Edward G Pettit

As a literary historian, the CusackPoe Raven was an unmitigated disaster, trotting out the same old drunk, drug-addled madman Poe that has bedeviled pop culture for far too long.  It's not even bold anymore.  It's just boring.  And to make him a loser, to boot, in amystery thriller, just adds further insult to injury.  

But that's the review of a literary historian, someone with a serious investment in the way Poe is received and read by culture.  Does that mean the entire movie is bad?  Well, while I don't think the movie is very good on it's own terms (the worst of its faults is the killer CusackPoe is trying to stop), there were some things I did enjoy.  

1) The pet raccoon, Karl, to whom Poe feeds a human heart.  If you're going to reinvent a literary character, go bold.  And this is such a bizarre choice that I have to say, well done.  I wish the real Poe had a pet raccoon named Karl.  I would talk about that in every Poe lecture I gave.  And then, CusackPoe has a human heart he's been scientifically dissecting and allows Karl to to eat it.  I love that!

2) The music in the film was thrilling.

3) I thought Luke Evans as Inspector Fields was excellent.  For me, the best performance in the film.  I wish this film was just a 19th century murder mystery with Evans tracking down the killer.  I would have enjoyed that much more.  

4) Watching the murders from Poe's stories come to life was exciting.  I've read some other reviews that slammed the film's use of CGI, but I didn't notice during these scenes.  Watching the pendulum blade slice up the victim and being in the room where the women in Murders in the Rue Morgue are killed is lots of fun.  

5) Alice Eve is hot.

6) CusackPoe complaining about Longfellow.  That was a nice touch in the film that other lit historians and scholars will enjoy.  Also, the victim of the pendulum blade (whom I won't name so as not to spoil the fun) was an apt choice for the film and serves as a kind of in-joke (however, in my view of the movie, it's also an ironic choice).

 Ouch

Yes, there is such a beast as the CusackPoe and he has flown now to a theatre near you.  My review of The Raven, starring John Cusack as a drunken, drug-addled, tormented genius is up at Cinedelphia.  Needless to say, I was not pleased with the perpetuation of the Griswoldian fabrication of Poe's character.  But what are you going to do?  People want their Poe like Byron: mad, bad and dangerous to know (although in Byron's case, most of the scandalous stories about him are true).  And if Poe films like this did not continue to spread such outrageous lies about Poe, what would I do?  

I am also featured in today's Metro for the Philadelphia area ("Philly Poe Guy Pettit has some bones to pick"), debunking the Poe myths and in the Philadelphia Daily News, journalist Molly Eichel has written an excellent piece (and included some quotes from me) about Dickens' pet raven, Grip, and how Poe was inspired by the bird.  

All in all, a good day when I can combine my two current projects, Poe and Dickens.

Being a literary provocateur sometimes bothers others.  But that's the nature of what I'm doing.  I want to provoke reactions from readers (mainly to rethink their notions of literary history).  But sometimes, a colleague gets really pissed at you and holds a grudge.  I received this email today from a scholar with whom I had a little argument a few years ago (2009).  I haven't heard from him since then.  Certainly haven't tried to contact him about anything.  So it was odd today to find this email in my inbox:

The other day I had a typical reading day.  In the morning and afternoon I read some of a Dickens biography. I also received word that I’ll be reviewing a Library of America edition of David Goodis novels for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  At night I took notes on Pride and Prejudice to teach it the following day.  Then I read some Dickens.  Then read I began reading Anne Rice’s new novel, The Wolf Gift, because I’m interviewing her onstage for her event at the Free Library of Phila on Valentine’s Day.  That is an awesome reading life (and maybe one day it will be enough to pay the bills).  A day jam packed with book adventures and adventures to come. 

But the best part of this reading day was taking my seven year old daughter, Lulu, to the dentist.   As soon as we got in the car for the drive, she asked, “Can I read my book to you?”  She read a page or so then told me that she just wanted to read to herself.  When we arrived at the dentist’s office, she got out of the car, walked across the parking lot, down the steps and into the waiting room, all while continuing to read her book.  All of my satisfying reading endeavours of the day (Dickens, book reviews, novels, author interviews) melt away when I remember that one image of my seven year old daughter unable to put a book down as she walked into the dentist's office.  If I never make another dollar reading/reviewing/writing, I’ll at least know I’ve helped make another reader in this world. 

One of Brian Demeter's gorgeous book sculturesThe short answer to that question is yes.  In America, at least half of adults still read novels (or claim to), but readers have greatly decreased in the last few decades.  Times change.  Cultures change.  And I acknowledge that novels aren't the most important things to most people anymore.  But I wanted to check with my new students (a small sampling, only 11 this semester) to see if they knew what I thought were some basic literary trivia questions, the kinds of things that I think used to be common cultural knowledge, meaning if you participated in popular culture, you probably knew the answers to these questions.  Here's the questionnaire I had them complete:

Literary Literacy Quiz

Shakespeare lived during

A) the Medieval era (600-1450)

B) the Early Modern era (1450-1650)

C) the Age of Enlightenment (1650-1800)

D) the 19^th Century (1800s)

Shakespeare wrote (check all that apply)

___ poems

___ plays

___ novels

___ short stories

___ political manifestos

___ religious tracts

Who was Robinson Crusoe? 

Who was Rip Van Winkle? 

Name three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is

A) An anti-slavery novel set in the American South in the mid 19^th Century

B) A pro-slavery novel set in England during the 18^th Century

C) A non-fiction study about the effects of the Civil War 

What is the first line of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick?

A) “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

B)  “Call me Ishmael.”

C) “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

D) “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

 E) “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Name three Charles Dickens novels. 

Who is Holden Caulfield? 

Ulysses by James Joyce is

A) an medieval romance.

B) a modernist novel of the 20^th century.

C) a melodramatic play of the 19^th century.

Who wrote the Iliad?

A) Shakespeare

B) Milton

C) Homer

D) Chaucer

Who wrote the Canterbury Tales?

A) Shakespeare

B) Chaucer

C) King James

D) Mark Twain

Fictional characters or real people (in space write fic or real)

________ Robinson Crusoe

________ Sherlock Holmes

________ Tarzan

________ Edgar Allan Poe

________ James Bond

________ Ebenezer Scrooge

________ Mark Twain

________ Tom Sawyer

________ Casanova

________ Don Quixote

________ Hamlet

________ Romeo Montague

________ Victor Frankenstein

________ Oliver Twist

________ Vito Corleone

________ Lawrence of Arabia

How often do you consult a dictionary (online or paper)

A) Every day

B) Every week

C) Every month

D) Every year

E) Never

In 2011 how many of each did you read?

____ novel

____ play

____ collection of short stories

____ collection of poems

____ biography

____ other non-fiction

If yes to reading any of above, how many of each were NOT required (i.e. assigned by school or work)

_____ novel

_____ play

_____ collection of short stories

_____ collection of poems

_____ biography

_____ other non-fiction

Do you have a favorite book? If yes, name it. 

Do you have a favorite novel? If yes, name it. 

Did you ever read a book that changed the way you thought about yourself, life, the universe, etc?  If yes, name it.

This review will contain spoilers, so if you still want to see the movie and don’t want to know what happens, then read this after you’ve it.  

Anonymous is a terrible historical drama, meaning it is so wrongheaded about the historical time period it wishes to portray that the film can not be taken seriously.  Like Emmerich’s other costume drama, The Patriot, we get such a perverse reading of historical events that one doesn’t know whether to laugh or be angry.  And Emmerich has been strangely silent on The Patriot, as well.  There have been many stories in the press about how Anonymousis such a departure from Emmerich’s usual sci-fi/action/disaster fare, yet there is very little talk about how Emmerich has already made a historical drama.  But just as The Patriot whitewashes the American Revolution, especially regarding slavery (and demonizes the British military), Anonymous seems to take the opposite approach by muddying the waters, by taking known historical facts and situations and deliberately twisting them to convince the audience that there is an actual authorship controversy.  

Besides the major change to history made by Anonymous (that Shakespeare wrote his works), the movie is riddled with the kind of historical errors that made me question whether or not the screenwriter, John Orloff, had ever read or researched anything on the Elizabethan age.  Some of the inaccuracies: 

• Christopher Marlowe was killed in 1593, but the movie has him alive for years afterwards.  The movie also makes a mishmash of chronology in general, so it’s a little hard to figure out in what year things are occurring. 
• Marlowe is murdered by Shakespeare, but was actually murdered by Ingram Frazer on May 30, 1593.
• Shakespeare’s theatre is deliberately burned to the ground by soldiers, although the movie doesn’t seem to state which theatre this is.  The Globe did burn to the ground, but not until 1613 (and this may be the very reason why we have no manuscripts of Shakesplays).  Neither of the other two theatre’s used by Shakespeare’s troupe, The Theatre and The Curtain, ever burned down.
• Richard the Third is performed when Essex tries to lead his rebellion, but it was Richard the Second performed by Shakespeare’s troupe.  The film is also wrong about the performance of nearly every Shakesplay featured.  Midsummer Night’s Dream could not possibly have been written in the 1560s (?).  Julius Caesar comes too late.  Henry V too early.  And Shakes’ narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, is published near the end of Elizabeth’s life, when it was published much earlier.
• The Earl of Oxford's aversion to the theatre.  Lots of aristocrats went to the theatre. 

But maybe you think this is all nitpicking.  What matters getting dates and details wrong if you get the main narrative story correct?  Normally it wouldn’t matter.  But when the director has stated that one purpose of the movie is to correct history, to educate people about what really happened, then Anonymous’ historical inaccuracies are more than just ironic, they undermine the film’s position.  We get the kind of message that history matters, unless I want to make a point, then I’ll rearrange the places, people and events to suit my own purpose.  This is precisely the problem of all the Shakespeare conspiracists: not accepting the historical record and changing it to fit their own agenda. 

Next post: why Anonymous is a terrible film about Shakespearean literature 

Earlier this month, while I was in Roswell, New Mexico lecturing about Edgar Allan Poe, I received a call from a publisher, The History Press, asking if I'd like to write a book about Poe and the time he spent in Philadelphia.  So I submitted a proposal and, yes there will be a book.  A preview:

Edgar Allan Poe lived in Philadelphia from 1838-44.  While there, he wrote the stories that still chill us: The Tell-Tale Heart.  The Fall of the House of Usher.  The Black Cat.  The Pit and the Pendulum.  The Gold Bug.  The Murders in the Rue Morgue.  While there are many biographies of Poe, none go into any detail about how 19th century Philadelphia influenced these works.  Poe’s Philadelphia wasn’t the charming cobblestoned city of  patriots ringing in a new age of democracy on the Liberty Bell.  It was a city of disease and crime.  Cholera rampaged.  Race riots broke out regularly.  Striking workers battled in the streets.  There was no real police force and firemen were more likely to start fires than put them out.  Edgar Allan Poe witnessed all of this and, in turn, produced stories of chaos, destruction and death.  Traces of his Philadelphia run rampant throughout his works. Philadelphia Gothic was the crucible for Poe’s imaginative genius. This biography of Edgar Allan Poe’s in Philadelphia will document Poe’s involvement in the events of the time—the real crime stories he saw in the streets and read in the penny newspapers—and use his mystery and horror stories as a lens to view this history.  This will be a book just as much about Poe as it is about a tumultuous 19th century urban environment. 

Release is scheduled for September 2012, just in time for all the Poe events of the Halloween season.  The Philly Poe Gospel finally comes to print.  Now, to write!

Imagine the director of the movies Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 made athe very offensive poster movie about Shakespeare. Yeah, that was exactly what Anonymous was like.  Anonymous is a terrible film as a drama, as a historical film and as a Shakespearean film.  Emmerich hasn't made a disaster movie, but rather a disastrous one. 

I went into the screening at the Philadelphia Film Festival (opens widely, or not so widely, on October 28) with the preconception that I would probably enjoy the film because I love historical dramas, as well as this particular time period.  Hey, I might be pissed about the whole “Shakespeare was a fraud” thing, but I want to see a political conspiracy movie set in the Elizabethan Age.  Oh how wrong I was.  Turns out I did not want to see a historical conspiracy thriller if it was made by Roland Emmerich.  

Over the next few days, I’ll post about how Anonymous fails in three big ways.  Today, why Anonymous is a terrible drama.  

A film with a script this poorly written would be difficult to redeem (the silly, needlessly convoluted plot with spoilers).  The dialogue was ham-handed, the performances over the top.  Way over.  Even Vanessa Redgraveas Queen Elizabeth plays her part as if a graduate of the Nicholas Cage School of Acting.  Oddly enough, Rhys Ifans as the older Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (Jamie Campbell Bower gets to play the hammy, yet sexy version of the younger Oxford), gives an understated performance, very interior, although he stillcan’t redeem a script that has him givePassionate (with a capital P) dialogue about “Words” (yes, Words with a capital W) and “voices in my head” that he must write or else go mad.  Mad, I tell you!  

I wasn’t the only one in the audience to see the silliness in this movie.  Several times the audience laughed at the ridiculous situations and dialogue.  In one scene, Oxford’s wife angrily confronts the Earl after discovering he has been acting upon his most secret desires: “Edward, you’ve been writing again?!”  The audience erupted into laughter.  Yes, that's the big shameful vice of Oxford.  He's a (make the scrunched up face of distaste) writer.  Emmerich beats the audience over the head with this theme throughout the movie.  And it's this kind of hyperbole that makes the proceedings so silly.  Emmerichalso comes off as a real novice filmmaker when he begins the film with amateurish expository introductions when characters at an Elizabethan theatre have this kind of exchange: “Oh, look, Thomas Dekker, isn’t that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford?” “Why yes, Christopher Marlowe, and that’s the Earl of Southampton with him?”  Really?  Why didn't you just freeze frame and superimpose each character's name as a subtitle? 

And oh, the sneering villains.  Had Snidely Whiplash showed up, no one would have blinked.  Edward Hogg, as the hunchbacked Robert Cecil, seems to be channelling Christopher Guest’s evil, six-fingered Count Rugen from The Princess Bride.  Christopher Marlowe is played as a villain, perpetually envious and sneering at every line uttered by the actors in the playhouse.  Several times, I honestly thought maybe Emmerich was having us on, that he understood this material was silly and was covertly making a film that undermined the Shakespeare authorship conspiracy theories.  Then I remembered his other films and realized Emmerich can only paint in broad, overly simplistic strokes. 

Anonymous is Godzilla set in the 16^th Century (actually, I'd love to see that literally with an actual monster destroying an Elizabethan city).  We even get explosions in the first ten minutes of the film when a theatre is deliberately burned down, setting off fireworks stowed under the stage.  Later, we get canons firing into a crowd, as well as lots of musketry fire.  The bodies pile up.  Normally, I’d enjoy that kind of mayhem in a film.  And it could be refreshing in an historical film.  But not in a movie that takes itself so seriously.  The only light moments in this film are scenes showing Shakespeare as a goofy bumpkin.  Otherwise, we get characters imploring, growling, weeping, shouting, sneering, bellowing, pleading.  The only thing Anonymous was missing was Nic Cage.  That would at least have made it enjoyable. 

Part 2 Anonymous as a terrible historical film

Part 3 Anonymous as a terrible Shakespearean film. 

Last week, I spent a few days at Eastern New Mexico University in Roswell, NM talking about Edgar Allan Poe.  Taught two classes and then gave a lecture open to any and all.  The students were very responsive in both classes and 25-30 people turned out for the talk, always an encouraging sign.  I never get tired of learning how many people out there still read and enjoy Poe’s works.  Even the professors at ENMU were a little surprised by the Poethusiasm.  

Thanks so much to Professor Daniel Wolkow who invited me and the students and teachers who attended. 

 Even Roswell, NM has a Poe Street