DAN C EA BIL IT Y
ARTSHOUND
Sniffing out what
you shouldn’t miss in
the arts this week
Summer and art are soaking into Eugene! The Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts
(DIVA) will host a “Drink & Draw” at the Ninkasi Patio June 20. You bring the drawing
tools and DIVA will provide the model — perhaps a Maiden the Shade or a Tricerahops?
Yet another fun, local fashion affair: LCC fashion design students present their latest
patterns at “Fashion Design Progression & Completion — Then & Now,” LCC’s
seventh annual fashion event. Check out what students right here in Lane County are
doing from 6 to 8 pm Saturday, June 22, at New Hope Christian College Rexius Event
Center, 2155 Bailey Hill Rd.
Between this and Last Friday ArtWalk, you’ll have to plan early to juggle next week’s
arts events: DanceAbility, the nonprofit that aims to show that “we all have the ability
to create beauty, no matter our constraints in life,” sent two arts envoys and a
filmmaker to Indonesia, Mongolia, and the Philippines in May. Now they’re back, and
they’ll be performing at a multimedia and live dance event at 5 pm Friday, June 28, at
The Shedd. It’s a benefit to fundraise for their documentary of the trip.
MOVI ES
BY MO LLY TEMP LETO N
CONFLICTED
The Man of Steel as alien god
MAN OF STEEL : Directed by Zack Snyder. Screenplay by David S.
Goyer; story by Goyer and Christopher Nolan, based on characters created
by Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster. Cinematography, Amir Mokri. Editor,
David Brenner. Music, Hans Zimmer. Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams,
Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe and Diane Lane. Warner Bros., 2013.
PG-13. 143 minutes. 00011.
S
uperman, who originally hails from both a
different planet and a different era, is often a
tough sell with modern audiences who’ve gotten
used to conflicted heroes, anti-heroes and
intriguing bad guys. Superman — with a smile
and a cape, the embodiment of a certain kind of American
ideal — is just so good.
It turns out he’s a little conflicted after all.
Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel splits Superman’s goodness
into two threads: On one hand, he’s a young man who
doubts humanity’s willingness to accept him. On the other,
he’s alien Jesus. David S. Goyer’s screenplay (Christopher
Nolan shares story credit) never passes up an opportunity to
draw godlike parallels, whether emphasizing that Superman
has been on the planet for 33 years or having young, bullied
Clark throw himself against a fence, arms open wide. At a
key point, Clark (played as an adult by the chiseled Henry
Cavill) seeks the advice of a priest, who gives Clark his
answers while lit by a glowing stained-glass vision of Jesus.
This alien god has to choose to trust humanity.
His nemesis will do no such thing. Man of Steel shares
a villain with Superman II; here, General Zod is played by
Michael Shannon with glower and goatee. Condemned by
Kryptonian leaders and freed by Krypton’s demise, Zod
makes his way to Earth to demand Superman’s surrender.
He’s still angry about baby Kal-El’s escape, but Zod has
also been bred to defend Krypton, and all that is left of his
home planet is embodied by our hero.
In fighting Zod, Superman fights a whole host of ideas
about freedom; these don’t always fit together with the reli-
gious elements, but you can’t say Man of Steel isn’t ambi-
tious in its themes, no matter how tangled they may be. It
also ambitiously emphasizes the science fiction aspect of
Superman’s story. A long prologue explaining how Super-
man came to be on Earth gives us a fascinating vision of
Krypton. Dark, geological, unwelcoming, it’s full of caves
and tunnels, genesis chambers where children are bred and
flying beasts that look like they’re half dinosaur, half drag-
onfly. Kryptonite technology looks alien, but has an eerie
biological streak. It’s deeply other — and so is our hero.
But like so much else, this idea fades out in the film’s
endless last third, a parade of broken glass and demolished
buildings. The scope is huge, but the imagery might’ve
come from one of Michael Bay’s Transformers flicks,
except that it lacks robots. Superman is willing to submit
to Zod to save humanity, yet the rampant destruction of the
finale suggests heavy casualties that the movie pretends
don’t exist. This thoughtlessness undermines the movie’s
qui eter, more effective moments, and runs counter to
Superman’s driving savior complex.
Man of Steel isn’t going to win over those who are
indifferent about Superman, but it does set the stage for
Adams and Cavill to develop their chemistry, for Clark’s
journalist alter-ego to emerge, and for future films with
more interest in character than in spectacle (maybe they
could take a page or several from Grant Morrison’s All-
Star Superman). Cavill, who has an interesting, muscular
stillness, is at his best when Kal-El is learning, not
brawling; the movie’s neglected heart is his need to
reconcile his origins and his upbringing — to learn to be
Clark and Superman. ■
eugeneweekly.com • June 20, 2013
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