American Paladin, a closer look

"He is a man who cannot be rejected."-- Charlie Rose

Not having a phone is a rather radical act of self-assurance for Dinklage's  Finbar, an ascendant insularity that really isn't punctuated by the insistent overtures of the Cuban food vendor, and it is in this sense that I'd argue that McCarthy reverses the polarity of the pro-forma progressive paradigm of The Station Agent into something more unwittingly tragic, not that McCarthy denies Dinklage a human range. Much like Garcia's deployment of the dwarf actor in Things, both these directors go against the theatrical absurdity of type, and Finbar is a person, whom, according to interpretation, is yanked out of his shell by the disruptions of the fallible beings around him, but what do we know at the end of the day, about the train aficionado, aside from the fixation repressed persons without other outlets develop for objects of technological condensation?

We know he had an implied intimacy with the deceased Henry, through affinity and shared interest. We know he's had sex, this through Joe's inquiry, and McCarthy's adept poke in the eye of tiresome ambulatory curiosity, we see a regressive boyhood within the adult whose interior rage dares a suicide but pulls back. We see him chastened into empathy for Clarkson as the inconsolable mother who uses her grief for the loss of her son to feed off Finbar's stoicism; no needy cripple here, only selfish ambulatory grifters, and though McCarthy happily resolves his film into the usual bromides of acceptance within loss while life still moves forward, even chilling with beers on the porch, that is about it. The jester lets down his shield, not performing on demand for the court, as was superimposed on viewers for most of the 20th century. Dwarfs were macabre signatures, from the wizard of oz through the Michael Dunn of Porter's Ship of Fools. Of course, the dwarf in Porter's character study fills the role of the chorus, and is allowed to be a mature persona too wise in the folly of life, but he is still a device, which is exactly what Dinklage remains in McCarthy's world of what's possible: the form of the shrunken human body is a mask, a mask to disguise, cover hideousness that may hide an ideally brutalized heart, in one of Peter Laurie's less typecast roles, straight through Mickey Rourke picking up the time honored conceit in Johnny Handsome.

Dinklage, much like Garcia's Albert, is actually more relevatory in Death at a Funeral as the hyped up prostitute for the secretly gay family man, conveying more in the stereotypical fetish than he does attempting to fully flesh out McCarthy's libertarian, somewhat self-hating freak.

Shoestring budget or not, Clarkson does a disservice to the taxing culture of mental illness, waltzing down the hospital corridor in scrubs, a my bad smile on her face after being the pill popping drama queen. Attempted suicides rolling back the emotional pain which reverberates on all those around them doesn't lend itself to that level of resolution.

Freelancer, Half-Assed

I wonder if I have enough clout to approach McCarthy in relation to work, in yet another speculative feather. I am too old to reinvest and create a new career with the industry, but can develop amnesia over incidents like Daniel Schneider. Even online, people of similar look and build behave like compatible molecules, don't they? Since not all of my older posts will be transferring to Blogger, I should explain that Daniel accessed one of my comments on Ebert's blog, found me on LiveJournal, invited me to his Cosmoetica gmail community, sparks flew, I left, and blew a gasket due to being naive and vacuous in my own right, subsequently damaging this long term project, and yes, the paranoid intensity of my reaction was not healthy, and you may be satisfied with your holistic balance in comparison. I am not really angry with the well meaning fool, so much as [was, sic] really upset that I let myself be flummoxed; it is over, and in the same mold can leave my Roger Ebert anxiety at the door, strike out on my own. I still respect the old man, but think his mild detractors, those whom I've read, have a point in the way he caters to popular sentiment, perhaps confusing respect with common denominators.

I doubt I can earn a living on regret, but as an episode, the situation points to the limitations of connecting via device. I did not know who, or what, Daniel Schneider was, and he in turn was entirely ignorant of my economic and social marginalization, and the length of time I have spent in online communities of all different stripes. Before he ended his interaction with me, he wrote, "I have done thousands of interviews in this industry, and David Foster Wallace is a fraud." I honestly don't know what I am supposed to take from this assertion, and a Cosmoetica gmail community with eclectic discussions about movies and Daniel's pontifications about politics, his wife's personal literary reviews, may be charming to some, but I am a spastic quadriplegic whose last and best hope is to restore her work ethic. Email groups clog our inboxes, along with tons of spam, and whatever support he and Mrs thought they were offering, let me pose a question, do they have the ability to hire a wheelchair user at their bakery?

I handled this contact badly, and there is no way around that, my own level of impatience and insolence, but even his rape-victim nurse who chased me down to my LiveJournal inbox, believing that her emotional pain would give me pause, this woman had employment, and has much better access to resources through her hospital to get treatments, access and medical expertise I do not have, and need to restore in my actual, physical existence, a social structure. Daniel calls David Foster Wallace a *fraud* to level an accusation, but lacks the expertise to see why Wallace succeeded, deploying fraudulence as a literary conceit.
*
When felines want to wake up their crippled mothers, they push the call switch, summon security, and freak out when a minority unlocks my door. Of course I was naked and finally sound asleep, and had to get up, shout that I was indecent. I cannot quite cross the Rubicon, and lose my lions to make a venue change easier. Not that I do not love my boys, and indeed, during that *assessment team* intimidation tactic that Trudy Richardson, the manager, threw at me in 08, I offered to get rid of my pets, and this was Debra Horne, a woman who passes for a social services professional:

"We do not want you to get rid of the cats," yet she was standing there with two black men and a swaying older woman of lighter color, trying to gauge my removal, never mind that their subcontractors broke my desktop, that I could not get the CRT equipment I needed, and that I am still paying for. Debra is pretty high up on entitled but ignorant people I hate list. I know why they want me to keep the children, however. My responsibility for them is a distraction, but I am not working, and at this rate, I may never get back on my feet. Thus my children add to my financial burdens, and without them I'd be freer to leave, at least lighten my options.

I love da Joey, and little Vinnie. Of course I am a sap, but. It is a balancing act of bad choices, and depositing them at the SPCA would probably end their lives, and is no guarantee I can find better living arrangements.

I have to make some revisions to my complaint letter to previously mentioned officials, but I should be packed up by Friday. Rocking the boat is so very difficult, but I have to. What I went through could wind up killing someone else like me. I am old and tired, but have to shout, and this is complete. Here is hoping for Tuesday.

Twins, Arches, & Basalt, Voila Auteur

I evidently appreciate Thomas McCarthy vision of progressive pushback despite the fact that trying to live it in my own life has turned my innards overripe. Films being what they are, however, it seems only the Farrelly brothers take risks with the grotesque, with spina bifida contained by leg brace and diaper and crutch, and McCarthy is cautious, not risking this over much in his desired, some might say extracted, performances. Jenkins' Walter Vale has the slight and not unkindly whiff of a pruned Puritan about him, especially in his jagged rebuff of his student, his interaction with the piano instructor who mildly offends his sensibility, Hiam Abbass is muted in ethnicity, not Syrian, slightly too Anglicized so as to evoke empathy and lower defenses. Haaz Sleiman is like the jazz player, infusing the somewhat shriveled European cultural polish. Danai Gurira clips it like a Nile Queen. I've seen the type before, in students, bad attendant pair bondings, but my point being that McCarthy very carefully polishes his collection, edgy, but with all the parts clicking in the right places, rather than the inner city disrupting, or threatening, the pattern of the wearied American academic.

This is still a great film, and it is the real reason I persist with disability themes online, despite what you may believe to the contrary, to deconstruct such precious jewels, probably the only thing that keeps me human, at the end of the day.

What McCarthy manages to expose is the cost of the systems we impose upon ourselves, their crushing weight, sacrificing the gifts of cultural infusion. The gifts of the west are not dead when seen through fresh eyes. Mouna's ability to get emotionally involved with the Phantom of the Opera encapsulates and reflects on her situation, with her son in a dungeon she cannot penetrate, and Mrs. Vale's music offers this mother solace in much the same way that Walter finds an outlet in learning the djembe

No one is accountable here, certainly not the guards at the center where Tarek is detained and removed, individuals against whom a strike would be futile, which Walter finally accepts in resignation. This does not mean that immigration is not an intractable problem due to the imbalance of affluence, nor would McCarthy's compassionate leniency solve for it any better than Arizona hardliners, just to cull an example, but the US certainly lacks a sane and coherent policy, something that transcends administrations.

That such divergent visionaries as Tolstoy and a post modern independent director could illuminate the same problem, how our systems subsume autonomy, points to the fact that we'll probably need to shave a few billion of ourselves off before we scare ourselves straight, and start to really pay attention.