There's been more battles with Windows Vista on my computer than I anticipated and I just haven't gotten around to blogging like I planned. The stuff on the table to blog about is still on the table but the switch to daylight savings threw me for a loop and I saw 300 with some friends last night. It's okay, for a comic book movie about a historical event, but I sure don't remember so much sex or women in Frank Miller's comic book. The way Miller has been writing I hope he doesn't rewrite 300 to have all that junk in there. And since when did 300 get all Braveheart and have speeches about freedom. Miller recognized the irony of the least democratic Greeks fighting for democracy but the movie sure doesn't seem to grasp that particular point.
Nods to liberal critics who hate the movie for what it suggests about the current war in Iraq, yeah, I guess you guys can see connections when you want to see them but the comic book predates the election of Bush 2. Complaining about Frank Miller's story as not being great history is sort of like complaining about Peanuts not being a good representation of the ethical theories of John Stuart Mill. Since when have comic books based on history, in general, shown that much fidelity to fact. If there's a Red Baron movie out there that invents some romantic interest, some woman who supposedly opened Richtoffen's eyes to the brutality of war it's proof that film-makers and comic-book writers alike aren't that obsessed with historical accuracy There's nothing about Miller's puzzling handling of the deformed, the ugly, the weak, or the female that hasn't been fielded well enough by others.
As far as I can tell the track record Miller's work and Alan Moore's work has for being adapted to the silver screen is roughly equal, they're highly mixed at best. This is because the truth is, as I read them, both authors are pretty over-rated by comic book fans. Merely attaining the stature of literature isn't that big a deal to the literary world. For my money neither Moore nor Miller have ever attained a comic book that for literary scope and philosophical daring matches Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm being totally unfair. I'll grant that The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One are both great. And Watchman and The Killing Joke are both great even if too many Moore fanboys make the horrendous mistake of thinking there's anything to admire about Ozymandias. If you think anyone is the good guy in that story you're missing the point. But enough of the comic book rants.
I've finally listened to Carmina Burana and I like it. Usually I don't go out of my way to listen to secular choral music at all. Just a personal conviction of mine. If twenty to eighty people are going to be singing about something I would prefer they sing about Jesus, the Father, or the Spirit, or some passage from Scripture. Not that I actually dislike secular choral music at all but I've just heard some overwrought secular choral music that amounted to drippy love songs. I've got Lady Macbeth and Wozzeck so I can get into an opera or two. I just tend to personally feel that I don't want to WRITE secular choral music and because of my disposition as a composer I don't tend to listen to secular choral music much. But Carmina Burana is great music. I can see why it's so well represented in recordings. If you're the person who lent me this and you happen to read this blog at any point, thanks again.
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