FROM TURNER TO CEZANNE (The Albuquerque Museum)
The paintings displayed were selected from the collection amassed by sisters Margaret and Gwendoline Davies, now the property of the National Museum of Wales, which organized the exhibition in concert with the American Federation of Arts.
Romanticism tinges the earlier works, while stylistic formalism creeps in after Cezanne. Painterliness becomes a theme. Vlamink copies Cezanne’s brushstrokes without regard to his capture of nature’s essence. Van Gogh, before that, turns painterly brushstrokes into hieroglyphics.
Joseph Mallord William Turner: Only the watercolors make you see how delicate and precise a draftsman Turner was. Living in big-sky country, I appreciate more than ever the huge, turbulent skies of Turner . In his watercolors, he uses blotting and scratching-out to help attain his effects.
Daumier was a decent painter as well as a master illustrator. I observed beautiful, consciously formed negative spaces in one of his paintings. Millet was even better. In a storm scene, a tree is at the point of being uprooted. Water gurgles in the foreground. Everything is bent by the wind.
Manet snow scene: The roof of the church is missing, not because it isn’t there, but because, it being covered with snow, he does nothing to distinguish it from the white scene behind. It is startling even today for the looseness and minimalism of the rendering. Monet’s painting of Charing Cross Bridge at morning—one of many he did--evoked the sounds, the grind of wheels, the bells, the smells, the cries of London as the sun is rising through a reddish haze. Berthe Morisot spins a fine web of light as a woman and child sit among tall grasses.
A Cezanne from the 1870s was hard even to glance at, whereas I went, “Wow!” on seeing his Provencal Landscape from 10 years later. It hit me in the gut. There was no symbolism of nature, no leaves, no bark, no grass. It was a parallel universe, a gestalt of nature, made entirely out of paint; its placement and optical qualities.
If there is one image I take away from the rest of the museum’s permanent collection (a very impressive one, by the way), it is the Model T Speedster of 1912 in the museum’s history section. It is red. It is modern. Crank-started, a free-standing circle of glass for a windscreen, it is an example of form which follows function.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Movie Notes
ACROSS THE PACIFIC, 1942, directed by John Huston and Vincent Sherman.
Set at the eve of Pearl Harbor, Across the Pacific is a spy film starring: Humphrey Bogart as Richard (Rick) Leland, a disgraced navy captain turned patriot; Mary Astor as Alberta Marlow; and Sydney Greenstreet as Dr. Lorenz, a sociology professor loyal to the Japanese. Each with a different agenda, Marlow, Lorenz and Rick board a Japanese ship from Canada en route to China via the Panama Canal. The ship stops in New York, where Rick gives a military intelligence officer information about Lorenz. It is subsequently detained in Panama.
I preferred the sub-plots to the largely incomprehensible main plot, however.
Nefarious, oily and seemingly invincible, Greenstreet reprises his Maltese Falcon role. Likewise for Bogart who is again stoic, hard-working, and hard-talking. He exemplifies gritty humor when, sickened after too many drinks, he tells Astor, “Close the door when you leave.” “I want to die alone without a friend.” He is a philosopher for the little guy.
The film is sexy. Bogart and Astor waste no time in getting chummy. He often remarks on her scanty attire. When Greenstreet walks in on him searching Astor's belongings Bogart brushes it off by saying, “You’d be surprised how little girls wear these days.” Afterwards, Astor, suffering sunburn, has removed the shoulder straps of her swimsuit and covers her breasts only by clutching the garment over them. When she and Bogart kiss and the scene changes to a later time, the stark dichotomy is revealed between the explicitness of modern films and the understatement of classic ones like this.
The outstanding art direction makes me forget that the filming happens in a single Hollywood studio. When Bogart and Astor disembark in New York, black-coated people move at a New York pace. The pier is cold, hard and straight-edged, exemplified by the diagonally aligned magazines of a news kiosk. In one scene, light shining through venetian blinds falls diagonally on a wall as in an Edward Hopper interior.
Later, the Pan American Hotel in Panama has high ceilings, shaded interiors and arched doorways. As ice cubes tinkle, the shadows of swirling fans are seen on the walls.
When sinister goons come after Bogart, poetry takes precedence over realism as a pure ballet of action unfolds. Men in white suits and white hats shoot guns and throw knives against a backdrop of strongly contrasting light and shadow. Bogart (or his stunt man) pirouettes from rooftops like Jackie Chan, escaping attack while taking down the bad guys, all as if in a dance.
Set at the eve of Pearl Harbor, Across the Pacific is a spy film starring: Humphrey Bogart as Richard (Rick) Leland, a disgraced navy captain turned patriot; Mary Astor as Alberta Marlow; and Sydney Greenstreet as Dr. Lorenz, a sociology professor loyal to the Japanese. Each with a different agenda, Marlow, Lorenz and Rick board a Japanese ship from Canada en route to China via the Panama Canal. The ship stops in New York, where Rick gives a military intelligence officer information about Lorenz. It is subsequently detained in Panama.
I preferred the sub-plots to the largely incomprehensible main plot, however.
Nefarious, oily and seemingly invincible, Greenstreet reprises his Maltese Falcon role. Likewise for Bogart who is again stoic, hard-working, and hard-talking. He exemplifies gritty humor when, sickened after too many drinks, he tells Astor, “Close the door when you leave.” “I want to die alone without a friend.” He is a philosopher for the little guy.
The film is sexy. Bogart and Astor waste no time in getting chummy. He often remarks on her scanty attire. When Greenstreet walks in on him searching Astor's belongings Bogart brushes it off by saying, “You’d be surprised how little girls wear these days.” Afterwards, Astor, suffering sunburn, has removed the shoulder straps of her swimsuit and covers her breasts only by clutching the garment over them. When she and Bogart kiss and the scene changes to a later time, the stark dichotomy is revealed between the explicitness of modern films and the understatement of classic ones like this.
The outstanding art direction makes me forget that the filming happens in a single Hollywood studio. When Bogart and Astor disembark in New York, black-coated people move at a New York pace. The pier is cold, hard and straight-edged, exemplified by the diagonally aligned magazines of a news kiosk. In one scene, light shining through venetian blinds falls diagonally on a wall as in an Edward Hopper interior.
Later, the Pan American Hotel in Panama has high ceilings, shaded interiors and arched doorways. As ice cubes tinkle, the shadows of swirling fans are seen on the walls.
When sinister goons come after Bogart, poetry takes precedence over realism as a pure ballet of action unfolds. Men in white suits and white hats shoot guns and throw knives against a backdrop of strongly contrasting light and shadow. Bogart (or his stunt man) pirouettes from rooftops like Jackie Chan, escaping attack while taking down the bad guys, all as if in a dance.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
TONY RYDER
Anthony (Tony) Ryder teaches art at his studio in Santa Fe, and is an internationally prominent realist painter and teacher. He talks like a writer in that he makes his points through analogy like good descriptive writers.
Anthony (Tony) Ryder teaches art at his studio in Santa Fe, and is an internationally prominent realist painter and teacher. He talks like a writer in that he makes his points through analogy like good descriptive writers.
Today he’s critiquing Tina and talking about “posters,” little light studies done with oil paint preliminary to the final painting: “You have to take a ‘snapshot’ of Trevor and match it with your poster.” Or, “You can take a snapshot of your poster and compare it with a snapshot of Trevor. The two must look pretty much alike.” His exposition is so clear that I can visualize what he wants the poster to look like.
The brush must be just hard enough not to smoosh the paint around. The paint must be applied in well organized chunks. Highlights must be put on, with just the right value and hue, over “form light.” The forehead slants toward the light, and is more strongly lit than its first cousin, the cheeks, which slant a little toward the light, but not as much. The average of the values in the beard is closer than you might think to that of the cheeks, although the hue is different. Somewhat like a vase, the nose goes from broad at the nostrils to narrow at the bridge where is flanges into a base above the eyes. The highlight on its tip is brighter than the one on the bridge. But the average of the nose’s values and hues is not unlike the cheeks’.
Tony is more at peace, more fluid, more lucid than any of the hundreds of art teachers I’ve come across. He is as gentle as Josef Albers was sadistic. “A good teacher is a sadist,” Albers would say, and his disciple Sy Sillman strove mightily to emulate the master; many a student left his class in tears. On the other hand, Tony’s students come from all over the world, and never want to leave.
JOHN REGER
The brush must be just hard enough not to smoosh the paint around. The paint must be applied in well organized chunks. Highlights must be put on, with just the right value and hue, over “form light.” The forehead slants toward the light, and is more strongly lit than its first cousin, the cheeks, which slant a little toward the light, but not as much. The average of the values in the beard is closer than you might think to that of the cheeks, although the hue is different. Somewhat like a vase, the nose goes from broad at the nostrils to narrow at the bridge where is flanges into a base above the eyes. The highlight on its tip is brighter than the one on the bridge. But the average of the nose’s values and hues is not unlike the cheeks’.
Tony is more at peace, more fluid, more lucid than any of the hundreds of art teachers I’ve come across. He is as gentle as Josef Albers was sadistic. “A good teacher is a sadist,” Albers would say, and his disciple Sy Sillman strove mightily to emulate the master; many a student left his class in tears. On the other hand, Tony’s students come from all over the world, and never want to leave.
JOHN REGER
My first impression of John’s painting-in-progress was one of clarity. I looked at it the day before the end of term, and my take then was that it resembled a carving out of stone or marble. Some brush strokes were still exploratory, with hard edges that might have made me think of stone fragments. The brushstrokes in the blue backdrop, the white fabric and the floor – those section would not be finished -- had the look of chisel marks in rock.
As I thought then, the figure and surroundings resembled a rock quarry strongly lit by the sun. The drawing is so rigorously correct that it appears to have been chiseled out of a rock, where, like the figures of Michelangelo, it had “preexisted” in perfect form. Muscles flow most convincingly and as if smoothed out with a chisel. The model finds symbiosis with the lighting. His white skin glows like a lamp The clarity of the light is further accentuated by the contrasting softness and shadowiness of the face and shoulder area. The strength of the body that the muscles depict matches perfectly the strength of the rendering.
Then John emailed me the final work, which I saw differently. The figure appeared softer, more warmly colored, and more like flesh. My earlier sense of a rock quarry had largely, but not entirely, to do with the white fabric behind Adam and the white patches on the floor.
I’ve always been impressed by John’s feeling for human anatomy, a bit reminiscent of the passionate, “near sighted” nude explorations of Phillip Perlstein (especially in regard to the warm and cool “jingle” of color in the legs, in this case). Unlike Perlstein, however, John is a classical realist, despite how much of the thoroughness and tactility in his personality gets conveyed in his paintings.
BIRD
Bird is her name, and I have yet to discover the reason why. Is she named Bird after Charlie Parker? Does she like to chase birds? I’ll try to find out before my work stint is over.
Bird is a boxer mix, honey-brown, with short hair. She’s powerfully built, but with surprisingly narrow hips. She walks stiff-legged and not fast. You’d think she’d want to show off those strong muscles doing athletic things, but she’s very laid back instead.
Her right arm below the knee is pure white, while the left is white only on the toes. Her underside looks as if somebody poured milk on it from front to back so that puddles oozed out to the sides. From her eyes to her nose, however, is very dark…like those people who trim their beards close to the skin, while leaving the dark stubble.
She wanders around the studio, seemingly bored. She’s what Caesar Milan would term calm and submissive. She’s almost somnolent calm.
I gave her a tiny piece of pizza once, and she came up to the podium where I sat, hoping in vain for more. Today, she came up again, smelling my lunch, which contained nothing savory, and was mostly fruit. When asked if she ate papaya, her owner confirmed that “she doesn’t do fruit.” So what the heck?
Bird knows that she’s not permitted to lie on the couch, which is behind the artists. Only I see her ease into it smooth like butter. When I smile at the spectacle, she’s quickly and effortlessly dispatched by her human, Jacob.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
A DREAM OF OBAMA
A DREAM OF OBAMA (PART I)
I had a dream about Obama. Until very recently, when he won the presidency, we were living as part of an extended family within the same house. Now he’s here again, but not with any sort of presidential pomp. He’s just like a family member visiting. He’s here for dinner, and I’m somehow accountable for having things go smoothly.
He’s wearing short sleeves, and at one point I clutch the smooth brown skin of his elbow, earnestly congratulating him on his amazing accomplishment. But either then, or later, I get a strong feeling that I badly overstepped my bounds.
The scene changes, and I’m vaguely presenting to children, as during my substitute teaching days. The children get too unruly and I shout at them. I do that only due to desperation that I am making a bad impression at a bad time. I’m quite aware in my dream that I have learned the hard way how to control a group of kids if I choose to. (Had I been more interested in the task, I would have been properly prepared and the kids well behaved. The problem was that I didn’t consider teaching kids to be important for me to do. It couldn’t make a difference on the scale, or with the urgency, that I considered worthy of my involvement.)
Obama is not impressed. It seems that he considers teaching any group of kids under any circumstances to be a sacred duty that should take precedence over others. I consider him frighteningly priggish, cold and remote.
Next, the long table is being set for dinner. Michelle is involved with straightening up the mess. At least one chair is missing, making for possible elimination of one of the kids. I ask Michelle why her husband has not taken a seat but appears to be scrutinizing objects on the wall instead. “He’s very sensitive,” she replies. I conclude that he’s not sitting because he wants everybody else to be seated first. Unbeknownst to me, he’s been quietly taking in the mayhem (including the lack of oranges that are required for desert). Again, I’ve let myself down in front of this pillar of virtue.
A DREAM OF OBAMA (PART II)
Aubrey was my brother-in-law, the younger brother of my ex-wife, who was exactly my age. Through ups and downs, recrimination and divorce he remained my steadfast and loyal friend. He was, arguably, the best adult friend I ever had. About seven years ago, he suffered a massive stroke and subsequent complications that ended his life. In life he was thin and reedy, not unlike Obama in complexion and stature, though less tall.
In one scene of my dream, Obama instantly solves a computational problem in his head, the answer he gives being one three-hundredth, which we all take to be gospel. Aubrey, who was a math genius in life, appears in the dream, and I hope he can rescue my tarnished reputation by also solving the problem, showing that my close buddy has equal computational skills to Obama. Aubrey, who had always been light-hearted and good nature, is, however, completely silent. He runs toward a river or pond or lake, smiling like a happy, goofy child.
When I awake, it seems that the one three-hundredth answer was absurd, that Aubrey was perhaps demonstrating the pointlessness of the subject, and that a river and grass, shrubs and trees in the bright sunlight were much better things to focus on than trying to impress people, who didn't know what they were saying anyway.
I had a dream about Obama. Until very recently, when he won the presidency, we were living as part of an extended family within the same house. Now he’s here again, but not with any sort of presidential pomp. He’s just like a family member visiting. He’s here for dinner, and I’m somehow accountable for having things go smoothly.
He’s wearing short sleeves, and at one point I clutch the smooth brown skin of his elbow, earnestly congratulating him on his amazing accomplishment. But either then, or later, I get a strong feeling that I badly overstepped my bounds.
The scene changes, and I’m vaguely presenting to children, as during my substitute teaching days. The children get too unruly and I shout at them. I do that only due to desperation that I am making a bad impression at a bad time. I’m quite aware in my dream that I have learned the hard way how to control a group of kids if I choose to. (Had I been more interested in the task, I would have been properly prepared and the kids well behaved. The problem was that I didn’t consider teaching kids to be important for me to do. It couldn’t make a difference on the scale, or with the urgency, that I considered worthy of my involvement.)
Obama is not impressed. It seems that he considers teaching any group of kids under any circumstances to be a sacred duty that should take precedence over others. I consider him frighteningly priggish, cold and remote.
Next, the long table is being set for dinner. Michelle is involved with straightening up the mess. At least one chair is missing, making for possible elimination of one of the kids. I ask Michelle why her husband has not taken a seat but appears to be scrutinizing objects on the wall instead. “He’s very sensitive,” she replies. I conclude that he’s not sitting because he wants everybody else to be seated first. Unbeknownst to me, he’s been quietly taking in the mayhem (including the lack of oranges that are required for desert). Again, I’ve let myself down in front of this pillar of virtue.
A DREAM OF OBAMA (PART II)
Aubrey was my brother-in-law, the younger brother of my ex-wife, who was exactly my age. Through ups and downs, recrimination and divorce he remained my steadfast and loyal friend. He was, arguably, the best adult friend I ever had. About seven years ago, he suffered a massive stroke and subsequent complications that ended his life. In life he was thin and reedy, not unlike Obama in complexion and stature, though less tall.
In one scene of my dream, Obama instantly solves a computational problem in his head, the answer he gives being one three-hundredth, which we all take to be gospel. Aubrey, who was a math genius in life, appears in the dream, and I hope he can rescue my tarnished reputation by also solving the problem, showing that my close buddy has equal computational skills to Obama. Aubrey, who had always been light-hearted and good nature, is, however, completely silent. He runs toward a river or pond or lake, smiling like a happy, goofy child.
When I awake, it seems that the one three-hundredth answer was absurd, that Aubrey was perhaps demonstrating the pointlessness of the subject, and that a river and grass, shrubs and trees in the bright sunlight were much better things to focus on than trying to impress people, who didn't know what they were saying anyway.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Nations in the Global Eara
During the heady late ‘60s, I was convinced that the “system” was about to crumble. Within two years, I and other rebels thought. Time went by. The ‘70s coopted the ‘60s. Then Reagan came, swallowed the two decades, and chucked up morning in America, faux 1950s.
So we got the timing wrong. But 40 years later, (and 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of Apartheid showed that unbelievable change could occur). there was a meltdown in the economic system of the corporate beast. And that meltdown shows that the system is unstable.
So what about nationalism? There IS nationalism, and I don’t pretend to know when or how completely it will go away. But there are some unprecedented portends of change:
1) An unimaginably large population (tripled in growth since 1950, and the result of the dominant economic system) that is projected to level off around 10 billion
2) It will require 4 Earth-type planets to sustain the above projected population living the lifestyle determined by civilization . Believing that some new technology will preclude this is fantasy.
3) Climate change, already well advanced, will worsen as scenario 2 unfolds.
4) The sense of otherness, that rich nations can exploit poor ones with impunity has come home to roost in the form of international terrorism.
Where does great-nationhood fit into this picture? We have evolved into a global species.
5) There is no great nation, which doesn’t address the global phenomenon of climate change.
6) There is no great nation, which doesn’t address the need for international equity.
7) There will no doubt be powerful forces advocating draconian, unjust means for dealing with environmental, economic and social global crises, but those are not the mark of great nations, only stupid ones.
8) For a nation in the global era to assert its self interest at the expense of “less great” ones is like an organ of the body aggregating health unto itself at the expense of other organs.
9) The only viable goal of “greatness” is global wholeness.
10) The notion of great nationhood as history has bequeathed it is inconsistent with the reality of a newly globalized species facing the crises that it does.
11) The only reasonable course for a great nation is to remove the particularity that separates (and alienates) it from common purpose with every other nation.
12) Removing the particularity, and recognizing common purpose with every other nation, can be summed up by the metaphor that a great nation would be invisible, if it could be said to “exist” at all.
So we got the timing wrong. But 40 years later, (and 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of Apartheid showed that unbelievable change could occur). there was a meltdown in the economic system of the corporate beast. And that meltdown shows that the system is unstable.
So what about nationalism? There IS nationalism, and I don’t pretend to know when or how completely it will go away. But there are some unprecedented portends of change:
1) An unimaginably large population (tripled in growth since 1950, and the result of the dominant economic system) that is projected to level off around 10 billion
2) It will require 4 Earth-type planets to sustain the above projected population living the lifestyle determined by civilization . Believing that some new technology will preclude this is fantasy.
3) Climate change, already well advanced, will worsen as scenario 2 unfolds.
4) The sense of otherness, that rich nations can exploit poor ones with impunity has come home to roost in the form of international terrorism.
Where does great-nationhood fit into this picture? We have evolved into a global species.
5) There is no great nation, which doesn’t address the global phenomenon of climate change.
6) There is no great nation, which doesn’t address the need for international equity.
7) There will no doubt be powerful forces advocating draconian, unjust means for dealing with environmental, economic and social global crises, but those are not the mark of great nations, only stupid ones.
8) For a nation in the global era to assert its self interest at the expense of “less great” ones is like an organ of the body aggregating health unto itself at the expense of other organs.
9) The only viable goal of “greatness” is global wholeness.
10) The notion of great nationhood as history has bequeathed it is inconsistent with the reality of a newly globalized species facing the crises that it does.
11) The only reasonable course for a great nation is to remove the particularity that separates (and alienates) it from common purpose with every other nation.
12) Removing the particularity, and recognizing common purpose with every other nation, can be summed up by the metaphor that a great nation would be invisible, if it could be said to “exist” at all.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
WASTING TIME?
A lot of smart people like President Obama. I do too. But I differ with them when they imply that we can afford to sit back and let the White House figure out how to solve the nation’s and the world’s problems by themselves.
Instead, I spend an inordinate of time commenting to blog posts. A haunting feeling that I’m wasting my time, which could be better spent doing concrete immediate tasks, is not enough to deter me. I suspect that I’m addicted to blogging. Recently, I’ve been commenting on what the White House and we the people must do together to make a better world.
The most recent issue of my discussions has been the decline of America.
If I may be permitted an intuitive take on this, I'd say that America has been on a trajectory of decline in influence and confidence since the Vietnam war, with a great worsening of that trend since Reagan. While most liberals view the Clinton presidency as a good time in America, I don’t. To me, he merely expanded the corporatist trend Reagan started, and expanded it to the rest of the world.
The breakdown of the Iron Curtain only seemed to make things worse, since it strengthened the role of corporatism and expanded it to the former USSR as well. At the same time, the correlated aspect of abuse and destruction of Earth's environmental capital mushroomed. That FELT bad. So-called freedom was only freedom to exploit poor countries and the environment, while spreading a tyrannical system of unsustainable development on an ever wider scale (read, China, the Amazon, India, etc.).
Earth's environmental capital is said to be in excess of a trillion dollars, did we have to pay for it instead of get it for free. The people who are conserving this capital best are Earth's aborigines and other self-sufficient third world peoples (who don't use or over use fossil fuels or need IMF loans). While we can't and need not return to the aboriginal state ourselves, we can learn from these societies and renew our charter to foster their kind of self-sufficiency (obviating the need to fight wars over oil, or be everywhere at all times). What I'm talking about is radical change. Will we rise to the occasion? I certainly don't know. My job is to tell it like I see it, and let the chips fall where they may.
Instead, I spend an inordinate of time commenting to blog posts. A haunting feeling that I’m wasting my time, which could be better spent doing concrete immediate tasks, is not enough to deter me. I suspect that I’m addicted to blogging. Recently, I’ve been commenting on what the White House and we the people must do together to make a better world.
The most recent issue of my discussions has been the decline of America.
If I may be permitted an intuitive take on this, I'd say that America has been on a trajectory of decline in influence and confidence since the Vietnam war, with a great worsening of that trend since Reagan. While most liberals view the Clinton presidency as a good time in America, I don’t. To me, he merely expanded the corporatist trend Reagan started, and expanded it to the rest of the world.
The breakdown of the Iron Curtain only seemed to make things worse, since it strengthened the role of corporatism and expanded it to the former USSR as well. At the same time, the correlated aspect of abuse and destruction of Earth's environmental capital mushroomed. That FELT bad. So-called freedom was only freedom to exploit poor countries and the environment, while spreading a tyrannical system of unsustainable development on an ever wider scale (read, China, the Amazon, India, etc.).
Earth's environmental capital is said to be in excess of a trillion dollars, did we have to pay for it instead of get it for free. The people who are conserving this capital best are Earth's aborigines and other self-sufficient third world peoples (who don't use or over use fossil fuels or need IMF loans). While we can't and need not return to the aboriginal state ourselves, we can learn from these societies and renew our charter to foster their kind of self-sufficiency (obviating the need to fight wars over oil, or be everywhere at all times). What I'm talking about is radical change. Will we rise to the occasion? I certainly don't know. My job is to tell it like I see it, and let the chips fall where they may.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
MOVIES AND DREAMS
A (STRANGE) DREAM
Early this morning I dreamt that I, Kris (my recently deceased mother-in-law), and perhaps some family members whom I couldn't distinguish, were breaking into a joint to steal money. The door was locked, and Kirk Douglas stepped \in to prove that he wasn't too old to break a lock (something he used to do and still had the knack for). The door handle was one you swing down, like the doors between subway cars, and Kirk had to somehow calibrate the timing of his actions so that with a single, forceful downswoop the door opened. Thereafter, the only person I recall is Kris. For some reason, I had to xerox a form (which I didn't think was important) as part of the money acquisition, and I made two copies, one without the title paragraph on top, and one with it, But since the latter was crooked, with type too close to the edges, I gave Kris the other one. As she, however, wanted that title paragraph, I switched forms with her. More than that I can't remember.
NOTE: Kris was honest to a fault. Stealing money was the least likely thing she could ever do.
ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, 1941
Director: George, Stevens; starring Humphrey Bogart, with supporting roles by Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and other fine performers.
Bogey is trying to escape a false murder rap. In the process, he gets entangled with a bunch of American Nazis and a girl who helps him at first. With delicious tough-guy dialog tinged with subtle undertones of rye humor, he foils the bad guys. In addition to that, however, are hilarious small roles by his hench men. One guy has his hat on backwards and walks around with an axe over his shoulder. He is a wildly humorous spectacle, and at times the movie feels like a Marx Brothers film.
The movie is beautiful, and had me reflecting on film’s relationship to art. There’s an implicit collaboration between the urban scene of New York, the art of Hopper, and movies like this. Cornices and string courses abound. So do street lights, sidewalks and stoops. Edward Hopper used these props to create fixed, monumental scenes. The movie scenes flash by like liquid. Hopper couldn’t do that. Neither could he as effectively capture the shimmer of reflecting water on the streets.
EASTER PARADE
I've never much liked Easter Parade (1948), with Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Peter Lawford, and Irvin Berlin's music), but I forced myself to watch a little snippet of it yesterday. As luck would have it, this snippet included two of the show's greatest numbers: Steppin' Out with My Baby and A Couple of Swells, which came close to each other.
I was hugely impressed by Steppin' Out, which I consider the best Fred Astaire movie dance routine of all. He's 49, and transitioning to the exclusively balletic phase of his later years. But here he still mixes in tap. Grace is wedded to crispness and precision. His varied partners for this number are unknowns, who, while very good, don't get in the way of Fred's spotlight. Yellow suit, red vest, white shoes...the guy is sharp! I was not that crazy about the slow motion sequence within that act, however.
But A Couple of Swells, with Fred and Judy as hobos, is absolute perfection. They're as unlikely as a couple of sparrows, which they resemble, to be invited to the Vanderbilts for tea, which they claim. But I was so struck by the performance, a vaudeville skit, that I applauded the end just as if I'd witnessed a live performance. I consider it the crowning achievement of cinematic musical comedy. As they "walk" UP the avenue, the flimsy looking Fifth avenue backdrop wobbles slightly, while a floor conveyer belt glides them forward, depending on the narrative..
I'm nostalgic for Fifth Avenue, where my mother once worked. But that's not all.
I enjoy it as pantomime, and I enjoy it as dance. The music, a work of comic genius, alternates between the querulous verses, and the counterpoint, declarative refrain, whose last lines vary to rhyme with those of verse just before it.
We would ride on a trolley car but we haven't got the fare (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue till we're there
We would ride on a bicycle, but we haven't got a bike (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
And to walk up the Avenue's what we like
We would swim up the Avenue but we haven't any lake (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, a walk up the Avenue's what we'll take
Maybe, though, this performance can't be analyzed, and just has to be enjoyed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkAJFk-U9wY&NR=1
Early this morning I dreamt that I, Kris (my recently deceased mother-in-law), and perhaps some family members whom I couldn't distinguish, were breaking into a joint to steal money. The door was locked, and Kirk Douglas stepped \in to prove that he wasn't too old to break a lock (something he used to do and still had the knack for). The door handle was one you swing down, like the doors between subway cars, and Kirk had to somehow calibrate the timing of his actions so that with a single, forceful downswoop the door opened. Thereafter, the only person I recall is Kris. For some reason, I had to xerox a form (which I didn't think was important) as part of the money acquisition, and I made two copies, one without the title paragraph on top, and one with it, But since the latter was crooked, with type too close to the edges, I gave Kris the other one. As she, however, wanted that title paragraph, I switched forms with her. More than that I can't remember.
NOTE: Kris was honest to a fault. Stealing money was the least likely thing she could ever do.
ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, 1941
Director: George, Stevens; starring Humphrey Bogart, with supporting roles by Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and other fine performers.
Bogey is trying to escape a false murder rap. In the process, he gets entangled with a bunch of American Nazis and a girl who helps him at first. With delicious tough-guy dialog tinged with subtle undertones of rye humor, he foils the bad guys. In addition to that, however, are hilarious small roles by his hench men. One guy has his hat on backwards and walks around with an axe over his shoulder. He is a wildly humorous spectacle, and at times the movie feels like a Marx Brothers film.
The movie is beautiful, and had me reflecting on film’s relationship to art. There’s an implicit collaboration between the urban scene of New York, the art of Hopper, and movies like this. Cornices and string courses abound. So do street lights, sidewalks and stoops. Edward Hopper used these props to create fixed, monumental scenes. The movie scenes flash by like liquid. Hopper couldn’t do that. Neither could he as effectively capture the shimmer of reflecting water on the streets.
EASTER PARADE
I've never much liked Easter Parade (1948), with Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Peter Lawford, and Irvin Berlin's music), but I forced myself to watch a little snippet of it yesterday. As luck would have it, this snippet included two of the show's greatest numbers: Steppin' Out with My Baby and A Couple of Swells, which came close to each other.
I was hugely impressed by Steppin' Out, which I consider the best Fred Astaire movie dance routine of all. He's 49, and transitioning to the exclusively balletic phase of his later years. But here he still mixes in tap. Grace is wedded to crispness and precision. His varied partners for this number are unknowns, who, while very good, don't get in the way of Fred's spotlight. Yellow suit, red vest, white shoes...the guy is sharp! I was not that crazy about the slow motion sequence within that act, however.
But A Couple of Swells, with Fred and Judy as hobos, is absolute perfection. They're as unlikely as a couple of sparrows, which they resemble, to be invited to the Vanderbilts for tea, which they claim. But I was so struck by the performance, a vaudeville skit, that I applauded the end just as if I'd witnessed a live performance. I consider it the crowning achievement of cinematic musical comedy. As they "walk" UP the avenue, the flimsy looking Fifth avenue backdrop wobbles slightly, while a floor conveyer belt glides them forward, depending on the narrative..
I'm nostalgic for Fifth Avenue, where my mother once worked. But that's not all.
I enjoy it as pantomime, and I enjoy it as dance. The music, a work of comic genius, alternates between the querulous verses, and the counterpoint, declarative refrain, whose last lines vary to rhyme with those of verse just before it.
We would ride on a trolley car but we haven't got the fare (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue till we're there
We would ride on a bicycle, but we haven't got a bike (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
And to walk up the Avenue's what we like
We would swim up the Avenue but we haven't any lake (last line of the verse)
So we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, a walk up the Avenue's what we'll take
Maybe, though, this performance can't be analyzed, and just has to be enjoyed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkAJFk-U9wY&NR=1
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