PETER PAN and Passion

[flyingskull]

Right, am definitely back from my travels, succeeded in creating tourist packages which I like a lot and sent my associates with clients to enjoy them as well. But that's a tale for another time because I'm still REELING from seeing Peter Pan directed by P. J. Hogan. Am going to rave and rant about it, so be warned.

But first I must explain a thing. Yes, baeraad, I play the 'Cripple Mister Onion' game that is life with my cards right close to me chest so I don't say things about me unless I feel they are necessary to understand what I'm going to rant and/or rave about. This is necessary. I hate going to a cinema, actually I never go. I can't jump up and down and scream there; I can't smoke or drink there; I can't - I know I could, but that's just not me - weep me eyes out there: in brief, I can't be ME in a cinema and I so want to do all of the above not to mention stop seeing something that's boring without disturbing a lot of people. So I always see films ages after they're out in cinemas.

Mummy - who never agrees with me on films, but who always knows when some film may be interesting for me - gave me this Peter Pan and WOW!

WOW!

The sheer intensity of it floored me. I mean, apart from the fact that it happens to BE Barrie's Peter Pan and not Disney ot any other eejit's view of the thing. It's a fucking tragedy! You feel youth slipping away from you and you bloody well know it's never ever ever coming back. It's a very funny feeling because I'm thirty, not eighty, but the point is not getting old, the point is losing the richness and wondewrfulness of childhood.

Which made me suddenly understand, right in the middle of pausing the film to sob like a Niagara, that that is what Howl's Moving Castle is all about. Howl is actually a Peter Pan who can't keep his grip on childhood and Sophie is a very laid back Wendy. The difference being that DWJ is accepting and understanding of the whole 'growing up' business and Barrie wasn't.

It hit me lots because I've ALWAYS been Wendy, in a sense, the Wendy in this film, mind you, not some mindless Disney clone. I remember, when dada read the book AND the play to me, identifying totally with Wendy because, by some miracle, Barrie caught a real female view of things ignoring his contemporary cliché. I was also Peter, but then I think all children who read or hear the story are Peter: he's not called Pan in vain, no siree.

Another odd thing about this film - to me, of course, this is really personal in a sense - is that I watched all the 'deleted scenes/alternative end/behind the scenes' drivel and - apart from Fergie fucking commentary which I ignored - they gave depth and even more intensity/passion to the whole. I don't want to know how tricks work, generally, I work enough tricks on my clients every day to really care about the mechanics of things, but this 'additional thingies' thing in this DVD somehow works so well it makes you want to re-watch the film over and over again. Which I did. AND wept at the same scenes because they are so BLOODY INTENSE you have to react some way.

I am NOT a weeper. Well, alright, I'm not generally a weeper, but I was gulping and sniffing throughout the sodding thing!

On a side note, I'd never known that Jason Isaacs could be so very wonderfully eatable while playing a stiff-backed and repressed bank clerk. Hat off to a GREAT actor, I mean Hook is easy to act, but Mr Darling? WOW! Also I've reserved Jeremy Sumpter for the year 2017. He's MINE! DO YOU HEAR?

MINE!!!

And now I feel like the slimiest paedo, but... GAAAAH! He'll become one of the sexiest man ever! Alright, not proud of that, but why lie to friends?

I suppose one of the factors is that I've finally read DWJ's Deep Secret which earns another WOW on the wow scale of books. How could have I missed such a terribly intense novel? I was tense a violin string from first word to the last. Lovely. Which brings me to confess I love passion/intensity more than anything else in books, films, comics, whatever. It doesn't have to be art, but it sure as death must strive to be.

I also finished Game of Thrones and I liked it a lot - bar the really useless prologue - but, though real glad I've read it; though I've ordered the other ones by Martin because I really like his style; it's not passionate. It's not intense one whit. Beautiful interesting chronicle - there are people in there, not all of them but enough of them - but... but... BUT...

You see, Daniel, m'luv, I'm a bit like Keats in that he wanted to see something he could get passionate about when looking at paintings. I want to read something I can get passionate about when I read books, and politics - though utterly fascinating to me - is not a thing I can get passionate about. I don't have a religious mind, you see? Politics, sports, religions are not things I can get passionate about. I love to analyse them, to study them at times, but... coldly, if you wish: an intellectual excercise. OTOH, I get extremely het up and passionate about science and people so put what I'm writing down to a quirk of mine. DWJ, Pterry, Hill, Rankin (both), Gaiman, Chaucer, Shakespeare Austen, Fielding... lots of others actually, are/were all passionate/intense authors, not all the time, of course, I mean human being can't sustain that level of intenstity all their life, but enough time that you can feel their fury while reading. I want that. I want to feel the fury like a dangerous undercurrent to the apparent text, the anger, the passion, the intensity. Which is why I liked Martin a lot, but was never impassioned about his world - a thousand points for worldbuilding, though, influences or not - and could stop reading and start again two days later with no feeling of losing contact with something vital and alive.

To end this really long and pointless rant. Do see P. J. Hogan's Peter Pan. It's a life changing/enhancing experience.

ETA to edit - too late alas! - and add Lj cut. SORRY!

Comments

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

This reply is quite late and I am deeply ashamed. ^_^; Life (read: school) is a little crazy right now.

I play the 'Cripple Mister Onion' game that is life with my cards right close to me chest so I don't say things about me unless I feel they are necessary to understand what I'm going to rant and/or rave about.

That is of course entirely your perogative. :) I admit that I regret it, though. It puts a definite limit to how close I can ever get to you.

Ahhhhhh, but things are as they are, no? =]

I hate going to a cinema

I kind of like it, but then, I can be me quite well in a cinema. Being me often means sitting on my ass and staring blankly in front of me, and that's the kind of behaviour that's approved of in a cinema. =]

the point is not getting old, the point is losing the richness and wondewrfulness of childhood.

Hrm. Mostly what I remember about being a child is never understanding anything and always being ordered around. ^_^;

Then again, it might be that I don't miss being a child because I'm still a child - just one who gets to stay up as long as he likes and doesn't have to eat his vedgetables if he doesn't want to. ;)

I don't want to know how tricks work

Again I must admit myself different. :) I always want to know what the author meant for the plot to be like, how the characters are supposed to work, and just generally how it all fits together.

That I am a little sorry about, actually. I get a little wistful for the days when I could just appreciate a story for what it was. These days, I've just thought so much about why stories affect me that they really don't affect me very much anymore. I just approve or disapprove of technique. =]

Also I've reserved Jeremy Sumpter for the year 2017.

*laughs* That being when he comes of legal age, I take it? Well, we're just going to have to make sure he doesn't get snatched up by some floozy before then. =]

Which brings me to confess I love passion/intensity more than anything else in books, films, comics, whatever.

Ahhh... yeah, Martin falls a little short, in that case. :) There's pathos in there, but it's not really intense, no. You're not swept along, you're invited to read along at a leisurely pace and admire the scenery along the way. =]

I'm starting to realise (much too my embarrassment) that I don't trust passion in books. I mean, Pratchett is very passionate, but he's smart, so he's allowed. He's passionate about smart things - nothing wrong with that. =] A lot of the time, though, being passionate translates into "everyone has to like what I like! Everyone who doesn't is evil!" ^_^;

And guess who doesn't usually like what these passionate pinheads like? Me, that's who! ^_^;;;

No, I like books that are carefully assembled, first and foremost. :) I like feeling that everything that happens happens for a purpose, that everything's thought out and everything's clear and sensible and thought through.

Not that I'm implying you don't like that sort of thing, but by your own admission, you want passion first. I want intellect first - though I think we can both agree that the best kind of books (like Pratchett's) has both. :)

Which Fielding, by the way? I can find references to no less than three authors by that name, and I think I've read two of them. =]

Do see P. J. Hogan's Peter Pan.

I will endevour to do so. :)