Skateboarding and punk rock and
mythological tales should go together like spaghetti and meatballs. Skating personifies the idea of the journey
(even though there may be no destination; the path itself and what the skateboarder
does during it [read: tricks] are enough), something to which every Greek myth
adheres. Punk (or even music in general)
celebrates freedom of expression and (ideally) individuality, another trait
shared by some myths. While myths tend
to rely on a certain rigid framework of parables to get their point across,
skating and music, on their surfaces, go in the opposite direction. They follow in the belief that there are no
limits, anything goes. Yet, there are
basics that have to be followed in order for either enterprise to succeed. Music, even and especially punk, uses
verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure in most cases. For skating, one must know the rudiments of
the functionality of the board; how to set your feet, push, transfer weight,
and so forth. In both, however, it’s the
style of the performer that counts most.
Musicians know the basic chords.
It’s the attitude and coarseness that distinguishes, say, The Ramones
from The Germs. Likewise, a skateboarder
like Rodney Mullen does totally different things on his deck than does someone
like Tony Hawk, but the rudiments remain the same. To combine music and skateboarding and myths
is an intriguing aspect, but there has to be a line drawn between servicing the
fans of the former two with honoring the narrative of the latter. Otherwise, you get something like Robert
McGinley’s Shredder Orpheus, which
gives us all three but doesn’t know how to combine its component into a
coherent whole.
After the Big War, the poor have
been shuffled into the Grey Zone, a housing project consisting of shipping
containers. There, Orpheus (McGinley) and
his band, The Shredders, are the most popular act (I’m guessing because they’re
the only one). Hades (Gian-Carlo
Scandiuzzi), the owner of the villainous Euthanasia Broadcast Network, wants
Orpheus’ stage dancer/girlfriend/wife Eurydice (Megan Murphy) for his show, so
he has her killed and absconds with her soul.
Orpheus decides to go after his love, armed with a lyre-guitar
prototype, supposedly designed by Jimi Hendrix.
The EBN starts off as a sinister
device that pulls the souls from people.
On air, Hades and Persephone (Vera McCaughan) drone on about praising
the Cathode Ray. The idea is that this
thing is killing people slowly, without their knowledge, from the inside
out. Immediately, this brings to mind
memories of Videodrome and Halloween 3 (and even They Live). In those movies, television is bad (ain’t it
always?). It draws its victims to it,
like junkies to a dealer, then it takes them over and/or kills them. What you see is not what you get. The complacent act of watching, of being
narcotized by the banality on the boob tube, is like the lame gazelle at the
watering hole. The New Flesh of Videodrome is a cancer that causes
hallucinations and likely warps reality.
The signal sent by Silver Shamrock to the wearers of their masks draws
forth a supernaturally apocalyptic scenario in Halloween 3. But the power
of television to enthrall and enslave is the primary point. In Shredder
Orpheus, the programming on the EBN is as soulless as it can be. For example, Hades does a muzak version of
“Up a Lazy River.” Eurydice dances for
the network, but she’s a shadow of her former self. On stage with Orpheus, the music unlocked her
inner spirit, and she gave herself over to it, because that’s who she is at her
core. Hades and Persephone stare blankly
out at the viewer, hypnotizing the audience with the siren call of the television
screen. Television becomes God. Outside of this basic premise associated with
the EBN and its application as a modern device for worship, it doesn’t mean
much of anything in the overall narrative of this film. It’s simply a way to show the corporatization
of pantheon figures and provide the bad guys with a lair. Its signal doesn’t present a threat
throughout the film, because we only see one example of its deleterious
effect. It never comes up again.
In visual media, specifically film
and video, skateboarding falls into one of two categories (you can argue the
same about any sport, from volleyball to broom ball to chess). Either it’s a gimmick (think: Gleaming the Cube or Thrashin’) or it’s a spectacle (think: Public Domain or any of the scads of
skateboarding promo videos from the Eighties on). Its focus is meant to draw in viewers
inherently predisposed to skateboarding and those who find it appealing enough as
a curiosity but still want what they expect from any other movie. To integrate it into a film is difficult,
because it’s not a sport with sides that an audience can root for (though it
almost works in this regard with the jousting and racing scenes in Thrashin’). Any scene in which it is featured prominently
is bound to be a showcase, stopping the pacing dead, like the superfluous race
sequence in The Phantom Menace. McGinley attempts to make skateboarding
relevant here. Everyone in The Grey Zone
is a skater, so everywhere they go, they can do a couple of simple moves along
the way. Orpheus and his pals “shred”
the EBN parking garage, a structure which terminates in an elevator to
Hell. Thus, we get an extensive sequence
of the skaters rolling down the entirety of the spiral ramp. The story halts. A smoking skateboard shows up to valet
Orpheus back to EBN/Hell. I don’t know
how a filmmaker could make something like this and not have the skateboarding
hook feel like a contrivance. I do know
that McGinley fails at this intermingling, though not as egregiously as Gleaming the Cube does.
Shredder Orpheus is a valiant effort, but it’s also proof that you
can’t simply “adapt” a story. It gets
the large picture mostly right, and it supplies enough details to be recognizable
as the legend of Orpheus. But it also
tries to serve two masters, and it doesn’t devote enough attention to either for
their fusion to be satisfactory.
Further, and perhaps worst of all, McGinley managed to rob this myth of
any momentum and/or urgency. It relies
on angst over tension (the dream scenes with McGinley in a loincloth are just…c’mon),
yet even this doesn’t solve the main problem of doing something like this in
the first place. Myths are traditionally
told in general, sweeping motions. We
know who the heroes and villains are, because they are the heroes and
villains. Films need to flesh out the
characters, to breathe some life into their interpretations, and to give these
people something to do when they’re not out Questing. McGinley doesn’t outside of skating, which
tells us nothing about these guys other than that they skate. His characters meander around, or play music,
or talk a lot while saying nothing.
There is no invigoration or development of the archetypes. Like skateboarding, Shredder Orpheus’ characters are on screen only for show.
MVT: The underlying idea
behind the project is noteworthy.
Make or Break: Orpheus’
first story-cancelling song is enough to let you know that the filmmakers
didn’t quite know what to do with what they had but still had to get it to feature
length.
Score: 5/10