[Buddha-l] nytimes review of pbs The Buddha

[JKirkpatrick]

All that you claim for the trailer here wasn't in the trailer
that I watched! 
I can't stand Goddard or any of the rest of his ilk's
productions, so I won't be hailing Mary any time soon.

Having read a lot of internet promo material for films, good bad
and almost ugly, they are all without exception "spacey, gee
whiz" and worse. Trailers are the very worst. If one is forced to
see one when in a movie theater, the sound is always
deafening--way louder than it is for the feature. 

I could imagine a good film with Buddhism at its foundation that
doesn't show any Buddhas, gurus, or anything pious--a film about
people-- making and unmaking karma. A famous fairly  recent film
about Muhammad as I recall chose not to show him at all (as that
is taboo), but to show his followers doing their deeds. Not a bad
idea.
Alternatively, as I've urged before, someone should make a
high-tech animation film based on the Lotus Sutra. If done right,
it could equal the blaze of Star Wars-- at least over in Asia,
where according to Dan the smart people live.

__________________

The trailer is interesting for several reasons. It confirms the
NYTimes review opinion that the piece will not say anything
anyone with even a modicum of familiarity with Buddhism will find
new.

It is presented in a spacey, gee whiz, mood.

What the review doesn't say is that the white people are
practicing a form of hagiographic elevation that makes the Asians
look like rank amateurs. 
There is an interesting tension in the trailer. HHDL is actually
trying to humanize the Buddha. He insists that when Buddha heard
about the brutal massacre of his clansmen, he was sad. Yes,
Buddhas are allowed to be sad. 
They are human, according to HHDL. The word he searches for to
describe Buddha in that situation is "fail." Buddha was a
failure. But then the hagiographic impulse kicks in, and he adds
that the failure is (not the Buddha was sad but) that he failed
to save his brethren with a miracle. 
Superheroes never get a break.

Then the white people get in on the death story. They avoid the
question of what sort of food it was that brought on Buddha's end
-- unlike we on buddha-l who have argued whether it was some sort
of food FOR pigs, or actual pig meat, etc. -- and simply say it
had "gone bad." Not just that, Buddha KNEW it had gone bad and
prevented everyone else from eating it, so that he alone would
die, since he was tired and worn out, and it was his time to die.
One could twist the canonical account to imply that, that is not
what it claims in any direct or overt way. The white people's
Buddha is a Buddha who exits stage left with a self-imposed
kavorkian hospice gesture -- while remaining the superhero who
saves the lives of his traveling companions without them even
knowing it.

If I was crankier, I'd probably find that nauseating (and go out
in search of comparable pig food). If I were younger, just
insulting. At the moment, I half find it amusing (what a bunch of
predictable dummies white people
are!) -- the other half is deeply disappointed that we can't
raise the level even a bit above bedtime fairy tales, and find
something intelligent to say about Buddha and his life.

Oh, Joanna, as for a good film on religion -- I think Goddard's
"Hail Mary" 
is brilliant.

Dan 

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