Allele - the Mark of Cain

Allele - The Mark of Cain

I just saw a tremendous little film which I'd like to recommend. It was quite excellent.





The film itself was called Beowulf and Grendel. It deviated significantly from the epic poem, but in a way which I felt was quite ingenious and quite well done. That is the plot of the film was not significantly weaker than that of the poem itself, though it was very different in execution and emphasis from the original poem.

When I first saw Grendel in the film the line that immediately ran back to my mind from the poem was the description of Grendel as (paraphrase) "being of the line and curse of Cain, of the mark of Cain." The film itself also explored, and I thought rather well in many respects, the tensions in northern Europe as Christianity was overlapping and overwhelming paganism. In the poem it was Beowulf himself who was the new Christian, or in many respects, as regards his warrior culture, the Christian-pagan hybrid. Beowulf, in the poem was the self-sacrificial hero and exemplar of both Christ and the pagan warrior ethos of the Geat.

In the film however Beowulf remains, until the very end, both skeptic and yet obvious exemplar of Christian virtues. He must kill Grendel to save the Danes and stop the slaughter, but he also empathizes with and understands Grendel's rage and attempts to correct past injustices. Beowulf also seemed to understand that Grendel hunted those he considered his tormentors but harmed no one he considered innocent. Beowulf tries on several occasions to convince Grendel to merely leave the area and never return. But Grendel would not.

One thing I noticed was that the Geats, upon arriving at the hall and trading insults with the Danes, were thirteen in number. An obvious reference to Christ and his twelve Apostles. I'll have to recheck my copy of the poem and see if that is indeed a direct reference from the poem. If it is then it is a very interesting analogy between the Warrior Band and the future King of the Geats, and the Apostles and the King of the Jews. It's been a long time since I analyzed the poem Beowulf, although I recently re-read it, though not for analysis but just to enjoy the poetry, but the metaphors are extremely interesting. I'll have to look up those references and see what they imply.

In some way the film was far too much a modern interpretation. The writers and filmmakers could not resist splattering the film with modern curses and language which gutteralized (in the widest sense) the otherwise well-spoken language of the film and the poem. Another criticism I have is that the film paid far too little attention to the poetry of the epic in both descriptive terms and in terms of the dialogue between characters. Had it retained the far higher literary language of the poem then the film would have been tremendously good. As it was it was merely good, but extremely well done compared to most modern works on such subject matter.

The cinematography was astoundingly superb, as were the sets and locales, and the acting was very solid and well executed. I could imagine the characters as real people in a real setting. A very harsh and brutally cold and tough environment. The actual appearance of the film was beautiful. All in all I highly recommend this film. Even with the obvious deficits, it was still a very enjoyable and beautiful work.

Allele - Greatest Weaknesses of Modern Authors

Allele - Greatest Weaknesses of Modern Authors





I'm gonna list what I consider to be the Greatest Weaknesses of Modern Authors, their writings, worldviews, methods of working, work produced, etc.

Discuss if you like.



1. Little or No Real World Experience: Too many modern authors, writers, screenwriters (not to mention artists of all kinds) have little or no real world experience. They go to school to learn how to write, they spend their lives obsessing over writing, they spend most all of their free time writing or learning to write. Yet they never lived and have nothing to write about except what is spawned within their own imaginations. They spend all of their time creating fictional worlds because they have nothing to say about and have made no observations on the real world. How could they? They've never spent any time living in it. Writing about what they see in their own heads is the only accomplishment they've ever had or tried to have.

2. Overspecialization: They write only Fiction, or only Non-Fiction. They cannot and do not cross over convincingly, because they are either afraid to do so or let other people tell them they cannot.

3. Overgenrelization: They become a genre writer. Which means that for the most part they become a standardized and serialized hack writer or a closet book entertainer.

4. No Word Hoard: The modern writer has no word hoard. No vocabulary other than that of his genre. He has no poetry and no word-soul. He's like reading a White Paper on computer graphics. So he is not truly literate. Not that that ever bothers him. Lack of poetry is considered gritty, urban, hip, modern, sophisticated. He's as vital as a disco ball at a cotillion. And half as fancy.

5. All Idea, No Story: The modern writer is filled with the most incredibly clever ideas and schemes, about nothing of any importance at all.

6. Worldview: The modern author has a worldview derived entirely from his own very limited real world experience, or derived entirely from his own imagination. Which all too often is little more than an academically recycled imagination. Full of sound and fury, signifying bluffing.

7. Methodologies: The modern author believes the best way to write is to sit in a room all day and stare at a computer screen or at a mirror and navel gaze. It would never once occur to him to get out in the world and watch how it operates and how people actually live. He thinks his job is to sit in a little room and stink it up. And God knows that's also about the size and smell of what he produces.

8. Art is as Art Does: The modern author thinks of himself as a modern Artist. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me but it tells a lot about why they write what they do. And what they write about. And why they write so badly.

9. Manhood is Dead: Being a writer used to mean you first were a man who had some experience with being a man and so you had something to say about being a man. You can pretty much forget about that now. It's gonna be awhile before manhood becomes a common attribute among writers again.

10. Ignorance is Bliss: Just ask most modern authors. Compare what little they know of the world to how much they're willing to write about how little they know. You'll get the idea pretty quick.

11. The Psychopop Imperative: If there's a deep pop psychology imperative then some modern writer is gonna find a way to carefully explore the idea. Of course if there were such a thing as a deep pop psychological imperative it might be worth the effort.

12. The Deconstructive Myth: With the right technique the modern author can explain everything. Even the unexplainable. Just ask him. He'll tell ya, and then he'll write 15 books in a series explaining how he figured it all out. "In his head." This is also called the "Fictional Conceit" or the "Theory as Fact" motif. A dedicated Fanbase will eat this one up. Just ask em sometime.