Medusa and Alita: some themes always return

It is remarkable how old themes reappear in modern movies. And, here, we have again the head of Medusa, that I had seen in Jarmusch's "The dead don't die". Here, we see her in the recent "Alita," Here is the face of an unnamed female cyborg killed by Alita in one of the first battle scene of the movie. Not a great movie, actually a very bad one, were it not for Alita herself -- truly outlandish. But look at how the head of the dead cyborg looks like ancient representation of Medusa!

Kill the Witch, Kill the Spy: Mata Hari and the Hollywood Universe

This is an interview with Maria Butina, alleged Russian spy, released after she spent 15 months in jail in the US. Her case is remarkably similar to that of Mata Hari, shot for espionage in 1917 in France, some one hundred years before. Fortunately, though, Maria Butina was not shot.

Sometimes, it is amazing how history repeats itself. It seems that whatever we do is always a repetition of an old story, that we live in a sort of Hollywood universe, where there exist a limited number of TV tropes, repeated over and over, always the same, just with a few changed details.

Think of Mata Hari: the evil spy. Yes, the one who caused the death of "perhaps 50,000 of our children" during the Great War, as one of her accusers said. How did she accomplish such a remarkable feat? Well, it seems that somehow she was able to understand the French war plans by gathering intelligence while staying in a hotel in the back of the front line. And that the Germans were killing French soldiers because they were told how to do that by an aging Dutch dancer who had styled herself as a Hindi priestess.

Madness? Sure, but she was not shot not because of something she had done, but because of what she was. A foreigner who had made the mistake of accepting the offer of the French secret services to embark on an improbable plan of spying on the Germans. Possibly, it was because she really thought she could help France. But, of course, it could never have worked and it never did. Rather, it put Mata Hari in a very dangerous position. A foreigner, a beautiful woman, and, avowedly, a prostitute, and she meddles with things larger than her. And when it is a question of finding a scapegoat, that kind of women make the perfect target.

Fast forward of a hundred years, and we have the case of Maria Butina. A good looking woman, although not a prostitute. Nevertheless, she went through an ordeal similar to that of Mata Hari, the target of accusations so improbable that you wonder how in the world anyone could even remotely take them seriously. Would you believe that the Russian secret services would gain anything by "planting" a spy in the US in the form of a student of international relations? What could they learn from him or her that could be even remotely important for the current confrontation?

Rather, Ms. Butina found herself in the wrong place, just as Mata Hari had: a foreigner who could be demonized at will. Ms. Butina had made her big mistake with enrolling in the US National Rifle Association (NRA). She believed that the right to bear arms was a good thing that should be adopted in Russia. She didn't realize the danger she was putting herself into. The NRA is notoriously among Trumps' supporters and by hitting Butina they were hitting the NRA and, indirectly, President Trump himself. Like Mata Hari, Butina was meddling with things much larger than herself.

So, we had another variation of the theme of the evil, foreigner female spy. Fortunately for Ms. Butina, she was not shot like Mata Hari, if times had been more difficult, it might have happened. And we keep living in a Hollywood universe where things that you believe are true become true. It is the infinite power of propaganda to create its own reality.

Beheading Women: From Cellini to ISIS

This is an image from Jim Jarmusch's recent movie "The Dead don't Die." A standard zombie movie, but well done and with some interesting quirks, one is the image above. When I saw it, my mind immediately went to Cellini's "Medusa," the piece of statuary still standing today in Florence after it was made in the mid-1500s. Maybe it is the source of inspiration for Jarmusch's scene.

Here we don't have a zombie hunter beheading an undead creature but the hero Perseus is doing something similar by beheading Medusa, supposed to be a female monster. I described Cellini's work in a previous post, but it was not Cellini who invented this theme. It is way more ancient than the Renaissance. It was common in antiquity.

Here is a fresco coming from a Roman villa showing a rather fat Perseus happy to have just beheaded the evil Medusa.

Just to show how common the theme was, here is a cameo, probably coming from early imperial Roman times, with another Perseus holding the head of Medusa in his hand. It is presently at the Getty museum.

And the theme is even more ancient than classic antiquity but, initially, it was more common to show just the head of Medusa or the act of beheading her, as in this relief said to have been made around 650 BCE

So, the idea of the hero triumphantly showing the severed head of a woman is relatively modern and it has something to do with what we call "civilization." It never was among the most popular themes of ancient art, but it surely had its space and a certain dignity that made it acceptable.

In relatively modern times, for instance, the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757- 1822) was probably inspired by Cellini when he reproposed the old theme, as you can see here:

About this piece, it must be said that Cellini remains an unequaled master and that Canova's interpretation of the scene is at best acceptable but has nothing of the inner power of Cellini's work. But so it goes: art is more often imitation than creation.

In our times, the idea that it is a heroic thing to behead a woman seems to have become unfashionable, fortunately. Surely, no one would propose a piece of statuary showing the severed head of a woman to stand in the central square of a city -- as we have in Florence with Cellini's Perseus. But the theme remains alive, it is just that the hero has been turned into the villain of horror movies and dark comics. Here is an example from the work of Johnny Craig.

And here is the same scene in "Scary Movie" (2000)

Many more images of this kind can be found on the Web, but the idea is not limited to fantasy. It is sometimes projected on people or groups whom we perceive as evil. Here is a photo that became viral on the Web.

It is said to depict an ISIS fighter who killed and beheaded a Kurdish female fighter. It is, most likely, a fake and the whole story is mostly fantasy. But it is curious how the theme recurs over and over. It is something deep in our collective mind, probably leading to nothing bad as long as it is fantasy, but in our times of fake news, the line between reality and fantasy is often blurred. And this is how we keep moving toward the future.

The Word for World is Forest

Every book by Ursula Le Guin is by definition the best book by Ursula Le Guin. And there is no book by Ursula Le Guin that's not the best book by Ursula Le Guin. But this one, "The Word for World is Forest" may be even better than that!

I read "The Word for World is Forest" maybe 30 years ago, but when I took it up again, every word in it was familiar to me, as I had dropped it in a drawer just one week before. Each word of it carried the rumble of thunder and the force of a hurricane, the same effect on me of a presentation by Anastassia Makarieva on the same subject, the forest.

Anastassia Makarieva is a scientist, Ursula Le Guin was a novelist. It doesn't matter. There is a thread, there is a narration, there is a story that pervades humankind's consciousness. I can't remember who said that trees are the pillars that hold the sky, but I am discovering it is true. Not single trees, the forest, it is the biotic pump, an incredible machine that works pumping water from the air above the oceans and distributes it for free to every living creature. The ultimate gift of life.

I can't understand how Ursula Le Guin could grasp these concepts by pure intuition nearly 50 years ago, but she did. Reread many years later, this book is a pure hit to the stomach. It leaves you breathless, but in a state of mind as if you wanted to be punched again and again, for the pure pleasure of the action, the movement, the sensation.

In 1972, something about this subject was already known and the destruction of the Vietnamese forests using the infamous "agent orange" reverberates all over the book. The basis of the story is the Vietnam war, retold in a science fiction setting, with the Aliens in the role of the Vietnamese and the Terrans of the Americans. The Terrans want to destroy the forest to turn it into plantations, the Aliens want to save it. In fact, it is the same story as that  of the "Avatar" movie, it is just that Cameron's debt to Ursula Le Guin is not acknowledged.

But the book is not just a political statement, it is much more than that. Read this passage ("Selver" is the alien leader of the story):

"Sometimes a god comes," Selver said. "He brings a new way to do a thing, or a new thing to be done. A new kind of singing, or a new kind of death. He brings this across the bridge between the dream-time and the world-time. When he has done this, it is done. You cannot take things that exist in the world and try to drive them back into the dream, to hold them inside the dream with walls and pretenses. That is insanity. What is, is.

The meaning of this passage may be evident to you, or you may need to mull it over for a while in your mind. But it is one of the deepest statements I've ever read on the predicament we find ourselves in. The beauty of it is that so much hope is embedded in these words: the world changes, ideas evolve, sometimes taking the form of Gods or god-like entities. It is in this way that the world is changed: when dreams become reality. And some dreams are truly beautiful and full of hope, like this one by Anastassia Makarieva

You see, there is a succession process for forest recovery. We first have shrub grasses after some disturbance like fire, then it takes time for that to be replaced by trees. So if we are lucky our grand grandchildren will be walking in such forest, so this dimension should also be stressed. We are working for the future we are not just securing for ourselves some two dozens years of better comfort. Rather, we send a message through centuries such that people will remember us and walking into this forest along the brookes and rivers they will remember us with gratitude for our consciousness and dedication. (Anastassia Makarieva  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ1UtHRBcG4 - min 30:05))

The Blood of the Whale

When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. (Herman Melville, Moby Dick)

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The soldiers therefore came; and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him. But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it, hath given testimony, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe (John 19:32-35, Douay-Rheims translation).

If He was Fire, then she Must be Wood.

Carola Rackete, captain of the ship "Sea Watch," arrested last Saturday in Italy when she docked her ship after spending two weeks in international waters with dozens of rescued African migrants on-board.

Now the flames they followed joan of arc
As she came riding through the dark;
No moon to keep her armour bright,
No man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
A wedding dress or something white
To wear upon my swollen appetite.

Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
You know I've watched you riding every day
And something in me yearns to win
Such a cold and lonesome heroine.
And who are you? she sternly spoke
To the one beneath the smoke.
Why, I'm fire, he replied,
And I love your solitude, I love your pride.

Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,
Saying this she climbed inside
To be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of joan of arc,
And high above the wedding guests
He hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

It was deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of joan of arc,
And then she clearly understood
If he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

Song by Leonard Cohen

History as Told in Novelspace: Roger de Flor and the Waning of the Middle Ages

For a while, our society has expressed itself in the form of novels. Once, it was the time of sagas, then of poetry, then of novels -- maybe as the result of the invention of printing that made bards not necessary anymore. Novels, today, are probably as obsolete as epic poems, but they are still part of our heritage and give us a window of the world, one of those dim mirrors that Saul of Tarsus describes. And, in the exploration of reality through the novel mirror, you discover all sorts of reflections.

So, I happen to meet a lady at a book fair. Her name is Elide Ceragioli and she writes novels. She wrote several of them and I already commented on her novel on Hildegard von Bingen. And I bought also her book, The Hawk and the Falcon, and I set for myself the task of reading the story of Roger de Flor, or Ruggero da Fiore, or Roger von Blum, 13th-century adventurer. And that set me on a journey that went well beyond this novel.

As Walt Whitman said, in a book there is a man. A man is a story, and that's true for Roger de Flor, whose life comes out of the novel with a certain strength, but also clouded in a world that, for us, is more remote than a Martian civilization could be. Ceragioli makes an interesting effort to penetrate the mind and the story of this man, a nearly impossible task in which she succeeds, at least in part. She doesn't make the mistakes that Poul Anderson makes with his novel, "Rogue Sword," set in the same age and places as Ceragioli's one. The main mistake that Anderson makes is to make his protagonist think like a 20th-century person. Ceragioli's effort does much better and the way she tells the story of the fall of Acre is simply memorable.

But the novel is long and it is about the life and death of Roger de Flor. What do we, 21st-century characters of a novel that someone may be writing, understand of this particular mirror? Something and nothing. Ceragioli's story is rich of events, the details many, but the great movement of people, ships, storms, wars, and battles of the novel remains somewhat 2-dimensional. We see things happening, but we need to know more, to understand more, to make the painting 3-dimensional, to see it from every side.

So, I had to read more on those times. Ceragioli's novel led me to re-read the chronicles of the Catalan company by Ramon Muntaner, "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco, and several more books dealing with the calamitous 13th century. In a sense, the pinnacle of the Middle Ages, the moment of maximum expansion of a world that had emerged from the cinders of the Western Roman Empire

You can understand this age if you see it as a great wave coming from the West and crashing on the Oriental beaches. It is a wave of people in search of power and riches, crusaders, adventurers, soldiers of venture. It had all started in the West, even before the dawn of the 12th century, with the first crusade. Like an adventure novel, it was a romp in the sand and a city taken as you pick an apple from a tree. Then, things had started getting tough and the West had started destroying itself with the crusade against the Albigensian and the massacre of the Cathars, one century later. And, almost in contemporary, there was the 4th crusade, the one that turned Greece into a wasteland, the one that destroyed the Byzantine Empire.

You can't understand Baudolino, nor Roger de Flor, nor Ramon Muntaner if you don't understand how the West had turned into a hungry beast that was devouring itself. When the Catalan fighters invaded Greece at their battle cry of Desperta Ferro! (awake, iron!) they were advancing into a vacuum, into a desert. There was nothing left of the once mighty Byzantine Empire. That explains how Ramon Muntaner describes the advance of the Catalans as nothing but a series of victories, one after the other, against feeble attempts by the Byzantines to hold their ground.

The beast that was Europe finished devouring itself with the Black Plague of the mid 14th century that killed maybe 30% of the population, maybe even more than that. An age was over, the age of the crusades. And, with it, there went the Templars, Roger de Flor had been one, the attempt of turning Europe into a unified transnational force -- they were both a bank and an army, not unlike our dying European Union (not even an army, though). The Templars were destroyed by the embryonic nation states that Europe was turned into -- dark and bloodthirsty beasts that went through their parable with the great witch hunts of the 16th century, and then forged in blood in the 30 years war in the 17th. Events almost forgotten today, but they ushered our age.

And so, who was Roger de Flor? A long lost shadow left to us nothing written but that somehow incarnated briefly in the mind of a 21st-century Italian woman who attempted to cross the barrier of the centuries. She partly succeeded, in part failed, in the great cycles of the universe, everything goes, everything returns, and the heavens declare the glory of the Lord.