Kunstler: The Future (Not)

Kunstler: The Future (Not)

I took myself to the new movie Blade Runner 2049 to see what kind of future the Hollywood dream-shop is serving up these days. It was an excellent illustration of the over-investments in technology with diminishing returns that are dragging us into collapse and of the attendant techno-narcissism that afflicts the supposedly thinking class in this society, who absolutely don’t get what this collapse is about. The more computer magic Hollywood drags into the picture, the less coherent their story-telling gets. Hollywood is collapsing, and it’s not just because of Harvey Weinstein’s antics.

Movies of this genre are really always more about the current moment than about the future, and Blade Runner 2049 is full of hilarious retro-anachronisms — things around us now which will probably not be in the future. The signature trope in many sci-fi dystopias of recent times is the assumed ever-presence of automobiles.[Emphasis mine.--P.Z.]

The original Mad Max was little more than an extended car chase — though apparently all that people remember about it is the desolate desert landscape and Mel Gibson’s leather jumpsuit. As the series wore on, both the vehicles and the staged chases became more spectacularly grandiose, until, in the latest edition, the movie was solely about Charlize Theron driving a truck. I always wondered where Mel got new air filters and radiator hoses, not to mention where he gassed up. In a world that broken, of course, there would be no supply and manufacturing chains.

So, of course, Blade Runner 2049 opens with a shot of the detective played by Ryan Gosling in his flying car, zooming over a landscape that looks more like a computer motherboard than actual earthly terrain. As the movie goes on, he gets in and out of his flying car more often than a San Fernando soccer mom on her daily rounds. That actually tells us something more significant than all the grim monotone trappings of the production design, namely, that we can’t imagine any kind of future — or any human society for that matter — that is not centered on cars.

But isn’t that exactly why we’ve invested so much hope and expectation (and public subsidies) in the activities of Elon Musk?* After all, the Master Wish in this culture of wishful thinking is the wish to be able to keep driving to Wal Mart forever. It’s the ultimate fantasy of a shallow “consumer” society. The people who deliver that way of life, and profit from it, are every bit as sincerely wishful about it as the underpaid and overfed schnooks moiling in the discount aisles. In the dark corners of so-called postmodern mythology, there really is no human life, or human future, without cars.

This points to the central fallacy of this Sci-fi genre: that technology can defeat nature and still exist. This is where our techno-narcissism comes in fast and furious. The Blade Runner movies take place in and around a Los Angeles filled with mega-structures pulsating with holographic advertisements. Where does the energy come from to construct all this stuff? Supposedly from something Mr. Musk dreams up that we haven’t heard about yet. Frankly, I don’t believe that such a miracle is in the offing.

The denizens of this 2049 Los Angeles are a rabble of ragged scavengers bolting down bowls of ramen in the never-ending drizzle. Apparently they have nothing to do, nothing useful or gainful, that is. So you can’t help wondering how this hypothetical economy supports such a population of no-accounts. I mean, we do know how our current economy supports the millions who are out of the work force, bolting their ramen between visits to the tattoo parlor: by giveaways based on pervasive accounting fraud backed by the now dwindling supply of oil that can be profitably extracted from the ground. But that won’t continue much longer. Know why? Because things that can’t go on, don’t.

One thing Blade Runner 2049 gets right in its retro-anachronistic borrowings from the present is the awesome joylessness of the culture. The artistry in this vision of the future is especially vivid in illuminating the absence of real artistry in contemporary “postmodern” American life. Sleek mechanical surfaces are everything, with no substance beneath the surface.

I walked out after two hours, and there was plenty more to go. It was too dreary, and too intellectually insulting to endure. I don’t blame Ryan Gosling, though. His look of doleful skepticism throughout the proceedings was perfect.

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* For example, Futurism.com: "Elon Musk's Rocket Could Get You Anywhere on Earth in 60 Min. Here's What It Would Feel Like." --P.Z.

Scenes From a Culture That Will No Longer Exist

Hollywood

Oy, Bay!

Sci-fi movies not doing well, including the tremendously overrated Edge of Tomorrow.

Snowpiercer doesn't interest me either, but I'm intrigued by the gulf between its domestic and foreign box office receipts ($162,100 vs. $80,220,079!).

And compare the slate of movies atop this weekend's box office with those of thirty years ago. (I'll take Ghostbusters or even Ghostbusters 2 (1989) over Transformers 4 anytime.)

Movie Remakes

Why remake one of the greatest American movies of the 1970s? CARRIE 2013 was the most depressing filmgoing experience I've had this year...

— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) October 23, 2013

Not all movie remakes are bad, but generally they are. Paul Fussell wrote: "[A]mong the intelligent the threat of a remake was almost always a cause of sinking spirits as viewers experienced repeated disappointments comparing the 1964 Night Must Fall with the good one of 1937....Despite the obvious folly of trying to remake Modern Times, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, High Noon, or even On the Waterfront or Hud, someone ... is sure to try and then, when the contempt pours in, respond by designating the critics elitist."

This doesn't even cover what I call the "Hollywoodization" of foreign movies. Compare, for example, the 1996 Japanese movie Shall We Dance? about a salaryman who discovers the world of ballroom dance, with the brassy 2004 American version, starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez.

The Oscars

As seen through the two-part Jem episode "Hollywood Jem." Jem is nominated for the Best Actress Oscar along with "Sigourney Reever", "Meryl Saint", and "Geraldine Pathos." (Where the customary fifth nominee is, I don't know.) The four nominees appear on a talk show, (about a minute into the first video) where Pathos takes offense at Jem's admission of never having studied acting formally:

(to Jem): You never studied?! Yet you presume to compete with actresses who have spent years, decades at their craft.

(Standing up, arms akimbo): That's it! I refuse to share an interview with someone who became an actress for frivolous reasons.

Can you imagine Emmanuelle Riva launching into Quvenzhané Wallis like that?

"Hollywood Jem, Part 1: For Your Consideration"



"Hollywood Jem, Part 2: And the Winner Is..."