Gabriel Garcia Marquez is someone you should read before you die. To be reminded you are alive. He writes beyond writing, from the source of humor and romance. I won't even try to describe it. Try this short story, which is like a sampler of his delicacies. If you like it, try one of his novels like "Love in the Time of Cholera" or "One Hundred Years of Solitude" to see what he can do with that style stretched into longer form.
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Del Toro interview
This is from an interview with the director Guillermo Del Toro, who is some kind of genius. You should read the whole thing. (Also, his interview with Terry Gross is unstoppable.)
Q2: I'd like to ask you about your plans for the future, especially with regards to something that was reported in the Hollywood Reporter. You said that in the next 10 years, narrative media is going to shift to a hybrid of videogames and movies. You're obviously working on Sundown the game. Maybe you could expand on that a little.
GdT: I think that videogames are a genuine narrative form. There are videogames that are absolutely precious, like a videogame by a Japanese author called Shadow of the Colossus. It's an absolutely beautiful trip to another world that is as fantastic and as magical as a Miyazaki film. But those are the videogames that get the good rep. You're always hearing about Grand Theft Auto and the babes, the booze and the guns. I think this not only perpetuates an idea that the videogame is not a narrative form, but also perpetuates the concept among the people outside that think "videogame" is a sort of new adjective to debase a thing. I remember when I was growing up people used to say "a comicbook movie" to say what a piece of shit it was. They don't say it any more because it's become a more respectable narrative form and it makes money. Both things silence one camp and the other. Now they say "a videogame movie" with the same blind authority of someone who, at the most, may have played Pac-Man. And I do believe they are genuine narrative forms and we would have to be very stupid not to be immersed in and understand. We complain about them but we don't do anything to solve it. In the next 10 years, I see a huge shift whether we like it or not. It's going to take you either by surprise or you're going to be there to do it. It's going to be like going from silent films to sound. There are going to be a lot of us that cannot do the talkies because we are not familiar with the form. I think it's urgent that you get familiar with them. The art direction, soundscapes and immersive environments in videogames are as good, if not superior to, most movies. I'm not talking about [Krzysztof] Kieslowski or Bergman. I'm talking about most movies. They are far more advanced and far smarter about it, so I think it's something we all can learn from and it's urgent that we do.
Q2: I'd like to ask you about your plans for the future, especially with regards to something that was reported in the Hollywood Reporter. You said that in the next 10 years, narrative media is going to shift to a hybrid of videogames and movies. You're obviously working on Sundown the game. Maybe you could expand on that a little.
GdT: I think that videogames are a genuine narrative form. There are videogames that are absolutely precious, like a videogame by a Japanese author called Shadow of the Colossus. It's an absolutely beautiful trip to another world that is as fantastic and as magical as a Miyazaki film. But those are the videogames that get the good rep. You're always hearing about Grand Theft Auto and the babes, the booze and the guns. I think this not only perpetuates an idea that the videogame is not a narrative form, but also perpetuates the concept among the people outside that think "videogame" is a sort of new adjective to debase a thing. I remember when I was growing up people used to say "a comicbook movie" to say what a piece of shit it was. They don't say it any more because it's become a more respectable narrative form and it makes money. Both things silence one camp and the other. Now they say "a videogame movie" with the same blind authority of someone who, at the most, may have played Pac-Man. And I do believe they are genuine narrative forms and we would have to be very stupid not to be immersed in and understand. We complain about them but we don't do anything to solve it. In the next 10 years, I see a huge shift whether we like it or not. It's going to take you either by surprise or you're going to be there to do it. It's going to be like going from silent films to sound. There are going to be a lot of us that cannot do the talkies because we are not familiar with the form. I think it's urgent that you get familiar with them. The art direction, soundscapes and immersive environments in videogames are as good, if not superior to, most movies. I'm not talking about [Krzysztof] Kieslowski or Bergman. I'm talking about most movies. They are far more advanced and far smarter about it, so I think it's something we all can learn from and it's urgent that we do.
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