A feeble consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
I seem to recall quoting Grant Morrison's pseudo-science from Supergods awhile back, with the rejoinder it was pure hyperbole. From a fantasy standpoint he'd dearly like to believe fantasy is reality; since it's only fantasy, the idea is to cut him some slack, in the words of Emma Raducanu.
The creative mind works in odd ways, and it may be Morrison thinks everything is a creative fantasy. What comics have, though, is illustration, so I think it's fair to say that the illustrations have a realism of form and figure that casts a stabilizing influence on the most putrid of scripts.
While Morrison's scripts may exist in some madhouse of a world gone mad, the pages assuredly exist in physical space of rhythm, force, movement and sequence. His creative juices given free rein in time and space may then perhaps delineate how insane is the future prophecied by the likes of Zuckerberg.
A universe where the physical pages are merely an offshoot off a hyper-reality is ideal for a temperament of Morrison's stature to satirise. No wonder it's physically insane since it's the exact opposite of what is physically possible. Without a physical reality there can be no decadence and therefore no revival from the degradation of matter, of form.
With revival comes gaiety embedded in folklore. Memories are made of this, and memories are formed by rhythm, force, movement and sequence.
Imagination, in other words, needs the revitalising effect of physical revival, gaiety. This was driven home by another road movie inculcated in modern folklore; namely Lolita (Kubrick, 1962.)
It's one of the few 60s movies cited by Godard in Godard on Godard(1967). Watching it got me to wondering what is it contemporary films lack they the classics have, and it could be something like nostalgia. In fact, the whole movie is told in a flashback which has an implicit nostalgic aura, with another voiceover of "3 years later" metamorphosed into a domesticated doll.
Godard's own opus is nostalgic for the silent era as well as the 50s and Kubrick, while no Bogdanovich, has a practically screwball sensibility.
Of course, it's on the dark side and he has here the talents of Peter Sellers (also in the future Dr Strangelove.) Seller's rolling eyed extravaganza is epic, but the pair of Mason and Lyon are by no means outdone. It should be stated at the outset that this tale is true to Nabokov's novel in that Lolita is a nymphomaniac (accomodating two rivals), and the emphasis is on animal naturalism.
If anything, she reminds me of my own 'lost love' Perrine Sandrea (Outtake 6) in her naturalistic brutality. Lolling on the settee when Mason gets over-protective, she just drawls, "You're sick."
The type of performance goes back to Grace Slick's quote on 50s heroines (P206), and to the screwball era of Jean Arthur. Instead of 'pure acting', it's a mixture of action and reaction with charm and winsome attraction. Give her a sword and put her in the Arena with Margaret Markov.
Mason/Humbert is drawn like a bee to nectar as Lolita on the lawn goes through a hoola-hoop routine. The film has no agenda, by which I mean the predatory one; it's just a natural pairing of animals in lust.
The physical rhythms of natural power that occur outside the neutralising aspect of measurement. By 'measurement' I mean the entire trend for defining wellbeing by means of expertise. Humbert may be an intellectual, but he is not part of that trend.
That is represented by 'Professor' Zelf', played by Sellers/Quilty, who is actually an invented psychiatrist who suggests to Hum that Lolita is "repressing her libido"!
The ruse is meant to persuade him to let her act in the school play (written by Quilty), an innocent symbolic piece.
"To the dark kingdom - away, away!"
Following that is a screaming fit scene, again played with animal activity. Following this the road movie restarts. They stop at a petrol station and Mason sings, "Fill her up."
By this stage I was so caught up in the action, I thought out loud in an impromptu fashion, "What about the car?"
In short, the physically natural aspects of attraction are intensely suggested, and the proof is you fall for it. What's the value of cinema unless the psyche is affected, rather than numbed by explicit details?
Value (see Weekend ) has to be psychic and nostalgic and memorial, since this is related to the physical reality (that is primitive and not simply a measure of expertise.)
This is what we live by, and the psyche is strongly affected by differences that are attracted to eachother. Humbert is honest and inspires empathy.
A world of no agenda and no measurement by experts is a world that inspires nostalgia because it has the physical rhythms of natural power. This takes us logically to the Hyborian kingdoms, so I'll leave you with an appropriate illustration.
(RIP Woodstockian Lang)
