Colin Marshall

The Colinments of Style: 2001 review

Now let's whip into shape a user review of another film that floats around the top of my eternal-favorite list, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Because when a re-view comes along, you must whip it:

In the summer of 1969, when I was all of ten years old, Mom & Dad bundled all us kids into the white Oldsmobile stationwagon and drove to the Rockville (Maryland) Drive-In to see "2001: A Space Odyssey." I didn't know much about the film, but as a budding sci-fi fan I was already champing at the bit to see it. Needless to say, "2001" rearranged my universe. I can't say I understood the movie completely at the time, but I do recall talking my parents' ears off about the film during the drive home.

"2001" is personally my favorite movie of all time. I've seen it more times than I can count, purchased the soundtrack several times (vinyl and tape wear out, you know), read Arthur C. Clarke's novelization several times, and read every other piece of literature about the film I've been able to get my hands on.

And recently my partner Greg purchased this "Stanley Kubrick Collection" DVD from Amazon, and it was just last night that we sat down to watch it on our new 32-inch TV and in 5.1 digital sound. What a treat! First of all the print is about as pristine as anything I've ever seen; this movie probably looks better today on DVD than it did in many suburban movie theatres back in 1969. I was immediately struck by how sharp the image was, especially the clean lines of the monolith that appears mysteriously amongst our australopithicine ancestors 4.5 million years ago. While watching this film last night, Greg lamented the fact that kids today who grow up on nothing but CGI effects in science fiction movies may never have a true appreciation for the fine art of model-building; the Orion shuttle, the Discovery ship and its attendant space pods, are stunning examples of elegance in design. The Aries 1-B moon shuttle looks like it ought to have been built and flying by now. The docking sequence with the rotating space station, to the oddly appropriate strains of "The Blue Danube Waltz," look just as clean and modern as anything being filmed today.

The pop cultural impact of "2001" cannot me overstated. Is it any wonder that over 30 years after the film's initial release, Richard Strauss' tone poem "Also Sprauch Zarathustra" is still associated with space travel?

That having been said, my only qualm with this edition is that the sound editors involved with the DVD transfer may have taken a few too many liberties. The most glaring example is during the closing credits of the film: In the original print the "Blue Danube" reprise ends with snare drum roll and finish when we see the words "THE END." ... But in this edition the waltz continues merrily on its way long after the screen fades to black. Amazon's website notes that Stanley Kubrick approved all this audio tweaking; I guess I'm just going to have to take their word for it. Granted, the sound is very nice and crisp, the conversations are clear, the bass has a lot of extra "oomph" during Gyorgy Ligeti's atmospheric score. If you are not too much of a Kubrick purist and can overlook the tweaking of the sound, you'll have to admit that this edition of "2001" sounds damned good.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was released at a time when there was still a huge sense of wonder and optimism about space travel and exploration. Alas, in the intervening years shifting economic, political and military priorities have eroded much of that wonder and optimism. I wonder if any of us will ever again be able to look up at the stars with as much hope and exhilaration as we had when "2001" first hit the screens.

Sound foundation, clunky expression. The writer has clearly done his thinking about the film, but his review has a dashed-off feel that does the thoughts injustice.

Opening with a personal anecdote, let alone one headed by season and year, runs the risk of making writers sound like windbags right out of the gate. (It ranks just barely above quoting Webster's.) In this case, though, I do think it's an appropriate way to get this writer's lifelong love of 2001 across:

In the summer of 1969, when I was all of ten years old, Mom & Dad bundled all us kids into the white Oldsmobile stationwagon and drove to the Rockville (Maryland) Drive-In to see "2001: A Space Odyssey." I didn't know much about the film, but as a budding sci-fi fan I was already champing at the bit to see it.

Like stray grains of sand that slow every gear in a machine, insertions like "all of" and "all us" kill rhythm, momentum and suchlike. Let's strip 'em out as we correct the various, more mundane "stationwagon"s and "champing"s. Take note also of the switcheroo pulled on the second sentence; I submit that the writer's budding sci-fi fandom leads more strongly than his lack of 2001-specific knowledge:

In the summer of 1969, when I was ten years old, Mom and Dad bundled us kids into the white Oldsmobile station wagon and drove to the Rockville, Maryland Drive-In to see "2001: A Space Odyssey". As a budding sci-fi fan, I was chomping at the bit to see the film despite knowing little about it.

Now witness the writer's life forever and irrevocably altered:

Needless to say, "2001" rearranged my universe. I can't say I understood the movie completely at the time, but I do recall talking my parents' ears off about the film during the drive home.

People disagree about "needless to say." Some consider is a useful piece of rhetorical subtlety; others believe that it is or indicates something that, uh, doesn't need saying. As it emphasizes the picture's impact — it rearranged this guy's universe, but hey, whose didn't it rearrange? — I elect to leave it in. Your mileage may vary. Starting a sentence with "needless to say," in some readers' eyes, merits even more serious punishment, but in this context I see no other way.

As we've established that this is a memory and thus an event in the past, we can trust the reader to get by without "at the time" and the folksy "I do recall":

Needless to say, it rearranged my universe. I can't say I understood the movie completely, but I did talk my parents' ears off about it on the drive home.

The obsession grows:

"2001" is personally my favorite movie of all time. I've seen it more times than I can count, purchased the soundtrack several times (vinyl and tape wear out, you know), read Arthur C. Clarke's novelization several times, and read every other piece of literature about the film I've been able to get my hands on.

Trust Thine Reader. Let's make that this post's mantra. Have faith that readers will understand that 2001 is personally your favorite movie of all time even if you write that 2001 is only your favorite movie of all time. (Or even just that it's your favorite movie, period.) When judging whether or not to include a word, especially an adjective or adverb, consider whether you really must distinguish your statement from the version using that word's opposite. How much should the writer worry about making sure the reader understands he doesn't mean that 2001 is impersonally his favorite movie of all time?

The last bit of the ungainly second sentence needs the most help, specifically in the form of a stronger conceptual link between Clarke's novel and "every other piece of literature" about the film (and for the record, I believe the book, crafted concurrently with the movie, is less a novelization than the missing link between novelization and adaptation):

"2001" is my favorite movie of all time. I've seen more screenings than I can count, purchased the soundtrack more than once — vinyl and tape wear out, you know — and read Arthur C. Clarke's novel several times, as well as every other piece of related literature I've been able to get my hands on.

Flash forward:

And recently my partner Greg purchased this "Stanley Kubrick Collection" DVD from Amazon, and it was just last night that we sat down to watch it on our new 32-inch TV and in 5.1 digital sound. What a treat!

I overuse "recently" myself and thus am hypersensitive to its overuse by others. Here, as almost everywhere, it serves no substantive function. The point is that they watched this 2001 DVD; the facts that Greg recently purchased it or that they watched it the night before the review's composition — let alone "just" the night before, or that they "sat down" to watch it rather than stand up — have relatively little relevance. Let's clarify it:

Last night my partner Greg and I watched this "Stanley Kubrick Collection" DVD he purchased on our new 32-inch TV in 5.1 digital sound. What a treat!

And lo, Kubrick's masterpiece blows the writer's mind once again, this time with its edge definition:

First of all the print is about as pristine as anything I've ever seen; this movie probably looks better today on DVD than it did in many suburban movie theatres back in 1969. I was immediately struck by how sharp the image was, especially the clean lines of the monolith that appears mysteriously amongst our australopithicine ancestors 4.5 million years ago.

A print being "about as pristine" as anything the writer has ever seen likely falls on the "reader doesn't care" of the great "reader cares"/"reader doesn't care" divide. Too equivocal. But if it's simply as pristine? Just interesting enough. And since the writer's childhood memory already indicated 1969 as the year of 2001's theatrical run, we don't need it mentioned again.

The sluggish "I was immediately struck by how sharp the image was" becomes, when put through the de-passive-voiceifier, the beginning of a statement about what the sharpness of the image did (strong!) rather than about who was struck by the image which was what (weak!). The benefit is both sizable and obvious:

As pristine as any I've seen, the print probably looks better on DVD now than it did in suburban movie theatres then. The image's sharpness, especially the clean lines of the monolith that mysteriously appears amongst our australopithicine ancestors, struck me immediately.

Greg weeps for future generations, coming up as they do in our tragically aestheticized-down age:

While watching this film last night, Greg lamented the fact that kids today who grow up on nothing but CGI effects in science fiction movies may never have a true appreciation for the fine art of model-building; the Orion shuttle, the Discovery ship and its attendant space pods, are stunning examples of elegance in design.

Again with the "last night." And Trust Thine Reader: he'll remember you watched the movie even if you don't restate as much. This is about Greg's lament, so words aren't well-spent on rebuilding a background. I considered changing "elegance in design" to "design elegance," but on second thought, nah, it's fine:

Greg lamented that kids who grow up on CGI-heavy science fiction movies may never appreciate the fine art of model-building; the Orion shuttle, the Discovery ship and its attendant space pods are stunning examples of elegance in design.

More unforgettable imagery invoked:

The Aries 1-B moon shuttle looks like it ought to have been built and flying by now. The docking sequence with the rotating space station, to the oddly appropriate strains of "The Blue Danube Waltz," look just as clean and modern as anything being filmed today.

First sentence: dandy. Second: less so. It's another case of segments coming in what feels like the wrong order. And what's a statement about music doing in a string of observations about the purely visual? We won't go far as to remove the "Blue Danube" reference, but its out-of-placeness demands consideration. It's not as disruptive in this revision, though, where it comes first in its sentence:

The Aries 1-B moon shuttle looks like it ought to have been built and flying by now. Set to the oddly appropriate strains of "The Blue Danube Waltz", the rotating space station's docking sequence looks as clean and modern as anything filmed today.

An oddball short paragraph follows:

The pop cultural impact of "2001" cannot me overstated. Is it any wonder that over 30 years after the film's initial release, Richard Strauss' tone poem "Also Sprauch Zarathustra" is still associated with space travel?

Perhaps editorial opinion drives this, but "pop cultural" panders to a false divide; "cultural" will do. (And if you really want to separate the "high" and the "low," who would ever file 2001 under the latter?) A part of me says this whole chunk should be cut, but let's not do quite that much violence to the original; we'll graft it to the final paragraph instead.

The cultural impact of "2001" cannot be overstated. Is it any wonder that over 30 years after the film's release, Richard Strauss' tone poem "Also Sprauch Zarathustra" is still associated with space travel?

But back on the subject immediately at hand, the writer has to grant that the disc sounds swell:

That having been said, my only qualm with this edition is that the sound editors involved with the DVD transfer may have taken a few too many liberties.

I'm willing to get hard-and-fast on this: nobody should use the phrase "that having been said." Not as long as they're capable of writing "that said," anyway. We discussed the de-passive-voicifier; "that having been said" is what you get after running "that said" through the regular passive-voicifier. (The modern working writer could make few worse investments than purchasing a regular passive-voicifier.) And we can streamline the revision further still by turning it into a statement about his having a qualm instead of about what his qualm is:

That said, I have a qualm with the liberties taken by this edition's sound editors.

The blasphemy revealed:

The most glaring example is during the closing credits of the film: In the original print the "Blue Danube" reprise ends with snare drum roll and finish when we see the words "THE END." ... But in this edition the waltz continues merrily on its way long after the screen fades to black. Amazon's website notes that Stanley Kubrick approved all this audio tweaking; I guess I'm just going to have to take their word for it.

This passes structural muster, but the devil's in the details. (He loves him some details.) Better, as usual, to talk about the action rather than the identity or nature of this "glaring example." And again, Trust Thine Reader: they know 2001 is a film, they know it's viewed on a screen, and they know Amazon is a website. (And if at this point they don't, seek a new readership.) Also — and this is totally general — excise all excisable instances of the speed bump "going to." This should read much more smoothly:

The most glaring example comes during the closing credits: in the original print, the "Blue Danube" reprise ends with a snare drum roll and finish under the words THE END, but in this edition the waltz continues merrily on its way long after the fade to black. Amazon notes that Stanley Kubrick approved this tweaking; I guess I'll have to take their word for it.

But hey, this tweaking ain't so bad, in the scheme of things:

Granted, the sound is very nice and crisp, the conversations are clear, the bass has a lot of extra "oomph" during Gyorgy Ligeti's atmospheric score. If you are not too much of a Kubrick purist and can overlook the tweaking of the sound, you'll have to admit that this edition of "2001" sounds damned good.

"Nice" is a red flag; "very nice" is an even worse red flag. A maroon flag, if you will, indicating serious meaninglessness. "Nice" aside, I find the first sentence ill-formed in that it spends two-thirds of its time saying what a couple things are, which necessitates a near-teardown/rebuild and merging of both sentences:

But if you aren't too much of a Kubrick purist, you'll have to admit that the clarity of the conversations, the extra "oomph" in the bass of Gyorgy Ligeti's atmospheric score and the overall crispness sound damned good.

"Overall crispness" remains a flat thing to comment on, but there it is.

Finally, the writer takes a turn for the wistful:

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was released at a time when there was still a huge sense of wonder and optimism about space travel and exploration. Alas, in the intervening years shifting economic, political and military priorities have eroded much of that wonder and optimism. I wonder if any of us will ever again be able to look up at the stars with as much hope and exhilaration as we had when "2001" first hit the screens.

Not a bad ending, but certainly a leaden one in the original formulation. Luckily, we can slim it down to half its size like a slow-news People magazine cover story. Most obviously, we don't need the movie's title twice in one paragraph. Nor should we write about what there was in the late 60s and how it's changed since when we can write simply about what the ensuing decades have done to the mood that characterized that time. Performing the aforementioned transplant of that one wonky standalone little paragraph, we have a surprisingly admirable wrapup:

The cultural impact of "2001" cannot be overstated. Is it any wonder that over 30 years on, Richard Strauss' tone poem "Also Sprauch Zarathustra" remains associated with space travel? The film was released at a time of optimism and wonder about space exploration, which shifting economic, political and military priorities have, alas, eroded. I wonder if we'll ever again look up at the stars with the hope and exhilaration we had when "2001" hit the screens.

The revised 2001 review in full:

In the summer of 1969, when I was ten years old, Mom and Dad bundled us kids into the white Oldsmobile station wagon and drove to the Rockville, Maryland Drive-In to see "2001: A Space Odyssey". As a budding sci-fi fan, I was chomping at the bit to see the film despite knowing little about it. Needless to say, it rearranged my universe. I can't say I understood the movie completely, but I did talk my parents' ears off about it on the drive home.

"2001" is my favorite movie of all time. I've seen more screenings than I can count, purchased the soundtrack more than once — vinyl and tape wear out, you know — and read Arthur C. Clarke's novel several times, as well as every other piece of related literature I've been able to get my hands on. Last night my partner Greg and I watched this "Stanley Kubrick Collection" DVD he purchased on our new 32-inch TV in 5.1 digital sound. What a treat! As pristine as any I've seen, the print probably looks better on DVD now than it did in suburban movie theatres then. The image's sharpness, especially the clean lines of the monolith that mysteriously appears amongst our australopithicine ancestors, struck me immediately. Greg lamented that kids who grow up on CGI-heavy science fiction movies may never appreciate the fine art of model-building; the Orion shuttle, the Discovery ship and its attendant space pods are stunning examples of elegance in design. The Aries 1-B moon shuttle looks like it ought to have been built and flying by now. Set to the oddly appropriate strains of "The Blue Danube Waltz", the rotating space station's docking sequence looks as clean and modern as anything filmed today.

That said, I have a qualm with the liberties taken by this edition's sound editors. The most glaring example comes during the closing credits: in the original print, the "Blue Danube" reprise ends with a snare drum roll and finish under the words THE END, but in this edition the waltz continues merrily on its way long after the fade to black. Amazon notes that Stanley Kubrick approved this tweaking; I guess I'll have to take their word for it. But if you aren't too much of a Kubrick purist, you'll have to admit that the clarity of the conversations, the extra "oomph" in the bass of Gyorgy Ligeti's atmospheric score and the overall crispness sound damned good.

The cultural impact of "2001" cannot be overstated. Is it any wonder that over 30 years on, Richard Strauss' tone poem "Also Sprauch Zarathustra" remains associated with space travel? The film was released at a time of optimism and wonder about space exploration, which shifting economic, political and military priorities have, alas, eroded. I wonder if we'll ever again look up at the stars with the hope and exhilaration we had when "2001" hit the screens.

You should send along any and all 100-700-word samples of prose with which I can dick around to colinjmarshall at gmail. These should preferably not include the author's name or any source information.

The Colinments of Style: Hana-bi review

This time, we edit a user review of what I've come to realize may well be my favorite film of them all, Takeshi Kitano's Hana-bi, also known as Fireworks:

"Fireworks" is a direct translation of the Japanese title "Hanabi," which combines the two words "fire" and "flower." The title was chosen due to the juxtaposition of the calm beauty of a flower, and the burning intensity of fire, which perfectly captures the feeling of this Beat Takeshi masterpiece.

I was expecting quite a different film, one more packed with violence and action, something more along the lines of a John Woo/Chow Yun Fat creation. Instead, this is a calm, understated and emotional film peppered with miniature explosions like...fireworks. The pacing of the film is typical of Japanese storytelling, patient and quiet allowing enough time for a story to build fully and characters to live and die on the screen.

Takeshi gives such a complete performance, saying everything with a glance or a movement. Dialog is almost unnecessary, although when it does come it punctuates the scene fluently. He is equal parts warrior and lover, tender and hard. Kayoko Kishimoto delivers an equally wonderful performance as Miyuki, Nishi's wife, dying of leukemia yet able to charm with a smile.

Visually, the movie is stunning, full of creative scenes and transitions. Takeshi knows when to have the action appear off-camera, and when to focus. The use of nature as an element in the film is beautiful, as the story moves from snow to sea to mountain.

Takeshi "Beat" Kitano is one of Japan's greatest modern filmmakers, and "Fireworks" is one of his greatest film. A stunning film.

By user review standards, this is decent, if a tad unmindful. By that I mean that the writer doesn't appear to have paid attention, while writing, to what he'd already written. This heedless embrace of the moment, though beyond common in internet writing, generates an awkward sort of repetitiveness: see the recurring "calm" and "stunning" or the same ideas that keep resurfacing. I'd say we have around 200 words of solid thought here, but they're lost among 250 of them. You may laugh, but a 20% drop in mass can make the difference between okay-ness and excellence.

Despite the sketchiness of opening a review with a point about the work's title, the writer does reasonably well with it:

"Fireworks" is a direct translation of the Japanese title "Hanabi," which combines the two words "fire" and "flower." The title was chosen due to the juxtaposition of the calm beauty of a flower, and the burning intensity of fire, which perfectly captures the feeling of this Beat Takeshi masterpiece.

Though he has the stuff of a strong (if long) first sentence, he spreads it over two of them with nearly 50 words. Better, I submit, to begin with a single, clean swordstroke than a series of staccato jabs:

"Fireworks" is a direct translation of the Japanese title "Hana-bi," a combination of the words "fire" and "flower" that juxtaposes calm beauty and burning intensity, perfectly capturing the feeling of this Takeshi Kitano¹ masterpiece.

I came up with a rule while revising this piece: don't write what things are, write what they do, which of course, is just a fancier version of Strunk and White's injunction against the passive voice, but my version's a lot easier to remember. Favor action over description, and if you must describe, work it into the way you convey an action. We've turned a statement about what the title is into one about what it does; all, I submit, to the good.

The writer puts his next observation somewhat more... problematically:

I was expecting quite a different film, one more packed with violence and action, something more along the lines of a John Woo/Chow Yun Fat creation. Instead, this is a calm, understated and emotional film peppered with miniature explosions like...fireworks.

Serious speed bumps here include "I was expecting," "more packed," "violence and action," "John Woo/Chow Yun Fat" and the dreaded ellipsis, the short, dotted road to the realm of the high school literary magazine.² We can smooth this sentence out by converting it into one about how the movie defies the writer's expectations from a couple of them about what his expectations were and what the picture is instead:

Against expectations of violent action along the lines of John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat, this understated, emotional film is peppered with miniature explosions — like fireworks. Its quiet, patient pacing, typical of Japanese narrative, allows time for a story to build, for characters to live and die onscreen.

I'm still not 100% comfortable with the timing of that reveal of the word "fireworks," but it's an improvement. (As I believe Hoyle originally wrote, em dash trumps ellipsis every time.) Another quick-and-dirty rule has emerged: write about how, not about what.

I agree with the writer's next claim, and with its subtext — in most of the other films I've seen, the pacing royally sucks — and so its poor expression troubles me all the more deeply:

The pacing of the film is typical of Japanese storytelling, patient and quiet allowing enough time for a story to build fully and characters to live and die on the screen.

In almost any case where padding is not the goal, "the pacing of the film" is better rendered as "the film's pacing." Here, we can get that down to "its pacing," no problem. As before, we'll want to discuss about not what the pacing of the film is, but what the pacing does. And rather than saying the pacing simply is a few adjectives, let's emphasize them by leading with them:

Its quiet, patient pacing, typical of Japanese narrative³, allows time for a story to build, for characters to live and die onscreen.

The next two sentences' fragmentation badly fogs their clarity:

Takeshi gives such a complete performance, saying everything with a glance or a movement. Dialog is almost unnecessary, although when it does come it punctuates the scene fluently.

We shouldn't have to use this many brain cycles figuring out that the writer means that Kitano's nonverbal performance alone so nears completeness that he barely needs to speak. (But for what it's worth, that's true.) Condensation works wonders:

Kitano gives such a complete performance with glances and movements that dialogue is almost unnecessary, though when it comes it punctuates scenes fluently.

I'm still not sure what the writer means by "punctuates scenes fluently," but that's not the sort of thing I'm here to correct.

The remainder of the paragraph sets off a bunch of low-level "not quite right" alarms:

He is equal parts warrior and lover, tender and hard. Kayoko Kishimoto delivers an equally wonderful performance as Miyuki, Nishi's wife, dying of leukemia yet able to charm with a smile.

"Equal parts warrior and lover, tender and hard" reads like back-cover copy on a Harlequin novel, but never mind; perhaps a slight rephrase can damp the romance-novel effect. We should otherwise leave this passage alone, save to address the concern that Nishi, Kitano's character, has not been introduced by name:

He is equal parts warrior and lover, as tender as he is hard. Kayoko Kishimoto delivers an equally wonderful performance as his wife, dying of leukemia yet able to charm with a smile.

Something about that "dying of leukemia yet able to charm with a smile" sits less than right. Maybe because the ability to charm with a smile doesn't feel precluded enough by terminal leukemia to warrant a "yet"?

Following that, we have yet another solid statement chopped into shapeless chunks:

Visually, the movie is stunning, full of creative scenes and transitions. Takeshi knows when to have the action appear off-camera, and when to focus. The use of nature as an element in the film is beautiful, as the story moves from snow to sea to mountain.

This lumpen accretion of sentences about what the movie is, what Kitano knows and how beautiful te film's use of nature is can, fortunately, be transformed into one sentence conveying directorial action:

Kitano fills this visually stunning movie with creative scenes and transitions, beautifully using natural elements as he moves from snow to sea to mountain, knowing when to put the action off camera and when to focus on it.

After all, why waste time declaring that, visually, a movie is stunning when you can instead write something more informative about a visually stunning movie — better yet, perhaps something that indicates how it's visually stunning?

I hardly need add my agreeement with the writer's final lines:

Takeshi "Beat" Kitano is one of Japan's greatest modern filmmakers, and "Fireworks" is one of his greatest film. A stunning film.

As much as I'd delight in stripping this bare of equivocation by striking out both instances of "one of," that's playing too fast and loose with the original text. We can, however, unhesitatingly 86 "A stunning film" guilt-free, since we've already got one use of "stunning" — more than enough — two sentences back. With some additional streamlining, we'll end the review in a way that does justice to its subject:

Takeshi Kitano is one of Japan's greatest modern filmmakers, "Fireworks" one of his greatest films.

Here's our final product:

"Fireworks" is a direct translation of the Japanese title "Hana-bi," a combination of the words "fire" and "flower" that juxtaposes calm beauty and burning intensity, perfectly capturing the feeling of this Takeshi Kitano masterpiece. Against expectations of violent action along the lines of John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat, this understated, emotional film is peppered with miniature explosions — like fireworks. Its quiet, patient pacing, typical of Japanese narrative, allows time for a story to build, for characters to live and die onscreen.

Kitano gives such a complete performance with glances and movements that dialogue is almost unnecessary, though when it comes it punctuates scenes fluently. He is equal parts warrior and lover, as tender as he is hard. Kayoko Kishimoto delivers an equally wonderful performance as his wife, dying of leukemia yet able to charm with a smile.

Kitano fills this visually stunning movie with creative scenes and transitions, beautifully using natural elements as he moves from snow to sea to mountain, knowing when to put the action off camera and when to focus on it. Takeshi Kitano is one of Japan's greatest modern filmmakers, "Fireworks" one of his greatest films.

---

¹ Fans know that Takeshi Kitano works under two names: Takeshi Kitano and Beat Takeshi, the former for directing and the latter for acting. Technically, then, Hana-bi is a Takeshi Kitano film starring Beat Takeshi, but for simplicity's sake I'm going to change all of the writer's varying usages of Kitano's names to either "Kitano" or "Takeshi Kitano", which seems to be the de facto convention in English articles about the man.

² My high school's literary magazine, on whose staff I very briefly had a place, was actually titled Ellipsis. One of its poems had a line about "the bright new moon."

³ I never thought the day would come when I would edit the term "narrative" into rather than out of a piece, but there it is.

The Colinments of Style: "The media with its hellish ideas"

Ben Casnocha wrote to suggest that the excerpts I've edited so far have been a bit too inept, and thus not particularly instructive for writers who have spelling, grammar, rudimentary organization and the ability to feed and dress themselves pretty much down. I agree. This, however, is what they call Crappy Version One of my editing-in-public project; I should be iterated well away from it soon.

However, I do need additional pieces of prose to make that shift. So if you stumble upon any 100-700-word samples of prose that hit that magic spot of not-particularly-awful-but-not-particularly-sparkling, send 'em to me, with no author or source information, at colinjmarshall at gmail. Some Metafilter people suggested that my fodder include fanfiction, copy from .gov sites, and the better class of Amazon reviews, and these are all solid ideas, but I'd like to minimize the effect of my own selection filters, recognized or unrecognized. (Fanfiction is a particularly good recommendation, since I've always wanted to make Harry the power bottom, not Ron.) I want to be hit with text from odd, unexpected angles.

All of this, of course, is mere run-up to Bad Writing Example the third (and last):

Within our society, there is an individual. An individual with individual thoughts and actions. But who determines whether or not that individual is correct in their choices? Are our thoughts brain washed through the media with it’s hellish ideas or our closet friends that try to direct us in the right direction? No one may ever know what is right or wrong.

So what is ethical relativism anyway? And who is behind all of the madness of ethical relativism? It is my understanding that relativist’s are believed to think that relativism is true. Ethical Relativism is of a mind to say that whatever one’s culture says is right is the right thing for him or her to do. This world we human beings live in is not without a variety of many different and diverse cultures with different cultural practices and hence different moralities. Studying ethics from a philosophical point of view, ethical relativist’s might conclude that your wasting your time just like philosophers have always wasted they’re time.

I'm beginning to wonder what sort of assignment, specifically, these were written for. Casual remedial philosophy term papers? Like, real casual remedial philosophy term papers? At least there aren't many misspellings or serious syntactical abuses; perhaps that should be a baseline excerpt selection criterion from now on. (The breathtaking juvenility, however, is another matter entirely.)

The writer first makes the perilous choice to open grand:

Within our society, there is an individual. An individual with individual thoughts and actions. But who determines whether or not that individual is correct in their choices?

Madelaine and I have a joke about this sort of leader, calling it the "Through the annals of time..." maneuver; it's about one rung up the great ladder of rhetoric from opening with a definition from Webster's dictionary. I've got a feeling that, were it my job to revise undergrad papers, I'd make de-grandification the first phase of the routine. That means 86ing many words and all pronouncements about "society":

Who determines whether the thoughts and choices of individuals are correct?

And as we all know, if you open grand, you'll want to follow with uncritically reconstituted proclamations:

Are our thoughts brain washed through the media with it’s hellish ideas or our closet friends that try to direct us in the right direction? No one may ever know what is right or wrong.

Leaving mostly untouched this second layer of handwaving, now about the "media" and its legendarily "hellish" brainwashing, we can at least make the statement less confusing. This, however, is a taller order than at first it seems. I think the writer meant to write "closest friends," though closet friends might have proven more interesting. It is between these friends and the hellish-idea'd media that he sets up a dichotomy: which controls our minds? Surely one must. (Funny how many papers are written from the perspective of the only conscious human in a world of sheep.) "Brainwashed," I submit, is a bit too heavy to apply to both. The jump from there to "no one may ever know what is right or wrong" is unfollowable, but there's little we can do to improve it; the writer's intention isn't clear enough.

Are our thoughts influenced by the media or by our friends? No one may ever know what is right or wrong.

Then, oy, the writer keeps making with the rhetorical questions:

So what is ethical relativism anyway? And who is behind all of the madness of ethical relativism?

PROTIP: If dropping question after question after unanswered question doesn't work for august French cultural theorists, it's unlikely to work for you. I'd like to work more rhetorical questions into my own writing, admittedly, but here I've got an object lesson in what happens when you bang the VUs doing so. Condensation will help thin the barrage:

What is ethical relativism, anyway, and who is behind the madness of it?

He's undermined the question by calling the thing questioned "madness" — clearly, his made-up mind seeks no answer — but I dare not corrupt his underlying points with an overzealous red pen.

What comes next is a classic case of misreading Strunk and White's cardinal rule as "include unnecessary words":

It is my understanding that relativist’s are believed to think that relativism is true. Ethical Relativism is of a mind to say that whatever one’s culture says is right is the right thing for him or her to do.

Fine, proverbial red pen; get zealous:

It is my understanding that relativist’s are believed to think that relativism is true. Ethical Relativism is of a mind to say dictates that whatever one’s culture says is right is the right thing for him or her to do, is.

I should thank the writer: "It is my understanding that relativist’s are believed to think that relativism is true" is, in this context, possibly the perfect example of a meaningless phrase. It's your understanding? Implied by the fact that you're stating it. Relativists believe relativism is true? Implied by the word "relativists." I once thought understatement the great pitfall of writing; now I know it's overstatement. We're left with this:

Ethical relativism dictates that whatever one’s culture says is right, is.

A similar malady afflicts the following:

This world we human beings live in is not without a variety of many different and diverse cultures with different cultural practices and hence different moralities.

"This world we human beings live in?" You mean, this Earth? The one I'm on? And that you're on? And that we're both human beings on? The very same? The Earth that bears not just one culture, but many? Different cultures, yes. But diverse, too? Really? Because on the Earth I'm talking about, there are a variety of many different and diverse cultures — which have not just different and diverse practices, but different and diverse cultural practices — and it doesn't just have them; it's not without them. But if you think we're talking about the same world, well, I suppose I'll take your word for it. Thought I'd make sure. One never knows. Can't assume these things on faith.

This revision won't help you reach word count, but it sure saves the reader's brain cycles:

This world's cultures have different practices and, hence, different moralities.

Ah, the home stretch. Unlike the rest of the paragraph, most of the final sentences are right out of the grammar book. Apostrophe confusions, that sort of thing:

Studying ethics from a philosophical point of view, ethical relativist’s might conclude that your wasting your time just like philosophers have always wasted they’re time.

Nevertheless, the old signal-to-noise ratio still isn't exactly heartening. I divine that the writer means that ethical relativists think studying ethics, and philosophy in general, is a waste of time. A bold statement to be sure, but it's hard to tell that upon first, tangled read. Rearrangement is job one, reduction job two:

Ethical relativists might conclude that, in studying ethics from a philosophical point of view, you're wasting your time.

Here's the reassembled paragraph:

Who determines whether the thoughts and choices of individuals are correct? Are our thoughts influenced by the media or by our friends? No one may ever know what is right or wrong.

What is ethical relativism, anyway, and who is behind the madness of it? Ethical relativism dictates that whatever one’s culture says is right, is. This world's cultures have different practices and, hence, different moralities. Ethical relativists might conclude that, in studying ethics from a philosophical point of view, you're wasting your time.

And here's what we get with slightly less mercy:

Who determines whether the thoughts and choices of individuals are correct? The media? Our friends? No one may know what is truly right or wrong. Ethical relativism dictates that whatever one’s culture says is right, is. As different cultures have different practices and hence different moralities, an ethical relativist would consider the study of ethics from a philosophical point of view to be a waste of time.

Well, that... isn't anything, is it? But I suppose that's the beauty of brevity and clarity in writing: it communicates your point more efficiently, but it also reveals when you don't have one.

The Colinments of Style: "According to Marx"

Bad Writing Example the second:

According to Marx, he read utilitarianism and he disagreed with it. He feels humans are alienated from the following nature,body,others ,and one’s own intellectual ability. Marx believes that people are alienated from nature or comes to hate the object he or she creates. In some cases you can say this is true although people are at times happy and pleased with the product of his or her labor. Alienation of the body stregnth, agility are all controlled by the capitalist for hid benefit. Alienation of others says workers see other workers simply as competitors for the rewards they are offered. Finally intellectual alienation is faced with contradictions. In Marxist terminology a contidiction is a notion that is correct by everyone around you but clearly false if thought about in any length of time by yourself.

Hoo boy. Let's see what we can make sense of after a rudimentary cleanup of spelling, grammar, punctuation, quantity agreement, etc.:

According to Marx, he read utilitarianism and he disagreed with it. He feels humans are alienated from the following: nature, body, others, and one’s own intellectual ability. Marx believes that people are alienated from nature or come to hate the object he or she creates. In some cases you can say this is true although people are at times happy and pleased with the product of his or her labor. Alienation of the body: strength, agility are all controlled by the capitalist for his benefit. Alienation of others says workers see other workers simply as competitors for the rewards they are offered. Finally intellectual alienation is faced with contradictions. In Marxist terminology a contradiction is a notion that is correct by everyone around you but clearly false if thought about in any length of time by yourself.

The clause "According to Marx, he read utilitarianism" suggests a nonnative English speaker, but the odd verbosity is evidence against. (People still learning English tend to use too few words, not too many.) Rework the confusing bit, trim the rest of the first two sentences and we get this:

According to Marx, he read utilitarianism and disagreed with it. He feels humans are alienated from nature, the body, others, and their own intellectual ability.

Moving on, we see a deep, pervasive confusion about tense, quantity and pronoun agreement. I notice a distinct absence of commas as well, too, though that's a lesser evil. Here's the cleanup:

Marx believes that people are alienated from nature or come to hate the objects they create. In some cases you can say this is true, although people are at times happy and pleased with the products of their labor.

This is actually pretty clear, but let's still tighten it up:

Marx believes people are alienated from nature, coming to hate the objects they create. In some cases this is true, although people are sometimes pleased with the products of their labor.

Basic repairs on the next two sentences give us this:

Alienation of the body: strength and agility are controlled by the capitalist for his benefit. Alienation of others says workers see other workers simply as competitors for the rewards offered.

Still a bumpy ride. The writer doesn't seem to have decided whether he wants to rattle off the qualities of the various types of alienation after colons or to do it in normal sentences, a sort of careless formal inconsistency common to low-quality prose. Here's my fix, hammering this in line with what came before:

Alienated from the body, their strength and agility are controlled by the capitalist for his benefit. Alienated from others, workers see other workers simply as competitors for the rewards offered.

I'm not quite sure what these final two sentences are trying to say, but I'll be the problem lies almost entirely in the first:

Finally intellectual alienation is faced with contradictions. In Marxist terminology a contradiction is a notion that is correct by everyone around you but clearly false if thought about in any length of time by yourself.

Like a cubist painting, this paragraph tries to come at its subject from a bunch of different angles at once. What worked for Picasso, alas, isn't quite as effective on a term paper. By saying that "intellectual alienation is faced with contradictions," I guess — and it is a guess — that the writer means that intellectual alienation is about being faced with contradictions. I'll try to get this expressed properly:

Finally, the intellectually alienated are faced with contradictions. In Marxist terminology, a contradiction is a notion thought correct by everyone around you but clearly false if thought about by yourself.

So let's reassemble the paragraph:

According to Marx, he read utilitarianism and disagreed with it. He feels humans are alienated from nature, the body, others, and their own intellectual ability. Marx believes people are alienated from nature, coming to hate the objects they create. In some cases this is true, although people are sometimes pleased with the products of their labor. Alienated from the body, their strength and agility are controlled by the capitalist for his benefit. Alienated from others, workers see other workers simply as competitors for the rewards offered. Finally, the intellectually alienated are faced with contradictions. In Marxist terminology, a contradiction is a notion thought correct by everyone around you but clearly false if thought about by yourself.

At least that's readily understandable, but where's the élan? I'll attempt to add some by, as usual, cutting whatever can be cut:

Marx disagrees with utilitarianism. He feels humans are alienated from nature, the body, others, and their own intellectual ability. Alienated from nature, they come to hate the objects they create. (In some cases this is true, although people are sometimes pleased with the products of their labor.) Alienated from the body, their strength and agility are controlled by the capitalist for his benefit. Alienated from others, they see fellow workers simply as competitors for rewards. Intellectually alienated, they face contradictions, which, in Marxist terminology, are notions widely believed true but clearly false if considered by oneself.

This is the guy you college freshmen are so excited about?

You should send along any and all 100-700-word samples of prose with which I can dick around to colinjmarshall at gmail. These should preferably not include the author's name or any source information.

The Colinments of Style: "No lying, no exceptions"

I begin this project with five short "bad writing samples" I've been linked up to on some school's site. Though these have been pre-filtered for their badness and as such aren't 100% what I'm looking for, most any starting point is a serviceable one. Excerpt the first:

As that there are alot of people (weather they are philosophers or not) there are many exceptions to moral rules or laws. One thing I find interesting about Immanuel Kant, are his strong feelings toward not lying at any time ever no matter what and not to deal with the consequences and the considerations of individual situations and circumstances and possible exceptions that need to be accounted for when making a decision of morality and ethics. Immanuel Kant felt strongly that lying was always wrong, he was against it. But whose to say? Wasn’t lying just Kants biggest how shall I say "pet-peeve"? "No lying ever, no exceptions" needs to be addressed more seriously in the future by later philosophers, if you ask me its worth a try. Immanuel Kant was probably one of the most supportive philosiphers of absolute rules in the ethical and moral decision-making systems of thought I have studied.

Hey, it still beats Judith Butler.

The basic spelling and grammatical errors indicate a more thoroughly shoddy paragraph than I'd like, but a few basic repairs Windex any glass, even if the ideas behind it turn out to suck. I was very nearly demoralized by the first sentence alone, a dog's breakfast whose meaning took me about five beats to discern:

As that there are alot of people (weather they are philosophers or not) there are many exceptions to moral rules or laws.

Cosmetically, I'm obsessively — and compulsively! — driven to fix the misspellings and non-word first. (If you could tell me the story of how "alot" gained currency, I'd be terribly grateful.) We can do without the parentheses, since they break the flow — I say we go comma. And the strip of tire spikes that is "As that there are" will be mostly de-toothed by the removal of "that." So:

As there are a lot of people, whether they are philosophers or not, there are many exceptions to moral rules or laws.

This reduces to the unsound proposition that a large number of moral exceptions follow from a large number of people, but if I get into that we'll be here all night. Now to trim the fat:

As there are many people, philosophers and otherwise, there are many exceptions to moral laws.

To clarify the thought process behind what I'm doing here, my goal is to cut down the word count while at the same time changing the words that remain as little as possible. I could probably make what remains of this sentence fancier, but then I wouldn't be far from performing not just the editing but the writing itself.

One thing I find interesting about Immanuel Kant, are his strong feelings toward not lying at any time ever no matter what and not to deal with the consequences and the considerations of individual situations and circumstances and possible exceptions that need to be accounted for when making a decision of morality and ethics.

This writer's teacher would most likely ding him for the personal pronoun, but I'm of the mind that most prose should be more personal, not less, so I'll treat this less as part of an objective analysis than as a subjective, more or less conversational essay. (Never mind that subjective essays are really the only form in which I'm competent to work.) This second sentence, while superior to the first, is a bloated, rambling mess, much like a dissolute uncle at Christmas. Let's see how much we can reduce it:

One thing I find interesting about Immanuel Kant's are his strong feelings toward not never lying at any time ever no matter what and not to deal dealing with the consequences and the considerations of individual situations and circumstances and possible exceptions that need to be accounted for when making a moral or ethical decisions of morality and ethics.

Thus:

I find interesting Immanuel Kant's strong feelings toward never lying and not dealing with the consequences and considerations of individual circumstances and exceptions to be accounted for when making moral or ethical decisions.

Still a line only a mother could love — "I find interesting" grates, but to pull it would require a purpose-defeating teardown and rebuild — but at least it's, in theory, understandable.

Immanuel Kant felt strongly that lying was always wrong, he was against it. But whose to say?

Ladies and gentleman, I give you the High Philosophy Undergrad parodic style. But other than the misspelling and the choppiness of two separate sentences, this one needs little in the way of mechanical improvement:

Immanuel Kant was against lying, feeling strongly that it was always wrong, but who's to say?

And, oh my, this:

Wasn’t lying just Kants biggest how shall I say "pet-peeve"? "No lying ever, no exceptions" needs to be addressed more seriously in the future by later philosophers, if you ask me its worth a try.

Part of me wants simply to put that first sentence out of its misery, but my respect for authorial intention demands otherwise. It must be said, however, that the paper has at this point devolved into an overheard bar conversation. About Kant. "No, no, dude. Dude. Wasn't lying just one of Kant's, like, pet peeves? We gotta take a look at that shit ourselves, you ask me." There also seems to be some confusion about chronology, but I'll just cut through that particular Gordian knot. My revision:

Wasn’t lying just Kant's biggest — how shall I say — "pet peeve"? Future philosophers must address "No lying, no exceptions" more seriously; it's worth a try, if you ask me.

I know, I know; semicolons were forged by Lucifer himself. I've been trying not to lean too hard on them, but this seems like a place for a semicolon if I've ever seen one. This next sentence shouldn't need its magical powers, though:

Kant was probably one of the most supportive philosiphers of absolute rules in the ethical and moral decision-making systems of thought I have studied.

It's bad news when a philosophy student to employs the spelling "philosiphers," sure, but we're here to help this guy. (Though the text is posted on a page called "Examples of Bad Writing", so I feel as if I can be a bit harsher, a bit snarkier than I normally would.) The whole paragraph displays an unnervingly common tendency to qualify statements down to nubs: witness the use of "probably one of the most," at which point you're better off not writing anything at all. I submit it would profit by having its qualifiers trimmed back, which I accomplish like so:

Kant is one of the philosophers most supportive of absolute rules in ethical and moral decisionmaking I have studied.

Ehh. An flaccid sentence with which to end a paragraph, that's for sure, and still not one amenable to uncharitable reading. But still, better than before!

Here's the paragraph fully revised:

As there are many people, philosophers and otherwise, there are many exceptions to moral laws. I find interesting Immanuel Kant's strong feelings toward never lying and not dealing with the consequences and considerations of individual circumstances and exceptions to be accounted for when making moral or ethical decisions. Kant was against lying, feeling strongly that it was always wrong, but who's to say? Wasn’t lying just Kant's biggest — how shall I say — "pet peeve"? Future philosophers must address "No lying, no exceptions" more seriously; it's worth a try, if you ask me. Kant is one of the philosophers most supportive of absolute rules in ethical and moral decisionmaking I have studied.

And here's a more radical edit:

Just as there are many people, there are many exceptions to moral laws. I find Immanuel Kant's strong feelings about never lying despite the considerations of individual moral and ethical circumstances interesting. Kant felt that lying was always wrong, but who's to say? Wasn't lying just Kant's pet peeve? If you ask me, philosophers must address "No lying, no exceptions" more seriously in the future. Kant is more supportive of ethical and moral absolutes than most any philosopher I've studied.

Ah, the lengths to which we go to refute the categorical imperative.

You should send along any and all 100-700-word samples of prose with which I can dick around to colinjmarshall at gmail. These should preferably not include the author's name or any source information. Bonus points if you somehow punk me into revising one of the pillars of western civilization.