V for Vendetta in London

Are we abandoning the Alan Moore adaptation = rubbish principle then?

James Wolcott loves it.

But yeah, that's a headscratcher alright.

Its sold out but as I have to be out of the country, I have a spare ticket.

25th march Tate Britain 15:00.

will sell ticket for £9 ( 7.50+booking fee)

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/talks/alanmooreongothicnightmares4643.htm

email me if your interested.

"I could scarecely have been less impressed if it had called V for
Vasectomy... When this is released on Friday, I beg of you to please
not let your curiosity get the better of you..."

So yeah, basically all the right people are hating this. All it needs is Peter Bradshaw weighing in against and I'll be set!

David Lloyd's Q&A from the ICA was recorded, BTW. I can probably get a copy and maybe look into getting it online, should this be of any interest.

http://www.mtv.com/shared/movies/interviews/m/moore_alan_060315/

As to Moore, why doesn't he forget trying to reason this issue out and just say (more honestly), 'I hate it because they DARED to change something!' Because, much as I love Moore, his problem is that he thinks he's smarter than everyone else alive, and he isn't. In fact, before he starts making political remarks he might get a basic understanding of politics first--he still sees things through the eyes of an anti-establishment teenager who labels everything he doesn't like as Fascist*. The film doesn't NEED a mis-applied word like fascism to work; it doesn't need the word anarchy because it's self-evident. (Having said that, I'm pretty sure V uses the word anarchy at least once...)

(*Been there, done that. And I'm STILL anti-establishment.)

I was more surprised than I should be, actually, to read in the latest Mustard that Moore freely admits to being stoned 24/7. I mean literally. Go read it. And he has all the marks of it--the slightly off-base but unvarying perceptions and general slant toward groundless paranoia. He may be a brilliant writer but his judgement is inherently suspect.

(That's not an anti-drugs position from me. I admit to having smoked dope a load of times in the past, though not for about nine years. I found it rather deadening, stifling, and not particular entertaining, to be honest...)

The biggest bogus lead is Moore's idea that setting it in the UK is a cowardly move. I don't think the setting matters much in that sense: it is so damning of the religious right and its potential that it would piss a lot of people off even if it were set on Mars. And isn't it, in fact, more distrubing to float such an idea in light of a phoney terrorist stunt rather than the purple device of this happening after a nuclear war? The closer something seems, the more scary it gets. We all preferred to believe the Big War was never gonna happen anyway, and anything set in light of it, we had a desire to see as pure fantasy. But THIS... almost seems like it might be round the corner.

I'm not saying the film's a masterpiece (nor is the comic, exactly), but conceptually it's on pretty solid ground. The point is, if cowardice is an issue (it isn't; quite the opposite), why didn't Alan take a bolder stand with V and show the real situation in early '80s Britain leading naturally to such things? He dropped a bomb on the landscape instead. He added a moderately comfortable level of separation between then and the premise... it MIGHT happen tomorrow but it felt like a thousand years away.

Of course, even without dope I can say that I share some of Moore's paranoia, and I'd have exactly the same attitude toward people altering my ideas. So I'm a hypocrite. But it's not MY idea, so I don't feel the need to share his annoyance. ;-)

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22753

Because most of his complaints predate the film even being written, and he's been articulating them consistently for 17 or 18 years now? Just a thought!

"V For Vendetta is also V for Valueless gibberish, writes Peter Bradshaw."

And we're on!

Mind you, saying something that people call 'dud' is probably something to aspire to. I'm a fucking dud and proud of it! Anyone got a problem with that? I'm gonna spray a big D in a circle over all your houses in red paint.

I don't feel a lot of Moore's specific complaints about the film could possibly have been made before seeing the film script, to be fair -- he couldn't complain of it being more about the CURRENT Bush regime 18 years ago! (Or say the lack of a US setting was cowardly, for that matter.) As a matter of fact, there are a number of older interviews where he was, within limits, much more positive about film adaptations. This was pre-LoXG, From Hell, and Warner Bros claiming he'd endorsed the V script, obviously...

Moore's brilliant, but I do think he is more up himself than just about anyone else alive. Including me. ;-)

Don't waste my time on this shit. If you have a completely unrelated problem, e-mail me and I'll rip your head off without an audience.

Hey, and before that last posting, everyone was assuming you were JUST a defensive old pothead. ;-)

I AM ALSO A WEREROFL. WEREWOLF.

To be honest I'm not really sure what the movie's about. Moore's book did "drop a bomb on the landscape" instead of showing the "real situation in early 80s Britain", but it works fine as a piece of cold war satire in the Brazil mode. I'm not sure WHO exactly the movie's directed at. If it's a stab agains the neo-cons, it's a pretty vague and silly one.

* Why does Portman have a South African accent?
* Why does everyone say "bollocks" so much?
* The Benny Hill thing is the most embarassingly poor "funny" sequence since the TV show in Bamboozled. Nice gorilla, though.

I'd still ask why the setting of the thing makes it any more or less 'timid'. I don't think it does. That's a desperate, superficial excuse for a criticism. With the film as Moore's straw man, setting it in America would've been slammed with equal gusto. He'd have slammed whatever form it took. So would I, in his position, but his personal ego issues mean nothing to me.

I've no problem with how Moore handled the original, but I don't think it's any better (or worse) than the film. My point was that bringing up the idea of courage vs timidity was/is a totally bogus train of thought.

...

Oh, the fight didn't work. It was a bit rubbish (the motion blur effect was awful), but it only lasted about three minutes. I don't care about fight scenes anyway.

My answers:
*Because she's crap at doing accents.
*Because the American writers are playing with a new toy.
*This isn't a question, but I agree on the whole.

In the light of how the US and UK governments specifically have, in recent times, lied to the public and tried to manipulate them -- as Paul said -- it's even more relevant than ever, if anything. The fact that both our leaders invoke religious rhetoric to justify their decisions, ditto (the use of the word 'faith' speaks for itself). It's a fantasy, but it has a ring of truth. If you object to erosion of personal liberty in the name of the so-called War on Terror -- ID cards, etc. -- then you might think that anarchy (the extreme end of libertarianism) strikes a chord.

I find the current political atmosphere in the US and UK quite worrying. I'm anti-establishment at the best of times. I don't think this is a great film, but it's a pretty good one, and the themes were on my wavelength, I guess.

It was a much better picture than I expected.

I liked it a lot, I'm not sure about the ending, I cried during Valerie's story, Stephen Rea is fantastic as the beaten-down cop who wants to find answers, I doubt anyone was fooled for a minute about the tramp ex-cop, the scene with the botanist was lovely, the Matrixy fight scenes (at start and end) were the worst bits, Stephen Fry surprised me when I thought he couldn't ever again, I probably need to see it again to judge the accuracy of the claim that it doesn't side with V, and the rush in the scene where it shows the Arch Chancellor ranting on TV to empty sitting rooms was worth the price of admission.

It's revolution porn, and fantastic at it.

disappointed that there was no Snakes on a Plane trailer attached to it.

BTW, how many people woke up this morning wanted to cook one of those toast-hole fried egg things? (I did.)

http://log.cheesed.com/images/P1000445.jpg

this is true of the comic too! i think i SHALL see this film

It's all those bastards in Frankfurt and the queers(!) Such a nasty article I'm almost tempted to go again!

I still think we have a Monarchy, with a big M. What is this loo ny on about???

What's hate-filled about thinking gays are nice?

He later talks about the film's 'pro homosexual bigotry', completely failing to realise that you can't be bigoted in favour of something.

well it's a good job that no heterosexuals do any of those things or else his argument would be nonsensical

world nut daily - i have often heard about it but never actually read anything off it. I bet his "film guide" is awesome though.

My favorite line in the movie: "You shaved my head."

Saw this last night, enjoyed it quite a lot, with a few caveats. Here's some thoughts:

*As I expected, they downplayed the anarchist themes, which was unfortunate. It's easy to make a story where someone opposes an evil fascist government, but for better or worse I think Moore's ponderings on anarchy is what separates the comic from other similar dystopies. So the V's telly speech about how it was the people's own fault for letting their leaders guide them was toned down drastically, the monologue with the justice statue was changed, etc. The only hints of anarchism in the movie were rather subliminal, i.e. the shoplifter saying "It's anarchy in the UK!" and the fact that V's symbol is almost like an upside down anarchist "A".

*The ending with the Houses of Parliament blowing up was probably the weakest part. The comic ended with angry folks uprising against the fascists, which was a much stronger finale. In the film, the bombing carried an enormous symbolic weight, but it was symbolic of what exactly? The failings of parliamentarism? If the film would've included the comic's anarchist themes, that might've been an option, but now the symbolism was kinda weak. Of course V's speech about how bombing a building can be revolutionary act was a brave move, but still... The comic ended with the explosion of Downing Street, which was the fascist government's operational center, but I'm not sure if the movie ever implied the government resided in the Houses of Parliament.

*The scenes with the V masks and the ending with people taking them off was a very nice touch, one of the changes to the comic that I think actually played out fine.

*Another thing where I felt the film improved upon the comic was the final scenes with V and Evey. V says that he must leave the final choice to Eve, and that his work is done. This I think was a better ending than in the comic. In the film V is more of a counterforce to the fascists, a necessary monster they've created, and once the fascists are dealt with he must perish too, and leave people's fate into their own hands. Whereas in the comic Evey becomes the new V, and it feels like her job is to watch that people don't stray from the narrow path again, which is against the very idea of anarchism. Of course, a single person deciding the fate of a nation is rather anti-anarchist too, but since V is supposed to be a symbol of anarchy rather than a real person, it's sort acceptable. Evey, however is clearly a real person and not a symbol.

*Stephen Rea was very good as Finch, but he wasn't given that much to work with. The humanizing scenes with Finch that were in the comic were mostly left out. I can't say whether Natalie Portman was good or bad, since in the film he was mostly V's puppet, and had very few scenes of her own. Again, a lot of the stuff that fleshed her out in the comic was left off. Obviously they couldn't have included everything from the comic, but what I missed the most were all the subplots with characters like Rose Almond, which showed the banal side of fascism. Now, the actual analysis of the workings of fascism was kinda thin, though maybe you shouldn't expect that much from a Wachowski brothers film.

*I'm glad they kept Evey's prison scenes from the comic almost intact, since that obviously was the true climax in both versions. The scenes with Evey reading Valerie's letters actually made me cry. I like Alan Moore the idealist more than the disillusioned cynic he later turned into.

*The human dictator in the comic was more interesting than the Big Brother one in the film. John Hurt's Hitler mannerisms were okay I guess, but it felt kinda silly that he had to use them to his closest men and not just in his public appearances. It was a nice touch that we never saw him in real life until his final scene.

* The Benny Hill tribute was great!

1) V is a symbol (of anarchy in the comic, of more vague liberty and revolution in the film) and not a person. Batman tries to be both.

2) Superheroes essentially work to uphold the status quo, whereas V works against it. Dark Knight Returns is a bit different in this respect, but there's still a big difference between Batman the right-wing revolutionary and V the leftist one.

Superheroes essentially work to uphold the status quo
If I was a rich man, or even marginally well-off, I would mail you a copy of The Superman Archives, where Supes, SUPES is a total revolutionary, waging class war (the miners story, most blatantly) and in complete opposition to the fuzz. I'm not sure where his cheating at football scheme falls, but overall, early Supes was big up on the proles and while not OVERTLY STEVEARLISH, definitely wasn't a Status Quo stooge.

I didn't like the movie, but I totally disagree with all but one Tuomas's reasons why - the exception being John Hurt getting at most one dimension to his character.

i largely agree with Tuomas on the film too. it did what i expected it to do, and i think a few minor touches improved the comic. it was a good fist of telling much of the same story. as many have mentioned the way they preserved the Valerie sequence is quite telling - it is the emotional heart of the story.

Time has yet to make this movie better in my head, but I still love Stephen Fry.

up until the post-torture scene seemed promisingly hard to get a bead on: thereafter you realised that every interesting idea it dabbed at would ONLY be dabbed at, then just forgotten

why does rea pronounce "lever" as if it rhymes with "ever" -- i know it does in some places but not in england?

couldn't afford to lose fry and i don't even like him on the whole

made me actually want to READ v for vendetta, which i didn't get on with at the time -- on a "can moore have handled this material as badly as the wachovskys, if not i shall revised my opinion of him upwards (a bit)" basis

how the fuck does everyone get to work if the underground has been shut down? i think the spraypainted logo for his revolt shd have been this:

http://img.epinions.com/images/opti/1a/fc/London_Underground-resized200.gif

not as bad as the matrix

and the rhyme goes:
remember remember the fifth of november gunpower treason and plot

but the film had:
remember remember the fifth of november THE gunpower treason and plot

which i have never heard anyone say and is less good (and important to get right if quoiting shakespeare etc is a mark of goodness)

(ie most obviously: "you're a monster" -- yes evey said this, and elsewhere she snarked abt how horrible it must have for mercedes to be married to the count of monte cristo, but the story did not in ANY way pursue it)

i'm glad its commentary on current politics was as vestigial as it was: it made it seem like they were saying less stupid things than they were probably trying for

Obv Rea would have objected to l-EVer, so it must have been imposed on him. i figure that the niggle of an unusual pronunciation would detract in a totally inappropriate way at that point in the emotional rhythm of things, and they went for the "correct" answer which is to annoy the least number of ppl. ie the americans. and yeah, that "THE gunpowder treason" stood out for me too.

one detail i loved in the film was the way they built up the character of the girl who says "bollocks" to the camera (u kno, with jam-jar glasses)

i'm also actually glad that the film didn't go into the whole philosophy of anarchy. WHAT A CHATTY FILM. Blimey, vvvvv (ha!) talky.

the alternative "resolution" i.e. the shenanigans with Tim Piggot-Smith and Hurt was not bad at all - the regime turning against itself works. though the knife porn was ugly, and it WAS pornogrpahic. Not showing V's assault would have worked equally well, but they thought we needed to see it, peckinpah blood and all. meh.

They did it a bit differently in the comic, but that's basically how it happened there too. Okay, it was Rose Almond who killed the Adam Susan (was it really necessary to change it to "Sutler"? we get it, he's Hitler, okay?!), but it was made clear Creed would've done it anyway. And then the remaining regime leaders basically destory each other.

I agree that the knife scene was totally unnecessary. For a Wachwoski Bros. film V contained surprisingly little violence, which made that scene appear all the more gratuitous.

hence the hugely expensive mail-out of (non-cheap) masks paid for HOW EXACTLY MR FREEDOM FIGHTER!?? it's like that father brown story where the murderer is a postman and no one spots him because no one sees postmen -- clerarly one of the evil effects of fascism is the closure of all competent CSI departments

*ok let's say interlopers

so in effect ALL the possible "types of bad guy" in several sharply different political/thriller plots are collapsed into one -- this is what looks as if it might be promising at first, but in the end you realise that the makers aren't being provocatively ambiguous in order to make you think a bit about the assumptions behind yr distinctions, they ACTUALLY DO THINK THIS!

which is rub

I had forgotten Adam's name change. It made me think of a Monty Python sketch where various ex-Nazis were in a hotel in Torquay or somewhere under the names Mr Bitler, Mr Bimmler and so on.

I mean, I'm saying really obvious things here, so I suspect I've just compeletely missed the point you were making.

the film is WAY too wordy

(i am being slightly jokey about this specific word -- hence re-jigging it as "interlopers" -- just bcz raycun said batman was anti-invader and v is the anti-batman ---> but i think the point generally stands, VfV requires its villains to be ALL of these difft. things... it does this by making SOME of them depraved and SOME of them puritans, yes, but basically this is cake-and-eat-it territory, not an interesting exploration of tensions within authoritarianism -- or even a serious exposure of hypocrisy)

(the bishop of england bit can TOTALLY FUCK OFF, it was awful even as a dave allen hommage) (haha also p43do priests = in "current politics" terms cf the church whose rule mr g.fawkes was hoping to RE-ESTABLISH, tho i can see why that diet o'wurms = not one they wanted opened much)

you don't need a policeman on every corner if you've got five snooping vans in every borough Eh? (as hitchens would say!)

surveillance on its own is meaningless -- you need enforcers! The "small number" meme is total bullshit: cf the membership of the baath or the stasi -- both worked by a kind of moral blackmail principle; you had to join in order to get jobs= you became complicit in the depraved official acts of yr fellwo party members = you would tend to work to support it bcz if it fell YOU will be in the gunsights even tho actually you yrself never tortured anyone or did anything more than ordinary plod-work...

another potentially interesting dimension dabbed at unexplored = interrelationship between anarchism as a project and the kneejerk celebration of crime (viz: the V-masked shop robber quoting the pistols while firing his gun into the ceiling)

the p3do priest thing is pretty unpleasant in the comic - this is pure Moore hatred of all establishment religion. the method of killing in the comic makes deliberate fun of the sacrement, which would be a deal breaker in getting any sympathy for the (anti) hero

(= this is why anarchism is silly) [/reactionary huffpuff]

so chuck is right -- this is a conservative film, it is a replay of the GLORIOUS REVOLUTION of 1688 (which among other things disenfranchised the catholics)

why oh why are the wachkowsky bros not better constitutional scholars and historians :(

what was the readership of Warrior? my guess 11-15 yr olds (i.e. slightly older than 2000 at the time)

haha another key allegorical lacuna: WHO HOOVERS V'S FLAT?

chuck as well as worrying who was going to get blown up by mistake, i did think -- briefly -- that they were going for an interesting twist where finch and evey realised v's vision by NOT pulling the um levver, and the masses would walk into parliament and be all "But where is the fireworks? We are here in parliament waiting for fireworks?? OH WAIT DO YOU SEE: WE ARE THE FIREWORKS!! but they had already budgeted for the model and the pyrotechnician

Revolutionary PogOism! THE EXPLOSION IS US

alan Otm. Whereas the film is basically just Deathwish for bunker libertarians.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I thought it was kinda unnecessary. In the comic the climax was the government falling down and people uprising in the streets, and the final explosion taking down Downing street was just of a side note to that (though it was at least made clear that that's where the Fascists' headquarters were).

(weird bit which really doesn't work: when evey kisses v on the mask)