Jonathan Lethem — "Just who are these weird people that you see when you put on the mysterious sunglasses in They Live? What do they want? More importantly, what do they mean? Novelist Jonathan Lethem investigates, in three excerpts from his new book analyzing They Live..." "Lethem's They Live book is part of Soft Skull Press' new Deep Focus series, "A Novel Approach To Cinema." Here are three sections that deal with the movie's Ghouls." "As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the scene; for not only did the general character of the crowd materially alter (its gentler features retiring in the gradual withdrawal of the more orderly portion of the people, and its harsher ones coming out in bolder relief, as the late hour brought forth every species of infamy from its den,) but the rays of the gas-lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the dying day, had now at last gained ascendancy, and threw over everything a fitful and garish lustre… With my brow to the glass, I was thus occupied in scrutinizing the mob, when suddenly there came into view a countenance (that of a decrepit old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age,) – a countenance which at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention, on account of the absolute idiosyncrasy of its expression."
– Edgar Allan Poe, "The Man of the Crowd" "They're appalling, that's what they are. Walking disasters. Flayed, scalded, piebald, grimacing, corrupted, robotic, evoking syphilis-victim scare-photos from teenage health-ed nightmares, yet somehow accusatory, defiant inside their disguises, the ghouls present no limit of affront to a healthy construction-worker's eye. They looked burnt, yet gooey. They're also – how to say this? – affrontingly cheapo (eventually we'll even notice in their ghoul-hands what looks like the wrinkling of rubber dishwashing gloves, and so this may be another reason for the black-and-white, better to mask low-budget inadequacies). This fact frees a certain relieving hilarity yet also synthesizes with our revulsion: Something this skeezy is ruling my world? Something this ludicrous is freaking me out? (The virtuosity of Carpenter's mise-en-scène ensures it is.) The first to turn to the camera and say, more or less, 'Fuck you lookin' at? is this silver-haired, foxy
older gentleman of obvious privilege referred to in the credits as "Well-Dressed Customer"; his sustained, withering ghoul-glare as he purchases his magazine (with dollars that confess THIS IS YOUR GOD) is one of They Live's icons, an instant that punches a spooky hole in time. Nada hasn't located his voice yet, so we're left undistracted, or unconsoled, by any cheese-dip-Brazilian-plastic-surgery-perfume-on-a-pig one-liners. What's brilliantly guaranteed is how totally we'd loathe this guy anyway; you may not be going home in your BMW and Rolex to soak in your Jacuzzi, but he certainly is. So, already brewing within our terror is a lavish contempt, one that finds satisfaction at the rotten-corpse visage before us. Any rich guy who's every glowered at us like we didn't belong somewhere – an outdoor magazine rack, for chrissakes! – really ought to look as sick on the outside as we're certain he is in his soul. I'm fucking looking at you, man! Nada's
not quite there, but he's just a step away. Also, ghouls wear wigs. For some reason their masterful illusion-generator can't do hair. Don't think about this too hard..." http://io9.com/#!5766538/jonathan-lethem-psychoanalyzes-they-lives-ghouls
– Edgar Allan Poe, "The Man of the Crowd" "They're appalling, that's what they are. Walking disasters. Flayed, scalded, piebald, grimacing, corrupted, robotic, evoking syphilis-victim scare-photos from teenage health-ed nightmares, yet somehow accusatory, defiant inside their disguises, the ghouls present no limit of affront to a healthy construction-worker's eye. They looked burnt, yet gooey. They're also – how to say this? – affrontingly cheapo (eventually we'll even notice in their ghoul-hands what looks like the wrinkling of rubber dishwashing gloves, and so this may be another reason for the black-and-white, better to mask low-budget inadequacies). This fact frees a certain relieving hilarity yet also synthesizes with our revulsion: Something this skeezy is ruling my world? Something this ludicrous is freaking me out? (The virtuosity of Carpenter's mise-en-scène ensures it is.) The first to turn to the camera and say, more or less, 'Fuck you lookin' at? is this silver-haired, foxy
older gentleman of obvious privilege referred to in the credits as "Well-Dressed Customer"; his sustained, withering ghoul-glare as he purchases his magazine (with dollars that confess THIS IS YOUR GOD) is one of They Live's icons, an instant that punches a spooky hole in time. Nada hasn't located his voice yet, so we're left undistracted, or unconsoled, by any cheese-dip-Brazilian-plastic-surgery-perfume-on-a-pig one-liners. What's brilliantly guaranteed is how totally we'd loathe this guy anyway; you may not be going home in your BMW and Rolex to soak in your Jacuzzi, but he certainly is. So, already brewing within our terror is a lavish contempt, one that finds satisfaction at the rotten-corpse visage before us. Any rich guy who's every glowered at us like we didn't belong somewhere – an outdoor magazine rack, for chrissakes! – really ought to look as sick on the outside as we're certain he is in his soul. I'm fucking looking at you, man! Nada's
not quite there, but he's just a step away. Also, ghouls wear wigs. For some reason their masterful illusion-generator can't do hair. Don't think about this too hard..." http://io9.com/#!5766538/jonathan-lethem-psychoanalyzes-they-lives-ghouls
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