The Stories We Tell Ryan Hodes

THIS EPISODE IS AVAILABLE AS A VIDEO ESSAY ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL
The Iron Giant and Spirited Away's No-Face have more in common than you might think. I'll explore how their identity is shaped by empathy, and how this relates to my own struggles with identity.
#film #studioghibli #theirongiant #ghibli #filmreview #videoessay
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0:00 - Intro
1:00 - Finding Identity
5:31 - It Came from Outer Space
9:45 - Xenophobia
14:46 - Full Circle

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EPISODE AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE!!!
Vanity masquerades as individuality. Selfishness masquerades as acheivement. Pointless pursuits masquerade as progress.
Victor Frankenstein embodied these ideas when he devoted years of his life to merciless toil in the name of science. He was vain, selfish, and pursued great accomplishments, not for the sake of improving the world or helping people, but for his own ego and legacy. The cruel twist of irony in Frankenstein is that exactly this arrogance doomed him to a life of vicious misery.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, the 1818 classic of gothic horror and science fiction, in the age of—and largely in response to—the Industrial Revolution, a time of great human “progress” and “achievement”. It is a harrowing tale of a scientist that goes too far and creates a monster in his desire to learn “the secrets of heaven and earth”. And although he occasionally frames this thirst for knowledge as a driver, the much greater desires, by his own admition, are glory and power. Frankenstein says, “A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.”


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Director Céline Sciamma decided upon two key omissions early in production of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019). First, that there would be few smiles from the all-female cast in what became the first 70 minutes of runtime. Second, that there would be no music, save two scenes where it crystallizes with the power and emotion of a thunderstorm. “…you will have to find the musicality of the film elsewhere,” Sciamma said in an interview with IndieWire. “In the rhythm of the scenes, in the bodies of the actors.”
The film follows Marianne, a french painter commisioned to secretly make a portrait of Héloïse, the daughter of an aristocrat who resides in a castle on the island where the film takes place. The painting must be created secretly because Héloïse refused to pose for the previous painter in protest of her upcoming arranged marriage. She is quite literally trapped, her anger an everpresent flame beneath a steely expression.
Over the course of the film, desire between Marianne and Héloïse swells like the tumultuous ocean which they gaze upon while stealing longing glances at each other, until the swells coalesce into a grand wave of passionate hunger, a necessity for each other’s touch. Portrait portrays the yearning and desperate lust of an early relationship better than any film I’ve seen, all upon the tragic backdrop of the lovers’ knowledge that what they’ve captured cannot last. For Héloïse is betrothed to another, a Milanese aristocrat who she barely knows.
The lack of music in most of Portrait is jarring, and requires magnificent performances from the actors who play Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) and Marianne (Noémie Merlant) to provide rhythm to the love that we experience through them. Sciamma pulls off her unconventional approach, which she describes as purposeful, “to put the viewer in the same physical condition and frustration” as the forbidden lovers.
Sciamma meticulously establishes the two characters, draws out their building desire through furtive glances and suppressed smiles. Indeed, we don’t see them kiss until nearly 80 minutes into the film. That’s not to say there is no intimacy, but rather points to the mastery of the craft that Sciamma exhibits in showing such intimacy outside of traditional means. The tender framing, the lush sound design, the warm cinematography, the careful dialogue. All of it adds to a tension which grows so tight that by the time they finally embrace and commit to their love, emotion pours out like a gushing river in which the viewer cannot help but be swept away.


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Spirited Away & the importance of identity in a rapidly changing world
We all know a No-Face. Someone who has no true identity, who mirrors their environment in order to fit in, who doesn’t possess the ability to think for themself. Someone who parrots whatever opinion or hot-take is popular on Twitter that week. Someone who is addicted to external validation and consumption. Lonely and insecure, these No-Faces crave connection or purpose, and think the best way to achieve their goal is to loudly conform to societal expectations.
I know this because I was No-Face for a time in my early 20s. I think back on certain periods of 2020 and cringe at the performative nature of my chronically-online presence. What did I have to offer as a nobody white-guy with nothing of value to say? Why did I feel the need to weigh in on every issue?
It was a strange time in my life. I had moved back to Chicago after school, surprised when very few of my high school friends did the same. I was left stranded in the land of employment, realizing far too late that the future I chose would leave me empty and unfulfilled.
So I lapsed into vice and distraction.
I drank on weeknights, gambled incessantly on sports, and mindlessly scrolled Twitter and Reddit. I struggled with tremendous health challenges, which only compounded my misery. Really, though, I was desperate for connection.
Lacking any outlet for true connection, and feeling unfulfilled with work and love, I turned to social media. You know social media? That everpresent, unregulated cancer that plagues the strong and tears down the weak. I turned to online communities as a replacement for real community, which exists, but damn if it isn’t hard to find these days.
And why shouldn’t I have? Shouldn’t social media serve to connect and unify, rather than enflame and divide? No, of course not. Because social media, just like the bathhouse in Spirited Away, is driven by one power alone: capitalism.
Social media giants design algorithms to manipulate and control, to enslave your attention and use it as currency. They discard your soul and ignore your mental health.
In Spirited Away, the character of No-Face acts as a mirror, taking on the essence of his environment. In the bathhouse, a microcosmic representation of any capitalistic society, all the power and money is concentrated at the top, while those at the bottom scrap and claw for every bit of leverage they can. We see this in the way Chihiro is first treated by workers at the bathhouse, who see her as a burdensome risk who might jeapordize whatever power they may have. So they take advantage of their rare bit of authority and treat her like filth, commenting on her smell, naivety and laziness.
Thus, when No-Face enters the bathhouse, he ineviatably becomes a gluttinous monster, terrorizing its workers and reflecting the greed and consumerism that coarses through every step on the bathhouse’s hierarchal ladder.

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The Next Chapter of Blog, Podcast, and More
This podcast is an exploration of my personal growth through books and film. It’s a way of educating myself on the complexities of our world, and organizing my views, through a study of art. I won’t promise I’ll present PhD level arguments, succinct, poignant, and revelatory. But I will be honest. Truly great writing comes from deep within, the parts of one’s psyche that they’d rather suppress. My best writing has come when I take a hard look at myself or reveal hidden truths about my identity
Already, my post about Spirited Away has resonated with people, vulnerable and embarassing as parts of it were to share. People value truth above all else, even if my specific circumstances are foreign to them.
My passion for writing has been hidden in plain sight all my life. This is now my fourth blog, and I’ve written all sorts of things in my spare time. I want to figure out how to turn writing into a career eventually, but for now, I am content to work on my craft and figure out what I actually want to say.
I am working on a novel right now. It’s my first creative writing project outside of short stories, and boy is it a challenge. I’m 62,000 words into it, but I’ve taken a break over the past week or two to really think about how I want to push it across the finish line. Likely, the first draft is going to be an incoherent mess, but that’s okay. Neil Gaiman personally told me that the most important part of creative writing is finishing, not starting.
Creativity is something I’ve felt was better left to others. I can’t draw or paint to save a baby’s life, and I’ve desperately failed every instrument I’ve tried. I figured my mind was logical and analytical, rather than imaginative and cerebral. However, I’ve discovered my view of creativity was far too narrow. Really, creativity just means the ability to form something novel & valuable—to create. I’ve created a podcast, I’ve created stories, I’ve created a world in which to set one of these stories, I’ve created this blog and many others, I’ve created a side-venture. I’ve created my identity.
You may be asking yourself if this is just another in my long line of ADHD hyperfixations. A fair question, but I don’t think it is. And this is because it can encompass all my ADHD hyperfixations in one place. I can explore a topic that interests me, unpack it, and move on with a deepened sense of self. Books and films have engaged me for as long as I can remember, and writing about them simply seems the logical thing to do. I’ve done it in the past on Letterboxd, in fact, though I hope that these reviews will be more focused and well-researched.

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Greg Sanchez is a self-taught ethnomycologist who has been president of the Colorado Mycological Society for 20 years.
 
Today, we delve into the topic of ethnomycology: what it is and why it's crucial to understand and have respect for the historical and spiritual uses of mushrooms.
 
Specifically, we will talk about Mesoamerica, where much of ancient mushroom knowledge comes from, the ecology of the region, and some of the dark history of indigenous exploitation.
 
We'll also talk about the so-called 'mushroom moment', and exciting developments in using fungi for medicinals, food, materials, mycoremediation, and psychedelic therapy.

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