Gran Torino

Gran Torino


I have to confess that it is getting harder and harder to write about Clint Eastwood films, at least the really good ones, probably because nobody seems to have told Clint Eastwood that auteur theory is pretty much dead these days. I say this because by now, I think it is evident what will be good about a film directed by Clint Eastwood when it escapes the pitfalls of some of his efforts. More often than not, you will get a story which considers the complexities of violence, mortality and the director’s own status as an icon of toughened masculinity. The film will be deliberate, artful and filled with pauses and spaces which offer as much or more than that which surrounds it. Often times, the character is more archetype than individual, standing as a spirit which propels and comments on the world it inherits. Not quite human, these men are often mythic emblems of singular forces within the greater human experience. Like many great films and filmmakers, the work defies the coarseness of the genre which spawned it.

With Gran Torino, it’s been mixed up a little. Walter (Clint Eastwood) is cut from the same hard leather of many characters, but this tough guy is fundamentally expressive. He finds it very easy to wander around and spout off his racist opinions about the Hmong family who live next door. There is no shortage of words. No enigma about his feelings about his transitional neighborhood, new immigrants or how his working class ethos fits into the city around him. Like other characters, he not hesitant to draw a gun and has done so many times in the past. He’s even killed a few folks. Most of which were Korean, a distinction which is mostly lost behind his generic racist one-liners and goad-getting.

It’s no real surprise that Walter gets closer to the family next door as the crisis around them deepens, (This is almost cliché’ material; “grumpy old racist discovers minority group isn’t so bad after all”, a “Driving Miss Daisy” for the guns, gears and girls set.) the suspense builds upon expectations of what could or should happen. A few scenes intentionally recall “Unforgiven” to reinforce this building shadow of potential violence. Will he turn his racist fury against a target he feels justified in destroying? Will he show Thao the final stage in being a “guy” is taking matters of force into your own hands? The audience is smart enough to know that he won’t turn his back on the family and he won’t die in the second reel, so what choice does that really leave Walter the character and Eastwood the director? In the sub-genre of Eastwood films, they’ve both become locked into a trajectory which is familiar and expected. This is an expectation which the filmmakers wisely subvert as they unveil Walter’s well-considered plan for retaliation against the gang which threatens Thao and his family.

While there is certainly much fodder for debate, discussion in criticism in this film which is more or less about an old white guy who helps a struggling minority group solve their own problems, this doesn’t strike me as being a weakness in the film as much as it is a weakness in the culture which produced it. If there are structural problems within the film, I’d point to the ease of the reversals and revelations which Walter discovers about his world. He hates Asians, but finds himself being a better father to Thao than his own sons. He hates god, church and all of it, but finds himself moving closer and closer to the deepest crux of Christian beliefs. Sure, this is character growth, but the rendering here feels too flat for a director who’s work has always reveled in the grey areas between moral choices. While some of this is a matter of script, in would certainly be within Eastwood’s capabilities as a director to add a little hint of uncertainty in the decisions which Walt makes.

A hint of doubt, perhaps.

The Picnic

Over the weekend I had a chance to have that "picnic" with the three characters I've been having the most problem fleshing out and getting to stand up on their own. Spent the most time with the antagonist, but I think I've got him and his motivations finally figured out in a systematic way, rather than vague notions of what drives him and what he really wants. This has been a problem for throughout the whole writing of the book, mostly because I've had a real hard time finding ways to make him stand out from the background of the system he is operating, in some ways the system had been the more important character than he was.

This, wasn't a fresh acquaintance, though. I think the biggest breakthroughs have come with two of the supporting characters and one of the main protagonists. I feel like I know them all as people now, rather than stand-ins or empty shells. This was surprising, really getting to know these men, and I feel like I've finally uncovered these spirits which have been hiding in the book all along. It's just shy of a eureka moment, really, to see what these folks have been trying to say to me. I say this, because the discovery of their personalities fits in perfectly with the world they are operating in and doesn't require any substantial story changes. I had them correct, I just didn't understand who they were in the first place, really. Sounds crazy, huh?

I've been creating a glossary so I can keep track of the tech, names, and slang which I've been using throughout the book. More for my own reference than something I'd intend to get into the final manuscript. It's been very helpful, though, sort of a cheat sheet for my short-term memory lapses and whatnot.

a thought

Hermann Goering was a man who wanted to be the only color in a grey world.

a muse

"a muse"

so many things

could happen she says smoke
plumes grey blue and silver
to night black

the shadows reach as empty blobs
cast of artificial light because
our moon is translucent
and gauzed


so many things

can't happen I inhale half the fire
she offers I will never see you
orange in morning light so soft
it smothers the breath of longing

can't happen I inhale half the fire
she offers I will never see you
rising pointed full as white sheets fall
from you moving, searing
to burn all the air from even my lungs

can't happen I inhale half the fire
she offers I will never see you
stepping over me flat-palmed
to knead my spine as
pleasure beads in a convent

can't happen I inhale half the fire
she offers I will never hear you
say promise me you will never
hate me for this passing love
again

so many things
happen

-TW

whitman

whitman

I rest in the shadows
of trees unseen
from the trail,

I curl in the embrace
of roots overgrown
with moss
fungus untrampled,

All my air is cool emerald
sunlight citrus across
ridged bark and
dripping sap
paean whistled through
knots.

-TW

volume.

volume.

things are lessened
exactly
by the space taken
by the blooming
roar
from a shiny
yet colorless
barrel

-TW

The Night Jeff Buckley Died, Part 2

The Night Jeff Buckley Died, Part 2


"I want you to listen to this."

She purred and cupped the
aluminum grey headphones
around my head
like a sonic life preserver
and threw
me into a cold river of reverb
and chilling echo
she called Jeff Buckley.

She slid her warm hand
under my sweatshirt even
as her eyes shifted from living jade
to steel blue. She listened
as I listened, moved her hands
across my heart
as I breathed in the
frosty notes

"Love is not a victory march."

She repeated
at the end of the song. Our embraced carried
along the rocking current of our bus.
for some silent time
as the batteries died.

I wonder what you
told the (talented) painter
to listen to as
you had a passionate collaboration
the drenched San Francisco night before
we got on the bus
together and floated
into our cold sea
of reverb and echo

Ten years later
I had to raise the memory.
Let the water pour out so it can
sit dry on the shore like a monument.
An epigraph reads
I listened.

Now I can remember

"You always were the clever one."

She repeated
at the end.

-TW

3. poems

I'm moving some of my poetry over from Facebook to here, so they're easier to find and it's probably a better spot until I get time to get the real website up and running. These are all second draft stuff, but I like them enough to throw them to the eternal winds of the interweb.