Mark Reads ‘Moving Pictures’: Part 9

In the ninth part of Moving Pictures, Victor gets closer to discovering the truth. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Discworld.

History

I know that I’ve been framing a lot of the references to Hollywood through a personal lens; that’s something I do often here because REASONS. But there’s a huge historical basis for a great deal of the jokes and gags put here by Pratchett. There really was a rush to combine sound with the cinema experience, and early experiments usually involved live orchestras or sound production. Then there was the Vitaphone movies that Warner Bros picked up on, and that morphed into a number of different methods of projecting images and sound at the same time. (I was thinking about how you used to have to match a phongraph record and a film reel up with perfect timing and how y’all are like… still doing similar shit with the Mark Watches videos. THE FUTURE IS NOW.)

That same journey is unfolding here, though it’s a lot funnier. There are filthy-mouthed parrots. There are subtitles which are ACTUAL LETTERS PUT ON THE SET WHILE THE ACTING IS UNFOLDING. (That is one of the funniest visual gags in the whole book.) On top of all of this, Holy Wood, like Hollywood itself, grows exponentially alongside everything. I still have not figured out where this is heading, but just from a logistical standpoint? Holy Wood cannot grow perpetually. It’s impossible. So what happens when it outgrows its location?

Bargaining

I don’t know that there’s any meaningful social commentary in this gag, but Gaspode teaching Laddie how to bargain for better food? Goddamn, it’s so hilarious. I suppose that that is a theme we’ve seen a few times throughout this book, and interestingly, Gaspode always seems to be behind teaching these people that they’re worth more than they’re getting. Why is that? Why him? I suspect it’s related to the fact that Gaspode is a whole lot more observant than anyone gives him credit for.

The Book

I’m also ENTIRELY transfixed by Gaspode and Victor trying to figure out the mystery of the book that is the answer to everything happening in Holy Wood. Despite that the reader knows a tad bit more than the characters, Pratchett designed this to unfold in a way that combines two separate dynamics. You can have a mystery where the reader and the protagonist are on the same page to build tension. Or you can have the ticking time bomb: the audience knows exactly what’s going to happen and derives tension from trying to determine when the protagonists are going to figure it all out. I see both of these aspects here in the story, and it’s a great way for this book to feel suspenseful!

So, we’ve got the two of them getting very close to figuring out the whole Keeper of the Door shit. They are SO close, y’all. They see the road from the driftwood hut to the hill. They see nothing but trees on the hill. And then Laddie finds Ginger, passed out right outside THE doorway, collapsed from exhaustion. Why?

Between two of them was an arched doorway, three times as high as Victor. It was sealed with a pair of pale gray doors, either of stone or of wood that had become as hard as stone over the years. One of them was slightly open, but had been prevented from opening further by the drifts of sand in front of it. Frantically scrabbled furrows had been dug deep in the sand. Ginger had been trying to shift it with her bare hands.

JESUS, WHY? My gut tells me that the Holy Wood force compelled her to do this, and that worries me because IS THAT WHAT IT ULTIMATELY WANTS THEM ALL TO DO? Is it just trying to free itself? But then that confuses me because why build up Holy Wood, too? Why create this bustling, chaotic industry around the doorway? Do They need this environment?

The Other Book

I was pleased to get back to the Librarian, but I’M SO CONFUSED. He notices something in Victor’s most recent film that “worries” him, and then storms up to Bezam’s projection room to remove a couple frames of the film. Okay, fine, I’m with you. But this is what he took?

But all he’d wanted was a piece that showed the Sons galloping down from their mountain fastness, in single file, on identical camels.

“Dunno what he wanted that for,” he muttered, taking the lid off the glue pot. “It just shows a lot of rocks.”

Which are probably Rock and Morry? Yes? Usually? I don’t get it! From there, the Librarian whisks himself to the maximum security shelves of the University’s library (I LOVE THAT I GET TO TYPE “MAXIMUM SECURITY SHELVES,” BLESS THESE BOOKS SO MUCH) to get… what????

This was a book that had absorbed the sheer, graphite-gray evil of its subject matter.

Its name was hacked in letters over the arch, lest men and apes forget.

NECROTELICOMNICON.

I remember this being mentioned in older Discworld books, but I cannot recall what it does. Dead things? Dead people??? WHY? WHY DOES THE LIBRARIAN NEED THIS?

The original text contains use “mad” and “whoring.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiR1OxOGYpo

Mark Links Stuff

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