Venge, Then Revenge

Treat time. Olivier Assayas will be getting the retro treatment soon at the Anthology Film Archives.*1 Starting in February most of his big old movies will be screened. L'Eau froide or Cold Water is just about my most favorite movie and I catch it as best I can whenever the flick gets locally shown. First, Virginie Ledoyen is the blistering awesome-est. I gots this huge cinematic hard on for her, or for her in her good roles which probably comprises of her roles with the late Ed Yang and Chabrol too. Which more or less centers on her playing somewhat teen roles - does that point too much to a pedophile leanings? Yikes. Why has she taken so many shit roles for the past roughly 10 years is the better question. And Ledoyen was around the 20 years range and acted younger.*2

Cold Water has claimed the highly privilege/envious top spot in a couple of years for my most favorite flicks of particular years list. And it will not be much limb testing to say it will pole position again this year too, if I catch it. Yeah, that's how meticulous my favorite movie list are compiled. But there are a couple of movies that I am keen on seeing, such as Late August, Early September and which I have resisted watching for the longest on DVD only because I want to see it in the soul-growing, silvery-imaged darkness.*3 Alice and Martin, written by Assayas for Andre Techine, a director who I do not mind keeping up on. And Les Destinees sentimentales, this one directed by Assayas, which is for more residual interest than any heightened expectation of a masterpiece. I happen to hold some hope for Olivier Assayas as spearheading the future of French movies.*4 But Assayas is hit or miss enough to play it cool for his period epic escapade Les Destinees. I really like Irma Vep, his - for now - best known work, but I am not crazy about it. But maybe that betrays more of a so-so attitude toward Maggie Cheung than much else. Which means I have not seen Clean, and will likely skip unless my arm gets twisted.

Cold Water - if this needs to be said, and probably it does not - is more tales of alienated turbulent youth goodness. The movie was made as part of a commission by French television for directors to shoot something about teen living set during the directors' teen years.*5 There is a boy who likes a girl, seriously out of touch parental units/authority figures, and more other youths copiously reveling or overindulging (depending on your prude-ar) in that brief window of teen freedom. The boy – I will say if you promise not to read too much into it - can be a sort of Assayas stand in with the substantial autobiographical elements in the movie. More, there is sensational hand held camera work and fabulous of-the-period popular tunes. And Virginie is out of the world hot.

Yet, most recently I was critical after my last screening Cold Water. My slam is essentially the too neat way scenes and the music sync. Say a scene would commence, an anonymous dude tokes up, just as the needle drops for another perfectly picked touchstone song, that pokes me as a challenge to the documentary-like or naturalistic quality Assayas seemed to shoot after. Nitpicking me, that bit of directorial decision making/editing felt artificial, or over staged. And this even with my emotions memory still unhinged years later by the bacchanal rawness from the swirling party that is the movie's centerpiece.

Okay, this, and I assume for the, holiday, H (for a hip happening cat) sent me a book, The Prophet written by Kahlil Gibran. Here is more than a mite quibble: progressively, I found the book bothersome. A passage:

And then a scholar said, "Speak of Talking."
And he answered, saying:
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

Uh... wha?! Slim as the book is, it is all this prophet dude floating prose poetics to the local village rubes on subjects such as love, giving, pain, the above scholar's choice talking, and more. I mean, if the prophet cannot stop yammering, even as he more or less cautions against it, that is a major disconnect. Do not do as I do, just do as I say: ain't that always the truth.

The Prophet of course is set up by common folks requesting: "speak to us and give us of your truth." Which I do not buy, prescribing somewhat to the "if I tell you, your half attention will half learn" school.*6 So there's that discontent for the villagers' perspective. And my views of the prophet is as wintry. Polonius comes to mind. Often played for laughs that overshadows Shakespeare's more or less practical mindedness and poetry, including gems "neither a borrower or a lender be" and "to thine ownself be true", Polonius is the out of touch, know-it-all windbag. Though the prophet is not quite Polonius. But protracted advice/truth dispensing done with a sort of preachy over seriousness/sincerity teeters closer to Polonius doddery the deeper I got into The Prophet.

Here's the deal. Of love: "When love beckons to you, follow him, / Though his ways are hard and steep." Love. What happens if you aren't sure if it is love or not that beckons? I can imagine that to be a better question to many. Or of marriage: "You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. / You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. / Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God." Except for when you get a divorce!

Anyway, I won't belabor the less than positives except for this one last thing. The Prophet with the poetic styling and drawings had me thinking about Will Blake, a dude who believed he had a bit of a prophet in him. In turn, Will Blake leads to Stephen Crane. Crane wrote a poem which goes:

In heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
"What did you do?"
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind,
Ashamed.
Presently, God said,
"And what did you do?"
The little blade answered, "Oh my Lord,
Memory is bitter to me,
For, if I did good deeds,
I know not of them."
Then God, in all His splendor,
Arose from His throne.
"Oh, best little blade of grass!" He said.

Out of the few possessions of mine I have given away, the only regret is passing along my collection of Stephen Crane poems. First, I love his poetry. Then, I think he's a crucial figure in American poetry, the third leg of the Whitman and Dickinson trinity.*7 Last and mainly, it's not easy to get hold of another copy of his out-of-print Complete Poems. And I bet, I'm going to use a bad word but I mean it only in the most gentle and affectionate manner, that bitch who has my copy don't read or care about it.*8 In addition, I do not know why it is (any more than a child might), but grass is a key component to the 1800s American poetry landscape, as Whitman and Dickinson also make prominent use of those narrow fellows in prominent pieces.

But to me, the lessons of truths, whatever that means, especially as expressed through poetry, is some sort of dialog. Yeah, the words are fixed once written or published or whatever, but at the same time the words and meanings take life of their own, shifting with time, the reader's experience/intuition, and so forth. Once read, a reader comes away with something (good or bad), yet something new or different will come out (gooder or badder maybe) if the piece is read again, or even merely remembered. A conversation, a give and take, a something. Crane says something about humility that I think is kind of cool, - if I were to wildly guess at the above poem. But what happens if there is, in fact, no good deeds to be remembered, does that still warrant praise to that ashamed blade? What is precisely so less best about relating the merits of one's life? As well, does modesty ruin a job interview? And somehow my experience - thus far - teaches: humility is the worst laid plan for getting laid. Not to mention a certain beauty to the composition, if your definition of poetry includes free verse. The Prophet, on the other hand, is too laid out or coerced, or too much of a closed system. Which is not saying that what the prophet tells is not complex, but maybe more: if it is complex, then it is complex, with little wiggle room for the reader to find for him/herself.*9

Which also does not mean I do not like or appreciate The Prophet. Pretty much a couple of pages in, my immediate thought was that it was wonderful and perhaps this or that person would dig as much as I am enjoying Gibran's prose work. My hangups aside, it was, first page to the end, fun and effective enough. "For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. For even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning." Nice. I love this: "Dreaming of the person you want to be is wasting the person you already are." Except Kurt Cobain said it.

But what I meant to say is that I will forward the book to a buddy of mine, and for the most part, I (re-)gift things only if I am more or less wild about them. And also, so I'll always know where it is.*10

This weekend I caught Techine's newest, The Witnesses. One critic - who I normally avoid and more or less loathe - offered this on Techine and Assayas, respectively: classical humanism vs cliquish elitism.*11 As well, this diss: "Cold Water indulged adolescent confusion in a coming-of-age story that fetishized small-town kids’ alienation." And know what? I don't disagree. I will say there is a bit of a narrower scope/focus issue when it comes to the Techine I have seen, but he's easily and way more accomplished than Assayas.*12 Assayas has (perhaps more, and perhaps too much) ambition, but he has (perhaps) not removed himself from his movies, there is a certain look-at-me-ness, to the point where his movies are not quite there just yet. Yet Cold Water still amazes/impresses me, and hopefully I can make time to see it again. But yeah, Witnesses is, qualifications free, pretty good.

Weep time. Manoel de Oliveira will get the primo retro treatment at the Brooklyn Academy of Music soon. In March, a pinata full of Oliveira sweets and toys will be busted open. I am probably a latecomer to the Oliveira show, but in another sense, underdistributed and ignored, I'm as caught up as probably anyone else. The first movie I saw of his, Inquietude, was directed when he was at or near his 90th year of age. That's star star star star star star star (representing an expletive) old! Inquietude could probably be described as a fairly full or complete expression of the Oliveira's style, and for me when I saw it, holy, it opened a totally new and different type of movie making/language. A twisted blend of theatricality, fable, magic, politics, literalism, literature, jokes, history, modernity and more that is stunning/daring/timeless/timely/fun/etc.*13 And if lots of talking and sustained stretches of boredom is your thing? - hey! will you ever love Oliveira's movies. And if pretentious is your thing? - less luck, no one will have a clue or a care about what you are talking about if you bring up this old Portuguese master. Kind of like now?

Inquietude = unbelievable. I'm Going Home = nice. A Talking Picture = wow! Magic Mirror = I so wish I was not so utterly trashed when I saw this, but also da bomb.

I have been waiting for a chance to see his earlier stuff (his youthful shit, like when he was in this 70s, ha!) for the longest time, and ta-da, presto, eureka, BAM.... .org. Except I will not be in NY for most of March, nor will I be in NY when many of the Oliveira classics I hope to see will be screened. The Past and the Present and Benilde or the Virgin Mother, and perhaps Christopher Columbus, The Enigma will be all I have time for, if I have time for it. The rest? Teardrops.

Let's "the end" this with what The Prophet has to say about this matter:

• The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

• When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

• Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

----------------------------------------------------------

*1 Is.
*2 So it's not necessarily that I want to get with teenage lasses, just teenage looking women. And oops, apparently Virginie gives a performance in La Fille seule, directed by Benoit Jacquot, that is supposedly highly regarded (which also sounds sort of Varda's Cleo From 5 to 7 ish).
*3 I did see Late August, and it is alright.
*4 Though the director that I think is "the one" is Claire Denis.
*5 Tous les garcons et les filles de leur age.
*6 Nobel Literature medal winner Steinbeck. That enough or you need to know from where?
*7 The first two reason is mainly why I connect a more or less big name poet like Blake with a less appreciated poet like Crane. Crane's poems also commonly have some kind of moral / value lesson dressed in a somewhat religious/strange/haunted style, which I think is Blake-esque. It is most likely a piss poor analogy though. Output-wise, Crane is minor, but what he does innovation-wise with imagery and symbolism is major. Especially if you see some of the most important poetry movements in the 1900s drawing out of the Crane tradition. Which I more or less do.
*8 And she is unequivocally not that bad word. Or, not in a way that is different from how people are that bad word generally.
*9 Here is The Prophet's take pretty much on the same subject, you decide:

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

*10 Harold and Maude. Harold. and. Maude. =. Great. And of course, thanks H for the book.
*11 Search in NY Press, if you want.
*12 A different critic describes Techine: first-rate second-rater, within a rave for the new movie. (House Next Door link) And yeah, there is some of that too. I'll just sort of defend: for French directors like Techine who came out right after the nouvelle vague blast, it is tougher to keep pushing things forward. And that is thinking Wild Reeds (Techine contribution to *5) and Thieves are straight up sensational.
*13 So new and different, I haven't figured the less-than-a-lot-of-words way to describe it.