| COMPARE ADN CONTRAST |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|04:51 pm] |
Two versions of Perfecting Imperfection: TMNS
Original:
Director's Cut:
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| The Room: An Exploration of Time and Perception Through the Eyes of a Tragic Hero |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|07:14 pm] |
I have sat through the entirety of Tommy Wiseau’s magnum opus ‘The Room’ far more times than any human being should so something so self-destructive, and with each subsequent viewing, I was becoming increasingly confused as to the motivations of specific characters, and really, the nature of time as it exists within the parameters of Wiseau’s universe. I dedicated all of the faculties of my brain to dissecting the seemingly arbitrary movements of time through the film. In a moment of intense consideration of Lisa’s instantaneous and irrational anger at a specific character, which within the course of a single cut shifts to an intense grope-fest, the very nature of time in our own dimensional pattern began to elude me. Past and present bled together in an unattainable moment of “now” that I could no longer rationalize as a point of existence. In concentrating too heavily upon that moment, I found myself passing into and out of existence, which, if you have ever attempted this yourself, is somewhat disorienting. In those moments of nonexistence, rather than a void of nothingness, I emerged into a world of everything-ness. Every moment of my own life, as well as the lives of every single human being that has, or ever will live, emerged, spread out before me like an enormous tapestry.
It was Brecht who implied that an active audience constituted progressive theater, and as my consciousness became once again tethered to the laws of space-time as they exist outside of the walls of Wiseau’s Room, I realized that The Room was officially the most compelling piece of active audience inference ever conceived.
In the greatest tradition of film, The Room is a piece of art that pulls no punches, gives nothing to the audience upfront. It is necessary to follow the clues in order to discover the underlying complexity of Johnny’s journey into the darkest parts of his soul. While the surface layer may appear to sometimes give too much away, these sometimes obtuse assertions exist to merely throw the viewer off from the complex moral adventure story unfolding in the margins of the page. Just like in Antonioni’s Blowup, where a potential murder is used as the ultimate red herring, so too does Mark’s seemingly nonstop proclamations of Wiseau’s character as his “Best Friend” simply serve to divert from the underlying truth of the piece, a truth that examines the very nature of time, and our perception of it.
In order to consider the specific instances in the film in which Wiseau both pulls the wool over ours eyes, while simultaneously giving us insight to the human condition, it is necessary to consider the overall plot of the movie, from beginning to end, so if you intend to enter The Room with fresh eyes, please watch it before reading any further.
The film opens with establishing shots of a city. The exact city in the shots is intentionally shrouded in mystery in order to provide the illusion that the film takes place in anytown USA. Some have speculated that due to the repeated bridge shots, as well as the futuristic-looking electric trolley, that the film actually takes place thousands of years in the past, in the hyper-advanced mythical city of Atlantis. This would make sense, given the strange accent that Wiseau’s character, Johnny has adopted. His character, who appears to be a newcomer, has the look of a caveman, dressed up unconvincingly in Atlantean garb. Therefore, we can deduce that the backstory is that Johnny washed up on the shores of this amazing society, where he was taken in by Lisa, who nurtured him, dressed him in Atlantean clothes, but Johnny, like a dog standing on its hind legs, is not of this world. This would explain Johnny’s later story about meeting Lisa, which is perhaps the least interesting story ever printed simultaneously onto film and High Definition video. Johnny was simply trying to cover up the truth, that he is from a shamefully primitive society.
In Plato’s allegory of the cave, he eludes to the human condition, living chained in a cave, seeing only the reflections of the outside world. Eventually man emerges from the cave, and becomes overwhelmed by the modern world. So, too, must it have been for Johnny as he entered this alien world, and learned the many strange rules of this world.
Wiseau’s assertions of this society cause it to differ significantly from the modern world that we know. Take, for instance, there character of Deni. His ritual is to enter a room, make a singular statement, and walk out of the room. this would seem to undermine cinema’s competence, but one may also consider Deni’s behavior against the backdrop of a completely alien society. It is his way of saying “I Love You”. Also, rules of etiquette for Deni are quite different than that of our society. He sees nothing wrong, for instance, with walking into a bedroom to watch his friends make love. Later in the film, he unabashedly asks Lisa to kiss him, even though at this point she is dating both Johnny and Mark simultaneously. This would imply that in this society, the rules of love are very different.
Deni is also attacked by Chris R., who appears to be a pusher of some sort of drug. What is so interesting about this scene is that Chris R. somehow finds his way to the roof where Deni sits, threatens him, is remove from the roof, and then never appears again. In a similar scene, Lisa’s mother asserts that she has breast cancer, a fact that she seems entirely unfazed about, and never brings up again.
How is it, that these scenes occur as islands in a plot that, otherwise, fluctuates from people talking about how great Johnny is paralleled with people betraying Tommy?
In regards to these scenes, take for instance the first two:
Johnny buys Lisa a red dress which holds no significance moving forward, then she and Johnny have sex, which she appears to enjoy, passionately arching her head back with each of the thrusts of Wisseau’s gigantic, caveman body. In the very next scene, Lisa says that she no longer loves Johnny. This interplay in which in one scene, Lisa clearly enjoys her time with Johnny, followed immediately by a scene in which she renounces Johnny, must to the chagrin of every other character, all of which think that he is an amazing person, perhaps the greatest to ever press his beautiful feet against the white sands of Atlantis.
Given the nature of these two isolated incidents, coupled with two stories that, to the untrained viewer, could be representative of two completely separate films, we have to consider the interconnectedness of the entire film.
As stated previously, I briefly became unstuck in time. In returning to the rational world in which time and space interacted with one anther along their preconceived paradigms, I came to a startling realization about the Room.
Perhaps Johnny was not just a traveler through space, but also through time. Moreover, the two separate story arcs are represented by two separate timelines set down by Johnny coming into Lisa’s life at two somewhat different times.
Imagine, if you will, Johnny emergeing from a time portal into the mystical city of Atlantis. He meets a girl, Lisa. Theya re the perfect couple. he has a best friend, Mark, who thinks that he is absolutely great. Johnny has a birthday party, and walks outside, miraculously transporting himself, somehow, back to his own time.
Years pass, and Johnny finally discovers a way to transport himself back to Lisa’s time. He does so, but lands at almost the same time in which he landed previously. For him, this is heaven, getting the opportunity to re-live every moment of his romance with Lisa again. But knowing the outcome, Johnny’s arrogance gets in the way, pushing her instead into the hands of his best friend, Mark.
Stacked side-by-side in groundbreaking technical prowice, Wisseau sculpts for us a greek tragedy, Macbeth for a new generation. Johnny knows what is coming, and it becomed his downfall.
Where, then, do the two arbitrary pieces of information, namely the drug and cancer scene, pit into the tapestry? It should be obvious, now that they are the moments in which Johnny’s timescape intersects with his future self. Chris R’s story arc happens during Johnny’s first trip to the past, whereas Lisa’s Mom’s revelation happens during the second run-through.
Anton Chekov once said that if a gun appears onstage, it is necessary for it to be shot. Tommy Wisseau brazenly ignores this strategy with the nameless clown characters of Lisa and Tommy’s mutual friends. Much like the gravediggers in Hamlet, their purpose is whimsy, and they provide an added shading to the already complex tale at hand, especially given the last scene.
In Walter Murch’s editing manifesto, “In The Blink of an Eye”, he attributes the blinking of the human eye to the cut, a principle that Wisseau understands beautifully. Whereas Wisseau’s brilliant cutting style up until the final scene of the film has been to interlace two timelines simultaneously, this is broken up during the climactic party scene, in which each individual eye blink transports us between the two timelines. In one blink, Lisa hates Mark. In the next, they are passionately touching one another. Given the fact that in the initial timeline, Johnny is sent back in time, he disappears for half of the final scene, arbitrarily reappearing to represent the secondary timeline.
In the end, after the revelation of the secondary world tears apart everything Johnny, the time traveler has worked for, he loses his cool.
It is understood that time travel does strange things to people. In H.G. Welles’ masterpiece, one time traveler, inured with all of the secrets of the future, searches for a peaceful time to escape to with his nubian mistress. To Johnny, it causes madness, and death. These final moments call back upon the tragedy of the years wasted for the heart of one girl, and his sacrifice of his home eventually becomes too much for him, and Johnny kills himself. IN that way, The Room is truly a remarkable cinematic and literary achievement; the tragic story of a time traveler pushed to the edge.
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| (no subject) |
[May. 3rd, 2009|11:27 pm] |
I hate to get political here, dear reader(s), but Facebook is becoming increasingly complex to the level where I feel as though by the next pass, when they completely and inexplicably change everything again, I won't be able to catch up. As it stands, my aptitiude for learning new things has slowly begun to decline as I inch slowly towards death. I've almost reached thet precipital point where I feel confident enough in what I've learned to begin forgetting things en masse. When they day comes, I'm sure I'll be upset that I sent long periods of time not writing in a daily weblog. Which is what brings me here today, meaning that it's probably important to document watershed moments.
I have a small notebook that contains all of the various moments over the last four years that I plan on working into the ineviable book that I have currently titled "So That Was College?" You know, all the big ones. Being arrested, being too scared to climb into the sewer at URI, the various times that I have been hurftful to women whose names are Rebecca and have realized that my hurfulness was a horrible mistake but was too much of a coward to even attempt to win them back (Twice, actually), a bunch of stuff about trains, and so on.
So today a family is broken up. No, not my biological family. That was broken up in December of 2005 (Therefore falling into the jurisdiction of the book). No, rather it's the overrarching family Superhouse, the most beautiful union of five heterosexual males since The Beatles met Bob Dylan and had odd, grunt-filled sex with him.
Ok, so four of us are still here. Me, Tom, Tom, and Matt. Yeah there's three Toms. We're done talking about it.
I have spent the last five minutes attempting to find a picture of all five of us standing together in a single location. I have found a medely of photos that illustrate that, but what kind of person wants to look at a medley of photos?
What the hell am I talking about?
Oh yeah. Joel left for Korea today, thus ending his part in the two year journey of adventuring and excitement. Because I'm too tired to elaborate, I will instead post a picture that I made of Joel photoshopped onto Jesus Christ.
Ride on, Postman.
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 3rd, 2009|10:49 pm] |
At some point I inherited the disposition of a seventy-year-old man. Sullen, constantly anrgy and difficult to please, I've been known to say that I don't like the looks of those kids, over there.
I guess I haven't been writing in here that much because I haven't been all that sentimental, lately. What is a cynically sentimental man without sentimentality? I don't have the answer to that question, but my best guess would rule out an optimist.
Recently I came to the dubious conclusion that Rhode Island, and its people, with all of their many foibles, are great. Perhaps the best, although my experience with other state cultures has been limited to the east coat, and north of the Mason-Dixon. It is a conclusion that I didn't expect to reach when I came to this wretched city north of the Rhodesian tracks all those years ago, and it's a luster that will probably wear with haste once I return, but who knows?
Maybe this is the end of my travels.
After going to a Campus for however many years as I've been doing this, I've decided to participate in something campus-related. Specifically, their movie fest.
Let me back up a moment and state, for the record, that I hate being prodvided equipment and being forced to work within someone else's parameters.
Having said that, I wrote a real tear-jerker. I don't want to give too much away, but it features terminal illness. That's big with the kids, I hear.
I think that I've crammed all the lame jokes that I can, here. Time for bed.
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| Mostly I Just Paid My Last Bill |
[Mar. 31st, 2009|10:48 am] |
So there. That was college. My life of adventuring has officially come to an unremarkable close. Time to wait for death.
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 5th, 2009|11:03 pm] |
I would like to share with you, dear readers, a few things that I love.
First and foremost, Eastbound & Down is the best show on HBO right now. Granted, it's helped by the mediocrity of Flight of the Concords this season and the overall lack of an appearance of Larry David, but the show is fucking hilarious. Enjoy a sample:
I also can't not mention fmylife.com, which will burn away many hours as you scan through the failures of others. Some are dumb, some are pathetic, some are boring, but any of them will only take you 10 seconds to read.
Have a good weekend, fuckbags.
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|06:42 pm] |
So in my fear for my future, I began compiling career-specific information on a new website, TomPaquin.com. Check it out.
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 21st, 2009|10:10 pm] |
Now that I write in here with dubious consistency, I doubt I have many readers.
Those stalwarts among you camped out in the empty husk of my journal who are also on Twitter, feel free to add me.
http://twitter.com/NotTomPaquin
You will find the experience to be somewhat similar to the old Weblog. Except with significantly briefer entries. I probably won't talk about my penis, which most consider to be a plus. |
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| Depressing Revelations and a Little Politickin |
[Feb. 12th, 2009|03:17 pm] |
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Ok so I've resigned myself to the dubious conclusion that only someone $100,000 in debt would ever be willing to make, as much as I don't want to. It was a fine experiment, but I'm coming back to Rhode Island next year, degree in hand. I say this with the vitrol that only someone who has to deal with Julie Anne, my mother, could muster. The woman's a saint, but Jesus H. Christ I can't stand her for more than 48 consecutive hours. In addition to that, I will have approximately two people with whom to interact with in Rhodesia outside of my immediate family. It's going to be interesting, that's for certain.
Allow me to pull over my dusty soap box for a second and stand upon it. I kept my big mouth shut through 90% of the election, but this, of all things, I feel the need to comment upon:
Shut the fuck up about Michael Phelps taking a hit from a bong.
It's not that I like the guy. In fact, every time I see his smirking, moronic face on TV, I want to cave it in with a lead pipe, and yes, it takes a certain type of moron to allow a picture of yourself in the presence of glassware to wander onto the internet. Having said that, almost everybody on the planet has taken a hit from a giant bong. Oh, you haven't? I tip my hat to you. You have more self-control than 97% of the population including Michael Phelps. Either that, or you have no friends who own a giant bong.
So give the guy a fucking break. Weed doesn't help you swim better, it just helps you enjoy it more.
Also Christian Bale. I don't care that he has a bade temper. I have a bad temper. I'm over it.
Also, thanks to Matt Whittaker for this one:
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| A Remedy for Boredom |
[Feb. 11th, 2009|07:36 pm] |
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Sometimes when I'm bored, I'll go onto Google Image Search and type in random first names. I'll find nondescript pictures of people from random online newsletters, blog posts, or websites, and then I'll laugh and them. Perhaps it's because I have the disposition of a seven-year-old, or because of their insincere smiles, or maybe it's because these people are not me, but it makes me laugh. For your perousal, dear readers, here is a sampling of names....
GORDON:
DAVID:
JAMES:
ROGER:
 THAD:
One day I'll find someone who "gets" this. And we will laugh. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 15th, 2009|12:41 pm] |
There is a company that apparently has decided that it's not only prudent, but necessary to take photographs of dead poets and animate them to make it look as though they are reciting their most titular of poems. Though this has proven to produce a great number of horrors, my favorite comes from one of my least favorite poets ever: Emily Dickenson, simply because her dead eyes tell a horrible tale.
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 9th, 2009|10:41 pm] |
What did I learn today?
I learned that the son of my favorite author(K.V.'s son Mark) lives six miles away from me in Milton and is a pediatrician. What a useless little bit of information.
<3TP |
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| 2008.In Review.N |
[Dec. 28th, 2008|11:51 pm] |
So here it is. 2008.
JAN
The Cowboy and I spent day 1 in my car, careening down a road to adventure. Absolut citron was consumed. Rocky stairs were traversed in the cold, black night. The remainder of my winter break was spent watching Degrassi: The Next Generation and exploring those caverns on the outskirts of Boston. Dirt mall. Open box store. Eventually I started writing the new feature. We let a girl sublet Tom Wilhelm's room after he moved out.
FEB
I accidentally kissed the mouth a lot of the girl who was subletting Tom Wilhelm's room. Bad move.
MAR
Patrick McGoohan and Rod Serling fill my empty places.
APRIL
An end is in sight. Tom Wilhelm returned from studying abroad only to find certain things missing from his room. Headphones, a hard drive, and some other assorted things. They were evidently taken by the girl whose mouth I kissed. Bad move.
MAY
Almost all of my friends graduated in this particular May, never to return to Boston. I was arrested for walking down Freeman St. in Brookline, MA with an open can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I spent a night in jail because of it.
JUNE
Funerals galore around this time. I also begin my community service at the Rhode Island community food bank. Their staff was comprised primarily of the mentally handicapped who all hated each other for some reason as well as one kid named Solomon who was arrested by the same cop as me and commuted back and forth to Newton to work at the food bank. I also begin working at Apple in the Providence Place Mall, which is one of the top five most terrible malls within the many folds of space-time.
JULY
21 years old. "Do you even know what Equador stands for?" an Equador enthusiast asks Sheffield. "Sexquador," is his response. Shef's aversion to the very notion of Equadorian culture angers her as she screams at him, "No, equator!" getting up from her chair. He too stands, so I stand, expecting Sheffield to pummel this girl. It is my birthday and Tom Wilhelm suggested that we go visit his ex-girlfriend, who lives on the east side and goes to Brown. She is a hot tamale. She if off-limits. We basically sat at their house for a while before Shef apparently infuriated one of the girl's friends. Shef and I left soon after, leaving Tom under the presumption that he was going to make some sort of romantical connection with his ex girlfriend. He did not.
AUG
Shef and I went to a bar in coventry populated by middle-aged lunatics. That was really the highlight.
SEP
Back to Boston. I stick a q-tip in my ear and I can't hear out of it for like a week and a half.
OCT
This is the month where I seriouly need to decide who I was the biggest asshole to. I think the one that I regret the most is Diane. Halloween was stupid.
NOV
Definitely the biggest asshole to Becca this month. My team lost Trivial Pursuit at Thanksgiving for the first time in seven years.
DEC
I became briefly unmoored in time, meaning that every even in my life was happening simultaneously, which, if this has never happened to you before, is frightening and overwhelming. While experiencing ever event that had occurred or would occur in my life, I ended up breaking the Wii sensor bar, which helped for me to understand the parameters of time once again. I replaced it the next day.It cost me twelve dollars.
What an awful year.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 22nd, 2008|11:48 am] |
Now that the new year is almost upon us, I can partake in my favorite Holiday traditions: Chronicling the year month-by-month and posting the first sentence of the first post of each month. Before I start that, though, it has come to my attention that there are a number of people who read this journal anonymously that haven't known me forever like, say, Corey and Nick do.
So, for your benefit, shameless anonymous readers, here is an archive of previous years.
New Years 2006
New Years 2007
...I didn't write one last year. I guess I was too busy.
So here's this years' first sentences:
JAN
This
FEB
This
MAR
I'd keep the hiatus pointlessly churning on an on until eventually by May I had completely cleared any degree of readership, but the fact of the matter is that I'm simply brimming with stories, which was essentially the point of the hiatus in the first place.
APR
I've spent the last week or so compiling all of my favorite entries from this particular corner of the internet into a legitimate blog, utilizing my .Mac, at long last, for something.
MAY
Expect content at some nearby juncture.
JUNE
Having filmed weddings for the better part of two years, now, I've seen every manner of weirdness, but tonight helped to blow all of those other weird nights away.
JULY
When the GL2 broke and started eating up mini DV tapes like a motherfucker at a wedding a few weeks ago, my boss, Michelle, scrambled desperately to find a comparable camera that could replace the GL temporarily for the wedding that we had the next day while she ordered a replacement for the GL(An XL2, a significantly more important-looking camera).
AUG
David is very tall.
SEP
I suppose an update is in order now that I'm relatively settled.
OCT
Last night Tom Wilhelm called me out for not doing homework, ever.
NOV
One of my stories is appearing in this month's Cynic online Magazine.
DEC
My penis hurts.
What a strange year it's been. More graphic depictions of the year will follow with my month-by month rundown. |
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