Q Branch

Picking up from where I had left off in the last installment, I think I have established that buying a Blu Ray player and being committed to purchasing more Blu Ray titles do not signal a “conversion” to the new format.  As I have indicated, I have my own doubts about Blu Ray breaking out of the niche market and becoming as dominant as DVDs are today: the latter’s box office clout now rivals, and in some cases overwhelms, that of theatrical ticket sales, giving many excellent movies that somehow failed to find their audience a second chance.  Who knows, maybe The Dark Knight Blu Ray, as inevitable in its coming as future tell-all memoirs authored by various members of soon-to-be-gone Bush administration, will smash all reasonable expectations and establish BD as the thing to replace DVDs. Executives can always hope.

In any case, surfing though Blu Ray reviews in the internet, my impression is that there is, relatively speaking, a rather wide range of views regarding what constitutes top-of-the-line BD titles.  Moreover, this seems to be related to a problem raised in my previous chat, that is, the question of whether a particular reviewer’s dissatisfaction with a presentation primarily originates from transfer problems, or from the source itself. This issue does not seem to be as clear-cut as the ”experts” would have us believe. 

True, everyone seems to agree that, say, Disney’s Enchanted and Warner’s Blade Runner are as good as any and can serve as reference titles for showing off the capacity of Blu Ray.  At the same time, I am struck by the very bad marks given to, for instance, the BD video quality of Danny Boyle’s 24 Days Later, a fine if not earth-shakingly original apocalyptic thriller, filmed in less-than sparkling, purposefully degraded digital video.  In this case polishing the images to meet the usual expectations of a Blu Ray consumer is not only completely pointless, but possibly a violation of the filmmaker’s intentions, as these scruffy, dirty visuals are definitely intentional.   

A similar problem with the audio can be cited regarding, for example, Warner’s BD presentation of Bonnie and Clyde and other classic titles: Warner Brothers sticks to the gun and refuses to “upgrade” the original mono soundtracks for these films, which is applauded by “purists” (I hate this designation, by the way. Should refusing to condone “fixing” and “boosting” old movies for starkly money-grubbing reasons mean that one is an uptight puritan?) but still results in getting lower than three stars in some internet reviews’s “audio” section.

Personally speaking, I am much closer to the “purist”–dang, I hate that word, why don’t I coin the term “authenticist” in place of that?  I suppose this will sound just as cranky and onerous to some, but anyway– position.  After all, I am trained as a historian.  And historians do have to think about the harms of revising or modifying the original content, even for the cases in which modifications are done for morally and aesthetically justifiable reasons.  Of course, I don’t want to push the argument for historical authenticity too much, to the point that even necessary acts of “restoration” can be questioned as meddling with the original. (What would Walter Benjamin think of colorization of old b & w movies if he gets to be revived today?  Just thinking out aloud)  

On an entirely subjective basis, I do disagree with the reviewers assigning low points to the Blu Ray releases that do not deign to give them that “wow” moment, in which an impact of the clear and detailed visual imagery overwhelms other critical considerations, at least for a while.  Aesthetic quality needs not necessarily declare itself in flamboyant and attention-grabbing colors: a cloth  dyed in dark indigo only can be just as luxuriantly beautiful as one emboidered with flowers of a hundred hues.  Of course, checking out several Blu Ray discs of old and new films, I have experienced more than a few occasions in which my senses would be indeed overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and clarify of the vision, producing a sense of eye-popping (and ear-stretching) frisson that convinces me that I am watching these films from a completely new perspective.  When this happens, it’s akin to getting your eyesight instantly enhanced by an improved prescription on your glasses. 

To give one example, having missed any theatrical showing and only watched a standard DVD, I had little clue of the almost erotically sensual quality of the pools and caverns of darkness that encompass Dark City’s vista, until I caught up with it on Blu Ray.  The details of what emerges from this rich darkness were equally amazing: I could not only let myself savor meticulous and elaborate production and costume designs but also notice things like– I don’t think she would appreciate me pointing out this, oh well– young Jennifer Connelly’s facial hair.

© New Line Pictures.

On the other hand, the Lionsgate BD release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, probably one of the most visually stunning films I remember from late ’80s (regardless of the massive problems I have always had with it, such as its imploding time-travel logic, near-psychotic characterization of Sarah Connor and so on), did little to support the veracity of my recollection.  Surprisingly, Terminator 2 showed its “age” far more prominently than other titles equally old or even older that I have seen in high-def.  The images appear too stark and cold at one moment, grainy and lacking in definition at another. 

I understand that this may be the fault of the source and not of the transfer, as Terminator 2 was filmed in Super 35mm, so the grain and lack of resolution do come with the original package.  Should Lionsgate have polished the image further, perhaps aggressively turning up digital noise reduction?  Whether the ultimate responsibility lies with Jim Cameron and the filmmakers or with the DVD production crew, I did not feel its Blu Ray presentation justified an upgrade for the BD version.  Despite many reviewers claiming that Lionsgate had probably done all it could to present the movie in the best possible light, I suspect that several years down the line we will see an upgraded version of Terminator 2 Blu Ray. 

© Lionsgate Hone Entertainment.

How ’bout pay raise for all UC personnel, Guv’ nor?  Especially those who struggle with research funds in “minor” fields like Asian history.

© Lionsgate Hone Entertainment.

I couldn’t produce good-quality captures but some Blu Rays of recent films– such as The Ruins–demonstrated other types of problems.  In case of The Ruins, the visuals displayed– to paraphrase one reviewer’s expression– “hot and bothered” quality, exceedingly bright and shiny during daytime beach scenes, while, conversely, drowning in murky, obscure condensations of black, during scenes set inside a jungle or a subterranean chamber. In this case as well, I did not see much improvement over standard DVD.  In fact, an argument can be made that SD makes for a less eye-straining viewing experience here, with the increased resolution of the BD hightening, instead of modulating, harshness of the imagery.

I was more “wow”-ed by the Warner’s BD of the ’60s classic Bonnie and Clyde. The special edition Blu Ray showcases truly astonishing images, many of which totally escaped me during previous viewings at revival theaters and on VHS, furthermore free of the unnatural “oil painting”-like textures produced by excessive digital cleanup.  The Bonnie and Clyde Blu Ray lets us appreciate it not as an “old” movie but a movie made with the aesthetical objectives and articulated styles– supremely elegant, old-Hollywood yet realistically bloody and dusty– distinct from contemporary cinema.

© Warner Brothers Home Video.

The yellow weeds on the roadside, haystacks and cornfields in pale gold: the natural environment of Bonnie and Clyde all look marvellously natural and yet are unmistakenly seen and imprinted through the ’60s-cinema’s camera-eye.

© Warner Brothers Home Video.

© Warner Brothers Home Video.

Just being able to see Faye Dunaway in these glamorous close-ups is a reason enough to invest in Blu Ray, I tells ya.

I was equally impressed by BD presentation of Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider.  Not one of the maestro’s strongest films, it nonetheless features stunning cinematography courtesy of Bruce Surtees, Eastwood’s frequent collaborator in this period.  When I saw this film in the movie theater, during what I think was probably worst decade in the last 50 years in terms of theatergoing experience– when VHS and cable TV were socking motion picture sales and multiplexes with cat’s brow-sized screens were rapidly taking over from magnificent old theaters like Boston’s Coolidge Corner–, my appreciation of it was greatly hampered by truly bad projection: I literally could not make out about 20% of the movie during the screening, and all visuals sported a grungy, dirty look.  I most assuredly did not consider it a beautifully photographed motion picture. 

 © Warner Brothers Home Video.

On this account, I am happy to be proven wrong. The Blu Ray presentation cast an entirely new light on this “murky” Western: now I can see that DP Surtees and Director Eastwood had made a conscious choice to “paint” the landscape and characters in specific ways, and my appreciation of the film in question has greatly enhanced as a result.

© Warner Brothers Home Video.

Of course, you can still debate the relative merits of Eastwood’s strategy– using a distinctive, darker and washed-out palette of colors to render a classic Western background– but sure as heck, you can’t have an argument one way or another, when a huge chunk of the movie is simply buried under the muck, as when I first saw Pale Rider in theater.

Even the high-contrast view of Eastwood in daylight scenes, whose eyes are almost always obscured by the shadow cast by the brim of his hat, seems more atmospheric than annoying.

© Warner Brothers Home Video.

So, even though there were several cases, whether due to the problems with the source materials or due to lackluster or merely less-than-startling presentations, that did not convince me that they were unquestionably superior to standard DVDs, for the majority of cases, BD did improve the quality of viewing experience.  And considering examples like Bonnie and Clyde and Pale Rider, older films clearly are capable of benefitting much from Blu Ray’s higher resolution. 

The Bu Ray market worldwide is still dominated by brand-new movies and more mainstream commercial hits, and it will take some time before more obscure but desirable titles get released.   Hopefully some classic Japanese cinema as well as Korean films that were not box-office smashes will become available in affortable prices (No, I am not shelling out $75-80 to purchase the Japanese Ghost in the Shell: Innocence Blu Ray.  I will seriously consider it when I win the California lottery next time).

* Note: Delays were caused in uploading this essay due to the accessibility problem suffered by the internet server for this blog.  My apology to those who tried to access this page and got the text that was cut off in a mid-sentece.

As those who pay attention to this sort of thing know, the Hi-Def format war, waged between Toshiba on the one hand supporting a better worked-out but less spacious (in terms of how many bytes of digital information you could cram into one optic disc) HD-DVD, and Sony, LG and other host of companies supporting Blu-Ray, resulted in the latter’s victory earlier this year, when Warner Brothers, one of the biggest suppliers of video content, decided to go exclusively Blu-Ray.  Not having been a fan of Sony and of the ridiculous concept of “firmware update,” I sort of leaned toward HD-DVD, but the format war ended without me purchasing a single HD-DVD.  Before the format war had ended in favor of Blu-Ray, I was determined to wait out at least until the end of 2008, or maybe even until when I come back from a long research trip in Seoul, Korea, for my second book, in sometime 2009. 

Yet, I knew in my heart that, as soon as the format war was over, I simply had to buy a Blu-Ray player.  Having a proper HD TV was an essential condition for making this leap, but that in itself was not enough. Sure, I love to watch PBS station in HD. Even their cooking shows are immeasurably enhanced by sparkling colors and details of the texture of carrots and pimentos.  TV has one essential problem… I cannot watch what I want on it, when I want it, in the way I want it, except for those who live with the so-called programmable TVs (Yeah whatever. I think there is a big, discernible difference between programming your TV based on what’s available and actually owning a movie. Now don’t make me get into this… I am moving ahead). No, what finally made me haul my butt to the local electronics store was the availability of desirable contents: specifically, the announcement posted by DVD Savant that Criterion is releasing Blu-Ray DVDs.

Don’t get me wrong.  At this point, there is no guarantee that most, or even a relatively large proportion, of the kind of movies that would turn my head will be released or re-released in Blu-Ray, despite Criterion and other “boutique” labels jumping in the BR bandwagon. Even in its first, trial-and-error phase, more than a few DVD labels had already reached deeply into studio vaults and cellars and churned out many motion pictures that were for practical purposes never seen in proper form (or never in any form, period) since their theatrical runs.  DVDs allowed us to rediscover Mario Bava, see Dario Argento’s works in splendid colors, and appreciate multiple versions of  controversial masterworks like Alien and Brazil with running commentaries by the filmmakers. And all this without ever having to rewind the tapes (Having trouble with your students about them understanding the “repeating yourself like a skipping LP” reference?  If you really want to confuse them, make a joke about returning your VHS to the rental store without rewinding it.  Oh, now that I think of… there’s Be Kind Rewind. Ah well, some people remember ’80s technology with a whole lot of goodwill)!

In sum, I doubt that Blu-Ray will allow us to re-discover and re-appreciate so much of the cinematic content as DVD had done for last ten years. It might end up reaching the maximum growth potential of a niche market and just stay there, basically serving as an alternative to DVD only to those who are in fact willing to shell out a few extra dollars just to get higher resolution and better sounds, which definitely includes me, but probably not a model casual consumer out there.

Oh, I have no doubt that we will all have our Hitchcocks and Kurosawas and Gone with the Wind on Blu-Ray in a few years from now, maybe sooner.  Meanwhile, I continue to purchase DVDs, not really stopping in my tracks to think about whether these titles will eventually be available in Blu-Ray.  What if they do?  Then I will double-dip.  The popular titles are continuously re-issued in the DVD format anyway: double or even triple-dipping is an established practice among DVD collectors (I am sure the situation will be exactly same with downloadable digital files, with an ”updated” dot-whatever-alphabetic-letters-to-fill-this-space file of Psycho made available every few years).  Care to count how many special, special-ultimate, special-ultimate-collectible editions of Hitchcock have so far come out in DVDs? 

I certainly will be happy if every single desirable title, including the ones I own, gets upgraded into Blu-Ray. Needless to say, I am not holding my breath.

Blu-Rays are, it must also be pointed out, just like DVDs, in that they are only as good as their makers make them. Labels who have released mediocre or poor DVDs will not suddenly all turn around and bestow upon us beautifully transferred Blu-Rays.  That’s why the choices of studios like Warner Brothers and labels like Criterion matter: proven commitment to quality is the essential factor in my determining purchase of any product released from a company, and is even more important when we are talking about motion pictures. 

Again, I would be happy to see problematic DVDs re-issued as Blu-Rays with their problems addressed.  But what is likely to happen is that we will get a whole slew of problems unique to the Blu-Ray format: already many reviewers are complaning about how aggressive digital noise reduction and other digital tweakings are turning Blu-Ray versions of decades-old films like, say, Dirty Harry, into “inauthentic” representations.  Very soon we might have to deal with young viewers rejecting some classic films because they do not have the kind of “bright” and “grainless” pictures that they are used to seeing in HD, even though they were never meant to appear that glossy to begin with.

The pictures below are from Kon Satoshi’s beautiful and elegant ode to cinematic art and Japanese pop culture, Paprika.

© Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Checking out Blu-Ray discs, I really didn’t mean to gravitate toward the animation films, as I was not quite sure whether 2-D animation, especially Japanese anime, could serve as the best showcase for the high-resolution of Blu-Ray.  But for better or worse, a large chunk of the media products I own are animations, and no, they are not mostly Disney, so Blu-Ray would turn out to be close to useless if it cannot prove its superiority in representing anime/animation.

© Sony Pictures  Home Entertainment.

The differences were not exactly overwhelming, nonetheless seeing some animation titles in Blu-Ray was an interesting experience for more than one reasons. In case of Paprika, I was impressed by how Kon Satoshi’s attention to visual detail became much more obvious in the Blu-Ray version.  Sparkling colors and overall cleanliness of the image were less important than I thought: it was really the enhanced resolution allowing me to appreciate the directorial hand and other traces of careful filmmaking that was the most pleasing element about seeing Paprika in HD.  This, however, makes me wonder if Blu-Ray will also play a hand in exposing weaknesses in some classic Japanese anime, such as lack of detail, like, say, fuzzy, obscurely drawn faces of the “extras.”

Below are from Batman: Gotham Knight, an interesting spin-off from the Chris Nolan Batman films.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

The above four pictures wonderfully capture the details you can glean from Blu-Ray version. Really?  OK, so these pictures do not accurately reproduce the differences in resolution… I know that… but aren’t they great-looking?  It took me long time to process and upload them. 

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

A great thing about Batman: Gotham Knight was that we could appreciate the strikingly distinctive style of animation for each short chapter.  A case in point, look at the two pictures below, from the segment “In Darkness Dwells.”

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

If you thought they look grainer and darker, with wobbling colors, than other screenshots, you are right. And it’s not because I have done something to them. It’s because of the style in which ”In Darkness Dwells” is drawn. In other words, what can be perceived as a low quality of transfer is in fact a conscious aesthetic choice on the part of the animators/filmmakers.   

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

© Warner Brothers Home Entertainment.

Beautiful, isn’t it?  Watching Blu-Ray versions of Paprika and Batman: Gotham Knight was not exactly a revelatory experience. In the case of the latter, in particular, I probably would have been equally satisfied with the standard DVD.  Yet, I cannot say there was no noticeable difference in presentation for the Blu-Ray.  Despite the 2-D animation format of these films most likely coming with a built-in ceiling for the level of improved visual viewing experience (We are not talking about the authenticity question in this case per se), the enhanced resolution surely allowed me to appreciate not only fine textures of visual images but also the filmmaking hands that guided them toward well-defined objectives.  So, the experience may not exactly have led to a tearful conversion with scales falling off my eyes, but it was more than satisfactory, especially in the case of Paprika.  

Still, my guess is that contemporary American 3-D animation like Pixar shorts and features would benefit far more from Blu-Ray conversion than the Japanese anime.  If a high-def version of, say, Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind, is set up against that of, say, Fantasia, too, I suspect it’s the latter that will regain far more of its luster with the help of Blu-Ray. 

In the Part 2, I will move onto live action films. (Maybe drop a word on the Pixar short boxset, if I can find space)

Here are pictures taken at the Samsung COEX Megabox press screening of Ryoo Seung-wan’s latest film, Dazimawa Lee, slated to hit Korean theaters on August 14, 2008. 

Q & A session following a well-received screening.

Im Won-hee (left) plays a Korean super-agent, circa 1942, with a mission to retrieve a golden Buddha’s statue with the agent’s list of names. Park Si-yeon (right) plays his love interest and fellow agent, Mari.

One more Park Si-yeon. My apology that the picture quality is not up to the professional standard. It was just me and my trusty Pentax digital camera.

Er… one more. ^ ^

Director Ryoo (left) fields questions.

Super-cool Ryoo Seung-beom, the director’s brother, who plays the film’s best and funniest character, “Border Lynx.”

Hiya folks, I finally had enough time, freed from the unusually stuffy teaching schedule and equally insane weather, to come back to Q Branch. So far the most asked-about item I have uploaded here has been the interview I have conducted with John Shirley, one of the founders of cyberpunk SF and a friend of mine.  The first half of the interview was uploaded almost half a year ago and I have since reneged on the promise for a follow-up.  

I beg forgiveness of my friends, colleagues and SF fans who have probably been wondering what I had exactly done with the rest of the interview.   My excuse is that I have suffered a car accident (discussed in some detail below) on February, but I know, this is really an excuse and nothing more.  I am sorry!  

The following interview mianly covers Mr. Shirley’s ouput classified as cyberpunk SF.  I am going to schedule a third and probably final interview that will deal with his more recent works, including the horror classics Wetbones, Demons and The View from Hell.  For an introduction to John Shirley, check out my previous interview entry (December 27, 2007).

* The following interview was conducted on November 12, 2007. All contents therein are copyrighted to Kyu Hyun Kim. No citation without proper acknowledgement of the interviewer is permitted.

Q: Would you say you were first noticed as an SF writer through the short story collection, Heatseeker?

JS: Yeah, it did get plenty of attention. It got some really good reviews and one really negative review.

Q: Really?!

JS: Um yeah, I later found out the reason behind the negative review and I cannot tell you the whole background story behind it. It was in a British publication. A friend of the reviewer was a powerful guy who was mad at me…I’m not kidding. I know it sounds made up, as an excuse for that hostile review, but it’s true. But I don’t want to name names.

Q: Oh no. (Laughter)

JS: Well, anyway, yes, Heatseeker was the first bona-fide cyberpunk fiction collection that I wrote.

Q: When did In Darkness Waiting, one of my favorite novels of yours, come out?

JS: In the ‘80s.

Q: It seems that you have dabbled in genres other than science fiction from the very beginning of your career.

JS: Right, the first novel I wrote… not the first one published… but the first one I wrote was Dracula in Love. It wasn’t published until five years after I’d written it, and it was a kind of combination of horror and occult fantasy. I was reading Carl Jung and Aleister Crowley, as well as the biography of Vlad the Impaler. I was one of the first writers to combine the real life of the Vlad the Impaler and the character of Dracula as written by Bram Stoker. This was some years before Francis Coppola’s movie, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. [The filmmakers] probably didn’t read my novel. Probably.

Q: Well, I am one of your fans who had read In Darkness Waiting first, and then discovered Heatseeker. It was several years down the lane that I became aware of your reputation as one of the founders of cyberpunk fiction.

JS: In Darkness Waiting was originally a science fiction novel.

Q: It does retain a lot of SF flavor.

JS: It does. I was really desperate to sell a book at the time (Laughter). I really needed money. This is the reality of writing business. Anyway the editor asked me to change the story so that it could be marketed as horror. That was the time when Stephen King was getting big, and I said OK.

Q: Was it successful?

JS: Well, it didn’t sell like hundreds of thousands of copies but it did sell, enough so that they bought another novel of mine. So yeah, it was successful in that regard. Originally it was about a parasite who suppressed empathy in people. I guess it had some commonality with other SF stories about various parasitical organisms, like “Who Goes There?” and Robert Heinlein’s…

Q: The Puppet Master?

JS: Right. The basic idea is that we are subject to a kind of devolution of character, at the behest of any arbitrary stimulus, so that we go in the matter of seconds from human beings to the most brutal form of animal. That is the central horror of human life. To be crucified in the condition between the higher and the lower being.

Q: Reading your earlier works, I remember being very sympathetic to your severely critical view of a cluster of scientific positions, which might be loosely identified as “behavioral science,” and which survives in different forms today, that claim a wide range of human behavior can be codified as formulae, as responses to external stimuli, for instance, so if you know these formulae you can manipulate human beings.

JS: Yeah, I reject reductionist interpretations of the human mind. And eugenics and other types of deterministic views, I reject them too. But I do accept that we are actually largely “programmed” creatures. I agree that 90% of our personalities are determined in the womb. However, whatever small percentages not determined by our genes and hard-wires and biochemistry are genuinely free, and these are also the most ignored or under-nourished parts of ourselves and maybe the most important. So the larger truths of socio-biology I think obscure its limitations.

Q: Yes, yes.

JS: Now there is a resurgence of controversies about the relationship between genetic determinants and social traits like intelligence. James Watson and others want to bring this argument to bear upon, say, race relations. But how can we measure something like intelligence in terms of race when we have barely dealt with the legacy of slavery and all its historical, psychological and cultural repercussions? After all, civil rights have been around only for two generations in the U. S., and not even strictly enforced at that. On top of that, we have a damaged society which passes crippling effects of the oppression of one generation to another. So when people assume that genetics is the primary determinant of how human beings behave they are not looking at the full picture. History is also a determinant. On the other hand, if we deny the big role biology plays [in deciding how we act and live] then we are condemned to live as machines because we’re unaware of our automatic nature. Unless we acknowledge our own mechanicality, we cannot struggle with it.

God help you with transcribing all this. (Laughter)

Q: Stephen Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man comes to mind.

JS: Yes, I’ve read much of Gould’s works. I firmly stand on the side of evolution but I am not, shall I say, “strictly materialistic” as he is…

Q: I actually consider you one of the most spiritual fiction writers I have ever known.

JS: Yeah?

Q: Yes. I mean, if I compare the depiction of Jesus in your novel [Silicone Embrace] and Jesus in, say, Gore Vidal’s satire [Live from Golgotha], Jesus in your novel is a lot more convincing, even though he turns out to be a space alien (Laughter). What I mean is your Jesus is portrayed as someone who I can imagine as inspiring devotion and faith in real life.

JS: Well, I read a lot of spiritual and mystically-inspired works.

Q: All right. Shall we talk about A Splendid Chaos? Was it from ‘80s?

JS: Yes, early ‘80s.

Q: So it can be classified under cyberpunk?

JS: I suppose so. But it was… also an attempt to put into words the ecstactic vision of an alternative world. Something Saint Theresa of Avila might have had, you know. But it also had a very old-fashioned adventure-tale structure to it. There’s some Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack Vance in it, maybe even Tolkien. The premise of all these beings brought from different worlds and planets to one place…

Q: That was the first time I have encountered so many alien species in one book, other than in a compendium of Japanese TV monsters (Laughter).

JS: I tried to imagine as many types of aliens as I could, and crowd them all into a global kind of menagerie, to induce a frisson of the fantastic. I probably had too much of that and not much of a plot. (Laughter) But I was trying to develop a surrealist landscape that also had an internal logic to it. If anyone wants to read it fresh I hope they get hold of the new edition out from Babbage Press, which I have revised somewhat. It reads smoother. I have also revised and updated the Eclipse books and Cellars. They are not watered down at all, just made more in line with the reader’s contemporary world, and I took out some clumsy, jejune bits.

Q: This is an opportune moment to move onto the Eclipse books. I think I heard you once saying they may be the best pieces of writing you have done. I don’t know whether you still feel that way about them.

JS: Certainly they are the best sustained science fiction writing I have done.

Q: Do you feel “attached” to some characters?

JS: I was very identified with rock singer characters in the novels. I was young, after all. I went out of my way to make women characters strong. I was influenced by feminism in the 1970s. I was criticized in some quarters, even by Samuel Delaney, I think…

 Q: Delaney? Really?!

JS: Yeah, and anyway they criticized Eclipse books for containing gender bias. But you know, not only were there powerful women warriors in my books but also a full-blown lesbian character. I might be the first SF writer to put in a lesbian sex scene in a novel, unless Joanna Russ beat me to it. (Laughter)

Q: Many of things in Eclipse books that were totally science fictional when they were first published have since become reality, sometimes in interestingly round-about ways. The planetary environments are threatened by neo-liberal, world-spanning, multinational corporations: new technologies, including information technologies, turned out to be double-edged swords…

JS: Yeah. In the Eclipse books corporations get bigger and bigger by consolidating themselves. In my new novel, coming out this year, Black Glass [see Interview No. 1] there are only 33 corporations left in the world, except for tiny “micro-companies” that fly under their radar. Black Glass describes an underground stock market: a black stock market ran for these micro-companies. In Eclipse, I wrote about the emergence of a gigantic media conglomerate named WorldTalk, which is basically controlled by a group of racist, fundamentalist Christians. Well, in 1990s and 2000s similar if not exactly identical situations have developed, as we all know: Enron, Fox News and its support of Bush, the Christian right ideology actually dictating Bush’s foreign policy, and so on. I wrote about the Neo-Soviet movement in Russia, a combination of nationalist and authoritarian movements, and again, there is a real danger that someone like Putin can push Russia in that direction.

Q: Would you agree that Eclipse books are more closely aligned with the “dystopian” outlook of the early cyberpunk fiction?

JS: I would call it “realistic.” Not dystopian. We [cyberpunk writers] were realists. Global warming is certainly one factor that can precipitate massive military or other conflicts in the future. Population growth and depletion of resources still remain big problems. These are not matters of speculation, or projection into the future. They are realities we live with.

Q: I don’t want to name names but there are some hard science fiction writers who seem to assume this position that… say, 500 years of human civilization is nothing compared to the geological or astronomical scale of time… and are more concerned with really big questions like whether the universe is contracting or expanding, or contracting first and then expanding, and sort of become cavalier and humdrum about the issues that might literally wipe us out… their attitude is, like, science will eventually find a way to fix all these problems, so what’s the big fuss?

JS: It’s a choice of perspective.  But I can’t argue with them, anyway, since unfortunately, I haven’t read much of them (Laughter). Hard science fiction is not my favorite genre. It hasn’t been since I was young. I’m sure there’s good science fiction out there, but I love historical fiction and biographies.

Q: Really, wow.

JS: Yep, I am reading a biography of Lord Nelson at this moment. And I just finished reading Plutarch’s chapter on Julius Caesar. Very up-to-date. (Laughter) I think science fiction writers who think there will be some magical technological solution, I don’t know, like nanotechnology, that will fix our current problems in one bang, are living in a fantasy-land. We are all living on one planet with demonstrably limited resources, okay? I definitely think things will get worse before they get better. We might have millions of people rendered homeless, starving or dying from war and global warming. We might lose some major cities: they might go underwater, or blown up by a terrorist nuclear bomb. But I think human race will muddle through it all, and if we are lucky, we will end up with a more thoughtful and less wasteful civilization around 22nd century.

Q: Hey, you sound like H. G. Wells.

JS: He was a genius, you know (Laughter).

(To be continued to Part 3… and this time I will upload it in a zippy!!)

CROSSING THE LINE. A Very Much So/Passion Film Production. 2006, United Kingdom, 1 hour 32 minutes. With the additional support from BBC, E Pictures, Koryo Tours, Cine Qua Non, Dongsoong Art Center. Directed by Daniel Gordon. Cinematography: Nick Bennet. Edited by Peter Haddon. Music by Heather Fenoughty. Sound edited by Stevie Haywood. Sound mixed by Adam Mendez. Sound effects by Samantha Storer. Narrated by Christian Slater.

In 2002, the BBC documentarian Daniel Gordon made a heartfelt and crowd-pleasing chronicle, The Game of Their Lives, of North Korea’s football team and its incredible advance into the World Cup quarterfinals in 1966. Greatly pleased by the final product, North Korean authorities granted Gordon an unprecedented level of access for a foreign filmmaker, allowing him to record daily lives of two young girls preparing for an eye-poppingly grandiose (and for many people, obscenely totalitarian) “Mass Game” in celebration of the Great Leader Kim Jong Il. The resulting documentary, A State of Mind, sharply divided the viewer responses outside NK: some consider it nothing more than a detestable apologia for the quasi-monarchical dictatorship, while others see it as a refreshing corrective to the usual anti-Communist palavers that reduce North Koreans into little more than brainless termites. Instead of playing it safe for his next project, however, Gordon went ahead and tackled an even more potentially controversial topic—the life-story of Private James Drasnok, an American soldier who in 1962 walked over the DMZ, riddled with uncharted mines, and “defected” to North Korea, and has lived there since. The result is one of the most fascinating documentaries about North Korea ever made: but the film also uncovers some surprising, even poignant, episodes of intersection between American and Korean histories.

Despite his somewhat heavy-handed effort to (visually) draw the parallel between the aggressively nationalistic cultures of North Korea and the United States, Gordon manages to keep afloat in the air disparate, often mutually incompatible, perspectives on the bizarre life history of Private Drasnok, ably navigating through the treacherous ideological waters. Certainly most North Koreans will be hard pressed to see “Crossing” as a negative portrayal of their own country (Kim Jong Il himself acknowledged abduction of Japanese citizens as a part of its insane “spy training” scheme in 2002, so discussing that issue is no longer officially discouraged), but those who insist on seeing North Korea as an oppressive totalitarian state will also find plenty of evidence here to back up their view. Perhaps the surest indication that Gordon has pulled off this difficult balancing act is that we as viewers cannot easily come to a conclusion about the film’s protagonist.

Drasnok’s life is indeed the stuff that proves the adage “truth is stranger than fiction.” A young Southerner, born in Virginia to a broken home and abject poverty (described by him as a “living hell”), he was a failure as a soldier as well. Cocky, ignorant and totally devoid of discipline, Drasnok crossed the DMZ seemingly out of sheer adolescent stupidity, like a teenager who has no loose change in his jeans pockets so decides to rob a liquor store, armed with a switchblade, and was as surprised as anyone when he was welcomed as a valuable tool for anti-American propaganda, eventually given a chance to lead a materially comfortable, middle-class life that surely would have been denied to him had he stayed in the U.S. (It might surprise some viewers to learn that North Korea was well ahead of South Korea in economic growth and overall quality of living conditions at least until mid-1960s, exceeding the average annual GNP growth rate of 20 % in the years between 1954 and 1960)

Soon enough, he and his fellow U.S. army defectors (yes, there were more) fell into the familiar routine of the annoying young American expats, cruising in a cluster, drinking, horsing around and chasing after women. The life in North Korea had begun to go sour by late 1960s: the Americans were unable to withstand the monotony of a “peaceful” Communist  social behavior and the lack of purpose in their lives. They finally attempted to jump ship to Europe via the Soviet embassy, which promptly sent them packing. Eventually, it was Comrade Kim Jong Il who came to their rescue, by casting Drasnok and his colleagues as seedy imperialist villains in his ambitious film productions, making them overnight into NK equivalents of Hollywood stars.  This portion of the documentary is simply amazing, as we are treated to rarely seen (certainly for me, never-before-seen) excerpts from such legendary North Korean megahits as Nameless Heroes, and footages of the American defectors hamming it up as hilariously grotesque caricatures of their own countrymen. Dresnok in these films suggests in appearance a no-talent cousin of Laird Cregar. Sargeant Charles Jenkins—Dresnok’s arch-nemesis, resembling Ross Perot after a Jenny Craig diet regimen, more about him later—at one point shows up with a huge skullcap makeup, as if he is possessed by the Brain from Planet Arous): they must be seen to be believed.

Equally amazing is the story of Dresnok’s marriage and family. One neat trick Gordon pulls off is casting Dresnok and other defector’s children as “actors” playing their fathers in a ‘60s black and white re-enactment sequence. Dresnok’s son, James, half-American and half-Romanian, is a handsome, white young man, studying English in the prestigious Pyongyang Foreign Language University: it’s positively unreal to hear James speaking in fluent Northern-accented Korean and then in halting Konglish for the interview. Dresnok’s cute-as-a-button youngest son from his second marriage to a half-Somali Korean woman is one-quarter white, one-quarter African and half-Korean. So Dresnok’s own family in the world’s perhaps most ethnically and culturally homogeneous nation—as Professor Bruce Cumings points out in the docu, that never wavers in the belief that “Koreans are the most superior race on the planet”—turns out to be many degrees more multiethnic than a typical American one.

The docu abounds with such ironies scaling the height of surrealism, not the least of which is the fact that Dresnok still resolutely remains such an unreconstructed “American,” shoveling bonhomie in thick Southern drawl, teaching NK students English as a “native speaker,” (this will sound very familiar to many South Korean students) enjoying illegal fishing expeditions, and hailed affectionately by North Koreans who recognize “Arthur the Evil American” from the movies. One cannot help think that it was his quintessential qualities as an American, which made him a misfit in the U.S. army, helped him survive and even flourish in North Korea.

In the latter half, considerable dramatic tension is generated when Sergeant Jenkins chose in 2004 to leave NK with his two daughters and join his wife already in Japan, subsequently authoring an autobiography condemning the Kim regime (translated into English and published just this month from University of California Press). Dresnok angrily rebuts much of the claim made in Jenkins’ account of how the defectors were treated, including one that NK officials scorched tattoos on their bodies as a part of re-education procedure (according to him, the burning of tattoos was a strictly voluntary act). It’s clear that underlying the politically charged mutual denunciations is a longstanding feud between Jenkins and Dresnok that seems to hark back to the 1960s: Dresnok relates with obvious relish a story of beating Jenkins up when the latter tried to pull his rank on the former.

In the end, we are left with Dresnok’s sly, gold-capped smile, pondering what it all means. Like all good documentaries, by showing an organically linked whole of the elements that are at first glance totally incompatible with one another and deftly maneuvering out from ideological agendas of national actors, Crossing the Line re-focuses our attention to the human foibles and ingenuity usually swept beneath the grand narratives of ideological struggles and national conflicts. I most certainly wouldn’t buy a used car from Dresnok, but at the same time he is way too uncomfortably “ordinary American” for many viewers to dismiss him as a devious traitor or a mouthpiece for socialist ideals.  The Novel Prize winning writer Orhan Pamuk once stated to the effect that the real task of an artist is to show the people so utterly divided by language, culture, custom and beliefs are, in fact, exactly the same at their core. Whatever your opinion may be about this docu, and many viewers will come away from watching it with their negative views about North Korea confirmed, or even reinforced, I have no doubt that it achieved its artistic (and humanistic) aim in this sense.

DVD Presentation:

Kino Video. NTSC. Single Layer. Region 1. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1. Audio: Korean and English Dolby Digital 2.0. Subtitles: English. Supplements: An interview with director Daniel Gordon, photo galleries.

Kino Video is not exactly 100% reliable in terms of quality presentation of foreign titles, but Crossing the Line’s predominantly HD-video visuals are shown in a reasonably attractive fashion. Considering the large number of archival footage, the quality of video fluctuates wildly, especially in the first half, but I haven’t noticed any significant transfer problem. The soundtrack is quite ordinary: the techno-minimalist music score sounds a little tinny, but it serves the purpose. The only substantial supplementary material is a 30-minute interview with the director. It is informative but the questions basically make him re-cap the film in a digest form, so it will be a total spoiler for those who haven’t seen the main feature. I’d like to know why Christian Slater was chosen to narrate the film (was a good choice, by the way): maybe Gordon explains it and I missed it.

Angela drove me to the car pound in Hayward to take the last look at the wrecked Honda Civic and retrieve the items it was carrying inside at the time of the crash. Unreturned rented DVDs, library books, a blanket, CDs, some maps and Triple-A guidebooks. We donated the half-opened box of spring water to the garage owner.

Contrary to my first impression, the windshield was not shattered. I suppose I would have cut my faces or at least found glass fragments in my hair had it happened. I did find them in the left pocket of my jacket, actually. I am sure a few of them had been embedded in my skin, since ejected out as my body slowly heals.

I bet some of you didn’t know some airbags are PINK. Seeing that made me laugh, that in turn hurt my sides really badly.

The acrid, burning smell I remember from the immediate aftermath is gone. It looks like a movie prop now instead of a real car, and appears to be in peace with its wreckedness, which somehow comforts me.

Before I departed, I touched the car’s hood and thanked it for helping me commute and indulging my habits and desires. It wasn’t your fault, it was mine, and I am sorry you died. Goodbye, Honda Civic Two.

 My thanks again for Angela’s help in uploading the pictures.

They are kind of self-explanatory. More might be coming, if I don’t tire of drawing them. I am grateful for my wife’s help in uploading them.

Hi folks, further delays on everything. I am barely getting out of my facial paralysis (which seems to be thankfully leaving me) and then I totaled my trusted (although pretty beat-up) Honda Civic on Route 880, en route to San Jose.

No, no serious internal injuries, no broken spine or neck, no severed limbs.  It’s just bruises and smashed nails.  It hurts like hell, of course, and I can now barely move my butt out of the bed.  I will be like this for probably a week or so, and after that will have to commute via Amtrak (Sigh…). 

Right after the accident Good Samaritans (including a doctor and a registered nurse) immediately came to my rescue, laying me down on the ground (I was dazedly walking out of the car, dripping blood from my hand and nose) and stabilizing my spine, etc. until paramedics came and took care of me.

Having seen countless car crashes in Route 80 while commuting for 11 years, I know I was seriously lucky that I came away with only this much damage, even with my left leg joint swollen like it has grown a purple-colored mango fruit. 

I am truly grateful to Good Samaritans who helped me: and also to Angela’s colleagues and to my friend Sophie Volpp for food and healing.  My wife, although away for seminar attendance, knew exactly what to do and kept the emotional trauma and chaos to the absolute bare minimum. My apologies to Mr. Shirley and his fans for yet another delay in the interview!  I will ask my able assistant to upload it if I cannot do it myself.

Aigo, I am sore. *_*  Hopefully I will come back here soon, even if to just complain about how I hurt all over.

Well, my book is finally out. Amazon.com somehow still lists it as MIA, but the bookstores will be receiving copies pretty soon. It’s No. 247 of East Asian Monograph Publication Series from Harvard University Asia Center. I am honored to be included among this distinguished group of authors.

In case you are wondering, the creature in front page is not Cthulhu, it’s a plain ol’ squid (actually, supposed to be an octopus but it clearly has ten legs) surrounded by a bunch of seashells. Why squid and seashells? Ah… that’s something you have to discover on your own… no, I am kidding, I will put up an explanation sometime, if anyone is curious.

Again a round of thanks to my friends, colleagues and students who have helped and encouraged me over the last ten years (especially those who got unjustly cut out of Acknowledgement, it’s all my fault!): without you I could not have finished this book.

Howdy, folks. I know there are a bunch of you who’ve been waiting for the John Shirley Interview #2 (possibly #2 and #3?). Sorry, it’s got delayed wee bit. Well, maybe I should change my name to Q De Lay.  But at least this time I’ve got a legitimate excuse. I have suffered a nerve paralysis and had to be on medication. It’s not life-threatening or anything, in truth it does not particularly affect my functions as a paid academic instructor and a middle-aged, pot-bellied media geek, but it certainly was shocking when I suddenly couldn’t taste hot kimchi fried rice (about 60% of my tongue feels like it’s coated with a thick layer of Vaseline), and an attempt to bite into a slice of toasted bread resulted in a disgusting sucking noise from the right side of my mouth.   So far my doctors and my wife (who’s a health care professional) are more worried about the cause of this condition than the condition itself.  What exactly happened?  The likeliest scenario is that this resulted from viral infection of the ear canal.  Seasonal allergies and sinus problems from the cold have been my chronic illnesses, especially in pollen-rich Northern California, so I suspect something seriously nasty had to come down one of these days from that.  But of course I am going to have everything checked, including the brainpan, naturally.

And then on Tuesday I had this incredible, blinding pain in the left side of my throat and ear. It turned out to be a tooth with hairline fractures (My thanks to Dr. Norman Hui, for fitting me in his busy schedule!).  Whoa, I was truly convinced that some exotic viruses have colonized all passages and cavities of my face and were slowly dissolving my face from inside out.  It just was a dang tooth going bad, and it had to coincide with the paralysis!  I dunno, is my body trying to tell me something?  Like, you are really going to drop dead unless you change your lifestyle, Fat Boy?!

(c) Anchor Bay/Starz

GYAAAH! ALL RIGHT ALREADY!

So anyway, there it is, my excuses for being delayed… but don’t you worry, the interview content is being transcribed literally as I am writing this blog entry.  Just be patient, friends, and check back in a few days.