Star Wars for iSm (and other Star Wars Fans)

[mousepod]

check this out. It's from Camille Paglia's column this week:

A quite different film that I've recently enjoyed re-seeing and studying is "Revenge of the Sith" (2005) from George Lucas' "Star Wars" saga. The climactic light-saber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on the volcano planet of Mustafar (with footage of actual explosions and lava flows at Mount Etna in Sicily) is nearly mystically sublime in the High Romantic sense. The convulsive, manly passion between the two tortured Jedi is hyper-sustained by John Williams' powerful music. Then there's Anakin's shocking mutilation and Wagnerian immolation, leading to the grisly Frankenstein surgery that turns him into Darth Vader and that is cross-cut with a parallel hospital sequence, as Anakin's wife, Padme, dies while giving birth to the twins Luke and Leia.
It's amazing how much primal emotion Lucas is able to generate from such scenes. The finale of "Sith," with an adoptive couple tenderly cradling the infant Luke (separated from his sister) as they stand before a brilliant sunset, is reminiscent of "Gone With the Wind," produced at a time when Hollywood could speak in universal emotions (rather than cheap irony) to a mass audience.