(From Hollywood Vs. Dogville, © by Jake Horsley)
In the case of George Lucas, a more apropos myth than that of Prometheus might be the tale of
Midas, the king whose touch turned everything to gold, making ordinary contact
with the world impossible. Midas became the richest man on Earth but was unable
to enjoy his riches, unable to even eat, since he couldn’t eat gold. He became,
like Tartarus (another myth), cursed to have earthly pleasures always within
sight but forever out of his reach. The Midas/Prometheus syndrome is perhaps emblematic
of our times and of our fascination with, and worship of, celebrities. Men like
Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson were all in their way
victims, both of their own lust for glory (gold) and superiority (divinity) and
of the public’s equally neurotic need to give it to them. For these tragic
public figures, as for Midas, a gift became a curse, as whatever “genius” they
once possessed was swallowed up by the insatiable demands of celebrity. When it
comes to leading God’s favorite children (artists among them) astray, fame is
indeed the devil’s trump card. (See The Devil’s Advocate for a
dramatization of this law.)
As the most visible embodiment of this grim tradition,
George Lucas is a figure of legendary, nigh- godlike dimensions who is yet
almost wholly devoid of creative abilities or even rudimentary human virtues.
Baldly stated, Lucas is the most inept filmmaker ever to attain the status of
movie giant, yet his reign his supreme. The three Star Wars
“prequels”—occasional pleasures of The Revenge of the Sith
notwithstanding—embody everything that is wrong with Hollywood, with pop
culture in general, and, if we stretch it, the world at large. Here is a
mystery to ponder upon. Lucas may have the power, and even the vision (in the
most basic sense), of a cinematic genius, but he has none of the talent to
match. He is a prince with the sensibilities of a toad, so utterly out of touch
with anything beyond his masturbatory fantasy world that he can no longer be
considered human in the usual sense. His films seem to have been made by a
committee of androids, or by a computer program designed to simulate human
sentiment yet with next to no idea of what drives human beings (or good
melodrama). The result is a fantastically elaborate, multi-million dollar
puppet show in which the CGI creations (such as General Grievous in the last
film) have infinitely more personality than the actors, and in which even Ewen
McGregor and Samuel Jackson are reduced to soulless action figures. That is the
Lucas touch.
As a “world class
director,” Lucas’ staging of scenes is roughly on a par with a sixth grade
school play. Actors walk on, speak excruciating lines, go through the necessary
motions, and walk off again, or die, or fade away, making way for the next
creakingly unconvincing characters to do their thing. Lucas’ grandiose vision
grinds along with all the relentless purpose of a combine at harvest time; his
“touch” with actors is so numbingly awful that the movies play like a
read-through of the script before shooting. Costing millions of dollars in
special effects, sets, and costumes, the results are mind-boggling in their
wastefulness; uncalculated amounts of time, energy, ingenuity and talent are
swallowed up by the black hole of Lucas’ talent, leaving audiences with a
sloppy, vapid, apathetic rendering of what remains a potentially devastating
tale of power and loss. The tragedy of the tale pales in comparison to the
tragedy of its (non-) execution. Lucas lacks any aspirations beyond that of a
slightly autistic prepubescent, desperate to create his own universe to hide
in. Is this not Hollywood in a nutshell?[1]
What happens when
fame, success, obscene wealth and power, and complete “artistic” freedom are
granted to a filmmaker with no discernable talent? Power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. George Lucas has come as close to absolute power in
Hollywood as anyone has ever dreamed of; though his “vision” has remained more
or less intact in the thirty years since he dreamed up his space saga (devouring
Joseph Campbell and Carlos Castaneda books and splicing them with “Flash
Gordon” TV shows), his ability to do justice to it has not. Whatever creativity
Lucas once possessed has now been absolutely corrupted. Yet in the last of the
films, the soaring, intergalactic mythos that young Lucas dreamed up all those
years ago can still be glimpsed from time to time, albeit dimly. The pay-off to
all that went before (not just to the last two—redundant—prequels, but
retrospectively adding a whole new layer of pathos and tragedy to the original
movies), Sith contains by far the richest and most challenging ideas of
the series; if only Lucas had handed the reigns over to someone with the
necessary talent to do justice to them (as with Empire Strikes Back,
written by Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Irvin Kershner, the only film in the
series that approaches a work of art), the film might have been a genuine
classic. It would have justified the hopes, expectations, and devotion of
millions of fans who had grown middle-aged waiting for it. Instead, what they
got was final, uncontestable proof that, if Lucas has any talent at all besides
marketing, it’s a talent for bowdlerizing his own inspiration and reducing
grand tragedy to artistic travesty.
Anakin/Darth Vader, as conceived in Lucas’ story,
could have become one of the great tragic, mythic embodiments of Luciferic
despair in the history of movies. Instead, we get Hayden Cristensen, whose
suitability for the role seems to hinge upon having as little charm (or acting ability)
as Mark Hammil (Luke Skywalker, Anakin’s offspring, whose birth in this movie
coincides with Anakin’s transformation into Vader). In one of the film’s less
hackneyed examples of Lucas-speak, we’re told that fear of loss is the route to
the dark side. Anakin’s ominous dream of his wife Padme’s death during
childbirth leads him to embrace the dark side, in the hope of gaining
sufficient power to save her. But when Anakin gushes to Padme, “We can rule the
galaxy together!”, she is understandably non-plussed (as is the audience,
hearing this comic book crap). Anakin’s conversion to “evil” (which the opening
scrawl helpfully informs us “is everywhere”) is so swift and complete that,
within a few scenes (his eyes glowing yellow to signal his malevolence), he has
turned his power on his beloved Padme and brought about her premature death.
The fact that it was Anakin’s visions of Padme’s death, his fear of losing her,
that drew him to the dark side and ensured the visions came to pass (and the
possibility that it was the Sith who sent Anakin his dreams, for this very
reason) is never touched upon in the film. Lucas isn’t interested in developing
the darker undercurrents of his mythos, only in expostulating it; and this he
does, with painful deliberateness and an almost frightening lack of artistry.
How can we reconcile Lucas’ interest and affection for
such mythic concepts with his complete indifference to exploring them? In the
first three films, the mythos was a thin but satisfying backdrop to the action,
a casual, organic underlayer for the fairy tale, leading to action yarn that
children, teenagers, and adults could all enjoy in their varying ways. Those
movies (even the lifeless and mechanical Return of the Jedi) carried
audiences along with humor, suspense, and a genuine sense of exhilaration and
romance—attributes the second trilogy is almost wholly lacking. Lucas became so
immersed in his “vision”—and in the self-importance of mythmaker—that the story
weighs his movies down. There is no lightness or sense of play to the action
anymore, only the dreadful pressure of expostulation, of seeing the damn thing
through to its end. If any of the last three Star Wars films had been
the first, there never would have been a Star Wars franchise at
all, because no one would have cared enough to come back for more. Looking
back, thirty years on, it might not have been such a bad thing.
Lucas created, or adapted, some beautiful archetypes.
The fallen avatar-turned scion of darkness; the twins separated at birth but
reunited by destiny; the Force; Han Solo, the heroic scalawag (easily the best
character in the series, and there is nothing in the prequels to compensate for
his absence); the mythic order of the Jedi Knights; the wise old Master
Yoda—all elements of a rich, dreamlike fable to answer audiences unconscious
need for myth and fantasy, both in life and in movies. Now they are just more
plastic figurines to clutter up the toy store shelves, and all the richer, more
soul-stirring elements have been lost in the shuffle of mass-marketing.[2]
George Lucas
isn’t really to blame for all this, any more than Anakin or Adolf Hitler are to
blame for what they turned into, taken over by their base natures and
the lust for power. The Machine is stronger than any individual. By responding
to a correspondingly dark need in society, Anakin, like Hitler, and like Lucas,
became the reflection of a collective dementia. The Republic had to
create its Dark Lord to become the Empire, and a world that turns a crass and
shallow dream merchant like George Lucas into the most powerful cultural force
in movies—that world gets the entertainment it deserves. Lacking insight into
his own mythos, Lucas has proved blind to the implications of his own vision.
By hitching his creativity to Hollywood’s combine, he moved inexorably over to
the dark side. He may have conquered the world, but he paid the traditional
price for it. Now everything Lucas touches turns to plastic.
Back to Movies
[1] Watch Revenge of the Sith
with the sound down or wearing headphones and you might be fooled into thinking
it was a great fantasy film. It’s conceivable that, by dubbing most if not all
of the lines with intelligent, thought-provoking dialogue delivered by well-directed
actors, the film might be saved from the crushing mediocrity of Lucas’ writing
and direction. It would probably fare best, however, under the treatment that
Woody Allen gave a Japanese action movie for What’s Up Tiger Lily
(turning it into a thriller about the hunt for a secret egg salad recipe);
whatever was done with Lucas’ film, however, we’d be stuck with the inglorious,
strangely moving spectacle of his billion dollar folly.
[2] Whatever happened to Jedi
mind control? Along with a dozen other ideas, rich in potential, that might
have been developed throughout the series, it was tossed off and forgotten,
apparently lacking in sufficient potential for product tie-ins.