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Speaking Mute 03-11-2014 04:16 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100013)
I'm still mystified why everyone see the ending as redemptive or signalling a major shift in Rust's outlook.
"The light is winning."
"This reminds me of people who complain that Seven hedged at the end because of Sommerset's final line; a few statements shouldn't overrule the greater narrative."

Not to be sharp, but why bother responding if you're not actually responding?

njhorror 03-11-2014 04:20 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
" I am not saying that cinema needs to completely excoriate the three necessities of popular films (breasts, robots and explosions), but I wish that one large studio would take a leap of faith and end a single piece honestly. Just throw us a bone."



How about No Country For Old Men ?

Dr. Locrian 03-11-2014 04:21 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100019)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100013)
I'm still mystified why everyone see the ending as redemptive or signalling a major shift in Rust's outlook.
"The light is winning."
"This reminds me of people who complain that Seven hedged at the end because of Sommerset's final line; a few statements shouldn't overrule the greater narrative."

Not to be sharp, but why bother responding if you're not actually responding?
I've never seen Seven, so I instinctively skipped over that bit. I just did it again as well.

Speaking Mute 03-11-2014 04:33 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cynothoglys (Post 100018)
I think a conversation between Ligotti and Pizzolatto might go something like the following exchange from Amadeus with Ligotti as Mozart and Pizzolatto as Salieri:

Quote:
Mozart: [of his great opera, "Figaro"] Nine performances! Nine, that's all it's had! And withdrawn!
Salieri: I know, I know, it's outrageous. Still, if the public doesn't like one's work, one has to accept the fact gracefully.
Mozart: But what is it that they don't like?
Salieri: I can speak for the Emperor. You make too many demands on the royal ear. The poor man can't concentrate for more than an hour... you gave him four.
Mozart: What did you think of it yourself? Did you like it at all?
Salieri: I thought it was marvelous.
Mozart: Of course! It's the best opera yet written, I know it... why didn't they come?
Salieri: I think you overestimate our dear Viennese, my friend. You know you didn't even give them a good *bang* at the end of songs, to let them know when to clap?
Mozart: I know, I know... maybe you should give me some lessons in that.
Pizzolatto took enough from the works of Chambers and Ligotti to make his series nihilist-chic without initially attributing inspiration to TL; stuck to those principles to some degree, to the apprehensive approval of fans of both weird fiction and Ligotti; then veered off course like some cinematic kamikaze in the last episodes, eventually kowtowing to popular expectations.

Perhaps this pervasive thirst for an optimistic denouement is why a The Avengers grossed over $1.5 billion and The White Ribbon barely recouped its $18 million production cost.

As far as Seven is concerned, I find it very hard to believe that Somerset would morph into some optimistically cooing crime-fighter after finding his partner’s wife’s head in a box, especially given the fact that he was so close with her. In my opinion, The Pledge handled the overworked police officer angle with much more humanity, sincerity and realism.

I suppose I take this all to heart because I and, I suspect, many others feel insulted by this ever predictable shift in mood towards the close of a piece, whether opera, theater, television or film. We are consistently lured into viewing these pieces under false pretense, namely that the characters are going to be honest with themselves, not with themselves as seen through the public eye.

But if this happened, if the pessimists won even once, the studios could not pander their latest creation to the dregs with thick wallets and thicker skulls.

I am not saying that cinema needs to completely excoriate the three necessities of popular films (breasts, robots and explosions), but I wish that one large studio would take a leap of faith and end a single piece honestly. Just throw us a bone.
I suspect PIzzolatto is being disingenuous regarding his opinion of Chambers et al more than exploiting them for ideas. If he was scratching the surface of Weird he probably would have stopped at Lovecraft (or even Poe - not to get Druidic fired up on The Following again :) ). Given that many critics attacked the show from the onset for it's "crossover" into the horror genre (I fail to see why TD isn't Horror - but that's off topic), and he's under fire for the show's supposed misogyny, he's probably ditching horror to save literary face. Cowardly, certainly, but TD did too well so far as creepiness goes for him not to respect horror.

I can't compare the The Pledge to Seven, but I'll take that as a recommendation. I left TD with the impression that Rust was more overtly suicidal than before. The "light is winning" angle struck me as rather desperate chatter between Marty and Rust.

So far as Hollywood trick goes, I think Rust only survived so that he can come back for another round.

Speaking Mute 03-11-2014 04:37 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100021)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100019)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100013)
I'm still mystified why everyone see the ending as redemptive or signalling a major shift in Rust's outlook.
"The light is winning."
"This reminds me of people who complain that Seven hedged at the end because of Sommerset's final line; a few statements shouldn't overrule the greater narrative."

Not to be sharp, but why bother responding if you're not actually responding?
I've never seen Seven, so I instinctively skipped over that bit. I just did it again as well.
The question makes sense without watching Seven - did True Detective actually leave off in any happy place? In the midst of the "light is winning" dialogue, Rust himself pointed out that it was fairly pointless catching Errol, because others were obviously involved. Marty's response diverted the question's punch ("we got our man.") rather than veering into any actual optimism (think of how many we people we saved by finally taking Errol out etc.).

Dr. Locrian 03-11-2014 04:46 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100023)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100021)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100019)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100013)
I'm still mystified why everyone see the ending as redemptive or signalling a major shift in Rust's outlook.
"The light is winning."
"This reminds me of people who complain that Seven hedged at the end because of Sommerset's final line; a few statements shouldn't overrule the greater narrative."

Not to be sharp, but why bother responding if you're not actually responding?
I've never seen Seven, so I instinctively skipped over that bit. I just did it again as well.
The question makes sense without watching Seven - did True Detective actually leave off in any happy place? In the midst of the "light is winning" dialogue, Rust himself pointed out that it was fairly pointless catching Errol, because others were obviously involved. Marty's response diverted the question's punch ("we got our man.") rather than veering into any actual optimism (think of how many we people we saved by finally taking Errol out etc.).
Cohle is unequivocally a saved man. He has been redeemed from his pessimism by a Near Death Experience.

In the words of another viewer of the show:

Quote:
I wonder if anyone has noticed that TD turned out to be a supernatural story after all, despite Pizzolatto’s gibbering that it isn’t. What could have been more supernatural than Rust Cohle’s near-death vision, which he clearly embraces, of an afterlife in which he’ll be reunited with his daughter, father, and maybe a pet he had as a kid. What a disgusting mockery of the pain of loss in human life. Geez, how could he be the nihilistic guy he seemed in the first two episodes, the ones that viewers said they liked best, the ones which NP says were rewritten after writing of the last six episodes.

Druidic 03-11-2014 05:01 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
In my opinion, The Pledge handled the overworked police officer angle with much more humanity, sincerity and realism. -- Cynothoglys
I agree, cynothoglys.

Pizzolatto may have an inflated image of himself as an artist but he did do a bang-up job with TD despite the predictable ending. But he's no Durrenmatt. He doesn't have the seriousness of purpose to create novels like "The Pledge" or "The Execution of Justice." Durrenmatt's vision was as dark as any I've encountered; and the problem in filming his work is similar to the problems in filming Lovecraft. In particular, conveying the terrible sense of Life as an Evil Fairy Tale that comes across so powerfully in his writing. His Giants, Dwarfs, Dragons (the Nazi surgeon/torturer who owns a clinic for the wealthy that is described more like a terrifying castle), all act out their parts in a haunted landscape of a world that "invokes the supernatural without manifesting it."

ramonoski 03-11-2014 05:09 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cynothoglys (Post 100018)
I suppose I take this all to heart because I and, I suspect, many others feel insulted by this ever predictable shift in mood towards the close of a piece, whether opera, theater, television or film. We are consistently lured into viewing these pieces under false pretense, namely that the characters are going to be honest with themselves, not with themselves as seen through the public eye.
After careful consideration, it seems that the biggest problem is, at least to me, not so much Rust's redemption (which, as has been mentioned several times in this thread, is kinda to be expected from what is ultimately a mainstream work of fiction) but these statements from NP that basically say "yeah, you know what, I don't really care for weird fiction. You keep your Chambers and Lovecraft and what have you, I'm through with it." That's what's leaving a bitter taste in my mouth despite the series' achievements.

Incidentally, Alan Moore wrote a short story (later adapted into a comic) titled "The Courtyard" which, I think, is what at one point I expected TD to be. Similar scenario: procedural revolving about ritual murder. But this one delves deeper into mythos territory as the investigation progresses and lands into a pretty bleak and terrifying conclusion.

Problem is that, well, anyone who's read at least a couple mythos stories can tell where things are headed. The story is packed with references and in-jokes, and the "protagonist gets a glimpse behind the curtains and goes mad and/or joins the cult" ending is pretty much a standard for these stories. So there won't be many surprises, but still an enjoyable read.

And there's another comic I was reading, Scars by Warren Ellis (and illustrated by the same guy who did The Courtyard for Moore), which I think could easily be an upcoming TD season. Again about murder and a detective who gets obsessed with the case because he can't stand to live in a world where a schoolgirl can be chopped up into meat and packed into boxes and nobody else can do anything about it. Unlike Courtyard, this one is entirely rooted in the real world, so it plays with different kinds of fear.

So, I guess that's two alternatives for anyone who wants a fix after TD's finale.

Dr. Locrian 03-11-2014 05:12 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
I argue that Pizzolatto could've produced a fair-handed, ambivalent ending to the show. The redemption of Cohle rubbed me the wrong way.

I agree with a friend on how the show should've ended:

Quote:
with that last shot of the tree after the TAXI DRIVER-esque "god's eye" montage of all the sites we've seen throughout the season. That tree, unadorned by horrors, would have struck the perfect balance of what I'd thought the show was going for: Existence will keep spinning, enduring, beyond the good and evil of humanity, that even the scenes of the worst terrors, and the memories that accompany them, can't outlast the indifferent majesty of time and life.
For my part, that montage reminded me of the end of HALLOWEEN--letting us know that the Real Horror could not be contained in one place. It could be ANYwhere. It's an intrinsic part of the landscape and the people who live within it.

In any case, the directing--along with the acting, designwork, and score--was astonishing.

Dr. Locrian 03-11-2014 05:17 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Dashiell Hammett had a great quote about mystery novels as well.

Quote:
To swipe the immortal lines uttered by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, a great mystery should take "the lid off life and let [you] look at the works.

Speaking Mute 03-11-2014 05:30 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
[/QUOTE]

Cohle is unequivocally a saved man. He has been redeemed from his pessimism by a Near Death Experience.

In the words of another viewer of the show:

Quote:
I wonder if anyone has noticed that TD turned out to be a supernatural story after all, despite Pizzolatto’s gibbering that it isn’t. What could have been more supernatural than Rust Cohle’s near-death vision, which he clearly embraces, of an afterlife in which he’ll be reunited with his daughter, father, and maybe a pet he had as a kid. What a disgusting mockery of the pain of loss in human life. Geez, how could he be the nihilistic guy he seemed in the first two episodes, the ones that viewers said they liked best, the ones which NP says were rewritten after writing of the last six episodes.
[/QUOTE]

So a man who hates being revived from a coma and has an overwhelming desire to die is a "saved man" because he alludes to an afterlife? This is a rather narrow view of philosophical Pessimism.

The odd thing is that Rust's supposed afterlife and near death experience (he didn't actually commit to any views on the hereafter) sounds a lot like Schopenhauer:

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/scho.../chapter7.html

I think the vast majority of Religious optimists would follow Thrasymachos in frowning upon Rust's view of the hereafter.

mark_samuels 03-11-2014 08:27 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by matt cardin (Post 100011)
Just thought I would add this to the mix. It's a quote from The Yellow Jester himself, from that interview he gave to Jeff VanderMeer last year for Wonderbook:

Quote:
VanderMeer: On the page, what are the worst ways that a talented writer can self-sabotage or self-betray?

Ligotti: I don’t know what you mean by “on the page,” but I think the worst way a writer can self-betray is by not being true to his or her experience of being alive. It’s my belief, for what it’s worth, that a lot of writers consign to the page what they think will meet with the approval, especially in the moral realm, of what their society has preached to them since they were children, almost all of which is utter bull####. This is particularly evident in the practice of screenplay writers who write about characters being “redeemed” in some way or other. That is, whereas a character began with a bad attitude about life, he ends as if he had swallowed whole hog a course in positive thinking.
I think Tom's opinion, at least, of where True Detective went (if he even watched the series) is probably not in doubt (although Pizzolatto's after-the-fact comments about the whole-series arc indicate that he wasn't and isn't really coming at things from a personally held pessimist or antinatalist stance, so maybe he sidesteps Tom's point here).

That interview will appear as the final item in Born to Fear, by the way.
I don't know anything about the TV series in question.

However, I will quote the end of an essay I've been writing along these lines, if you'll indulge me:



"Back in the 1990s Ligotti wrote a little essay called “The Consolations of Horror”. In it there was an intriguing passage concerning horror and reality, which I'll quote; “after a devoted horror fan is stuffed to the gills, thoroughly sated and consequently bored – what does he do next? Haunt the emergency rooms of hospitals or the local morgues? Keep an eye out for bloody mishaps on the freeway? Become a war correspondent? But now the issue has been blatantly shifted to a completely different plane – from movies to life – and clearly it doesn't belong there.”

Apparently it does, and your next logical stop, all you horror fans after an even stronger dose of the good hard stuff, is the philosophy of life (or rather, of death) detailed in CATHR.

I cannot help confessing that, for me, Ligotti, or rather the Ligotti-persona of CATHR, frequently brings to mind the character Mr. Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. His carefully crafted aura of reclusive mystery, his professed philanthropic aim to end all suffering, his moving eloquence and august benevolence, it's all on display. But, in the end, so too is the dead soul, the monolithic and righteous sarcasm, but, above all, the despair and horror of having examined one's innermost self and come to Kurtz's same final conclusion; “Exterminate all the brutes!”

Jose Luis Borges, the Argentinian fabulist, once contended that it was hazardous to suggest a combination of words could much resemble the universe, and that philosophy was only another branch of fantastic literature. The appearance of CATHR surely adds weight to this notion. As a work of horror fiction, and a portrait of the crummy side of reality, the book is as brilliant as any other of the books Ligotti has authored. So it goes.

But for my own part, I would identify the motive behind weird fiction as essentially primal and not rational. It is experiential in nature, and not philosophical. It is an attempt to delineate engagement with the totality of existence itself, not only in the cosmos, but in the realm of one's own imagination. It is not simply a foreshadowing of the death of the physical form that must come to us all, and a concentration on that fact to the exclusion of everything else.

Authors of weird fiction ought not to be valued simply as philosophers, social commentators or political theorists who hold views with which we agree, and who appear merely to have condescended to write weird fiction rather than academic dissertations. There is no need for us to make excuses for our art, insinuating that the best weird fiction has merit where it utilises metaphors in order to deal with more pressing philosophical, societal or psychological issues. Even when an accomplished author attempts to write weird fiction on this basis, the outcome is often that the work transcends whatever philosophical or socio-political message imposed upon it, and still savours of the ineffable.

After all, what could be more real than the awful mystery of our own existence and the strange enigma of this spectral universe we all inhabit? It has been an integral part of man’s experience since the first of our ape-like ancestors stood on two legs, turned his gaze upward to the night sky and felt a holy dread. Weird fiction does not originate from a philosophical or political impulse, or even an emotional response like misery, but is a reflection of the infinite cosmic Mystery. It remains a valid artistic end in itself, a response to being alive, and never just a form of apologia."

Mark S.

mark_samuels 03-11-2014 08:56 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Jose Luis Borges is, apparently, Jorge Luis Borges smarter brother...

Ahem.

Mark S.

mark_samuels 03-11-2014 09:02 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackout (Post 100037)
welcome back mark.
Thanks. And to all those who share the sentiment.

My internet connection is now so patchy and degraded even an ultimate pessimist would not believe it.

Mark S.;)

ramonoski 03-11-2014 09:23 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Mark! :)


Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100028)
For my part, that montage reminded me of the end of HALLOWEEN--letting us know that the Real Horror could not be contained in one place. It could be ANYwhere. It's an intrinsic part of the landscape and the people who live within it.
I wasn't thinking Halloween so much as The Wire and their "real life has no closure, it just keeps on going" season-finale montages. It seemed the series was going to end with that shot of the tree where it all began and I thought "yeah, that's good." Then... psych! Here's your redemption side-serving. :drunk:

Druidic 03-12-2014 02:00 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Yeah, it's from the New York Post (my favorite rag, sue me) but it's not complaining about anti-Christian bias or anything you might imagine; it's just one critic unhappy because too much was left unexplained.
Because that last episode got the adrenaline going I was pretty forgiving of such things, but I can see how others might not be. I don't always like everything wrapped up nice and neatly.
But the interesting thing is the author is an extremely conservative columnist and he doesn't seem to be looking at the drama through political or religious goggles. It's encouraging if that's what the power of a good story can do...
Give me the Post, my coffee, a hot buttered muffin, my cigarettes and some painkillers and I might make it through one more day...
Or not.


We all look like suckers again as fizzles out | New York Post

Nemonymous 03-12-2014 03:52 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Welcome back, Mark. Like you, I have not seen this TV programme. I agree with your sentiments above. We have interesting common ground there, despite my being essentially non-religious, and you now openly religious. The Art of Weird Fiction is something that binds rather than divides, I find. The Politics of Weird Fiction, meanwhile, sadly acts against that.

Murony_Pyre 03-12-2014 03:58 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
H U G E

W E L C O M E

B A C K

T O

M A R K

S !!!!

*can't wait to read the essay in its entirety*

Malone 03-12-2014 04:04 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
TCATHR puts me in mind of the kind of Philosophy written by men such as Shestov and Kierkegaard: the desperate desire to escape the quotidian, the iron shackles of necessity and to pass beyond the visible realm, albeit in the opposite direction to those two gentlemen....

Malone 03-12-2014 05:35 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
I was one of the few who expressed suspicion of Pizzolatto when he was 'outed' re Ligotti, and claimed he was fully intending to credit the latter at the end of the series. His dismissive comments re weird fiction and so on do make feel a tad vindicated;)

Nemonymous 03-12-2014 06:12 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malone (Post 100053)
I was one of the few who expressed suspicion of Pizzolatto when he was 'outed' re Ligotti, and claimed he was fully intending to credit the latter at the end of the series. His dismissive comments re weird fiction and so on do make feel a tad vindicated;)
Indeed, I remember your comments.

Also the messages on post 13 seem more significant now: THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK - View Single Post - Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’

Dr. Locrian 03-12-2014 09:43 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
A hearty welcome back, Mark!

Dr. Locrian 03-12-2014 09:57 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Druidic (Post 100048)
Yeah, it's from the New York Post (my favorite rag, sue me) but it's not complaining about anti-Christian bias or anything you might imagine; it's just one critic unhappy because too much was left unexplained.
Because that last episode got the adrenaline going I was pretty forgiving of such things, but I can see how others might not be. I don't always like everything wrapped up nice and neatly.
But the interesting thing is the author is an extremely conservative columnist and he doesn't seem to be looking at the drama through political or religious goggles. It's encouraging if that's what the power of a good story can do...
Give me the Post, my coffee, a hot buttered muffin, my cigarettes and some painkillers and I might make it through one more day...
Or not.


We all look like suckers again as fizzles out | New York Post
I don't mind that the loose ends were not wrapped up, but that last five minutes...

Well, a friend of mine's final assessment of the show is so much more eloquent than anything I have to write on the matter (and I agree with him completely):

Quote:
I just don't see how [Cohle] can say "the light's winning," and we can believe him. And yet, the ending felt totally unironic. I can understand why that lack of irony might be refreshing, but from a storytelling and character point of view, it completely undermined all that came before it, particularly the baked-in ironies. We know Cohle is a good man, deep down, despite what he says. His actions speak for themselves. He has a code, which is something nihilists don't have. We know he's deluding himself up to a point.

But we also know, from what we see in the show, is that his worldview -- at least in the fictional universe we've watched for 8 hours -- is largely validated by what's going on. This is a world where a voodoo rape and murder cult can escape justice at even the highest levels of law enforcement. And yet, the show wants us to think that it was really all about One Man's Quest to Overcome His Pessimism.
Now the problem isn't the old Pessimism versus Optimism debate (which Yog knows has been argued to death already here and elsewhere). The problem is that the optimistic ending isn't earned in any way or supported by the narrative--it comes from out of the blue and undermines all eight hours of storytelling that came before and transforms the show itself into one, huge red herring.

In short, TRUE DETECTIVE--despite its gorgeously acted, directed, and scored trappings--turned out to be a sham.

IMO.

Dr. Locrian 03-12-2014 10:07 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Ooh. And ANOTHER great point that ANOTHER friend of mine made:

Quote:
Speaking of voodoo. I think the portrayal of voodoo in TD is worse than stereotypical. It is not developed at all as if no research went into it. It is basically just equated with Satanism. But, even with my somewhat limited knowledge of voodoo, I know a voodoo priest who is a college professor, I'm aware that voodoo has nothing to do with child rape and murder. Nobody's really talking about that, I guess because voodoo has been a source of ridicule and bogyemanning by Hollywood forever, but you would think that someone as well read as Pizzalotti would have done a little research other than the Blair Witch stick tchotchkes. Why even toss voodoo in there? It was basically just a throwaway line. Voodoo also has ZERO to do with the King in Yellow.
and the response (from friend #1):

Quote:
Why even bother co-opting the Yellow King "mythos"? Especially when you're going to crap on Chambers and weird fiction in general, not to mention facepalm when viewers actually, you know, go looking for stuff about the Yellow King? Just concoct something new! It's HBO, for chrissakes. People would have gotten into it without the Yellow King imagery and ideas. They would have gotten into something entirely new, and Pizz could have created a great and terrifying new mythos. Again, a missed opportunity.

Dr. Locrian 03-12-2014 10:13 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Oh, and for those folks who resist the idea that the ending of TD was one of deliverance from evil -- I give you Nic Pizzolatto himself:

Quote:
"For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world to kill one or both of these guys," Pizzolatto told HitFix. "I even had an idea where something more mysterious happened to them, where they vanished into the unknown and Gilbough and Papania had to clean up the mess and nobody knows what happens to them. Or it could have gone full blown supernatural. But I think both of those things would have been easy, and they would have denied the sort of realist questions the show had been asking all along. To retreat to the supernatural, or to take the easy dramatic route of killing a character in order to achieve an emotional response from the audience, I thought would have been a disservice to the story. What was more interesting to me is that both these men are left in a place of deliverance, a place where even Cohle might be able to acknowledge the possibility of grace in the world."
Never mind that the Near Death Experience Cohle had with a void full o' Eternal Love was the most supernatural ending Nic P could've possibly written.

That stated, Cohle's resolution above sounds so much better than it actually turned out to be. I would have liked to have seen the ending he thinks he wrote.

JBC 03-12-2014 11:19 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
I think its fair to say that, in this particular instance, the writer's own interpretation of his work weakens the narrative instead of illuminating it. I don't think NP himself knew what the show was about in the end, or at least he did not agree with what the fans wanted the show to be.
For example, NP wasted so much potential by not incorporating Marty's daughters into the narrative. Some stuff I read before the final episode with Maggie's father and her kids just blew my mind.

So my main question right now is:
How does a writer feel when half the internet is full of theories and interpretation that are better than his own final episode and interpretation?

Perhaps we will find out in the second season.

Druidic 03-12-2014 11:22 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
The second part of The Call of Cthulhu, where the police trek through a nightmarish swamp to hunt down a death cult killing around the stones on a small 'island', seems to have been a strong influence on TD.

Pizzolatto's remarks on Weird Fiction still bother me more than any other single thing. At best they were ungracious. At worst...well, no need to go there.

shivering 03-12-2014 11:39 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Well, there are a lot of negative feelings everywhere about the series now (seen some real nastiness on Facebook) and I can honestly say I was not entirely satisfied with it all. But it was entertaining and certainly better than 90% of the dreck out there.

As for Mr. Pizzolatto, he is not particularly impressive as a writer. His BS approach to the weird is rather irritating, but he is in the end a commercial and corporate animal.

In my case, it was TLO that inspired me to watch the series.....had not heard about it till it was mentioned on the forum.

It was all your fault! ;)

Druidic 03-12-2014 12:01 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Why even bother co-opting the Yellow King "mythos"? Especially when you're going to crap on Chambers and weird fiction in general, not to mention facepalm when viewers actually, you know, go looking for stuff about the Yellow King? Just concoct something new! It's HBO, for chrissakes. People would have gotten into it without the Yellow King imagery and ideas. They would have gotten into something entirely new, and Pizz could have created a great and terrifying new mythos. Again, a missed opportunity.--Dr. Locrian's Friend #1
I don't mean what follows as an insult. It isn't meant to be ironic or snide. I simply believe it.

Why not create something new?
The short answer? Because they just couldn't think of anything as good.

It's not easy to create a mythology like Lovecraft or Chambers did. Not at all.

Dr. Locrian 03-12-2014 01:14 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Druidic (Post 100072)
Quote:
Why even bother co-opting the Yellow King "mythos"? Especially when you're going to crap on Chambers and weird fiction in general, not to mention facepalm when viewers actually, you know, go looking for stuff about the Yellow King? Just concoct something new! It's HBO, for chrissakes. People would have gotten into it without the Yellow King imagery and ideas. They would have gotten into something entirely new, and Pizz could have created a great and terrifying new mythos. Again, a missed opportunity.--Dr. Locrian's Friend #1
I don't mean what follows as an insult. It isn't meant to be ironic or snide. I simply believe it.

Why not create something new?
The short answer? Because they just couldn't think of anything as good.

It's not easy to create a mythology like Lovecraft or Chambers did. Not at all.
That's very true. I personally thought using the King in Yellow allusions were a stroke of genius. In the end, the execution (writing-wise) left something to be desired, but the climax was undeniably thrilling (if cliche).

Dr. Locrian 03-12-2014 01:25 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
I've enjoyed watching and talking about (and even complaining about) this series. Most of all, I'm delighted that the show shed a light (albeit a peripheral one) on Ligotti's work (and the work of other fine weird fiction writers).

But I'm relieved the show is over. I'm almost certain that Pizzolatto would never have mentioned Ligotti's name if Michael Calia and a handful of others had not challenged him with direct, uncredited quotes and paraphrases which the TD author "borrowed" from CATHR. I was shocked by his audacity (and, of course, Ligotti was not the only author from whom Nic P "borrowed" dialogue). His defenders claim that these were mere "homages" to authors Pizzolatto reveres. But the fact that he threw weird fiction writers collectively--particularly Chambers and Lovecraft--under the bus after the show was over only to compare his own writing with Faulkner and Conrad is telling.

This guy strikes me as more of a scavenger than a writer. There was indeed some great material in TRUE DETECTIVE. It just very rarely--if ever--was Pizzolatto's.

Murony_Pyre 03-12-2014 06:25 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by shivering (Post 100069)

In my case, it was TLO that inspired me to watch the series.....had not heard about it till it was mentioned on the forum.

It was all your fault! ;)
Exactly. Same here...I also blame TLO! ;)

Murony_Pyre 03-12-2014 06:34 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
I would like to say that Thomas Ligotti should seriously pitch a series based on Crampton (reworked of course, losing the X-Files characters, etc.) or a similar idea. I would love to see what he would do with a series...I imagine it would be entertaining. A studio might be more accepting of the material due to TD's runaway popularity which now appears to have been mostly based on the performances and red herrings therein.
It seems obvious by now that a lot of people were hoping and praying that TD would turn supernatural but when it didn't, were disappointed. So, I think such a show could have a real shot just now.

Incidentally, I would be surprised if TD does as well ratings-wise in its second season.

Murony_Pyre 03-12-2014 06:37 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100079)
I've enjoyed watching and talking about (and even complaining about) this series. Most of all, I'm delighted that the show shed a light (albeit a peripheral one) on Ligotti's work (and the work of other fine weird fiction writers).

But I'm relieved the show is over. I'm almost certain that Pizzolatto would never have mentioned Ligotti's name if Michael Calia and a handful of others had not challenged him with direct, uncredited quotes and paraphrases which the TD author "borrowed" from CATHR. I was shocked by his audacity (and, of course, Ligotti was not the only author from whom Nic P "borrowed" dialogue). His defenders claim that these were mere "homages" to authors Pizzolatto reveres. But the fact that he threw weird fiction writers collectively--particularly Chambers and Lovecraft--under the bus after the show was over only to compare his own writing with Faulkner and Conrad is telling.

This guy strikes me as more of a scavenger than a writer. There was indeed some great material in TRUE DETECTIVE. It just very rarely--if ever--was Pizzolatto's.
Then NP's use of Burroughs makes a lot of sense: he is a "cut-up" writer.;)

scrypt 03-13-2014 06:41 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Now that hard-won connections between artists can be gleaned from the internet in a way that precludes the particularity involved in making them oneself, any television writer who creates a series (like Nic Pizzolatto) can reference those connections as their own.

In True Detective, Detective Cohle's wordview doesn't permeate the show or its cosmology. He's the Pessimism Hour on a radio station dedicated to ordinary pragmatism, which suggests that Pizzolatto is paraphrasing others' descriptions of nihilistic perception as opposed to experiencing it himself.

Pizzolatto's facile mention of E.M. Cioran in the same breath as Ligotti and Lovecraft makes me think he's a genre fan whose critical bibliography is only as eclectic as the ones that his favorite living writers reveal in interviews.

I had to spend decades of my life reading and studying in order to make connections between Cioran, Baudelaire, Beckett, John Webster, Alban Berg, Ernest Dowson, Machen, Ligotti, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Isadore Ducasse, Otto Dix, Hans Bellmer, Ensor, Richard Crashaw, Grunewald, Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Jan Potocki, Joy Division, John Clare, William Cowper, Schoenberg's Erwartung, Bartok's opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Penderecki's (and Ken Russell's) The Devils of Loudin, Juan Goytisolo, Die Frau Ohne Schatten, Nostalghia, Gombrowicz, Dellamore Dellamorte, László Krasznahorkai, Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and the rest; and also between the sense of a fixed and doomed existence and compositional processes that seem to hinge on determinism (Maurice Blanchot, Raymond Roussel, ultra-rationalist serialism, permutative poetry and music, the absent author in Barthes and Foucault, Greenaway's reductively taxonomic films, etc.). There are also parallels that only appear not to be pessimistic: the anti-humanist philosophy of poet Robinson Jeffers, for example, which only seems cheerier than Ligotti's until you think about the implications.

There's also the banality of Pizzolatto's use of Cohle's character: Diluting his pessimism for mainstream audiences by mediating it with a passion for avenging the mistreatment of children.

A person with Cohle's beliefs would probably never have married or had children at all, and certainly wouldn't identify with them, let alone indulge in the neurosis of continually rescuing surrogates for the offspring he was unable to save. To someone with Cohle's temperament, children might seem like feral conformists or nascent ventriloquist's dummies.

A more resonant Cohle would deteriorate in a series of spectacularly neglected apartments without ever reproducing. He would become involved in grim cases tangentially, on a detached and eclectic basis.

He definitely wouldn't say (in effect), "Life is a disease of matter -- but think of the children!"

Speaking Mute 03-13-2014 11:06 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100062)
Oh, and for those folks who resist the idea that the ending of TD was one of deliverance from evil -- I give you Nic Pizzolatto himself:

Quote:
"For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world to kill one or both of these guys," Pizzolatto told HitFix. "I even had an idea where something more mysterious happened to them, where they vanished into the unknown and Gilbough and Papania had to clean up the mess and nobody knows what happens to them. Or it could have gone full blown supernatural. But I think both of those things would have been easy, and they would have denied the sort of realist questions the show had been asking all along. To retreat to the supernatural, or to take the easy dramatic route of killing a character in order to achieve an emotional response from the audience, I thought would have been a disservice to the story. What was more interesting to me is that both these men are left in a place of deliverance, a place where even Cohle might be able to acknowledge the possibility of grace in the world."
Never mind that the Near Death Experience Cohle had with a void full o' Eternal Love was the most supernatural ending Nic P could've possibly written.

That stated, Cohle's resolution above sounds so much better than it actually turned out to be. I would have liked to have seen the ending he thinks he wrote.
My reading of the ending still stands regardless of Pizzolatto's intentions. I'm not big on author/artist authority - the text stands alone, as they say. If you're not sympathetic to the postmodern approach, another way to look at it is that the optimistic ending was ineffective even so far as an optimistic ending would go - again, the story left the lives and psychological states of Rust and Marty in a fairly bleak place, regardless of what Marty and Rust said. You can of course read the end dialogue as marking a fundamentally transformation of Rust and Marty, but this also could have been the desperate and self-delusional exchange I took it as. Given the whole of both their characters presented in the story, I'd go so far as to say my interpretation is more consistent and likely than even Pizzolatto's intended reading. From a standpoint of psychological realism, the melodramatically cheery conversation at the end is exactly what I'd expect from people after such duress and in such circumstances.

Nemonymous 03-13-2014 11:24 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100130)

My reading of the ending still stands regardless of Pizzolatto's intentions. I'm not big on author/artist authority - the text stands alone, as they say. If you're not sympathetic to the postmodern approach, another way to look at it is that the optimistic ending was ineffective even so far as an optimistic ending would go -
That's fascinating, especially with my lifelong interest in Wimsatt's Intentional Fallacy which does somehow seem to suit the nature of pessimism.
I think the deploying of something positively authorial or polemical within pessimism seems counterproductive to the cause of that very pessimism by adding positivity to it!
I think I will try to watch TRUE DETECTIVE one day, if I can get Sky TV here in UK! It sounds as if its pessimism was the sort of passive pessimism I share.

And innocently reactive optimism to a situation does not necessarily mean that one suddenly becomes truly optimistic. It sounds like a very good ending, the way you put it above.

shivering 03-13-2014 11:58 AM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
When it comes to True Detective, my approach to it has been to see the whole Existentialist/Gnostic/Postmodernist and Weird references as a frame for the (basic) buddy cop narrative. Rust's soliloquies function as a sort of shorthand (or gestures) for describing the world/universe within which audience and characters interact. I merely offer this as a way of understanding NP/CF's product. Outside of the genre politics and conflicts.

The obvious postmodernist overlay has really upset a lot of people (not on TLO), even if it obviously reflects the fractured narratives and unreliable narrators. This is aside from the fact that each viewer brings a whole set of connections/expectations that may not reflect authorial/ directorial intentions.

Welcome to the wonders of hermeneutics and reader-response theory.

Whew. I'll shut up now. ;)

Dr. Locrian 03-13-2014 01:22 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Speaking Mute (Post 100130)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian (Post 100062)
Oh, and for those folks who resist the idea that the ending of TD was one of deliverance from evil -- I give you Nic Pizzolatto himself:

Quote:
"For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world to kill one or both of these guys," Pizzolatto told HitFix. "I even had an idea where something more mysterious happened to them, where they vanished into the unknown and Gilbough and Papania had to clean up the mess and nobody knows what happens to them. Or it could have gone full blown supernatural. But I think both of those things would have been easy, and they would have denied the sort of realist questions the show had been asking all along. To retreat to the supernatural, or to take the easy dramatic route of killing a character in order to achieve an emotional response from the audience, I thought would have been a disservice to the story. What was more interesting to me is that both these men are left in a place of deliverance, a place where even Cohle might be able to acknowledge the possibility of grace in the world."
Never mind that the Near Death Experience Cohle had with a void full o' Eternal Love was the most supernatural ending Nic P could've possibly written.

That stated, Cohle's resolution above sounds so much better than it actually turned out to be. I would have liked to have seen the ending he thinks he wrote.
My reading of the ending still stands regardless of Pizzolatto's intentions. I'm not big on author/artist authority - the text stands alone, as they say. If you're not sympathetic to the postmodern approach, another way to look at it is that the optimistic ending was ineffective even so far as an optimistic ending would go - again, the story left the lives and psychological states of Rust and Marty in a fairly bleak place, regardless of what Marty and Rust said. You can of course read the end dialogue as marking a fundamentally transformation of Rust and Marty, but this also could have been the desperate and self-delusional exchange I took it as. Given the whole of both their characters presented in the story, I'd go so far as to say my interpretation is more consistent and likely than even Pizzolatto's intended reading. From a standpoint of psychological realism, the melodramatically cheery conversation at the end is exactly what I'd expect from people after such duress and in such circumstances.
I've been impressed with interpretations of TD's ending like yours above, Speaking Mute, which seem to unconsciously fill in the gaps of logic and competent storytelling with their own creative riffs (which, of course, are influenced by subjective experience).

I'm sincerely glad it worked so well for you (and apparently many others) and wish I could share your positive opinion.

Speaking Mute 03-13-2014 07:36 PM
Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 
A final comment on the ending; given the open ends, there is a possibility that Rust's character will be brought back. Whether or not Rust was redeemed, I wager Pizzolatto has enough sense (or at least business savvy) that if he does take up the story again, Rust will revert to the unrelenting Pessimist seen in the first five episodes.

As to Pizzolatto himself, well, there's him and then there's the True Detective series. Whereas he's certainly outed himself as a wanker, I personally don't care so long as he keeps producing work along the lines of TD. If I judged works by their creators, my misanthropy would prevent me from enjoying art, cinema, and literature period.

I think there are many reasons why the horror community should support the show. First and Foremost, True Detective is Weird Fiction - falling under what I believe Joshi called "Non-supernatural Psychological Weird" (it's been many years since I read The Modern Weird Tale, so apologies if my terminology is off). Before all the dust was kicked up over the show's purported misogyny, negative comments from mainstream critics honed in on the weird aspect as the show's fundamental flaw. Despite Pizzolatto slithering out from the fight, it needs to be emphasized that everything that made the show interesting to mainstream viewers was due to it's basis in an well established but much-maligned genre. Disparaging the show because it wasn't written like a Ligotti story won't do much to help Ligotti's literary stature in the long run, or get more Weird Fiction produced at TD's caliber.

I also think some criticisms of Pizzolatto are a bit unfair. Whereas I believe he's lying about his opinion of Chambers, I can't see much wrong in him using the Carcosa Mythos even if he didn't like The King in Yellow. I myself, at least, would be more likely to steal ideas from authors and artists who I thought goofed on a promising concept rather than those whom I admired or thought put their ideas to good use. Indeed, it seems a few here are hankering for a TD knock-off that takes up a particular strain of Pessimism.

Finally, so far as Pizzolatto lifting Ligotti quotes or dabbling in Ligotti's philosophy, there's a major problem; the quotes he's lifted from Ligotti are essentially Ligotti paraphrasing Schopenhauer, and TCAHR itself isn't a particularly thorough philosophical tract. I'm not bashing Ligotti in saying this - and there's a lot to be said about how he expresses himself- but he's not an original thinker in any capacity so far as Pessimism goes. Rust might have sounded a bit different, but his sentiments could have full well been said if Ligotti never existed.


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