ACROSS
1 Ballet divisions
5 Crank (up)
8 Hunchbacked lab
assistant
12 Un-fizzy
13 PGA Tour golf
course near
Miami
15 Fish in salade
niçoise
16 Inc. and LLC?
19 “No fighting!”
20 Self-worth
21 Gym unit
22 Beaming and
shining?
25 Jibe
grammatically
28 Come-__:
enticements
29 Covent Garden
highlight
30 Wolfish look
31 Pal of Pooh
32 Green shampoo
33 Ranking org. for
court players
34 Google operating
system
36 “Never __ Me
Go”: Kazuo
Ishiguro novel
38 Blue Cross rival
40 Dr. with Grammys
41 Managed __
42 Donkey sound
43 Tie the knot
44 Socialite Perle
45 “Got it!” and
“Roger that!”?
48 Hassle
49 Tic-tac-toe win
50 “Green Eggs and
Ham” opening
53 “What are you in
for?” and “I was
framed”?
57 Like the T206
Honus Wagner
baseball card
58 Eats by
candlelight
59 Not in favor of
60 Summit
61 Affirmative action
62 Drain slowly
DOWN
1 Langley, e.g.:
Abbr.
2 Driver or putter
3 Subdue with a
charge
4 Cocktail made
with brandy and
crème de menthe
5 Timber often
used for guitar
fretboards
6 Triage locales,
briefly
7 “La Bamba”
singer Ritchie
8 Addams family
cousin
9 Military rebels
10 Ready for the
worst
11 Speaks with a
scratchy voice
13 Geometric art
style
14 __ Mason: asset
management
giant
17 Aswan Dam site
18 In the direction of
23 Properly arranged
24 Underground find
25 Styled after, on a
menu
26 Be judged unfairly
27 Performer’s array
31 Genetic code
transmitter
32 Often fruity
dessert
34 Slangy “Let’s
move on ... ”
35 Like priests
37 What some
caddies carry
39 The Northwest’s
Sea-__ Airport
41 Private jet
choices
43 “Any
volunteers?”
44 Cultural pic that
may go viral
45 Oscar-winning
director Frank
46 Frog habitat
47 Pre-coll. exams
51 Spots to
conceal
52 Dole (out)
54 Kinsey research
focus
55 Producer of
some Talking
Heads albums
56 Sample
By C.C. Burnikel
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/11/17
10/11/17
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
6 — Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
20TH CENTURY FOX
Idria Elba. Need I say more.
Survival narratives & the
failure of ‘The Mountain’
New ‘The Mountain Between Us’ comes close to becoming a
successful survival story, but falls short due to multiplicity
For those who love the
genre, “The Mountain Between
Us” promised to be another
stressful
but
compelling
movie about humans trapped
in the hellish nightmare of
the wild. The movie’s initial
marketing framed it as a
survival narrative, complete
with people stranded in a
deserted landscape, makeshift
tools from limited resources
and the obsessive hunt for
food and water. Rather than
sticking to the archetype of
the
genre,
“The
Mountain
Between Us” veered painfully
into the nonexistent niche of
cheesy romantic dramas set in
extreme climates.
A plane crash on a snowy
mountaintop
forces
two
strangers, Alex (Kate Winslet,
“Collateral Beauty”) and Ben
(Idris Elba, “The Dark Tower”),
to rely on each other to survive
the elements and trek back to
civilization. The film begins as
a classic survival narrative; the
two are stranded in the remote
wild, Ben crafts a makeshift
splint for Alex’s broken leg,
and the pair overcome cougar
attacks, frigid temperatures,
mountain crags and frozen
lakes to eventually make it
back to society.
The
beginning
of
“A
Mountain
Between
Us”
aligns
with
the
subgenre
of
survival
narratives called
the
“Stranded
Story.” Films of
this subgenre are
characterized
by
a
critical
moment
that
leaves
the
protagonist
stranded
in
nature,
with
little
hope
of
rescue,
that
forces the him
or her (in this
case
both)
to
interact with the
environment in
innovative ways
to survive. Winslet and Elba’s
hopeless situation recalls the
similar plight of Tom Hanks
in “Castaway,” James Franco
in “127 Hours” and Suraj
Sharma in “Life of Pi.” While
set in drastically different
environments,
these
three
films are almost parallel in
their story arc; the narrative
chronology involves a critical
disaster,
potential
rescue
efforts, coming to terms with
the situation and surviving
among the elements.
Each main character is left
completely
isolated
for
an
extended period of time, and
he must use the resources at
their disposal to fulfill the
human need for food, water
and
shelter.
The
jarring
back
and
forth
between
relative control and complete
desperation elicits a sense of
clawing anxiety for both the
character and the audience. In
order to deal with his isolation,
each man creates a physical
manifestation of himself to
serve as a human placeholder.
Hanks creates Wilson, Sharma
imagines Richard Parker and
Franco talks to himself through
a video camera. These objects
provide
comfort
and
work
as springboards for strategy
sessions.
While
the
audience
knows Wilson is
just a volleyball,
they
also
accept the fact
that
Wilson’s
presence is the
only thing that
gives Hanks the
will to survive.
“The Mountain
Between
Us”
doesn’t
feature
a
snowman
companion because it doesn’t
have to. Alex and Ben have each
other to discuss plans and talk
about life. In fact, they tend
to talk more about the past
than about the situation at
hand. Instead of concentrating
on their struggle against the
elements, the film hones in
on their burgeoning romantic
love. The film transitions from
a focus on the environment
to a focus on each character’s
relationship with the other;
the stakes of being stranded
in the mountains takes a back
seat
to
Alex
and Ben getting
to know each
other
through
inappropriately
casual
conversations.
Survival
narratives don’t
necessarily
involve
a
life-or-death
struggle against
the
elements.
The
“Hero’s
Journey,”
the
other subgenre
of
survival
narratives,
involves
a
willing journey
into
nature
for self-discovery and rebirth.
Emile Hirsch journeys into
the Alaskan brush in “Into the
Wild,”
Reese
Witherspoon
hikes the Pacific Crest Trail in
“Wild,” and Mia Wasikowska
explores the Australian desert
in “Tracks.” Nature in these
films provides an escape from
the trappings of society and a
space in which the protagonist
can reflect on the past.
The hero’s interaction with
people along the way, and how
they influence his or her mental
journey, is also a major theme
of this subgenre. Wasikowska
relies on camel farmers and
aboriginal guides for her trek
across the Australian desert,
but the journey is largely
for herself. The wild is also
romanticized, but nature can
be unforgiving. Hirsch revels
in his Alaskan paradise, but
dies from eating a poisonous
plant hauntingly similar to its
harmless
look-a-like.
These
survival
narratives,
again,
focus on the environment’s
influence on the human body
and psyche.
While
Alex
and
Ben
don’t
purposefully
isolate
themselves in the snow, their
environment provides a space
for them to reflect on their
marriages
and
their
happiness.
Eventually
the
tundra
becomes
a backdrop for a
getting-to-know-
you process and
a dramatic reveal
of
predictable
trauma.
The
romance
between
Alex
and Ben comes
out of nowhere
and
develops
rapidly. For some reason, Alex
has an obsessive need to rifle
through Ben’s things and listen
to his private voicemails. This
invasion of privacy doesn’t
annoy Ben, but rather leads
directly into a gratuitous and
unnecessary sex scene. Even
more frustratingly, the trite
gender dynamics render Alex as
a fragile, crippled woman who
needs constant and miraculous
saving by a man. Ben even goes
so far as to bring Alex out of
a hypothermic coma with a
makeshift syringe made from
random scraps.
“The
Mountain
Between
Us”
doesn’t
illustrate
the
hero’s
journey
because
we
don’t understand who the hero
is. Because the film begins
with the crash, we have no
attachment to the characters
and no understanding of who
they are beyond the pieces
they tell each other (which
mostly consists of Alex asking
“who
are
you?”
and
Ben
looking sullen). The film is
unable to create a meaningful
relationship between the two
because it’s almost impossible
for the audience to become
invested in characters they
don’t understand.
Survival
narratives
are
successful
for
their
deeply
internal exploration into the
psyche of the single character
and how it is altered by the
physical environment around
him or her. “The Mountain
Between Us” fails as a survival
film because of its focus on
the multiple over the singular.
With
two
characters,
the
focus shifts from the dynamic
between humans and nature
to only the dynamic between
humans. The cliché romantic
subplot
seems
drastically
out of place in the frozen
and
unsentimental
tundra.
Alex and Ben’s relationship
proves that a romance cannot
operate within the genre of a
survival narrative; a romance
necessitates
two
characters
while
a
survival
narrative
requires a single character –
thus, the two contradict each
other.
SYDNEY COHEN
Daily Arts Writer
“The
Mountain
Between Us”
20th Century
Fox
Rave Cinemas,
Quality 16
Survival
narratives are
successful for their
deeply internal
exploration into
the psyche of the
single character
FILM REVIEW
DEAD OCEANS
Mitski shreds & shimmers
for a full house at the Pig
Last Friday night, 27-year-
old Mitski Miyawaki took the
stage in front of an eager, sold-
out crowd at the Blind Pig in
downtown Ann Arbor. After
opener Stef Chura (a Northern
Michigan native) delivered a
stellar, twangy-indie set, Mitski
appeared, casually shrugged off
her oversized black zip-up and
slung on her silver electric bass.
The
singer-songwriter
—
known for her versatile voice and
knack for dissonance — stopped
in Ann Arbor on the final leg of
her American tour. In the coming
months, the Japanese-American
musician will be travelling to
play Hong Kong, Japan and
Australia before returning to
the U.S., where she will open for
Lorde’s Melodrama tour next
spring.
In the dim, intimate grime
of the Blind Pig’s standing
room, Mitski kicked off the
performance with the driving
bass notes of “Francis Forever”
— a fan favorite.
Throughout her fifteen-song
set, Mitski wore an expression
that fell somewhere between a
laser-focused stare and a dreamy,
distant gaze. Sometimes, her
presence would shift to match
her lyrics as they oscillated
between the vivid metaphors
of a poet, and the blunt angst
of a heartbroken teen. During
“Francis Forever,” as she sang
the lyrics, “I look up at the gaps
of sunlight,” Mitski tilted her
head back and looked longingly
— hopefully — at the ceiling, then
gently wincing, she narrowed
her eyes in icy clarity, her bass
in crescendo as she sang, “I miss
you more than anything.” Later,
at the start of “I Bet on Losing
Dogs,” Mitski patted her heart
and raised her eyebrows slightly
as she sang “My Baby, my baby /
You’re my baby, say it to me,” as if
trying to persuade a lover looking
back at her from the crowd.
The
set
was
speckled
with these little tinges of the
unfiltered emotion that fuel
Mitski’s songwriting. With the
backing of just a guitarist and
drummer, the live performance
enhanced the signature paradox
of her recorded music: the
distorted, chaotic urgency of
the instrumentation juxtaposed
against Mitski’s pure, angelic
vocals.
At times, it was difficult to
hear Mitski’s voice over the
screechy guitar or thudding
percussion,
but
an
almost
constant echo of the crowd spoke
to the strength of her melodies —
a quality she values in her work.
In interviews, she has spoken
about how she moved around a
lot growing up, and much of her
songwriting occurred on-the-
go, with her voice as her sole
instrument.
“No offense to all of the
instrumentalists
out
there,
[instruments]
are
not
as
important to me as the core
composition, which is to me
the words and the main vocal
melody,” she told Rookie in May.
“I want the songs to be able to
stand on their own.”
During her hit rock ballad,
“Your
Best
American
Girl,”
Mitski
pulled
back
the
instrumentation and let the
song’s fluttery verse guide the
audience (who followed along
obediently).
As
the
chorus
dropped and the guitar cracked
in a shock of electricity, the
crowd yelled those iconic lyrics,
“your mother wouldn’t approve
of how my mother raised me,”
right back at the band. Like the
disapproval of a lover’s mother,
Mitski’s performance was widely
relatable, yet rooted in the
sharpness of isolated, individual
pain; she’s mastered this balance,
and her bass set the common
pulse of the crowd last Friday.
CONCERT REVIEW
AVERY FRIEDMAN
Daily Arts Writer
The singer and bassist gave the audience her all last Friday
An almost
constant echo of
the crowd spoke
to the strength of
her melodies
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