Post-Pilates
Mar. 1st, 2006 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowI'm totally doing the Hollywood exercise thing - Pilates, Yoga, Belly Dance, Ballet. I need some cardio in there to lose some weight, but I'd have to get my shit together enough to cancel one gym membership and enroll in another first. For the moment, I'm thinking at least the movement is good for me. I don't run outside. My knees are long-time victims of being a stubborn teenager who didn't want to tell anyone when I was hurt, and pavement kills me.
I bought a box of cutie clementines and we're eating them like a race, trying to devour them before they go bad. They're perfect, small and sweet and cold and tart. Such a nice fruit, but intimidating in the I don't want to waste them and they sit there and scream, "Eat Me."
I was going to talk - as promised about Capote, but I'm still thinking about James Frey and the "fictionalization" of memoir, and the novelization of memoir and how Capote's work is acceptable while I don't personally think Frey's is justifiable. I suppose part of it is that Capote was attempting an entirely new genre of writing, and Frey seems so terrible self-aggrandizing to me that there's an awful evil little part of me that was thrilled to see him caught in his lies and knocked of the pedestal of literary It boy.
I read In Cold Blood for the first time when I was 16 or so, and it terrified me. At the time, I lacked the sense of how remarkable the text was, not really thinking of it as non-fiction, while at the same time terrible frightened because it took place in Western Kansas which looks and feels just like Eastern Kansas, lonely and desolate and the murders were so brutal, their minds and actions laid open by Capote's prose. As an adult, the book hit home as a piece of writing. It still scared me, still made me shudder and not be able to close my eyes, but I had a sense of how hard it was to right a story that had happened and make it compelling, draw me in without exploiting the victims or defending the killers.
I find the movie remarkable because it is lovingly merciless about the way that Capote fooled himself into believing that he wasn't acting in the most self-interested way possible. He put the concept of the book ahead of the lives of the two men on death row, put their lives ahead of those of the Cutter family who had suffered and died in the pursuit of money that didn't exist. It's a testament to how entrenched in our own lives and pursuits we are, the way we are able to justify anything in the name of art. And it's undeniable that Capote created a piece of literature, that he did create art out of this horror, but he did it at the expense of a variety of lives, and if there's any justice in that, it's that he also did it at the expense of his own talent.
I loved the portrayal of Harper Lee (and I detest Catherine Keener- I get that she's talented, it's a visceral reaction -so that's saying a lot). Her love of her friend, her clear eyed understanding of his self-involvement, his selfishness, her acceptance and her honesty with him at the end, that he didn't do everything he could have, and that he'll have to live with that. I feel like I can be harsher to the representation of Capote in the movie than I can be with the man himself. It's too hard to distinguish where life and art stop being two parts of one whole.
In college, we talked about writing non-fiction, how it's always a story even if it's memoir, how you choose to shift certain details, to emphasize certain events that have more resonance in retrospect than they did at the time. How to write your life, basically. So with that in mind, why is it that James Frey's "lies" are such a big deal? For me, it's a big deal because you don't sell something as truth if it isn't. You don't make false claims and offer them up as existence. It's one of the rules of non-fiction, of memoir. You're writing the truth, your perception of the truth and while it's possible to make it more lyrical, to shift emphasis and focus, to lay out insight that never existed at the time, making things up completely changes the genre from fiction to non-fiction. And fiction is a different art form. Lies in non-fiction are just lies.
I can condemn Truman Capote for blatantly using Perry Smith and Dick Hickock for his own ends because he believed that he was doing something that justified it, because he was entranced with Smith, was finding his own personal catharsis by writing about a man that he could never have a relationship with that didn't involve cages and bars and lines drawn. I don't think he was a man terribly good at relationships of equality, and it must have been a weird giddy sort of blow when Harper Lee published her book, became a household name.
Most of this makes me think of Anthropology, of field work and the first rule you learn as an ethnographer: reciprocity. You're taking from a culture - individually and collectively and you owe the people who gave to you. You have an obligation to give something back of equal valute. This can be time, or more likely, your research. When you take stories from people, when you turn those stories into fiction, what do you owe them? Honesty, certainly. And acknowledgement without a doubt. Capote was never honest with the Cutter family's killers. He allowed them to believe that he was serious in his offers to help, and perhaps he was. At the same time, his altruism in finding them a lawyer is perverse in that ultimately, he's helping two men who brutally murdered a family for what amounted to about $50. He wasn't acting as a humanist, he was exploiting them for their personalities, their personas and stories. And is the finished product reciprocity? For men who were executed? Is it reciprocity for the friends and families affected by the crime?
No answers here, but I feel vaguely angry at Capote for his willingness to take and uncertain at what he gave in return. The book is remarkable, but how much weight should intent have?
I bought a box of cutie clementines and we're eating them like a race, trying to devour them before they go bad. They're perfect, small and sweet and cold and tart. Such a nice fruit, but intimidating in the I don't want to waste them and they sit there and scream, "Eat Me."
I was going to talk - as promised about Capote, but I'm still thinking about James Frey and the "fictionalization" of memoir, and the novelization of memoir and how Capote's work is acceptable while I don't personally think Frey's is justifiable. I suppose part of it is that Capote was attempting an entirely new genre of writing, and Frey seems so terrible self-aggrandizing to me that there's an awful evil little part of me that was thrilled to see him caught in his lies and knocked of the pedestal of literary It boy.
I read In Cold Blood for the first time when I was 16 or so, and it terrified me. At the time, I lacked the sense of how remarkable the text was, not really thinking of it as non-fiction, while at the same time terrible frightened because it took place in Western Kansas which looks and feels just like Eastern Kansas, lonely and desolate and the murders were so brutal, their minds and actions laid open by Capote's prose. As an adult, the book hit home as a piece of writing. It still scared me, still made me shudder and not be able to close my eyes, but I had a sense of how hard it was to right a story that had happened and make it compelling, draw me in without exploiting the victims or defending the killers.
I find the movie remarkable because it is lovingly merciless about the way that Capote fooled himself into believing that he wasn't acting in the most self-interested way possible. He put the concept of the book ahead of the lives of the two men on death row, put their lives ahead of those of the Cutter family who had suffered and died in the pursuit of money that didn't exist. It's a testament to how entrenched in our own lives and pursuits we are, the way we are able to justify anything in the name of art. And it's undeniable that Capote created a piece of literature, that he did create art out of this horror, but he did it at the expense of a variety of lives, and if there's any justice in that, it's that he also did it at the expense of his own talent.
I loved the portrayal of Harper Lee (and I detest Catherine Keener- I get that she's talented, it's a visceral reaction -so that's saying a lot). Her love of her friend, her clear eyed understanding of his self-involvement, his selfishness, her acceptance and her honesty with him at the end, that he didn't do everything he could have, and that he'll have to live with that. I feel like I can be harsher to the representation of Capote in the movie than I can be with the man himself. It's too hard to distinguish where life and art stop being two parts of one whole.
In college, we talked about writing non-fiction, how it's always a story even if it's memoir, how you choose to shift certain details, to emphasize certain events that have more resonance in retrospect than they did at the time. How to write your life, basically. So with that in mind, why is it that James Frey's "lies" are such a big deal? For me, it's a big deal because you don't sell something as truth if it isn't. You don't make false claims and offer them up as existence. It's one of the rules of non-fiction, of memoir. You're writing the truth, your perception of the truth and while it's possible to make it more lyrical, to shift emphasis and focus, to lay out insight that never existed at the time, making things up completely changes the genre from fiction to non-fiction. And fiction is a different art form. Lies in non-fiction are just lies.
I can condemn Truman Capote for blatantly using Perry Smith and Dick Hickock for his own ends because he believed that he was doing something that justified it, because he was entranced with Smith, was finding his own personal catharsis by writing about a man that he could never have a relationship with that didn't involve cages and bars and lines drawn. I don't think he was a man terribly good at relationships of equality, and it must have been a weird giddy sort of blow when Harper Lee published her book, became a household name.
Most of this makes me think of Anthropology, of field work and the first rule you learn as an ethnographer: reciprocity. You're taking from a culture - individually and collectively and you owe the people who gave to you. You have an obligation to give something back of equal valute. This can be time, or more likely, your research. When you take stories from people, when you turn those stories into fiction, what do you owe them? Honesty, certainly. And acknowledgement without a doubt. Capote was never honest with the Cutter family's killers. He allowed them to believe that he was serious in his offers to help, and perhaps he was. At the same time, his altruism in finding them a lawyer is perverse in that ultimately, he's helping two men who brutally murdered a family for what amounted to about $50. He wasn't acting as a humanist, he was exploiting them for their personalities, their personas and stories. And is the finished product reciprocity? For men who were executed? Is it reciprocity for the friends and families affected by the crime?
No answers here, but I feel vaguely angry at Capote for his willingness to take and uncertain at what he gave in return. The book is remarkable, but how much weight should intent have?
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 08:25 am (UTC)Meanwhile, belly dance seems like cardio to me!
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 03:56 pm (UTC)And then there is the matter of Capote the film as a kind of biography itself. I had a really interesting experience the other night: my roommate was watching Murder By Death, a 70s detective spoof that stars, among other people, Truman Capote, playing a character who was more or less himself. And I observed how odd it seemed that Philip Seymour Hoffman, as the more talented actor, comes across as more Capote than Capote himself. But that observation, I think, speaks particularly to the way that I am accustomed to the biographical film as a genre: am I more fascinated by the interpretation of the man than I am by a record of the man himself?
Anyway, I'm this close to rambling entirely incoherently. But the layers are fascinating. I need to see Capote again.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 05:54 pm (UTC)I saw the movie two weeks ago and was both repulsed and attracted by Hoffman's Capote -- which I suspect I would have been had I known the man personally. I have had friends like that, who are so brilliant and clever and talented that you can't help being interested in them and enjoying their company, but at heart are mercenary and callous. In some ways I think we even *admire* them for their negative qualities, that they're able to be amoral or get away with things we occasionally fantasize about.
Ultimately you grow up and, hopefully, shed such people before they come after you. But seeing the film reminded me of what it was like to be enthralled by such a man.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 06:05 pm (UTC)Absolutely!! I felt a similar sort of catharsis, this awareness of what I had allowed from someone in the past, and the similar awareness that the things I valued had since shifted.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 07:39 pm (UTC)Ex-ACT-ly.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 07:55 pm (UTC)I haven't seen Walk the Line yet. I have mixed feelings there because I have profound Johnny Cash love from the cradle forward, so I can't help but be slightly nervous that they won't have captured "my" Johnny Cash. Yet I've heard nothing but good things, so I really should see it.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 08:16 pm (UTC)