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CyranoRox
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
I changed the title [admin- is that permitted?] because I want to use the thread to think about paradox and frame-breaking.
Something odd came up on another thread; Valkyrie mentioned that HW is epileptic, and there are hints that this may not be all. I was, ignorant of that, seeing neuro oddity in V. not quite the same, but enough. now I'm sure he/they had at least looked at Oliver Sacks [and maybe vice versa]. But if my perception is valid, it's damn weird. Surely I was not seeing right through V? it must then be deliberately chosen. in the Berlin press conference he says he worked by instinct. I'm beginning to believe it, but then most of what matters about V, that is painfully absent from the GN, is really his invention.
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7/29/2006, 5:46 pm
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Valkyrie2
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
quote:
Something odd came up on another thread; Valkyrie mentioned that HW is epileptic, and there are hints that this may not be all.
Hold it right there. I NEVER hinted that there was ANYthing other than epilepsy in Mr. Weaving's medical history. I want that understood UP FRONT. And I made that statement in reference to a query as to why he doesn't drive an automobile, at that.
I am not AT ALL happy about taking that one simple statement, to which he himself readily admits (he is an avid campaigner for support of research, etc. on the malady) and extrapolating it to something else.
I was quite prepared to involve myself in the original topic. But as far as I am concerned this thread just went beyond the pale, and I will not participate in such a discussion. Mr. Weaving's state of health is HIS OWN business, and we are doing him a grave injustice if we purpose to speculate on it based purely on his portrayal of a character.
--- Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.
- Cpt Rickenbacker
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7/29/2006, 9:22 pm
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CyranoRox
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
I was not doing all that. I was actually concerned that, having speculated about neuro and 'wiring' issues in the character of V, I might have seemed impolite, if anyone thought I had had any idea that HW has any such thing. But the fact did seem to offer support of my observation; to take it out of the paradoxical: all I was claiming was that V appears to be portrayed as a man with neuro problems, by a man who is now revealed to have some particular knowledge of this.
The hints I spoke of did not come from you.
My post was intended to be admiring, not offensive.
I think your post needs to be seen in the context of the comments on the Steven Fry Article thread started by Bohwea on 7/22, also about the health of one of the actors.
And anyone with a eye for that sort of thing can tell a good deal about my own wiring from my writing.
**postscript edit that hears l'esprit de l'escalier: Three or four days ago I was, from observation, describing V as a character who had overcome, or come to accomodation with, neurological problems, with humor and patience; later, Valkyrie mentioned a fact that made it plain to me that this description roughly fits Mr Weaving. What there is to get upset about here I really do not see.
Last edited by CyranoRox, 7/30/2006, 6:42 pm
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7/30/2006, 9:24 am
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Venturous
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
On the nervous system as creative material:
quote:
in the context of this thread: http://com3.runboard.com/btheladiesoftheshadowgallery.fthecharactors.t34, also about the health of one of the actors.
CR, I dont think that link is working correctly. It takes me to an old V thread with not many posts, and none recent.
=====
As a visual artist I have great respect for my performing artist friends. It has always baffled me, what IS this art? My simple mind understands making something, like my craftsmen ancestors (boatbuilder, lumberman, architect). Performing now THAT is a matter of some serious magic. How does one become another? Why do different performers get different results from the same original material? How do they DO that? and WHY!? If painting seems like a fools errand, good god being an actor is even more ephemeral.
No disrespect intended! It strikes awe in me. No paints or canvas, but your own being in the moment, running on the wires of your nervous system, there for all to see. **chills** I feel like a child expereincing a wonder.
Something happened in Mr. HW's performance that "got to" us; some gift of his, some trigger, some trip on our file at the Finger, some spark reached across the gulf between beings and we caught it, saw it flash.
I would surmise that all his experience, fortunate and otherwise, would have leant power to his ability to , in the moment, conjure up this vivid V from behind the mask.
Last edited by Venturous, 7/30/2006, 3:37 pm
---  "There is no certainty, only opportunity." -- V
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7/30/2006, 3:30 pm
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Doctor Delia
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Re: What is "a man in a mask" anyway?
Great discussion everyone! This is fascinating.
But what exactly does V mean when he says he's a man in a mask? We are assuming that he is talking about our Western view of masks. Like superheroes we assume that the wearer of the mask maintains his "secret identity" under there.
But in other cultures a man in a mask literally becomes the character he is protraying. Western folks tend to condescnedingly refer to these cultures as "primitive." We explain the phenomenon to ouselves by saying that the person is possessed by the diety or hero his mask and costume indicates, almost as if it is a form of temporary insanity. But others would see the man in the mask as the corporeal representation of that deity or hero on earth.
Is V merely acting, or is he channeling a character of his own making? Has he mentally obliterated his true self, as he did at Larkhill when he said he could no longer remember who he was? Is this some kind of fugue-state as in multiple personality disorder?
Or is he just lying? Is he lying to himself? Has real life become so painful to him that the only way he can exist is to live in a world of fantasy? Has his personality become so dissociated or fragmented that there are several V's behind the mask. Does Vendetta-V take care of the business of killing, while another V takes care of the shopping, etc?
I personally think that in some way Vendetta-V is somehow basic to his identity. In the way that some women regard their made-up faces as their true self, or people who have had extensive plastic surgery regard the new face as their true self, or a drag queen regards the identity created by wigs, dresses, special undergarments and make-up as their true selves.
V's costume (or drag) is intergral to his identity.
Even while dying, V never breaks character, and maintains the Guy Fawkes persona to the end. And it is this persona that Evey falls for. Although she says that she loves the man behind the mask, I really doubt that. She has never seen that man, and V isn't about to show her.
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7/30/2006, 4:19 pm
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Venturous
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
Form follows function is a contemporary designer's credo, credited to Louis Sullivan, the inventor of the modern skyscraper. It commands the modernist designer:
• Don’t be distracted by trappings or mere ornament.
• Study well the most basic structure that gives a space or thing its purpose, that makes it useful and true.
• Find the inherent beauty in that, the essential purpose of the thing.
A need for function dictates the form - makes it necessary. If you make a boat without a transom, it will not float. Not functional. Pile up the dirt and the water runs away from it. Make a trough in the soil, and water will follow it, down. Form a copper tube, add a little gravity, and you have a drain pipe. You COULD embellish the drain pipe, but it would not enhance its function, and might even impede it.
So that is the (modernist) designer's argument.
So, back to V, who says:
“Who? Who is but the form, following the function of what, and WHAT I am is a man in a mask.”
Form is who; Function is what
Thus Man-in-a-mask is the function
Therefore: V’s identity is determined by his function.
What is V’s function?
To bring down Norsefire and re-energize the people to take charge of their government.
It sounds like a performer's argument, to become nothing more than the costume and the role. A performer becomes this for a time, not as a permanent self! But V... is different.
Let's put the designer's spin on it:
• Don’t be distracted by trappings or mere ornament. V has lost his memory, his former self. All efforts to live a "normal" life would be meaningless - he appears not to exist in relation to other people, only as a performer of revolution.
• Study well the most basic structure that gives a space or thing its purpose, that makes it useful and true. Indeed, he is smart, stealthy, subversive, strategic, all very useful in his quest. Wearing black aids invisibilty. Patience and planning are powerful tools.
• Find the inherent beauty in that, the essential purpose of the thing. ah, here is where the elegance, the sexiness comes in. He is embodying the beauty of the essential form of revolutionary. We cheer for his whirling knives, we thrill at his long legs and gleaming boots, and laughing mask. What better mask than Guy Fawkes, what better symbol than completing what GF began? There is art here, but always in service of purpose.
continues...
--- "There is no certainty, only opportunity." -- V
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7/31/2006, 8:03 pm
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Doctor Delia
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
quote:
“Who? Who is but the form, following the function of what, and WHAT I am is a man in a mask.”
Form is who; Function is what
Thus Man-in-a-mask is the function
Therefore: V’s identity is determined by his function.
What is V’s function?
Gee, maybe I'm just dense V. C., but that quote form the movie has never made much sense to me. For the following reasons:
What V is, is not a man in a mask, but an idea. What that idea is, is presumably spelled out in V's speech to the nation on "V-TV."
The form that he takes is that of a man in a mask, specifically a modern-day Guy Fawkes.
So shouldn't that line read, "Who? Who is but the form following the function of what, and WHO I am is a man in a mask."
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8/1/2006, 6:55 am
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Venturous
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
Ah, good doctor, your density is not likely, obfuscation is the issue.
Our clever V is toying with us again, by saying that his "who" is nothing but a function, his Purpose.
I have been noodling this for a while now, because its tricky. We seem to have fallen for him, but WHO is he? By his own admission, he is naught but his purpose.
He answers Evey with a deflection: WHO I am is not important, for I am no more than my quest.
V needs to function, to complete his daunting mission. He has channeled everything he has into this, setting all the dominoes in place.
The form, V, follows the functions of man-in-a-mask.
But why the mask? isnt that just affectation? theatrical ornament? Why is the man in the mask?
• to avoid detection and identification
• to conceal wounds and scars that would attract attention
• to evoke the historic antihero Guy Fawkes
Consider the 12th night line:
Conceal me what I am
And be my aide
For such disguise as haply
Becomes the form of my intent.
"conceal me what I am" a man in a mask? no... conceal that I am a revolutionary? no... although he often needs to pass unnoticed, he also wants us to see that aspect. Conceal me from myself, in that the scarred remnants of the former and forgotten man are distracting to him, and he can pour himself into his mask, like concrete into a form, take shape as something transcendent. A phoenix.
In Wiccan ritual, INTENT is the focus of the magic, the deeply held vision, the votive-not-in-vain. V has stripped his life of all but intent.
His mask becomes his personhood because that self is subsumed by his cause. So the visage not only communicates the mythic figure of Fawkes, returned to finish what he started, it holds, it creates the shape of V's identity.
We all seem to buy into this, that it is the black-clad Fawksian-visaged V who dresses up as Rookwood, interogator, and who knows what other characters.
It's as if until he meets Evey, the post-Larkhill V has no need for a personal self. "and then everything changed."
continues....
--- "There is no certainty, only opportunity." -- V
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8/1/2006, 8:35 am
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CyranoRox
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
Venturous asked;
quote:
The form, V, follows the functions of man-in-a-mask.
But why the mask? isnt that just affectation? theatrical ornament? Why is the man in the mask?
Why is a whole 'nother level! 'no mere veneer of vanity', ie, not just affectation.
i'll have to think about this.
meanwhile, 'function' means both 'work, purpose' , which you are using, and 'the graph or trajectory of a set of plug-in instructions', ie, a line, parabola, hyperbola etc from algebra, which i was following.
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8/1/2006, 7:29 pm
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Tamlin
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Re: Retitled: Identity, actor and mask
On the subject of Hugo Weaving's epilepsy - this fascinates me since I've had three scary seizures since 2004. They've done every test in the book but I have disorder they can find..."idiopathic" is the name for "we have no idea what caused those seizures." It was likely a medication I was taking. I'm not photosensitive or the like, and don't consider myself a huge risk overall. I take seizure medication and watch it when it comes to other medications.
Doing the high-powered acting Hugo Weaving does with epilepsy - that gives me even more respect for the man. IMDb says of his seizures:
"Suffers from epilepsy. Was once carried off stage during a performance at the Sydney Opera House, after he collapsed and started going into convulsions. His reaction was later attributed to the use of strobe lights in the production."
So he IS photosensitive. That must be very difficult while being an actor!
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8/2/2006, 5:06 pm
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