"Carnivale"-- a small television gem
Sherlock Holmes vs. Moriority. Captain Ahab vs. Moby Dick. Mephistopheles and Faust.
Good and evil. Always the battlefield that rages through our liteature. It's the balance that keeps everything on a thread. Everywhere we turn we find the same battle in books, movies and even television. It is the story stripped down to the core. The bare minimum. When it comes down to it, the story depends on this classic battle.
The same battle can be found in a small television gem called "Carnivale." It is a religious allegory. The mysteries of heaven and hell play out through a different series of events leading to a point in time when good and evil eventually clashes. It is 1934. The American mid-west is a dusty landscape flooded with sandstorms of biblical proportions, the skies seem to bleed with dull, flagging colors reflecting the great depression of its time. One person is born out of light. Ben Hawkings, a troubled healer. The other, pure evil. Infested in a conflicted evangelist Brother Justin. Each one has dreams leading them down to different paths. Eventually, like a boiling cauldron ready to explode, their paths will meet in a battlefield known simply as the United States of America.
Those who have seen the first season know of its offbeat, strangely appealing beauty of every scene set in the 1930s. It's well scripted, acted and directed on every level. The stories unfold like a novel on television. When I sat down to watch the first season on DVD, I was captivated by its oddity. Ben Hawkins is taken into the wings of a carnival troupe, led by a midget, learning about his own past and role in the fight between good and evil. The characters are always shady, in the grey area... you never know who's on which side. Everything is led by a supernatural magic... the people are placed together like pieces of a chess board. In many ways, it's like finding a different side of America, one where it's keeping hidden legacies of magic out of the public eye. It take a simple healer and an evangelist to crack open these mysteries while we stand helpless, as an audience, while the titanic forces go to work.
Television has always been, for me, an empty landscape of junk that sucks your brains out and turns it into mud. It's nice to know that some good television is still being produced. You just have to dig through the murky television garbage and find the good stuff beneath. Find it. Revel in it. I envy your first discovery of this series. I managed to find a used copy of it in Green Bay and think it's worth every penny. My favorite character is Clayton Jones, an ordinary man who tries to take everything at face value, just a simple guy caught up in this magical war.
Season one is out on DVD and it should be relatively easy to find in most stores. Sadly, HBO isn't renewing the show for its third year. Yet, for prosperity, second two should be coming along soon on DVD. Haven't heard anything yet about its release. Worth seeing. It's an undeniable television easily overlooked. Check out the following link for a closer look at the series http://www.hbo.com/carnivale/
Good and evil. Always the battlefield that rages through our liteature. It's the balance that keeps everything on a thread. Everywhere we turn we find the same battle in books, movies and even television. It is the story stripped down to the core. The bare minimum. When it comes down to it, the story depends on this classic battle.
The same battle can be found in a small television gem called "Carnivale." It is a religious allegory. The mysteries of heaven and hell play out through a different series of events leading to a point in time when good and evil eventually clashes. It is 1934. The American mid-west is a dusty landscape flooded with sandstorms of biblical proportions, the skies seem to bleed with dull, flagging colors reflecting the great depression of its time. One person is born out of light. Ben Hawkings, a troubled healer. The other, pure evil. Infested in a conflicted evangelist Brother Justin. Each one has dreams leading them down to different paths. Eventually, like a boiling cauldron ready to explode, their paths will meet in a battlefield known simply as the United States of America.
Those who have seen the first season know of its offbeat, strangely appealing beauty of every scene set in the 1930s. It's well scripted, acted and directed on every level. The stories unfold like a novel on television. When I sat down to watch the first season on DVD, I was captivated by its oddity. Ben Hawkins is taken into the wings of a carnival troupe, led by a midget, learning about his own past and role in the fight between good and evil. The characters are always shady, in the grey area... you never know who's on which side. Everything is led by a supernatural magic... the people are placed together like pieces of a chess board. In many ways, it's like finding a different side of America, one where it's keeping hidden legacies of magic out of the public eye. It take a simple healer and an evangelist to crack open these mysteries while we stand helpless, as an audience, while the titanic forces go to work.
Television has always been, for me, an empty landscape of junk that sucks your brains out and turns it into mud. It's nice to know that some good television is still being produced. You just have to dig through the murky television garbage and find the good stuff beneath. Find it. Revel in it. I envy your first discovery of this series. I managed to find a used copy of it in Green Bay and think it's worth every penny. My favorite character is Clayton Jones, an ordinary man who tries to take everything at face value, just a simple guy caught up in this magical war.
Season one is out on DVD and it should be relatively easy to find in most stores. Sadly, HBO isn't renewing the show for its third year. Yet, for prosperity, second two should be coming along soon on DVD. Haven't heard anything yet about its release. Worth seeing. It's an undeniable television easily overlooked. Check out the following link for a closer look at the series http://www.hbo.com/carnivale/
posted by K.M. Paters at 11:07 AM
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