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Deep Focus #1
They Live: A Novel Approach to Cinema
Deep Focus is a series of film books with a fresh approach. Take the smartest, liveliest writers in contemporary letters and let them loose on the most vital and popular corners of cinema history: midnight movies, the New Hollywood of the sixties and seventies, film noir, screwball comedies, international cult classics, and more. Passionate and idiosyncratic, each volume of Deep Focus is long-form criticism that's relentlessly provocative and entertaining.
Kicking off the series is Jonathan Lethem's take on They Live, John Carpenter's 1988 classic amalgam of deliberate B-movie, sci-fi, horror, anti-Yuppie agitprop. Lethem exfoliates Carpenter's paranoid satire in a series of penetrating, free-associational forays into the context of a story that peels the human masks off the ghoulish overlords of capitalism. His field of reference spans classic Hollywood cinema and science fiction, as well as popular music and contemporary art and theory. Taking into consideration the work of Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, James Brown, Fredric Jameson, Shepard Fairey, Philip K. Dick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Edgar Allan Poe, not to mention the role of wrestlers—including They Live star “Rowdy" Roddy Piper—in contemporary culture, Lethem's They Live provides a wholly original perspective on Carpenter's subversive classic.
Kicking off the series is Jonathan Lethem's take on They Live, John Carpenter's 1988 classic amalgam of deliberate B-movie, sci-fi, horror, anti-Yuppie agitprop. Lethem exfoliates Carpenter's paranoid satire in a series of penetrating, free-associational forays into the context of a story that peels the human masks off the ghoulish overlords of capitalism. His field of reference spans classic Hollywood cinema and science fiction, as well as popular music and contemporary art and theory. Taking into consideration the work of Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, James Brown, Fredric Jameson, Shepard Fairey, Philip K. Dick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Edgar Allan Poe, not to mention the role of wrestlers—including They Live star “Rowdy" Roddy Piper—in contemporary culture, Lethem's They Live provides a wholly original perspective on Carpenter's subversive classic.
163 pages, Paperback
First published October 10, 2010
21 people are currently reading
629 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Lethem
236 books2,654 followersJonathan Allen Lethem (born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer.
His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller.
In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship
His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller.
In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
August 16, 2020
Does the world need a book-length study by Jonathan Lethem of John Carpenter's 1988 alien invasion film They Live?
My answer to that will have to be an unequivocal, Yes.
This book is among the first offerings from Deep Focus, a new series from Soft Skull Press that invites literary types to write in depth on popular cinema. (The other volume currently in print is Christopher Sorrentino on Death Wish.) My only disappointment here is that I now know that I am not the only person in the world, outside of some geeky, hormonal adolescents watching it repeatedly somewhere in the midwest, who loves this film. Turns out Slavoj Zizek and Greil Marcus are also fans. But that veneer of respectability does not intimidate Lethem when it comes to discussing Carpenter's taste-defying ninety minutes of cheesy action, bad dialogue, minimal special effects, and the occasional moment of art-house mise en scene--I figure if Lethem can use diegesis, I can use "mise en scene."
I won't rehearse the plot. I will only say that reading about They Live sent me straight to the video store for the well restored DVD. Book and movie are both a pleasure from beginning to end.
My answer to that will have to be an unequivocal, Yes.
This book is among the first offerings from Deep Focus, a new series from Soft Skull Press that invites literary types to write in depth on popular cinema. (The other volume currently in print is Christopher Sorrentino on Death Wish.) My only disappointment here is that I now know that I am not the only person in the world, outside of some geeky, hormonal adolescents watching it repeatedly somewhere in the midwest, who loves this film. Turns out Slavoj Zizek and Greil Marcus are also fans. But that veneer of respectability does not intimidate Lethem when it comes to discussing Carpenter's taste-defying ninety minutes of cheesy action, bad dialogue, minimal special effects, and the occasional moment of art-house mise en scene--I figure if Lethem can use diegesis, I can use "mise en scene."
I won't rehearse the plot. I will only say that reading about They Live sent me straight to the video store for the well restored DVD. Book and movie are both a pleasure from beginning to end.
Read
January 31, 2011The first of two in a series of new books in which the publisher Soft Skull puts a bunch of film-fan writers to work on films that the film-critic establishment is less likely to spend time with. The other initial book in the series was Christopher Sorrentino's Death Wish, which I read first.
I highly recommend this book. It makes a great companion piece to Lethem's recent novel, Chronic City, as both involve conspiracy-theory-like investigation of works of pop culture that are un(der)acknowledged foundations of modern cultural life. Lethem looks at Carpenter as the auteur he is -- not the big-vision auteur who gets all the establishment-press credit, but the workaday auteur who is an auteur simply because the budget demands it.
Lethem's They Live is written as the movie unfolds, most of its substantial number of mini-chapters aligning with a specific time code (32:07, "The Mad Flaneur"; 42:28, "Not a Cop-Hater as Such"). The absence of full digestion -- it is very much a collection of individual parts -- is what marks this as a "minor" work in Lethem's expansive catalog. But in many ways, that's what makes it one of his biggest successes: (1) because it's less self-conscious of its own ambition, (2) because it's about a work that is "minor" in its own way. The movie They Live is a science fiction tirade against yuppies that uses cheap sunglasses to rip the veil off an alien-robot conspiracy that runs the world. Seriously, that's what it's about. And it stars a professional wrestler, and features one of the longest fist fights in film history. And Lethem watches it with the intensity of a border guard as his annual performance review nears.
He not only spies every little peculiar contradiction, but shows how to make sense of them, or at least how to try to. Is the wrestler character's love interest a spy or a dupe or a mole, and if so, do any of her actions make more or less sense? What does it mean that the alien-robots seem to themselves have a hierarchy -- is their lowest echelon above the humans' highest, or is there some overlap?
In the process, Lethem makes a strong case for the movie's roots in the tradition of Westerns, which here is reduced to near-comic simplicity. The Western gave us the Man with No Name. And here, the hero is simply named Nada.
I highly recommend this book. It makes a great companion piece to Lethem's recent novel, Chronic City, as both involve conspiracy-theory-like investigation of works of pop culture that are un(der)acknowledged foundations of modern cultural life. Lethem looks at Carpenter as the auteur he is -- not the big-vision auteur who gets all the establishment-press credit, but the workaday auteur who is an auteur simply because the budget demands it.
Lethem's They Live is written as the movie unfolds, most of its substantial number of mini-chapters aligning with a specific time code (32:07, "The Mad Flaneur"; 42:28, "Not a Cop-Hater as Such"). The absence of full digestion -- it is very much a collection of individual parts -- is what marks this as a "minor" work in Lethem's expansive catalog. But in many ways, that's what makes it one of his biggest successes: (1) because it's less self-conscious of its own ambition, (2) because it's about a work that is "minor" in its own way. The movie They Live is a science fiction tirade against yuppies that uses cheap sunglasses to rip the veil off an alien-robot conspiracy that runs the world. Seriously, that's what it's about. And it stars a professional wrestler, and features one of the longest fist fights in film history. And Lethem watches it with the intensity of a border guard as his annual performance review nears.
He not only spies every little peculiar contradiction, but shows how to make sense of them, or at least how to try to. Is the wrestler character's love interest a spy or a dupe or a mole, and if so, do any of her actions make more or less sense? What does it mean that the alien-robots seem to themselves have a hierarchy -- is their lowest echelon above the humans' highest, or is there some overlap?
In the process, Lethem makes a strong case for the movie's roots in the tradition of Westerns, which here is reduced to near-comic simplicity. The Western gave us the Man with No Name. And here, the hero is simply named Nada.
October 6, 2010
john carpenter -- best to worst:
the thing
they live
starman
halloween
assault on precinct 13
escape from NY
big trouble in little china
ghosts of mars
vampires
christine
in the mouth of madness
village of the damned
escape from LA
prince of darkness
the fog
memoirs of an invisible man
pro-life
April 4, 2022
I need to watch the movie again. There's a lot I don't remember, apparently.
But I do know that Roddy Piper was PERFECT in it, and no one's going to convince me otherwise, including Jonathan Lethem.
But I do know that Roddy Piper was PERFECT in it, and no one's going to convince me otherwise, including Jonathan Lethem.
June 15, 2011
A long time ago, I was reading some music criticism on the Beatles, specifically the song "Eleanor Rigby." The author (oh hell no I don't remember who) noted that, when McCartney sings the refrain "look at all the lonely people" he elides the word "lonely" so that, if one so chooses, one could hear it as "lovely." I wanted to shout "YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT THIS TOO MUCH."
And so it is with this book/essay/manifesto. Look, I love this movie, but at best it's a great bad movie. It might be worth 128 pages, but none of those pages should contain the term "diegesis."
And so it is with this book/essay/manifesto. Look, I love this movie, but at best it's a great bad movie. It might be worth 128 pages, but none of those pages should contain the term "diegesis."
October 11, 2010
This book was like nerd heaven for me. A fun and thoughtful deconstruction and re-struction of Carpenter's THEY LIVE, Reagan-era culture, and marxist theory and application. I devoured this book, and look forward to often reheating the left-overs. Yum.
January 11, 2012
Really funny, thoughtful book on Carpenter's classic. Lethem has plenty of interesting insights, and some hilarious running gags. Worth a read for fans or non-fans of the film, who will likely find equally as much to enjoy in Lethem's take on it.
April 14, 2012
A quick, thorough, incisive reading of a flawed work of genius. Highly recommended to absolutely everyone.
January 26, 2021
I really like both Lethem's fiction and Carpeneter's movie, but I guess I don't like them enough to appreciate the former's random musings inspired by the latter.
July 9, 2024
A new appreciation for both John Carpenter and Jonathan Lethem. “They Live” is one of those movies that had a way of burning itself into my sub-conscience when I saw it as a kid, and I can’t help wondering if it would have left such an impact if I hadn’t seen it so young…some movies I feel need be experienced before one fully matures in order to earn a viewers full respect. But not to delve into a film review here; after all that is the purpose of the book and Lethem has expertly covered every nuance that we would not have picked up on with the first one, two or ten plus viewings.
The premise and format of this book overall is great and one can’t help wishing for an in depth look like this at every film that piques ones interest; the fact that Lethem has chosen his focus on “They Live” is all the more telling of the overall value of Carpenter film. “They Live” has proven itself to be a timeless statement that only increases with relevance over the decades… if somehow you still don’t appreciate the film after reading this book, I don’t need the glasses; I already know you’re one of THEM.
“Another: A WINNER EVERY FIVE MINUTES: CHASE PICKS UP THE TAB IS BACK!
And the fuzzily Orwellian MORE REWARDS ON CHASE FREEDOM. No Hoffman lenses are required to contemplate the weird gulf, the incoherent void that looms between these two versions of civic discourse, which offer themselves as some kind of tragic microcosm of Tocqueville's Democracy in America-or an allegory of Ralph Waldo Emerson dragged bodily into a Disney casino. No one in my bank remarks on this, or gives evidence of seeing. Though we're all wearing the glasses here, we seem to find ourselves blinded or rendered dumb-by what they reveal.”
The premise and format of this book overall is great and one can’t help wishing for an in depth look like this at every film that piques ones interest; the fact that Lethem has chosen his focus on “They Live” is all the more telling of the overall value of Carpenter film. “They Live” has proven itself to be a timeless statement that only increases with relevance over the decades… if somehow you still don’t appreciate the film after reading this book, I don’t need the glasses; I already know you’re one of THEM.
“Another: A WINNER EVERY FIVE MINUTES: CHASE PICKS UP THE TAB IS BACK!
And the fuzzily Orwellian MORE REWARDS ON CHASE FREEDOM. No Hoffman lenses are required to contemplate the weird gulf, the incoherent void that looms between these two versions of civic discourse, which offer themselves as some kind of tragic microcosm of Tocqueville's Democracy in America-or an allegory of Ralph Waldo Emerson dragged bodily into a Disney casino. No one in my bank remarks on this, or gives evidence of seeing. Though we're all wearing the glasses here, we seem to find ourselves blinded or rendered dumb-by what they reveal.”
May 31, 2017
I read this little book as part of my preparation for a podcast on Carpenter's film. Basically, Lethem tracks the beats of the film and lets you know what he's thinking every few minutes as it all unfolds. The end effect is a sort of cinematic stream-of-consciousness. Some of the reflections are spot-on and thought-provoking, others less so--and overall this is hardly a work of serious film criticism. (And Lethem is completely aware of that.) But reading it is a bit like watching a movie with your really smart, funny friend: you don't agree with him on every point, but he makes the watching it loads of fun.
February 28, 2020
Written in a series of essays deconstructing the John Carpenter film, Jonathan Lethem’s wordy, 158 page run-on sentence doesn’t do much more than satisfy his live feed stream of consciousness analysis. I say it’s written as essays, but yeah, stream of consciousness is more accurate. Some of it makes sense, but a lot of it is rambling. If Lethem can’t word his way into convincing you he’s the coolest guy in the room, he’ll settle for being the most pretentious.
Three stars. Check it out.
Three stars. Check it out.
October 30, 2023
Fun book that swerves back and forth between film analysis, meta film analysis, film criticism, meta film criticism, film appreciation, and just a taste of satire. All from a place of real love for the movie, but from a place of understanding that They Live is not trying to be Citizen Kane. Good for fans of John Carpenter and fans of Jonathan Lethem.
December 29, 2025
I generally like Lethem and I remember liking They Live so I figured I'd give this a go. I liked it better than his book on the Talking Heads album which was too personal for my taste. This was was brief, with an interesting take, many amusing quips and a view of the film indicating a lot I had not noticed. Three and a half stars and I am ready for a rewatch.
December 11, 2021
Loved it! A fantastic bit of close reading. A really in depth look at a film that deserves to be talked about more. One day I hope to teach this movie, and this book is a great resource for that, or anyone interested in seeing text analysis/close reading at work.
May 10, 2022
I have really enjoyed some of Lethem’s fiction and there are some interesting observations here, but overall I found this one gave me the impression of being trapped in a conversation with a superfan who also has a PhD and an unpublished manuscript.
December 27, 2017
the best kind of junk food.
April 29, 2019
I was looking for something different.
November 12, 2020
Patchy but pleasurable cult-film riffing. Chronologically structured, so it feels like you're rewatching the film with a side-tab of live commentary by a boozy professor.
August 28, 2022
disappointingly smug and belittling about certain creative decisions made by Carpenter, as well as his scoring.
April 4, 2024
I’ve had this book several times, but I always seem to lose a copy. When I recently bought another copy, I made sure to bring it with me on a trip and read it. This was my first read of the Novel Approach series, and I really wanted to read Lethem’s analysis of this movie. I watched They Live again over the summer, and I probably could have watched it again. Nevertheless, I think watching the movie within the last year is helpful in walking through Lethem’s scene by scene analysis. Lethem doesn’t get too in depth with his analysis and nothing is really that ground breaking, but it is a fun read. I found myself laughing at times as Lethem explores some of the ridiculous scenes, proposing some interesting backstories for some characters. He does do some cursory research of the movie, but he admits that he doesn’t know too much about Carpenter. As someone who really admires Lethem’s writing, this was a fun book to read. I appreciated the context of the film—as the end of the Reagan era was approaching, and considering how this film used Roddy Roddy Piper as an action hero (something that didn’t really work out as well as some future wrestling stars). It was a quick read, and I liked that the book focused on scenes—especially noting how ridiculously long the fight scene between Piper and Keith David is. I have one other book from this series to check out, but I don’t know how much I’m looking forward to watching Death Wish.
December 6, 2025
Another excellent deep dive into a movie I've grown obsessed with.
February 27, 2017
An interesting read but at times, I felt that the author really took Carpenter's metaphors and politics in THEY LIVE-- the prevalent ones and the ones maybe not so prevalent (or even there)--and made cases for or reflections of reasons for scenes that may or may not have been the directors intentions or even were there in the film. Sometimes, a scene is just a scene for entertainment and there is not always a hidden agenda. There were some funny anecdotes and bits of facts and analysis that was interesting, but at times, parts of the book were really philosophical and more than I felt I wanted to make sense of and ponder. I am curious to read the Deep Focus treatment of DEATH WISH. I guess with a series entitled "Deep Focus", the focus was just deeper than I had initially felt like going with my reading. Highly Recommended for fans of John Carpenter, THEY LIVE, and movies.
Read
June 30, 2011There will be a point in here, I promise.
I can count on one hand the scattered tin fragments left over from my literary criticism classes still scratching around in my brain pan, and the strongest of those is Wolfgang Iser’s idea of the repertoire. I’ll refrain from boring you or courting the wrath of all my postgrad friends and readers, but briefly and overly simply: Iser was a reader-response critic who thought readers brought a ‘repertoire’ to a given work, both their own experiences and their cultural knowledge.
I’ve always had a sort of attachment to Iser’s idea, given how frequently something will strike some forgotten chord on the busted piano of my memory, connecting two unrelated cultural artifacts together. I acknowledge this is not what Iser was talking about.
What fascinates me is what stupid little pieces of cultural debris my memory chooses to latch on to. Case in point.
About two months ago I flipped the channel to an airing of John Carpenter’s intentionally bad 1988 cult film They Live. I had not thought of or considered the movie in at least fifteen years, yet I was able to recount the plot for my Lady, buliding her anticipation for that fight in the alley [you know the one]. For the next hour, the insane rantings of Roddy Piper accompanied an afternoon of house cleaning.
I have forgotten almost everything I knew of literary theory, but damn if the plot of They Live won’t be with me forever. I am unclear to what we should attribute this to. What held that specific text in my mind, at the ready, should it ever need deployment when reacting to another?
Normally I’m not the sort to try to string literary theories to bad sci-fi movies. Thankfully PFG Hero Jonathan Lethem has no such qualms, as he turns his scholar’s eye toward the film for the first of Soft Skull Press’s Deep Focus Series [think the 33 1/3 Guides for movies]. The book is a swift read at 208 pages; chapters are rarely more than five pages in length. Lethem didn’t conduct any original research for the book, instead engaging in what series editor Christopher Sorrentino describes in one of the book’s epigraphs:
“It’s one of those peculiarly impoverishing gifts that popular post-modernism has bestowed on textual [so to speak] analysis — scatter clues on the surface…like so much flotsam and you, the reader/viewer/listener get to say “Hey! I think there might have been a shipwreck here! If only all those Coast Guard cutters and Air-Sea Rescue helicopters would get out of here so I could study these signs more closely!
Lethem busts out a bizarre array of tools to skim the surface clues, everything from the work of Shepard Fairey to the philosophy of Slavoj Zizek, moving through the movie scene by scene, from the locations chosen, to the troubling misogyny that runs through the film and yes, even that infamous fight scene.
It’s probably the weirdest book I’ve read in recent memory, and maybe speaks to too narrow a demographic [Scifi fans and Lethem completists], but it was still a welcome text to dip into while riding the train to work. I once said that Lethem fixates on those know-it-all burnout types who go on at length about esoteric topics. ’They Live’ proves Lethem is one of those characters, albeit one far more charming and tolerable than any of his fictional creations.
I can count on one hand the scattered tin fragments left over from my literary criticism classes still scratching around in my brain pan, and the strongest of those is Wolfgang Iser’s idea of the repertoire. I’ll refrain from boring you or courting the wrath of all my postgrad friends and readers, but briefly and overly simply: Iser was a reader-response critic who thought readers brought a ‘repertoire’ to a given work, both their own experiences and their cultural knowledge.
I’ve always had a sort of attachment to Iser’s idea, given how frequently something will strike some forgotten chord on the busted piano of my memory, connecting two unrelated cultural artifacts together. I acknowledge this is not what Iser was talking about.
What fascinates me is what stupid little pieces of cultural debris my memory chooses to latch on to. Case in point.
About two months ago I flipped the channel to an airing of John Carpenter’s intentionally bad 1988 cult film They Live. I had not thought of or considered the movie in at least fifteen years, yet I was able to recount the plot for my Lady, buliding her anticipation for that fight in the alley [you know the one]. For the next hour, the insane rantings of Roddy Piper accompanied an afternoon of house cleaning.
I have forgotten almost everything I knew of literary theory, but damn if the plot of They Live won’t be with me forever. I am unclear to what we should attribute this to. What held that specific text in my mind, at the ready, should it ever need deployment when reacting to another?
Normally I’m not the sort to try to string literary theories to bad sci-fi movies. Thankfully PFG Hero Jonathan Lethem has no such qualms, as he turns his scholar’s eye toward the film for the first of Soft Skull Press’s Deep Focus Series [think the 33 1/3 Guides for movies]. The book is a swift read at 208 pages; chapters are rarely more than five pages in length. Lethem didn’t conduct any original research for the book, instead engaging in what series editor Christopher Sorrentino describes in one of the book’s epigraphs:
“It’s one of those peculiarly impoverishing gifts that popular post-modernism has bestowed on textual [so to speak] analysis — scatter clues on the surface…like so much flotsam and you, the reader/viewer/listener get to say “Hey! I think there might have been a shipwreck here! If only all those Coast Guard cutters and Air-Sea Rescue helicopters would get out of here so I could study these signs more closely!
Lethem busts out a bizarre array of tools to skim the surface clues, everything from the work of Shepard Fairey to the philosophy of Slavoj Zizek, moving through the movie scene by scene, from the locations chosen, to the troubling misogyny that runs through the film and yes, even that infamous fight scene.
It’s probably the weirdest book I’ve read in recent memory, and maybe speaks to too narrow a demographic [Scifi fans and Lethem completists], but it was still a welcome text to dip into while riding the train to work. I once said that Lethem fixates on those know-it-all burnout types who go on at length about esoteric topics. ’They Live’ proves Lethem is one of those characters, albeit one far more charming and tolerable than any of his fictional creations.
September 13, 2024
Me encanta la película sobre la que se habla en el ensayo y este último es una labor de amor y obsesión. El autor confiesa haber visto la peli infintas veces hasta llegar al hartazgo pero no hay cansancio en el texto. Hay entusiasmo y cariño y muchas horas dandole vueltas a los temas de los que piensa Lethem que se habla en el filme. Una pequeña (por extensión) joya del ensayo friki.
May 9, 2016
A few years ago, one of my favorite writers, Geoff Dyer, wrote a book, "Zona", about one of my favorite movies, Andrei Tarkovsky's philosophical sci-fi classic "Stalker." "Stalker" is not an easy movie. It's slowly paced, densely allegorical and deliberately obtuse. "Zona" was a huge disappointment; it lacked Dyer's trademark wit, and offered little original insight into the film. Dyer's no slouch as a critic; his books "But Beautiful" (about jazz), and "The Ongoing Moment" (about photography) are considered paradigms of artistic assessment.
"They Live" is a lunkheaded dystopian satire from director John Carpenter; it's become something of a cult classic. It's not even one of Carpenter's best movies, but in it's own it's been very influential (Sheperd Fairey's ubiquitous "Obey" stickers are cadged from "They Live."
Jonathan Lethem has written one of the best, most enjoyable textual analysis of a film I've read. He delineates Carpenter's influences (Lovecraft, Dick, Hitchcock), and shows how they were used in the film. There are micro essays corresponding to specific times in the movie ("Into the cheese dip" 38:01) where he riffs on an aspect of Rowdy Roddy Pipers acting, or gay porn, or race, or Golf Digest . . . or whatever is appropriate for those few frames. Maybe "They Live", a fairly ham handed low budget thriller is easier to write about, because it's meaning is never too far from the surface. At any rate, Lethem has squeezed "They Live" for all the meaning that's there,
Watch"They Live", with Lethems' book in hand, and you'll get a lesson in first rate film criticism. You'll probably have some fun too.
"They Live" is a lunkheaded dystopian satire from director John Carpenter; it's become something of a cult classic. It's not even one of Carpenter's best movies, but in it's own it's been very influential (Sheperd Fairey's ubiquitous "Obey" stickers are cadged from "They Live."
Jonathan Lethem has written one of the best, most enjoyable textual analysis of a film I've read. He delineates Carpenter's influences (Lovecraft, Dick, Hitchcock), and shows how they were used in the film. There are micro essays corresponding to specific times in the movie ("Into the cheese dip" 38:01) where he riffs on an aspect of Rowdy Roddy Pipers acting, or gay porn, or race, or Golf Digest . . . or whatever is appropriate for those few frames. Maybe "They Live", a fairly ham handed low budget thriller is easier to write about, because it's meaning is never too far from the surface. At any rate, Lethem has squeezed "They Live" for all the meaning that's there,
Watch"They Live", with Lethems' book in hand, and you'll get a lesson in first rate film criticism. You'll probably have some fun too.
June 19, 2020
Jonathan Lethem is one of my favorite fiction writers, but he also happens to be a formidable critic and essayist. In this close reading of John Carpenter's eponymous 1988 cult classic, Lethem ranges across film and critical theory, art, politics, ideology, and pop culture to weave a fascinating analysis of a work usually dismissed as an endearingly schlocky sci-fi/horror flick. His scene-by-scene (in some cases shot-by-shot) dissection lingers over visual minutiae, throwaway dialogue, and seemingly minor plot points to tease out surprisingly rich and nuanced layers of symbolism and ideological ambiguity beneath the veneer of a B movie (Which happens to star wrestling great "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and contains the longest fight sequence in movie history).
To some extent, the film is simply a vehicle for Lethem to spin off his encyclopedic network of theoretical and cultural references. You get the feeling that he is smart and observant enough to write this way about anything that captures his attention (See also The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism). But, the fact remains that he chose THIS film, and his abiding fascination with and affection for his subject (he estimates to have watched it in its entirety over a dozen times, and many individual scenes countless times more) is evident. At around 160 pages, I was able to knock it off in a few days on my morning commute. Having finished it, though, I find myself frequently revisiting its little gems of analysis and insight.
To some extent, the film is simply a vehicle for Lethem to spin off his encyclopedic network of theoretical and cultural references. You get the feeling that he is smart and observant enough to write this way about anything that captures his attention (See also The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism). But, the fact remains that he chose THIS film, and his abiding fascination with and affection for his subject (he estimates to have watched it in its entirety over a dozen times, and many individual scenes countless times more) is evident. At around 160 pages, I was able to knock it off in a few days on my morning commute. Having finished it, though, I find myself frequently revisiting its little gems of analysis and insight.
October 25, 2011
I have a new favorite series of books! Such a great concept; have established authors writing short works of analysis on classic and usually under-celebrated B-movies. I have always found the dissection, discussion and application of academic methods of criticism to popular culture to be more interesting and rewarding than traditional subjects. Popular culture is, after all, still culture and no product of a culture is developed in a vacuum.
Anyway, in this book Jonathan Lethem (an author I have read some of and have been itching to read more) applies his literary/film theory scrutiny to the John Carpenter classic, They Live. Lethem himself is not just some random, unqualified guy pulled and assigned to run his mouth about something random. He's well versed in the study of theory and has dedicated much of his literary development to the immersion and synthesis of pop culture and good literature. Given the freedom to dissect the themes and subtext of They Live and indulge in tangential rants, research and speculations on certain details' significance (intentional or not), Lethem's end result is intelligent, insightful and just plain fun to read.
The next book in the series is Death Wish you say? And there's another one about Heathers? I am definitely hunting them down and looking forward to further releases.
Anyway, in this book Jonathan Lethem (an author I have read some of and have been itching to read more) applies his literary/film theory scrutiny to the John Carpenter classic, They Live. Lethem himself is not just some random, unqualified guy pulled and assigned to run his mouth about something random. He's well versed in the study of theory and has dedicated much of his literary development to the immersion and synthesis of pop culture and good literature. Given the freedom to dissect the themes and subtext of They Live and indulge in tangential rants, research and speculations on certain details' significance (intentional or not), Lethem's end result is intelligent, insightful and just plain fun to read.
The next book in the series is Death Wish you say? And there's another one about Heathers? I am definitely hunting them down and looking forward to further releases.
April 4, 2011
I remember watching They Live as a teenager. The poster pulled me in. I needed a refresher, and I was glad I watched it before reading Lethem's book-length essay on the movie.
(Actually, calling it a book-length essay makes this book sound boring. It's not at all.)
Lethem pulled me in right away with his first chapter heading, "What You'll Recall of the Dream in the Morning." The first line of the recollections: "A street preacher's warning and a pirate television broadcast." The last line: "A surprise with tits."
It's not a book filled with IMBDesque trivia. Rather, Lethem takes you through scene by scene, almost sparring with the film, offering his own personal reading of it.
One criticism I had was that the book gets a little pedantic towards the end, as if Lethem feels like he's running out of room (or perhaps he felt like he had too much room, and was straining to make some larger point), but this is a minor fault.
My favorite part of the book was his discussion of his "Perfect Sequence," which is when Nada puts on the sunglasses. Here, Lethem shows his excellent range of cultural knowledge, and effortlessly links They Live to Shepard Fairey, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Alfred Hitchcock.
(Actually, calling it a book-length essay makes this book sound boring. It's not at all.)
Lethem pulled me in right away with his first chapter heading, "What You'll Recall of the Dream in the Morning." The first line of the recollections: "A street preacher's warning and a pirate television broadcast." The last line: "A surprise with tits."
It's not a book filled with IMBDesque trivia. Rather, Lethem takes you through scene by scene, almost sparring with the film, offering his own personal reading of it.
One criticism I had was that the book gets a little pedantic towards the end, as if Lethem feels like he's running out of room (or perhaps he felt like he had too much room, and was straining to make some larger point), but this is a minor fault.
My favorite part of the book was his discussion of his "Perfect Sequence," which is when Nada puts on the sunglasses. Here, Lethem shows his excellent range of cultural knowledge, and effortlessly links They Live to Shepard Fairey, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Alfred Hitchcock.
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