10/10Michelle St. John & Gene Tagaban - Goodbye Mouse 49Michelle St. John & Jennifer Elizabeth Kreisberg - OsinilshatinBoth songs - http://tinyurl.com/3b576ruWatched last month but can't put all thoughts into an organized coherent messages, so, notes, quotes, because I want to move on from this business of fancydancing, it's too personal for me personally, fathers and sins and inability to forgive and irrevocably stripping oneself of one's heritage and ancestry and self-hatred all mixed up, loss of father and loss of identity and living a life one does not want to live. So, again, notes, quotes, in the hope that people who rated this less than 10 will come to the board and discover what Sherman Alexie created, I don't even think Alexie realizes what he created because his film career doesn't exist - In his poems, Sherman Alexie alludes to the Fancydance, or Shawl Dance (a dance of mourning), as being a recent and flashy invention, a dance designed to generate larger tourist audiences, and thus a sell-out dance. Seymour, a sell-out, but not really a sell-out, an irreversibly hurt boy who cannot live his life on the reservation because that life chained him down with things he did not want to be chained down with, he needed freedom, but in his freedom he allowed himself to be sold in order to survive. Selling-out for self-preservation. The movements of the dance emulate a woman mourning (for her husband lost in battle), she covers herself in shawl to symbolize taking refuge. Seymour does the opposite - he sheds his identity and walks away from his heritage for good. Plus a woman's dance, Seymour dancing transgresses traditional gender roles, heavy commentary about something I know little about but enough to know the commentary was heavy - homosexuality and its persecution thereof in Native American culture. Seymour an avatar for the Alexie himself.Seymour advancing on the bust of Chief Seattle in a public square, then kissing the bust's lips: Chief Seattle considered by Natives to be a sell-out to white power.Poem recited by Seymour to lover Steven - O, let me sing to the JesusOf strong shoulders and thin hips.Let me sing to the JesusOf brown skin and full lips.If G-d created Jesus in G-d's image,Then let Jesus be the bodiesOf a brown man and a white man entwined,Let Jesus be a three-in-the-morning joyful cry.O, L-rd, there's nothing so whiteAs the white boy an Indian boy loves.Seymour - There's this place I go to. . . . It's dark there, like inside a machine or in the belly of a whale, and all my dreams are there, and my memories, and my lies, and they all get mixed up, and spin spin spin. That's when the poems happen.Father poem, recited by Steven as Seymour primps himself in the mirror - I want my father to be your fatherI want my father's sins to be all sinsBy my proxy I want you to forgive my fatherFor I cannot forgive him in solitudePlease crowd my fatherInterrogate(?) him for days about sins and salvationFor him to list his sins by asperityIf you can forgive, perhaps I can forgive my fatherBecause father's sins, children must forgiveInterrogate(?) might be abrogate, hard to tell, intentional? Hammer father with guilt (interrogation) versus relieve father of guilt (abrogation)? Intentional slurring of word?Shakespeare, Hamlet, Hamlet interpolated throughout, interpenetrating the film - cultural colonialism? Hamlet the White European versus Seymour the Native American. Caliban articulates indigenous grievances against oppositional colonial power, Seymour deployed against? Hamlet/Shakespeare to articulate Native American literary consciousness but Seymour has more in common with Hamlet than their differences. Colour of skin only difference. I don't think Sherman Alexie is using Shakespeare as a weapon against Native American self-articulation or identity or sovereignty. Invoking Shakespeare is an act of war. Difference between "smart" and "ignoramus". Invoking Shakespeare in the film's sense is to invoke the enemy's language. The language of the White European Colonialist Anglophone invoked and reinterpreted/reinvented by the Colonialized, the Victim. I read and re-read the subtitles three times and counted at least 35 lines mined from Hamlet. Plot and themes and concrete dialogue, not a coincidence. Shakespeare the enemy, White Teachers, White Man, the oppressor's language engaged by the oppressed and transformed (thus breaking through colonial structures) by the oppressed into new language, new literature, new meanings. Hamlet/Shakespeare and Seymour/NativeAmerican, parallel yet distant and distinct worlds, both seemingly difficult to penetrate. Mouse's death, Seymour returns to reservation. Hamlet's The Mousetrap (play within play), to catch the conscience of the king. Hamlet alters a play entitled "The Murder of Gonzago" for his purposes, making sure the play mirrors Claudius' fratricide. Renames play The Mousetrap. A play staging the murder of his father. And he revises the play-within-the-play to create a new play in the middle of a play that is not only Hamlet-centric, but is also called Hamlet. The main character, a creation of X, also a victim of X, limited to X's designs, yet main character "takes control" and using the "weapon" of a play re-writes a play right back and retitles it to boot. Like Sherman Alexie taking control of Shakespeare/Whites to write something that gets even with Shakespeare/Whites. Play within a play, and in the film, viewers watching a poetry audience watching a poetry reading. Poems are open and free but the content traps our conscience and the audience-in-the-film's conscience, and Seymour's, too. And kills our consciences.Opening of Hamlet, dead serious about the gravity of the situation, opening of Fancydancing, jokes are cracked about gravity of situation (two going to college but one staying back to waste himself to death and the other two know he's going to waste himself to death).Mouse - "O L-rd remember. O do remember me"--It's all lies, Ari. Those are my kittens. He took my life, man. All My Relations, it says. All my relations. It's all lies, man. . . . It's like I'm not even alive. It's like I'm dead." The Ghost Hamlet's Father to Hamlet, "Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me" (Act 1, Scene 5, Line 91).Seymour - Hamlet - fear of looking into the mirror and seeing Claudius, himself, murderer of his father, of his traditions, of his culture, etc. Some sources say Shakespeare played the Ghost in play's original London production. Mouse, Seymour's Ghost.Did Seymour metaphorically murder Mouse? Mouse is Father Hamlet (Hamlet Sr.) but also Polonious because Seymour paradoxically intentionally and unintentionally "kills" Mouse just as Hamlet paradoxically intentionally and unintentionally killed Polonius. Alexie's Hamlet reconstructions do not produce pure equations of one character standing in for another. Did Mouse and Mouse's ghost coauthor Seymour's poetry? Oxfordians and Stratfordians? Should Seymour even be held accountable for Mouse's death? What right do we have to place that burden on his shoulders? What right do Native Americans have in placing their failures or inability to progress on the shoulders of their respective Seymours?Shakespeare complicated Oedipus's acts of killing his father and sleeping with his mother by creating a situation where Hamlet's uncle Claudius had already performed both acts, thus summoning Hamlet home for the funeral. Horatio survives the journey from the first to the final act, all principal characters murdered (well, Stoppard saved Roz and Guil.......), Hamlet dead at end. Alexie gives us the dead character at the beginning and the entire tribe survive. The whole tribe survives, shattering the expectation of tragic Native America story and tragic (and bloody) Shakespearean ending. Centuries of massacres of Native Americans and a bloodbath of Hamlet, yet except for Mouse, Seymour and Agnes sand the rest of the reservation survive. Hamlet was at college and returned to castle. Hamlet was out in the free world, enjoying the arts and theatre and music (he has a love for this things, he references these things with passion, it's in the text of play), perhaps full of the ego and pride and lust that attends individual, communal freedom. Much like Seymour living freely in Seattle, attending college and commencing with his literary career and sexual trials. Hamlet returns home to medieval rigid enclosed world. He must fall in line to authority. Returns home for father's funeral. Seymour returns home for friend Mouse's funeral, Mouse definitely a father-figure/wisdom-figure for him that he smashes and destroys because the truth hurts. Seymour and Hamlet, both victimized, confused, internally split, buffeted from all sides, both trapped by power structures that have obliterated their identities, both men contemplating a course of action that will almost certainly result in their respective deaths. Hamlet, dead for real, Seymour, death of his soul. Perhaps Sherman Alexie going for the Passion of the Messiah theme, another White Colonialist theme, pervasive in western philosophy and literature and the arts and culture, making Seymour the Jesus figure. Agnes Roth (Michelle St. Johns) reads from Jewish Kaddish after burning tobacco near Mouse's corpse, and reads in Hebrew. Agnes, like Sherman Alexie, bicultural. And like Seymour, Seymour also bicultural in terms of trying to be a white man in a white world but also trying to be a Native American in a white world. Agnes is like Horatio. Great affection for Seymour/Hamlet. And serious like Horatio.The interview sequences - Seymour talking to his conscience. Hamlet said "conscience does make cowards of us all" (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 83), Seymour the coward. Seymour overly egotistical because he's a coward. He says to the interviewer, "Sometimes I think that nothing is real until I write it first, that no idea, whether good or bad, has ever really been thought of until I think it." An egocentic riff on Hamlet's words to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Act 2, Scene 2, Line 249-250, "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so". Oh yes, yes yes, Interviewer = Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, what is the matter with the matter, gleaning the matter/source of Seymour's poems and gleaning the sourcematter of Hamlet's "lunacy" (Hamlet not insane! And did not lack action and was not indecisive! His action was to catch the conscience of the King and Mother in order to force them to face themselves and their disgusting behaviour, to be accountable, to force the guilt to flood them, THAT is Justice). Where am I?Giving Blood poem, a Mouse Trap scene. Seymour refuses to "give blood" to Mouse [repentance]. Recitation of poem scene. In Hamlet, The Ghost speaks and Hamlet replies. In Fancydancing, Mouse attempt to speak with Seymour but Seymour does not reply, refuses to give blood. Mouse wants closure and Seymour refuses to stop reading to his audience. Seymour reacts to Mouse's presence, voice quivers, Seymour however refuses to interrupt his fancydancing reading to engage the Ghost of Mouse. The moment occurs as Seymur is reading the linesyou have to clearour extensive screening process which involves a physicalexaminationand interviewwhich is a pain in the a-- but I need the money so I sit downGet it, Mouse has to clear the in-between phase (not purgatory, extensive screening = chat with G-d, meet your maker, Seymour his maker because Seymour killed him, made him dead?) for his soul to rest in peace but Seymour holds Mouse back, and reversely, Seymour must clear the in-between phase (meet his maker, Mouse his maker.......) in order to LIVE in peace. Seymour is so occupied with the words, words, words of his tragically ironic poem that he does not attempt to speak with the "real ghost" of the childhood friend-father-figure whose stories he has stolen. Seymour's conscience has been caught by his own performance. His own words capture his conscience. The literal content of the poem contradicted by the fact the Seymour later drives himself home in a nice European car. Scene is also reminiscent of Macbeth - Seymour - Macbeth - Banquo's bloody ghastly mangled form at banquet, Mouses's ghostly presence at poetry-reading. Seymour's poem, last two verses - I'm sorry Mr.Crazy Horse but we've already taken too much ofyour blood and you won't be eligible to donatefor another generation or two.Seymour rejecting Mouse and Seymour rejecting himself [his Indian self]. Seymour drives home to the funeral, Shakespeare's most famous line appears at the reservation sign - "To be or not to be," and the phrase is sung Indian-style as the scene unfolds, with Indian musicality - looping pentatonic melodies spiralling over a steady pulsing drumbeat. The sign, "Welcome to the Spokane Indian Reservation." Seymour stoops down to brush away some branches covering the bottom corner of the sign, revealing two hand-written phrases - "Home of Seymour Polatkin"(his writing) and "Not anymore." (someone else's). Seymour's existence, a foundational paradox, just as Hamlet's speech, a foundational paradox. A second Seymour - the Ghost of Seymour - appears, two Seymours, Shakespeare's well-known and popular duality themes. Home but not home. But aren't intellectually talented individuals often forced to leave home in order to live how they NEED to live and succeed?Agnes questioning Seymour parallel Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's friends, have been sent to glean what afflicts Hamlet. Seymour refers to his old room as smallest room for the smallest Indian, about Indians being "concentrated Indians" (packed together) and as Indians being mere tokens (get job hanging off rear-view mirror = dreamcatcher, Indians reduced to a nutshell image). Indians concentrated in small space and reduced to miniature commodities parallels Hamlet's words to Ros and Guil - "O G-d, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space--were it not that I have bad dreams" (Act 2, Scene 2, Line 254). Seymour calls the reservation a prison, "this place is a prison". Hamlet, "Denmark's a prison" (Act 1, Scene 2, Line 243). Hamlet in the flesh on an Indian Reservation. Hamlet seeped into the film. Then typical Shakespearean wordplay Agnes/Ros - then the whole world is a prison. Seymour/Hamlet - the whole world is a prison, with a million confines and wards and dungeons. The reservation's just the worst.Agnes/Ros/Guil - I don't think so.Seymour/Hamlet - You can think what you want. To me it's a prison.Agnes - Well, you've wanted to leave here since you were six years old. It's your ambition that made the rez a prison - slight deviation from play, but then Seymour/Hamlet - O G-d, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space--were it not that I have bad dreamsAgnes/Rosencratz - which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.Seymour/Hamlet - A dream itself is but a shadow. It's amazing. Word for word, slightly modernized syntax but word for word. Alexie owns Shakespeare.Funeral. The funeral scene is the inverse of the "Giving Blood" scene. Everything comes full circle. Seymour's audience is this reservation of Indians about whom he writes, whose soul he steals. He's expected to say something. Not necessarily a tokenized address. But something, being a poet and all, and having been away for ten years, and confronted with the death of his best friend who also happened to be a father-figure/wisdom-figure/shaman-figure. This man made of words, words, words. And Seymour has nothing to say. Seymour is now the mute, just as Mouse's Ghost went mute during the "Giving Blood" recitation. Then the song, a song that transcends all, Osinilshatin, waves of emotion, another voice joins Agnes, weaving her chords with Agnes', the vocals a lifeline to Seymour, the translation:Who are you when you turn your back?Where do you go when you leave here?You can't hide from your truthCan't run from where you belongSome things you can't chooseSometimes you can't have it allI know your dreams remind youWhere you belongMemories hold you tightWhen there's no comfort in white armsLoneliness will bring you backWhere you belongThis is sung while a split Seymour says goodbye to himself in the driveway. How can he reconcile gnawing contradictions within himself while maintaining a coherent acceptable identity. One Seymour screams and and cries and the other says nothing and drives away. Seymour is incapable of maintaining a coherent acceptable identity in the city or on the reservation. Hamlet had a sense of ineluctable reconciliation within himself, Act 5, Scene 2, Lines 216-220, "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows aught, what isn't to leave betimes? Let be." But Seymour does not, but do we want him to? Hamlet's Act 5 Scene 2 lines also resemble Macbeth's "if it were done" speech (preparing to murder King Duncan), Seymour poisoning his own mind and urging himself to destroy himself and his future, vaulting ambition............ If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere wellIt were done quickly: if the assassinationCould trammel up the consequence, and catchWith his surcease success; that but this blowMight be the be-all and the end-all here,But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,We'ld jump the life to come. But in these casesWe still have judgment here; that we but teachBloody instructions, which, being taught, returnTo plague the inventor: this even-handed justiceCommends the ingredients of our poison'd chaliceTo our own lips. He's here in double trust;First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,Who should against his murderer shut the door,Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this DuncanHath borne his faculties so meek, hath beenSo clear in his great office, that his virtuesWill plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, againstThe deep damnation of his taking-off;And pity, like a naked new-born babe,Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsedUpon the sightless couriers of the air,Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spurTo prick the sides of my intent, but onlyVaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itselfAnd falls on the other.
reply
share