Masculinity-Movies blog
posted by Eivind on February 14, 2011, at 11:40 pm
Hey guys,
I feel called to give you a short status update on the progression of certain things on this website. First of all, I re-watched The Fisher King for the first time in forever on Friday and the movie is germinating in my subconscious as we speak. There’s a lot of great stuff there. I think it will be a really cool review.
Then there is the video for the Warrior archetype. I have been meaning to finish it for a long time. This is the reason why I’m writing actually since I feel a bit bad for not having completed it yet. All the raw material is ready and I have color- and sound-adjusted the somewhat dodgy raw material (same as for the King video). I have been wanting to up the production quality of it a bit, featuring music, movie clips and text popups, but this is taking longer than I had anticipated.
The main reason is that I’ve had to resume full time work for the month of February to not go bust. Making time for Masculinity Movies work is a huge financial strain on my life and that is why things are not progressing anywhere near as quickly as I would like.
Well, I just wanted to tell you about this. Also, don’t forget that I’ve set up the community site for you guys. The Tribe has about 30 members now and is a bit slow, but shows promise. That also takes time. Come to think of it, I’m friggin’ proud of the stuff I manage to do with the meagre time and resources I have at my disposal. Yeah, I just tuned into that and I feel that deeply. Fuck, no reason to feel guilty – I’m doing my best to bring you the best I have to offer. I’m fucking dedicated to this stuff. I’m not going anywhere. So please stick around.
So thank you for your patience – the meat will come soon. I will have Fridays off again in March.
Eivind
posted by Eivind on February 13, 2011, at 4:39 pm
I have some friends who live in a spiritual commune in Oregon who have recently connected with some great kids in Uganda. Their life stories are heart-breaking and their living conditions rough, so my friends have decided to lend a helping hand to eight of these kids. They tell me these are amazing kids with big hearts and great spirits.
But they are so poor that the gifts they have to offer the world remain to a large extent ungiven. This could be changed with education and support. It’s a sad fact that amazing human beings with great potential to impact the world in a positive way live in places around the world where financial means limit their ability to shine.
Five of these kids have already found willing sponsors and three now remain. For $30 a month, my friends at the Living Love Fellowship will ensure their education, so that they can make the impact they should. These youth have suffered terribly – I cannot begin to comprehend some of these life stories. It would be a joy to know that their future is in good hands.
If you want to know more, please visit the website they have set up “Heart to heart Uganda“.
Thank you.
posted by Eivind on February 6, 2011, at 1:32 am
I just came back from watching Black Swan at the movies and hanging out with the guys afterwards. It’s not a movie appropriate for featuring in the main database of this site and I had never planned to watch it, but when my Brother Vegard invited me, I wanted to come along. Best movie I’ve seen in ages. Fuck, it’s awesome!
Darren Aronofsky is a very impressive director (who really understands how to portray non-ordinary states of mind on camera extremely well), as I’m sure many of you are already aware of, but I think this is his greatest masterpiece so far. I think I would place it up there with the ten best movies I’ve ever seen.
For those who haven’t seen it already, the movie is about Nina Sayers (amazingly portrayed by Natalie Portman), a talented and hard-working ballerina whose big breakthrough has not yet happened. But when artistic director Thomas Leroy at the company she dances for decides to produce a unique version of Swan Lake for the opening of the new season, he picks Nina for the role.
I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but what is so incredibly rich about this movie is the understanding of shadow territory and the consequences of suppressing the darkness in us. Nina is an incredibly repressed girl, both emotionally and sexually. Her technique is impeccable and Thomas tells her repeatedly that she is perfect for the role of the white swan. “But would you want to fuck her?,” he asks one of the male dancers. By being outrageous, the controversial Thomas seems to want to tease the black swan out of Nina. He wants her to rise in her power and stop being so “fucking weak”. He is provoking her, but she keeps repressing that which he desires for her to express, and the darkness in her starts becoming out of hand (some scenes showing this are incredibly freaky – I had to really breathe deeply not to lose composure in some of these).
I actually like Thomas. It’s easy to conclude that he is abusing his role of authority to seduce Nina as a means of “teaching her”, but it seems to me that he is actually doing exactly what is needed to wake up the black swan in her. There is a scene in which he ends up making out with Nina, and then he walks out on her while telling her “I just seduced you. It’s supposed to be the other way around.” Ouch.
There is something amazing going on here – Darren Aronofsky really understand that dark Feminine that I once described in the movie review for Beowulf and the way in which he deals with it in this movie is so fucking exquisite and enlightened. When Nina starts embodying the black swan towards the end of the movie, the shift in her character is awe-inspiring and people LOVE her. It’s so easy for women to suppress that part in themselves because they have taught to be nice girls or whatever. But the dark Feminine is so incredibly sexy. Juicy as all fuck. There is so much life and vitality in the dark. For women as well as for men.
As a recovering nice guy, there is much to learn from this movie. Nina suppresses her inner darkness and sexuality because she wants to remain in control and that is exactly what creates her problems and tensions (any “nice guy” will recognize what this feels like). When she finally enters the darkness, she becomes a fully embodied, sexy woman, just as I and you reading this would become a fully adult man (or woman) were we to do the same.
This movie has inspired me even further to stop holding back my truth and to just inject myself into the world, no matter whether what I have to offer is dark or bright. I’m not going to let myself become a traumatized wreck of a person like Nina Sayer and the only way to prevent that from happening is to speak it out. No holding back of myself anymore.
Black Swan reminds me both why I think Darren Aronofsky is one of the best directors working in Hollywood today and that it’s time to start being ourselves and live fully! Time and money incredibly well spent. We all fucking loved it. Amazing.
Watch trailer on IMDB.
Discuss the movie in The Tribe (requires registration).
posted by Eivind on January 28, 2011, at 10:25 pm
An early test version of The Tribe is up and running here:
http://tribe.masculinity-movies.com/
It’s not running on Ning after all, but on BuddyPress. Let’s see if it is good enough for us.
