On Five Lines of Cicero

In discharge of my pedagogical duties I've been this week teaching a selection of Cicero's Catilinarian Orations. Given our Presidential Rhetoric series, as well as recent praise of Rand Paul's filibustering and the usual boilerplate about President Obama's rhetorical prowess, it seemed prudent to share some thoughts on a choice passage of Cicero. Not that we need any pretense to talk Cicero, of course.

Without further delay, Cicero against Catiline. Fasten your seat belts.

Though we are looking only at a section of the speech, it is clearly of the deliberative type. Cicero stands before the senators to:

1. Urge a course of action: the exile of Catiline. 
2. Demonstrate a concern over Rome's future.
3. Establish the expediency of punishing Catiline.

Given Catiline's crimes, though, this speech undoubtedly shares in the elements of a forensic speech with its invective and catalogues of Catiline's deeds.

Let's now look at a section, which I reproduce courtesy The Latin Library.

V. Quae cum ita sint, Catilina, perge, quo coepisti, egredere aliquando ex urbe; patent portae; proficiscere. Nimium diu te imperatorem tua illa Manliana castra desiderant. Educ tecum etiam omnes tuos, si minus, quam plurimos; purga urbem. Magno me metu liberabis, dum modo inter me atque te murus intersit. Nobiscum versari iam diutius non potes; non feram, non patiar, non sinam. 

The opening cum clause swiftly combines the previous thoughts and emphasizes one thing: that they happened. Cicero continues in apostrophe, addressing Catiline directly with a series of imperatives: perge, egredere, proficiscere, educ, purga. The effects are many. First, as a list, Cicero provides a catalogue of what Catiline intended to do. Second, Cicero is being ironic, suggesting that Catiline leave not to come back and challenge Rome, but as an exile. Third, the imperatives taunt Catiline, challenging him to do what he wanted to do. Fourth, Cicero mocks Catiline, emphasizing both Catiline's desire to do those things as well as his weakness and exposure. Lastly, the imperatives, as commands, emphasize Cicero's consular authority.

Note also the personification with castra desiderant: "The camp has been missing you, its general." Here Cicero at once 1) mocks Catiline, calling him "general," imperatorem, 2) reminds the audience of Catiline's martial intentions, 3) reminds the audience about the army which was at that very moment waiting to attack Rome, and 4) distances Catiline from the senators, as if Cicero said, "Go back to your camp, with your people, where you belong." This is masterful economy.

Cicero continues to taunt Catiline, telling him to leave and take his friends with him. Again, a few brilliant touches here.

First, si minus, quam plurimos, "if [you take] less than all [your allies], [take] as many as possible" suggests, correctly or not, that there are so many conspirators that Catiline might not be able to take everyone with him. Also, there is a pleasing parallelism and contrast of if less, then many. The omission of the verb, such as to lead, and the substantive tuos give this statement a curt, off-the-cuff ring, as if Cicero is so fed up he blurts out, "Go, fine if you can't take them all, but just go!" Second, purga carries the sense of empty as well as meaning of clean here, suggesting in departing Catiline will be cleansing the city, an image Cicero will pick up again later.

Cicero finishes this thought with a simple conditional, stating that if Catiline goes, he'll "free" (liberabis) Cicero from a great fear, as long as a wall, that is the wall around Rome, separates them. It's easy to overlook the effects of this simple statement.

First, Cicero is being ironic in using liberabis, as if the criminal Catiline could do anything such as free someone. Second, Cicero emphasizes his dominance by painting a scene in which Catiline has obeyed him. Third, he describes that Catiline was a danger with magno metu, but indirectly, connecting by metonymy Cicero's fear with Catiline's plans which caused the fear. Lastly, the invokation of Rome's walls reminds the audience of Rome's power and, again, the fact that Catiline belongs outside them.

Cicero concludes the section with a series of short, staccato phrases. Of devices we have alliteration and  anaphora with non, as wells as asyndeton with the final three verbs. versari, meaning to stay but also be situated among again drives home the point that Catiline does not belong. Also, the word order here and person of the verbs here are effective:

With us to stay longer you are not able; 

I will not bear it; I will not endure it; I will not allow it. 

Cicero places Catiline's inability, potes, right next to Cicero's own authority, non feram.

Too the shift from the previous imperatives, taunting Catiline, to the second person, "you will free" and "you are not able," mocking and diminish him, to Cicero's conclusions with "I, I, I" are pleasing contrast, climax, and a reminder of who is in charge.

Not bad for five sentences.

A Baffling TFA Critique

N.B. I have no love for TFA. This article is not a defense of anything.

It's a pity how an article so far above Slate's pay grade with respect to style can be so wholly appropriate to it with respect to reasoning. In fact, its jaundiced look at education may exceed Slate's characteristic myopic take on matters loosely important when it comes to bulldozing the way to a foregone conclusion.

I would make two observations of this journalistic and intellectual sham. First, the author's purpose is not to vindicate any pedagogical philosophy, no such philosophy is so much as hinted at, rather this article is a squeaky broadside against Teach For America (TFA.)

Second, the author doesn't care about the academic implications of TFA on students, indeed this is not discussed, only its self-declared apolitical position, its alleged anti-union ideology, and its alleged negative effects on non TFA teachers. Take respectively:

TFA exists for nothing if not for adjusting poor children to the regime otherwise known as the American meritocracy.

In contrast to such “success,” the TFA insurgency has failed to dent educational inequality. This comes as no surprise to anyone with the faintest grasp of the tight correlation between economic and educational inequality...

Rather, crushing teacher’s unions—the real meaning behind Kopp’s “flexibility” euphemism—has become the ultimate end of the education reform movement.

The more exclusive TFA becomes, the more ordinary regular teachers seem.

Nowhere are such bald assertions as the first two substantiated, and such claims are not minor: the author is alleging a first principle. Also, always beware someone who tells you the way things "really" are. Here we learn about what TFA is "really" doing and later we hear about "real" (read non-TFA teachers.) If Slate doesn't pick up Mr. Hartman for his writerly stylings then they should for his oracular clairvoyance.

The article is a skillful ploy, though.

Reformers believe that if teachers are subjected to “market forces,” such as merit pay and job insecurity, they will work harder to improve the education they provide for their students.

The need to incentivize the teaching profession is the most popular argument against teacher’s unions, since unions supposedly protect bad teachers.

First, you have to adore the quotes around market forces. If Mr. Hartman "really" (really really) thinks merit pay and job insecurity, the politicized pejorative bromides slapped on to reality by defenders of the academic status quo, are endemic to free markets, then he doesn't need the air quotes. Market forces are either real or they're not. Choose, O Delphic one.

Second, since unions only "supposedly" protect bad teachers, is the author alleging they don't? You have either to allege unions don't protect bad teachers or not claim that they help all teachers, the implication of his critique of TFA's allegedly anti-union purpose.

Continuing.

In contrast to such “success,” the TFA insurgency has failed to dent educational inequality. This comes as no surprise to anyone with the faintest grasp of the tight correlation between economic and educational inequality: TFA does nothing to address the former while spinning its wheels on the latter. In her writings, nowhere does Kopp reflect upon the patent ridiculousness of her expectation that loads of cash donated by corporations that exploit inequalities across the world—such as Union Carbide and Mobil, two of TFA’s earliest contributors will help her solve some of the gravest injustices endemic to American society.

So because the money comes from certain sources who allegedly exploit people, that money can't be used to achieve certain ends?

Let's look now at some of the descriptions of TFA from the article.

In Atlanta, a TFA hotbed, former superintendent and education reform darling Beverly Hall is implicated in a cheating scandal of unparalleled proportions, involving dozens of Atlanta principals and hundreds of teachers, including TFA corps members.

Rhee’s D.C. “miracle” has also been clouded by suspicion

has been called into question by investigative reports that suggest fraud.

A hotbed? Including TFA members? Clouded by suspicion? Called into question? Suggest fraud? These specious statements betoken a shysterish reporting I can't even draw an analogy to. It's shocking really.

Worse still:

Rhee is also disliked by a large percentage of black D.C. citizens, who voted out former Mayor Adrian Fenty in part because of his unqualified support for Rhee’s actions. This included firing four percent of district teachers, mostly black, and replacing them largely with TFA-style teachers, mostly white, whom one astute black Washingtonian labeled “cultural tourists.”

Lack of citations aside, what's being alleged here? Look at the facts described. DC citizens voted out Fenty, who supported Rhee because Rhee fired a quantity of teachers which was mostly black and replaced them with a body of teachers who were mostly white. So the author is implying that the people of D.C. might have ousted Fenty because Rhee might have. . . been racist? Where are we and can I get a taxi back to the education article?

Yet beyond the article's outrageous prejudices it is the lack of sound criticism which leaves it limp. There isn't a single attempt at arguing that TFA doesn't help children learn. That's the implication, but it's never said or argued. Clever, really. We hear about laws and society and testing and politics and elites and cheating and every topic imaginable ad nauseam except the most important. The closest we get is a vague criticism of the charter lotteries, which I guess is supposed to imply that TFA and charter schools are bad because they haven't yet educated the whole nation. Baffling.

The author concludes with this effusion of hyperbolic lachrymosity:

In working to perfect their approach to education, TFA insurgents miss the forest for the trees. They fail to ask big-picture questions. Will their pedagogy of surveillance make for a more humane society? Having spent their formative years in a classroom learning test-taking skills, will their students become good people? Will they know more history? Will they be more empathetic? Will they be better citizens? Will they be more inclined to challenge the meritocracy? Or, as its newest converts, will they be its most fervent disciples? What does it mean that for children born in the Bronx to go to college they must give up their childhoods, however bleak?

This is basically a string of accusations, although one line cuts to the quick.

Will they be more inclined to challenge the meritocracy? Or, as its newest converts, will they be its most fervent disciples?

This is an old school liberal who doesn't like the new liberal orthodoxy stealing his thunder and his following. He doesn't like the new elite of TFA and you can feel the envy when he reports how many Harvard and Yale graduates apply to TFA. The TFA teachers are "insurgents" from the old order. Old Marxists vs new Marxists. I tell you the old Leopard is long gone and now the jackals are turning on one another.

And here we thought this was about education.

Presidential Rhetoric IV: James Madison

Welcome to Part IV of our series on the rhetoric of American presidential inaugural addresses. Feel free to take a peek at the previous entries in the series:

1. Worthy of Marble?
2. John Adams
3. Thomas Jefferson

We continue with our present look at the rhetoric of James Madison's inaugural address, delivered Saturday, March 4, 1809. As with Adams and Jefferson, the Fourth President's education in and knowledge of the Classics is well known. Let us see what traces remain in his own writing.

–

UNWILLING to depart from examples of the most revered authority, I avail myself of the occasion now presented to express the profound impression made on me by the call of my country to the station to the duties of which I am about to pledge myself by the most solemn of sanctions. So distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate and tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous nation, would under any circumstances have commanded my gratitude and devotion, as well as filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be assumed. Under the various circumstances which give peculiar solemnity to the existing period, I feel that both the honor and the responsibility allotted to me are inexpressibly enhanced.

With "unwilling" Madison begins on a personal note of humility and continues in a participial/adjectival preface to speak of "revered authority," presenting himself as having inherited and as continuing a sacred tradition. This clause also delays his entry, further diminishing him and continuing the thread of humility. Madison pulls this thread farther, "avail"-ing himself of the inaugural's occasion, and to express what but the impact on him of the call to duty. Madison also continues the thread of holiness with "solemn of sanctions." We have grown accustomed to using sanction as a synonym for penalize , but the meaning here is clearly that of sanctifying, that is, sacred and authoritative approval. Sanction here has also a twofold force, the first denoting a divinely-observed oath. The second is set and picked up by the second sentence, praising the virtuous people. Thus with sanction Madison also expresses the  present election to the presidency, his, as the manifestation of a sacred and natural, that is, God-given, individual sovereignty of the people. Finishing this thought, in saying that his election has left a "distinguished mark of confidence," he expresses con-fidence in both divine law and the sovereignty of free, good men. Virtuous ought not be overlooked here.

Madison then contrasts the previous confidence with his own humility in the face of the "trust to be assumed." In the final introductory sentence he amplifies the aforementioned by ending with "inexpressibly enhanced." The rhythm here is quite clear: beginning each sentence with a prefatory/participial phrase and using the  main clause as the consequent. The themes are equally clear: he begins with humility, moves to confidence, returns to humility, and unites the two with the pair of "honor and responsibility," which he augments with the final words "inexpressibly enhanced." A unified, balanced, and climactic opening.

Take Fewer Pictures

This might seem an odd admonition. What could be so wrong with taking a simple picture?

First, consider what happens when someone takes a picture at, say, a party: the mood shifts from enjoying the present to imagining it as passed. To me it strikes a melancholy note when amidst feasting and merry-making someone whips out a camera. Memento mori.

Second and worse still, after I've squeezed out the obligatory smile for the camera, I start to wonder: am I in fact enjoying myself? Why am I here? What's with these people? With me? These are not the musings of a convivial guest.

Third, it reduces the occasion from an event undertaken for its own sake, whether taking in the sight of the Grand Canyon or celebrating a birthday, to an object, a picture, with a utilitarian end. You visit the Grand Canyon to appreciate the place firsthand and you celebrate a birthday because you care for a person. When you look at a picture, you're just trying to jog your memory to get one more emotional kick from the experience.

When thinking on this point I recall the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where the lunar explorers, having stumbled upon the monolith and ushered in a new epoch, stop to take a picture with it. What an appalling gesture.

Last, photography lets us dodge the necessity of describing and writing about our experiences. Stopping to reflect on life helps us appreciate it more than documenting it with a tool. How much more stunning is a sight after you've stopped to reflect on its changing hues, sweet a song after you've learned the harmony, and tasty a meal when you've described its delicate sweetness.

Now these observations can easily be taken ad absurdum. No moratorium is in order. I've been known to take a few photographs and I have many friends whose picture-taking makes me no never-mind, yet living and reflecting seem the better habits.

Skyfall: Ten Frames

Back in our November review of Skyfall we briefly discussed the film's cinematography, outstanding not only for a Bond film but any action picture. In fact we seldom see such attention to lighting, staging, and color-palette in any mainstream feature. Yet Skyfall always keeps it simple, never venturing into distracting techniques for the sake of novelty or variety. The lighting and camera work remain ever at the service of the story, making it more, not less effective, and explaining why three people standing around talking in Skyfall is more interesting than all 88 minutes of Die Hard 5.

click images to enlarge

–

1. In this sequence, Bond has tailed an assassin up a Shanghai tower and having caught up with him, must pass through several glass corridors to seize his quarry. We've seen this setup many times before, but during the day. At night, the flashing fluorescent lights of the scrolling billboards not only adds visual energy and tension to Bond's silent stalking, but also tweaks the action, allowing Bond to camouflage amidst the shadows. The lighting also forces us to question which is the reflection and just how far Bond is from his target.

The simple silhouettes of the second frame and contrast of color in the third are typical of Skyfall.

2. The effect of this shot is so clear that one misses the technique: the three characters, standing at three different depths, form a triangle which contrasts the three arches behind them, also at three different depths. The blocking and set complement and amplify the tension of the exchange, a technique we see throughout Skyfall.

3. This is a bravura sequence, regrettably exploited in the trailer, and exemplifies how Skyfall keeps Bond front and center.

4. Another shot to take for granted, notice how the opaque lamps function as a middle-ground and how their solid, intense color and placement parallel to the characters amplify the tension of the exchange between Bond and Severine. 

5. Simple simple simple. This shot is very much like the bravura ones above, only Bond is no longer dominant even though he's front and center. Here, the parallel lines of the windows and servers draw our attention to Bond's newly diminished scale. Still front and center, but weak: an effective subversion. 

6. This is probably the most clever and symbolic shot of Skyfall. Notice how there is one reflection of Silva for every other character, and one of them is reflected right onto Bond, brilliantly reflecting the dialogue of this scene and, in fact, the theme of the movie. 

7. Classic, just classic.

8. An old trick at work here, with the motion of Bond's shotgun, angled back, and M leaning forward, converging on the space, the tension, between them. This in fact contrasts the dialogue of the scene in which Bond forgives her. The shot also reflects their differing roles and personalities, Q thinking and Bond ready to fire.

9. This was a clever opportunity for contrast, the burning mansion shining orange through the ice and the frigid black water beneath. 

10. I like the contrast of this face-off with Bond's left hand in his pocket and M's left arm in a sling. Will there be a conflict between the supposed desk-jockey and the agent? And what's in between them, on the desk, but the mission.

The Architecture of Justice

This week I spent three days on jury service. It is of aesthetic crimes, however, that I wish to speak. The court sits a horrendous glass-and-steel monstrosity (lower right) next to its sibling, the Family Court, a horrendous concrete monstrosity (lower left.)

These buildings replace or expand their Neo-classical predecessors built 1914 (left) and 1934 (right).

Each design is typical of its time. The 1914 building is a mix of traditional elements, hearkening back ultimately to Greece and Rome. The 1934 building is stark and intimidating with an authoritarian overtone, although it ultimately nods to the past with its friezes, columns, and symmetries. The 1977 version is a $30,000,000 concrete slab, and the 2006 is just as ugly but carries the pretension of improvement. The design of this new building, unfinished but opened over-budget and over-time in 2007, however, comes with a philosophy. Architect Rafael Viñoly,

What interested me was transforming the public’s perception that the building represented an institution that was seen as closed and in need of protection from the community. The [new] building speaks to the participatory and the democratic nature of the judicial system and its fundamental and constructive mission in our society. [1]

One might append, "So I made it glass," which apparently fulfills the above criteria. Never mind that you cannot at all see inside from the ground floor, or into any court rooms at all. Never mind either any question of scale or form

I always find it interesting when you can't find a flattering angle of a building, when there's no place from which its shape and purpose feel unified and wholly expressed. My local church is like this. Two sides stand flat brick walls, one a vast pointed protrusion, and the fourth a series of stained glass panels, obscured by trees, oblique to the entrance, tiny doors beneath vast, brown, steel, rectangular columns. There is not a single point, and I have sought it, from which the exterior is intelligible. The Bronx County Hall of Justice shares this fate.

–

Above the jury room, whose design owes more to the "War Room" of Dr. Strangelove than the town halls of Franklin or Jefferson, sits, well, this (right). On the arc is inscribed,

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

My take was that the chairs represent the jurors and the lone figure is the judge pulling the trigger of the crossbow of society, aiming at justice. Apparently, the lone figure is the accused and thus I have no idea what he's standing on. Also, the little doohickey beneath the lone figure reads "state" and "country," although I have no idea how its shape and placement fit in.

So why are the jurors on the bow? Does that imply some of them are further away from justice? Why is the accused so far away from justice? Aren't the jurors technically in the way, then, or are they leading him to justice? And what about the judge? What does the quote even mean?

To my understanding, the statement implies activity, motion towards justice, but individual acts can only occur at a finite time so mustn't they occur at a finite place on the arc? The only alternative is that the acts move along an arc, but if you're moving along an arc wouldn't you eventually hit justice and then start moving away from it again? Unless you stop at justice? Then why does that have to be an arc? Why is the piece titled Equilibrium? Does that mean there is an average of justice? How can there be an equilibrium if things tend one way? I give up.

Lastly, though, why didn't the artist give the figure of the accused some arms? I understand that he didn't want to portray any specific individual or group or gender, but everyone has arms. I mean, I guess some people don't, but some people don't have legs either. Hey, if you were sitting in that room for 13 hours you'd start thinking a few odd thoughts too.

–

[1] http://www.lehman.edu/vpadvance/artgallery/arch/ideas/hall_of_justice.html

On "Resources"

Why does it seem to me that people so often scamper after "resources" to help them complete their work. Teachers want pre-fab tests, students completed notes, administrators pre-made forms, and so forth. Just this morning I perused a new listing of "resources" for use upon the resignation of Pope Benedict. Shouldn't the priest know the prayers, I thought, and the choir director the music? Isn't it their job?

Those who claim to be learning seem the worst perpetrators. These alleged students love summaries, outlines, notes, charts, diagrams, examples, and the like. What they don't realize is the work of making such materials is the work of thinking and learning, that is, what you might call for the student his job.

Teachers might be worse, actually. Why should there be any such thing as a "text book" at all. Isn't it the teacher's job to explain the material, not just present an explanation of it? Isn't it his job to come up with examples and evaluations? Similarly, if it is true that the making of such materials is the process of learning, shouldn't the teacher have already made such during his own education? Could Luke have skipped his training with Yoda or was the learning in the doing?

Yet to make any of these observations is to be accused of forcing professionals to reinvent the wheel. Such a rejoinder of course misses not only our point about the process of education, that there are no shortcuts and that knowledge must be cultivated, but one more important.

Using prepared materials can lead toward an accidental homogenization of thought. Where everyone uses the same materials because they are convenient everyone starts to do things the same way whether appropriate or desirable. This problem strikes me particularly pernicious to education where the result is intellectual and creative standardization. The student invariably becomes the material and even the teacher, a fact not wholly avoidable, or lamentable. I think of the eclectic college professors and preachers who influenced Jefferson and Coolidge, the countless composers Mozart met on his tours, and of course Luke and Yoda. The results of such sundry learning are regions, states, schools, programs, and people with eclectic characters, each a curious and created union of minds. In contrast, centralization of the materials of learning, teachers and books, is also centralization of the stuff of learning, ideas, and such a homogenizing process strikes me both stultifying and dulling.

The Important Things. . . According to Facebook

An informal ranking based on anecdotal evidence.

1. Pictures of animals
2. Pictures of food
3. Complaints about work
4. Shopping!
5. Complaints about the weather
6. Memes
7. Complaining about how stupid other people are
8. Videos and music
9. "Isn't ________ great?!
10. Political outrage!
11. "Going to the. . ." / "Just checked in at. . ."
12. Pictures of themselves
13. Pictures of random things they see
14. Sports updates and statistics
15. What they did today/plan to do tomorrow
16. Working out!
17. Quotes and polls
18. Oblique insults
19. Complaints about being sick
20. Complaints about being busy
21. Complaints about being bored
22. Motivational statements/Self-encouragement
23. Silly pictures
24. Celebrations of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, et cetera
25. Thoughtful, original commentary.

Sunday Afternoon Logic, Political Edition

There's a certain value in an unqualified, unreserved defense in that it leaves room for its opposite and thus also a dialectical synthesis.

Charles Krauthammer's recent defense of President Obama's drone campaign tests the credibility of this assumption. I don't intend to tackle this issue in toto, only Mr. Krauthammer's arguments here.

We have a problem right out of the gate. He begins by presenting two questions and two answers:

Q1: By what right does the president order the killing by drone of enemies abroad?
Q2: What criteria justify assassination?

A1: Imminent threat, under the doctrine of self-defense
A2: Affiliation with al-Qaida, under the laws of war.

To question his first answer: What is "the doctrine of self-defense?" That one can defend oneself? What about circumstances, proportionality, jurisdiction, legality, constitutionality, clearly-delineated delegated authority, accountability, incidental and accidental destruction, certainty of the facts, and so on? Is there no burden whatsoever on the individual defending himself?

To question his second: He states that

In World War II, we bombed German and Japanese barracks without hesitation.

What's the logic here? That WWII was legal and moral, therefore anything that was done to win it or during it or that helped win it was legal and moral? Or is his point that because there is alleged precedent, the present drone campaign is legal and moral? Or because, supposedly, no one complained then or complains now about what happened during WWII that no one should complain about the drone campaign? Could any of this be relevant?

His next premise is quite interesting:

Once you take up arms against the U.S., you become an enemy combatant, thereby forfeiting the privileges of citizenship and the protections of the Constitution

On being declared an enemy combatant, this may well be legally correct, but such does not mean it is either sound in principle or applicable without discretion. What's the difference between killing Americans and killing Americans? On losing the protections of the Constitution, such a premise is to say the least not self-evident. By what law other than the constitution can the Federal Government of America interact not only with Americans, but with any people? What other law is there for the government?

His next historical example is as curious as his first:

Lincoln steadfastly refused to recognize the Confederacy as a separate nation. The soldiers that his Union Army confronted at Antietam were American citizens (in rebellion)–killed without due process.

What does this observation establish other than the American national government can kill you if you want to secede, regardless of whether you want to be an enemy?

Krauthammer's last point is perhaps the baldest:

In war, the ultimate authority is always the commander in chief and those in the lawful chain of command to whom he has delegated such authority.

So in his estimation, this authority is absolute? I'm not rushing to this conclusion, it's not one I'd expect from anybody, but without any qualifications it seems the case. There's no distinction between leading and planning, executing and creating policy. The president really is, in the immortal words of former president George W. Bush, "the decider." Worse still, the example to justify the authority is Lyndon Johnson? And it's Krauthammer's critics who are on another planet?

To conclude, I'm not pretending that no one can answer any of my criticisms here, only that it's incredible to avoid them. One can make many arguments for and against Krauthammer's points and my own, but to pretend any of this is obvious or clear-cut is. . . not helpful. It's significant that Krauthammer concludes with the contrast between "the war on terror" and "law enforcement." Which important word, I ask, is present in the former phrase, and absent the latter?

Movie Review: A Good Day to Die Hard

Directed by John Moore. 2013.

It's hard to get your head around the idea of nothing. How do you hold in your mind the idea of a pure lacking, an utter and infinite void? Is there even such a thing in conception or space?

At long last we have the answer to these conundrums in the latest installment of the Die Hard franchise. This, dear readers, is no partial lacking but nothing. A Good Day to Die Hard is the absolute zero of movies. Let us count the nothing.

First, the script spends not a single moment or iota of effort on characterization. So devoid is this movie of any differentiation or development of the cast that one can but broadly refer to characters. There is no description of the characters by way of exposition or even cliche and we can't infer anything about them from what they do because all they do is shoot or get shot at. They don't joke or argue or explain or reveal themselves in any way, so there's nothing to lend context to what happens to them, and so we don't care when something does.

Falling right out of the gate, A Good Day to Die Hard fails to set up John McClane. He's not grizzled or fed up or scarred or driven or anything so specific. There are no references to his previous adventures and problems and he doesn't say or do anything in such a McLanesque way that we associate the man in front of us with the NYPD hero of the past. As a result of this lack, there's no interest or tension in his relationships either. That John's son has some vague problem with him is not tension. Distrust, indignation, fear. . . some emotion caused by an initial crisis and then recalled creates tension between characters. Centering Die Hard 5 around John and his son could have created a nice parallel with the first and fourth installments in which McClane rescued his wife and then his daughter, so they really dropped the ball here.

Second, the plot itself generates no tension. Obviously we're supposed to care that nuclear material might make its way into sinister hands, and first we do at an intellectual level, but there is no sense of urgency about the potential and indefinite point in the future when this material might make its way somewhere and be used somehow. We don't feel that something terrible is moments because the script presumes our fear instead of generating it by dialogue, activity, rhythm, and tone. Speaking of which. . .

Third, the pacing is way off. There is no sense of motion, no ebb and flow, and so there is no sense of departure and arrival, that is, purpose. A Good Day to Die Hard lacks the cues which tell us whether things are ramping up or calming down so we never have any expectations to be fulfilled or subverted. The movie's just one big smear.

Lastly, this movie has no tone. It doesn't have an inconsistent tone, mind you, but no tone. It's not light-hearted or serious, satirical or polemical, suspenseful or spectacular. As a result we don't feel that anything belongs or stands out, or that anything should or shouldn't happen. This lack of atmosphere robs from every element a sense of context, and thus impact. Similarly, just as the movie's parts don't fit together with respect to tone, neither do they exist in the same genre. You might think A Good Day to Die Hard  a buddy movie, but there's no interplay between the would-be buddies, and you might think it's a shoot-'em-up, but the shooting isn't centered around novel and compelling firefights, it's just guns going off. So its genre is action, aka, activity. Hooray for activity.

Still, A Good Day to Die Hard has two problems as a generic action flick.

First, the action scenes lack finesse, novelty, and variety, consisting mostly of Mercedes Benz crash test footage. The activity is coherent but so mundane and familiar that it quickly grows boring, especially the opening chase in which the Mercedes Benz van flees the Mercedes Benz truck which is pursued by the Mercedes Benz SUV. It turns out bashing cars on closed courses and blazing guns in concrete bunkers is not as exciting as watching John McClane shoot, punch, bomb, trap, and infuriate terrorists throughout the ducts, offices, elevator shafts, unfinished floors, and roof of Nakatomi Plaza.

Second, the action doesn't center around espionage or a heist or some political intrigue, but starts off as mission to rescue one guy, then shifts to a mission to rescue another, then to stop one guy, then another. Surely a movie may contain a variety of transitional goals, but without a sense of a broad, important purpose, surprises in slowly unraveling some mystery, or satisfaction in achieving transitional goals, the movie is just one thing after another. In contrast, the original Die Hard combined all three elements. There, John's main purpose was to stop the bad guys, the transitional goals were to get the police involved and take out the lower-level terrorists, and the mystery was what the bad guys wanted and planned to do. It doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to be something.

There's nothing–Hold on, I just remembered two things that happen in A Good Day to Die Hard: the bad guy eats a carrot and a Russian cabbie sings New York, New York. I stand corrected.