Got Heroes? Viggo Mortensen Lists His Top 230

[this originally appeared in the Boston Globe]

by Ethan Gilsdorf

Who are Viggo Mortensen’s heroes? Ask him, and he doesn’t hold back. That’s what we learned when, after a recent interview, we sent the actor some follow-up questions via e-mail. Here are his responses.

1) Who were your heroes growing up as a child, and who are they today?

Okay, you asked for it...

As a child — say, before age eleven — I suppose they were my father, my mother, various horses and dogs, soccer players for San Lorenzo de Almagro (a club founded in Boedo, Argentina, in 1908 by Salesian priest Lorenzo Massa) like “Lobo” Fischer, “Loco” Doval, “Bambino” Veira, “Sapo” Villar and too many other legendary players from that club to mention — Viking Leif Eriksson, fictional gaucho cowboy Martin Fierro, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Odin, Thor, Jesus of Nazareth, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, the character Don Quijote, his horse Rosinante and his trusty servant Sancho Panza, Achilles, Odysseus, Theseus, Joan of Arc, explorer Roald Amundsen, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, Thor Heyerdahl, Roger Bannister (the first man to break the four-minute mile barrier), marathon champion Abebe Bikila, Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé), long jumper Bob Beamon, Jesse Owens, Bob Hayes, Emil Zátopek, Wilt Chamberlain, Cassius Clay, swimmers Don Schollander and Dawn Fraser, Peter O’Toole’s impersonation of T. E. Lawrence, the crew of Apollo 11, the recently-deceased rock legend Luis Alberto “El Flaco” Spinetta, Carlos Gardel, Bela Lugosi, Greta Garbo, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Louis Armstrong, Edith Piaf, Beethoven, Mozart ... I could probably name more, but surely that gives an idea of how and where I dreamed back then.

Although as an adult I have come to see that no human being is perfect, I now would place at the top of the list the many unheralded people whose small acts of selfless kindness and courtesy, of grace under pressure that we come across every single day are there to be noticed and emulated if we simply pay attention. In terms of individuals who are relatively well-known, I would single out Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Helen Caldicott, Dennis Kucinich, Baltasar Garzón, Aung San Suu Kyi, Julian Assange and anyone who speaks truth to power, stands up against injustice and cruelty regardless of any consequential risk of ostracism or personal physical danger. Of course, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mark Twain, my father, my mother, and some of the others previously mentioned, are still heroes to me. I can also add, among other diverse sorts of heroes, my son Henry, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein, Heraclitus, Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu, Epictetus, writers Marguerite Duras, Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), Albert Camus, Jonathan Swift, E. E. Cummings, Julio Cortázar, Mario Benedetti, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Juan Carlos Onetti, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Francisco Quevedo, Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Haroldo Conti, Oscar Wilde, Knut Hamsun, Saxo Grammaticus, Schopenhauer, Ludvig Holberg, Anton Chekhov, Anna Akhmatova, Johannes Ewald, Euripides, Stanley Kunitz, Theodore Roethke, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Conrad, Osip Mandelstam, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Seamus Heaney, Oscar Wilde, Cormac McCarthy, Edgar Allan Poe, Rainer Maria Rilke, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, William Burroughs, Walt Whitman, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Campbell, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, directors Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson, David Cronenberg, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Luis Buñuel and Yasujirō Ozu, actors Richard Jenkins, Sandy Dennis, Geraldine Page, Meryl Streep, Maria Falconetti, Ghita Nørby, Ariadna Gil, Jessica Lange, Paco Rabal, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Dirk Bogarde, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Federico Luppi, Montgomery Clift, and Robert Duvall, stuntman Mike Watson, sculptors Bertel Thorvaldsen, Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, painters Giotto, da Vinci, Juan Gris, Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Andrei Rublev, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Edvard Munch, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Utagawa Hiroshige, Minerva Chapman, Franz Kline, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Diebenkorn, Per Kirkeby, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and photographers Jacques Henri Lartigue, Jacob Riis, André Kertész, Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Julia Margaret Cameron, Martin Munkácsi, August Sander, Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Garry Winogrand and Dennis Hopper, tennis champions Rafael Nadal, Björn Borg and Guillermo Vilas, skiers Bill Koch, Juha Mieto, Jean-Claude Killy and Bjørn Dæhlie, newer San Lorenzo players like “Beto” Acosta, “Ratón” Ayala, the heroic 1982 San Lorenzo team that came back from the club’s only descent to Argentina’s second division breaking national attendance records along the way, Guy Lafleur and the great Montréal Canadiens teams from the 1970s, the 1969 and and 1986 New York Mets, Tom Seaver, “Doc” Gooden, New York Knick stars Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Bernard King, Oscar Reed, Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird, “Magic” Johnson, the U.S.A. 1980 Olympic hockey team, the ’87, ’91, 2008 and 2012 New York Giants teams, Danish soccer stars Allan Simonsen, Michael Laudrup, Peter Schmeichel and Denmark’s 1992’s soccer cinderella-story European Champion team, Johan Cruyff, Mario Kempes, Diego Maradona, Real Madrid’s/Schalke’s Raúl González Blanco, Leo Messi, Gonzalo Higuaín, Zinedine Zidane, Bob Dylan, Ada Falcón, Leonard Cohen, Chet Baker, Gustav Mahler, Arvo Pärt, Carl Nielsen and so on...

Sorry to give you such long lists. Could have been even longer...

2) What are your favorite films, or films influential on your career, and/or what actors do you admire, and why?

Movies, to name a few: The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Godfather I & II, A Separation, The Fog of War, The Conformist, Los Santos Inocentes, The Deer Hunter, Casino, Lawrence of Arabia, Tokyo Story, Autumn Sonata, Sunrise, Andrei Rublev, Citizen Kane, A Place in the Sun, City Lights, Casablanca, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Greed, The Night of the Hunter, The Third Man, Gallipoli, Mother and Son, Stalker, Ivan’s Childhood, Red River, Taxi Driver, Frances, Network, Grand Illusion, L’Atalante, Throne of Blood, The Seven Samurai, The Sword of Doom, Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai trilogy, Carnival of Souls, Solaris (Tarkovsky’s original)...

Actors, to name a few: Montgomery Clift, Maria Falconetti, Meryl Streep, Marlon Brando, Richard Jenkins, Sandy Dennis, Ellen Burstyn, Geraldine Page, Robert Duvall, Anna Magnani, Peter O’Toole, Toshiro Mifune, Dennis Hopper, Jessica Lange, James Dean, John Hurt, Dirk Bogarde, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Glenda Jackson, Vanessa Redgrave, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford, Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Bergman, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Ulrich Thomsen, Max von Sydow, Bruno Ganz...

3) Did you read much fantasy or science fiction as a kid? Did you ever play Dungeons & Dragons or know anyone who did?

Never have played “Dungeons and Dragons.” As a kid I read Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and a few others. As an adult have admired Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and notebooks.

4) We talked a little about your work as an actor, painter, poet and musician. They all seem linked by story. So I’m wondering what you think is the significance or power of stories? Why are they so important?

We are the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories we tell about others, the stories we read about everyone and every thing.

Ethan Gilsdorf can be reached at www.ethangilsdorf.com

Viggo sees through the eyes of an outsider

[this originally appeared in the Boston Globe]

He’s best known for inhabiting a haunted and reluctant hero-king. But he’s also been a trailblazing thinker, a vigilante family man with a dark past, a Russian mobster, a swoon-worthy traveling salesman, and one of the last men alive on earth, determined to make sure he and a boy survive.

Starring in these movies - the “Lord of the Rings’’ trilogy, “A Dangerous Method,’’ “A History of Violence,’’ “Eastern Promises,’’ “A Walk on the Moon,’’ and “The Road’’ - actor Viggo Mortensen assumes the shape of outsiders. His characters drift, wander, and resist the status quo. They eschew the spotlight. They forsake the obvious path to their fates.

That the actor is attracted to these roles - quiet, contemplative, often loners, men who conceal secret doubts, identities, and rages - “probably has something to do with who I am,’’ Mortensen says on the phone from Madrid. “I suppose I am conscious of being drawn to people who are a little different. Or who think for themselves.’’

On Monday, Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre will honor Mortensen for his independent outlook. Its Coolidge Award annually recognizes a film artist who “advances the spirit of original and challenging cinema.’’

Mortensen, 53, says he simply craves “connections’’ and “experiences’’ - two words that frequently punctuate his drawly, meditative speech (as do ruminations on art and mortality). Guided by a thirst for off-kilter adventures, he seeks projects that make him feel alive.

“I just try to choose things that are interesting, that are going to challenge me, that are going to make me a little nervous,’’ says the soft-spoken, gravelly voiced actor. “Because I know what makes you nervous, what makes you afraid. It’s usually things you don’t know anything about.’’

Example: Mortensen recently relocated to Madrid to perform in a Spanish-language play called “Purgatorio.’’ “[I was] afraid I wasn’t up to the task as an actor,’’ he says. Yet he discovered, “as usual,’’ that the work with the most emotional challenges ended up being the most enjoyable.

That kind of risk-taking is what the Coolidge is rewarding. Denise Kasell, executive director of the Coolidge, cited the eclectic, courageous choices of the actor, who also paints, writes poems, shoots photos, sings, plays piano, and runs his own small publishing house. “He’s a very accessible gentleman. He’s an artist himself,’’ Kasell says. “He really understands and gets what we are all about.’’

“And he said yes,’’ Kasell adds. “It’s that simple.’’

This week, the Coolidge has been mounting a retrospective of Mortensen’s films, which continues through Sunday with a rare marathon of the extended editions of “The Lord of the Rings’’ trilogy, followed by a Monday afternoon screening of “Eastern Promises’’ - the David Cronenberg film that earned Mortensen a 2007 best actor Oscar nomination - and a post-screening Q&A with the actor. Then comes a sold-out award presentation Monday night.

Asking Mortensen about his ideals can elicit passionate responses. When questioned in a follow-up e-mail, “Who were your heroes growing up as a child, and who are they today?’’ the actor sends an astounding 800-plus word answer, listing childhood heroes that range from “my father, my mother, various horses and dogs’’ to Mahatma Gandhi, Thor, Jesus of Nazareth, Odysseus, Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé), Jesse Owens, the crew of Apollo 11, Greta Garbo, Louis Armstrong, and Mozart, plus adult heroes including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Heraclitus, Lao Tzu, Anna Akhmatova, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Luis Bunuel, Matisse, Margaret Bourke-White, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Leonard Cohen, and Gustav Mahler.

Mortensen’s passion extends to his commitment to his roles. To get under Aragorn’s skin for “The Lord of the Rings,’’ he wore his costume even while not shooting, and kept his practice sword always close at hand.

But fans who know the actor only from his Middle-earth orc-slaying may be surprised to learn that he’s been acting for nearly three decades. He made his film debut with a small part in 1985’s “Witness.’’ In those days, he would do “anything, something, anything’’ for acting experience, and to pay the rent. Which explains his journeyman gigs in TV’s “Miami Vice’’ and a couple of ABC “Afterschool Specials,’’ as well as in horror films such as “Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.’’

Whenever possible - “anytime it was really up to me and not the landlord,’’ he says - he chose parts that pushed him as an actor. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, he had supporting roles with indie directors such as Jane Campion (“The Portrait of a Lady’’), Sean Penn (“The Indian Runner’’), and Gus Van Sant (“Psycho’’), as well as a few mainstream films such as “Young Guns II,’’ “Crimson Tide,’’ and “G.I. Jane.’’

Directed by a relative-unknown at the time, Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings’’ felt like a gamble. “While we were making it, no one had any idea it was going to be a huge smash hit,’’ Mortensen says. The success quickly cemented his status as a leading man and introduced him to the fun-house world of celebrity life. “Walking down the street in any town or city in the world and having people look at you and start talking to you, convinced that they know you as well or better than they do members of their own family, that’s just an odd phenomenon,’’ he says. “I wouldn’t say it was a bad thing. It’s interesting.’’

Mortensen could have leveraged his “Lord of the Rings’’ fame into a parade of action-adventure paychecks. Instead, he’s largely championed diverse roles in smaller movies. How many fantasy heroes would go on to play a Russian mobster in “Eastern Promises,’’ and dare to let it all hang out, buck-naked, in a steam-room fight scene? Next up for Mortensen: playing the William S. Burroughs character in an adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.’’

The idea of a career trajectory hasn’t crossed his mind. “Maybe I would have been smarter to have written down in a notebook, ‘Well, I’m going to play this part and this part before I’m too old to play this part,’ ’’ he says.

He views acting as “an extension of childhood play,’’ Mortensen says. “You have to just go for it. Just let yourself go and let yourself believe.’’

And each role is a chance to learn something new: “Each time I’m looking at the world or a part of the world from a point of view different than my own. Sometimes radically different. Sometimes from a point of view I would never care to have or identify with. But that’s the job.’’

Such a job has its own internal rewards, Mortensen emphasizes. “You can wake up feeling so-so about the world, and then because of what happens as soon as you get out of bed, something happens. You connect with someone, something, a book, and something happens that’s bigger than just you. It’s a connection with nature, a connection with people, a connection with a story that you are part of telling. . . . That’s what’s great about it.’’

But loyalty to indie cinema is a double-edged sword. Mortensen has at times grown frustrated with “irritating, dishonest, disappointing’’ people in the business, he says. He’s even contemplated quitting, but never has.

He harbors strong feelings about the Hollywood movie-making machine - its “frenetic quality,’’ the “money at stake,’’ the “hyping of the product,’’ the “award shows and prizes.’’ He complains that Cronenberg has never won an Academy Award or Golden Globe. “He deserves it way more than many who have won and more than half of those who get nominated every year,’’ Mortensen says. “I know he’s in the pantheon of greatest living directors, unquestionably, and he’s never been nominated.’’

Yet isn’t that the fate of those who take the road less traveled? They want recognition, they shun recognition. Yet they still hold out hope.

“Every once in a while, every couple of years, there’s one or two movies that really surprise you, because there is innovation,’’ Mortensen says. “Or people just do such honest work. Or such pure work or such interesting, original work every once in a while that it is the real thing. And it makes you hopeful.’’

Hobbit talk

NOT in The Hobbit? Artist John Howe's vision of Dol Guldur, Sauron's fortified hangout and HQ tucked away in the forests of Mirkwood.As I recently wrote about in my posting at Geek Dad on wired.com, there's some interesting talk in the Tolkien fan world about The Hobbit movie adaptation.

First, it was confirmed that Orlando Bloom would reprise his role as Legolas in The Hobbit production now being filmed by Peter Jackson and company down in New Zealand. As many of you know, while Legolas features prominently in The Lord of the Rings, the blond elf does not appear in J.R.R. Tolkien’s earlier book, The Hobbit.

Then, a few days ago, the news was made official that The Hobbit would in fact be two films. (The rumor mill knew this for eons.) “The first film, titled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will be released on December 14, 2012. The second film, titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is slated for release the following year, on December 13, 2013,” it was declared on the production’s Hobbit Blog.

The simple choice to make two more complex films out of one simple, 300-odd-page kid’s book has pricked up the ears of some fans—i.e., me, for one—and has made other fans prickly.

Upping the ante was what Peter Jackson revealed on his Facebook page earlier this week about the plot of The Hobbit movie:

“I’m not going to say just what and when, but I will confirm that both the White Council and Dol Guldur will feature in the movies. And not just in one scene either. Just how to visualise it has been a challenge, but fortunately Alan Lee and John Howe went crazy with ideas, and it should look pretty cool.”

For the unwashed, Dol Guldur is Sauron’s fortified hangout and HQ in the forest of Mirkwood for more than a millennia of the Third Age (back when he goes by the handle of the Necromancer). The White Council is sort of like the Council of Elrond, an All-Star assembly of Middle-earth heroes, formed in response to the rise of Dol Guldur. The members include the Wizards Saruman the White and Gandalf the Grey, Lady Galadriel of Lothlórien, Master Elrond of Rivendell and a few others. These goings-on are only alluded to in The Hobbit.

The latest announcement explains the reason why Cate Blanchett will be back to reprise her role as Galadriel. It also makes sense that Christopher Lee will be back to play Saruman (although, as of yet, this has not been confirmed). Less clear is how Legolas/Bloom will be integrated into the movie.

To work in these elements, Jackson and the other screenwriters have made it clear they’ll be adding material not actually in The Hobbit, but drawn from other sources in the Tolkien lengendarium. But as reported in The Guardian and elsewhere, some question the wisdom of this move. Is turning what is essentially a kid’s book into high epic fantasy more along the lines of The Lord of the Rings such a great idea? Remember, both in tone and in treatment, The Hobbit was written for and targeted mainly to children, with very little of the heady, wearying Sturm und Drang of LOTR.

Of course, PJ and the gang at Wingnut and Weta have not only oodles of fans to please, but oodles of money to make. And most of those LOTR fans are movie fans first and foremost, not readers of the trilogy. So fashioning a plot and movie look-and-feel that’s as seamless with the Middle-earth millions already know from the LOTR movies makes money sense.

Tolkien purists put their trust in Jackson the first time around and, squabbling aside, most were generally pleased with the elements he added and subtracted to LOTR. The appearance of Legolas, the White Council and Dol Guldur is plausible; these logically would have happened concurrent with the events of The Hobbit.

Still, I can imagine the most fevrent fans of The Hobbit (the book) might want to revoke Jackson’s creative license.

But I can also imagine the cheers in the audience when Legolas appears wherever he’s going to appear. We’ll have to wait till Christmas of next year out find out.

Tolkien hippie stickers resurface

[NOTE: you can also read about this on wired.com's Geek Dad]

I attended the recent 3rd Conference on Middle-earth (in Westford, Massachusetts) where I listened to talks on blond elf imagery and debates on how to adapt The Hobbit into one movie or two movies (and the wisdom of that latter endeavor).

I also wandered over to a vendor table manned by an older gentleman named Ed Meskys, who has been involved in science fiction and fantasy fandom since the early days. In addition to selling and giving away old copies of “The Tolkien Journal” and “Niekas,” the magazine he used to publish, he had stacks of old book jackets and other mysterious items. Meskys had been cleaning out his garage, he told me, and wanted his old treasures to see the light of day again. “I want to get them into the hands of people who will read and appreciate them,” he wrote in a recent issue of his e-fanzine “The View From Entropy Hall.” Most of the stuff was a buck or two each, or free.

Among the ephemera were these yellowed, dusty, wonderful, terrible, Lord of the Rings stickers. It was the end of the day, and Meskys gave me his last sheets of stickers for free.

I later asked him where they came from.

“When I was president of the Tolkien Society of America 1967-1972,” Meskys wrote in an email, “I received promotional materials from a number of places. All I remember was that the stickers came from Australia. I was sighted at the time and was not impressed with them. They were a little too unrealistic for my taste.” Though Meskys is now blind, clearly the image of them still made an impression in his memory.

So the Nine (yes, there are nine stickers in all) have come to light again. I’ve done my best to clean them up without destroying them. As you’ll see here (BELOW), the artist has taken some liberties with Tolkien’s vision. Legolas looks more like a crime-fighting Robin than elf, Aragorn wields an ax, Tom Bombadil is sporting some groovy bellbottoms, and Frodo resembles a pig on crack. My favorite might be Gandalf “Keep on Truckin’” the Gray.

Turn on, tune in, and drop out. Or, drop the ring, or these stickers, back into the fiery chasm whence they came. Dig? 

[Any further information on the artist or the origin of these stickers is welcome. To subscribe to “The View From Entropy Hall,” which Meskys ends by email only, contact him at “edmeskys” at “roadrunner” dot “com”]

Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning book Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, his travel memoir investigation into fantasy and gaming subcultures the Huffington Post called “part personal odyssey, part medieval mid-life crisis, and part wide-ranging survey of all things freaky and geeky," National Public Radio described as "Lord of the Rings meets Jack Kerouac’s On the Road" and Wired.com proclaimed, “For anyone who has ever spent time within imaginary realms, the book will speak volumes.” Follow Ethan's adventures at http://www.fantasyfreaksbook.com.

YouTube playlist of Tolkien-themed videos!

Hey! There's a new dedicated playlist of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks videos on TheOneRing.Net's YouTube channel.

These are Tolkien-themed videos I shot in New Zealand: looking for hobbits in Hobbiton (Matamata); elves in Rivendell (Kaitoke Regional Park); Weta Workshop (Wellington); and a mash-up of footage from the "If you want him, come and claim him!" scene (Arrowtown). 

More to come. Hope you'll take a look.

Geek Out!

Like when the planets align, there are a few times each year when geeks can fly their freak flags high and proud, in vast numbers, and at the same time in different parts of the universe.

This coming Labor Day is one of those weekends.

On the west coast, we have Pax, in Seattle, a three-day game festival for tabletop, videogame, and PC gamers and a general celebration of gamer-geek culture. (And in the other corner, Atlanta, we have Dragon*Con. But more on that another time.)

In fact, Pax calls itself a festival and not a convention because in addition to dedicated tournaments and freeplay areas (The east coast version in Boston this spring had a very cool classic arcade game room, which was amazing! All your fave games like Frogger, Galaga and my fave, Robotron 2084), they’ve got nerdcore concerts from awesome performers like MC Frontalot and Paul & Storm, panel discussions like “The Myth of the Gamer Girl,” the Omegathon event (A three-day elimination tournament in games from every category, from Pong toHalo to skeeball), and an exhibitor hall filled with booths displaying the latest from top game publishers and developers.

But I was thinking that probably the best part of PAX (and similar events like Dragon*Con, the other big fantasy/science fiction fandom event of the year) is this: You get to hang out with kindred folk who love their games and books and movies and costumes. They will argue and defend their fandom universes to the death. They will argue why Tom Bombadil should not have been cut from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. They will battle over Kirk vs. Picard. They will annoy and astound you with their detailed, persnickety knowledge.

In other words, a geek is less what someone loves as it is HOW they love that object of affection. Geeks are passionate about their thang before it became fashionable and long after it’s passed from the public eye. Perhaps that’s the best definition of a geek.

If you’re headed to Atlanta or Seattle this weekend, check here for how to win a free copy of my book Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, now out in paperback.

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Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning travel memoir-pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, now out in paperback. You can reach him and get more information at his website www.ethangilsdorf.com.

Avatar is about transformation

Avatar is about transformation

ETHAN GILSDORF

(originally posted on Tor.com, SUNDAY JANUARY 10, 2010 10:43AM EST)

Like many action-adventure, science fiction and fantasy movies of recent years—Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Batman, Transformers, to name only a few—James Cameron’s Avatar taps into our primal selves. That pick-up-your-battle-ax and kill mentality, long suppressed by so-called society, still courses in our veins. Movies let us “just do it.” We travel to richly-imagined parallel worlds and watch a hero like Aragorn kick major orc butt. We cheer, and secretly wish that we were him.

What distinguishes Avatar from its vicarious derring-do ilk is that the plot touches directly on this craving for transformation.

Jake Sully, the protagonist, is a paraplegic trapped by his body. Controlling his blue-skinned, feline Na’vi avatar on the jungle planet Pandora, he springs to life. Sully becomes a stand-in for all of us—the post-industrial, post-blue collar office worker stuck in our civilized ways. We are effectively paralyzed too, chained to our desks and DSL lines, far from Eden, far from nature, far from the magical thinking of yore.

The appeal may be about something larger, too. There’s a spiritual and communal emptiness that Avatar speaks to. Is it odd to look to a movie for moral guidance or a life philosophy? Not really. Here’s why: our technology-driven ways don't include sage advice, only how to connect, transmit, download, upload (and, you might argue, make us feel awfully anxious and scattered in the process). Chaos, not harmony. Besides, organized religion is corrupt, scandal-ridden, archaic (or so many think). The material world is mundane, despoiled, an ecological mess. No wonder that our jaded Jake is lured by the Na’vi belief in a vast bio-spiritual neural network, like the Star Wars universe’s “the Force,” that connects all Pandoran organisms like a warm-and-fuzzy fiber optic cable.

Sitting in the multiplex, 3D glasses draped on our faces, we’re asked to fantasize like Sully. Isn’t this how we were meant to live, and might live again? Hunting the forest, leaping through the canopy, killing beasts, taming others, enacting meaningful rituals? It’s the same dream offered by Tolkien’s Middle-earth—to be peaceful, nature-bonded hobbits, quietly growing crops, smoking pipes, drinking ale and laughing. An alluring fantasy life to be sure. And one perhaps worth fighting for.

The Author in New Zealand

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Under smoky-blue cloud cover, they raise their ladders, and thrust their siege towers toward Helm’s Deep. From all sides, like a stream of mercury, hordes of orcs pour through the crumbled curtain wall.

In my elaborate reverie of battlefield glory, I vault up the stairs, light-footed, graceful, deadly, ready to face my foes. Of course, I can’t stop them alone. I have an army of heroes on my side. I can’t stop the theme music trumpeting and drumming in my head, either. What fantasy freak can, especially in New Zealand, land of so many memorable film locations? ... read more in my article for the Boston Globe

--- Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks