Tea at Trianon: Batman... and Brideshead Bungled

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Batman... and Brideshead Bungled

Jeffrey Tucker reviews The Dark Knight. I'll try to see it.

Additionally, the Joker has a trait that we tend to see in evil people. He carries around with him a peculiar assumption, never really questioned. He assumes that everyone else is secretly as bad as he is. Anything that appears otherwise, he believes to be a façade. It is a mask that must be ripped off. In seeking confirmation for this assumption, he entertains himself by putting people in impossible situations that will reveal their core corruption. He revels in pushing people who think they are good into embracing their inner evil. Hence his obsession with ripping off Batman's mask. He must show the world that Batman is as bad as he is.
In pursuit of this confirmation, he is as clever as the devil. He has pressed the city government into evacuating people by means of two boats, one with prisoners and another with regular citizens. He gives a detonator device to the drivers of each ship. He says that he is performing a social experiment. The idea is that each detonator blows up the other ship. If you press the button to blow up the other ship, your ship will be saved. If you do not press quickly, your ship will likely be blown up because surely the people on the other ship will press first. So we have here the classic case of the prisoner's dilemma without the mathematics. It is a raw test of the capacity of others to commit unspeakable crimes in their own self-interest.

As for the remake of Brideshead Revisited, it sounds very disappointing. More HERE. Share