Miles Santiago: The Middle Ground is Not Acceptable: Addressing the incorrect opinions on "Only God Forgives"

Steve Pulaski's Foreword to Miles Santiago's piece "The Middle Ground is Not Acceptable:" After a long absence from my blogging website, Miles Santiago has released yet another thoughtful and meticulously-crafted thinkpiece, this time regarding Nicolas Winding-Refn's film Only God Forgives. His piece attacks the "incorrect" opinions on the divisive opinions over the film and its excessive amount of violence and narrative ambiguity. His piece greatly reminds me of my own on Spring Breakers, also featured on this blog, where I lambasted those who wrote the film off as "stupid," attacking unsubstantiated, pedestrian criticism the film had received, and the lack of support or fanbase it has garnered. But Santiago's piece is much more robust and verbose than mine, going into specifics and crafting intelligent arguments into a piece that bleeds passion in the same way that Larry Smith's cinematography in Only God Forgives amplifies the ambiance and textures of the color red.

Santiago is also the co-writer, producer, editor, and director of the forthcoming, medium-length short film I'm Tired of God, which I have a small starring role in that will see a release in 2015. I leave you to enjoy the piece at hand.

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THE MIDDLE GROUND IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

ADRESSING THE INCORRECT OPINIONS AGAINST ONLY GOD FORGIVES

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            The first few paragraphs are dedicated to establishing my credentials.

            A contrarian is someone whom opposes popular notions absent of reason or focus. I am not one these. I am not an aimless skeptic. My shock value has purpose. A Korean War decapitation dominating the first page is pertinent.

            I find it nothing but thoroughly amusing that I’ve been deleted from friends lists by multiple people (and one particular feminist) for my barrage of aloof, off-the-cuff, straightforward, straight up, no holds barred, anti-romance, anti-teenager, anti-meme, anti-selfie musings. Nothing these people posted were compelling, perceptive, or thought-provoking, my life feels no emptier devoid of their vacation photos. Additionally, a Facebook like isn’t going to validate anything I do and the few people who consistently like my posts do so with a more personal sentiment.

            I sparingly and selectively share my wisdom, but what I will share is that the most important creative decision I’ve made is not attempting to appease everyone. If someone is not liking what I’m doing, than they’re not contributing to my bettering and well-being in any case and are therefore irrelevant.

            I shun self-entitled atheism as mental laziness and correlate pornstars with divine femininity (the philosophical beauty standard), leave or live with it. But know that your mother isn’t going to die over it.

            I have no one to impress but myself, my only credentials are the statements I make. 2+2 doesn’t equal 5 just because a toothless methhead told you it equals 4, refrain from ad hominem because I will not entertain it.

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            If you’re still reading this essay, I thank you for the continuation and congratulate you for the endurance. I wouldn’t be able to write the “challenging and complex thinkpieces” if I didn’t think this way and I know I’m hard to read given how silently I conduct myself.

            But to simply say to yourself “fuck the naysayers” is an incomplete mentality. I can’t know that I suck, which is completely possible for anyone regardless of confidence or support, until I encounter someone better than me. In this event, instead or sulking in a corner over how good I’ll never be, I silently and sensitively read my colleagues and how I can be better than them. Without paying for an education, I can become better than anyone at anything in due time provided that I’m not trying to be a surgeon.

            My arrogance is strategic, not emotional. You can’t be self-aware without awareness of everyone else.

            One storytelling tactic that I have adopted that is apparent to anyone that has read is the immediate clarity of the sex and violence. It is here that I will gradually begin to clarify the relevance of all this writing to Only God Forgives.

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            The film that keeps coming to mind when analyzing Only God Forgives is The Warriors (1979), that other neon, fine-tuned simulation of male violence and sexuality. David Ansen wrote, "another problem arises when the gang members open their mouths: their banal dialogue is jarringly at odds with Hill's hyperbolic visual scheme,” encompassing what was commonly written as the film’s drawbacks: lack of realism and simplistic dialogue. Both notions shall be deconstructed in the fashion I know best: concisely.

            Complaining that a film featuring street gangs donning gaudy uniforms and behaving according to their motif (one gang, The Furies, wore baseball uniforms and attacked people with bats) is as misguided as complaining that Toy Story is unrealistic. Realism is irrelevant if it can’t maintain intrigue. If one wants real life, they can stare at their hands and feet for 90 minutes.

            As for the dialogue: the less words the writers use to communicate the idea, the more space they allow for the brain to process the less direct elements of the film, like scenery, muscle contractions, sweat, etc. They don’t say more simply because they don’t need to. “Paint a turd gold and encrust it with diamonds. It’s still a piece of shit,” I once wrote favoring concision.

            (That’s two paragraphs and 129 words, likely to earn me a D in my AP English course.)

            Moreover, don’t say something as banal as ‘unrealistic’ (or anything else for that matter) without communicating a consideration of the creator’s intention. Tarantino films are excessively bloody simply because it’s interesting to look at and doesn’t stifle the narrative. No other reason is needed.

            The Warriors has undergone a valid reconsideration since its release 35 years ago, but Only God Forgives likely won’t be afforded such an opportunity for quite some time. I address the opinions it has received within the context of 2014 alone, not what might be thought of it in the future. The reconsideration of The Warriors doesn’t affect the thoughts in this essay.

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            The first facet of Only God Forgives that I will defend is Ryan Gosling’s minimalistic performance.

"David Lynch must be laughing. If he had created something like Only God Forgives, substituting his own quirky casting for the rather staid choices made by actual director Nicolas Winding Refn, he would have walked away from Cannes 2013 with yet another Palme d'Or, another notch in his already sizeable artistic belt, and the kind of critical appreciation that only comes when a proven auteur once again establishes his creative credentials." –Bill Gibron

            Firstly, Mr. Gibron, Nicolas Winding Refn is not David Lynch. David Lynch did not make this movie. This is not David Lynch’s idea. David Lynch has no direct effect on the outcome of this film. There is no point in mentioning David Lynch. To do so leads me to believe that the critique is coming from the wrong place, the ‘you lose points because you’re not that other guy I like’ place, ignorant of the aforementioned consideration of intentions.

            The same goes for any other artist-to-artist comparisons. I don’t say Pusha T would do Eminem’s work better, I say that I prefer slanted rhyme and weighted metaphors over a cluster of syllables. It flushes the emotion out of critiquing.

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            I cringe a bit when people use the terms ‘good acting’ and ‘bad acting,’ Gosling earning the latter term, the usual connotation being ‘zealous’ and ‘understated’ respectively.

            While shooting I’M TIRED OF GOD, I asked Jakub to grab a book with no context other than his desire to read a book. “Is there any particular strategy I should use?” he asked.

            “Just grab the fucking book,” I responded verbatim. There’s nothing disheartening about a hand grabbing a book, or comedic, or riveting. There is no need to go all Daniel Day-Lewis circa-There Will Be Blood, jumping on tables, exaggerating his accent and looking constipated in every take. All that’s being communicated here is that you’re reading, so just grab the fucking book.

            The slight twitching of Gosling’s expressions indeed communicate how he’s feeling within the scene because his diva mother has raised him to be an emasculated sponge. He takes what everyone says to him and doesn’t/can’t do anything about it and struggles to court a woman he covets out of his own softness. The audience is expected to be aware of whatever the submissive supplement of what he’s being told is, i.e., the audience is expected to process the specifics without being explicitly told what they are, i.e., concision.

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            In the midst of composing this essay I did not immediately elaborate the whole sex and violence thing. I will do so now. Concisely.

            I wrote a 20-page story involving detailing how someone was shot along with the bodily consequences and a person being excessively shanked. It is the most highly acclaimed thing I’ve written. Mad Men and Breaking Bad are AMC’s two flagship programs, heightened in sex and violence respectively. 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture.

            It’s not about shock value, it’s not about what’s right, it’s about what’s true. Sex and violence isn’t cheap. It’s quite the opposite: the basis of the species. I’m confident that a nation was established by a skirmish and that you’re here because two people decided to fuck.

            If you’re going to do it, do it better and do it clearly. When a knife cuts, a neck bleeds. A man orgasms, he ejaculates. A woman orgasms, she may also ejaculate. My work isn’t family friendly because the world isn’t family friendly.

            Only God Forgives abstracts only the realities of the world.

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            The first of the final two notions that I would like to undo is the misunderstandings of originality. The first misunderstanding is overrating originality. Being unique doesn’t excuse something from sucking. The second misunderstanding is not grasping what originality actually is.

            Earth is the boundary of our understanding and a shared experience, all of our scientific and artistic advances are in response to how it stimulates our senses and needs. Thus, imagining something that can’t be imagined is a paradoxical request, akin to inventing a new color.

            There’s no such thing as true originality. No idea comes from nowhere. What may be perceived as ‘original’ is just something you can’t link to the plagiarized sources.

            So I won’t entertain any comment saying that Only God Forgives story isn’t original, as that is an atrociously incomplete argument indicative of atrociously incomplete consideration.

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            The final misunderstanding, the one I deem most important to undo, applies to anyone interpreting any piece, not just the film at hand.

            ART DOES NOT HAVE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS.

            ART DOES NOT HAVE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS.

            ART DOES NOT HAVE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS.

            Yes, I did copy this statement twice intentionally.

            Being a follower of Steve Pulaski, he once posted something praising Fruitvale Station as a supreme film of 2013. One responder disqualified the film due to him not being sure of its purpose.

            “The purpose of Fruitvale Station is to show you a guy getting shot at a station, whatever feelings that may make you feel […] Introspection can work wonders,” I commented. My comment did not receive a response.

            If you expect all of your solutions to come externally with no brain calories burned on your end, what use is your mind in the first place?

            Only God Forgives engages me more in each subsequent viewing than the previous for the things it doesn’t do. That emptiness that others have reported feeling and then complained about is no issue to me. What I come up with may not perfectly mirror what the creator was thinking, but I formulate new philosophies in the mere search for an answer. My inner William Occam gets a workout.

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            I depart with this anecdote: One day, Elijah Bacerra, Jakub Remiszewski, and I decide to watch Moonrise Kingdom in order to kill time before we shot a night scene for I’M TIRED OF GOD. Jakub, considering the experience he just sat through, uttered that he’ll show his toddlers 12 Years a Slave before he lets them watch something like Wes Anderson’s more lighthearted project. I was not confused or bewildered by this statement, only appreciative that I didn’t align myself with the squeamish, prudish, and non-self-assured.

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