Camera Obscura: "Goodbye Paradise"

If I were sculpting a Mount Rushmore of neo-noir sleuths, the first would be Elliot Gould's Marlowe in "The Long Goodbye". The second would be Jeff Lebowski. Obviously, I love my "detectives" to be reluctantly oblivious, slightly impaired, and wholly suited for solving the case by allowing the devious world to open up its secrets in time without doing much except sulking around. Now add Michael Stacey (Ray Barrett) and "Goodbye Paradise" to the mountain. My first exposure to this niche of film noir called 'Gold Coast noir' (and I welcome more suggestions!), "Goodbye Paradise" is a lazy beast of a film. As the alcoholic, tie-askew ex-policeman asked to find the missing daughter (Janet Scrivener) of a politician, "Goodbye Paradise" devolves into a shaggy-dog tale of new age religious cults, assassins, bully cops, and old military friends with terrifying new ideals about the social economics of New South Wales. And through it all, Barrett inhabits Stacey as a man who'd much rather be bouncing amongst karaoke bars and drinking himself silly with the prospects of being a hardboiled writer. And if his inner monologue is anything like his scrapped novel, we've all missed out on Queensland's answer to Raymond Chandler. But solve the mystery he eventually does, bedding beautiful women and being the desire of young ones along the way, while witnessing the country come apart at the seams. More than a film noir (although its allusion to other great Goodbye films and pulp novels), "Goodbye Paradise" feels like the template for so many Coen Brothers movies, that I searched long and hard for any mention of this film out of the Brothers' mouths. Alas, there are none. But despite that, filmmaker Carll Schultz (whose biggest title is the Demi Moore psychological horror film "The Seventh Sign" several years later) has crafted a film so full of dazzling energy and subtle humor, that when things do go crazy in the finale, we believe the shenanigans because Stacey the cop has fumbled through the mystery right alongside us.... and seems to be the only one keeping his sanity. Marlowe and Jeff Lebowski would be proud. The world changed, he didn't, which seems like an integral part of the sleuth in way over his head.

After Hours: Robert Siodmak's "Phantom Lady"

Even though I admire the toughness of Robert Siodmak's perennial film noirs, "The Killers" (1946) and "Criss Cross" (1948), nothing quite prepared me for the formal, stylish greatness of "Phantom Lady". Released in 1944 and starring Ella Raines as a secretary who descends into the New York netherworld of coked-up jazz musicians and psychotic killers in the hopes of saving her boss (Alan Curtis) from a murder rap, the film is relentlessly surprising in both narrative and mise-en-scene. There are two or three camera movements that rank with the visual inventiveness of Hitchcock's best (just watch as we finally discover "the hat") and a mood imported from the inky grains of German expressionism. Everything is mixed flawlessly within a somewhat cute American studio system work. Between this film and others, Siodmak has created a large (but still somewhat undervalued) body of work. And outside of his noirs, finding them is the trick.

But, what we do have (courtesy of the Criterion channel) is invaluable. For the first half of "Phantom Lady", the film doesn't even hint at the heroics of female secretary Kansas (Rains). She's barely present, except to establish her mundane duties of filing receipts and returning phone calls within the office of her architect boss Scott (Curtis). Instead, we have a traditional set-up where a lonely man picks up an equally morose woman (Fay Helm) in a bar and persuades her to go to a theater with him. Breadcrumbs of possible alibis are stacked, but then he returns home to find his wife has been murdered and the police already waiting for him. His emotions are confused, but heightened.... and in one of the many stellar provocations in the film, Siodmak chooses to expend narrative off-screen. As Scott's wife is hauled out of their apartment, the camera holds on him as he screams out "look what they're doing to her hair!". It's a moment that says far more than shows. There's no need to show a body. The image of a lifeless woman's hair being dragged along the floor is pungent....horrifying..... and soaks an image of careless disregard in an otherwise gutting personal moment. The off-screen theatrics will be employed brilliantly throughout "Phantom Lady".

Enter Rains as the Nancy Drew-like secretary who fully believes that her boss is innocent and sets out into the city to find witnesses to Scott's bar tab, theater event, and (most importantly) the woman that no one claims to remember. There's a wonderfully energetic Elisha Cook Jr who takes Rains behind the grimy veil of after hours musicians. There's the sheepish bartender who may be concealing more than he knows. And, most importantly, there's Franchot Tone as Scott's best friend who returns from overseas to help Kansas clear his name. Together in his modernistic New York high rise apartment, Tone embodies a role that's both slimy, perverse, and haunting all the same. But more important than any extra-Freudian overtones,"The Phantom Lady" shifts gears completely and becomes Rains' film in spirit and body as her quest will take her close to extreme violence.

Playing with genre as if it's shuffling cards, Siodmak never loses control of the film. When it stops down for a couple of minutes to vibrate and gyrate with a coked-up drummer, it works. When it devolves into a thriller and the door knob to escape is just out of reach, it works. And it certainly works as a film noir where the city hisses steam at all hours and the police are hard nosed but virtuous. Even despite its seemingly happy ending, "The Phantom Lady" hints that the savior complex of Kansas may have doomed her to a place of subservience that's well beneath her true worth.

When the Bad Men Came to Town: Alain Cavalier's "Pillaged"

The French sure had a way of regurgitating film. Taking the stellar heist films of the 50's such as John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle" and Jules Dassin's "Riffifi" and metastasizing them into a lurid sub-genre all their own, there lies so many hidden gems (and outright classics of their own) in the decades to come. From Jean Pierre Melville's ice-cold treatises on betrayal and meticulous technique to the bruised energies of the many Alain Delon titles, there's always a surprise to be had.

Alain Cavalier's "Pillaged" (1967) is one of them. If there weren't twenty more years of such films coming down the pipeline, I'd wager that "Pillaged" was a capsized attempt to wave down all the other entries. The very plot- about a group of men taking hostage an entire town over the course of one long night in order to rob all its cash dispensaries- seems like the stuff of graphic novels. It plays bold, fast, and tense and it deserves a wider audience (are you listening Shout Factory! or Code Red???)

Released in 1967, the film stars a who's who of French character actors (Michel Constantin, Daniel Ivernel, Phillipe Moreau and Irene Tunc) as a motley group of safe crackers, stick-up men and underworld roustabouts tossed together for the sole purpose of surveying a gorge-village town and robbing the bank, the local steel mill cash holdings and anything else that crosses their paths. Each man has a distinct job and within 20 minutes, "Pillaged" is knee deep in the overnight heist, carefully establishing its plan and then observing as most things go like clockwork. Of course, being a French film noir, something unexpected crops up and the job goes incrementally wrong before the sun rises.

Filmed by workmanlike director Alain Cavalier (and only his third film after the aforementioned Delon vehicle "The Unvanquished" and his startling debut "Le Combat dans I'il") "Pillaged" doesn't ascribe many sympathies to its robbers.... and with the exception of a Stockholm-syndrome induced female abductee, very few other personalities are brought to the forefront. This is a film that excels in examining the steps of a crime. It's hugely believable (at least in the mid 60's when all it took to kill any communication was a snip of the wire) and executed with keen skill and style.

Immigrant Reform: Anthony Mann's "Border Incident"

Like many of his contemporaries, director Anthony Mann's filmography swept across the decades of Hollywood's evolution from the dramas of the 30's, the bleak film noir of the 40's and finally ascending to the heights of big budget spectacles of the late 50's and early 60's. Just looking at the titles that dot his resume (from hard-nosed classics like "T-Men" and "Winchester '73" to the pomp and circumstance of "El Cid"), Mann undulated with the times like the best of them.

Unfortunately, I feel woefully inept at accurately responding to the breadth of his films as I've seen so few. I'm pretty damn sure I've seen "Raw Deal", "T-Men" and his western forays with Jimmy Stewart, "Winchester '73" and "The Naked Spur" on TCM or Bravo TV showings back in the day, although I don't have firm documentation in the likes of Netflix markings or Letterboxd notes... which seems to suggest that, nowadays, if this technology isn't checked, the past might not even exist.

All of this is to say I've set out to right this wrong, and if my first jab at Mann's content is any indication, I'm in for a vibrant viewing experience. Released in 1949 and starring Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy, "Border Incident" posits a spy thriller framework over the liberal minded expose of exploitative immigrant culture and the deep-seated (and deep pocketed) conspiracy that aims to use and dispose of them when the work is finished. As two police officers on opposite sides of the border seeking to end the cycle of violence, Montalban and Murphy go undercover- Montalban as a migrant worker desperate to cross the US border and find work and Murphy as one of the middlemen stealing documents to cover the tracks of those in charge.

Full of deep focus rack shots and sinewy midnight lighting- urgent because most of the film takes place in the wee hours of the night where malice and discretion are apt bedfellows- "Border Incident" parlays both the best of film noir and subterfuge thrillers in the way it establishes strong tension around believable characters stuck in-between the (at one point literal) grinding wheels of evil. In fact, although Montalban is the real star, lengthy portions of the film dart away from both he and Murphy, giving weight to the parasitic nature of the shadowy organizations in gritty detail. The forces of evil are embedded in the canyon border landscape so deeply that when one character thinks he's gotten away to safety, he runs straight into the warm den of a woman who promptly calls her husband.... and he arrives with shotgun in hand to clean up the mess for his superiors. No one said cleaning up the border would be easy.

Made right before his run of noirs would be over and he'd embark on a series of westerns throughout the 50's, Mann's "Border Incident" feels especially dark, full of heroic compromise and real-world nihilism that cancel each other out. It's also quite the prescient film. If not for a somewhat tacked-on voice over that closes the film with a hint of optimism, "Border Incident" could be released today and we'd all nod and agree that the problem is as divisive and violent as ever.

Out of the Past: On "Union Station"

One of my favorite chase scenes in all of cinema resides in William Friedkin's "The French Connection" (1971). No, it's not the very muscular and chaotically choreographed car chase under the subway system, but a game of cat-and-mouse-hide-and-seek that pits Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his fleet-footed attempt in keeping up with his target (Fernando Rey) on the hectic streets and (eventual) busy New York subway system. It's a masterclass set-piece of editing and sound that strikes at the heart of two people trying to out duel each other.

So imagine how crestfallen I was- and alternatively thrilled- while watching Rudolph Mate's "Union Station" (1950) a few months ago when the same type of criminal versus cop chess appeared in this aces crime thriller. I may need to go back and see if Friedkin lip services Mate's film in any way, but "The French Connection" is undeniably indebted to "Union Station's" crisp, boldly edited chase scene that features a cop following a suspected criminal around and about, ending up on a subway car where the tables are suddenly turned.

In fact, pretty much all of Mate's masterpiece is a brilliant study of bodies in motion and the logistics of men standing, watching, waiting.... something that's been the machismo hallmark of current directors such as Michael Mann and Johnny To for decades now. One of those men standing and watching is William Holden, the cop of the film's train station title who's drawn into a web of tension when a group of kidnapping suspects use his train terminal to do their extortion and bidding. Partnering with the New York police, Holden initially helps them identify the criminals (with the help of beautiful Nancy Olsen), and from that point on, "Union Station" realizes several sequences of paranoid stake-outs, double crosses and electric action scenes that sets the film apart from the rudimentary film noir efforts the film is often associated with. Coming at the beginning of the 50's when noir was beginning to metastasize in other things (i.e. the hard boiled cynicism of Robert Aldrich and Cold War metaphors), "Union Station" is so thrilling for its simplicity and its attention to form. None of this is surprising since the director, Mate, came from the ranks of celebrated Hollywood cinematographers (and had already helmed two highly regarded noir classics "D.O.A." in 1949 and "The Dark Past" in 1948). What is surprising, however, is that "Union Station" is a largely forgotten relic of the noir wave that deserves its place in the pantheon of hard boiled cinema.

The Great St Louis Bank Robbery

The direct cinematic lineage of Michael Mann and Jean Pierre Melville can be found in one little known film from 1959 called "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery". Made a few years before Melville created an international splash with films like "Le Doulos" and "Second Breath" and decades before Michael Mann stepped behind a camera, John Stix's "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" takes as its main themes some very familiar touchstones of these two varied filmmakers- the consummate career criminal obsessed with detail, the fatal relationship with a woman and brazen masculinity. It's a shame that director John Stix didn't get the chance to accumulate these themes and form the same type of stylistically riveting career as Mann or Melville.


"The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" is a genuinely fatalistic enterprise. The very opening scene, where four men meet in a cold park, is doomed from the outset as their buried resentments, jealousy and inexperience (in the case of college drop out wheelman Steve McQueen in only his second film role) comes boiling to the surface. Add to the mixture an almost repressed homosexuality in ring leader Egan's eyes (Crahan Denton) as he tries to steer the group away from any outside influences (women namely) and judiciously go over every detail of the robbery and one soon gets the idea that we're watching walking corpses going through the motion. The tension comes in the thought of who will survive, if anyone. In essence, "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" is 80 minutes of careful preparation and ten minutes of abrupt violence during the bank robbery. Outside of the bank robbery itself, there are several scenes in "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" that feel revelatory for 1959. The long shot on Egan as he monologues about the death of his mother... an especially terse scene with McQueen's ex-girlfriend as the crew find out she may know about the robbery... and the aforementioned final bank robbery in which Stix precisely frames and edits the robbery with calm detail, giving precedence to the shadows that steel bars create on the ground or the tormented God shot as McQueen terrorizes a husband and wife. And, the fact that actual police officers and detectives involved in the real-life incident reprised their roles is even more revealing to the film's search for the authentic.

Stix, a Julliard film teacher and director of numerous Broadway plays, never returned to film after "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery". Perhaps because he was born in St. Louis and wanted to share some hometown flavor with the movie-going public, his debut film struck lightning in a bottle. I would've loved to see what else he could do with the cinematic medium, and especially with the gray-skied and fedora'd criminals who slink beneath the surface and patiently study until they strike. If "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" is any indication of his intelligence, we've all missed some great stuff.

70's Bonanza: Mitchum X 2

From 1973 to 1975, Robert Mitchum lived and breathed in the world of pulp. In 1973, there was "The Friends of Eddie Coyle". The next year... Sydney Pollack's "The Yakuza". Then in 1975, "Farewell, My Lovely", the third film to be based on the Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name. Maybe it was Mitchum's sad-sack, world weary face that naturally lent itself to the roles of various hoods, stoolies and tired detectives. Whatever the reason for such a powerhouse one-two-three punch, I'm just glad they exist.

The absolute best of the bunch- Peter Yates' "The Friends of Eddie Coyle"- has been newly released on DVD for the first time by Criterion, providing movie enthusiasts such as myself the opportunity to take in a (somewhat) forgotten masterpiece. A low key and almost clinical peek at the underbelly of the Boston underworld, Yates' film virtually renders Mitchum (the titular Eddie) as a secondary character, caught up in his own desperation to stay out of jail at 50 years old and give up his friends and associates involved in some heavy stuff. It's a bold move, but "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" should be seen as a sprawling examination of the mechanics of crime rather than an actual character study. Mitchum is the big name, but the smaller roles are what really flesh out "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" as a dynamic portrait of this particularly dangerous sect of people. Littered with familiar character actor faces (Alex Rocco, Joe Santos, James Tolkan, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats), Yates draws great tension out of every scene. Three bank robberies, a police stake-out in a parking lot, and the final night on the town for Eddie Coyle are supplemented with a filmmaking style that's simple and economic. And this is a film that understands the power of silences. Just watch the progression of shots as Jackie Brown (Keats) waits in a parking lot or the cryptic conversation between Dillon (Peter Boyle) and cop (Jordan) that basically says everything without saying anything.

But among this sordid world, there's still Robert Mitchum. He tells you everything you need to know in the opening scene as he describes how he got his nickname of "Fingers" in a breathless monologue. It's a quiet performance that reeks of regret and hard-worn bad luck. And when Mitchum talks or looks into the eyes of the Jordan's slick cop, deciding whether to rat or not, his eyes tell us the whole story. The benefit of time is certainly on his side as an actor.



A little less successful than "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" but intriguing nonetheless is Dick Richard's "Farewell My Lovely" (1975). Desperately wanting to mine the same cinematic and critical gold as Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" a few years earlier, this third installment of the great Hammett novel has the artificiality of 40's noir but not the real gusto. As Philip Marlowe, Mitchum is highly watchable, spouting the ironic lines of his weary detective role with half amused energy. The story itself- something about a missing chorus girl and the ties of one powerful family to the very heart of corruption in Los Angeles- were surely monumental in their day, but by 1975 this slick decor had run its course. Part of the minor failure of "Farewell My Lovely" can be found in the abrupt shift film noirs took during the 70's. If "Chinatown" closed the book on mimicking the old style, then "Point Blank", "The Long Goodbye" and "Night Moves" were definitive indicators of the new prevailing winds.... kinetic, self-reflexive and concerned with modern attitudes clashing against old manners. Regardless, "Farewell My Lovely" centers on the bulky shoulders of Mitchum as he trudges across the city at night and slowly segues from one predicament to another. What else do we expect from Philip Marlowe? Yet only Mitchum could probably pull off the meaningful way in which he tosses a baseball back to a little boy whose father won't be coming home. Whether he's playing the stoolie or the good guy, Mitchum has that unique way of making one believe in his actions.

Top 5- The Dark City

August has officially been dubbed "Film Noir" month, and there's no shortage of writings about this genre around the blog-o-sphere. Probably the most famous will be taking place at Movie Zeal wherein they'll write about one noir a day. How's that for dedication?

And if American film noir doesn't float your boat and you live close to New York, then the esteemed Film Forum theater will be displaying 38 "French Crime Wave" films in their five week series. Yes, that's me drooling just a bit. I've seen 25 of the films, but damn it'd be awesome to see them on the big screen.

So, pretty much all I can contribute is a short top 5 list of my favorites. I'll keep it confined to American films, or else Jean Pierre Melville would probably come in with all five. Also, pre-1975 because... well because I can and that post 1975 list is something altogether different.

1. Chinatown (1974)- I've said it before, but the script by Robert Towne and direction of Roman Polanski in "Chinatown" result in a perfect film. I only say that about two films- this one and Hitchcock's "Vertigo". And beyond that, its a noir without the slightest sense of chic or self reflexiveness. Superb on every level.

2. The Killers (1946)- Robert Siodmak's noir starring Burt Lancaster and Edmond O' Brien is the textbook of noir. Shadow compositions, a narrative that works backwards, tense and stuffy camerawork that makes every bit of sweat seep through the screen- if you really wanna know what "noir" embodies, this is it.

3. Out of the Past (1947)- Jacques Tourneur's film is yet another example of the straight characteristics of the genre, but this time with a much more stringent attention to finance. Tourneur was always a B movie auteur, and "Out of the Past" continues his minimalist streak without shirking any of the genre's best details. Robert Mitchum is the schmo this time, reminiscing about how he got to a certain point. Of course, there's a femme fatale who helped. This is a striking work whose mood of corruption is suffocating.

4. Kansas City Confidential (1952)- Yes, I could very easily put another classic heist film on this list- "The Killing" of course or certainly "The Asphalt Jungle"- but I've only seen Phil Karlson's "Kansas City Confidential" once several years ago on TCM and its a film that stuck with me. Maybe it was the documentary style of its aesthetic which seemed groundbreaking for a film in 1952, or the way the film methodically deconstructs the robbery of an armored car, but either way, "Kansas City Confidential" is a highly underrated masterpiece of the genre.

5. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)- A noir with real balls... Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly" is popular now for all the wrong reasons (*cough Tarantinoandhisrippedoffbriefcaseidea *cough), but its still a nasty, nihilistic, paranoid noir.

(apologies for such a cut and dry post, but Blogger is not allowing me to upload photos right now.)

Noir Heart

There are many great novelists whose ragged prose lends itself eagerly to the noir genre. Not only do they create books and short stories that carry a nihilistic point of view of the world, but their characters are fatalistic to a fault. The most exhilarating aspect of the noir world to me is the way it places the viewer/reader into a dark environment with little or no bearings. We're forced to read between the lines, glean understanding of hardboiled-speak, and place our trust, primarily, within the eyes and ears of a single point of view. Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson, James Cain and Raymond Chandler were the godfathers. James Elroy, and a writer named Richard Stark helped bridge the gap from classic noir to the modern era, tinging their tough guy novels with humor, pathos and unpredictability... essentially a blueprint for Hollywood to continually update (and profit from) the long standing noir genre.

Now, a secret about Richard Stark. There is no Richard Stark. This is the pseudonym for writer Donald Westlake. If one goes to IMDB and searches for Westlake, they'll come across a treasure trove of 60's/70's/80/s and 90's noirs that all originated from the novels by Westlake. Because of his pseudonym, is he the most under appreciated crime writer we have today? I would say so. From his imagination, the world has been given the framework for classic films such as "Point Blank" and underrated gems such as "The Outfit", "The Hot Rock" and "Hot Stuff" (yes the Dom Deluise pawn shop comedy). Still further, films like "The Split", "The Bank Shot" and Alain Cavalier's "The Score"(all, sadly not available on DVD and barely seen outside of rare TV screenings) were all released between the years of 1967 and 1975. Prolific, certainly. In 1990, Westlake earned an Academy award nomination for writing the screenplay to Stephen Frears' "The Grifters". This wasn't Westlake's first attempt at directly creating words for the screen. In 1987, his penned the screenplay for "The Stepfather", a somewhat surprising choice. And, as a last interesting tidbit, it was Westlake's novel titled "The Jugger" that influenced Jean Luc Godard to film "Made In the USA", even though Westlake's novel was never given lip service.

Westlake's most famous character, the ominously named Parker, makes appearances throughout his work, most prominently in "Point Blank" as well as Mel Gibson's "Payback" (another title attributed to Westlake). Westlake is also fond of a character named Dortmunder, brought to charismatic life by Robert Redford in Peter Yates' 1973 noir-comedy, "The Hot Rock". But even though Westlake's relies on repetition, it's a conceit that never fails. But back to "Point Blank". If there's a more influential new wave noir film in the history of cinema, I've yet to see (or even hear about) it. That film alone is responsible for obliterating the long standing threads of classic noir and ushering in a new sensibility... a type of noir that was not restricted by black and white stock and structured pacing. Like the turbulent culture of the late 60's, "Point Blank" dared to exhibit a fractured sense of time and place, hypnotic cinematography and a 'protagonist' in the barest sense of the word. Lee Marvin and director John Boorman certainly deserve credit for their re imagining of Westlake's novel, but its the underlying ideas of "Point Blank" that propel the film- and the genre- forward. Outside of "Point Blank's" genre defining set up, the other bold characteristic of Westlake is his ability to stage hardboiled noirs within a highly comedic universe. The previously mentioned "The Hot Rock", released in 1973 is a remarkably entertaining comedy heist that posits Redford, George Segal and character actor Paul Sand as a team of thieves chasing down an expensive African diamond. Yet the film is not concerned with the robbery of the diamond itself, which is done before the first 30 minutes have lapsed, but its keeping up with the diamond in acutely constructed set pieces after the robbery. While it's sometimes hard to find that balance between crime and comedy without losing face, Westlake has made a virtual career of it.

So that includes the good stuff. What's most infuriating about Westlake's output is no fault of his own, but the inability to see so many of the 70's films based on his work. Late last year, Turner Classic Movies screened John Flynn's "The Outfit" with Karen Black and Robert Duvall very late at night. I tuned in, but fell asleep before it was finished. That's more of a reflection of watching TV at 3am instead of the film's craftsmanship, though. Checking on VHS copies of the film on Ebay, and the cheapest copy can be yours for only $65. The 1968 heist film, "The Split" starring Jim Brown as the leader of a motley crew of thieves trying to rob the LA Coliseum and a young Gene Hackman as the cop chasing him down, is equally hard to find. Foreign adaptations of his work by directors such as Cavalier and Costa-Gavras, have also yet to see the light of day on American shores. I hate to make this yet another MIA DVD posts, but chalk it up to this ADD saturated world where "i-want-everything-and-i-want-it-now". I'm selfish like that about film. I want my obscure 70's crime films and I want them now.

A secret fantasy of mine has always been to be a crime fiction writer. When I'm immersed in a good crime novel or film, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The way there's a private lingo thrown around, the way the characters nerves seem to be blasted with steel and the intricate plotting of the heist treated like an archealogical excavation... all of these things energize my creative juices. As a crime writer, Westlake seems to understand this is what audiences and readers want from him. God bless him.