Me and you...

...and Everyone We Know. Curious to see what movies stay with you. Over the past 6 months or so, I've had many opportunities to pitch worthwhile movies to friends and such, and this seems to be the one that always pops into my head first. Really made an impression on me. Smart, engaging, entirely unpredictable, well produced. In a word: artful. Would love to know more about the writer's process. How on earth did all these ideas gel into this script?

Anyway.... just want to say, if you haven't seen this puppie, do. It's sort of an Anti-Blockbuster. Small, intimate, lots of fun. Hope you enjoy it.

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WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?

According to the creators of this film, it is the beginning of a new genre. If that is so, then let this be called, Quantum Evangelism. Really, Quantum Evangelist sounds like a pretty cool occupation. I can just imagine Leo bringing me in for show and tell some day. "My dad is a Quantum Evangelist." Then I could spend the next 10 minutes explaining to a bunch of 2nd graders just exactly what it is I do.

Ah, but that will never happen, I'm afraid, because I am a quantum misfit. I just don't get quantum physics. Possibly because my only contact with it is through documentaries like this one. I have also previously failed to comprehend String Theory . . . even after watching The Elegant Universe. It isn't that I refute such theories; I'm simply not convinced. And even more significantly, my mindset bends toward a more "phenomenological" light, so I often come away from these speculative theories saying, "So what? So how does this affect me and the world I actually live in . . . live as opposed to exist." This all derives form (or else results in) my preference for psychological ideas over philosophical ones. Unless I can hammer an idea into applicability, then it remains forever insubstantial to me, never attaches to emotion or valuation.

Oh . . . say no more, say no more! A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat! Because "What the Bleep" advocates application! That is, it throws down some talk about influencing reality with our thoughts and feelings. The film itself is only very subtly evangelical in this claim, but the special feature interviews with the filmmakers on the DVD demonstrate a good bit of zeal to the tune of "It changed my life!" and "Every day I go out and create my reality with positive thoughts!" and "We want 100 million people to see this film . . . because it will enlighten them!" (my paraphrasings). It may be this behind the camera zeal that allowed them to take a leap from the speculative science of quantum physics to altering the material environment with your thoughts. That's a leap I won't be taking. In fact, clinically speaking, I think it is kooky.

Now, I don't think or understand “quantumly” enough to represent the filmmakers' line of reasoning accurately, but it seems to have something to do with electrons being in either one state or another, but never in between . . . thus, the positing of a mysterious "in between" existence (other dimensions, etc.). On top of that, there is this idea that, on the quantum level, observation affects reality. So, as I am told, light (for instance) appears to behave like a wave when we do not directly observe it, but like a particle when we do. It is thusly that observation affects reality. Ok, maybe so. I'm not dissenting, but I think extracting from this speculation that some form of active observation can affect non-quantum reality, and that harnessing such reality-affecting observation should be a "spiritual" goal is neither justified nor entirely healthy.

On the other hand, "What the Bleep" did deal with other topics that I could understand and even appreciate. For instance, that states of mind and emotionality can affect our physical bodies. This doesn't require quantum science to be explained, merely a bit of neurology and biology. It has to do with peptides and proteins and stuff (I'll spare you my lame attempt at explaining it). Some of the interviewees expressed the idea (my paraphrasing again) that human beings are addiction machines, and that, on the level of the brain, all sorts of repeat emotions (regardless of how pleasurable or not pleasurable they are) are chemically addictive. Even (and maybe especially) self-destructive behaviors, feelings, and thoughts can become addictive. Such habitualized emotions can have an impact on the way our bodies’ cells grow and reproduce. That is, the more we indulge particular states of mind/emotions, the more our cells will grow to become receptive to the neural chemicals that accompany those emotions . . . and less receptive to alternate chemicals/emotions.

Another thing I partially dug was the expressed notion that creation is the purpose/right/duty of the human animal. I have written extensively (though unscientifically) about this topic, so I was surprised and pleased to see other people (other wackos?) voicing similar ideas. But I say “partially”, because I ultimately felt that I meant this a bit differently than the interviewees in “What the Bleep” did. Some of these folks seemed to suggest that “creation” was a kind of determination of reality, a willful “ordering”. To Jungian-esque thinker like me, this is an invitation to disaster. The individuation process as Jung described it is specifically NOT to be mistaken for an act of will/ego that serves to “conquer” realty or the unconscious. Rather, the increase of consciousness involves an increase in flexibility, fluidity, and acceptance.

Jung thought that westerners operated on a different psychic paradigm than easterners. In the west, our struggle for consciousness is often symbolized as a battle against the darkness, a conquering of the darkness, so when we get our psychic paws on eastern philosophy that talks about perfecting mind or expanding consciousness, we mistakenly apply our conventional psychic paradigm. As a result, we too easily fall pray to a kind of “Orientalism” and apply our puritanical self-punishment to the “quest for enlightenment”. This results in discipline, maybe, but not enlightenment, because (psychoanalytically speaking) it is a repression of what needs to be a naturally emerging, consciously cultivated intelligence.

“What the Bleep”, I felt, leaned in this direction. To contrast, my personal experience has led me to see creation as the result of an increasingly large and increasingly “audible” dialog between the ego-self and the other-self, a cooperation, if you will. From that cooperation, a story is spun, a narrative fiction, which becomes the creation as it ceaselessly evolves . . . not into a unified or perfected thing, but into an elaborate eco-system of self and the connection of that self to others, The Other, and the world. This is maybe a bit more complex, poetic, and faith-driven than the New Aged take in “What the Bleep”, but it works better for me, seems more tangible, less . . . quantum.

So . . . in reacting to this film as I have so far, I have indulged the filmmakers’ intents. I have used the film as a capsule of ideas, swallowed it, and “dialoged” internally (and now in blogsville) with its statements, its contents. Now, many would find such an approach simplistic or even inappropriate. I think specifically of the conventional contemporary academic attitudes toward art: art for art’s sake, art as an aesthetic pleasure, not a statement, not something with an agenda.

As a piece of art (sans agenda), “What the Bleep” is also interesting if ultimately not epiphanic. Along with the interviews, the film integrates a fictional narrative (starring Marlee Matlin) about a photographer (get it? An “Observer”, as the Quantumites say) set upon by a functional depression/existential crisis/reckoning with self. She’s uptight, obsessive, and self-hating . . . and it seems the immediate cause for her existential ailment is an ex-husband who cheated on her. As a result, she is “addicted to” seeing all men as betrayers and anyone who might want to get to know her as a potential invader/violator. With the help of some time, a few synchronous events, and a number of CG “quantum visions”, she comes (we are led to believe) to a better place by the end of the film. The space-time continuum heals all wounds, as they say.

The narrative adds some entertainment value (although a “climactic”, surreal Polish wedding sequence was too drawn out for my taste) but doesn’t entirely transcend its sideshow status or really even bring any further illumination to the ideas being discussed. Those ideas and the interviewees who espouse them are the real stars. And these espousers were given a pretty ritzy treatment. The film seems to have a pretty sizable budget ($5 million according to the filmmakers) for a documentary.

Ultimately, I think a film about ideas that intends to make people think is a good thing . . . especially if that goal is achieved (and it seems this is the case). Of course, any such film must develop some relation to its own potential to propagandize for its cause . . . and there is some awareness of this in “What the Bleep”. But, whereas they have a few interviewees giving hasty, superficial, but not altogether unwise critiques of Christianity, they don’t provide any anti-quantum thinkers. I don’t mean to suggest that they should toss a few fundamentalists in out of some prefabricated sense of “fairness” . . . I’m talking about real thinkers who understand quantum ideas and can offer scientific alternatives, or at least provide a sense of debate. In fact, although the film deals pretty extensively with theological issues, the theological talk is pretty narrow in its perspective, hoping (I assume) that because the ideologies expressed are not mainstream, they can be expressed without any real debate (i.e., they are the debate against the mainstream). So, on the God issue (that it purports to take on), I found “What the Bleep” rather lame, simplistic, superficial, and trendy. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that we don’t live in a very theologically complex age or place, but the film doesn’t do anything to counter this deficiency.

I would give the film 3 stars for achieving its agenda (spurring people to think and debate complex issues), but only 2 stars for failing to consciously recognize its own tendencies to be propagandistic and spurious, and also for failing to bring all the necessities of a legitimate, logical argument to the table. I glanced at a few Netflix reviews before I wrote this, and there were some angry Quantumites grousing about the “weak science” in this film. They are correct as far as I can tell. I might not know the science, but I know rhetoric pretty well (remind me to be forever grateful for my English degree), and such knowledge is all one needs to start gaining a critical perspective on “What the Bleep”.

Also, some Netflix folks brought into question the credentials of the interviewees. Some interviewees struck me as more loopy than others, but the obvious one stands out: the woman who is supposedly “channeling” some mystic dude (Ramtha?). When one has lived in California too long, maybe such things begin to seem perfectly normal. Alas, I am a Pennsylvanian, born and raised in an industrial age coal town (since retired). We do not channel mystical swamis in Pittsburgh. Non-corporeal mystical swamis must find the psychic climate of Pittsburgh a bit too polluted . . . too much lousy weather, too many potholes, too many French fries served on sandwiches or salads. Needless to say, the medium/mystic was (in my opinion) the worst interviewee. She spouted a lot of vague babble that was similar to the Quantumites, but less defined, less useful . . . and she did so in that oh so passé dramatic mystic swami voice, which is the same old run of the mill mystic swami voice that my friends, my family, and I all use when we are hanging out, channeling mystic swamis on weekends after dinner parties.

Still, 1 or 2 star ratings don’t do justice to what this film does achieve: the offering up of some ideas to think about. Very few films make us think . . . especially think philosophically or existentially. And really, if the dialog we adopt is one primarily of dissent (as is mine), is this actually such a bad thing? We are still thinking. We are still formulating our own reactions and disagreements. And if we do that with honesty, integrity, and consciousness, the result can only be positive.

COFFEE AND CIGARETTES

A Jim Jarmusch film. His DOWN BY LAW is a Recommended Entertainment... maybe even a must-see. STRANGER THAN PARADISE was a wonderful independent when I saw it, but it has since faded in my memory. MYSTERY TRAIN is fun for me mostly because it features Tom Waits, who is an unforgettable face and character... a Humphrey Bogart for me. GHOST DOG and NIGHT ON EARTH are disappointments for me. I enjoyed watching them, but they paled by comparison with the impact of the earlier films. And I would have to see DOWN BY LAW again before touting it too highly. It may have been exotic in its day, but less effective than I remember... though Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni are still fresh in my mind as amazing and vivid characters. [And I love black and white films.]

So COFFEE AND CIGARETTES is black and white, and has some fine characters and performances. It's a set of short comic sketches, and some I fast-forwarded through. It's the sort of thing I'd rent for a Rolston movie night, then show only two or three of the segments like cartoons before the feature. That's how I'd recommend it for netflix viewers. Watch it on the same night as some other film, and fast forward to the Iggy Pop-Tom Waits sketch, the Bill Murray sketch, the Cate Blanchette sketch [remarkable], and the very last sketch with two actors I don't know, but which I found irresistibly delicious. Treat it like a film festival of short films. It's challenging, in that it yields up its rewards not from easy narrative and fast pacing. And I also think its themes are too light to justify more than a 'entertaining' label. And it may have a special appeal to anyone who has once smoked but who has abandoned the habit. [I never smoked, so I may not appreciate the film's true savor.]