Roger Ebert by Sartaj Singh

April 4th was a very sad day to be a film fan and critic; because it was a moment in time when a titan had passed on.  Roger Ebert for more than forty years had been the face of American film criticism and by extension one of the chief architectures in this sub-genre of nonfiction writing and media.

His first great contribution was on television, when he and the late Gene Siskel teamed up on the show “Sneak Preview” The idea for the program was quite a novel as it comprised of two respected film critics in print, discussing and critiquing movies. It was quite apparent at this stage that Roger was very talented. His articulation, turn of phrase and sense of humour all combined together to create a compelling person to listen and watch.

A great example of this is in a review of “The Evil Dead” while he ultimately did not enjoy the picture, he did have some nice things to say about it. For example he complements the filmmaking calling it a “pure film” and comparing it with its genre forebears such as “Night of the Living Dead”, all while doing it with funny phrasing such as saying “the dead teenage slashing and dicing genre”

Roger and Gene left “Sneak Preview”, moving onto to a show called “At the Movies” which lasted two years. Eventually they syndicated their own show which would last a very long time under the name of “Siskel and Ebert” However tragedy had struck the pair because in 1999 Siskel had passed away due to complications of surgery. It is here where we see how Ebert transitioned from being just a great movie critic and becoming an inspirational human being. His tribute to Gene Siskel with the one extended show was really touching and one of the best tributes I have ever seen.

Ebert would continue the show; at first he did it with a slew of visiting critics as well as special guests like Martin Scorsese.   In 2000, the show was reborn with young esteemed critic Richard Roper taking Gene`s place on the balcony.  But this was short lived as Ebert now would have to leave the show in 2004 due to developing Cancer. He suffered with this for many years and eventually he lost his voice and could no longer continue his long television career. But this did not stop him as he continued to write and make his prescience known through ever increasing social media outlets.

Veteran Germen filmmaker Werner Herzog in an interview with Charlie Rose after Ebert`s death referred to him as more than a critic and as a “good soldier”. While this seems odd upon first hearing, I get what Herzog is talking about. One of the most enduring qualities of Ebert was you got the sense he had tremendous strength, despite the pitfalls that he had experienced in his life.

As someone with long term health problems, I have always found inspiration from Roger Ebert. The first and most important reason for this was his enduring strength and passion.  He showed that no matter what life throws at you; you should always find comfort and peace of mind in your passions and that you should never let anything come and distinguish the fiery commitment you have to what you love doing.

But also at the same time, his expression of film as a medium whether it was in print or on television was always so educational and informative, that I could not feel but inspired to be as well spoken and informed in this pastime.  His knowledge of film was so extensive that he has nearly single handily carried the banner for film criticism and its existence as a credible form of self expression. He also introduced me to many films that I now love and championed small movies no matter what his contemporaries thought of them. The best example of this is the 1998 film Dark City which was sadly overshadowed by the Matrix a year later.  But thanks to Ebert it has found a second life and an ever increasing audience.

Roger Ebert was one of the last of a great generation of American film critics that fundamentally changed the shape and scope of the field. His death has ignited a debate about the future of film criticism and its existence in the world today. While the pessimistic and cynical will point out that it is dying a slow painful death because of the democratisation of the internet which allows people to become reviewers and critics easier, I feel the debate at this point is rather moot. This is because we should be mourning the loss of a great man who has enriched the landscape of discussions about movies and like the great stuff he had held in high regard we will never think of him in any less of light.

RIP Roger Joseph Ebert (1942-2013)

The Paradox of Film as a Visual Medium by Sartaj Singh

I feel when looking at film in the world today and its function as not only art but entertainment, that it has hit a profound paradox.  This being, despite the overused mantra of “Film is a visual medium” and “Show don`t tell” being postulated by nearly everyone, film I feel is not truly achieving this. A reaction that has emerged from the new Nicolas Winding Refn film, “Only God Forgives” that came out on the 2nd August here in the UK.

Instead I feel it has entered a period of regression where it does the complete opposite, pictures and shots are not really being used anymore to tell a story or hypothesis something. Instead what is relied on is dialogue to communicate the ideas of something, be it a theme or motivation across to the audience.

What evidence do I have for this? Well let us look at the sheer amount of films that just count on visuals alone to tell a story, I think there are very few that one can cite today. Since the silent era, film has been devolving in this area, until today when we see something completely reliant on visuals.  I find that we are quick to call it unintelligible, nonsense or even going as so far as to insulting the director by calling him indulgent.

Let us take this one word and truly try to understand its meaning. Indulgent has many uses, but for the parameters of this discussion it is linked to gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. It does seem most interesting upon first examination that a religious interpretation of something has weighed in of a definition of a word today.

Perhaps we can break this down further and just define indulgent as excessive. So my question is this, what is so excessive when one sits down and watches something like “The Tree of Life” (A rare film that has very little dialogue and relies on the visuals to tell its story) is it perhaps, the uses of images, little dialogue, and the 20 minute sequence of the world being created? Or other things, like I don`t know perhaps trying to be profound? Now you see my contention here, people ultimately criticize “Tree of Life” on one of the things it is doing right and achieving and that is telling the story through images, ultimately really necessitating itself as a film in the true definition of the word.

So the question from here that can be asked is why do we not see more films like this? The reason is because we have been so socially conditioned to accept things at face value; this comes from morality, religion to even politics. And this has even festered into views of art and film is suffering too as a result of this.

Think about it for a second, most films are quite a typical you can easily slot them in a genre, like romance, action, science fiction etc. When you go and see somethingyou’re not expecting anything new or profound. Yet in the dark corners of the world, there is hope, there are films that come out that try to challenge the viewers in many ways.

Yet the irony of all of this is that in film criticism many do complain of this sudden halt in creativity. Let us examine this for a second, is creativity in film truly dead? Well it all does come down to perception. Back in the old days, fewer movies came out, they were like a bigger event almost on the level of a touring performance or a play being put on that was in limited release.

However in our current age, films come out every week that they have lost their entire mystique, at just a touch of a button you can find out everything about one film and become an expert on it in fewer than ten minutes- varying on the speed of your reading. As a result of this, we do start to make observations like oh such and such a film is a remake, adaptation or even reboot.

The complaint feels rather unfounded, especially as another paradox can be raised within the confines of this issue alone. The so called “Summer Blockbuster” or tent pool movies are often loathed by critics with an extreme passionate anger and some of these sentiments are shared by many members of the public.

I once heard a very clever man refer to a movie ticket as like a vote, that with it we decide what we want to watch at the cinema as well as subjectively decide in our own way, what kind of movies are going to be made in the near distant future. I agree with this assessment because as corny and idealistic as it sounds, it is actually true. Let us examine a case, since the Michael Bay, Transformers movies; there have been a slew up imitators, with similar premise, character types and poor story telling.

This is because Transformers made money, the paradox arises out of us paying to see these movies in spades and then we complain about it, the whole thing becomes rather circular and tedious. This phenomenon is not just exclusive to films but other world affairs. There was much complaint about George Bush and his second term, but who voted him in- The same American public who complained about him in the first place.

Let us go back to the word indulgent and its lineage with the word excessive. Is this perhaps how we are psychologically and on further reflection, existentially? Well one could point to various examples of this being true but the real reason is because of something ingrained in our culture I feel. We live in an age where information is just a click away and because of this knowledge is no longer a desirable thing as it once was.

It feels more like a means to an end as opposed to enjoying any sense accomplishment in the act of using that knowledge in of itself. Retaining information is no longer a concern either.

For example if we look at the state school system, education is taught as a means to an end as opposed to stepping back and trying to enjoy a subject for the value that it may bring a student.

However I am veering off the point, so I shall conclude as thus. This paradox of film as a visual medium will always exist and unless it ceases we are never going to evolve in our perception of film.

Unfortunately, there are no directors such as Stanley Kubrick these days.  He was someone that truly took the medium and tried reassess its utility and show it can be structured differently beyond our normal parameters of understanding it. We are merely living an illusion at the moment and fooling ourselves on the true definition of film.

It is time that we woke up and just think for a moment of what film truly is and our current perceptions of it is, I feel we have no right in speaking about film properly when we do not fully understanding its meaning. As a result we are currently living in sugar coated ignorance and not allowing the medium of film to move forward which is a shame as it stands as just over 100 years old and it still has to room to grow and evolve.  

Beyond liberation by JT White and Ellie Crowe

Today we find class politics are all too readily dismissed, and suspiciously so, in the decades since the fall of Communism. Instead it was the newly emergent identity politics which took hold at the wake of socialism’s funeral. In the era of political-correctness we find class politics missing from the discussion, only for its space to be filled by identity – whether it is gender, sexuality or race – in ways which couldn’t possibly threaten the prevailing order. But this isn’t the end of the story. It was Christopher Hitchens who once remarked that “Socialism has been to its own funeral more often than Tom Sawyer.” We may find if we are so inclined, that the majority of the working-class in world terms is female. If class may be abolished through the culmination of the class struggle, then it may be possible to overcome other forms of domination.

This has been the case for a lot longer than we might like to admit. The term ‘proletariat’ is actually derived from the Latin for ‘offspring’ which refers to those who were too poor to serve the state with anything other than their wombs. Itdenotes to a specific swathe of the masses in the Roman Republic. Too deprived to contribute to economic life in any other way, these women produced labour power in the form of children (who would then be reared by the state as soldiers and sent into battle). What society demanded from them was not production but reproduction. The proletariat started life among those outside the labour process and not from within it. The labour these women endured was a lot more painful than breaking boulders.

In the post-industrial capitalist societies we find that the service sector staffed by vast numbers of women has expanded enormously. And of course, there are those women who have made it in the financial sector – but they are not the proletarians and have little stake in a class-conscious feminism. Even when Britain was the workshop of the world the industrial working-class were outnumbered by domestic servants and agricultural labourers. The sweatshops of the developing world are packed to the brim with female workers, both young and old. And so, we find the politics of class and identity can converge on common material conditions.

The journalist Germaine Greer takes the notion of women's liberation as more than equality, as the achievement of formal equality would mean equality with unfree men and that's hardly emancipation. Liberation from constraints on divorce, abortion, jobs and income are not the end but the beginning.The case of recognising the raising of children and even housekeeping as work with a living wage is an example of what Greer is talking about. Venezuela has gone one step further this year and put aside pensions for full-time mums. This is a much more radical proposal than quotas for women in board rooms, which would just give rise to a few more Thatcheresque women in Greer’s terms. As Lindsey German has written “The talk of glass ceilings and unfairly low bonuses for women bankers misses the point about liberation, which is that it has to be for all working women and not just a tiny number of privileged women.”

Under capitalist conditions the wage a woman receives as a sex worker or indeed a performer in pornography is no different than the wage received by a waitress. Not in the narrow sense that the rate of pay is the same per hour, but rather in the sense that in each case the worker’s labour is still exchanged for a wage. The labour contributed remains disproportionate to the wage received in order to guarantee profitability. It’s about the extraction and the accumulation ofprofit on the backs of other people’s labour. The advocates ofdecriminalisation should take note that the content of the labour is not what matters in a society where free-choice and markets prevail. Indeed, in a society of free-choice sex work would be an option among many. A moralising ban on pornography and prostitution seems somewhat futile in light of this. It misses the point.

Objectification is a part of capitalist society; it is a part of the productive process, with the role of wage labour and the commodities resulting from it. Being paid for sex is no different than being paid to smile as a waitress. Wage labour is not a category with any moral precepts or implications, it is merely functional. It's not immoral as much as amoral, relativist and pragmatic. The moves by David Cameron to impose an ‘opt-in’ mechanism over the internet inflow of pornography are contrary to the thrust of a market society. It often seems as though Conservatives want to unleash all of us to the freedom to fail, at least when it comes to the economy.Yet when it comes to social questions the Right wade into our personal lives in order to reassert ‘traditional values’ over us.

The case for feminism has to be made from the ground up, the same with socialism, beginning with the conditions already prevalent in society. In this way we can see that there is a point of divergence between the feminist mission and the structure of capitalist society insofar as the objectives crash against the pillars of market ideology. This may be a terrifying prospect for middle-class liberal feminists, but it’s the way it should be. Women can't just be as free as unfreemen. The attainment of civil rights and liberties is only the end of one kind of struggle, which is certainly not at odds with class society and the capitalist system. It’s the aim of human emancipation, not mere liberation under capitalism, to which this cause must be welded.

Discussion topic - Are shorts appropriate to wear to work if you are working in a profession?

If you work in a profession then would it be acceptable to wear shorts to work? Whether you are make or female? And does your gender make a difference?

The Waiting Game by JT White

With the celebrations at the weekend of the 60th year since the end of the Korean War, if one considers it over, the West has forgotten that the Korean peninsula was divided into North and South the day after nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan. It was intended to be a temporary scenario, Kim Il-sung was installed in the North by the Soviet Union and the United States put Syngman Rhee in charge of the South (the first many military dictators). There were frequent border skirmishes from the start, but it would go all the way in 1950. It would have huge implications for the Cold War and for the world today.

The cause of a united and independent Korea had huge support on the peninsula for obvious reasons. From 1910 to 1945 Korea had been the private play toy of the Japanese Empire. Although the Japanese generals worked to abolish the caste system in Korea they were eager to suppress Korea’s linguistic, cultural and religious heritage. Korea would be plundered to fuel the Japanese war machine, everything from its natural resources to its inhabitants were utilised. In their thousands Koreans found themselves subjected to forced labour and sexual slavery. Koreans were among the victims of Unit 73 where the Japanese Fascists carried out experiments on human beings. Some 20,000 Koreans were killed in the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was against this backdrop that the Korean peninsula was held apart by foreign powers.

A few years later came the end of Chiang Kai-Shek’sscandalously corrupt reign in China. Mao Zedong soon cut a deal with Stalin while the Kuomintang was driven to running its opium ring out of Taiwan. It was perceived as an enormous loss for the fledgling hegemon. As Oliver Stone noted in his book, The New York Times called it a “vast tragedy of unforeseeable consequences for the Western World.” When Kim Il-sung sent his troops down into the southern half of the peninsula The New York Times would urge Truman to act now or risk “los[ing] half the world.” The Times, in many respects the voice of history in US media, had set the Korean War in comparison to the loss of China a year earlier. The implications should be clear for anyone to see. As Chomsky notes “The tacit assumption was that the U.S. owned China, by right, along with most of the rest of the world, much as post-war planners assumed.”

It’s often described as though the Russians carried out a proxy-invasion which required a counteraction. Actually the Soviet Union was barely involved, aside from the green light that Stalin gave to Kim Il-sung who was eager for war and had promised a swift victory. Stalin had refused Kim permission in 1949 fearing a protracted war with the Americans, who had been beefing up Japan as a military outpost. By 1950 the Soviet Union had the atomic bomb and a new ally in China, so Stalin could give his blessing under the understanding that Russian forces would have a very limited role. In the whole conflict only 26,000 Russians died, a figure dwarfed bythe piles and piles of Koreans and Chinese slain.Chairman Mao had agreed to support the invasion to appease the Soviet Union, but also wanted to keep China out of the war.

Upon the US intervention Truman said "A return to the rule of force in international affairs would have far-reaching effects. The United States will continue to uphold the rule of law." The US intervened through the UN in what Truman described, in typical cynicism, as a ‘police action’ rather than call it what it was – an undeclared war – where the UN played a nominal role with half the ground troops composed of Americans. The US went far beyond what the UN resolutionstipulated, going as far as to push deep into North Korea eventually reaching the Chinese border and provoking a Chinese intervention. As Howard Zinn notes, the UN had only sanctioned actions to repel the North’s forces and to restore peace and security within the area. TheAmerican intervention would not be shy of war crimes in its bombing campaign to level the Korean peninsula.Zinn refers us to the words of a BBC journalist on the effects of napalm:

In front of us a curious figure was standing, a little crouched, legs straddled, arms held out from his sides. He had no eyes, and the whole of his body, nearly all of which was visible through tatters of burnt rags, was covered with a hard black crust speckled with yellow pus. . . . He had to stand because he was no longer covered with a skin, but with a crust-like crackling which broke easily. . . . I thought of the hundreds of villages reduced to ash which I personally had seen and realized the sort of casualty list which must be mounting up along the Korean front.

Although, Stalin saw the war partly as an opportunity toget back at the United States for its decision to form NATO after the war had been under way for a year Stalin pushed for negotiations. The table-talks would drag on for two years while the US continued in its firebombing campaign and ultimately forcing Koreans to seek refuge in caves. The campaign’s reach was not limited to the Communist forces in the North. Around this time the British armed forces yearbook observed “The war was fought without regard for the South Koreans, and their unfortunate country was regarded as an arena rather than a country to be liberated. As a consequence, fighting was quite ruthless, and it is no exaggeration to state that South Korea no longer exists as a country.”

The war was a disaster for Harry Truman, who enjoyed an approval rating low of 22% as support for the war dipped to 39% in 1951. Once Eisenhower had succeeded Truman and Stalin had died the US proceeded to bomb the dams near Pyongyang – having ran out of other targets – killing thousands of peasants and destroying crops for a population facing starvation. It was a crime with precedence in Nazi-occupied Holland, as Chomsky notes. The war would end at an armistice which upheld the partition on the 38th Parallel where the war had begun three years earlier. It was the first of America’s wars to be backed by establishment liberals. Not just The New York Times, but The Nation and even Henry Wallace capitulated to social chauvinism. It would not be the last time a progressive coalition would emerge on the side of US intervention.

We would see this re-emerge for Kennedy’s shameless aggression towards Cuba and Vietnam, let alone the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan decades later. The herd of independent minds has included such venerated creatures as Isaiah Berlin and most recently journalists like Christopher Hitchens. The few voices of dissent will continue to be vilified for their non-conformism. Like many later adventures the war was not a perceived victory because 37,000 Americans lay dead and the outcome had not established any significant gains for the South. Even though 3 million Koreans and 1 million Chinese had died in the war it wasn’t enough. It was total victory, or nothing. The original cold warriorWinston Churchill had the foresight to comprehend the significance of the Korean War when he said “Korea does not really matter now… Its importance lies in the fact that it has led to the re-arming of America.”

Gore Vidal estimates the full price of the national security state at $7.1 trillion from 1949 to 1999. The peninsula remains divided to this day, in a permanent stand-off of hundreds of thousands of troops at the ‘demilitarized zone’: a strange name for a place where there are nuclear mines in the ground. The war may have ended in a stalemate at the 38th Parallel where it had begun, but it was a victory for the military-industrial complex. The prevailing interests seem to convergence with this stalemate being continued for years to come. China doesn’t want the immigration fallout, nor does the US want to shell-out any cash for a reunification. Yet war remains a possibility. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson has speculated that the South would win out in any outbreak of war, but it’s likely that there would be 100,000 dead(a low estimate) in the first week and Seoul may be devastated by North Korean artillery.

Korea is still waiting for reunification and now it seems more unlikely than ever. Perhaps if the US had stayed out of the war Korea might have been reunited – albeit under the red flag – and this perpetual stand-off could have been averted. Likely such a Korea would have given into the same forces as its neighbours and opened up its economy. It’s possible that the military-party state would have saved itself in this way, as seen in China and elsewhere. Though it remains to be seen whether or not this possibility would have been worse than the outcomes we face today.

By JT White

Hunger Strike

As most of you probably know, there is a place called Guantanamo Bay where America has put suspected terrorists in order to protect their country. What you may not know (but I'm hoping most of you do) is that some of the prisoners there have been declared completely innocent and yet they are still being held in this hell hole.
Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay and release the innocent, but has yet to do so. Some of the prisoners have been hunger striking for months, to alert Obama to the fact that they want to be released (funnily enough).
The first I heard of this was when Frankie Boyle went on hunger strike in order to show solidarity and to raise awareness of this horrific ordeal. A number of celebs are taking it in turns to hunger strike to raise awareness and have been asking others to join them if they are able to.

Me and my dad were able to and therefore we decided to join the hunger strike. So far we haven't eaten for 4 days and although we are weak, tired and very hungry, we will carry on until we've done a week. I am 20 years old and I feel that this issue is disgusting. Something needs to be done about it.  By hunger striking, we are trying to raise awareness and to show solidarity but also we have tweeted MPs and other celebs in order to get them to put pressure on Obama to keep his promise to close Guantanamo Bay for good.

I urge you, if you agree, to contact your MP and stress how important you feel this issue is. Please try and do what you can in order to stop these horrific things from happening. Some of the prisoners have been locked up since 2002. They haven't seen their family and they have been tortured and beaten and force fed. I personally think this is disgusting and so please try to do whatever you can to show that this is not ok. You don't necessarily need to go on hunger strike, even if you just message an MP or someone, then great.

Another thing that greatly sickens me is that the majority of these prisoners are Muslim and are therefore doing Ramadan. These prisoners who have been striking are now, during Ramadan, being force fed during the day. Not only do I believe that the protest should be respected but even more so I believe that their religion should be respected. I am not religious myself but force feeding Muslims during Ramadan just seems plain wrong to me.

If you wish to read more about what is happening and read individual stories visit this website:

 www.standfastforjustice.org

So far I have lost half a stone and my dad has lost 9lbs. We have both lost about 2 inches around our waist and this is after just 4 days. Just think, some prisoners have been striking for 5 months and Shaker Aamer has lost 32lbs which they believe is half his body weight. Shaker Aamer is a British resident and was imprisoned in 2002. In 2007, it was acknowledged that he held no threat and in 2009 Obama set him to be released. That was in 2009 and now, in 2013, he still hasn't been released.

Please do anything you can to help.