Harlan Ellison's Watching (36 page)

Inconsistency: "If these evil gremlins get to water, they'll multiply forever. We have to keep them from water." This film takes place at Christmastime. There is snow everywhere. Last time I checked, snow was mostly made of water.

Rasa, tabula, one each.

Or should we simply point out, and accept wearily, the reality that this film is nothing but a cynical marketing device for Gizmo and Stripe dolls,
Gremlin
lunch buckets,
mogwai
pajamas, premiums, doodads, million-buck marketables?

It has been pointed out to me that I may not, at risk of bearing false witness, lay the onus of moral bankruptcy re
Gremlins
at Steven Spielberg's gate. This, I have been reminded, and scenarist Chris Columbus assured me in a recent telecon that it is so, is a film directed by Joe Dante, that Spielberg was off on location with
Temple of Doom
when
Gremlins
was in production. In all fairness, yes, this is Dante's work and is filled with the kind of violence Dante delivered in
Hollywood Boulevard, Piranha
, and
The Howling
. And it emanates from an original screenplay by Columbus (who wrote
Reckless
). But Columbus also told me that he went through several drafts of the script, over a period of months, with Spielberg himself, before he was given Dante as collaborator on another few passes.

All this taken into consideration, true or false, each contributor's part in the action increased or softpedaled for whatever reasons of politics (perhaps in fear of a repeat of the
Poltergeist
fiasco, in which Spielberg was rumored to have done the direction while Tobe Hooper stood around the set with his thumb in his mouth, a rumor that time has proved to be utterly false and destructive to Hooper's reputation), it is Spielberg's bio that leads off the press kit furnished by Warner Bros. It is Spielberg's name above the title in the TV
Guide
two-page advertisement. It is Spielberg's name that sold this film to ten-year-olds and their parents.

And in the same way that the mindless think Walt Disney wrote
Bambi
and
Pinocchio
, never having heard of Felix Salten or Carlo Collodi; in the same way that they think Rod Serling wrote every segment of
The Twilight Zone
; and in the same way that no amount of setting the record straight (with a knowing wink and an elbow nudge) will convince most people that Tobe Hooper, not Spielberg, directed
Poltergeist
; in that same way, and with equal responsibility, this is a Spielberg film bearing the freight of his cinematic vision and execution.

Perhaps I do sin against the innocent when I suggest that this movie fits neatly into the Spielberg canon because it lies under the shadow of his Gray Eminence throughout . . . but it's a belief I cannot, try as I might, shake from my considerations when appraising
Gremlins
.

And I suspect the free ride is over for Spielberg in terms of uncritical adoration. For
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
lets loose the Worms of Evil with its brutalization of children as a device to shock, and that's the first true glimpse of the darker side of the force that motivates the Lucas-Spielberg films—though it's there, subtly, in most of their movies, one way or another—and
Gremlins
fully opens that Pandora's Box: it combines, at last, the softest, most empty-headed, meretricious and dangerous elements of the entire Lucas-Spielberg genre.

And whether you call it Bedford Falls or Kingston Falls,
Gremlins
savages to evil effect a world that need not have been trashed so callously.

Steven Spielberg has more power, more freedom, more top of the mountain access to the best the industry has to offer, than anyone in the history of moviemaking. He has talent coming out of his ears. And I do not think the unquestioning adoration that has been visited on him is repaid by the sort of films he now seems inclined to make. It is presumptuous for me, or anyone, to tell an artist what to create; but it is the responsibility of the audience to alert a force as potent as Spielberg to the possibility that too much isolation, and too many yes-men, and too much money, and too much cynicism can turn the sweetest apple rotten to the core.

We have all taken bites from that apple. And what is worse than finding a Worm of Evil in the apple is finding
half
a Worm.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
/ February 1985

By this time we will have come clean with each other. We will have ceased trying to flummox one another. You will reluctantly admit that these are not actually "reviews" of films, because The Noble Fermans assemble the goods three months before the magazine is published; and that means that even if I review
2010, Supergirl, The River, Dune
, and
Paris, Texas
(all five of which I'll see next week, 12–18 November) immediately, those films will have opened and, in some cases, vanished before you get the dubious benefit of my appraisals. So insofar as being a theater guide to what you should lay out money to see, this column is academic. You'll have guessed well or badly on your own; you'll have been conned by advertising; or you'll have been warned off by word-of-mouth or by Roger Ebert. And for
my
part, I will admit that these are not "reviews" in the way, say, Ayjay's book columns serve you, because the books are still out there three months after pub date; but the films may only be accessible in a second-run house.

By reviewing what is coming out as far in advance of their national premieres as I can, I cut down the time-lag; and in some instances
—Repo Man
and
Gremlins
are the most recent examples—I can abet your own desires by talking up the former, which got a second pass at distribution, or by warning you off the latter, which hung around like a bad case of stomach flu for the entire summer, at least till they'd moved a million of those vile gremlin soft toys off the shelves.

But what is truly being done in these columns is what I like to think of as essays in the realm of film criticism. The discussion of trends, subtexts, effects on the art form and on the commonweal, I suppose in an attempt to broaden your appreciation of film as worthy art. Thus, when I read Gahan Wilson's column in
The Twilight Zone
magazine, and Gahan quite properly wails in pain at the glut of films he has endeavored to see, in order to review, during the summer avalanche, and he professes to going blind and insensitive after seven days of two screenings a day, I sympathize without reservation. And finally, as it must to all men, overload comes to Charles Foster Ellison; and I simply admit that I cannot see everything available in this genre in your behalf; and also admit that it may not be a race worth the candle to
attempt
to see them all, if the best I can do is a mere squib relating basic storyline topped with a smartass one-punch evaluation.

So you get no thoughts from me on
The Last Starfighter, Sheena, Mutant, Red Dawn, Dreamscape, Conan the Destroyer, The Philadelphia Experiment, Night of the Comet
and
The NeverEnding Story
. By the time those films got to the screening windows, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. (Understand: I am a movie freak, and in order that I don't overload on sf/fantasy films, I see a great many mainstream films, as well. And I must confess that in a world where I can enjoy
Garbo Talks, Amadeus, A Soldier's Story, The River
and
Beverly Hills Cop
, I choose not to pollute my precious bodily fluids with
Sheena
and
Conan
and films notable only by the number of teenage female breasts available for leering at by microcephalic schoolboys.)

Eschewing semiotics and structuralism, techniques better left to the functionaries who rapturously give us shot-by-shot analyses with a meticulous examination of the firing of cinematic codes operative within a given segment, rife in journals such as
Camera Obscura
and
Wide Angle
, I try to look not only at the primary entertainment, storytelling qualities of films, but attempt to consider them as reflections of cultural phenomena.

Movies have always been slow to pick up on new trends and societal predispositions—breakdancing flicks tumbled onto the cineplex screens two years after the fad was hot—but by the time they hit your neighborhood they resonate to attitudes already concretized among the general population. Years after the effects of feminism had manifested themselves in a widespread confusion by men as to how they should now react, publicly and privately, movies reflected their quandary with films of deliberately cultivated sadism and violence toward females. Foreshadowing the unexpected support of Reagan by voters in the heretofore liberal 18-to-35-year-old demographic, such films as the despicable
Risky Business
come late to an observation that this target audience doesn't give much of a damn about the starving children of Ethiopia . . . they want a sinecure at Dow Chemical, complete with a comprehensive retirement plan. After-the-bomb movies are big right now; and only thirty or so years after the initial fears of nuclear holocaust began to dampen our national spirit.

No film is ever made in a vacuum. It is a murky shadow in the cultural mirror. And thus I am glad we no longer lie to each other that what
you
want is a rating system for what you'll see this weekend, something slight and dopey; that what
I'm
offering here is an exhaustive series of comments on trivial cinematic exploitation exercises.

Yet synchronistically, my concern this outing is in precisely that quarter: the excuse currently proffered by many filmmakers that we should not judge their product too harshly because it
is
trivial. Don't take it seriously, we are told, it's only a movie. Excuse as explanation: they want their cake, and they want to eat it, too.

As the subjects of this month's sermon, I selected
Streets of Fire
and
Cloak and Dagger
(Universal) and
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(Paramount). All share a less-than-salutary press, and all share a common apologia. Which is: "This isn't real-life, folks, it's just a cartoon. So you can't legitimately lynch us for Sins Against Art that serious films may commit."

First example:
Indiana Jones and the Etcetera of Ditto
. There will no doubt be those benighted few who will find fault with this film because it seems to be nothing more than a show-off congeries of tricks, stunts and gags we have learned were, for the most part, left over from
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. These same viewers with disdain will also, no doubt, chastise Steven Spielberg for a certain, how shall we put it delicately, McMartin Pre-School attitude toward children.

They will say that the character of Willie Scott (played by Kate Capshaw), the Shanghai songstress unwillingly dragged into Dr. Jones's latest bloodletting escapade, is demeaning to women because through most of the film she runs around in ever-decreasing circles screaming in terror. They will say that the laws of rationality, not to mention those of gravity and physics, are defied by a three-foot-high Chinese kid dropkicking fanatical, highly-trained, six-foot-four
thuggees
, and by a mineshaft tram as it leaps its tracks, soars through empty space and lands nicely on rails beyond the abyss. They will say that the depiction of Third World peoples is racist because they spend most of their time quaking in fear or slavering with deranged evil. They will say there is too much gore because people are shot in the forehead, run through with sabers and the occasional kris, ground under rock-pulverizing wheels, burned alive, have their hearts torn still beating from their bodies, are gnawed to shreds by crocodiles, get smashed against rock walls, blow up in car crashes and otherwise meet their demise through means both mundane and innovative, as with one Wily Oriental Gentleman who gets skewered with a rack of shish-kebob.

Those who object on these grounds, well, let's just say their bread ain't completely toasted.

They have lost touch with reality.

Which is not to say that
Indiana Jones and the Thingie of Whatsit
has so much as an elephant's fart to do with reality.

Now I happen to like this film, but then I also like liver and onions and abominate sushi, so what does that say about me? I accept with a childlike willingness the suspension of my disbelief, in order that I may more perfectly resonate in contiguity with the intelligence that conceived this adventure: the mind of a thirteen-year-old boy commando, tipsy with dreams conjured by Sir Walter Scott, H. Rider Haggard, Richard Halliburton, Lester Dent, Walter Gibson, Edmond Hamilton and Frank Buck. Lest you doubt my sincerity in this giving-over of myself to this metempirical state, let me reassure you by asserting that I
do
understand why it is that a piece of buttered bread always falls to the floor buttered-side-down. By the same token, and using the same rudimentary knowledge of gravity, I understand that when Indy, Short Round and Willie fall out of that tri-motor in a rubber life raft, they should by all rights turn upside down. (Which would have added a dimension to the fall that would have made the stunt even
more
exciting, because the raft would have served as a kind of parachute, and they would have been hanging from the life raft's perimeter rope as they dropped toward the Mayapore foothills.) But that's an exercise in logic, the introduction of reality; clearly an inadvisable undertaking, as it would jangle against the impossible view of the received universe that informs such films.)