The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, November 14, 2016 — 5A
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
@michigandaily
NOW.
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
ACROSS
1 Joined, as a
team of oxen
6 Per person
10 Pockmark, e.g.
14 Bacteria in rare
meat, maybe
15 Hockey score
16 Get through
tough times
17 Celebration with
personnel
19 Like certain
inappropriate
remarks
20 __ Destiny: 19th-
century U.S.
doctrine
21 Television host
22 Cloister
members
23 Title for Elton
John
25 Young fellow
26 Sound from a
flock
29 Hangman man,
e.g.
32 More than
enough
34 Alludes (to)
35 Exaggerated
publicity
36 Garish
38 Hospital helper
41 Enter sneakily
43 Not exactly
44 React in the
slightest way
48 Born, on society
pages
49 Israeli weapon
50 Thurman of
“Gattaca”
51 Bygone
automaker
53 Knocks down
completely
55 Says over
59 Ticks off
60 Hoarse-voiced
“Maggie May”
singer
62 Puts on TV
63 Norway’s
capital
64 Sudden power
increase
65 Cut with a beam
66 Complaint
67 Soup-eating
utensil
DOWN
1 Polite rural reply
2 Hexa- plus two
3 Zen paradox
4 Spritelike
5 Scatter widely
6 Court great Andre
7 Word with “of
entry” or “of call”
8 Muesli morsel
9 Two-__ tissue
10 Problem in a
neglected pool
11 Ending
12 Perform (in)
13 Draw back, as
one’s hairline
18 Repressed, with
“up”
21 Buffalo’s lake
23 Distort, as data
24 Questionable
26 “Phooey!”
27 Comic/writer
Schumer
28 Starters on a
menu
30 Witch
31 Snatch
33 Woman seduced
by Zeus in the
form of a swan
36 Look to be
37 Casual greeting
39 Expected at the
station
40 Nice summer?
42 Bearded beasts
43 221B Baker
Street, e.g.
44 Part of a time
capsule
ceremony
45 Hank who voices
some “Simpsons”
characters
46 More than enough
47 “__ it get to me”
52 Escorted to the
penthouse, say
54 Latin being
55 Eric of “Monty
Python”
56 Hawaiian root
57 “And thus ... “
58 WWII weapon
60 Steal from
61 Suffix with rib- or
lact-
By Craig Stowe
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/14/16
11/14/16
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, November 14, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
! 2 RENTALS LEFT ‑ BEST DEAL !
! NORTH CAMPUS 1‑2 Bdrm. !
! Riverfront/Heat/Water/Parking. !
! www.HRPAA.com !
SWIM INSTRUCTORS & LIFE-
GUARDS health & tennis club‑Provide
excellent instruction and water safety skills
to all levels of swimmers. Provide superb
customer service and enthusiasm in teach‑
ing swimming and/or lifeguarding. Teach
group,
semi‑private,
and/or
private
lessons. Free membership with employ‑
ment. Lifeguard certification required.
Weekend availability required. Email your
resume to kim.bonilla@libertyathletic.net
CARLSONPROPERTIES
.COM
734‑332‑6000
ARBOR PROPERTIES
Award‑Winning Rentals in Kerrytown,
Central Campus, Old West Side,
Burns Park. Now Renting for 2017.
734‑649‑8637. www.arborprops.com
811 S. DIVISION 4 bedrooms, 1 bath,
parking, laundry, $2200/month. Available
Fall 2017. dklemptner@comcast.net
HELP WANTED
HELP WANTED
To say that “Moonlight” is
a movie about one single thing
would be to misunderstand it
fundamentally. At its crux, the
film is about a boy
growing up poor,
Black
and
gay.
But it’s also about
drug
addiction
and
poverty.
It’s
about the fragile
frame that holds
up
collective
expectations
of
manhood, and the
ways those expectations are both
challenged and reinforced by the
men who don’t quite fit within
their bounds. It’s about love. It’s
about identity. It’s about humanity.
Surprisingly, it tells all this in two
hours.
The film — adapted from
Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play
“In Moonlight Black Boys Look
Blue”— follows Chiron through
three chapters in his life, each
titled after a different name Chiron
is given: Little, Chiron, Black.
Chiron is expertly played by
newcomer Alex Hibbert, Ashton
Sanders (“The Retrieval”) and
Trevante Rhodes (“If Loving
You Is Wrong”) in each of these
chapters. Each actor captures
the essence of Chrion, giving the
film the illusion of a “Boyhood”-
esque structure. They don’t feel
like three separate actors playing
one character, they feel like one
man, each one growing into the
next and molded from who he was
before.
In “Little,” the first chapter
of the story, Chiron meets Juan
(Mahershala
Ali,
“Luke Cage”) a drug
dealer who serves
as a father figure
and role model. He
takes Chiron to the
ocean and teaches
him
to
swim,
simultaneously
lifting him up and
letting him go. And
even though he is only in the first
chapter, Juan’s influence is felt in
every frame.
The precision of the film is
astounding.
Director
Barry
Jenkins
(“Medicine
for
Melancholy”)
knows
exactly
when to keep his camera close
and exactly when to pull away.
Silence, noise and white noise
are mixed to completely upend
viewers’ expectations for and
understandings of Chiron’s world.
We’re both inside Chiron’s head
and far away from him, knowing
him only as far as he lets himself
be known.
Every scene, every frame is
important. I could point to any
one shot and call it equally the
most heartbreaking or the most
uplifting moment in the film.
That’s what makes “Moonlight” so
difficult to write about. It knows
exactly what it wants to be, and it
is it. It knows exactly what it wants
to say, and it says it.
On
paper,
many
of
the
characters
risk
becoming
stereotypes
of
this
sort
of
narrative — the drug-addicted
mother,
the
criminal
father
figure. The characters break free
from those bounds not because
the film intends to overturn
expectations, but because it isn’t
interested in them at all. Naomie
Harris (“Spectre”) carves herself
a heart-wrenching arc out of
only a handful of scenes as
Chiron’s junkie mother, Paula.
Jenkins saves his characters
from dehumanization because
he does not make them symbols.
Any feelings of universality come
from the fact that what they share
with their audience is humanity.
Just like “Moonlight” is not
the sum of its parts, no character
is the sum of their facts. Deaths
and prison sentences that happen
between chapters are mentioned
only in passing. Part of what makes
the characters so human is the fact
that their lives continue even when
we aren’t watching.
“Moonlight” is equal parts
heartbreaking and hopeful, but not
in the sense that those two factors
even each other out. Instead it digs
until it finds hope in the heartbreak
and it stays there. Simply put, it’s a
perfect movie.
MADELEINE GAUDIN
Daily Arts Writer
COMMUNITY CULTURE INTERVIEW
Athi-Patra Ruga is no stranger
to national turmoil. His home
country of South Africa has often
seen attention for its contentious
politics, frequent protests and
slowly healing racial divisions.
But this year, the West has
experienced its own political
turmoil — and Ruga was there
to see it. A work trip to Europe
this June placed the artist in the
epicenter of protest and anxiety
over the Brexit vote, in which
the United Kingdom decided to
pull out of the European Union.
And now, here in Ann Arbor
for a Penny Stamps lecture last
week, Ruga had the opportunity
to witness one of the strangest
and most divisive periods in
American history. He arrived
just before Election Day, and
watched firsthand as a liberal
college town convulsed from the
inside out.
“I have the honor of always
being away from home when all
these major reactionary things
happen,” he said in a phone
interview Wednesday. “I was in
Denmark when Brexit happened,
and then now I’m here for —
this.”
This “right place, right time”
attitude may be no coincidence.
At the core of Ruga’s work are
these divisions that have come to
characterize modern life, as well
as the increasingly blurred lines
that make easy categorization
— between races, countries,
even
genders
—
impossible
today. The chaotic color and
pageantry of politics merges
with media, art, even reality
TV to create an immersive
experience for his viewer that
seeks to imitate and mirror, yet
also to challenge the validity of
the “real” world around them.
This riot of visual stimulation is
often overwhelming, but never
without purpose or intent.
After
all,
contemporary
culture is just as dizzying as the
alternative realities, the utopias,
that Ruga whips up in galleries
and museums around the world.
Ruga’s eclectic constructions, on
the other hand, cause viewers
to question their reality, though
it’s up to the visitor to sort out
exactly what it all means — and
that’s okay.
“I start speaking to people
in a way that is beyond the
pedagogical, didactic — you
know, those big words,” he said
with a wry laugh. “I need to
immerse people whereby they
somehow feel they can’t escape it.
For me it boils down to speaking
about alternative realities, and
the process by which alternative
realities are built.That’s how
politics are born: we all want to
create a new world.”
In many ways, this critical,
considered
attitude
toward
cultural constructions developed
through Ruga’s childhood in a
rapidly changing South Africa, a
country with a history that both
intersects with and diverges from
the United States in key aspects,
from the legacy of racism to
debates over colonization. For
Ruga, the major difference in
the politics of the two countries
is that the memory of legal
racism has slowly faded for some
Americans, becoming politically
stale and ceasing to have the same
degree of power over the votes of
citizens who do not experience
discrimination directly.
“We
have
such
a
recent
memory of (racism) that our
parents really still have those
raw stories of apartheid, of the
movement. We can never take
it for granted — and that’s why
we’re such a politically minded
youth,” he said. “There are many
South Africas as well. I come
from the South Africa that is
always reminded of the cost at
which freedom came ... for us,
the power of voting is something
that is totally inculcated into us.
We know that voting is such a
powerful thing; it has changed
our world. So we will not ever let
go of that.”
In other ways, though, Ruga
sees himself as a global citizen,
something that has influenced
his work as much if not more
than the nationality listed on
his passport. He came of age in
the 1980s and 1990s, a turbulent
time for South Africa which
saw it not only undergoing a
democratic transition, but also
fully emerging onto the global
stage for the first time since the
walls of apartheid went up in the
late 1940s. Along with this came
unprecedented access to world
media, which had long been
censored and limited by low
access to modern technology.
Like
previous
generations,
Ruga was raised on the classic
TV program “Good Morning
South Africa,” but also on MTV
and nightly news from all over
the globe. One of his earliest
memories is watching the Berlin
Wall
crumble
during
1989
protests.
“That memory stuck in my
head — that people actually could
break down, literally, borders,
and step across. And this was
also coming at a time when our
borders
were
falling,”
Ruga
explained. “So I think that I’ve
always had this idea of daring
to go where I’m told not to go,
either by history or marketing or
society.”
Though he grew up in a highly
literary family — his father was
a journalist and editor — not all
Ruga’s media influences were
“highbrow.” Ruga takes pride in
the many references to popular
culture, particularly fashion and
reality TV, that abound in his art.
He revels in the sense of sacrilege,
of blasphemy, that this creates
in the traditional conception
of high art, something that has
been dominated both by certain
types of people and certain types
of worldviews for a long time.
“It’s
disruption.
We
are
living in an age whereby truly
defining what high art is no
longer (clear),” he said. “I love
art that is in the hands of the
people. It shakes up a very static,
patriarchal, man-centered thing.
Saying that all these things that
are ‘low art’ are ‘high art,’ I’m
basically disrupting a centuries-
old idea of creation, which we
have seen is not good because it
starts isolating people of certain
colors, women and social classes.
I take pleasure in still knowing
that it disrupts.”
Ruga sees this tendency in the
art world as well as in the wider
world, including politics in both
South Africa and the United
States.
“Populist”
candidates
have
becoming
increasingly
prevalent in both countries, with
both Jacob Zuma, President of
South Africa, and newly-chosen
President-elect Donald Trump
gaining their base support by
appealing
to
working-class
citizens and embodying the
social values of certain sectors of
the electorate.
Politics will continue to divide
people based on their identities.
Ruga’s work reminds us that
this is far from an American
phenomenon. After all, perhaps
the
United
States
is
just
becoming a little bit more like
the rest of the world.
MERIN MCDIVITT
Daily Arts Writer
An interview with South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga
A+
“Moonlight”
Michigan Theater
A24
Merging art and politics
Director Barry Jenkins has created
the perfect film with ‘Moonlight’
Coming-of-age drama explores growing up poor, Black and gay
FILM REVIEW
Over the course of 10 episodes,
FX’s “Better Things” has proven
to be yet another fantastic addition
to the canon of groundbreaking
TV shows in this era of “peak
TV.” Not only has
it
demonstrated
skillful storytelling
through
the
writing of creator
Pamela
Adlon
(“King of the Hill”)
and
co-executive
producer
Louis
C.K. (“Louie”), but
“Better
Things”
has also become
an anomaly in and
of itself. The half-
hour sitcom captures characters
rarely seen on television — single
mothers, young girls and middle-
aged and elderly women — and
depicts them in an authentic,
thought-provoking light.
Adlon has been a particularly
growing
creative
force
since
“Better Things” premiered in
September. She showcases her
comedic and dramatic talents as
the writer and star of the show,
playing the thick-skinned mother
and struggling actress Sam Fox.
In the show’s first season finale,
“Only Women Bleed,” Adlon
makes a compelling case for the
underlying importance of “Better
Things:” motherhood is difficult
and emotionally taxing, but at the
end of the day, it can be the most
rewarding part of a woman’s life.
We see the ebb and flow of
Adlon’s frustrations and triumphs
as a matriarch in the very first
sequence of the episode, where
Sam plans on spending a weekend
with her eccentric British mother,
Phyllis (Celia Imrie, “Bridget
Jones’s Baby”). During a long,
uninterrupted take, Sam and
Phyllis begin to argue to the point
where Sam expresses that she
doesn’t want to spend time with
her mother. It’s a heartbreaking,
sad moment in their already
complicated
relationship,
but
“Better Things” isn’t afraid to
show the nitty-gritty facet of
difficult family dynamics.
“I suck as a daughter, suck as a
mother,” Sam laments, as she pulls
back into her driveway.
Funnily enough, the following
busy sequence begs to differ on
that argument. As Sam wakes
up her youngest, Duke (Olivia
Edward,
“Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend”),
we
observe
the
controlled
chaos
that
begins
to
ensue in the Fox
household.
Sam’s
vexing
middle
daughter Frankie
(Hannah Alligood,
“Paper
Towns”)
and petty oldest
Max
(newcomer
Mikey
Madison)
are fighting over clothes; her side
piece is asking her to send him
racy pictures; her housekeeper
comes in late with an ache from a
previous night of food poisoning;
and she has to take care of some
paperwork.
This part of the episode,
underscored by the minimalist
electronica of Laurie Anderson’s
“O
Superman,”
is
anxiety-
inducing to watch, but it is
nevertheless
paced
extremely
well. Thanks to Adlon’s auxiliary
position as the episode’s director,
she knows exactly how to show
all the moving parts to Sam’s roles
as mother, businesswoman and
sexual being and the difficulty
in
fulfilling
all
those
roles
simultaneously. Though she is
clearly exhausted by the end of
it, Sam certainly doesn’t suck as
a mother; at least she’s trying to
make everything work, despite no
one ever seeming to acknowledge
her efforts.
Her
annoyance
continues
when she has to bring Frankie
out of school for the day for
using
the
boy’s
bathroom.
During a conversation between
the two, though, there seems
to be a disconnect between the
two that mirrors the emotional
barrier between Sam and her
own mom. Sam is upset because
Frankie’s action and subsequent
punishment
has
ruined
her
schedule for the day, but Frankie
is mad about how alienating the
girl’s bathroom is at her school.
Both of their concerns are valid,
but what makes “Better Things”
great is that it neither downplays
nor
trivializes
the
complex
relationship between mother and
daughter.
This
theme
unexpectedly
unravels into something more
intricate and unnerving, as Max
later tells Sam that perhaps
Frankie is actually a boy, using her
traumatizing experience in the
girl’s bathroom as a cover. Max
may not be right either, but her
remark reveals a sobering truth
about her daughter’s ambiguous
gender identity, as well as the
generational
divide
between
daughters and mothers.
Sam’s
revelation
over
this
new reality for her daughters
will most likely be discussed in
the show’s second season — FX
already renewed the show. But as
troubling as it may be for Sam that
the Fox household could have one
less woman, “Better Things” will
definitely portray that impending
situation with the sensitivity it
deserves.
That being said, the thread
between the Fox women remains
strong, their connection fully
realized in the episode’s last
sequence. While driving down
the freeway, Sam, Max, Frankie
and Duke sing along to the
namesake of the episode title, Alice
Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed.” As
sentimental as these final moments
are, “Better Things” does what it
does best; it recognizes the beauty
in the ordinary chaos of life and
holds onto the love in a family that
often spews hateful things at one
another.
In the very last scene, the words
“Dedicated to my daughters”
appears at the bottom of the
screen. After a heavy week that
has tested people’s hope, love and
patience for a country that has
been spewing hateful things for
a long time, it only makes sense
that “Better Things” ends its
phenomenal first season with such
a triumphant, relevant message.
SAM ROSENBERG
Daily Arts Writer
Pamela Adlon pulls through in
the stirring ‘Better Things’ finale
Over 10 episodes, the drama has established itself as an FX mainstay
TV REVIEW
A-
“Better Things”
Season Finale
Thursdays at 10
p.m.
FX