Howl, because it's hard to be a family

I recently watched Spike Jonze’s film adaptation of the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. I have to be totally honest from the get go. I saw the movie when it was in theaters years ago and I absolutely hated it. Here’s why. I grew up with parents who both worked very hard to provide for their children, however my mom was more consistently employed than my dad (she has worked the same job for over 21 years). My dad frequently read to my sister Tara and I before we were going to bed because my mom usually worked late. On those rare occasions when my mom made it home early there were two books she usually read to us and one of those was Where the Wild Things Are. She put on her monster voices whenever the wild things talked and it was such a positive memory for me of both being encouraged to be wild by my mother but also feeling safe with her beside me. Spike Jonze’s movie did not do the same thing. Admittedly the book is only ten sentences long so in order to make a two-hour movie one has to do a fair amount of inference. That being said, obviously Mr. Jonze didn’t feel the way I felt about the book. After a second viewing of his film however, my mind was changed.

*************************

Spike Jonze presents a movie about why it is sucks to be a kid, or maybe, more accurately, why it is so hard to have to grow up. I think that at some point most of us came to a place, as children, where we realized we were small and our influence, if not our voice, was nearly inaudible. Some discovered this when their older siblings ignored them, others when their teachers ignored them, for others it was other adults and for the rest it was their very own parents. It seemed that what we said did not matter anymore. Our desires and maybe even our needs were suddenly not guaranteed fulfillment at the drop of a hat. And it was a harsh realization. In truth, I think that it is not that our own voice becomes smaller or less important but it is the realization that there are many others speaking and our ears are uncertain what to do with the new voices presenting their own needs. However, I think there is a very important reason we come to this stage of feeling small and unimportant and it is this: at some point in our life we need to move from being self-centered to being others-centered.

This is admittedly a subjective and retrospective study but in my experience very few people make this transition smoothly. The realization that we are not the only people on the planet with needs and feelings hits us unexpectedly when we realize that our desire for X does not mean our providers can fulfill that desire. Unfortunately, some people never make the self-centered to others-centered transition. Some that do take it really hard and convince themselves that no one wants to hear what they have to say and they become quiet, confining their voice inside their own head. Others take it to the opposite extreme and instead decide that it is time to say more and speak more loudly, as though making their desires most loudly heard will make their desires most important. Spike Jonze’s movie is about a troupe that fits largely within this last category.

At the start of the movie we see our main character Max building a snow fort and preparing snowballs for a snow fight. When the opportunity presents itself, he fires upon his sister’s friends who are considerably older. When they return fire with their own snowballs he runs for his snow-fort and finds safety there until his sister’s friends leap on top of it bringing the whole structure down. As the friends leave quite satisfied and smug, we see Max appear from the pile of snow that once was his fort and he is horrified. With tears rolling down his face and snot leaking from his nose he realizes that the fort, which he had so confidently trusted for safety, was no match for what the world had for him. I could not help but ask myself what my own snow forts are, but following that path would be tangential to our discussion. Suffice it to say, his world was crushed and for many of us events like this can be the catalysts for learning to leave self-centeredness behind.

After the snow fort incident we see Max’s resultant temper tantrum as he destroys some of his sister’s things, most important of which is a small heart made of popsicle sticks that he had made for her. Often our reactions to our world being crushed results in us quite literally breaking hearts in the midst of our rage because we do not know how to react to the paradigm shifts we are presented with. The day after his tantrum Max is presented with a shift too great for him to handle. His mother has a man over to the house causing her to unintentionally ignore Max. Max comes to his mother huffing and the ensuing argument climaxes in Max biting his mother. Realizing the weight of what he has done he runs away and eventually finds a boat in which he sails off to where the wild things are.

Max arrives where the wild things are in the midst of the wild things arguing amongst themselves and trying to convince a creature named Carol to stop destroying their homes. Amidst the argument, Max makes his presence known to the wild things and declares himself to be a king, a statement that has the entire wild bunch impressed. So, they decide to allow him to be their king because he claims to be able to keep “the sadness” away. (Though he does not explain this to the wild things, he intends to do this by bringing his own rules and way of life to the wild land.) Then the wild rumpus begins! We see Max and the wild things go running through the woods destroying trees, running into each other, throwing each other and causing utter chaos. It is during this initial rumpus that we begin to see that the wild things are not careful with each other and are even quite inconsiderate. As their oversized heads knock into each other we are reminded of the ways our own heads enlarge and we end up knocking into each other as we so forcefully try to go this way or that.

We see the self-centered attitude exemplified during Max and the wild things’ dirt clod war. During the war we see an all too familiar mix of “This is fun!” “I gotcha!” “Ouch!” and “Why’d you do that?!” Eventually, the goat-like Alexander (brilliantly voiced by Paul Dano) is clearly hurt by a clod to the back of the head. At this point he quits the war but still is not safe as another clod knocks his feet out from under him while he tries to get away. Spike Jonze hits the nail on the head as the scene makes us viscerally and tangibly feel Alexander’s heavy emotional pain as though we were in his shoes. Because the odds are we have been there. If you for some reason do not know what I am talking about imagine this:

This is that moment from your childhood when everyone was having fun playing dodge-ball until your big brother got you with the ball right between the eyes and everyone knows he did it as hard as he could and everyone stops because some say he was playing by the rules and others say he needs to apologize and in the middle… is you… You are hurt both physically and emotionally by your brother’s inconsideration and the added insult that almost hurts worse than the injury comes from the fact that he silently exudes self-justification and an apology would be insincere even if it were offered.

Spike Jonze takes us back to those feelings in ways that are uncomfortable to say the least. Even if we don’t have a particular memory to go with it, we know that feeling and the odds are we have been on both sides of it. This visceral reminder is important for us as adults because it is a feeling that we still cause in people today.

            When we prioritize our own needs, schedules, petty wants and laziness over the feelings and needs of others we become the older brother with the dodge ball or the fellow wild thing with the dirt clod. The difference is that these encounters rarely take on anything other than an emotional form when we are adults and the response frequently becomes animosity with which we try to cover up the pain we feel. For Max, he realizes that he has had everything his way and it did not lead to goodness, wholeness, or even any meaningful duration of happiness. He and Carol at one point long for a place where “the only things that happen are what you want to have happen;” a place where they can be kings. As they soon realize, however, “There are no kings, we are all just regular.” Even the most wealthy and powerful cannot have all that they want.

Towards the end of the film it is KW’s revelation that brings it all together as she simply yet poignantly states, “It’s hard to be a family.” It is hard, and if you have siblings or parents or anyone else you call family you are well aware. The most beautiful moment of the whole film, for me, was when Carol and Max howled together. It was the one moment when they were family as they let out their raw howls of emotion and neither cared what the other sounded like. It was a moment of childish beauty in the midst of the pain of growing up… and it was so right.

If I may, I’d like to encourage you: take off your crown, find your family and howl with them. Stay close to the ones to whom you want to say, “Please don’t go. I’ll eat you up I love you so.” Whether you believe in God or not, you will feel his love when you do.

Job's Response

I recently recorded a song for my wisdom of Job class at SPU. This song was unfortunately recorded with some substantial constraints on both time and quality because of the fact that a) it was part of a final project for my class and b) it was all recorded on my laptop mic using garageband software. The song is meant to be a response from Job to God's speeches about Behemoth and Leviathan in Job 40 and 41. If you would like to read my "Interpretive Statement," which is rather lengthy but which also details most of the rationale behind musical and lyrical choices, you can do so below and if you would like to hear the song you can do so here:  http://youtu.be/Ulv0OqsKD-Q

Interpretive Statement:

             My intention with the piece was to demonstrate what is going through Job’s head as he hears God’s speeches about Behemoth and Leviathan. While we hear very little from Job in response to these speeches I wanted to take what we know about Job and imagine from his perspective what it would be like to hear the speeches from God as a response to everything that has been said and done.

 It begins with the sounds of a storm meant to be reminiscent of the whirlwind from which we hear God’s speeches. After just a few seconds of the storm the listener hears a drum bringing a sense of ominousness to the piece and a sense that there is more going on than just a storm. Next a church organ begins playing a somewhat dark chord progression bringing the first bits of melody into the piece and the first interval one hears is a dominant seven which is intentionally used to bring a sense of intensity. This initial chord change also has no major or minor nature to it, this was done on purpose so that the piece would not necessarily feel sad or happy from the get go but would rather maintain a sense of intensity without giving any sense of implicitly happy or sad “feeling” just yet. I also wanted to use an organ to conjure images of the “Cathedral” God that one thinks of as inhabiting cathedrals with their elaborate paintings and giant organs. The alternative would have been an intense synthesizer which would have provided a certain cosmic aesthetic but which would have detracted from the more natural tone I wanted and would have not provided the same cathedral imagery. Finally a slow semi distorted banjo arpeggio begins acting as the “voice” of God. I was torn between the use of an electric guitar and a banjo but ultimately decided the banjo provided a more “earthy” aesthetic and since the speech comes to Job from a natural space (the whirlwind) as Job is sitting in the earth (dust and ashes) I found that to be more appropriate.

What nearly interrupts this intense and earthy speech from God is a frantically arpeggiated octave mandolin which moves back and forth between two minor chords and is meant to imply the chaos that Job feels as he considers what God has already said to him and realizes that perhaps this God is not who Job thought he was. After a few measures we hear the first words as Job realizes that he has “said too much and [has] not fallen on deaf ears.” What follows Job’s first stanza is a rather sorrowful mandolin solo, which ends with a single repeated note in a somewhat arrhythmic style meant to feel like almost like hitting one’s self in the head with the palm of their hand. This somewhat self-flagellating close of his first stanza is meant to show that Job has realized the foolishness of some of the things he has said.

Job’s second stanza is set against the same backdrop of frantic mandolin and is intentionally a little quieter. This time he quotes God’s words about Leviathan back to God but this time with a sense of reverence and fear highly mixed. In chapter 41 God has painted Leviathan as the most terrifying creature the earth has seen and says that no one reaches their hand out with hook, spear or any other weapon against Leviathan and that no one “dares upon the door of his mouth.” My intent was to show a shift from simple acknowledgement of Job’s own foolishness to him showing a degree of reverence as he considers Leviathan’s grandeur and realize that God’s is even larger.

Job’s third stanza shows yet another change in tone but one that is more drastic and, relative to what has already been said by him, rather unexpected. I decided to speak this stanza rather than sing it because I wanted to it to be understood as the most plain, straightforward speaking and expression Job does. He tells God that he has only spoken “his perception of the truth.” This statement is my way of saying that Job is simply calling it as it feels and trying to be honest with God. One might argue that throughout the biblical book he takes this to unfortunate extremes, but I personally find his honesty admirable and as such wanted to honor that in this song. The closing line of this stanza is easily my favorite line of the whole song: “if you can’t handle the way I see you, perhaps you should show me yourself differently.” This is meant to say that if God really does not believe that Job is painting an accurate picture or if he doesn’t like what Job is saying about him then perhaps he should operate differently in Job’s life. The statement is made with a hint of defiance that is meant to reflect his ten plus chapters of speeches that precede the brief humble one we find in chapter 40.

The next section of the song is meant to sound like a third party has joined in to the conversation (maybe angels, maybe the earth itself or the creatures on the earth) and this third party asks what is likened to behemoth, the monster of the sea (Leviathan), and the glory of the Lord. Each statement is primarily meant rhetorically and is intended to point to the fact that both God and the beasts have unimaginable strength and are far above human comprehension. Behemoth is represented by a deep intense drumbeat that is meant to imitate what the footsteps of a large running creature would sound like. Leviathan is represented by a highly distorted guitar riff played in an Arabic scale which, to western ears, provides a sense of intensity and a sense of mystery and I believe Leviathan is quite intentionally represented as both of these things. Finally, God is once again represented with the Cathedral organ but this time with an intense, whirling tremolo effect to suggest the whirlwind idea again and also to give the organ an aggressive sound.

After this we hear the voice of God for the first time. I modified my voice pretty heavily to make it sound particularly deep and authoritative but tried to avoid making it sound unnatural. When God speaks it is not with any clear emotion, which I think is true to what his speeches in Job are like. He states, as in chapter 39, that he knows “where all are born and where they go to die” and that he knows the ways of behemoth and Leviathan. I liked the idea of saying “all” not only because God mentions a diverse array of creatures in his speeches but also because I wanted there to be some sense that Job was included among the ones that God “knows.” He also states that he holds the only cord that could keep  “them,” the beasts, down. As has been pointed out God never says anything about his justice, goodness, mercy etc. in his Job speeches. He simply states that he is quite knowledgeable and quite powerful. However, I think Job also received some degree of comfort from the divine speeches and as such I gave God a pleasant major melody but over somewhat intense minor and dominant seven chords. This is meant to maintain a sense of God’s strength (via the intense chords) but is also meant to show that God is not necessarily infuriated at what Job has said.

The closing piece, which is the last verse and the portion that fades to the close, shows Job with some slight degree of satisfaction. I wanted the piece to have a sense of closure to it while still leaving some questions open in much the same way that the book does. Thus the closing phrase as the song fades “will you revive me?” This is absolutely a fair question for Job to ask when the chapters I am tackling come to a close because God has yet to actually address what has happened to Job. While I felt at times like closing with a cliché four chord progression felt a bit too much like forcing a happy ending into the song, there is also some sense in which the book of Job does close with a very happy ending as Job gets all his children back (in the form of new children) and all of his possessions are replaced two fold. It could be seen as a somewhat awkward end to the book and maybe an awkward end to the song but I hope it provides the feeling I am going for.