Griffith's The Birth of a Nation is presented in two parts - the first concerns the Civil War, the defeat of the South and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and is filmed with a powerful sense of scope and subject matter. It is easy to marvel at Griffith's abilities and to call him the greatest filmmaker working in 1915; he was a man who could not only compose a grand idea but execute it in ways that other directors couldn't via camera movements, transitions, intercutting and an general eye for action. When the North and the South finally end their battle, when the images of the bodies have faded from the screen, it looks as though a war has actually been waged on the field, and Griffith's camera had been sitting atop a high ledge capturing the entire struggle.

Unfortunately, the movie's second part dealing with the Reconstruction of the post-Lincoln South is some of the most flagrantly racist, poorly staged material I've ever seen on film. White actors portray ignorant blacks eating chicken in legislature, turning into unhinged sexual predators and generally lumbering around like dolts until they form a fascist group that terrorizes the "poor white minority" (that's a quotation from one of the title cards). The Ku Klux Klan are portrayed as heroes pushed to the breaking point by a proclamation that did more harm than good in unifying the South as they ultimately hunt down and murder African-Americans, forcibly prevent them from voting and demonizing the notion of interracial coupling. The final act is a long, clumsy and ugly finale to a movie that had initially kept me captivated, and it's one of the strangest examples of a film with a dual nature that I can remember.

So what can I make of it? Is it great? Perhaps some films should simply be regarded as significant by virtue of their own conflicted nature. Birth of a Nation is significant because it shows exceptional innovation in its execution and staging (Roger Ebert's review of the film mentions that audiences wouldn't have been able to focus entirely on the film's plot, given that they would have been awestruck by the intercutting process). But its racist stance - a stance that Griffith spent the rest of his career apologizing for - begs it to be disregarded as "great" and more fundamentally "American." It seems to be one of those (first) cases where style is in direct contrast with substance. Ultimately, it was the first instance of a film shaming its own media while giving everything of which it was capable in the effort.

I read an article of James Naremore's on film noir as a genre, and he calls for the need of a "genre-function" discourse very similar to that of Foucault's, which suits the author. I wonder why art causes us to panic the way it does. We're always attempting to come up with concrete definitions for human expression - both the need for it and the end result - and track periodical trends. Poststructuralism should have made things easier but all it really seems to do is offer a much bigger table on which more critics can toss their two cents. It keeps things fun, I suppose.

I wrote a poem today. The Independent Festival of Authors is coming up. I wouldn't mind checking out Elizabeth Hay, Rudy Wiebe and Will Ferguson. I'm always so lackadaisical and awkward when it comes to festivals, concerts, art shows. Part of me thinks the sole reason I want to publicize them for a living is so that I'm properly able to psyche myself into attending them.

I'm listening to Radiohead's new record at a rate of one song per day. Today's was the fantastic "All I Need." I'm really enjoying the album so far, and keeping it out of reach.

Most of my group met today to watch a video of a Death in Venice performance, and we tossed around some ideas about the material we're going to present. After talking with them I'm starting to look forward to it. I have some ideas about looking at writer psychology, tying it in to Thomas Mann's work and the character Aschenbach. Looks positive so far.

I watched Faust and it's incredible. I LOVE Murnau's work. Nosferatu is probably the one he's most known for, but he also directed the amazing Sunrise: A Tale of Two Lovers that choked me up when I saw it. He's probably the greatest of the silent film directors (I say this on the eve before watching Griffith's most well-known work). Murnau's effects are overall great even by today's standards. I posted some stills over at the film_stills LiveJournal community.

Andrea and I had a conversation about outer space, prompted by the news that astronomers discovered methane rain on Titan. We started talking about other worlds and how little humanity still knows about them. Andrea sent me a documentary on supermassive black holes that I watched in amazement. But then that prompted investigation into how scientists think the world is going to end. One thing seems to be certain: regardless of anything we do, the Earth will not exist in 6 billion years (based on solar evolution, the sun will have become a "red giant" by that time). Humanity will have disappeared even sooner than that, because the oceans will have evaporated 5 billion years earlier, followed by the atmosphere. Venus will have melted entirely.

It's kind of humbling to know that despite our best efforts to cling to life, we're not going to be here forever. 6 billion years from now, if humanity still exists in this or another galaxy (not Andromeda, which will more than likely have melded with our galaxy creating a supermassive black hole that will either slingshot Earth out into space or evaporate it completely), it will probably be a lot different from what it's like today. How far are we going to evolve? Where will we end up? When will we end, if at all?

I picked up some graham wafers at the grocery store. They're sweet and taste like honey. I like to eat a few before I wash them down with cold water.

200 more words today.

It sure got late in a hurry. Speaking of late, I was almost late for the opera tonight due to my foolishness in thinking I could get from my house to Queen Street in 45 minutes during rush hour. I made it with a couple of minutes to spare, but it would have been embarrassing if I'd been any later. Verdi's Don Carlos was a heretic-burning, Oedipus complex-flaunting, revolution-failing good time, though it was a long show at over 4 hours with two intermissions. I wasn't as familiar with it as I was going into Mozart's and I think that affected my opinion of it. The vocalists were better, but I was expecting more of a spectacle given the subject matter. It was still very good, nonetheless. Tomorrow I'm meeting with my group to start talking Death in Venice.

Today I visited the Toronto Public Library's Osbourne Collection of Early Children's Books, where my class looked at a ton of publications of Robinson Crusoe through the years. It's fascinating the kind of things that were used as propaganda for kids (wartime declarations, stories to prepare children for death). I bet there's a whole slew of Oz books in that building. They're currently featuring an extensive Edward Gorey collection in glass cases.

Between the opera and my Bibliography course, I feel so privileged being able to do what I'm doing here. I've been experiencing literature in a way I never thought possible - I'm actually able to engage with texts touched and signed by the people I read. U of T is extraordinarily surreal in a lot of ways due to its size and history. I should take advantage of what it has to offer while I'm here.

I signed out copies of Griffith's Birth of a Nation and Murnau's Faust to watch over the weekend. The Ontario Arts Council emailed me and told me I collated my grant applications wrong, which doesn't sound right because I took painstaking measures to put them in the right order, but I thanked them for correcting the error without forcing me to resubmit. I finally activated my new VISA and have as of yet not used it. Such restraint. Ren's in town and we're hitting up Darjeeling on Monday.

The air is getting colder. I have a lingering cough but it doesn't feel too serious.

I watched Smiles of a Summer Night today and quite enjoyed it. It's a rare comedic effort by Bergman, but he still manages to stick in moments of existential unrest, characters who despise life because they can't communicate directly with God, which seems even unintentionally funny in itself in this context. You know you're watching a Bergman film when a character suddenly faces the camera and delivers a monologue about their perpetual malaise. For the most part, though, he winks at the audience through the treatment of his characters, trying to stumble into the proper slots for happy relationships.

I also watched Wonder Boys, one of my favorite films, while eating some Oven-Baked Eggplant Parmesan and Spaghetti I whipped up for dinner. This past week I've been getting to know eggplant, trying to find some common ground because I want us to get along, and I think we're one step closer.

I finished my bibliography assignment, but I don't really know if it's what the prof wants - a reading list for a proposed research project along with a 300 word max paragraph talking about the books I've selected. I chose Charlotte Lennox as a subject. The thing is, the assignment mentions proper MLA citations for the paragraph. Why would I be citing ANYTHING directly if I only have 300 words to explain the presence of each and every work on the list? Plus, I put all of the works on from doing net research and taking brief looks at some of the material. I don't really know what's in them, so I can't very well cite them. Doesn't strike me as that kind of assignment.

Whatever. It's done. I'm catching Don Carlos at the opera tomorrow, which looks bombastically frightening. I'd like to get some scary movie time in before Halloween, too. But what I'd like most is to see The Darjeeling Limited this weekend. Is there anyone out there who will take a couple of hours out of their busy lives to accompany a poor Wes Anderson fan to the cinema this weekend?

I think the material I've been reading for classes has had a hand in affecting my disposition lately. One of my courses deals with the failure of an artist to express himself the way he wanted, his talent beaten into the ground until he died a joke, a has-been, virtually creditless in the eyes of the general public. I watched The Lady from Shanghai today and was struck by the intrigue of the scenes in the aquarium, the Chinese theatre, and the hall of mirrors. But I can't watch it and not feel every instance of obvious studio-made cuts and awful overdubbing that could have been avoided if Welles had been allowed a final edit.

Another course gears toward the history of racism in this country, featuring story after story of struggle, senseless violence, loneliness, and persecution. Lately I've been reading short stories by Austin Clarke, stories that take place in the streets of Toronto, places I'm becoming more and more familiar with. While a lot of his work is terrific, it portrays black men and women time and again failing utterly in their attempts to be subjective notions of "Canadian." Often they die or are killed in the process. And I sit in my room in Toronto by myself and the despair gets to me, as it would anyone else with a claim to humanity, I would hope.

The power went out tonight for about half an hour. From my balcony, patches of the city were still lit, but the predominant area around the building was pitch black, even the traffic lights. It looked a bit like the end of the world. Strangely enough, I downloaded the new Radiohead record today. The last time a giant blackout hit Ontario, I was safely in a Montreal hotel on a trip to see Radiohead perform. I'd like to write something here about Radiohead and music in general soon. Music has always been something I've had a strong passion for, and I don't devote it the attention I used to.

I spent about six hours in Robarts today, hunching over Bibliography and Touch of Evil readings, taking notes, and checking out the film Kiss Me Deadly - an insane film noir from 1955 that obviously influenced Tarantino, Scorsese and even David Lynch. Towards the end of the original noir era, the films had the tendency to explode out from under themselves. The protagonists would often experience delusion and go crazy. But this film is unparalleled in how it falls apart. It has to be seen to be believed.

I'm in love with Media Commons. They're well stocked in old movies that I can sign out for a couple of days at a time, hence my being able to watch Shanghai and eventually Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night in the comfort of Jay's own home. By the end of the school year I figure I'll be able to attribute about a fifth of my tuition to money otherwise spent on video rentals.

I wasn't feeling quite like myself today. I skipped my African-Canadian Literature class in order to regroup a little bit. I feel like it's time to make a few resolutions.

I'm going to start working a bit harder at school. I'm going to involve myself more with the readings and prepare myself with talking points for classes. Tomorrow I'm going to spend a few hours in the library to work on some readings and assignments.

I also want to start eating better. I feel like my diet is making me lazy, lumpy and tired. I made Tomato Eggplant Mozarella Stacks for dinner tonight (wild).

Finally, I need to pick up my writing. I did about 800 words today. That makes a few thousand since I moved here. A promising start, but I'd like to add many more. If I'm going to sit around, I'm going to sit around doing something.

I thought I was being slick in getting three Touch of Evil readings out of the way over the weekend, but I get back to Toronto and discover there are still 90 pages to go. Jeez. I need to start getting these readings out of the way a lot earlier. It would be a different situation if the class were later in the day, but I can't keep staying up until 2 AM reading if I have to leave the house at just after 9.

Okay, my mini-vacation is over. I have a bibliography assignment due this week, and another opera to attend on Friday.

I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon.