Inside a Killer's Mind...

I absolutely love the film Red Dragon, starring Edward Norton, Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Fiennes. While the insane Hannibal Lector is indeed the focal point of the film (as well as the whole trilogy), I find him to be rather mundane. The character who interests me the most would have to be the character of Francis Dolarhyde, AKA The Tooth Fairy. While this may seem like an amateur psychoanalysis, I'm merely trying to figure out how Dolarhyde's mind works from the wonderful adaptation of Ralph Fiennes. It's worth noting that I haven't read the book, nor have I seen the previous adaptation of the film by Michael Mann, where Thomas Noonan played the role of Dolarhyde. This is going from what I have read about the character and what I have seen in the film Red Dragon.

First of all, like all classic movie serial killers, Dolarhyde has had a traumatic childhood. This is in part due to a facial deformity (in actuality a hare-lip), which could possibly mean that he was teased as a child, though the film gives no indication either way. After a botched re-construction surgery, he is left with a long scar running up to his nose, which has also resulted in him being rather sensitive about people touching his face, as evidenced by the way he acts with Reba.
He was put into the care of his grandmother in her foster home. Through various audio flashbacks throughout the movie, we learn that she repeatedly threatened to cut off his genitals, presumably after several bed-wetting episodes. Other emotional abuse is hinted, though we are not told whether or not he was physically abused as a child. As is typical of most Hollywood serial killers; the abuse provokes a deep-seated fear and apprehension towards his grandmother, but also a sort of affection. How do we know this? The main indication would be the dentures Dolarhyde possesses. He holds one set of dentures for his normal life, and another set, snaggle-toothed and sharp which resemble the dental structure of his grandmother. He wears these dentures when he slips into his Red Dragon alter-ego, in other words when he commits the murders. This suggests that in some form or another, Dolarhyde sees himself as carrying out his grandmother's wishes, or even that she is now a part of him.

Dolarhyde possesses two radically different personalities. In public he appears to be a shy, confused young man who doesn't have much -if any- of a social life. Other than this, he appears relatively normal. In some ways, this could be an extension of his childhood personality: young, innocent and eager to learn about the world around him.
Then along comes his Red Dragon persona. Now this side of his split personality is perhaps the most interesting. To fully understand It, we need to analyse this quote:

"I am the Dragon. And you call me insane. You are privy to a great becoming, but you recognize nothing. To me, you are a slug in the sun. You are an ant in the afterbirth. It is your nature to do one thing correctly. Before me, you rightly tremble. But, fear is not what you owe me. You owe me awe"

Within this statement, we see a lot of confusion, which can help us decipher the Red Dragon personality. Here we have a being that is confused by the world around It. While it holds without doubt a certain disdain for the people around It, It cannot comprehend why others do not recognize It for the superior being It is. "You owe me awe!"; while Fiennes pulls this line off with utter contempt, I feel that it is perhaps more appropriate to highlight the confusion within that statement, indeed so that the Dragon is saying "Why aren't you in awe of me?" instead of just stating.

While on the outside, The Dragon may seem like a monster, an uncaring amoral being; It has perhaps more 'noble' (in the loosest sense of the word) intentions. Through various statements he makes during his conversation with the journalist Lounds, we can see that he believes he is "transforming" his victims, as he shows Lounds pictures of his victims through each stage of their transformation. This could suggest that he believes that by killing them through his bizarre ritual, he is freeing their true spirits from their body, allowing them to undergo a metamorphosis, such as he is trying to attain, and changing them into higher beings. This may also hint that he is somewhat envious of his victims, as to him they are able to achieve superiority in a matter of minutes, while he has been working all of his life to achieve his metamorphosis, becoming the Red Dragon. The thing you have to remember is that each personality is a completely different person, while Dolarhyde is aware of the Dragon, he fears it and he doesn't actually want to hurt people. To be honest, I don't think that the Dragon Itself is fond of hurting and killing people; but he views it as a necessary evil in order to achieve It's proper transformation. It looks down upon Dolarhyde with a certain sense of pity; as it views Dolarhyde as weak and spineless. It's important to remember this; as you can easily lose yourself in hating the character instead of trying to understand it.

So there you have it. And I bid you Adieu

And as the Sun Sets...

First of all, sorry for the fact that it's been a few months since my last post. Thing have been rather busy as of late with various money problems and also trying to get the site Taming Entertainment up and running.

As the new year rolls in, I've already been given a hell of a lot to think about. We faced a crisis last week, having to pay €450 for an electricity bill that hadn't been paid in six months. But then a stroke of really good luck came along, my Dad got a new job.

Anyways, on to some stupid, pointless rambling.

We know that the sun will set at the end of every day. A man sits on the side of the highway staring into the horizon. He has no shoes on his feet, and his clothes are tattered. In the pocket of his faded jeans he holds a wallet with a photo of himself as a child, and seven dollars.
At some point in the future, this man will appear in all of us. We'll look up from the office cubicle in which we work and think "Hell, I could be out there living my life!" Then what happens is up to you. You can get up out of the cube farm and voyage, live a little... or you can fold yourself back into the system like a piece of paper.
Yes, we'll all look back at some point and think how life could have been different, had we done or said something different. The question is, how much would you have to change to change the outcome of your life? It's the ever-theoretical butterfly effect I'm talking about. If you do take that chance, say you wear a different shirt in the morning, will a war be prevented? And maybe that's the problem: people don't want to know.

Help out Taming Entertainment!

Hi folks,

As some of you already know, I contribute on a Entertainment review blog. We're doing pretty well, 11 subscribers which is already more than most E blogs out there. For this year, we've brought up a few resolutions. Our goal for this year is to reach 40 subscribers, and to get into the top 200 on blogtopsites.com.
To do this, we need YOUR help. Take a look at the site, give us feedback, let us know what you like and what you don't like. When we reach 25 subscribers, we intend to purchase a .com domain, and when we finally get 40 subscribers to the site, we'll be looking at re-porting the site to turn it into a proper entertainment site instead of just an entertainment blog.

Also, we welcome any submissions. Seen a film you like? Heard some good music lately? Feel free to write a review for it and send it in to us! You'll get full credit (of course) and a chance to get your name out there!
Submissions should be sent to submissions@tamingentertainment.co.uk

Pass this on to your friends and help spread the word! The site really has a lot of potential and your opinion counts!

Thanks,

Jay

New Poster Parodies!

Questions and Answers

There's a camera on every street corner, observing each person and looking into their soul. The cameras know you better than you know yourself; they don't get distracted, tired, hungry or bored. They know that you live your life alone, they know that you're tired and desperate trying to make a living in a job you hate. The cameras have more power than all the governments combined; they are our God.
I could stand for hours on the street looking into that blank, glazed stare of the camera, waiting for it to blink. But it doesn't.
I know that I can see, hear and smell. I know that I can taste and touch, but am I aware of it? Do I actually exist? Is this proof of my existence? I can sense but I don't know how; each touch is, to me disembodied. It's like someone else is feeling for me. Half of the time I'm not even aware that I'm seeing something, it's just a random sequence of images appearing somewhere, somehow making me aware, making me able to recognize shapes, forms, faces. Do I know what it is that I'm seeing? Or am I just drifting? When I hear things do I actually know that I'm hearing them and interpreting those electrical signals into something that I can actually understand? Do I exist at all, or is this just part of some cosmic plan? And if I'm existing, do I even know if I'm existing? I think therefore I am. But how do I know what I'm thinking? How can I interpret those thoughts? How can I hear what I'm thinking yet not at the same time? Why us? There are thousands of species of animal on this planet but why are we the only ones who can make concrete monstrosities tower up from the ground? Is the human race existing or are we all just imagining it? Could it be that we're all just one single mass of thought expressing itself through different mediums, forever in conflict with itself, fighting to express itself in different forms? If I'm alone in a room, how can I be sure that the others are still there? Do they cease to exist? And if I exit a room do I cease to exist?
I speak to someone. They reply. Perhaps they perceive what I said differently, and give an entirely different reply. Maybe I interpret that reply in order to satisfy my curiosity. Maybe we're all talking random shit to each other, but all making up our own definitions of what we're saying. Maybe that's how communication works: we don't understand each other but we make ourselves believe that we do.
If I continue to exist (hypothetically speaking, we've still not figured out if we DO exist) will my past cease to exist? Will it never have happened? And is my future predefined? Can it be changed, or does I already know what choices I'm going to make, is my subconscious aware of how and when I'm going to make the choices that I make? Therefore does free will REALLY exist? Am I already aware of how my life will turn out? Maybe I just don't realize it yet.

Confessions of a Deadbeat

"Why don't you get off your ass and get a job?!". Isn't that how it always goes in the movies, where the rebellious teen gets afoul of their parents for some reason or another? Yeah, they say "Why don't you get a job" and the teen stands up defiantly and shouts "Yeah, well maybe I will!" and slams the door. Then they get a job just to prove their parents wrong, and many humorous anecdotal things happen.
Well, wake up Hollywood. It ain't like that. I've had many a people tell me to get a job, seeing as I complain about the lack of cash from time to time. Sure! I'll get up, get a job, get a girlfriend! Fuck, it'll be easy! Then you actually get up off your ass and go to do it only to find out that you've not got the time and that cute girl you were eyeing already has a boyfriend. Welcome to my world.
I've thought about getting a job. No, really I have. Here in Béziers, the only work that you can really get if you're a teen is bar work or waiter work. Either way it amounts to pretty much the same thing; you work your ass off for a slave wage serving self-righteous Americans. The smug, self satisfied lot that you have to smile at, all the while imagining what it would be like embedding an empty coke bottle in their skull. Then comes the time issues; you work a full day at school with teachers busting your ass only to get home, change your clothes and work for another five hours. See, I weighed up all these pros and cons. I could be earning money, be proud to be making a living etcetera etcetera. Then again, I'd be tired, overworked and underappreciated as an employee (aren't we all?). No, thanks. I'd rather spend my evenings sitting in front of this machine watching High Fidelity. I admit it, I'm a deadbeat. Getting a job holds no interest to me whatsoever.
So now you're probably assuming I have a pretty active social life that takes up all of my free time? Well, you'd be wrong there, too. My social life is deader than Nelson. My days consist of school, then coming back here and pouring out all of my negative thoughts into this little box, for all of you to read and snigger. A guy I know keeps asking me if I want to hit the town with him and some friends, but I turn him down. He doesn't really know that I can't stand him. I'm just like that; it's not that I'm afraid of hurting his feelings or anything, it's just that I can't be bothered with the hassle that telling someone who previously considered themselves as your friend is actually a shallow asshole who should fuck off. I'm just like that. If anyone tells you that they're afraid of hurting someone's feelings, it's usually bullshit. They just can't be bothered with all of that emotional bombardement that follows the breaking up of whatever relationship... Sure, it's selfish, sure it's shallow. I admit it. In the long run, these sorts of relationships break up any way. I mean come on, how many of your school-mates do YOU still keep in touch with?
But where was I? Oh, yeah. People also seem to have this idea in their head that it's unnatural for a teen my age to be dating. I'd kindly ask those people not to lump me in with a stereotype. Sure, there are girls that I'm interested in, there always will be. It's the same with anyone my age. I just don't ask them out because I don't have the time for that right now. And I don't mean time in a metaphysical sense here, I mean more in an emotional sense of the word. When you're in a relationship, it takes up so much of your goddamned time and space, until you're effectively smothered by the primordial urges that wrack all of us. Or at least from my viewpoint. Cynical, isn't it?

Sure, people sometimes accuse me of being overly cynical. I suppose that I see the world in a different way to most people, I somewhat exaggerate the realism of life and the world in general. Jokingly, I'd say I hate everyone and everything in this world, but I don't mean it. I just have an open disdain for modern culture in every single way. I don't like what it's become, where someone is judged on the artificial qualities in themselves, and where they're willing to change at the drop of a hat just to please a social clique. Did you know that most teens these days talk to more people online than they do in real life? Fuck, I used to be addicted to that shit. Then I realized that I was turning myself into a nervous wreck. Suddenly this urge comes along to meet real people, not just some anonymous guy behind the screen. So then I started to make real friends.

This is where my fingers die.

Here's what i'm trying to learn on bass. The Awakening Bass Solo

First of all, the original version



Now a faithful reproduction of it:



Wish me luck...