusual). There are hints, now and again, that the writers would have liked to go in a Lois & Clark tongue-in-cheek direction but overall they stick to their mandate: straight plots with clear objectives.

The acting is pretty respectable. Kate Jackson is quite good. Bruce Boxleitner knows what he is doing/what the part calls for (since watching older spy shows, I've gotten a better sense of what type of character he is emulating). The problem here is that someone like Joe Penny exudes ultra-charisma just by standing around. Bruce B. doesn't much.

Having said that, after rewatching Season 1 recently, I formed the opinion that my attraction to the show is that it is incipient Bones. That is probably why I loved it as a youngster except Bones hadn't shown up yet. Now that Bones has shown up, I see the similarities.

1. It's all about the couple.

I've commented before that I like romances where the hero and heroine are trapped together--literally or, like Mulder and Scully, through a job or shared information. Unlike Castle, both Bones and Scarecrow are ALL about the main heterosexual couple--nobody else, really. (I like Castle but there's too many potential ex-es which gets tiresome.) Whether consummated or not, the show IS the relationship.

2. Both parties bring something to the relationship.

Both the hero and heroine contribute to the relationship as individuals. Amanda King is quirky, talkative, funny with a strong practical streak and a strong sense of morality. Rather surprising for an 80's show, her responses as an individual take precedent over her responses as an INDEPENDENT WOMAN and even as a MOTHER. Good writers, in my view, ask, "How would this character react?" rather than "What cause am I supposed to be defending?" It is easy to take the former approach for granted with Temperance Brennan. It is commendable that it happened with Mrs. King.

3. The guys get to rescue the gals. 

What's a good romance without a rescue?

Now, I love romances, but I do have some standards. I tend to avoid romances where the heroines spend the whole time trying to force the heroes to appreciate/notice them ("I'M AS GOOD AS YOU!"). And I don't even bother with romances where the heroes don't appreciate the heroines. And I don't like romances where the heroines just represent the prize that the heroes get for conquering the bad guy.

I like the hero and heroine to admire each other. And I like the heroine to care about the hero. And since I'm a woman, and I'm watching these shows from a woman's perspective, I really want to see the hero express that he cares.

Nothing does that better than a rescue scene (as long as it is done right).

The classic done-correctly rescue scene is Cary Grant rescuing Ingrid Bergman in Notorious: the scene where Cary Grant enters the house of the bad spy guy and carries out Ingrid Bergman in front of the bad spy guy's compatriots. Every director over the age of forty copies it at least once.

The reason it is so perfect is that the heroine needs to be rescued for perfectly legitimate reasons. She isn't stuck in her bad-spy husband's house by accident or because she is a fool or because she got into a pique or because she's trying to manipulative the hero or because she swooned or because she's too ladylike/dainty/frightened/clueless to get herself out. She's in the house as a spy following the directives of her handler (Grant) in order to help the United States. She is being drugged against her will, and she has held out for as long as she can.

And the hero rescues her against logic but not against reason. He loves her. He also owes her. And he is very clever and logical and ruthless about what he does to get her out.

Dorothy Sayers wrote several mysteries where she tackles the problem of a heroine feeling such an overwhelming sense of obligation to the hero that the relationship can't return to balance. The heroine becomes infantalized, a little girl who is always being protected by her daddy-figure.

Good rescues avoid this. Notorious avoids this.

Bones and  Scarecrow avoid this.

Scarecrow actually does the Notorious scene. And Amanda King is not infantalized as a result. She held out against questioning while on a legitimate errand to help Scarecrow. Rescuing her is part of his job. It is also romantically done.

Bones has a great rescue scene in the first season ("Two Bodies in the Lab") where the wounded Booth finds Bones who is about to be killed by a bad guy masquerading as a serial killer. Bones is in this situation because she is about to produce forensic evidence that will put the bad guy away. She fights back. Booth rescues her because it is his job, and (typical for Booth), he feels responsible for people who work for him. And it is romantically done.

Yet nobody becomes a child as a result. Bones is grateful as is Amanda King, and they both express their gratitude non-defensively. But the relationship is easily restored to balance because the risks and rewards of the relationship are taken for granted.

4. I believe in the domestic side of the relationship.

This is actually something that separates Bones and Scarecrow from X-Files. In X-Files, the context is so overwhelmingly important, it's hard to imagine Mulder and Scully away from it. Which is good--because how on earth would that relationship function absent a conspiracy? And although I like both Castle and Beckett, I don't really believe in my heart of hearts that Beckett would ever be comfortable in that relationship on a domestic level (I think Castle would actually made a very good husband; I just don't see Beckett agreeing).

But with Bones, I can completely see Bones and Booth making things work in ANY situation: on a vacation, with a baby, buying a home, figuring out schools, planning date nights, managing money . . . Likewise, Bruce B. does a fairly good job in Scarecrow playing a man who thinks he wants to be a secret agent but really would rather have a semi-normal relationship with a down-to-earth housewife from Arlington.

Because in the end, the personal relationship isn't just about champagne and chocolates. It involves things like getting the vacuum cleaner to work. And wondering what the heck to do about the SRS light in the Honda. And fighting over the remote. And the number of television couples who I think can actually deal with this stuff is rather short.

Having said this . . . in terms of television viewing . . . 

5. It's all about the job.

Shows which focus exclusively on the relationship almost inevitably end up being "revolving door" shows: now-he-is-dating-someone-else, now-she-is-dating-someone-else, now-he-is-dating-someone-else.

Oh, who cares.

Shows where the relationship remains intact but the focus is on how much the characters love each other aren't much better. Dharma & Greg managed precisely because every episode was about other stuff (and it couldn't have lasted much beyond five seasons). Lois & Clark suffered in the second half of the third to fourth seasons when the relationship became the focus, rather than the job.

Shows like Bones and Scarecrow & Mrs. King keep the focus on the job. Even in the Bones episode ender, "The End in the Beginning," both Bones and Booth (now a couple) own a business together. They go about their lives exactly in the same way--only with sex. But the workable-ness of their relationship hasn't altered. The relationship can be taken for granted, can be successfully explored, precisely because it ISN'T the focus.

The most romantic romances aren't about the romance.

Go figure.

How to Make Friends (the Easy Way)

I was at the library and picked up a book by Prince Charles, Harmony. The first part of the fly-leaf states, "For the last thirty years, The Prince of Wales has been known around the world as one of the vocal and forceful advocates of the environment." The fly-leaf goes on to discuss how Prince Charles has a plan to restore balance and bring us all back into harmony with the earth.

I burst out laughing.

Now, I have nothing against Prince Charles. In fact, between him and Princess Diana, I've always found him slightly less annoying (yes, I know she is dead, and yes, I'm sorry she is) although Alex Jennings' portrayal of him in The Queen is almost too spot-on.

I laughed because, like Princess Diana, Prince Charles has discovered that the easiest way to instantly win unqualified/uncritical support is to pick a cause that people will not or cannot debate. There's probably a logical fallacy in here somewhere, the opposite of the ad hominem attack, something like, "The virtue of the cause automatically lends virtue to the individual even if the individual is a self-interested basket-case."

I personally think Princess Diana, with far less left-brained consideration than Prince Charles, did precisely this when she was alive. I've always found Fergie as Avon/Weight Watchers spokesperson less off-putting than Diana's use of the spotlight to satisfy her deep and incessant need for approval and love (at least, Charles ultimately only needed Camilla; Diana needed the whole world). 

You might say, and I won't argue (much) that, hey, at least she was doing something. But that something  put her beyond reproach when, really, she behaved pretty badly on multiple occasions. And as far as I know, Christopher Hitchens is one of the few journalists who ever dared to criticize Princess Diana.

Prince Charles is now demonstrating that he learned Diana's lessons very, very, very well: Become the kind of environmentalist who wants to save the earth from untold threats--ergo, gain prestige and an automatic exception from in-depth criticism.

Of course, Al Gore learned it first.

I Am a Dean Hargrove Junkie

Dean Hargrove is the producer of some of TV's classic mystery shows: Columbo, Diagnosis Murder, Father Dowling Mysteries, Matlock, Jake and the Fatman.

Of these shows, I haven't seen Matlock or Father Dowling Mysteries.

I have seen all the Columbo and Diagnosis Murder episodes available on DVD. I also recently began watching Jake and the Fatman, and I am hooked! (The latter show is surprisingly modern in feel; it uses music and camera shots in a style I usually associate with 90's rather than 80's shows.)

I really can't get enough of this stuff. For one thing, I love the "cozy" murder mystery. Mafia and conspiracy plots bore me senseless. But give me jealous spouses, relations killing for inheritance, victims taking out blackmailers, and I'm as happy as a clam in black with a little gavel.

And I prefer the Hargrove approach. Hargrove often worked with Levinson and Link who, with Fischer, produced Murder, She Wrote. I enjoy Murder, She Wrote, but it is rather random; Mrs. Fletcher goes here and there, talking to these people, those people, some other people. It's hard to know where all the questioning is heading.

Hargrove's shows are far tighter. They often (but not always) begin by showing you the actual murder/murderer. The surprise or mystery is what mistake the murderer made that will help the good guys  capture the bad guys.

Even when the episodes don't begin with the actual murder, the investigation process moves along at a good clip with rising and falling action. Dr. Sloan investigates a set number of suspects; J.L. maps out a specific road map for investigation. Every "act" leads somewhere.

Like in Murder, She Wrote, there's a little too much reliance on verbal slip-ups, but Hargrove's writers will throw in fun forensics and unexpected link-ups just to keep things interesting. (My favorite is when Columbo catches a bad guy because Columbo's fingerprints, not the bad guy's, are on a piece of evidence. In general, Columbo concentrates on the time-line/process of the murder while Diagnosis Murder focuses on motive. In comparison, Murder, She Wrote focuses on the unexpected identity of the murderer.)

Like Murder, She Wrote, Hargrove's shows rely tremendously on the character of the investigators/stars.

You have to like Dick Van Dyke (which I do), Joe Penny and William Conrad (which I do; they remind me of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin), Andy Griffith (who I don't really care about), Tom Bosley (who is just cute), and Peter Falk (who I adore). This investment in the main star is less necessary with Law & Order and CSI. I don't watch any classic Law & Order after Season 4 since I bemoan the loss of Moriarty so much. But Law & Order and CSI aren't QUITE as reliant on a single star. The stories themselves will keep people watching. There's an entire system to take over if the investigators are out of commission.

Hargrove's shows, on the other hand, emphasize the character and role of the private detective. Like with Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Peter Wimsey, and Tey's Alan Grant, if you don't want to spend company with Hargrove's detectives, well . . . that's a lot of television you might as well not watch.

Me? I wish the studios would hurry up and release more Hargrove mysteries onto DVD!

Die Hard Goes Matrix-y

After multiple recommendations, I finally saw Live Free or Die Hard.

In comparison to Die Hard with a Vengeance and Die Hard, I still consider the original to be the best.

However, Live Free or Die Hard has some things going for it.

First, what it doesn't have going for it--

The premise is unbelievably dumb. At one point, Matt says, "It took five days for FEMA to get water to the super-dome!" Yeah, and in the meantime, the rest of the country was working just fine.

However, cataclysmic overload IS the fantasy of action movies--as Matt points out regarding the "fire sale." In my review of Die Hard, I comment that "we get to see the trashing of a building and city block! We don't want the bank robbers to succeed, but we get to see them (temporarily) succeed when the bank vault opens (accompanied by great music)."

This is really what end-of-the-world stuff is all about: giving the little anarchist in all of us (some) free reign.

In reality, even Rome took a long time to fall. (And don't tell me computers would speed it up; as Joe points out, modern companies--including the government--still don't use computers as efficiently as they could. Upload all the nation's finances to one place?! Oh, please.)

Allowing (and dismissing) the premise, the movie is far more tightly constructed than Die Hard with a Vengeance. Good action movies should have simple needs--in this case, get Matt to a place where he can figure out what the bad guys are up to computer-wise.

And Justin Long as Matt is far, far, far less annoying than as the Mac guy (and a surprisingly good actor--who knew!). He and Bruce Willis have great comedic timing, and the underlying theme (what does it take to be a hero?) is nicely paid off in several scenes.

I especially like that McClane is back to being just this ordinary cop who got pulled into an extraordinary situation--all he did was go pick up this hacker!

This concept of McClane is straight out of the first movie; more than Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard captures the original motifs without simply recasting them.

For example, Timothy Olyphant plays the debonair bad guy. Though not as great as Rickman, he is far more tolerable than Jeremy Irons--and far more interesting to look at--partly because his motivations are well-established and also because he is a coward, unwilling to face McClane until he (falsely) believes McClane is toast. This makes his behavior towards McClane completely comprehensible throughout the entire movie.

Finally, the ultimate Die Hard theme--an analog guy in a digital world--is excellently paid off. (If one ignores all the people made out of rubber--I never thought human beings could bounce so well!)

John McClane proves why he, more than Stallone or Ford or Eastwood or even Schwarzenegger, is the origin of all the "Bournes," savvy action heroes of the modern age. McClane is the hero that can bridge the generation gap.

For example, the writers do a great job showing that despite the difference in age and perspective, Matt and McClane have a similar libertarian view of the world. And of bad guys. McClane is downright proud when Matt snows the On-Star lady into starting the car, and he is more than a little amused by Matt's "spamming" the bad hacker.

So . . . McClane *might* let Matt date his daughter (BTW, I love how totally like her dad, Lucy is.)

Which isn't to say that Matt doesn't have his own take on the world. One of my favorite exchanges is this one:

Matt Farrell: I'm not a doctor but-but you look like you're hurt.
John McClane: Sexy, right?
Matt Farrell: Um, no.

Analog meets digital. They both think the other is kind of odd--but mostly, they get along.

McClane will always be classic.

The "Endurance Plot"

This post originally started out as commentary on Friends. However, it has morphed into a critique of a certain type of literary plot.

As part of our sitcom list, Mike and I reviewed Friends. As a result of reviewing Friends, I ordered and watched several seasons.

Here's what I learned.

Friends is extremely well-written, not just per episode but per season. The writers pace the big events extremely well; they aren't as crowded or as spread out as I had remembered.

And I never realized how long the duck and the chick were Joey and Chandler's pets!

I also learned that if you watch Friends too much, your brain cells will die.

You could say, "Well, that's true of all sitcoms," but I beg to differ. I have seen Frasier all the way through at least twice, and I've never felt like too-many-episodes=death-of-the-brain.

The writing (in terms of jokes/lines) is equally good on both shows; the difference in brain cell killage, I believe, lies in an underlying fundamental difference: Friends is a show about people who endure. Frasier is a show about people who create their own destinies.

In Friends, everything that happens, happens TO the characters, even when they are the cause of those things. Ross's divorces are things that happen to him. Rachel having a baby is something that happens to her. Rachel and Ross getting married in Las Vegas is something that happens to them. It isn't so much that they are victims; rather, they are constantly at the mercy of LIFE.

Now, this isn't exactly a false truth. Things do happen to us that we simply have to handle. Despite Ayn Rand's remarkably silly assertion in Anthem, we do not single-handedly recreate our own societies on a day-to-day basis. We are communal animals and part of being a communal animal is enduring. Say I get into a car accident--I fill out the paperwork, get a new car with another loan, and keep working, etc. I don't go live in a tree somewhere.

But this "endurance plot" is the only truth Friends knows.

In Frasier, Niles leaves his wife (of two days) to be with Daphne. By any moral standard, this is a really rotten thing to do. But it never bothers me the same way Ross and Rachel bother me because Niles is fully aware of what he is doing. He makes the decision and bears the consequences. There is never any suggestion that this is something that just happened to him, oops, guess he has to live through it.

Frasier is filled with people who may not make the decisions I would make but who are MAKING decisions that result in them creating certain types of lives for themselves.

Friends is about people who never really seem to get this.

And lately, it seems like this "endurance plot" has become rather ubiquitous. Without naming certain popular teenage series . . . it seems like the heroes and heroines are all reactive. Things happen to them, and they bear up. They bear up well . . . magnificently . . . endearingly.

But nobody actually gets on with things. As has been said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Or, as Eugene said once, "When the going gets tough, the tough leave." The Puritans got tired of being martyrs and sailed to America where they suffered but also where they built an entirely unique existence/culture/future.

"Endurance plots," on the other hand, only allow for one outcome: staying put and suffering. The Puritans remain in Europe; the Americans never get to the moon ("Oh, the Russians are beating us into space! I guess we should gnash our teeth and feel bad about it. Errrrrrr."); Monet et al. give up fighting the establishment and nobody hears of Impressionism. And maybe these specific outcomes wouldn't bother you, but they sure would make history kind of dull.

However, my main problem with "endurance plots" is not historical. I don't think they (or Friends) are indicative of the downfall of civilization or whatever. (In fact, if I were pushed, I would state that Friends is the type of show that keeps civilization trundling along--so many cultural norms are reinforced by the show, it isn't exactly a status quo breaker. Note: I'm not a big fan of status quo breakers).

My complaint is more aesthetic than philosophical.

To illustrate:

I like romances and mysteries because the tough do something, even if that something is to physically/metaphorically walk away from the problem. One fundamental rule of romances is that the heroine must change; internally, she (and sometimes the hero) undergoes a transformation. She doesn't change civilization as we know it, but she learns and grows within her own framework.

One fundamental rule of mysteries is that between the beginning and the end, the murderer must be identified (by the characters) and removed from society (absent a deus ex machina, also by the characters).

These are not HUGE, AWESOME changes; they are minor, personal, local. But they matter at the minor, personal, and local level. And I care about these changes because characters I care about make them happen.

But lately, there's been an awful lot of heroes and heroines I really couldn't care less about. I mean, so they've endured all kinds of horrible stuff . . . so, um, yay? Snooze. Okay, give me a romance or a mystery.