Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

22 March 2004

A. O. Scott on Dogville

This weekend's New York Times includes a kind of meditation from A. O. Scott on Lars von Trier's Dogville. It's part review, part interview, and part interpretation.

I feel an affinity with Scott on this one. His view of the movie is similar in many ways to mine — he sees the character of Tom as "at once Mr. von Trier's alter ego and, ultimately, his villain" and sees the closing montage as "so heavy-handed it's hard to take it seriously at all" — but Scott goes on to see similarities with South Park and offer some fascinating comments on the sequel, Manderlay:

It is also interesting to note that, now that Ms. Kidman has moved on, the part of Grace will be played by Bryce Howard, a young actress who, as Mr. von Trier perhaps coyly put it, "turned out to be the daughter of an American director, Ron Howard." And while it may be going too far to suggest a link between Dogville and Mayberry — or, for that matter, between Dogville and Whoville — Mr. von Trier's austere art film may be closer to the mess and ruckus of American popular culture than he knows....

(I like how he suggests a link to Mayberry and Whoville while saying that it would be going too far to do so.)

Here's my favorite quote: "You can hardly expect a man who once cast Catherine Deneuve as a factory worker named Kathy to care much about authenticity."

Posted by davis | Link

Other Recent Posts

Other Recent Episodes

Favorite Films