Geoffrey
Fox's FILM & THEATER NOTES
TITLE INDEX (at bottom)
Ararat (Atom Egoyan)
A terribly important story peeks through the tangled confusion
of this film. The story is of the atrocities inflicted by Turkish
troops on the Armenians living around Lake Van, in Eastern Anatolia,
in 1915. Unfortunately filmmaker Atom Egoyan couldn't decide
the best way to tell it, and so interweaves a mix of documented
and fictional episodes from the life of painter Arshile Gorky,
with scenes taken from the book by American eye-witness Dr. Clarence
Ussher (head of the U.S. Legation in Van at the time), a production
of a contemporary film (a little like the one we're watching)
based on these things, and two complicated and implausible parent-son
conflicts. Modern Turks need to acknowledge that such atrocities
occurred, but it will be hard for them to recognize themselves
in the sole Turkish character who is portrayed, the utterly sinister
officer played by Elias Koteas. (For more on film, see Ararat)
2002/11/25
top |
index
Cape Fear (1962): Menacing men
In the rainy evening of July 3 in East Quogue, we watched
"Cape Fear" for the 1st time. I've been bewitched by
the Robert Mitchum character ever since.
In the 1962 movie, Gregory Peck is Sam Bowden, a very well
connected prosecutor in a southern US city, with a very big house
on a huge, lush lawn, an attractive wife -- Peggy -- and a teenage
daughter Nancy. Mitchum, first seen walking into the courthouse
in a narrow-brimmed Panama hat, a sport jacket and no tie, shirt
open at the neck, and holding in his teeth a big cigar at a jaunty
uptilt, is Max Cady, who has just been released after 8 years
of prison and now is seeking out the lawyer -- Bowden -- who
put him there.
Peck is tall, dark and thin, with a deep, rich voice that
would be perfect for the old radio dramas. The voice always sounds
the same - serious, even ponderous - regardless of whether he
is asking his buddy the police chief for a favor, or bowling
with his family, or warning Cady to stay away from them. His
gestures are minimal, or rather, he makes no gestures - he always
stands straight, arms and hands quiet by his sides. He expresses
changes of emotion exclusively by altering the lift and tilt
of his eyebrows - one eyebrow high means that he is feeling something
intense, maybe fear, maybe joy, maybe he can't remember the script,
whatever. Alternatively, both eyebrows will be relaxed. That's
it. That's the entire range - up or down, on or off.
Mitchum's whole body acts. Eyes, mouth, tilt of head, stretch
of chest in the repeated scenes where he bares it (a strip search
by the police chief, a fight with three thugs hired by the lawyer,
the final and climactic episode where he swims out to the houseboat,
murders a sheriff's deputy with his bare hands and arms, and
stalks each family member one by one), sauntering or crouching
or ostentatiously lounging. He's not as tall as Peck, but clearly
the bigger, stronger man.
Cady also comes across as very, very cool, and maybe even
smarter than his prey, Bowden & family. I think the point
that director J. Lee Thompson wanted to make is not that Cady
is smarter, but that he is uninhibited by conventional morality,
thus able to use his animal shrewdness to fullest extent. Cady
must have a back story, which is barely hinted at in his one
extended conversation with the "counselor" (as he mockingly
calls Bowden), in a bar where Bowden tries to bribe him to leave
town and leave his family alone. There, Cady talks about his
own family, his wife and daughter, whom he lost by going to prison
- his wife, he says, divorced him out of shame, and married a
plumber. He then tells - wonderfully, in the accents of a southern
workingman who has acquired but not mastered a larger vocabulary
in the prison library - of what he did to avenge himself on his
faithless ex-wife. A tale of calculated sadism with great irony,
an immensely cruel practical joke.
Cady was in prison for beating (or maybe raping) a woman -
maybe a prostitute - in a seedy section of Baltimore; Bowden
was visiting the city at the time, happened to hear the woman's
screams and see Cady in action, and testified against him at
the trial. What led Cady to beat that woman is never explored,
but given the depths of the character as played by Mitchum, you
know there is a story there. He is such an intelligent, audacious,
charming (when he chooses), and effective character, you know
he could do almost anything that society let him do. There is
a hint that he was a farmer - the money in his bankbook (that
keeps him from being arrested for vagrancy, as the police chief
attempts to do) came from his sale of the family farm. And if
his tale of his vengeance on his ex is true, he was a family
man (he may possibly be making up that whole story, just to further
frighten the lawyer, whom he's got worked up to a barely controlled
panic - just watch those eyebrows).
In the five days since I saw the movie, I haven't been able,
or even wanted, to get the image of Mitchum's Cady out of my
mind. He is the essence of menacing manhood. His obvious physical
strength is an important element, but far more important are
the sagacity and ruthlessness. Physical strength without these
things is impressive but not menacing - I'm thinking, for example,
of Johnny Weismuller (his "Tarzan" absolutely lacks
ruthlessness - from his morals, you would never imagine that
he'd grown up in the jungle), or Sylvester Stallone (who is merely
stupidly ruthless - any of us could outsmart him), or Arnold
Schwarzenegger (wittier than Weismuller or Stallone, but not
ruthless even in his most villainous roles). On the other hand,
men who are not especially imposing physically can be very, very
menacing if they combine the wit and ruthlessness-- Anthony Hopkins
in many roles, including of course Hannibal Lecter, and skinny
James Woods are terrific screen examples. Or maybe "ruthlessness"
is not exactly the right word. What these actors convey is the
physical thrill they derive from using their superior intelligence
against a worthy opponent. When this ruthlessness, or whatever
we should call it, and wit are combined with physical strength,
the male force is overwhelming, awesome, surrender-inducing.
On the movie screen, we get a Robert Mitchum. On the world stage,
we get a Fidel Castro.
For an account of the making of the film, the very different
novel on which it was based (John D. MacDonald's The Executioners),
and the 1991 remake by Martin Scorsese (with Al Pacino as Cady
and Nick Nolte as Bowden, and Mitchum and Peck in cameo roles),
see the excellent article by Francis M. Nevins, CAPE FEAR DEAD
AHEAD: TRANSFORMING A THRICE-TOLD TALE OF LAWYERS AND LAW, Legal
Studies Forum, Volume 24, Number 3 & 4 (2000). 2001/7/8
top |
index
Caroline, or Change (Tony Kushner)
Back on November 2, the Day of the Dead (and S's birthday),
we went to see this work at the Public Theater, and loved
it. I meant to write a review here, but never got around to it.
Fortunately my friend Bob Lamm has, and he says pretty
much what I had wanted to say. I guess what we saw must have
been a pre-preview, because Bob says it had its "opening"
just a week ago. Here's Bob's review; see link below for images.
Dear Friends--
Just back from the Public Theater, where I saw one of the last
previews of the new musical, CAROLINE, OR CHANGE, for which Tony
Kushner wrote the book and lyrics and Jeanine Tesori wrote the
music. It had its "opening" a week
ago and apparently the reviews will be in the newspapers on Monday.
I found it very powerful and very moving, another triumph for
Kushner (and Tesori). And this rave comes from someone who rarely
enjoys musicals unless
they were written by Frank Loesser!
CAROLINE, OR CHANGE is set in Louisiana in 1963. It's about
Caroline Thibodeaux, a divorced African American mother of four
who is working as a maid in the home of a Jewish family with
lots of problems. To write a musical addressing Black-Jewish
issues is certainly walking through landmines, but I believe
that Kushner and Tesori have done a great job. For me, the first
act had some fine moments yet lagged at times. However, the second
act was superb and memorable. Tonya Pinkins is sensational in
the lead role. If Ben Brantley gives it a rave review in the
Times, if they can get the money to bring CAROLINE, OR CHANGE
to Broadway, it's a certainty that she will win a Tony Award
for Best
Actress in a Musical. There's also a terrific performance by
a young actress who was new to me, Anika Noni Rose. She plays
Caroline's teenage daughter, a young woman who is becoming involved
in the civil rights movement. I'd definitely recommend seeing
CAROLINE, OR CHANGE at the Public if you can (though I imagine
it will quickly sell out) or, hopefully, on Broadway.
Bob
Scenes
from "Caroline, or Change"
top |
index
Derrida
We caught this flick last night: Derrida.
It is laughably stupid, as Derrida himself obviously thought
but was too polite to say. He looks perplexed, like he can't
believe they are asking him such stupid questions, like "Que
pensez-vous sur l'amour?" What? What about "l'amour"?
Posez une question! Sometimes the interviewer can't think of
any, perhaps just awed to be in the presence of the dapper little
man. There are long moments of silence, as he waits for some
question or thought to come from "l'autre," in this
case the filmmaker, that he can grapple with. Elvis Mitchell
of the NYT is quoted as saying it was "Blissful -- a delight
to watch," which I guess means he wasn't paying any attention
to the dialogue. (Read the whole review to see how far Elvis
was in over his head -- he has no idea what Derrida was about.)
Oh, well, for all its inanity, the film was still fun to watch,
because little Jacques is quite charming. He was a self-declared
narcissist who fussed over his long white hair and was delighted
and embarrased to see his image in a portrait; he dressed in
outlandish patterned suits, patterned shirts and patterned ties
(all different patterns), and was especially delighted by all
the attention of film crew with lights, booms, cameras, and all
the rest, who followed him for months, in Paris, New York and
South Africa. But he was a generous sort of narcissist, too courteous
to put someone down. Except maybe in this very funny scene: A
British journalist asks him if "Seinfeld" wasn't an
example of deconstruction. He stares at her. She tries to explain
to him what "Seinfeld" is. He frowns harder. She explains
that it is a popular television comedy. At last he takes a breath
and says, "If people think that a television comedy is deconstruction,
they should turn off the TV and start reading." Right! 2004/10/20
top |
index
"Dream Play" (August
Strindberg) and fin de siècle Angst (from Themestream)
Yesterday we saw Robert Wilson's production of August Strindberg's
1901 "The Dream Play," with Swedish cast, at BAM (Brooklyn
Academy of Music). Wonderful. An eerie dream of impossibility
and solutions that are not, staged in tableaux that made me think
of Magritte, in costumes of the era of the play. Got me thinking
about fin de siècle (the 19th siècle, that is)
anhedonia -- Strindberg, Freud's Viennese patients, Max Weber's
"nervous crisis." How widespread was it, really? Nietzsche,
too, went nuts. Too much to bear. What was too much to bear?
Frustration, the sense that everything was becoming possible
-- because of amazing technical breakthroughs & new scientific
knowledge even about social life (linguistics, etc.) -- but that
everything was still impossible because of unyielding social
patterns. Patriarchy, which may at one time have been functional
for the preservation and growth of the species, had become ritualistic
and tyrannical, desperate, hysterical in its efforts to retain
its grasp on families and youths who had no reason to perpetuate
or reproduce the old order.
All this in Europe, documented in the famous cases I just
mentioned from the major urban centers. In the countryside, the
anger of the youths was probably directed less against their
own fathers than against the urban forces that were compelling
changes in their life styles, Jews especially - urban and exotic,
un-Christian, which must have been the way many farmers saw all
the cosmopolitan forces arrayed against them, that is, they thought
of them all as "Jewish." Or so I guess. Had to be different
where Christians knew Jews as rural villagers.
To abandon that thread for a moment, the thread of anti-Semitism,
I have two other questions. First, was such anhedonia really
so widespread in urban Europe? Or is its importance magnified
by the ample documentation left by Freud et al.? Another view
is presented by John Berger in the novel G. Which maybe I should
reread. As I recall, his view is that Europe was on the verge
of blossoming into a much freer, more open society when the Great
War shattered all such possibilities. Surely all these things
were happening, forces pushing in contrary directions, combining
momentarily with other forces to magnify their effects, then
running into greater forces that deflected them. Mussolini's
socialism turned to fascism, for example. Michels' "myth
of the general strike," a perversion of socialist optimism.
Germany's masses in the SPD with their May Day picnics with beer
and sausages, celebrating a revolution to occur in the ever-receding
future. By 1914, Europe was on the verge of something, and I
think it was almost bound to be war, even if the shot (or was
it a bomb? I've forgotten) at Sarajevo had failed. There'd been
the Balkan wars, Russia's war with Japan and brinksmanship with
the Ottoman Empire and the Reich, German attempts at expansion
in Africa, and so on.
The second question is whether anything like that was happening
in the Americas. The Western Hemisphere seems to have been on
a different clock. In Argentina, the bourgeoisie was buoyantly
optimistic at that time, constructing its pseudo-French mansions
in Buenos Aires with their beef and wheat profits. The immigrant
working class, Italians and Spaniards mostly, were also optimistic,
that they would be able to carry out a revolution. And in the
US, despite the huge oscillations in the stock market and a couple
of deep depressions, the general mood of the entrepreneurial
classes was expectation of continued growth, and the mood of
radicals in the IWW and the several other anarchist and socialist
movements was of the inevitability of revolution, which was another
kind of optimism.
And today? Socialism has failed yet again, less spectacularly
but on a larger scale than its earlier failures in Paris in 1871
and would fail again in Germany 1919 and Spain in 1938. It will
rise again, of course, under that or some other name, and it
will arouse great hopes and do great things - as it did in Cuba,
where its failure is not yet certain. Capitalism is as rapacious
as ever, its destructive potential more evident than ever, the
disparities between rich and poor countries and between the rich
and poor classes within them are as extreme as they every have
been. And, as in 1901, when Strindberg wrote "The Dreamplay,"
it seems as though There Is No Alternative ("TINA"
- see Daniel Singer's 1999 book on this tyrannical goddess).
Of course, there is an alternative, there always is. Let us pray,
to whatever gods we find within ourselves, that it is not the
kind of alternative Europe created for itself in 1914. (Slightly
revised and posted on Themestream, 12/04/00)
top |
index
'Every Child is Born
a Poet' - Piri Thomas
People keep getting born, so there must be some who haven't
heard yet of Piri Thomas. Most people find out about him when
they're about 14. A sensitive teacher turns them on, or another
kids says, "Hey! You godda read this book!"
The book, of course, is Down These Mean Streets, which
Piri started to write as a teenager when he was in prison for
a botched holdup. That was before he took his mother's nickname
for him as his pen name (his prison record says "John Thomas").
The book was his way of transforming himself from a confused,
violent, self-disgusted kid into the poet and performer he is
today. Born to a Cuban-Puerto Rican couple in Harlem in 1928,
saved from total self-destruction from drugs or violence by prison,
he went back to Harlem and to other communities like that to
awaken pride and a sense of possibility in other young men.
Now, one of the other kids touched by his story -- Jonathan
Robinson, now grown up to be a filmmaker -- has finally finished
his 10-year movie-making collaboration with Piri, to show his
life, his performances of some of his poems and stories (including
a hilarious presentation of "La Peseta," in which Piri
takes all the parts -- Mama, Poppi, and naughty little Piri),
and some of Piri's work with juvenile offenders in a California
prison. I caught it, and had a chance to meet the jovial, life-affirming
poet, at Anthology Film Archives the other night. "Every
Child is Born a Poet" is supposed to be shown on public
television in April, and should appear in other venues. Watch
for it.
Piri Thomas' web site.
If you click on "Reviews," you'll find a quote from
my book Hispanic Nation. 2003/12/04
top |
index
Gladiator: This season's silliest
movie (from Themestream)
(Note: A correspondent advises me that this is not truly the
"silliest" current movie -- that "The Patriot"
is even sillier. However, I have avoided seeing that, so as to
spare Mel Gibson any further embarrassment. This, then, is my
report on the silliest movie I've seen so far this season .By
reading this note, you will know all you need to make appropriately
ironic comments and can save your $8.50.)
I found it hard to believe that such a goofy film as "Gladiator"
could be nominated for so many Academy Awards. Or that anybody
thought that what Russell Crowe was doing in the film was "acting."
But the movie did have one great virtue for me: it made me look
up the real history of Emperor Commodus, Lucilla and the gladiators.
But first, a quick look at the movie.
This is the first Hollywood epic to successfully combine the
genres of "Saving Private Ryan" with that Irving Berlin
classic, "There's No Business Like Show Business."
Or maybe it's a remake of a famous never-released comedy, "Abbot
and Costello Play the Roman Circus."
It opens just like "Private Ryan, " with a great,
bloody battle rendered in loving detail. Maximus, the general
in command of Rome's Army of the North some time in the 2d century
AD, is an amiable guy with a self-deprecating smile and a shuffling
gait, more like Tom Hanks than like most Roman top brass. Thanks
to overwhelming firepower (fire-ball hurling catapults and powerful
crossbows) he and his men slaughter the hairy barbarians of Germania.
Impressed, the old emperor Marcus Aurelius tells him he wants
to make him, instead of his young son Commodus, his heir. When
Commodus - a sniveling, self-pitying, ambitious brat -- hears
this, he strangles dear old dad and declares himself the next
Caesar, and when Maximus says no, orders the general hauled out
and murdered.
Maximus, through some sleight-of-sword that I couldn't follow,
escapes his assassins and gallops many leagues to his farm somewhere
in Spain -- this takes a lot of film time, but would have taken
even longer if the producers had respected real geography. What
about those Pyrenees? Anyway, there he finds his servants murdered
and his wife and child crucified (we're told later - all we see
are their hanging feet) by Praetorian Guards (nasty SS in black
armor). This makes him so unhappy that -- well, he daydreams
about Elysium, which is where pre- Christian Romans go when they
die. He's captured by the impresario of a traveling gladiators'
circus in the 'burbs, and here starts his career in show business.
Max turns out to have star quality. The impresario, an old ex-gladiator
himself, puts him at the top of the bill when he gets a chance
to take his show to the Mala Maxima (Roman for "Big Apple
").
Maximus and his new gladiator buddies Minimus (a black African)
and Hypermaximus (a hulking Bohemian on steroids) take all comers
in the Coliseum, even when the fight is rigged against them.
Exempli gratia, as they say in Rome, the trio manages to demolish
a wholefleet of armored chariots manned (woman'ed?) by fetching
Amazon archers in double-breasted breastplates. This is mostly
because the former general gets them to work as a team, something
not commonly seen in gladiatorial circles (remember Tony Curtis
as Demetrius?). Commodus, dismayed that his old enemy has become
vastly more popular with the "mob " than he is, and
unable to get him killed no matter how the arena is rigged, finally
decides to put on a show where he, the Caesar, fights Maximus
the gladiator -- after first stabbing the chained gladiator so
that he'll be weakened. Mad Max, though bleeding his life away,
wins anyway, in a spectacular performance, and kills Commodus
before expiring himself. His last words are, "Free those
other guys! " which some military-looking official, whose
presence has not previously been explained, does. Oh, and I forgot
the incestuous subplot. Commodus has the hots for his sister
Lucilla, who has the hots for her old lover Maximus and tries
to get him freed. Her brother discovers the plot and tells her
that if she doesn't do it with him, he'll kill her little son
(don't ask). This coitus is interruptus, however, by the big
final match in the arena that costs Commodus his life.
The producers used up so much money on special effects (flaming
catapults, chariots, hundreds of suits of armor) that they could
hire only one elephant (seen in a couple of walk-ons through
the Roman streets) and one actor, Joaquin Phoenix in the role
of Commodus - deliciously evil! Besides the fact that there was
only one elephant, another odd feature of Second Century Rome
is that it was inhabited entirely by males. The only women anywhere
in the movie (unless you can spot one in the crowd scenes - I
didn't) are Lucilla, who has a few lines, and Maximus' dead wife,
who doesn't.
Moral of the story I ( "Saving Private Ryan " thread):
'Tis noble to die for honor, but only when there's a big crowd
cheering.
Moral II (Irving Berlin thread): The show must go on (even
when the star is bleeding to death).
Why did they come up with such an absurd plot? Probably because
if they'd told the real history, nobody would believe them! The
real Commodus, who became emperor in 180 AD when he was 18, did
in fact sponsor gladiatorial spectacles, foil plots by his sister
Lucilla, and kill many senators and other distinguished Romans
on a whim. But when he was murdered at age 30, it was not a gladiator
but a professional wrestler named - get this - Narcissus who
strangled him. I'm not making this up! And who hired the big
guy? Why, the commander of those nasty Praetorian Guards, in
cahoots with Commodus' mistress Marcia. But showing that story
would have meant casting another woman.
(First posted 00.06.29, revised and posted on "Themestream"
under title Goofy "Gladiator" vs. the Real Story,
March 24, 2001)
top |
index
Hable con ella (Almodóvar)
Vagina Dialogue -- For me, the most memorable scene in Pedro
Almodóvar's wonderfully kooky, sentimental "Hable
con ella" -- "Speak to Her" -- is the vagina.
Not the real vagina of the comatose girl whom the nurse Benigno
massages lovingly, but the huge, hoky inflated rubber vagina
in the black-and-white silent movie (invented for this film),
"El amante menguante" -- "The Shrinking Lover."
The lover, shrunk down to the size of a man's middle finger,
first clambers all over the lovely breasts of his sleeping girlfriend,
then slips between her thighs to peer into the dark mysterious
opening. After some nervous, excited probing, he strips off his
skivvies and plunges in. Ah! And there he disappears! It was
great fun to see the literalization of this common male fantasy
-- I mean, guys, Almodóvar and I aren't the only ones
to have such dreams, are we?
Unlike some of Almodóvar's other films -- Mujeres
al borde de un ataque de nervios, to cite one of the most
hilarious -- "Speak to Me" is not really about women
at all, but of the effects of women on men. In particular, it's
about how two men -- Benigno and the Argentine travel writer,
Marco -- can communicate with each other only through their relations
to women who can't respond. It's almost the opposite of Eve Ensler's
funny and effective concept in "Vagina Monologues,"
where the vaginas do the talking. Here, it is the men talking
to each other through the vagina. Yes, Almodóvar is on
to something here. We guys do often relate to each other in this
indirect way. Maybe because we're too shy to talk to each other,
we have to tell each other to "Speak to Her."
2003/01/06
top |
index
"Helen" (Ellen McLaughlin):
Dying for a mirage
Yesterday I saw Ellen McLaughlin's play "Helen,"
based on Euripides' play of the same name (at the Public Theatre
in New York). It's a hoot, and when you have a classics scholar
sitting beside you, as I did, and she clues you in to all the
in-jokes from Homer and Aeschylus, it's both a hoot and a holler
- a long, mournful holler for the folly of ambitious men.
The premise is that the real Helen never got to Troy, having
been whisked off and deposited in Egypt by the gods, who stuck
an immortal simulacrum of her - a sort of Olympian robot - on
Paris' ship. The real Helen has been languishing in her Egyptian
hotel room for 17 years, waiting to be reclaimed by her husband
Menelaus. Suddenly, the goddess Athena comes up the elevator
into her hotel room to tell her how things really stand. And
so she learns that the war ended seven years ago, was horribly
bloody, and that all those men died not for her but for an illusion,
an idea of Helen. Now it's the simulacrum that the survivors
want and not the real flesh-and-blood woman (who, after all,
is a mere mortal and is getting older, unlike the eternal illusion).
Just like in real life, the bloodiest wars are fought for things
that exist only in men's minds: "eternal Israel," "free
Palestine," "jihad," "Tamil homeland,"
"Aryan supremacy," "the American way of life,"
etc. Pretty perceptive, that Euripides. I hope he writes some
more. 2002/03/24
top |
index
Invincible (Werner Herzog): Muscle
men -- Zishe, Arnold and me
A couple of nights ago S brought home the video of "Invincible,"
mainly because we're Werner Herzog fans and had missed this one.
It's supposedly based on the true story of Zishe Breitbart, a
young Jewish blacksmith from a shtetl in eastern Poland. He had
a brief and glorious career as a strongman in 1932 at a "Palace
of the Occult" in Berlin, performing feats of strength before
(among others) Nazi party functionaries as the mighty Siegfried,
complete with blond wig and horned helmet. The showplace is run
by a supposed clairvoyant, Hanussen (Tim Roth), who spouts pro-Nazi
jingoism.
Zishe (played by Finnish strongman Jouko Ahola) isn't real
bright, but he has figured out that the Nazis are not going to
be good for the Jews, and after looking at himself in the mirror
with his ridiculous wig, reveals his Jewish identity one night
on stage. He becomes a Jewish hero in Berlin and a scandal to
his Nazi former fans. Then Hanussen is revealed to be not merely
a show-business charlatan but also a very frightened, nasty,
ambitious Czech Jew, who also has admired Zishe. After Hanussen
disappears from the movie (he's condemned of fraud and ultimately
murdered -- I think that's a true story, also), the dramatic
tension leaks out of the film. Zishe goes back home to warn his
townsfolks against the Nazis, they scoff, he dies of gangrene
brought on by a stunt meant to convince them of his strength,
and the rest the rest of the world, as we know, soon goes to
hell.
Zishe's huge muscles were all about strength for work and
to help people. Arnold's strength was always all about big muscles
to show off -- he's a true poseur. When I was a kid, I
got my father to buy me a set of weights for both reasons: I
wanted to look good, and I wanted to be strong. Then I discovered
Charles Atlas, and discovered that I could become very strong
without lifting iron weights -- except I wouldn't get the sharp
muscular definition of the body-builders like Steve Reeves (remember
him?) and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was all right. My ideal
masculine body type was more on the line of the Roman sculptures
of the gods, who didn't worry about tiny waists and muscles on
their muscles. By these standards, the best looking male body
I ever saw (in photos) was Eugen Sandow's, with Charles Atlas
as a close second.
Last week, though, some over-affluent neighbor discarded a
pair of 20 lb. dumbells (good thing he didn't drop them down
the disposal chute -- would have crashed the compactor). So now
I've added curls to my pullups and pushups routines. After all,
I'm approaching middle age (I plan to live a very long time),
so I have to stay in shape. 2003/08/27
top |
index
Joda en Bédar (Street
theater in Andalucía)
We interrupt our investigation of the intense struggles of
Moros v. Cristianos, landed nobility v. starving peasantry, and
-- continuing to the present day -- Reds (the dominant local
political color, currently represented by the Partido Socialista
Obrero de España, PSOE, in power in Carboneras, and the
Izquierda Unida) v. Conservatives (I'm not sure what color is
associated with them -- blue, maybe, or white). The investigation
is proceeding well -- more on that later -- but we interrupted
for very good reason: a wonderfully comical street festival in
the compact little mountain town of Bédar. Five strolling
musicians in yellow pants and straw hats (trumpet, trombone,
saxophone and two drums) and five hyperactive clowns, variously
striding and cavorting on stilts and step ladders, pedaling precariously
on the steep narrow streets on unicycles, clambering up the iron
grillwork on the houses, spraying kids from water bottles and
enormous plastic boutonnieres, tossing candies and juggling balls,
clubs, and so on. The strolling festivities began at 9 p.m.,
still very light out and not too late for the kids. We found
our way (it wasn't easy) into the little town, perched on a peak
behind other peaks, by about 20 past nine, and looked for the
fun -- finally discovering we had driven into it. Fortunately,
our SmartCar is so short that we could park it where there was
no space, just as the man on high stilts came leading his merry
crowd and all of the younger Bédar citizenry up the brick
road, where there was now just room enough for stiltsman, unicycles,
jugglers, musicians and kids and their parents to squeeze between
our little car and the corner of the building opposite. We had
driven in with our car's top open, so our little red car was
immediately adopted as another theatrical prop. Stiltsman bent
his long legs and rested his fanny on the edge of the car's roof
and bent back as far as he could inside, just as though our car
had been expected all along. We joined the revelers up more steep
streets and down again, where they performed their finale --
with some lucky kids and embarrassed adults plucked from the
town square to participate -- with juggling and feats of ridiculous
physical prowess (jumping over a low stool, with much fanfare
from the musicians, and then piling up more stools and, after
great suspense and drum rolls, stepping around them). The jugglers
were really good, one especially, but the others could keep up
when he got them into a three-man exchange of missiles. Then
the one who had seemed the most foolish and least talented of
the clowns demonstrated superb drumming skills while teetering
on a board across a cylinder rolling across another drumtop on
top of a table in the plaza in front of the ayuntamiento. The
kids were screaming with delight, and by then the littler ones
seemed mostly ready for bed. And so were we. We got home to our
supper a little before midnight. Oh, and there was a full moon,
which we could see through our open top as we drove along the
mountain edge over the water between Mojácar and Carboneras-
2003/07/14
top |
index
Lord of the Rings, Part I
Curious to see what all the fuss was about, the accomplice
& I rented Part I, "The Fellowship of the Ring,"
from our neighborhood Tower Video -- 208 minutes. The first cassette
ends with Frodo and his companions trudging through the snow
and no closer to their goal than when they'd started, and we
decided we'd seen enough.
There were two problems: First, nothing much happens. That
is, there are lots of events -- a party in Hobbit-ville, pursuit
by wraiths, a galloping elf princess, and so on -- but they don't
lead anywhere, obey no rules (whenever a new challenge presents
itself, some new form of magic appears), and so just slow down
the quest. Second, there are no believable, multidimensional
characters, just types. Thus I couldn't care at all about their
fates. Well, I suspect the books are altogether different, and
the fantasy anthropology (the habits of the Hobbits, and so on),
rather than the action is the real point. Unfortunately (for
me), this was made as an action movie with far too little attention
to Tolkien's ingenious anthopological speculations. 2002/12/29
top |
index
The Matrix: Bullets can't harm me, or, 'La vida es sueño'
The movie "The Matrix"
is great fun, clever, fast moving, and scrupulously coherent
within its fantastic premise. That premise (in case you still
haven't seen it) is that everything we see around us today is
in reality an immensely complicated computer-constructed illusion
-- "the matrix." When the hero penetrates the matrix,
he sees that human civilization really destroyed itself circa
1999, that it is now at least 100 years later, and New York City
is a jumble of immense, abandoned ruins. The rulers of the matrix
are machines, including "agents" disguised as men (like
secret service, with tight little gray suits, dark glasses and
a coiled communications cable plugged into one ear) with extraordinary
superhuman powers. Their job is to prevent any humans from penetrating
the matrix and discovering the reality, which is that they are
all slaves of the matrix, kept because only the energy (electrical?)
of their bodies keeps the whole system functioning. Which brings
me to the literary and historical matrix of "The Matrix."
One reading of it is as another iteration of the sollipsistic
fantasy, the suspicion of the irreality of the perceived world,
also the theme of "Truman's World." In that film, the
hero is the unwitting subject of a sociological experiment watched
by millions on TV; the town where he was born and has lived all
his life is a stage set, his parents, friends, wife and children
all actors. He finally figures this out and escapes. A much earlier
version of this confusion and doubt about the reality of the
perceived world is Calderón de la Barca, "La vida
es sueño."
"The Matrix" is also connected to another, related
theme in world culture, the power of belief to conquer mere matter.
The hero is able to defeat the "agents" only after
he achieves absolute faith in the irreality of the weapons they
use against him. At that moment, he is able to hold up his hand
and make the bullets stop and drop to the ground, and to do many
other extraordinary things. The Sioux warriors of the Ghost Dance
religion believed they could do that, and so have many warriors
in Africa and Asia, when they had only their spirits to defend
them against superior (material) weaponry.
Oddly, though, the belief also pops up in settled, unthreatened,
technologically advanced societies; when the material world is
not what people wish it to be, some of them strive to believe
that thinking alone can change it. As the "Scientific Statement
of Being" of Christian Science (written by a Bostonian lady,
Mary Baker Eddy, in the 1880s) puts it, "There is no life,
intelligence nor substance in matter; all is infinite Mind and
its infinite manifestation, for God is all in all. Spirit is
immortal truth, matter is mortal error. Spirit is God, and man
is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material, he
is spiritual." The material world is just an illusory matrix.
99.06.07
top |
index
The Revolution will not be
Televised
Last night I finally saw the movie I've needed to see for
months, the one that shows just how the attempted coup against
Hugo Chávez was foiled by a combination of spontaneous
popular mobilization and courageously decisive action by military
men loyal to the constitution. The opposition, almost all white
and backed by the richest sectors, controlled all the private
TV stations and took over the single state channel, Canal 8,
to present a totally distorted view of the government and then
of their own coup. But even without TV to tell them what was
going on, the masses moved from the barrios to the presidential
palace to confront and surround the usurpers, and the palace
guard then decided on their own to retake the place and put the
coup-makers under arrest. But it was a very tense 48 hours, and
without (1) the decision of Chávez to avoid the threatened
bombing of the palace by accepting arrest by the military and
(2) the decisive action of a few young soldiers, it could have
ended as bloodily and disastrously as the coup in Chile 30 years
ago. Powerful film. Makes very clear the strength and directness
of the connection between Chávez and the masses.
For a note on my brief, intense conversation with Hugo Chávez
in March, 2002, the month before the coup: Chatting
with Chávez. For images and background of the movie:
The Revolution
will not be Televised. 2003/11/11
Rumi's Math
"Rumi's Math" is one of 220 theatrical works to
be presented this month in the Fringe festival at theaters around
town. Created by a young Turkish woman director and playwright,
Handan Özbilgin, it translates the love-search of Mevlana
Jelaluddin Rumi of Konya (Turkey) in the 13th century to a video
and dance on the subways and river-edges of 21st century New
York. One woman searches for the other who will complete her,
her unknown Friend, while this other woman is also searching
though she doesn't know it. Eight women, with a few men glimpsed
briefly in the videos -- their appearance serving mostly to remind
us o the femaleness of the eight, the two seekers and the spirits
who conspire to guide them.
I think Rumi would have been pleased. Rumi's math formula: one
plus one equals One. Lovely, loverly, the mathematics of love.
Nuthin but wimmin (Rumi's Math & El
sueño de Sor Juana)
It's my dirty little secret. "Dirty" in the old
fashioned sense, of something naughty and sexual. And "little"
because, well, not many people would make a big deal about it.
But that's because they don't really understand. I love women.
Not in the way Hustler Magazine wants us to love women.
Or rather, not only in that way. As beings to possess or merely
conquer, or repositories of my anxieties and sperm. But rather
as endlessly fascinating people, who live in the same world I
do but who see it differently, and who are vulnerable and strong
in ways that we, usually, are not.
So naturally I got a big thrill out of the show "Rumi's
Math" that I commented on a couple of days ago. And last
night's thrill was maybe even more intense, at another all-woman
production in New York's "Fringe" festival of theater.
It was "El sueño de Sor Juana," presented by
four athletic young dancers and a tall guitarist, all women from
the theater company "Mujeres en Ritual" from Tijuana,
Mexico, dancing and reciting the impassioned verse of Sor Juana
Inés de la Cruz.
There were not many of us in the little Greenwich Street Theatre
(those in the biz like to spell "theatre" that way).
And we didn't hear anyone but ourselves speaking in Spanish,
so I wonder how many, if any, could actually follow the clear,
forceful enunciation of the Mexican nun's erudite and complex
verse. Even we had trouble following the complicated rhyme schemes
in Golden Age (17th century) Spanish, filled with literary and
Biblical allusions. The women were alternately waifs at a bus
stop, whores, doñas of the colonial elite, nuns,
political activists, free spirits -- all signified by costume
changes and dance movements ranging from saucy to commanding.
The literal meanings of the verse may have been beyond our ken,
but the sense of the women's enjoyment of their different ways
of being was clear as could be.
More wimmin: I really liked the One Story story in No. 23
(July 11, 2003): "Houses," by Martha Witt. It's a very
womanly story, about secrets and fears that we men rarely know
how to address. A 32 year old American has fled to Rio de Janeiro
to escape deeply painful memories, and especially the demand
to be nothing but a child-bearer, only to face another, Brazilian
version of the monster. And Annie Proulx, in the New Yorker
(Aug. 18), does again what no other woman I know, and too few
men, can do well: Tell the story of the fear, especially fear
of change, beneath the bluster of a manly man, and how it causes
him to lose his chance to save himself. 2003/08/13
top |
index
Winged Migration: I, Simurgh
From as early as I remember, I have known that I could fly.
All I really had to do was truly believe, to unlock the chain
of doubt, and soar. You can, too. If you don't already know this,
you will after seeing the marvelous movie, Winged Migration.
When I told a friend how wonderful it had been to leap from
the top of São Conrado peak in Rio de Janeiro beneath
the delta wing of a hang-glider, to fly beside the pelicans over
the great favela and the valley and the country club and
finally the sea, before circling back to land softly on the beach,
he stared at me in panic. Just the idea of it made him gasp --
he suffers from acrophobia. Well, then I guess I must suffer
from acrophilia. I loved it! And a year or so later, when my
son took me climbing up a sheer rock face in the Shawangunk Mountains,
and we stopped for a breather after the second stage of the climb
and I looked down at the circling buzzards -- waiting for one
of us to fall, no doubt -- I felt tired but very much at home,
believing (against all logic and experience) that even if I lost
my grip, the air currents would support me as surely as they
did those feathered wings.
The Simurgh is a gigantic and magical four-winged bird that
nests in the Tree of Knowledge, wherein grow all the fruits of
the Earth. When the Simurgh flaps its wings in take-off from
the tree, it scatters the seeds in the direction of the downdraft
-- which is how pineapple ended up in South America, and cherries
in Japan. In the 13th century, the Persian poet Farid al-Din
Attar discovered its true nature, through the twin sciences of
etymology and analogy. "Si" in Persian happens to be
the word for the number 30, and "murgh" -- well, I
don't know what that means in Persian, if anything, but Farid
thought it must be "birds." In his delightful poem,
the birds of the earth, seeking the simurgh to be their leader,
go on such a long exhausting flight that only 30 of them remain
aloft. It is then that they realize that they themselves are
the simurgh. We must be our own leader. Go see this movie, "Winged
Migration," and you too can be part of the simurgh. 2003/06/01
top |
index
TITLE INDEX