8 1/2

"Here is Stone on the complexity of '8 1/2': 'Almost no one knew for sure what they had seen after one viewing.' True enough. But true of all great films, while you know for sure what you've seen after one viewing of a shallow one."
                                                                 --Robert Ebert

8 1/2 is an at least partially autobiographical exploration of a director suffering from paralyzing writer's block. It begins with and is interspersed by dream sequences (this is really what made me want to watch it--I'm reading the Satanic Verses, which are full of dream sequences and I guess I'm a glutton for punishment). The sense that you're in a dream permeates the film, and Fellini captures the dream sensation really well: for instance, the feeling whenever you're walking that everyone is looking at you, like you're the center of the dream (which, of course, you are). The spa that he visits to seek a cure for his writer's block also flirts routinely with the dream sensation--people talk to him without stopping, interrupting each other, like a dream in which you can't rest. In other scenes everyone walks, almost as if they're floating, to the mud baths and to the steam rooms and to the mineral water, in an almost fascist identical way, but they're dressed in white, so it also makes you think of heaven. Then again--his life is sort of a bad dream: he is constantly walking into situations for which he is entirely unprepared. People ask him questions about his film; actresses want to know what the plan is; there is a gigantic set constructed that he doesn't know what to do with; he can't make any decisions about who to choose for each role--all things that you always hope won't happen in real life.

It's very meta: Fellini is directing a movie about a director who is lost about what movie to make. He is experiencing pressure from the writer and producer and his assistants. He's experiencing pressure from his wife and his mistress (those pressures may have something to do with each other). In the course of the film, childhood memories emerge, especially as related to women and to Catholicism, which are at odds with one another. Catholicism reprimands his fascination with women's sensuality (and occasionally even his film making); his mistress and the sensuality of countless other women, on the other hand, threaten the order of his marriage (to a distinctively non-sensual woman--from her clothes to her glasses to her figure). He wonders whether he ought to remain married to one women or whether he ought to engage in all of the relationships that he wants to; this dilemma culminates in an imagined harem. He also looks to one imagined ideal of a woman to provide him relief from his inner turmoil. When he meets this woman in real life, she questions him, in the same way that everyone else does. He decides that she is not the solution that he hoped for. Her repeated critique of him is that he doesn't know how to love. This is related to the solution that he finally embraces at the very end of the film--to accept all of the characters from along the way of his life and to bring them together: this is the film. He brings together characters from the past, from the present, and from the imagined future. In this act, he finally creates something. This is his acceptance of himself--not what he wants to be, but what he is. This is the beautiful confusion. 

 

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What is this Christian monism that is troubling my Medieval Philosophy class? I'm getting a little tired of it.

Green-ish Dress

Holy goodness. I love this dress. Oscar de la Renta meets Gustave Klimt. Also: How haven't more people picked up the wonderful dress designing potential that is all of Klimt's paintings?

Barrack's Row, DC

We also stopped by the cherry blossoms. The trees weren't too pretty--many of the leaves had already fallen and the green was already pinking through. But the leaves were glued to everything by the rain like polka dots. (Photo credit: Francisco)

A Random Assortment

~ I believe in free parking. So I love this quote:

"But raising prices is rarely popular. A chapter in Mr. Shoup’s book opens with a quote from George Costanza, the 'Seinfeld' character: 'My father didn’t pay for parking, my mother, my brother, nobody. It’s like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I can get it for free?'"

~ "How to Have a Conversation," an intriguing glimpse into conversation and Alain de Botton's School of Life.

~ On The Wire's Kima Greggs' Baltimore non-profit, ReWired for Change, and The Wire's painful dredging up of difficult memories from her own past (via Dillard).

~ Kate Middleton's first public speech. I held my breath the whole time because I was nervous, because she was nervous. Longest 2 minutes and 51 seconds of my life. Also: pretty sure she needs to pin her hair back a little bit.

Ashley Treatment

"Ashley treatment" is a hormonal treatment used on some severely cognitively disabled young children to keep them small, often to make caring for them easier, and sometimes accompanied by/resulting in sterilization. Peter Singer argues that the treatment ought not be outlawed. He responds to objections that this treatment is unnatural or violates the dignity of the children it treats:

"As for the claim that it was unnatural, well, in one sense all medical treatment is unnatural; it enables us to live longer, and in better health, than we naturally would. Perhaps the most "natural" thing for Ashley's parents to do with their severely disabled daughter would have been to abandon her to the wolves and vultures, as parents have done with such children for most of human existence. Fortunately, we have evolved beyond such 'natural' practices, which are abhorrent to civilised people. The issue of treating Ashley with dignity was never, in my view, a genuine one. Infants are adorable, but not dignified, and the same is true of older and larger human beings who remain at the mental level of an infant. You don't acquire dignity just by being born a member of the species Homo sapiens."

Singer's arguments here are very interesting. He responds to the claim that this treatment is unnatural. His response, that all of medicine is unnatural, assumes that "natural" means anything untouched by man. He maintains that affirming anything that is untouched by man would imply exposing disabled children. Of course, not only disabled infants would die if exposed to the wolves and vultures--every infant would die. But what I really mean to take issue with is his reduction of the idea of nature to that which is untouched my man or by artifice. This is certainly not the understanding of nature held by those who argue against this hormone therapy that keeps disabled children in underdeveloped bodies. Well, at least, it isn't the understanding of nature that they should have. The understanding of nature that allows for some forms of "medical treatment" and not others is an Aristotelian understanding of nature as telos or purpose. Artificially limiting the growth and development of disabled children's bodies thwarts the development of their bodies in accordance with nature's purpose.* A medical treatment like providing antibiotics or, my favorite example, toothpaste, does not thwart human nature, but rather can allow it to move toward its end (which for Aristotle is happiness). Other "medical treatments," like sterilization or elective amputation of healthy limbs, on the other hand, might thwart human happiness. Of course, Peter Singer admits the need for hospital ethics committees later in the piece, which implies that not all medical treatments are ethical, or at least ought not be applied to people in all situations.

Singer's dismissal of dignity in infants is distressing. He maintains that disabled and abled infants alike are not dignified. He expands his position that infants are not dignified to human beings with mental capacities of infants. He writes, "You don't acquire dignity just by being born a member of the species Homo sapiens." First of all, I think that by being born a member of the species Homo sapiens is precisely how you acquire dignity, at least the dignity proper to humans. (I think there's a dignity proper to other things, like animals.) Interestingly, his argument for why infants do not have dignity is that they are not dignified. This implies that dignity must be earned; it is something that must be deserved. There is no dignity owed to you qua human.** Infants certainly do not act in a dignified way! They poop and pee and spit up and burp and scream wherever the urge strikes. But dignity is not something that we earn. In fact, if it were, we'd be in trouble--many adults act contrary to their dignity (just think of Girls Gone Wild, or, as Arrested Development calls it, Girls with Low Self-Esteem). Rather, dignity is something that we have in virtue of being human. Our human dignity has moral claims on others--it requires that they treat us in certain ways and not in others.

It strikes me that Singer's dismissal of human dignity is connected to his dismissal of human nature: if there is not a unique end or purpose to being human that does not belong to animals, then there is no particular ethical treatment owed to humans at all times, quite aside from their rational capabilities or their dignified action.

Singer argues that the decision over the treatment should be made by the children's parents, with the oversight of hospital ethics committees, who should ensure that this treatment is in the best interest of the child:

"There is no reason to believe those children's interests are better understood by disability rights activists without cognitive impairments than they are understood by the children's parents. The best that can be done for profoundly disabled children with caring families is to keep them with their families, and that is more likely to happen if the families are able to lift them and move them, so that they can care for them at home."

This is funny because it's almost a subsidiarity argument. He's obviously right that it's in the best interest of the children to remain with their family where that is possible. This does not, however, absolve ethical reflection and accountability in this matter (as he admits when he calls for the oversight of this treatment by hospital ethics committees). 

I find this hormone treatment deeply troubling (I find even the designation of it as hormone "treatment" troubling). Severely intellectually disabled people clearly need representatives who will act in their interest. It is ideal for families to serve as their representatives as often as possible. However, we also need good laws to ensure the protection of the human dignity of all people, particularly where it is being attacked. The personal stories of those using "Ashley's treatment" are full of passion and emotion. Many of the families cited ease of care as a reason for the treatment, particularly ease of care by aging parents. Several mentioned that the disabled children liked to be held and that this would allow them to continue to be held. It is understandable that disabled persons would be easier to care for if they are smaller. These reasons, however, do not seem to require such extreme measures as preventing children's growth. Which is to say, other methods of addressing these problems exist, including receiving assistance from others outside of the home.

I am heartened by parents who care for their disabled children rather than aborting them. Parents who adopt and care for disabled children are doing something incredibly admirable and generous. However, it is important that serious cognitive disability not serve as an excuse for treatment that is inconsistent with human dignity.


* Admittedly, it becomes harder to talk about nature's end or purpose with regard to the body when, as in the case of some of the disabled persons treated with hormones, their range of independent motion is limited.

** This would have disturbing implications for torture, among other things. You could say that a particular human being was not acting in a dignified way, and so he doesn't deserve the dignity of not being tortured.

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There's a tree outside my window that's covered with white flowers; every time I see it out of the corner of my eye, I think it's covered with snow.

What I miss most about DC.

Oh! Oops! And Francisco!

Fairmount, Philadelphia

Abandoned houses always look very eerie to me. They always make me think of that saying, "The eyes are the windows to the soul."

Daffodils in front of Eastern State Penitentiary.

Another beer to remember: a Belgian-style white ale called, "Walt Wit," after the poet. There are so many things that I like about this: a) I drank it at the first grilling of the year at Sayers and Mr. Sayers' place on St. Patrick's day; b) It is named after and proudly displays the picture of a poet! Granted, this poet is not my favorite, but he is super interesting, and it's a great picture; c) I love wheat beers, including white beers (I guess this name is a pun, from witbier); d) It's made by the Philadelphia Brewing Company! Drink local!

Calendar

I would call Atom Egoyan's Calendar a psychological travel film. Egoyan, who wrote and directed the film, plays a photographer sent to take pictures of Armenian churches in order to make a calendar. Egoyan's real-life wife, Arsinee Khanjian, who is in many of Egoyan's films, plays his translator/wife, who becomes very close with their driver/guide. In the course of the photographer's trip to Armenia, a gulf widens between him and his Armenian wife. Rather than trying to fix the gulf, the photographer finds himself drawn more and more to a role of observer and even voyeurist. It turns the travel narrative of exposure and increasing openness to other cultures on its head. As the film gets closer to the end, the photographer becomes obsessed with the driver/guide and even his wife drops out of the shots and out of his concern.

The film is punctuated by flashes forward to when the photographer and his wife have split up. In an attempt to work through what happened during their travels to Armenia, the photographers highers prostitutes from near Armenia to have dinner with him and then to call a man on the phone and speak seductively to him in another language while the photographer listens and reflects on his trip. He is replaying the alienation he felt as his wife spoke in Armenian to their driver. He stays in his role as observer--paying for women to serve as company for him, paying to support a little Armenia girl and counting her as his sort-of daughter (he asks one of the prostitutes how much her children cost her and compares it to the $28 dollars a month he pays for his "daughter").

The filming is incredibly well-done and beautiful, although not beautiful in the typical way--the film is not shot on the nicest of videocameras; some shots are low-fi. There are long still shots of the old churches in Armenia, which are almost like photographs. The shots are almost too long, as if just seeing them is the experience, not any explanation of their history. There is also one incredibly long, dizzying, annoying shot of sheep--it reinforces the idea that it's all about being lost in the experience. This is the lesson the driver/guide teaches, which the wife/translator explains as "Every time he comes here, he has the feeling that he knows so much about this place, and he realizes also every time he doesn't know much." This, of course, applies not only to the churches, but also to the photographer's relationship to his wife (which is also the lesson of The Cocktail Party). The photographer, sadly, doesn't learn this lesson--that the awe and feeling of not knowing someone is a necessary part of knowing them. Just as religious awe and meditation on mystery is part of knowing God.

Atom Egoyan's Ararat (recommend!) and Chloe (not recommended!) here.

Sour Grapes

I'm 90 percent sure that this is just jealousy but: a) Two brooches (or brooch things)? I mean, I love brooches and all, but I'd stick with just one till you're older; b) There are so many great greens. This one is not doing it for me; c) There are so many great hats...

Cooking Book

I can get behind any cook book that doesn't bother too much about the recipes. I like free form, how-to-make-things instructions. And of course, preferably written by a novelist or poet.

Wisconsin poet, Lorine Niedecker's Cooking Book is more of a description of American folk cooking than a cookbook. Handwritten and given as a gift to a friend in a red autograph book, Cooking Book is incredibly charming. It's written simply, with a sense of humor. It's a conversation between Niedecker and her husband, Al, picking up on his memories of how things used to be cooked. Here are some of the endearing lines:

"The fact that I didn't know much about cooking should entitle me to write a book about it."

"Then grill the brats till 'nice' and and brown, then put 'em into the beer and onion mixture and let simmer for about an hour"

"The name Pigs in a Blanket covers a multitude of sins. Al knew it somewhere, sometime to have been beef wrapped in a cabbage leaf. A mix-up in the animal kingdom." (These are Pigeons! That name is also a mix-up in the animal kingdom.)

In Defense of Iceberg

Everyone hates on iceberg lettuce, so I thought I'd better take a moment to defend it. Iceberg is wonderful--full of water and crunch. It's basically like a potato chip that you pick in the garden (especially if you salted it; I've never done that, but I don't see why you couldn't). I love crunchy foods. I want to hear my food crackle as I eat it.

Iceberg is simple: Iceberg and some dressing together make a delicious snack. I love salads with loads of toppings, but I also love plain old iceberg and dressing. Iceberg has been a comfort food for me for sometime. You could probably eat 18 lbs. of iceberg lettuce without gaining any weight, which makes it the ideal comfort food. I remember half a dozen years ago being distressed over some boy I had a crush on, while distractedly eating iceberg lettuce. It was then that a friend pointed out that it must be a comfort food for me. You can have your macaroni and cheese; I'll take the iceberg (okay, okay, I like mac and cheese, too).

Iceberg is strong. Spinach, for instance, which I eat a lot of, gives up the ghost with very little prodding. Spinach sags and falls into your mouth, like a backboneless, overcooked piece of fish that you can't even got onto your fork. Iceberg, though, is full of water and taut. You really have to let it sit in your fridge for months for it to wilt. It is hardy and hardy in your mouth, too. It's like the meat of lettuces. 

Iceberg is easy to deal with: it doesn't need to be washed (right??); you just take a chunk in your hands, rip it up in bite sized pieces and then eat it. I think that Romaine is often dirty. You have to wash it; you have to dry it; or you have to own a salad spinner...so complicated. Iceberg, on the other hand, is user friendly. Open the bag; put it in your mouth. You should hear me go off about cabbage, which I love even more...

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Just had brunch at J's (or June's?) with someone who ordered one pancake and one waffle. The waitress laughed. Of course, my order wasn't much better: homefries and scrapple. But oh, so good. Papa Leopard: Aren't you proud of me, eating scrapple?

Alain de Botton

I recently went to hear Alain de Botton speak about his new book, Religion for Atheists, in downtown Philadelphia. I find Alain de Botton to be a very interesting figure. He writes broadly on a lot of different topics. That is both interesting, because he passes disciplinary boundaries, and difficult to do well. He tweets fascinating little nuggets. I can't quite tell if they're brilliant or just well written and enticing. For instance:

"Definition of a parent: an ordinary human whose significance you can't help but exaggerate: their evil, goodness, guilt etc."

or

"Weakness is particularly charming in the strong."

These strike me as insightful, but I don't know: Francisco calls him a sophist. So we both went to hear him--Francisco to critique; me to adore (okay, okay--that's way too strong). 

Botton's self-described purpose was to pick and choose the high points from various religions and present them as useful to non-religious people. That project itself has problems--it assumes that you can detach certain strengths from the whole tradition and from the set of beliefs that engendered them. It also hints at something that I verified with Botton later via twitter--that he has a Hegelian view of history: that religion used to be suitable for man to engage in (and before that, that art was an appropriate means of self-expression and an appropriate place for absorption), but that now philosophy is the only thing that can express what it means to be human. At one point, he also asserted that religions have so much power now because they bring in so much money--he really does not believe that religious belief is the motivating factor. This is an interesting way to approach religion, and may yield some important insights. But it is also condescending. At one point he said something that I thought was telling (although I might be making too much of it). He said, "For me, God does not exist." He didn't say, "I don't believe that God exists." The emphasis in the latter sentence is on my belief or my lack of belief. His was a qualified ("for me") declaration that God does not exist. The emphasis was on the non-existence, not on the non-belief.

So what does religion have to offer? He praised religion for showing us our brokenness. He praised it for understanding the weakness of human will and so repeating things, which can be seen in Pentacostals' (whom he called Pentecostalists--is that a British thing?) call and response form of sermon. This also indicates religion's grasp of the importance of oratory. He maintained that the Zen tea ceremony shows us that we aren't just brains, but also bodies. He sees religion as a good host, bringing people together and encouraging association.* He said that a secular bath picks up the religious meaning of water (honestly, I think that's too much weight for a regular old bath, but maybe that's just me).

He praised what he characterized as religion's view that art is didactic (esp. Catholicism's). I take issue with Botton here: I don't think that moralism is the point of Catholic art. I don't think that moralism tends to make good art. He also maintained that in Catholicism, ugliness is evil; it seems he has never seen one of those 70s circle churches. 

He also praised Catholicism's understanding of original sin. He said that the belief in original sin is beautiful; someone from the audience repeatedly yelled, "It's insulting."

Asked about his own atheism, he maintained that he sees it as being faithful to the way he was raised--he sees it as something outside of his control. He said that it may one day change, but not consciously--he would just wake up one day with it changed. Now in one sense this makes sense--I think a lot of people overemphasize the role of their own rationality in religious decisions. When I converted, certain things were options for me, and certain things, for various reasons, were not. Atheism wasn't. Buddhism wasn't. Islam wasn't. Etc. On the other hand, I think that Botton's position denied that reason has any role to play in religious conversion. And I disagree.

Another question I had for him is why he focused on Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity. I pretty sure that he didn't mention any other religions in the course of his talk. I would think that a more obvious trifecta, if you're stuck with three, would be Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But really, why choose three? Does he think that there's a hierarchy among religions? And, if so, on what grounds would he justify that?

*He said that religion associates you with people with whom you have nothing in common. It's not like a knitting club, where you meet with people who also like to knit (my example not his). This didn't make any sense to me: the thing you have in common with people you meet through religious practice is precisely that religious practice. That is a huge commonality. Now, it is possible for religion to unite people across socio-economic and ethnic and ideological lines, but it's also possible for it not to--religious associations in many some cases reflect those same divisions.

St. Patrick's Day Parade

It turns out, I love parades. Who knew? 

Philadelphia came out in full force to celebrate St. Patrick's day (a week early actually--I'm not sure why). 

 There were loads of vendors selling the kitschiest things imaginable.
 

The kids were, of course, the best part. 

This woman was so pleased with her outfit. It was adorable. And note the pretzel in her hand--there were tons of pretzels for sale. Although it appeared that the parade was BYOB. 

I'm not sure what Sponge Bob has to do with St. Patrick's day. 

Watching the spectators was just as good as watching the parade. 

Weirdest shoes ever. 

St. Patrick!

Quote

Ilana: "If you find weird things in your students' papers, it's probably because they revised them at 1:12 in the morning."

Applications

I have applied for a lot of jobs in Government Departments and in Departments of Political Science this year. One job, however, advertises for an "Assistant Professor of Government and Politics."

Quote

"This is my favorite of the five proofs." --my student, on Aquinas' third proof of God's existence (I love nerdy students)

Dim Sum

I love the "pillar" on the right corner of this house.

But this post is not about that pillar. But I don't have any pictures of Mr. Sayers' birthday brunch, so it will have to do. For Mr. Sayers' birthday, we went out for Dim Sum, which is, as far as I understand it, a Chinese lunch or brunch that's like tapas. The servers bring out carts full of little plates of food and you choose what you want to eat and you (in our case, 14 of us!) share it, by spinning a gigantic lazy susan. Mr. Sayers' brother said that Dim Sum is all about drinking loads of tea and trying little bites of everything. That's something that I can get behind.

What interesting food! And delicious food. Those were sometimes two separate categories: There were chicken feet and jellyfish and tripe; I tried them all! (The jellyfish were far crunchier than I expected.) And there were wide rice noodles that were amazing and rich egg custard quiches and loads of pastries stuffed with beets and beans and other sweet things.

When we were ordering little plates, they would stamp the table's card. We had no idea what the stamps meant, nor how much this was all going to cost. It was slightly scary (one of the other diners was so concerned that she came over and asked us what was going on). Upon receiving our bill at the end, we discovered that the price of the meal was so cheap that none of us believed it--we were all stuffed and couldn't eat another bit for something like $8.44  each.

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One of my students bought a local newspaper this weekend because Tocqueville told him to. It warms my heart.

Random Assortment, Religion Edition

~ This whole interview is wonderful, but what stuck out to me in it was minute 6 to 6:36. There is an old home video of Dolores (the actress-turned-nun) and Elvis goofing off. Dolores looks lovely and charming and vivacious and young and really happy. When the interviewer asks modern-day Dolores (I think this interview is from a couple of years ago) what she thinks looking back at that home video, she answers that that girl is probably more heavy and serious than she is now. This is such a poignant witness and is exactly what I've perceived in many of the nuns who I've met: they have such peace and joy. It makes me want to will more closely with what God wills so that I can have that sort of peace.

~ From an old interview with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats on religion:

"[Q:] Satanist black-metal bands, occasional Old Testament references, the title Heretic Pride—there's a lot of religion around the edges of your work. Is that something that plays a role in your life or is it just fertile lyrical material?
[A:] I consider myself religious—I'm Catholic, both by blood and by tendency, and I mean "religious" in the sense of the word that occasionally makes Protestants uncomfortable: I like ritual and repetitive prayers, and I think a communal relationship with God is many orders of magnitude more important than "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I prefer being told what to do and how to pray. I don't think I'm smart enough or eloquent enough to write prayers that are worth God's time.
At the same time, though, I'm in the same boat that everybody else is in: In my heart, I doubt there's a God at all. Most of what most religions teach is utterly ridiculous, and besides, I'm a pro-choice feminist, so the Church that I love and which I'll never fully be able to leave is also my enemy.
I stopped going to church years ago and hardly ever go these days, and I won't take Communion when I do, because those are the rules. I'm as likely to pray the Hare Krishna mahamantra as I am the rosary. But I do pray, as devoutly as I can, even though I suspect we're just animals crawling on the surface of a godless earth. I do it because it gives me comfort and peace, even if that's illusory, and because I think that a prayerful mood is a powerful thing in the world and can be a real force for good."

This is such a funny answer! He loves religion--that's so incredibly rare; basically no one does these days. "I prefer being told what to do and how to pray." And yet he doesn't exactly want to be told what to do. And yet he still respects the Church enough to not take communion when he's there.

~ Free online courses. (I mean: not that I recommend college courses be online for college students BECAUSE I DON'T! But I'm thinking of the Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art class for my drive to and from campus...)

~ Here are a couple of recent blog posts on the big business ties to the HHS contraception mandate, an aspect that never occurred to me, and which I think it's practical and important to think about. I haven't written anything about the huge contraception debate thus far. I have a couple of thoughts: A) Religious liberty is absolutely the right ground to fight this fight; I don't think that we should discuss this in terms of the common good. It is an issue of religious liberties. To attempt to make it about the common good is a different discussion--it is to turn it into a philosophical rather than political discussion. This is not about banning contraception; it's about not forcing people to pay for something that their religion teaches is a moral evil. B) It's horrible that Rush Limbaugh expressed such ignorance and rudeness to Sandra Fluke (to which I thought Jack DeGioia had a pretty good response, calling people to civility, although I don't know if it's posted on the internet). Limbaugh's rudeness was particularly pernicious because it gives people the platform to say condescendingly that conservatives and Catholics and perhaps especially Catholic conservatives tend to know very little birth control and how it works. That makes me incredibly angry. C) The thing that this contraception debate has reminded me about is the fact that some commonly used forms of birth control not only prevent the sperm and egg from uniting, but can also, if that fails, prevent implantation. This is something that we should remember and discuss and about which we should educate people.

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I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Philly (yes, it's in your neighborhood, Sayers) and two full-grown men so far (by which I mean my age or slightly older) have come in with skateboards. Skateboards! What is this? Portland?

Les Anges du Peche

The National Gallery is screening the films of Robert Bresson, the French-Catholic filmmaker, which I highly recommend to my DC readers. I went to the first one, which was his first feature-length film, The Angels of Sin. I wish I were going to be in DC for the rest of them.

 

The Angels of Sin follows nuns at a Dominican convent established to minister to (and primarily composed of) women released from prison. Anne-Marie is a young woman from a rich, luxurious family who feels called to this convent and to a particular inmate named Therese. Anne-Marie is idealistic and naive--this translates in the convent into someone whose proud and strong-willed and not that obedient. The head of the convent likes Anne-Marie's impulsiveness and love for nature and beauty, but she realizes that it doesn't fit well into the life of the convent.

The end of the film is melodramatic. Actually, the whole time I had the sense that it was building to a melodramatic ending, one like A Tale of Two Cities, when Sydney Carton gives his life up for Charles Darnay.

What stuck out to me in the film was the parallel and inversion of prison and the convent. Women often went straight from one to the other. Also, Bresson repeatedly emphasized the importance of silence--it isn't the words that are important, the head nun says at one point, it is the silence. 

I also thought that the film was painfully honest about community life together--you see the nuns gossiping and getting frustrated with each other and talking back. This isn't nuns who I've met who at least appear to be overflowing with joy and happiness (I'm sure they have their struggles, too). These are nuns who have had quite hard lives and who are now adhering to a rigorous way of life.

A couple of the brothers I know from the Dominican house were there to see the film. I went to say hello to them after, but didn't get too much of a chance--in their Dominican habits, they were the celebrities there. Everyone else wanted a chance to say hello.

After the film, we peaked through a couple of the rooms upstairs. I was very excited by a couple of things. First, the self-portrait of Gorky and his mother that is an integral part of one of my favorite films, Ararat:

Notice the unfinished hands. Also, there are some of Joseph Cornell's boxes, which fascinated Elizabeth Bishop and which she imitated herself:

Aurora

In honor of the solar storm that's going on. I am dying to see some auroras. The thing is, it's wicked cloudy here, and there's a full moon, so the chance is low. But I could've sworn that the sky was green when I looked out earlier!

What is it? With cats in order to like them you're supposed to want what the cat wants (I don't like cats because I almost never want what they want--I want to pet them when it occurs to me to do so). I think it's the same way with God. You have to want what He wants. And though I can't understand it, I guess He doesn't want me to see the auroras tonight. Perhaps I need to move to Alaska...

The Way

I found this movie to be the most over-dramatic, nauseatingly poignant, strange movie ever. With the worst dialogue I've ever heard. 

It's a father/son movie directed and with a screenplay by Emilio Estevez, who plays the dead son, Daniel Avery, who shows up both in the memory and sort of in the present like a friendly ghost. The film stars Estevez's father, Martin Sheen, as his character's father, Thomas Avery. Tom flies to Spain to pick up his son's body when Daniel dies one day into walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. He decides to stay and walk the Camino himself while carrying his son's ashes. At the end, you receive a certificate that you completed the Camino de Santiago. Thomas has them write his son's name on the certificate. Oh the poignancy. Oh the meaning. It overpowers you. It's like the father helped his son finish walking the Camino.

Here are the good things/thing about the movie: it is about the Camino de Santiago, which is a pilgrimage in Spain, which I've been dying to walk ever since Elizabeth Bennett told me about it. It's like walking the Appalachian Trail. Only older, and more Christian. And in Europe. All things I approve of. One of the fellows who shares my mansion wrote her senior thesis on the Camino and walked part of it and interviewed people. She found that contemporary discussions of the Camino tend to downplay the religious aspect. I would like to walk it someday after I get my back functioning properly again.

Before he dies, the son invites the father to walk the Camino with him. The father refuses, because he's too busy being an eye doctor and playing golf. In the end, we see that his father has walked the Camino with him, since the ghost-son shows up calmly at various points. But mostly Thomas walks the Camino with a Dutch man who wants to lose weight (but eats a lot and occasionally does drugs on the trip), a Canadian woman who wants to quit smoking, and a crazy! writer who wants to get over writer's block. As nonreligious as their little group is, they all seem to have some sort of quasi-religious experience by the end.

Just so you can believe me about how bad the dialogue is:

"And after Santiago. Home? Back to the real world?"
Thomas: "If you want to call it that."

Thomas to the ghost of his son: "I came here to bring you home. I don't have anything to take back." (Because he sprinkled his son's ashes all along the Camino. That's right. He sprinkled his son's ashes all along.)
Daniel Avery, the ghost-son: "Yeah you do." (Meaning all of his moving experiences on the Camino.)

Sad father: "He [his son] wanted to see the world."
Sad father's secretary, with a meaningful smile: "And he did."

Son: "You don't choose a life, dad; you live one."

Bill Cunningham New York

I've never fallen in love in an hour and 24 minutes before. But really, he's charming and chatty and friendly, constantly laughing or smiling, except when he's intensely working. He is insanely frugal and hard working--he's almost monk-like about his work. And he's 83 years old! Remarkable, no? He reminds me a little of our dear JVS. 

I love the Sartorialist and Garance, who are indebted to Bill Cunningham, who was basically the first street fashion photographer ever, so I thought I'd better see this documentary. It was better than I could have ever imagined. It is an extended and personal introduction to a remarkable man, and to the world in which he moves, which includes quite a number of crazy characters. I watched it two nights in a row, and the next night I was at a small gathering where I suggested that we all watch it together. That idea was nixed, though.

Bill Cunningham's unique living situation holds the film together. He lived for most of his life in a little apartment above Carnegie Hall. The apartment had no kitchen nor bathroom; his apartment was almost entirely filing cabinets loaded with pictures. Many other artists also used to have studios and apartments above Carnegie Hall, but they were, one by one, moved out. Now, the city was attempting to turn the apartments into office space and relocate the only two remaining occupants, Bill Cunningham and his neighbor, 96-year-old Editta Sherman, a photographer and personality. What a lady! At one point, she starts trying on and modeling some of the hats that Bill Cunningham used to make and sell (to even people like Marilyn Monroe!), before he became a street photographer. The poses that Editta strikes are too cute, wrapping scarves around her neck to complement the hats. Editta also, at one point, charmingly asks why the film isn't about her. At the very end of the film, Bill Cunningham moves out of his old apartment and into a new one.

Clearly, Bill Cunningham's life is almost entirely about photography: he takes pictures during the day on the street, and in the evening at society events. He is on his bike constantly, looking for people to photograph. (He's had 28 bikes stolen in New York over the years.) He dresses very simply in collared shirts and sweaters and bright blue jackets, which he buys for 20 dollars in France where they are sold as the street cleaners' uniform. He loves them because of their pockets, and even wears one when he receives an award at Fashion Week in Paris. He doesn't want anything fancy, which is ironic, given that his passion is looking for and taking pictures of people who are dressing incredibly fancily themselves. He's no-nonsense in the way that he clothes himself--in the opening moments of the film, we see him duck taping his rain poncho so that it doesn't leak! He also barely cares about food. It's definitely 87 octane for him.

He has been photographing the same people for forty or fifty years. He knows them well and they love him. He looks so happy and engaged when he's taking pictures. The film shares with us some of the people that he photographs. One ambassador, or something, from Nepal, models his crazy wardrobe. At one point he says, "This used to be my old sofa--the jacket. And my pants used to be the ottoman."

The documentary is comfortable and unpretentious, like Bill Cunningham himself. From time to time, you hear the filmmaker asking questions from behind the movie camera. Toward the end, the filmmaker questions Bill Cunningham about his personal life. He's never, ever had a relationship, he tells us--he simply hasn't had time (he really is monk-like!). He maintains that photography "is not work; it's pleasure!"

Then, the filmmaker also asks him about his religion. Bill Cunningham has previously mentioned in the film that he goes to church every Sunday. He tries to downplay it--"It's no big deal; I go to repent." But when the filmmaker asks him about it at the end of the film, for the first time Bill Cunningham becomes emotional. He borders on tears and takes several moments to compose himself. He doesn't say much, except that church is very important to him. Goodness, it's hard to explain it, but it brings me close to tears even now recounting it.

One of the people that Bill Cunningham has photographed over the years is a man who wears dresses. Cunningham had to push and push for the Times to publish the photographs. One interviewee says that this shows Cunningham's egalitarianism. And it does. Cunningham is not an elitist--he is concerned with beauty, but particularly with how real people wear beautiful things. He is unconcerned with fashion that real people can't wear. But he's not just an egalitarian. Photography is his way of highlighting the individual who distinguishes himself from what Cunningham calls the "cookie-cutter masses." He is interested in fashion on anyone, but he doesn't think that everyone is equally fashionable. He looks for those people who stand out in the crowd. He sees fashion as crucially important--he says that it's the armor people use to survive the reality of everyday life. He says that you can't do away with it, that that would be to do away with civilization.

Wake Up and Smell the Roses

I love this little girl's intensity when it comes to smelling flowers (Eastern Market). 

Party Girl

Party Girl was also on Terry Teachout's list. Party Girl is a sort of modern-day (well, 1995) Breakfast at Tiffany's: Mary is a broke girl with no career except throwing illegal parties that occasionally get busted by the police. One of these raids leaves her owing her librarian godmother her bail money. She starts working as a librarian for her godmother in order to repay the debt. She works through her feelings of inadequacy in order discover a real interest in and desire to succeed as a librarian. And she falls for a Lebanese man who works at a food cart. The Lebanese man, a teacher before he moved to America, encourages her to find an occupation for herself and to be respectful of her friends. He is very different from her partying friends, but her friends, too, love her and encourage her in her new-found interest in libraries without quite being able to comprehend the way she's changing.

Mary is endearing--her clothes are really crazy. And she's devoted to them, organizing them precisely on the racks. She's apparently carefree--dancing around all the time--and passionate about attending parties. And she's capable--the way that she organizes parties is remarkable.

Her skills at organization benefit her when she decides to become a librarian, as does her passion--she throws herself into it, organizing even her roommates voluminous (I'm using that word to mean "including many volumes") record collection; she also gets rid of her wardrobe and dresses the part of librarian--adding an updo and glasses and even a broach. 

Swingers

After reading this beginning to an old Terry Teachout essay on Whit Stillman, I was intrigued and thought these sounded like just the sort of movies I'd like: 

"Contrary to conventional highbrow wisdom, there are plenty of smart movies being made nowadays: they're just not being made in Hollywood. Most of the American films I've liked best in the past couple of years--Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy, Doug Liman's Swingers, Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers, Daisy von Scherler Mayer's Party Girl--have been small-scale productions, often shot in and around New York, whose characters spend much of their on-screen time conversing about romance and its discontents."

Well, I love conversing about romance and its discontents. Since I've seen Chasing Amy* and The Daytrippers isn't on Netflix, I watched Swingers basically immediately. Swingers revolves around a group of aspiring actors in LA (and one very un-funny aspiring comedian, Mike). Mike left New York and a girlfriend six months before; the girlfriend subsequently dumped him. He's a wreck because they'd been together for six years: the movie picks up with his guy friends trying to get him to go out again to get over the breakup and meet someone new. The movie begins with one of Mike's friends explaining that he can't call the ex-girlfriend back, and that he has to either forget about his ex-girlfriend or pretend that he's forgotten her. His friend explains that girls never calls back until men have actually forgotten about them.

This proves true at the end of the film when the ex-girlfriend calls Mike and wants to rekindle the romance just as he's on the phone with a new girl he met, and really likes, while dancing the night before. He stays on the phone with the new girl, which is amazing because he's spent the whole previous hour and a half of the film obsessing about his last girlfriend. He's been traumatized by the break up--he can barely go out; rather than kissing new girls that he meets, he ends up telling them about his grief. But suddenly, with the advent of this new girl, he's over it. He moves on with her. And even though his ex calls, there's nothing there.

In the background of Mike's conflict, we see two of his friends who are navigating the party scene suavely, making coy eye contact with new women and then approaching at just the right time to ask for their number. His friends want nothing serious out of their flings. These boys are "money" and they hook up with countless "babies." And they try to give Mike the self-confidence to do the same. But Mike does all the wrong things--he looks at the wrong time and moves too slowly and tells (so many) bad jokes. He wants love and commitment, and he's a very sympathetic character as a result, despite his (very annoying) obsessing about his failed relationship.

The gang of guys in the film are dealing with a lot of failure--even the ones who get girls, get them under a pile of lies--assumed professions and illusions of success. All of them are dealing with the fact that they aren't getting jobs and they have to explain that to their parents, who keep asking. It is only with the last girl that Mike meets and for whom he moves on from the ex-girlfriend that he is able to be open--to tell her about his struggles finding work, for instance. That's the real foundation for a new relationship--she encourages him and he encourages her in her work.

 *Chasing Amy is overtly sexual, as far as I remember, and very honest and open. It deals with two characters who fall in love and the male character's attempt to make sense of his girlfriend's sexual past (which includes the fact that she was a lesbian). Look at me, not giving away the ending! It is taking great will power, let me assure you!

The Brandywine Museum of Stearns' Visit.5

Stearns and I visited the Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, about 45 minutes away from Philadelphia. It is a happily situated museum that is rich in local art. The architecture of the museum itself isn't too pretty from the outside, but from the inside looking out, it gives panoramic views of the Brandywine river. The museum's architecture is Frank Lloyd Wright-esque, from the way that it opens up wide vistas to the water, to the white curving floors that open in the center, which are reminiscent of the Guggenheim.

The museum is great at focusing on a few small topics, such as American illustrators and the Wyeths. And these topics tie easily together: N.C Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth's father, was taught by Howard Pyle, an important American illustrator. (Above--N.C. Wyeth's early illustration of Treasure Island.)

Andrew Wyeth is excellent at capturing Pennsylvania and the brown scale that characterizes it from December to March. He works his magic and even makes that brown scale a little beautiful. As he notes in his reflections on the painting above, his work is not like a photograph, which is funny, given the realism of the colors. There's something lumpy about many figures in his work, for instance. Or the way that the dog's paw (below), doesn't quite rest right.



Almost the whole Wyeth family was immensely artistically talented, even the men whom the daughters married. Andrew Wyeth's son, Jamie, continues the family tradition. His painting of a pig, below amused me: He decided to paint the pig after it ate something like 21 tubes of paint and survived. The pig's feces were brightly colored. You can't really see it in this picture, but the original painting incorporates lots of bright colors in the pig's hair and skin, as if to remind the viewer of the story of the pig eating the paint.

When we visited the museum, which was on Sunday morning when admission is free, there were lots of children there with their families. Because the museum wasn't crowded, the children were actually great to have there. One little girl ran up to this pig picture, exclaiming, I imagine, that it's a pig, in whatever language she was speaking.

These two portraits of cows are great; they are hung grandly side by side, as if they were elegant people. I think that that's one of the themes of the museum--the dignity of cows.